Have a look at this picture. It seems like an image of a person. You can see a hand waving. You can see the person's head and shoulder. There's a person there, isn't there?

Well actually, take a more discerning look. There is no person in the image. It's a wall with a shadow on it. Look at the shadow, what is it? Is it a thing in its own right? In fact, the shadow isn't really a thing at all. It's really nothing other than "the absence of light."

It's not as if "a darkness" came along and put itself onto the wall, forcing the light to go away. It's the reverse. It's merely a seeming appearance of light not being present. And that's not even remotely the same thing as "darkness being present". Even in this physical world, by the laws of physics, light dispels darkness, darkness does not dispel light.

So there is light, and there is the absence of light. People think of the absence of light as "real darkness", as if it's a something, has substance, exists. It doesn't really. It's just a lack of light. What happens when the light shines brightly? The shadow disappears completely, because the "lack of light" has been supplied and filled up with light. Then there is no more shadow, no more "illusion of darkness."

Believing that the shadow or the darkness are a real something, that they represent a life form, that they are alive with a mind of their own, that it is doing something, that has will and power and causality, that there's an entire "something happening" there... that's all totally illusion. Total fiction. It's nothing other than light's absence. It's an illusion that "light is not everywhere", which can't be true because real light is infinite and omnipresent. In the light of God, there is no darkness.

And so you can't call the darkness "real evil". It's not. It's absolutely nothing more than what appears to be light's absence. As soon as light shines, light shines away the darkness. The "darkness" that seemed to be "its own thing" has no defense whatsoever against this light. Light dispels it instantly. The shadow can't say to the light "I will not be shone away". It vanishes. It has no power, no mind, no will, no decision, no say in the matter. Because it literally is nothing.

Believing otherwise is as if to say, a fictional illusion of darkness chooses of its own free will to scream with a voice that says "I shall not be removed", which has absolutely no effect and has no power whatsoever unless YOU believe in it. And this is why Jesus says the ego (darkness) is nothing but a tiny mouse. And the darkness HAS no power unless YOU give it power. And it's only YOU trying to MAKE the darkness "be something" that makes you delusional and believe that something "dark" is happening (suffering, death etc).

This world, the world we made in the "separation" from God, is nothing other than a shadow. A seeming illusion of light's absence, in which the shadow itself SEEMS to take on shapes and forms and to do things. There even seem to be events, living creatures, and stuff happening to them. But ALL of it is fiction. It's entirely just "darkness" pretending to exist. And all of this darkness, what holds it in place in the mind (by the mind), is simply an attempt to DENY THE LIGHT. To block it, and to try to give "light's absence" some kind of reality or truth that it does not and never will have. You can't make an illusion real.

When you're looking at the shadow and thinking, that's really a "something", now you've lost your mind and gone into the ego - the belief that darkness really exists and can oppose the light, or do something to the light, or cause the light to stop shining. The belief that "darkness can hide." Darkness cannot make light go away, anymore than the shadows under a tree can determine for themselves that they continue to stay put when the sun moves its location.

There is a very subtle fine line between *recognizing* that all of this shadow stuff is JUST light's absence, an illusion of darkness, versus starting to READ INTO IT and believe that the darkness actually has its own properties, a life of its own, that it is making stuff happen. That's when you fail to recognize the illusion for what it is. That's when you're going unconscious and hallucinating that illusions are real and darkness is real evil and terrible things are happening.

Look at it. This world is nothing but a shadow. It's nothing but a blob of the appearance that light is absent. It is NOTHING on its own. It has no reality. No substance. No real solidity. It's not really there. The instant the light comes to shine upon it, it must VANISH. Darkness has no defense against the light.

"Eternity will shine away the world."

The ONLY reason that it seems as though the world of darkness persists or SEEMS able to RESIST the light, or choose against it, or deny it, or block it.. the only reason you SEEM to be even ABLE to have a "block to awareness" to PREVENT light from shining upon you and keeping you in the light "against your will"... is because you HAVE free will. You can choose, and you can believe in things, even if they are not real. And it's your free-willed, God-given free will attempt to DENY THE LIGHT, by choice, that is "causing" what seems to be a situation where the darkness is "persisting". That you seem able to "block God". That sin seems possible.

All you are doing is choosing to deny the light with your mind, and hold onto the dark shadows, to try to KEEP the light from shining away the world. And this takes mental effort. It requires active denial. Because the instant that you surrender and let go and stop resisting the light, the darkness must be dispelled.

This is also why Jesus says that "illusions recognized must disappear". The instant you *recognize* that that thing you thought had reality/mind/causing you etc is NOTHING but an ILLUSION of a shadow, seeming to be a "something", but is literally NOTHING other than light's absence, the minute you stop believing there is REALLY a "living scene" with a person standing there waving, you have RECOGNIZED it's just an illusion.

You see through the illusion - which is what FORGIVENESS means. To forgive is to overlook - to overlook the darkness and NOT BELIEVE IT IS ANYTHING. You recognize - that's just light seeming to be absent. And this recognition transcends whatever FORMS the shadows are seeming to take. And you see clearly, without interpretation, there is nothing there, just light seeming to be a little absent. That recognition DISPELS the illusion that the darkness "was alive and doing stuff." And so the illusion is broken. The light of awareness shines upon the illusion and shines it away. The illusion - the darkness - DISAPPEARS.

Look at that image again. It's just light and its absence. Think of this world. It is just light's absence. Just a shadow, a nothing. In heaven, from reality's perspective, there is no world. There was just a brief moment of seeming "lack of light", and then through willingness the light was allowed to be recognized as NOT absent, and thus the darkness was dispelled. Recognizing Heaven's truth makes it impossible for darkness to remain. And what is that darkness - it's the ego. The ego is just another word for "what does not exist." It's just another way to say, "light seems absent, but it's not".

When the entire universe is recognized as being NOTHING other than a mere shadow on a wall, in which NOTHING is happening whatsoever ("all events are nowhere"), and the only NEED is to supply the light, the light will come.. and the universe will vanish. The Earth and all the planets and stars and galaxies will vanish in this LIGHT. And "Heaven is all that remains". Because there is no Earth, no world, no universe. There is only the Kingdom of God. The living world of light. Pervasive light that is everywhere WITHOUT shadows, where darkness DOES NOT EXIST AT ALL.

Eternity, Heaven, is the living world of light, our home in God. It is reality. It is a "world" of light, in which there is only light. There is no darkness, no shadows, no blockages to resist the light. "Nothing there but shines and shines forever."

The separation is an attempt to deny that this is so, by trying to resist the light. It's an attempt to block awareness of the pervasiveness of light by being unwilling to accept it into the mind. We put up walls that block the light, and this SEEMS to produce states of darkness.

An extremely important thing to realize here is that the seeming presence of the darkness ENTIRELY DEPENDS on the light being absent. It is a direct consequence or "effect" of the light being blocked. When the block is removed or the light is allowed to shine and pervade, what happens to "the darkness"? It doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't displace, it doesn't hide. Darkness cannot make light go away. Light completely overpowers it and cancels it. It simply vanishes.

Where is the darkness, in the light? There isn't any. In perfect light, infinite light, there is no darkness anywhere. So what happens to the darkness when the light shines? The light SHINES AWAY the darkness. How does it do it? Because darkness isn't really a THING in its own right, it is ONLY the temporary, illusory result of blocking the light.

The darkness's entire "existence" is 100% dependent on the light remaining blocked. The darkness is like a shadow. The shadow doesn't determine for itself what it is, it is a consequence or result of the way the light is blocked. It acquires all of its properties, shapes and forms, from the blockage, and can only symbolize the blockage. Having no inherent qualities, properties, behaviors, characteristics, life, or existence of ITS OWN, it is merely a side-effect of the appearance that "light is absent."

When you block the light of Heaven's reality, the world God created (the Sonship, not the Earth), you seem to produce in your mind a blockage to the light, which produces shadows or "darkness". Or to put it another way, darkness SEEMS to come out of nowhere, when the light is blocked. It just sort of "appears", like a mirage or hallucination. It isn't caused by anything real, it is "caused by" the illusion that reality is not present.

Darkness is sort of like a "hole" in the light. And the darkness seems to take on various shapes, forms, sizes, appearances. It may seem to represent objects. It may even seem to take on the shape of a human body, a tree, a planet or a galaxy. It may even SEEM as if these "objects" are actually alive or moving and thinking for themselves, as if they have an actual existence or identity, which none of them have. Shadows have no inherent properties of their own, no mind, no will and no life. These "life" FORMS are the illusion of what *separateness* looks like - the absence of Heaven's light. Shadows are always fragmented and conflicted.

All of spacetime is a bubble of darkness, like a hole in Heaven, where light seems "shut out". The "world you made" to block the light, the world which is "an attack on God", the world which is a "picture of the crucifixion of God's son", the world of "death" or the "dream of death", are all this same one thing - the illusion of the absence of God/Light.

The entire "physical universe" is this appearance of a non-existent, lifeless, unreal, illusory world, which houses and includes the Earth and all bodies and objects. All of these things can ONLY seem to exist, WITHIN the absence of light, AS the absence of light, and only so long as the light is absent. They are "made of darkness", lack, emptiness, absence, NOTHINGNESS. They are not made of light. And darkness is only an illusion. It's a strange hallucinated imagined appearance of what it would look like IF light could be made to be absent.

When you are in a dark room, and you switch on the light, what happens to the darkness? Does it go somewhere? Does it turn into light? Is it retained? Does a chunk of it still persist in the light? Are its dark forms and shapes kept? No. The light DISPELLS them. They simply vanish. They "cease to seem to be." They don't transform into light. They just disappear. They are the OPPOSITE of the light and do not really exist. When the light is allowed to shine, the darkness or "lights absence" is corrected, light is supplied, and there is nowhere - no gap or hole - in which the darkness could SEEM to exist.

The world, including the Earth, all its forms, creatures, oceans, forests, the moon, the sun, the entire galaxy and all the thousands of galaxies, the void of space and all of time, are all symptoms or side-effects of what it seems to look like when light is absent. They are HELD in place by minds who are resisting the light and trying to enforce a blockage or denial of the light. When these minds come around and are healed, they will no longer desire that light be absent, and so there will be nothing "to keep a separated world in place." Without an active resistance to the light, there is nothing to prevent light/love from entering and dismissing the illusion that darkness exists. OR the illusion that the world exists.

It does not matter in the big picture whether you view this world through false perception or true perception. It does not matter whether you glimpse the real world or see the world as wholly forgiven and benevolent. "A forgiven world cannot last" because the world is nothing but "a thin veil over the face of Christ." When the light shines brightly enough, the dark veil that LOOKS LIKE a planet, will become transparent, thin, like a puff of smoke which can easily be dispelled. The entire universe, all forms of matter, all objects and bodies, will become increasingly invisible. As though you are pushing past a thick heavy curtain which is finally parting to reveal the LIGHT behind it which it was BLOCKING.

The world, including Earth, IS nothing but a blockage to the light. It DEPENDS ON the light remaining blocked in order to SEEM to exist at all. It is MADE OF and exists only WITHIN the illusion of darkness. Nothing about it is real. Nothing about it is light or life. It's a shadow. What happens to shadows when the light shines? They do not exist. They are REPLACED with light. The ego is where the darkness WAS. The world is where the darkness WAS. Bodies are where the darkness WAS. And they absolutely DO NOT EXIST in the light.

Being MADE OF darkness, if you take them to the light they will be dissolved, shone away. "Illusions recognized must disappear." "The body cannot remain without illusions." Try taking an illusion of light's absence INTO the light, and it cannot remain. Its nature, which is light's absence, IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH HEAVEN'S LIGHT. It is THE OPPOSITE of Heaven's light. Never the two shall meet. "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way."

The closer you approach the light which is BEYOND the body and BEYOND the world, behind them, the world will become less and less of an obstacle. It will seem less and less heavy or serious. It will seem to become lighter, itself, as its transparency begins to allow the light BEYOND it to shine through. As you begin to "see God in everything you see" because God is BEHIND the things you see. The things you see are BLOCKS to God. To forgive them is to OVERLOOK them (NOT SEE THEM) and to see PAST the "granite block of sin" (the veil of matter) TO reality.

"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams (not Earth). And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as **behind the dream**, **beyond all seeming** (behind the world) and yet surely theirs." It is the light BEYOND hell/dream/darkness/Earth that appeals to you, it is that light which you WANT to see, it is that light which is coming from ANOTHER WORLD (Heaven), and it is that light which is God which you see "in" or "through" or "behind" the things you see, while you are traveling TOWARDS the light.

As you move closer and closer to the light BEYOND the veil of matter (wall of sin), the veil dissolves. The veil ITSELF (the world you made - including Earth) thins out, stops seeming so solid, stops seeming to represent "real sin" or "real guilt", and it in a sense will seem to stop looking like "hell". It may even seem to become lovely or holy. But the loveliness is not there AS the world which is still made of darkness, it is there because there is increasingly LESS darkness (world) and increasingly more light (Heaven), revealed through spiritual sight/vision in parallel to the darkness that the body's eyes see.

The FORGIVEN WORLD is the thinnest, lightest, least dense, least heavy view of the SHADOW WORLD that's possible, while still seeing it. It's a perception of the ILLUSION of light's ABSENCE, in which the light is barely absent at all, such that the illusion seems to slightly remain as a THIN VEIL over Christ's face, and Christ's face is almost fully seen.

The forgiven world, Earth and spacetime, grows lovelier ONLY because it is DIMINISHING, and only because a loveliness is shining FROM BEYOND IT, coming from behind it, as the veil of matter dissolves. It is the SOURCE of the light that you want to get to. Just because the forgiven world seems illuminated BY this holy light, does not MAKE IT holy. It is NOTHING. It merely becomes like a spotless mirror in which you see a *reflection* of the light of Heaven, where it is obscuring the light the LEAST while still seeming to slightly exist. Once the light of Heaven beyond the world world/veil shines FULLY, the veil LIFTS, the face of Christ is seen, the WORLD IS FORGOTTEN, there IS NO WORLD, and Heaven is uncovered at last. And it is Heaven that you want.

Here, all the things made of death and darkness are shone away into oblivion, the "world spins into the NOTHINGNESS from which it came", the stars disappear in light, the dark world of shadows vanishes, the world is consumed by the light, shone away because the world is nothing but an ILLUSION of light's absence, and light's presence forces the impossible world to cease to exist and "Heaven is all that remains."

Not one single FORM of darkness (matter, energy or otherwise) remains in Heaven because ONLY LIGHT can remain in Heaven. "Gone are bodies in the blazing light of the Son of God." "Gone is perception". "Gone are walls" (objects, planets). "Nothing there is seen, only known." The Kingdom of God in all its glory. It was merely HIDDEN behind the blocks to love, the illusion of sin, which took the temporary illusory form of worlds and planets and bodies, made "as a place where God could enter not". These walls must go. Matter is an illusion. Spacetime is an illusion. Death is an illusion.

THERE IS NO WORLD. THIS IS THE CENTRAL LESSON THE COURSE WOULD ATTEMPT TO TEACH. Means simply... there is no shadow, no darkness, nothing OPPOSING the light. There is ONLY the Light of the Kingdom of God.

"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world (physical) has to offer. The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true." ... "Nothing so blinding as perception of form" (objects, bodies, planets).

To behold (see) the world (Earth and space) in ANY way, is to be blinded to God. Not one single FORM, object, body, or planet, can remain in your vision if you are to experience God. You cannot keep the world, or the body, and be with God. "God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there." "To be without a body is to be in your natural state." To be in/with/having a body is unnatural because the body is darkness (" in the body's darkness"). "The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes."

Light is natural. Light is eternal life. Light is your home. Light is what you are. "Eternity will shine away the world."

To understand the separation from God, consider the relationship between light and darkness.

At first, light is everywhere in heaven. Then in the separation, the presence of light is resisted by trying not to will that there be light. This "puts the brakes" on creation, as an unwillingness to extend love, and a selfish attempt to retain everything for yourself. This is kind of like a light bulb that does not want to let its light shine because it wants to keep the light for itself.

When the light is shining, all is well. When there is a blockage or a denial of the light, the light SEEMS to dim. And now a seeming shadow or darkness forms. The shadow appears darker, as though there is less light there. As if light has gone away.

If you look carefully, you may notice that the shadow totally DEPENDS on the light being blocked. When the light is not blocked, there is no shadow. When the block appears, the shadow appears. And the shadow has no say in this.

On the one hand, a discerning mind should recognize that the shadow itself doesn't really have ability to assert its own existence. It can't decide to stay on its own. It can't resist the light. Nor can it cause light to go away.

Really, the darkness isn't ACTUALLY darkness. It's the absence of light. These are not the same thing. Light being absent, and darkness being "present" are different. If darkness is truly present, then darkness actually removes light as light's equal and causes light to go away, or can resist it.

In the separation, all that we really did was block the light. We blocked it with blocks to awareness, which are forms of denial, unwillingness and resistance. By being unwilling to will with God, we were unwilling to extend light. These are attempts to stop light from shining, to hold back the extension of love, and to INDUCE darkness.

Having done this, it seems like we go into a darkened state of mind. What we're going into is the appearance of a "lack of light" or "absence of light". We don't actually go into an "actual" darkness. There is in fact no such thing as an actual darkness. Similarly to how there isn't really evil or hell.

"Just because "nature abhors a vacuum," which is true enough, it does NOT follow that "a vacuum is filled with hellfire."

"Those who have not yet "changed their minds" have entered the "hellfire" concept into it."

The sane recognition that darkness is only the seeming absence of light, produced by a blockage, cast as a shadow, is what it means to recognize that this blockage is just a MISTAKE or error. There is no real darkness there at all, ONLY an illusion that makes it appear light is absent.

When you fail to recognize that the blockage is just an illusion, you start to believe that the darkness is, itself, a "positive creation", something which can cause light to go away, some kind of "actual real evil".

This is also the difference between mistakes/errors and sins. A mistake is recognized as simply a "lack of light", whereas when the appearance of light lacking is given artificial attributes of reality, it is considered to be "real darkness."

We lend it the darkness reality, truth, power, causation, will, a mind of its own, etc... and now what is really only the ILLUSION of light being absent, is now interpreted as the PRESENCE of active living darkness. And now we believe that this darkness has the power TO HIDE something, to actually blot it out.

This is the insane egoic belief that darkness has power over the light, and can cause light to go away. That darkness shines away light. It is the belief in evil and in sin and of having POWER OVER GOD. It is the authority problem and is level confusion. It is the belief that separation is real, and that guilt is true. And it is also fear. And believing that darkness can hide stuff induces fear that something evil IS hiding in the dark, which you cannot see.

"Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide."

"It is only in darkness and in ignorance that you perceive the frightening, and you shrink away from it to further darkness. And yet, it is only the hidden that CAN terrify, NOT for what it IS, but FOR its hiddenness."

By believing that what actually is only an ILLUSION OF light's absence, is actually the PRESENCE OF a "real darkness", is the entire ego thought system. It is the belief that sin is real and death is happening and impossible suffering can occur and that hell is evil and real. That the boogie man is hiding in the dark shadows. It's the stuff of nightmares.

When we denied the light of heaven, we pushed our mind into a darkened state. A state of the appearance of the lack of love and light and life. This was only really a state of the ILLUSION that light CAN be absent.

It's an illusion because light is actually permanent and can never be destroyed, and so DENIAL is the belief that it's not there, even though it is. Believing that light is not present, when it is, must mean that you believe something is true which is not. This is an ILLUSION. There is deception and temptation because something impossible seems possible.

This means also that so long as there is a state where light seems absent at all, there IS illusion. The state of light's absence is ITSELF an illusion, because it's not true that light can really be absent anywhere. So when it APPEARS that light is not present, in any way, this can't be TRUE, but it SEEMS true to insane minds.

The really big thing is this. WE MADE A WORLD OUT OF THIS DARKNESS - WITHIN the illusion of the lack of light. It is in fact THE lack of light. Another term for a lack or light or love, in ACIM, is error. The seeming lack of light appears to be an erroneous world.

"For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

Then, if this erroneous world is believed to be REAL, it is converted from the ILLUSION of light's absence, to the belief that it is REAL DARKNESS. That this world is in fact, the PRESENCE of a world. That there really is a world there, alive and willfull and with mind and power and causation. A world which has OVERTHROWN the Kingdom. This belief is a misperception of the illusion of the lack of light, and nothing more.

What this means is, the world we made, which includes the planet Earth, originally was simply the illusion of light seeming to be lacking. It WAS the 'absence'. It was a mis-creation, or a sort of failed creation. A limited expression, infused with unwillingness and denial. It was made in the thought of the denial of God, and as an attack on God. An attack on light, if interpreted as "actual darkness".

Then as we moved further into believing in it, we invested this illusion of light's absence with the qualities of God, such as reality and truth and power and life and will and causation. And now what merely was **IN TRUTH** an ILLUSORY WORLD, in the shape of the ABSENCE of light, was converted by our belief in it as "REAL DARKNESS" to a WORLD OF SIN.

"The body is the idea of sin made flesh"

What this means is, a world which is in fact ONLY an illusion of light's absence, and exists ONLY so long as the light REMAINS blocked, NOT made of light, was invested with greater belief in order to ASSERT that it is in fact a REAL DARK PLACE - a real living hell.

The physical world is this world, a world made of shadows cast from blockages in the mind, invested with belief and given reality, to try to convince ourselves that hell exists instead of heaven. This is the world of bodies and of forms and planets and other objects. And this world exists ONLY WITHIN our false perception. ONLY IN THE LACK OF LIGHT.

"The world is false perception."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin. For only if there were a body is sin possible."

"From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true."

Note that another word for sin is insanity. "Sin is insanity." Which means that investing darkness with the belief that it is reality, is insane. This is because darkness is NOT the presence of evil, or of ANYTHING. Nor is it s REAL darkness. Just as planet Earth is not really hell. But believing that the earth is real, IS a belief in sin, and DOES cause you to experience the Earth as though it is a REAL hell.

What we're now describing here is false perception, which really is the false BELIEF that an illusory world made of darkness is reality. It is the kind of perception which takes the physical world to be real and true and valid. It is a deceptive perception, in which something which IS an illusion is MIS-PERCEIVED AS a reality. Just as darkness ie lack of light is mis-perceived as the real presence of evil.

The Earth, in its original construction, was born of error, and projected outward, and believed in by insane twisted minds, which both produced it through their denial of light, and reinforced it through their belief in evil. This is why ACIM refers to it as "the hell you made."

"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth."

"Guilt ASKS FOR punishment, and its request is granted. NOT in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin."

"The learning of the world is built upon a concept of the self adjusted to the world's reality. It fits it well. For this an image is that suits a world of shadows and illusions."

The body was also made as part of the illusion of light's absence, masquerading as the PRESENCE of a "real something". But the body is really nothing at all, just as Earth is nothing at all. This is why there is no world and the body is not an actual positive creation. The body and the world DO NOT REALLY EXIST.

The body is given senses designed to reinforce the world of apparent SIN, ie Earth believed to be "real darkness", to give it reality, to make it seem real, and to give it all the meaning it has. This is in order to reinforce the idea that real darkness exists. This was its original evil purpose. This is why we "made it" by NOT creating reality.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, WHEREVER it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel."

To the ego, creation means taking something that does not exist and trying to give it life, in terms of taking the ILLUSION that light can be absent and reinforcing it to the point where it seems darkness has CAUSED light to disappear.

As such, Earth was made by us to seem to REPLACE the world of light that is Heaven, to blot it out and hide it and destroy it. Indeed to destroy the light of God and his children. "The world was made as an attack on God. A place where God (light) could enter not" etc. It was born from an evil thought - a mad idea.

What then needs to happen, is the UNDOING of all this distortion and lies. This confusion and hallucination and the belief that Earth (darkness) really exists. What we need is forgiveness. We have to re-trace the steps. This means that first of all, we need to recognize (as described) how we got into this mess, and what the mess IS.

The mess is, that we have denied God's light, which has produced the UNTRUE ILLUSION that light is indeed absent, which has taken the shape of A WORLD OF BODIES, and which has then been invested with reality and fear and evil thought to try to GIVE IT immortality and reality. To make it permanently replace heaven. However, this is not possible.

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that"

"Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it."

What we then need to do is recognize the facts. If we have belief in the world as "real", or existing, or causing, or happening, or being valuable, or having power over the light, or able to kill immortal beings, or capable in any way of enforcing darkness and suffering, then we DO believe that darkness can make light go away. And as such Earth is interpreted as REAL hell.

This is the belief that the world of bodies ***IS NOT an illusion***. Believing it IS NOT an illusion, IS A DENIAL of the FACT that it is. It's an inability to see and recognize that the world is made of light's absence, and CAN ONLY last so long as the light remains absent. It's even more heavily the belief that the world is actually real and has REPLACED the reality of Heaven.

If we believe this in any way, we need to look at this and undo this belief. We need to stop believing that the world IS real. That belief IS FALSE PERCEPTION and is a belief in evil. What we've put ONTO the world, given it is ONLY an illusion of light's absence, is the heaviness of sin and guilt and value and meaning. We've tried to turn an ILLUSION of a world into a reality, to convert "lights absence" into "darkness's presence."

All this projected meaning, the "perceptions about the world", the sin and hate and guilt we throw onto it, the condemnation of it, the false beliefs about it, is all part of our attempt to reinforce the idea that the world IS real and DOES have power over God and his Son. If you believe it REALLY IS sinful, then you are using it to stay in the illusion that darkness really exists. Which also means that to NOT do that, you have to STOP believing the world is real.

So then we set about withdrawing these projections of "real sin", and of reality, and of rebellion, and of attack and harm, and of guilt and fear, which we have put ONTO AN ILLUSION OF A WORLD. We have in fact laid illusions ON TOP OF ILLUSION, in an attempt to DENY that the world IS an illusion, so that we can MAKE IT REAL to us. This is a DOUBLE DENIAL.

"But what you have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion."

"It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult."

When, through forgiveness, we lift away from the world our belief in sin and guilt, we in fact lifting away REALITY from it. We are withdrawing BELIEF in it. We are stripping it of value, and meaning, and all the heavy dark USES of the world to victimize and to attack. We are taking back our FUTILE attempt to PROVE that darkness can destroy the light, that death trumphs over life, and that the Son of God can be killed in the flesh.

Once we stop doing this, the world that we have been "attacking", in an effort to LEND IT reality, in order to keep it, begins to be RECOGNIZED FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS. Since a false perception of the world makes it seem REAL - because false perception is a CONFUSED perception, a true perception of it does THE OPPOSITE. It takes AWAY its reality. It strips it of its causal power. It diminishes it in your sight. And it reduces its value to you. It removes what it is NOT, and reveals what it IS.

At the end of this process, the world which lives in and is made OF the illusion of light's absence, is seen NOT as a world capable of destroying life, or of sinning, or of inducing guilt, or of making life into suffering, but instead it is RECOGNIZED as ONLY AN ILLUSION OF LIGHT'S ABSENCE. In effect, its TRUE nature, is not that it is real, but that it IS NOT REAL.

"Enlightenment is but a recognition and not a change at all."

"LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

Recognizing the world for what it IS - a FALSE appearance of the absence of God, does not mean recognizing that it IS real or true. Recognizing the truth ABOUT the world, does not necessarily imply that the world IS true. Only that we are looking at it WITH truth and seeing it "truly", to find out ***IF*** it is true. Seeing what IS ACTUALLY there. But it is entirely possible that what is ACTUALLY there, IS AN ILLUSION, and NOT a reality.

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

The world in fact ONLY exists as an illusory world. It is like a veil of shadows and darkness. It PRETENDS to be a world - a something. It is really, in truth, THE ABSENCE OF A WORLD. It is the seeming form that shadows take when light is blocked. It is ONLY the interior seeming contents and shifting patterns of the SHADOW cast by light's blockage. And as a result, the dark world is really ONLY an illusion. Believing it is real sin is a SECOND error designed to convert illusions into reality. This is like 3 levels.

1) Heaven/reality (no illusory world, only the world of light).

2) Illusory world regarded as unreal (true perception).

3) Illusory world regarded as real (false perception).

More to the point, the world is in fact, in its "true form", seen clearly and accurately, NOT a world made of "real sin", NOT a world that can cause anything to be threatened, but ONLY a world that IS FICTION. It is smoke and mirrors. It is the illusion that there is no light. It is MADE OF denial. It is the denial of existence, and so it denies ITS OWN existence.

"What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

When the "lack of light", which can at most be an ILLUSION OF a lack of light, since light cannot be really lacking, is recognized for what it IS, it is NOT regarded as a "real" anything. It is not a real world, or a real darkness, or a real sin. Its TRUE nature is that it is an ABSENCE of anything real, and an illusion of LACK.

Like a shadow, the world then CANNOT LAST, IF the blocks to the awareness of light are removed. The world DEPENDS ON this "separation" in order to maintain its seeming existence. If you lift away the dark blockages and the denial, and the light comes in, the darkness IS GONE. This is because darkness can ONLY SEEM to exist PROVIDED light seems to be absent. It is a lack, and not a presence. Forgiving it brings light in, and makes the world GO AWAY.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies."

The darkness does not TURN INTO light either. Light shines it AWAY, because darkness is just a sort of fictional label we give to "the part that seems lacking". A name for the lack ITSELF. But lack is not a positive creation, it is more like a "hole" in creation. A seeming place where light was not allowed to enter. A place where God was not allowed to dwell. Where life was denied.

When the light comes, that which is the absence of light and not the presence of darkness, SIMPLY DISAPPEARS. It at first appears to become lighter, because light is beginning to REPLACE it. It seems to be a mixture of darkness and light. It brightens and sparkles and seems fresh and new. Sin is lifted from it, guilt is removed from it, and REALITY IS WITHDRAWN from it.

"If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God."

BUT, at the same time, the presence of the darkness is decreasing, BECAUSE the light is increasing. The LACK of light is going away. "Miracles supply a lack." As such, anything "made of darkness", or which was really merely the ILLUSION that darkness was present, is now shown to have been really NOT the presence of ANYTHING. Like it was just some dream that passed by. And so the shadow world now simply FADES OUT and vanishes and disappears and is gone forever, leaving NO TRACE. In truth, it WAS NEVER REALLY ANYTHING.

"The old one has left no trace upon it in its passing."

"An unremembered world will leave no trace behind its going, when God's gifts have been accepted as the only thing you want."

"Idols MUST disappear, and leave no trace behind their going."

This is why ACIM teaches that "there is no world." The world, Earth, this planet, this physicality, is NOTHING pretending to be something. It is nothing other than a ILLUSION of a world, made of the LACK OF A WORLD, due to the REJECTION of heaven, masquerading as existence. It is what you end up with, limited and withering and half dead, when you try to BLOCK LIFE. It is a world of DEATH. It is made OF death and HAS no life.

"Without the idea of death, there is no world."

"There IS no life outside of Heaven."

"Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is NOT in Heaven is not ANYWHERE. Outside of Heaven (in the "darkness"), only the conflict of illusions stands (illusion of light being absent); senseless, ***impossible***, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven (interpreting the illusion of the lack of a world AS a SOLID world). Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."

"In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is NOT in Heaven is not ANYWHERE."

"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 substanceless, and all events are nowhere.

There is no world, ie there is no Earth, because at MOST it is comprised of and DEPENDS ON maintaining heaven's ABSENCE. It REJECTS reality. It is not compatible with life. And it has NO REAL PROPERTIES of its own. It is utterly slave to the shadow projection, dependent on the maintenance of blockages, and dwells SOLELY in denial. It cannot exist WHERE there is light.

"Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. "

As the awareness of the light increases, the LACK of light decreases. The illusion that light is not HERE lifts, like a veil. The veil of a "solid world" becomes transparent. Heavy sin and causation and evil are lifted FROM the illusory world, SO THAT it is not believed to be real. And the more light infuses where it seems to be, the LESS it can be seen. The world fade OUT, and heaven fades IN.

Eventually, upon opening up to the FULL experience of the light, the face of Christ appears, "Gone are bodies in the blazing light on the altar to the son of God.", the Earth is literally SHONE AWAY by the light and REPLACED AND UNDONE FOREVER, it literally DISAPPEARS, and its NOTHINGNESS is truly apparent. There then IS no world. There is ONLY light, and "Heaven is all that remains."

"Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so."

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

Earth is the ABSENCE of reality and the ABSENCE of heaven. It remains only so long as heaven is blocked. And once heaven shines, the world is shone away forever. When believing in real sin, earth reflects hell. When NOT believing in real sin, earth is recognized as a meaningless MIRROR in which heaven's LIGHT is temporarily reflected. And then the world VANISHES just as eternity is finally permitted its full expression, and where there was darkness now there is only light, and the world cannot be found.

This is why we are to be THE LIGHT of the world. This is why we are to see the REFLECTION of heaven's light ACROSS the CHAOS of the illusion of light's absence. And this is why ultimately the light itself will shine the world away completely.

"What SEEMS eternal all will have an end. The stars will disappear, and night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the seasons, and the lives of man; all things that change with time and bloom and fade, will not return."

"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."

Our only real need is for the love of God. All other needs are ones we've invented.

We invent a need when we first find ourselves lacking something. It is generally the apparent absence of God that we think we lack, that gives rise to all other needs.

So really, when we think that our one need - the love of God - is not fulfilled, it produces a sense of lack or emptiness, which does not feel good, and which then compels us to search for its fulfillment somewhere.

Typically then, because we see the need as having been lost within ourselves - as if, love is not in us, we then look elsewhere for it. Anywhere else but within. And that ultimately means, we look for this fulfillment anywhere other than where the love actually IS, ie within, and so we do not find it.

So then we're in a state of neediness and yearning and deprivation and lack, thirsting and hungry, and we then think that we need to 'get' from somewhere outside of ourselves. And we will actually attempt this getting. But even if we get ie take ie steal from others, we will not be able to actually accept it.

Accepting that our artificial needs are met, entails accepting that the lack of love within us has been restored. But we can't accept that because we believe, more deeply, that love is absent, ie God is absent.

So it's like... God has to fill our bucket, but then we're going around saying we only believe in empty buckets, and then we take our empty bucket to everyone else trying to get them to fill it with their piece of God, but as soon as they try to put their God into the bucket we refuse to let it be filled up because we're adamant that our bucket must be empty. We want to keep our bucket empty, even though we're desperately trying to fill us from any source other than where it can really be filled from. And every time we believe our own bucket is empty, we will see everyone else's buckets as empty also, and so there's no sign of the love you need.

Seek and do not find.

The ONLY solution is the reversal and undoing of the belief that your bucket is empty in the first place, which is an ILLUSION and a deception within yourself, covering up a tremendous FLOOD of love that resides in you as God, already. We have this entire lake of love flowing through us, an ocean of it, but we've simply blocked it out and made it seem to us like it's not there. It IS there. We have to uncover it, rediscover it, find out that it was NEVER LOST, and accept that it is present. That's all. This one need is then met and all other false needs disappear because they're absolutely unneeded.

When you have false needs you have a lot of questions because you have a lot of doubt about love's presence in you, and so you have a lot of fear about how you're going to manage without the strength of this love. So then you've got all this questioning and confusion. What happens to all that when you GO TO GOD? All of this doubt and questioning is based on the absence of God, staying away from God, so when you go to God, the entire foundation of all this questioning is completely mute. It's irrelevant. All of the questions are about how to meet a need that is FAKE - a need that you don't really have. When the true need is met, all else is taken care of.

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and your way will be made straight.

All you need is love.

Take an analogy of a room. When the light is switched on in the room the room is lit. There is no significant "darkness". Maybe there are also windows open with the sunlight streaming in. It's a very bright room.

If you turn off the lights and cover the windows, what happens? The only thing that happen is the light is not permitted to enter. It SEEMS, then, as if the room "is dark", right?

If you were to recognize this is only an absence of light, you'd know that it's not so much that "darkness has entered the room", but rather simply that there is an absence of light or lack of light. The APPEARANCE of "darkness" is ONLY what "lack of light" looks like. A "hole" in the light.

What the EGO does, is it mistakes the ILLUSION of light's absence, for being something in its own right. Like, there really is a "darkness". Really is an evil. Really is a power or force that can CAUSE light to be absent, can attack light, can defend against light, and can force light to be dispelled. That "darkness shines away the light". This is "the belief that darkness that can hide." It's the belief, the mistaken belief, that the illusion of light's absence ISN'T an illusion, but rather is an opposing force, a "something", a real darkness, which exists in and of itself, and can stay by its own will and MAKE things dark.

This however is disproven when, for example, you switch the light back on again and open up the windows, the light pours in, the "lack" of light is "supplied", and what happens to the darkness? Does the darkness have ANY power to prevent the room from being "lit"? Does the darkness have a will with which it can DO anything? Can it protest against the light and say "i'm not going to be illuminated" and thus hold an area of the room in darkness in defiance of the light? No. It has no power, no will, no real presence, nothing, unless you yourself try to give it that. It in fact completely vanishes because it is LITERALLY NOTHING other than an illusion. There IS no darkness really.

Mistaking the absence of light for "real darkness" is delusional. It's a belief that illusions are real. That the illusion of "there is darkness" is true, rather than, "it's just light's absence." There is a huge difference there. Believing in real darkness versus RECOGNIZING that it is ONLY light's absence is the difference between sanity and insanity. And ultimately if you recognize that only light is true, then there is NO DARKNESS at all, and thus NO LACK OF LIGHT.

Now here's the thing. When we resisted God's will and became defensive and resistant to truth, trying to stop light from extending, trying to oppose reality, it resulted in this ILLUSION of a state where there seemed to be a LACK, or an absence of light and love. ie we tried to deny light/truth/God. It WAS only an illusion of light's absence because light cannot really be affected. BUT, some souls believed in the lack as if it was the truth, as if there really WAS a darkness, as if evil REALLY existed as a THING, as if darkness could CAUSE light to be hidden or could cause anything. That darkness could cause God's light to diminish, as an attack on light. This is the idea of sin.

This resulted in, a state where there is the illusion that "light is absent or lacking".... nothing but an illusion, easily dispelled, easily SHONE AWAY by the light of truth if the light were permitted to come. But it was the UNWILLINGNESS of the "separated ones" to ALLOW light to enter, in rejection of love ("love does not enter where it is not welcome"), that "held" light at bay and maintained the illusion of darkness. This is what "keeps them in the dark" so to speak because they are actively "pushing light away". It's because they imbue "darkness" with their own unwillingness or "will to reject the will of light", that they GIVE darkness this seeming "reality" or "power" to seem to fight against the light and keep love at bay. Thus they maintain that things "made of darkness" actually exist, even though they don't.

When they do that, and they did that, it produced an entire ILLUSORY WORLD, nothing but an appearance of light's absence, and not A REAL DARKNESS, but it was a world they believed in, one where they believed darkness really DOES exist, is CAUSAL, can have power OVER light, and can force God to be attacked. That belief in darkness, and that "lack of light and love", SHOWS UP AS .... an entire WORLD. In other words, the world is merely the ILLUSORY APPEARANCE of there SEEMING to be a "block to light". And this is also why Jesus says "the world is false perception" because it ONLY EXISTS WITHIN your delusional state of "darkened mind" and DOES NOT exist when your mind is lit by truth. But the world, itself, is actually entirely MADE OF, nothing more than, "the illusion of light's absence". It is made of denial. It is made of a protest against the light. "The world you made is an illusion of a world, God did not create it". So long as light is "absent", the world shows up. When the light is present, the world disappears.

So long as separated souls are willing against God they uphold and maintain the world. "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts." Whenever souls have finally decided to stop willing against God, and to stop trying to give the world an illusory power to be "real darkness", no-one will thus believe that there REALLY IS A WORLD, because they simply no longer are deceived by the ILLUSION of light's absence. They will first recognize the world is NOTHING other than the illusion that there is a lack of light, and then go on to realize there IS ONLY light, thus NO WORLD.

They stop believing in sin and evil. They believe only in love and accept only God's truth and light. And this results in, no-one remaining to MAINTAIN a world, a world which is made of light's absence ie sin, guilt, fear, attack, death.... and that is when "eternity will shine away the world". And this is also where Jesus talks about nothing being left to keep a separated world in place. Space and time end because no-one believes in them, and the entirety of "stuff made of darkness" vanishes. Without anyone WILLING TO KEEP IT, the LIGHT will be ALLOWED to shine fully and totally. And this will shine away the world, the entire universe in fact, all the stars and planets will disappear in light. That's what it means. That's how the world ends. It is merely recognized as no longer seeming to exist at all. The darkness simply disappears as if it never existed at all, because it didn't.

Because in truth, the world, THIS PLANET, all planets, the sun, the stars, the galaxies, all of it, all of SPACE and TIME, every place and location, everything 3D, are all NOTHING MORE THAN "light's absence", an ILLUSION that light can be absent, and an illusion that it's NOT the absence of light but actually the presence of a "something". "The world of darkness" will be shone away, because... drumroll. ... THERE IS NO WORLD. It's like saying the world is the darkness in the room, and so long as there is no light the room remains dark and so the world exists AS the darkness. But as soon as the light shines, where is the darkness? What will or power does it have to REMAIN? IT has NONE AT ALL. It is nothing. It simply vanishes because it WAS nothing more than the "lack of light" or the illusion that love is absence.

The world as an illusion of lights absence thus first transitions from appearing to be real (false perception), to being recognized as not real (true perception), what seemed to be "an evil world" is transitioned to a world very close to the light because it's recognized as merely "light's absence". You love it to shine it away. Your light dispels it. Being the light of the world ends the world by revealing there is no world. And thus the world, the appearance of a world, merely disappears into nothing, just as the darkness in the room just disappears as if it never existed. All that REMAINS is heaven which is reality - the living world of light.

This is why there is no world. It is NOTHING. Believing it is a "something" is delusional. It's no different than believing that darkness enters a room and causes the light to be dispelled. The darkness does not exist at all. Once miracles supply a lack and the whole universe is infused with light, it disappears. "A forgiven world cannot last." "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came." The picture of crucifixion ends. The world of sin vanishes. It doesn't have a "something" that is KEPT or REMAINS. It is the absence of something. It doesn't have a "core reality" that transitions through and makes it past the disappearance of darkness. It WAS the darkness. It simply ceases to exist. Light shines the world away. It is gone. There is no world, there never was. Only heaven is real.

You are either innocent or guilty. These are the only options. If sin is real, you are guilty, and guilt is real. If sin is not real, you are innocent, and guilt is not real. You can also say that if you are guilty, you must be sinful. And if you are not guilty, you cannot have sinned.

When sin is recognized as an illusion or dream, without giving it any reality or truth, it is nothing. When you start to give it reality and truth it begins to seem like a cause with power, leading to consequences or effects. The effect of sin is guilt. If you did in truth sin, then you should indeed be guilty of having done so. It is simply cause and effect.

But if there is no guilt, there cannot have been sin, and you are in a state of forgiveness. Forgiveness therefore is the recognition that there is no sin, which produces the effect of guilt's absence. Either way, when guilt is absent, sin is cancelled.

If the belief in sin being real is mental illness ie insanity, since "sin is insanity", and given that "the ego" is another name for this insane thought system, then depriving sin of its effects undoes the ego. The insanity goes away when there is no guilt there. Sin without its effects has no causal power or reality or truth, and so insanity is gone.

If you refuse to go into guilt, you are denying that sin is real. If you deprive sin of its consequences, you are working a miracle. A miracle undoes the seeming consequences of sin. Sin, if it were real, is the idea of irreversible permanent truth, mixed with something impossible. Any consequence that comes from sin can be undone by recognizing that sin has no validity.

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

If sin is merely a mistaken idea that's false, and if you give it no truth or reality, then nothing can come from it. Guilt cannot arise, ego cannot manifest, and sickness and suffering cannot happen. Without the presence of the guilt, derived from the premise of real sin, there cannot be any ego or any suffering. In effect, the ego IS the guilt, and the more you reinforce and increase guilt the more you are buying into the insanity.

Without guilt you must be sane. To be without guilt IS sanity because it deprives sin of any reality. To be without sin is forgiveness. You are either guilty or guiltless, unforgiven or forgiven.

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body."

"Release from guilt is the ego's whole undoing."

"The holy spirit knows that all salvation is the escape from guilt."

"Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God's Son IS without guilt."

"WITHOUT guilt, attack is impossible."

"Without guilt there is no scarcity."

"When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD'S SON."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed."

"Where can guilt be, when the belief in sin is gone? And where is death, when its great advocate is heard no more?" "As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty, you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death." "For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."

"From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in OPPOSITION to life and innocence, and to the Will of God Himself." "Wish not to make yourself a living symbol of his guilt, for you will NOT escape the death you make for him, and in HIS innocence you find your own."

"The light of guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are BROUGHT TOGETHER, the truth of one MUST make the falsity of its OPPOSITE perfectly clear."

"The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just ONE error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him."

Some quotes from A Course in Miracles

"Children do NOT belong to parents, but they DO need to share their greater abundance. If they are deprived, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God, or the Sonship, is impaired in its relationships."

"Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls to him to return, because it blesses and honors him even though he may be absent in spirit."

"Since you and your neighbor are equal members of the same family, as you perceive both, so will you behave toward both. The way to perceive for Golden Rule behavior is to look out from the perception of your own holiness and perceive the holiness of others."

"God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other. The creation of the Soul itself has already been perfectly accomplished, but the creation BY Souls has not. God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly. He gave them His peace so they would not be shaken, and would be unable to be deceived. Whenever you are afraid, you ARE deceived. Your mind is NOT serving your Soul. This literally starves the Soul by denying its daily bread. Remember the poem about the Holy Family which crossed your mind last night..."

When we think of having lost someone, we might think of it in terms of ... they have gone away. And therefore I have lost them.

But I've been seeing that what really happens is ... we come to believe that we personally, ourselves, have lost something FROM ourselves. Some part or portion of our own self has become lost.

We can only really see ourselves as being in a "state" of loss if we actually believe that something has been taken away from ourselves. And this isn't just figuratively speaking, it literally goes to the depth of identity and says - some part of ME is missing.

If a person goes away and they are sort of technically lost or gone or absent, it shouldn't really mean anything in terms of whether or not you as a person are whole and complete. But if there is some ego or special relationship or body identification involved, or some kind of attachment, then when the person leaves you feel that YOU personally are losing something.

It's then not really about the other person going away, it's about actually believing somehow that WHAT YOU ARE has been diminished, what you have or what is yours or whatever, something has been taken from YOUR SELF and now you are not whole. Now you are less, lacking, in need, deprived, as if its not just a matter of someone having left - but actually a matter of something being ripped out of you like a portion of YOUR SELF has died. And now you really are grieving the loss of yourself.

So then we get into a state of experiencing loss and grief which seems to be about this other person missing, but it's really deep down a sense of YOU having died. Some part of you seems to be gone. Some part of you is lacking that is supposed to be there, they somehow became associated with the form of someone else you thought was separate.

Because ... if you were whole, how could you experience any sense of loss or lack or deprivation? If you are whole, you wouldn't be able to claim even that anything has been taken from you, that you're lacking, that you are in need, that you want something you do not have, etc. It's only by sort of taking the loss personally that you then go on to feel that you are actually at a loss - that something that "was yours" is "not there".

I am finding for myself that if I focus more on the Godly fact that God has given me everything and therefore I lack nothing, it becomes harder to claim or believe that I am at a loss. Or that loss is even possible. If I am as God created me then I must still be whole, I must be lacking nothing, in need of nothing, and can't in that wholeness justify or explain or rationalise that I have lost anything. Then what used to seem like, being hit with a sledgehammer and having something huge ripped away unfairly, softens into a mistaken perception of myself.

Indeed in that recognition of wholeness there is also a recognition of oneness, a oneness which binds you permanently to that other person who seemed to be gone, and proves to you that they have NOT gone, because they are literally YOU and are permanently a part of your self in oneness. PLUS you can still access them by being one with them in your mind. So you cannot ever lose them, provided you acknowledge the wholeness that you share.

Once you go into separation, ego, loss, the belief that "you lack", only then does it seem plausible to say that something is missing, something has been taken way (from who or what?), or something has died. And then it literally really becomes a belief that YOU have died, or some part of your own self has been lost. That you're no longer "whole" without some other separated-off person.

So I think we (speaking for myself) interpret losses of "other things" as actually loses as parts of our own self, due to the fact that we are all one. If we are one, and I "lose you", or you seem to be gone from reality, then part of my own self has been destroyed. And the belief in that is what causes the sense of loss - that some part of ME - as the whole - has been taken and is not there. It's not just about some other person, it's about seeing their absence as proof that somehow I AM LESS. And that's an ego thing.

It then boils down to whether or not you can accept that you are in and of yourself whole and complete and lacking nothing, missing nothing, deprived of nothing, and receiving love from God. As the course says, only you can deprive yourself of anything. So if you do NOT deprive yourself, how can you be in a state of lack? And if you do not deprive yourself, you do not deprive yourself of your brother either, and cannot buy into or believe they are "dead" or missing from your existence. Or from your SELF.

To be in loss and grief is really a state of believing that you are deprived, and that means you are depriving yourself. Only illusions can seem to be absent and what dies is not what the person really is anyway. Grief then means you are not recognizing that there is nothing wrong with you, that you are not lacking, that you are not in need, and that you have everything forever. That's self denial, at its root, even if on the surface it may point a finger and pretend to be about someone else. If you would remain in a state of wholeness and love, how could you experience loss at all?

We don't really ever lose anyone because we are all one forever. But believing in the loss of another must mean we believe in the loss of ourselves, per the golden rule. And it's really ourselves that needs to be put back together and remember our wholeness, so that we can end the sense of having lost anything at all. Real loss is impossible, when the truth is recognized.

"A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. This sense of separation would never have arisen if you had not distorted your perception of truth, and had thus perceived yourself as lacking."

Before the separation there were no problems. There was no sickness. No death. No war. No lack or suffering. No pain or fear. No guilt. No sin. Nothing. There was only joy and love and creation and peace and light and truth and celebration.

Recognize this then. ABSOLUTELY EVERY problem or difficulty in this world is symptomatic of what happens when you leave God. EVERYTHING.

Everything in this world is MADE OF "God’s absence". MADE OF IT. ***It IS the separation***. It is not something that was "tacked on" after separation, it is the separation ITSELF. The direct and unavoidable RESULT of trying to exist without love.

All sickness and all death are nothing more than an aspect of you being separate from God. These things did not happen for any other reason. There was NO CAUSE whatsoever other than the causality in Heaven, prior to the separation.

Problems, sickness, death, suffering, it is all a manifestation of "being without God". All needs that have arisen are there ONLY because we are LACKING GOD. Every form of sickness is the absence of God. All forms of death are the absence of Life, and God is life. Every war and every conflict is arising because of the absence of God.

To in any way suggest that your return to God/truth will entail the retention of ANY PROBLEM, any form of sickness, suffering, lack or death, or even this world itself, is absolute bullshit. ALL of this "stuff" IS THE SEPARATION. When there is no separation, there IS NONE OF THIS.

There is NO PROBLEM other than the separation from God. There IS nothing happening in this world that isn’t symptomatic of trying to be away from Him. EVERYTHING here is the RESULT, of pushing God away.

You do not have a problem paying bills. You do not have unfair sicknesses caused by improper diet. You do not have struggles with coworkers which is their fault. You do not have issues with people on facebook groups. The separation from God IS THE ONLY LACK YOU NEED CORRECT. You have a problem with GOD, not with this world. This world is the FORM of your problem with God. And there is **no problem** love cannot solve.

"Let me recognize my problems have been solved. If you are willing to recognize your problems, you will recognize that you have no problems. Your one central problem has been answered, and you have no other."

Every question that you have, every fear, every doubt, every problem, when you are EXPOSED to God, if you try to commune with God, none of those questions become answered. What happens instead, is all your questions DISAPPEAR. They simply vanish. Every question was a form of fear arising from the ABSENCE of God. When He shows up, the entire foundation for those questions no longer exists.

When you go to God, you are SOLVING every problem you have. When you join with God, His MERE PRESENCE is the SOLUTION to every issue in your life. Because every single issue in your life, no matter how it APPEARS, or how specific it seems to be, or how confined it seems to be, or how much it seems to be about specific people and not others, IT IS NOTHING TO DO WITH ANY OF THAT.

Pushing God away introduces lack. Pushing God away introduces fear. Pushing God away makes you feel guilty and want to die. Pushing God away is the source of ALL ILLNESS. Pushing God away is the source of every war and every single death that has even taken place in this dream.

Every aspect of every nightmare is the result of the "darkness" that seems to come about when light is absent.

All financial problems are a lack of God. Every argument arises from a lack of God. All injuries are a lack of God. Every disease is a lack of God. All problems in your job are the lack of God. Everything you attack or judge is the result of the lack of God. There is not a single problem in this world that is anything other than a symptom of God being absent. Upon his "return" to your life, it simply all will disappear because it was all made of his absence. This is a metaphysical fact.

Loving with God = eternal life. Trying to exist without God = suffering and death.

You do not have any other problem other than not being with God. All you have done is you have pushed away the provision of every need you could possible have. You have rejected life. You’ve separated yourself from effortlessness and from being natural. You’ve tried to deny eternal life and immortality. You’ve attempted to suppress all power and creative potential. You ONLY have a shit life because you’ve shut God out.

There is no other problem to solve. And this problem ONLY HAS ONE SOLUTION. The ONLY solution to EVERY problem in the world, is love. God Himself. The restoration of your willingness and awareness of the presence of God in your life, in your mind, in your heart, in your being. LOVE SOLVES EVERYTHING. Not only does it solve everything, it is THE ONLY WAY to solve ANYTHING. There is NO OTHER ANSWER.

You cannot be happy without God. You cannot live without God. And in truth, you cannot be separate from God either. So all of these problems you have, cannot be real problems. They must be illusions of "being separate from God". A dream of "what might it be like without love". This dream fortunately is NOT THE SAME THING as "separation really happening". It’s just a great big IDEA. Wake up. God still loves you and that’s forever. And that’s all you need.

The ego always thinks in terms of exclusion, because its entire logical system is based on "separation" between things.

e.g. A car is not a house. I am here but not there. That was loud, this is quiet.

The hierarchy of illusions comes from this.

No two objects sharing anything comes from this.

Finite limits come from this.

Not being able to truly share anything comes from this.

However, it is an assumption to presume that logic REQUIRES "separation" in order to make logical conclusions.

The ego's thought system of logic is based on a false premise that separation is a given. It is not.

If you take the "required separation between things" OUT of the equation, it is still possible to be logical.

That means you can say something like:

When I give this to you I do not lose it, it increases.

I have this, but I can share it with you, and we both can have it.

I am one with God, and so are you.

I have everything, and you also have everything.

This is the inclusive logic of Heaven and God's laws, which all follow the "absence of separation" in its thought progression and reasoning. God reasons that He will share, without loss, and thereby increase, by adding to existence, through creation. God also reasons that if He shares all of Himself with one son, there will still be all of God left to share with another son. And so on. This is perfectly logical when separation is absent from the reasoning.

When you think WITH the ego - using a form of logical reasoning based on exclusion and separation, you can come to a lot of conclusions. Those conclusions seem to make sense in reference to how THIS world seems to operate - your every day experience. But when you are talking about God's world, if you try to use exclusive logic to put stuff in boxes and separate things out - WHICH EVERYONE DOES - you will come to false conclusions.

You have to learn to think in an entirely new way. To think without separation. That's part of waking up.

The world, Earth, this universe, was made as an EXACT LOGICAL OPPOSITE to God's Kingdom. It was made on purpose to OPPOSE every possible quality of God's nature, so as to ATTACK God's nature and suggest that since this world is ABSENT of God's nature, God is absent here entirely. And so the world proclaims that God and His son have been crucified, and the world has come to replace immortal reality with a dream of death.

God's Kingdom says, "God is everywhere."

Spacetime says, "God is nowhere."

God's Kingdom says, "Everything is everything."

Spacetime says, "Nothing is everything and everything is nothing."

God's Kingdom says, "Everything is shared."

Spacetime says, "Nothing is shared, everything is separate."

God's Kingdom says, "Everything is always the same."

Spacetime says, "Nothing is ever the same."

God's Kingdom says, "Everything is equal."

Spacetime says, "Nothing is equal, everything is different."

God's Kingdom says, "What existed still exists and exists forever."

Spacetime says, "What used to exist no longer exists and nothing will continue to exist."

God's Kingdom says, "All things are fully everything."

Spacetime says, "Nothing is fully anything."

God's Kingdom says, "Every part is whole and holy."

Spacetime says, "Every part is unwhole, a-part and partial."

God's Kingdom says, "All of God is in all places at once."

Spacetime says, "None of God is in any place ever."

God's Kingdom says, "Everything has eternal life."

Spacetime says, "Nothing lives forever."

God's Kingdom says, "Nothing can be threatened."

Spacetime says, "Everything can be threatened."

God's Kingdom says, "Everything is permanent."

Spacetime says, "Nothing is permanent."

God's Kingdom says, "Everything exists forever."

Spacetime says, "Everything is nothing."

God's Kingdom says, "Self is accepted and loved."

Spacetime says, "Self is denied and hated."

God's Kingdom says, "All things must live forever."

Spacetime says, "All things are dead."

And so you can see that in EVERY way imaginable, the properties and qualities of God's reality were utterly OPPOSED in the making of space and time. Both space and time were ATTACKS on God's nature. They were assertions of a world UN LIKE GOD and not of Him, against His will and made to sin.

Even death is built into spacetime because of how time asserts "nothing lives forever" and "whatever exists will not always exist", in its protest against eternal life. In EVERY WAY, Earth, being fundamentally DEPENDENT ON and MADE WITHIN spacetime, is HEAVEN'S OPPOSITE. It was made to attack God and His Kingdom. And yet it is nothing because there is no world.

Earth is an ILLUSION OF A WORLD, opposite in its NATURE to Heaven in every way. It denies its own existence and contradicts itself. The planet is a lie.

----

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"This is the "natural" condition of the separation, and those who learn that it is not natural at all seem to be the unnatural ones. For this world is the opposite of Heaven, being made to be its opposite, and everything here takes a direction exactly opposite of what is true. In Heaven, where the meaning of love is known, love is the same as union. Here, where the illusion of love is accepted in love's place, love is perceived as separation and exclusion."

"The world is false perception. 2 It is born of error, and it has not left its source."

"The world was made as an attack on God."

"Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him."

"This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

"If this were the real world, God would be cruel."

"It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time."

"They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant"

"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

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

"Only the creations of Light are real."

"Like all aspects of the belief in space and time, it is temporary."

"This produces what seems to be a wall of flesh around the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death"

"Acts were not necessary before the separation, because belief in space and time did not exist. 5 It was only after the separation that the Atonement and the conditions necessary for its fulfillment were planned."

"The Atonement was built into the space-time belief to set a limit on the need for the belief itself, and ultimately to make learning complete."

"So do the parts of God's Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of timebrought nearer."

"The Holy Spirit stands at the end of time, where you must be because He is with you."

"The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless."

"Today the light has come. And you will see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is the end of time ensured."

"Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic"

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

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

"And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."

"Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

Guilt holds the potential for sickness, but projection of that guilt through anger, as an attack, is what produces the sickness in the body. "Sickness is anger taken out upon the body."

"Sickness ... is but another form of guilt."

A form of guilt, means that the guilt has turned into a certain form, and it does that when you project it. The projection mechanism is one of blame or anger.

Sickness is also the result of an unforgiveness, ie a grievance. A grievance is going to be anger that will be taken out on someone or something, and projected from guilt. It can also come from a feeling of having been hurt, resulting in a justification for anger, and a resulting projection, which causes a sickness in the body.

I see ACIM speaking in these two stages now .... the underlying guilt is the source of the problem, and its projection onto the body and others is a displacing attack, which shifts the guilt onto the body and thus the body becomes sickened.

This is because once the guilt is gone, there is no guilt to project through anger, and no justification for attacking of having a grievance. Without guilt there can't be a projected symptom of the guilt.

"Illness can be but guilt's shadow"

Again, sickness is a projected out form of or shadow version of an inner guilt. The projecting mechanism is anger ie a grievance of unforgiveness. As soon as the guilt turns into a 'blame', sickness begins. But without the projecting, AND without the original guilt that was being projected, there can be no sickness.

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt."

First you have the guilt, then you project it onto the body and make it sick through anger. When you apply forgiveness and recognize sinlessness in others and yourself, you have no more grounds for projecting guilt's shadow and so the body stops being attacked and is healed.

I didn't see before that these are two stages. 1) Produce guilt, 2) Project it outward as a reflection of inner deformity.

"Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

I saw this in myself today, as I saw that I was angry and that this anger was directed at a part of my body and had produced a sickness there.

There is light, and then there is the absence of light. The absence of light is what we call darkness. But darkness isn't a "something". It a lack of a something.

When light shines and hits an obstacle, it forms a shadow. But the shadow isn't the PRESENCE of darkness, it's the ABSENCE of light.

There is a cause effect relationship. The light, the source, has power over its own absence. When the light shines, it shines away the darkness. The darkness DEPENDS on the absence of light and can only seem to exist WHILE the light is absence. The darkness is a SYMPTOM of a lack of light.

Darkness itself is not a something. It has no properties of its own. It isn't there of its own will and it doesn't cause itself. The darkness cannot come into a room and blot out the light. It cannot make the light go away. Darkness has NO power whatsoever over light.

Light has total power over darkness because light would obliterate darkness, since darkness is ONLY light's absence appearing to be "something".

Let's change the working slightly.

LOVE, shines like a light, and when it seems that LOVE is absent, there is a "lack of love", similar to a darkness or a shadow. But this ABSENCE of love, is not a SOMETHING of its own. It doesn't assert itself, it has NO power, and it cannot STAY on any conditions other than that love is seemingly absent.

A lack of love, is a lack of LIFE, because LOVE IS ALIVE. Just as light is another aspect of the life of love. These are aspects of creation. So when there SEEMS to be a lack of love, there is an illusion of "life's absence". This appearance of life's absence shows up as what we typically call physical SICKNESS.

Sickness, is darkness. It is a SYMPTOM of a LACK of love, light, life. It isn't a SOMETHING in its own right. It cannot CAUSE life to go away any more than darkness can make light go away. The darkness has no power over the light, just as sickness HAS NO POWER OVER LIFE. And similarly, the seeming absence of LOVE has NO POWER to remain when LOVE is given.

Light shines away darkness. LIFE shines away DEATH. Love shines away fear. It's all the same mechanism. It's the same state of logic. Light, life, love, are CAUSES OF EXPRESSION. When they are being expressed, through extension, love, light and life are PRESENT everywhere.

When they are BLOCKED, they seem to hit an obstacle and are "obstructed". There seems to be resistance or something in the way, some unwillingness or reason why it isn't being allowed to enter. This produces a SHADOW, or a darkness, or a seeming lack of life and love.

This lack of life and love, also of power, shows up as physical illness. It represents the idea that LIFE IS DIMINISHED or that the light is dimmed. It results from a lack of the extension of love.

"Extension is the mind's only function. Block this and you have blocked health because you've blocked the minds' joy."

Whether it be brain damage or cancer or a weak heart or a skin disease or a broken leg or paralysis or diabetes or whatever.... these are just FORMS of the same thing. They are just different forms of an illusion of a "lack of life", ie a LACK OF LOVE.

Sickness is not SOMETHING in its own right, they are the LACK of a something. And that's very different. If the SOMETHING were to return, these LACKS would be FILLED, with life and love, and the appearance of the something's ABSENCE would disappear.

"Miracles supply a lack"

"Miracles are energizing"

"Miracles mean life"

"Miracles are a spark of life"

"Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less."

Therefore, to HEAL SICKNESS in all its forms, you must recognize you are not looking at a "real something", it is not a REAL SICKNESS. It is a LACK OF HEALTH. And there is a major difference. Because HEALTH can be SUPPLIED, to address the lack. Health is LIFE, and life is the power of love, and it is light. You can GIVE LIFE to another person by supplying their lack.

This enables you to heal the sick and to raise the dead. Or in other words, to supply the LACK of life which is showing up as a withered, deformed, malfunctioning, broken corpse. And by SUPPLYING what was MISSING, which was the love/light/life/power of God, you therefore ADDRESS the actual problem.

The problem was that life was lacking and was blocked. You supplied life. There is now a PRESENCE OF LIFE. And the HOLE has been filled. And the light has been BRIGHTENED. And the love has been increased. And now the signs of life spring up and the body comes to symbolize HEALTH again, radiant and lovely and vital, representing the INCREASED HOLINESS/wholeness in the mind of the recipient.

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

How do you supply a lack of life, love, light to another? How do you ENLIGHTEN them? How do you ENLIVEN them? How do you ENLOVE them? You do it by SUPPLYING IT. You receive it for yourself, through your own purification and healing, and the receipt of God's power and love, and then you GIVE IT. You SUPPLY it to another. You broadcast it, send it, radiate it, transmit it to them.

"Miracles are a spark of life". You GIVE the spark of life to another person. It resurrects them from the inside out.

And where there is life, there is health. And where there is love, there is healing. And where there is light, there is truth. And love and life and light have SHONE AWAY sickness because it WAS ONLY the absence of love and light and life.

There is no sickness, just as there is no darkness. There is only life/love/light of its seeming absence. And when the life/love/light COMES to fill the emptiness, to wipe away the blocks to life, LIFE INCREASES, and healing takes place, and now there is a miracle of resurrection.

"Did you see the holiness that shone in both you and your brother, to bless the other? That is the purpose of your holy relationship."

"Father, forgiveness is the light You chose to shine away all conflict and all doubt, and light the way for our return to You."

"And in its place the Love of God can be remembered, and will shine away all memory of sacrifice and loss."

"Never allow purity to remain hidden, but shine away the heavy veils of guilt within which the Son of God has hidden himself from his own sight. "

"Let the holiness of God's Son shine away the cloud of guilt that darkens your mind, and by accepting his purity as yours, learn of him that it is yours."

"Yet He cannot shine away what you keep hidden, for you have not offered it to Him and He cannot take it from you."

"Feel this one Self in you, and let It shine away all your illusions and your doubts. This is your Self, the Son of God Himself, sinless as Its Creator, with His strength within you and His Love forever yours."

"Eternity will shine away the world."

The first time that I became able to accept the atonement for myself, undoing a long-standing belief in a "real sin" that I had never been able to completely let go, Jesus said to me "now you will be able to perform miracles".

Notice that the steps I took to get to the atonement and accept it, which was an undoing and correction of fear, guilt, shame, and sin, was not in itself a miracle as such.

By being willing to accept that I was actually innocent in God's eyes because what I thought I had done had not really happened, that meant I was willing to agree that I deserved God's love and that I was, in truth, forgiven.

This meant I was willing and able to now receive love and therefore to love myself. And that means, I was now able to love others. At least a bit. The ability to express love only comes when you have becoming willing to receive it. And you don't have that willingness UNTIL you have accepted that the sin is not real - i.e. accept the atonement.

Miracles are EXPRESSIONS of love. They aren't just you shifting perception or accepting that you are lovable. That process is like opening the door for love to shine through. It is love shining through which has miracle-working power.

Today's lesson 140 says, "only salvation can be said to cure". And from this pertinent lesson:

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take.

Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

Accepting the atonement gives you ACCESS to a state of mind which can CURE. A state of mind which can undo all sickness. A state of mind which has the power to perform miracles, which includes the likes of healing those who appear to be sick, helping your brothers and so on.

Just as Jesus did, you can forgive the so-called sins of others. Jesus said many times "your sins are forgiven". He had the power and authority to bestow that forgiveness on others, not just recognizing their sins were not real but also the ability to undo the symptoms and effects of that sin. He could produce a healing miracle on their behalf as an EXPRESSION of love. This is what you are capable of also.

All you need is love.

It's very simple.

God is love and we are to have a loving relationship with God.

In love, everything is perfect, holy, immortal, safe and alive.

If you reject God's love, you will introduce hell into your mind. You will invent all forms of suffering, and all forms of objects, and all forms of death. Every conceivable problem exists only within the realm of "God is absent".

God is everything and all truth and all perfection. In God there are no problems.

The ONLY problem is that if you reject God ("The denial of God is the ego's religion"), you invent a false experience of suffering, riddled with problems.

EVERY problem in the ENTIRE universe of space and time is a SYMPTOM of the absence of God. It is entirely logically composed of the attempt to oppose God's love. It exists only while God's love seems to be absent, just as darkness exists SOLELY as an illusion of the absence of light.

You either have God, or you do not. If you lack God, you produce every imaginable problem. Every imaginable problem is made of the belief that God is not one with you, sharing love with you. An entire world of spacetime has been produced within this mad idea.

If all problems are symptoms of the lack of God or love, then REUNION WITH GOD is the ONLY solution to this problem. And union with God will solve ALL problems. Union with God will UNDO the separation. Union with God is the atonement, the acceptance of God and the restoration of oneness with God, recognizing you are in God and never left or changed.

You live in God. If you try to live without God you live in a nightmare. When you choose God again the nightmare ends. The nightmare IS the denial of God's love. When you stop denying God's love the nightmare disappears.

God is the ANSWER to the LACK of God. If God is lacking, the ONLY SOLUTION is to get God back. To rejoin with Him. To commune. To repair the rift in your relaitonship. To close the gap between you. And to become one again.

God GAVE HIMSELF as his answer to the separation, because the Holy Spirit symbolizes his love, power and truth. The Holy Spirit answers the separation by recognizing and holding in mind the fact that you ARE STILL as God created you and are STILL one with Him.

Love solves ALL problems because all problems are the absence of love. When love or light comes along, all problems melt and darkness vanishes. The entire universe of spacetime is UNDONE by love.

It boils down to one simple thing. The cause of, or the whole separation, is the ONLY PROBLEM. One problem, with one solution. A sense of separation from God is the ONLY problem you need correct. Which means, rejoining with God and loving God and letting yourself receive God's love again.

To love God, or not to love God, that is the question. Your ONLY GOAL should be to love God again.

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"Our efforts will be directed toward recognizing that there is only one problem and one answer. In this recognition are all problems resolved. In this recognition there is peace."

"Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution. The problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle." (miracles are expressions of love)

"Above all, remember that you have one problem and that the problem has one solution. It is in this that the simplicity of salvation lies. It is because of this that it is guaranteed to work."

"Salvation does depend on recognizing this one problem, and understanding that it has been solved. One problem -- one solution. Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God's plan for salvation."

"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."

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

"It still remains within him to project as God projected his own Spirit to him. In reality, this is his ONLY choice, because his free will was made for his own joy in creating the perfect."

"Sin is the only thought that makes the goal of God seem unobtainable."

"The goal of God is lost in the quest for lesser goals of any kind, and prayer becomes requests for enemies."

"Within the world of opposites there is a way to use forgiveness for the goal of God, and find the peace He offers you."

"In your holy relationship is your Father's Son. He has NOT lost communion with Him. NOR WITH HIMSELF. When you agreed to join each other, you acknowledged this is so."

"Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt BECAUSE it goes beyond the body. Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST transcend the body."

"The miracle sets validity where it belongs. Eternal validity belongs only to the Soul. The miracle acknowledges only the Truth. It thus dispels man's illusions about himself, and puts him into communion with himself and with God."

"The Soul never loses its communion with God. Only the mind and body need Atonement. The miracle joins in the Atonement of Christ by placing the mind in the service of the Spirit. This establishes the proper function of mind, and abolishes its errors."

"Oh come ye faithful, to the holy union of the Father and Son in YOU."

Sometimes the Course talks about what you can do for yourself, in terms of receiving your own healing and having your mind corrected so that sickness can be healed.

For example:

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

And sometimes the Course talks about how you can use your new-found healed state of mind to help others, as expressions of the love that you have become willing to accept as true. That part of the Course is often overlooked and frowned upon as though it is too radical and supernatural to believe.

"Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love." - note that miracles express LOVE once you have become willing to receive love for yourself. What are you going to do with the love when you've got it?

"The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and the acceptance of His Atonement." - note that miracles express Christ BECAUSE of your awareness of the atonement.

"A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers." - note that miracles bless ALL of your brothers!

"Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God's forgiveness by extending it to others." - note that miracles are extended to others and they are "signs" of forgiveness - manifestations coming from a forgiven/forgiving mind.

"I [Jesus] inspire all miracles which are intercessions. They intercede for your holiness." - note that Jesus is saying He performs miracles on your behalf!

Believing that the Course is only talking along one line and not two leads to the belief that you should "only" work on your own healing. There is truth in it. And the Course speaks to it on many occasions. BUT... there is also more to this than just this one part of the Course. There is a second part which is in the working of miracles for the benefit of others, directly healing them and alleviating them of suffering.

When the Course says that "it is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive", what it is saying is, once you become able to see yourself as forgiven, through accepting the atonement, you then actually receive the "privilege" of being able to bestow forgiveness on others. That means, YOU CAN UNDO OTHER PEOPLE'S SINS. And that means you can give them miraculous cures. You become an authority, you gain access to the power of love, and you become able to EXPRESS the love that you've received.

The Course isn't all about just what you can do for yourself. It's also about what you can do for your brother as well.

It may be the most counter-intuitive, impossible thing you can imagine, but if you are feeling like shit, the best thing you can do is to send love to someone.

That sounds like a tall order, in fact maybe seemingly the hardest thing you could do at the time. Because it you feel shit then you really don't want to love, don't have love, don't seem to be able to give anything, and are in no position to help anyone. You feel separate and cut off and probably angry at someone.

But that's just the thing. It's the lack of love in you that is really the problem, and when you SEND it to someone, you RECEIVE it. Giving and receiving are one.

As you effort to transmit love, even if it takes a while to rev up the engines, even if you don't feel loving at all to begin with, it lifts YOU up. You become healed along with them, it brightens you, it opens you and heals you.

The thing is, even if it seems like you have no love to give, if you TRY anyway, you'll find that you in fact have the ability to "get the flow moving". If you PUSH, express, send, flow, love like an energy, it actually gets the juices flowing.

You're able to move yourself from unlove to love, even if love seems absent, and even if it seems like you have no love to give.

The key that unlocks the infinite reservoir of love, even from "standing still" and being very unloving, is your little willingness. Your will has the power to direct the flow. Your will has the power to express and to cause the love to express.

So even if you are stuck, even if you feel very upset, you have the freedom of will that allows you to unstick yourself.

If at first you can't possibly feel any love, you just start to say some loving things. Even if you don't feel them. Express how thankful you are to God for creating someone's perfection and describe their perfect nature. Put into words what is true of them and you. It will lift you up.

Before long, you'll get the stuck-ness moving, and you'll start to tune into the love, and you'll start to feel it in your heart. Especially as you open up to sending/relaying God's love as an extender of love.

Love heals you when you share it. You are included in the healing. So you are giving it to yourself. That may sound weird that you can transmit love to yourself, but you can, provided it includes another.

Ideas are increased by being given away. To have love, give love. Giving it, you must have it, and so it increases in you and the other. You have the ability to express love at any time, and it has the power to melt all walls and blockages.

We're all holding hands. You either lift others up or you drag them down. And always you are included in which direction you aim. Be the light of the world.

"Miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver."

Looking for love outside of yourself is the primary function of the ego and one of the toughest lessons to overcome. We all seem to want other people to love us. We have some kind of need to have parents and children love us, to be loved by another special person or persons, to be surrounded with friends who love us, etc.

Being loved by a lot of people is a trap, if you depend on it. And if you haven't become willing to NOT be loved by others, you still are in the ego. You will not be able to be true to yourself or to speak the truth or demonstrate love's reality if you are not willing to allow others to reject it.

God is the source of love, as are all your brothers in Heaven, but the love they share with you is no different to the love that is in you, which you are created from. You already have this love inherently, so do not really need it at all from anywhere else. You are not being loved by God due to some "need", you are loved by God as an act of sharing His love with you who are already love. You were created by love, as love, to love, and there is no lack of love in you, therefore no neediness.

What happens is, due to the separation ie egoic blocks to the awareness that we already have all the love we need, we perceive a lack of love in ourselves. This is the same thing as believing God is absent - that we ourselves are absent. This perceived lack is a darkness, and it compels us to want to alleviate the unhappy sensation of that absence.

But the ego counsels, instead of actually questioning if the blocks are real, or that the love might STILL be present behind them (if you were to just remove them), to believe the blocks have really made the love go away and to then seek for a solution somewhere else.

This seeking is a sense of false neediness, which believes that the only way to have salvation is by finding it anywhere other than within yourself. The ego suggests it is not in you already, so you better look elsewhere, and that by looking elsewhere there is some kind of hope or possibility of finding it. This is a lie.

So then begins the external searching, and since you are not responsible for or aware of the love in yourself, you now look to make others responsible for providing it for you. So now they automatically are perceived as having to fulfill this "function" of being the source of love and salvation for you. Absolutely everyone will perceive this function as belonging to others if there is any block to awareness or ego present in the mind, guaranteed.

First of all, there is a fundamental problem with this. By believing there is not already the love of God in you, you believe it is absent due to some kind of unworthiness or impossibility. That belief, which is an error, when left uncorrected, lingers in the mind and asserts that you will NOT ACCEPT love within yourself. Separation from the awareness that love is in you already was an act of rejection, not acceptance, so now you are not willing to let there be love in you.

So even though your mind is now making others responsible for supplying the lack due to the belief that it's not inside you, and cannot come from God (this is one of the ego's "laws of chaos"), even IF someone external were to try to supply you with love, you would not be willing to actually let it enter you. You will do what you can to try to get it inside of you, but so long as you believe in your inner lack of it, and therefore the need for it, you are actively blocking its receipt. So then people could be surrounding you with the most magnificent love and you STILL would not believe you are loved enough.

The other part to this then, is that by believing the only possible location of love is "not in you" ie outside of you, you depend entirely on other people or objects or idols or false Gods or specialness to do FOR you and TO you what you refuse to do yourself. This is another step in the ego's laws of chaos - seeking for this "special something" which is supposed to solve your inner lack, by finding it outside of you in people or drugs or alcohol or possessions or money or success or idol worship etc.

IF those external sources, for some reason, seem to be willing to give to you something that you think you want, be it specialness or some kind of semblance of "love", your ego will to some degree seem to be satisfied. The problem is, you won't be able to fully receive it. Not only is it impossible to get fictional special love into you, you are not really wanting to receive it anyway. So now you will go back and forth between delighting in what this person "does to you", and resenting them for failing to undo your emptiness. You'll think that them loving you is the most wonderful thing you ever experienced, but it still falls short of the love of God or, more importantly, falls short of your own willingness to accept love for yourself.

IF on the other hand, the person or external source is taken away or denied or there is a refusal or rejection, well now you are really up shit creek. Because now your mind is believing the only source of salvation is external, you have this huge pressing need to "get" it, and the external is saying "no" and sticking its middle finger up at you. So now you are left hanging. You have this huge unconscious self hatred, a huge sense of neediness and lack, and no-one is willing to supply something to fill the hole.

That leaves you in a state of unfulfillable turmoil, like there is absolutely no way to solve your problem, and that throws you into a rage. This is essentially the definition of hell - a state in which you need something and the need can never be filled, so you have absolutely no hope of "escape", there is no one to save you, you are left suffering alone and with no way to solve it, and so you are more or less eternally damned. That is, unless you question the lies this is based on.

The unconscious self hatred will then surface as "special hate" and will blame the other for not doing to you what they are supposed to be doing to you. It will be all their fault that they are not "loving you" or giving you what you think you want. And this can be in the form of a bad parent or an abusive partner or a job that makes your life suck or the government sucking off all your money or whatever. When the love is denied you, you go off the rails with insanity because all you can see before you is a hopelessness and an impossibility of meeting your need.

This can also be the driving force behind people turning to crimes like rape and murder in an effort to forceably "take" from others what they are refusing to give you. It's a state of desperation. The ego has convinced the person they are so lacking in love that they are so empty and so unlovable that there is a really, really strong neediness and dependency on others to supply it, and no-one seems willing to supply it, so other people must be evil hoarders of the "specialness'' and it now has to be wrestled from them against their will.

This is the culmination of the ego's laws of chaos, in which it inspires attack and rape and murder and hatred in an effort to get from others what they refuse to give. And such a person will see those others are being entirely to blame for failing to love them, and they will see themselves as completely justified and entitled to take what they want, as if it is what they deserve and are being unfairly denied. They will believe that others have "stolen" what is theirs, and that they must rightfully take it back. Things get pretty vicious at this stage.

If you look at this with compassion and understanding you can see that when people get really desperate and needy for external sources of salvation like this, which is mental illness (inner peace is healthy, external searching is mental illness), they are really just trying to address this sense of lack and emptiness and the absence of love within themselves. They are just going about it in the only way that their broken perception tells them is possible - getting it from outside - and if the sense of it being denied is too great internally, they will feel *dependant* on getting it from outside and driven to HAVE to take it by force, almost like someone who is gasping for air and trying to stay alive.

Therefore the attempted rape and murder of others is actually someone who perceives such absence of love within themselves that no matter how hard they try they can't get the love into themselves, and so claw at others viciously and violently trying to take it, as if their life depends on it. All that's happening is their perception is very backwards and they are so convinced of their unworthiness and unlovability that they see others are unworthy and unlovable and so deserving of being taken from. It is really that the person has taken away from themselves and now perceives this denial of love as if coming from others.

So while some of us are in sort of in-between states of feeling a neediness or "why it is unfair that other people don't love me" and "surely I'm lovable, why are people not liking me" and "if only they would love me more" or whatever... we are still on the downward spiral towards viciousness. We just didn't become quite so desperate yet as for it to turn into a violent attempt to take it from others, but we're doing basically the same process. A perceived absence of love within, leads to an automatic quest to get it from without. And then it is everyone else's responsibility to supply it, and if they do not, it is their fault not ours. "What is not love is murder" because when love is perceived to be absent it produces a murderous desire to take it from someone else against their will.

Even if others were to supply huge amounts of love to us, if we are not willing to accept that it is deep inside of us and therefore has been deeply received and acknowledged as something we are worthy of, we will reject it. You can be surrounded by people loving the heck out of you and still believe there is something wrong with you. It's really got nothing to do with whether someone else loves you or not.

Them loving you does not make you believe you are lovable. Them not loving you does not make you believe you are lovable. The only way to believe you are lovable is for YOU to believe it ABOUT YOURSELF, IN SPITE OF what anyone else believes or does. And this boils down to simply accepting that love is INSIDE you, it is present, and it's there because God is there, and God is love, and God is the ONLY SOURCE OF LOVE. "There is no love but God's". God IS the only source of love, you cannot get it anywhere else, it does not exist separate from you, and seeking for it externally is absolutely guaranteed to fail every time because it is NOT OUT THERE.

So we all go through this dynamic and to varying degrees, some of us accept God's love more than others. It's all about degrees of awareness of the presence of love within us, and therefore a WILLINGNESS to ACCEPT that it is there and that we are worthy of it. We ARE worthy of God's love, but even though we are worthy of it, we can still choose to deny it believe otherwise if we want to. In other words, love does not FORCE us to be loved.

Love does not enter where it is not welcome! And that means, love from other people CANNOT get into you if it is not welcome. And so in order to welcome and receive the love from others, you HAVE to be willing to have love be welcome WITHIN YOU FIRST, which means you then accept there is love within you ALREADY, are aware of it (God's Presence in your mind and heart), and therefore DO NOT NEED TO GET IT FROM ELSEWHERE.

Opening up to accept the atonement, which is the acknowledgement and recognition and acceptance and awareness of the CONSTANT LOVE being shared by God and your TOTAL WILLINGNESS to receive it and accept it as the truth about you, is the *ONLY SOLUTION* to this problem of love's absence.

And once this problem is solved, there is no further need to get love from anywhere else, no need to have people love you or not love you, no need to be special, no need for special attention, no neediness or attention-seeking or acting out or being a sexual slave or selling yourself out or abandoning yourself or people pleasing or vicious attempts to take "yourself" from those who supposedly stole YOU from you. Since you are love, you believe that if others have the love and are supposed to give it to you, you believe they are supposed to give YOU to you and therefore are responsible for making you what you are. And it doesn't work.

You ARE love. Accepting that you are love accepts the love is IN YOU and therefore there is no LACK and therefore no NEED to seek for it where it does not exist, and therefore you couldn't GIVE A SHIT what anyone thinks of you, whether they love you or hate you, it has absolutely no bearing on whether you are happy or not. YOU are responsible for choosing your happiness, no-one else is responsible for your happiness, and no-one else has any power to take it from you.

Getting your love from within/God gives you thus tremendous psychological strength and invulnerability and resilience and confidence and certainty and knowing, which cannot be swayed or affected by anything external. Having not GIVEN anything external the power to give TO you the love you are lacking, you also have not given anything external the power to deny your lovability on your behalf, and therefore you are NOT at the effect of the world. Accepting the atonement is the key to immortality.

Once you accept it from God, it's a done deal. Permanent love within you and flowing through you. Then it becomes more about you extending love to others through you so that you SHARE IN IT and thus experience it as having been received by you from God (to have all, give all to all), rather than trying to manipulate others into making this decision for you. Now that you are able to love IN SPITE OF whether other people are loving you back or not, that is unconditional love. To love others even if they hate your guts, are attacking you, are pushing you away, and want nothing to do with you. Even if they don't see you, or acknowledge you, or recognize you. To love them anyway. Teach only love because that is what you are.

God loves you right now 100%. Can you accept it? You already ARE it, whether you accept it or not.

If a person is a body, and the body dies, there is no denying the fact that the body is gone. If it is buried or cremated, it's gone. it's not coming back.

It does not matter how much forgiveness you do, how you look at it, how you frame it, how you justify it or anything. The physical fact still remains that the body is gone.

The body is absent. The body will stay absent. It is not coming back. Where is the body? It's dead forever.

So regardless then of what your state of mind or perception is, the body is NOT THERE. And this is now the PROOF that death HAS happened. This is what the Course calls "the proof of sin." ie, the physical presence or absence of something PROVES that sin occurred.

If I spill milk on the floor, the fact that there IS milk on the floor testifies that milk was spilled on the floor. This is undeniable. It doesn't matter whether you laugh or cry at it. If the milk IS STILL THERE, it proves there was a "sin" of spilling it. The sin is STILL proven so long as the PROOF remains. In course terms, if there is an "effect", THERE MUST STILL BE AN ONGOING CAUSE. And you cannot have effects without causes.

Similarly if the body is attacked and loses a limb, and now has an arm missing, the very physical fact that the arm is missing PROVES that the arm WAS LOST. This is undeniable. It doesn't matter how you forgive it or whether you love it or hate it. If the arm is not there, it PROVES there was a sin.

The presence of "the evidence" shows that something has happened. And so long as the evidence remains, the sin remains. This also leads to the conclusion that when ANYTHING happens in this world, it is a sin, and it is IRREVERSIBLE. Which is why ANYTHING that happens becomes locked in as the PROOF that sin occurred. The evidence is there permanently. And the idea that it CANNOT BE UNDONE is precisely what sin means.

"But sin, were it possible, WOULD be irreversible."

If the body is dead and gone, the fact that it is NOT HERE, acts as proof. It is utterly undeniable. And the world would say there is nothing you can do to change it. Death is locked in. Once it all goes to shit there is no turning back.

So it can't be that you just have to find a way to look at shit in the physical world differently in order to be happy. No amount of looking at it differently is going to bring the body back. Not unless you're going to go gather up all the little pieces and stick them back together at a molecular level. Or - the only exception to this - is if you perform a miracle of resurrection that UNDOES THE PROOF.

However, if the physical proof of sin is TRUE AND REAL, there is NO ESCAPE from the fact of it. It cannot be denied if it is reality. If it is the truth, there is no escape. and no hope and no peace.

It is impossible therefore for anyone to ever be at peace with someone dying if the person was their body. And now the body is gone and it's not coming back, and that slaps you in the face over and over again.

You will never be at peace if this is the truth because the absence of the body will always be there, and the loss of a "real thing" cannot be denied. If the person HAS DIED, you will FOREVER SUFFER LOSS. That means there is permanent suffering and loss with no escape. And on top of that, if the world is real, you'd be INSANE to ever even contemplate "getting over it", because for as long as you live the fact of the death is still undeniably real.

If this physical world is reality or God's creation, and if it is accorded truth, and if the truth is that a person is a body, and the body is dead, the person is dead, and there HAS to be loss because in all honesty there HAS been a loss. There is PROOF of it.

No amount of smiling at it will change the fact. Which means if this world in its physical configurations is ultimate reality, there is absolutely no hope and no escape from hell. You can look at it askew, think about it in various ways, but you cannot deny that IT HAS HAPPENED. And the physical fact of it will haunt you forever.

ONLY IF this world is unreal and untrue, and ONLY IF the evidence - as slapping you in the face as it is - is still NOT true, ONLY then is there any hope of peace. There is no escape from a world whose evidence and proof testifies constantly to supposed "facts."

ONLY IF Earth is NOT REAL, do you ever psychologically have any hope of freedom or peace of mind. Because that now means that if you can not simply have a direct experience of this world's facts and instead are seeking to experience "a different reality", you would be considered as though going into denial or escapism. Avoiding the facts. And that means forgiveness is now an act of denial and AVOIDANCE of reality.

Only if Earth is not reality is there any hope of peace ever. Because the PHYSICAL facts of what happens proves over and over again that there has been loss and death. People have been obliterated from existence. Only if this is NOT REAL, can there be any hope of happiness about this situation.

Therefore the world must be questioned and its reality brought under scrutiny. Its proof, even its physical testimony, even the presence or absence of the flesh and bones matter, has to be questioned. Even if it's glaring you in the face, it has to not mean that it is God's given truth. Even the proof of sin has to NOT MEAN that there has been a death.

But obviously if the physical testimony is that the body is destroyed and is no longer here, that still is PROOF that death has happened ... UNLESS none of it is real. Even the physical absence of the body says "death has happened." The only way for it to NOT be true, is if this ENTIRE WORLD is not true.

If peace even exists at all, there has to be another world that is more real than this one, and in comparison this world must be completely unreal. That is the ONLY WAY that anyone can ever find peace and escape from the proof of sin. The physical testimony of stuff having "happened", has to be written off as NOT TRUE.

A dead body on the ground, must be regarded as NOT TRUE. It must NOT prove that death has occurred. A sick body with malfunctioning parts has to be regarded as NOT TRUE. Otherwise if there is any truth to any of this, you SHOULD be terribly upset forever.

If mind believes a person is a physical body and the body is then gone, mind HAS to believe there has been a loss of something real. And it MUST feel a loss and grieve it. It has no choice. Its own belief in the reality of the thing makes it suffer. ONLY IF the death has NO reality at all, can the mind be happy.

So it doesn't even matter that you're forgiving the world or the sights you see or trying to see the world in a happier way. If there is still physical proof of death staring you in the face, and you accost it REALITY, you are in DENIAL to pretend that you're okay with it. You cannot be okay with it.

You cannot be okay with hell being real. You cannot be okay with death having really occurred. You cannot be okay with real loss. The ONLY hope you have is that this entire world of such things, the world of sin, is utterly unreal and just a dream. Just a nightmare, an illusion of a world. A spacetime that doesn't even exist, in which even the physical objects pretending to be proof are TOTALLY FAKE. An illusion of a world, an illusion of evidence.

Only in recognising its utter unreality can you find peace and freedom from it. Which is why planet Earth CANNOT BE reality if there is a God at all. And unless it is utterly false there is no grounds for peace anywhere. Earth is a world of constantly PROVEN DEATH, with physical undeniable facts that what once was "alive" is now dead. And what seemed healthy is now a rotten corpse.

And you can't deny that it does this all the time. So either it's real and you are locked into hell, or there must be a heaven that is NOT this world and is opposite in nature. A heaven where death is IMPOSSIBLE. Where everything is immortal, attack cannot happen, problems don't exist, suffering is impossible, and there is never even a possibility of a PROOF that sin or death has occurred.

Only by recognising that this world is FALSE and UNREAL can you allow an idea of peace to enter. And then you can be at peace IN SPITE OF the proof of sin, in denial of the death, and ignoring the visual-lies of matter. Only by admitting that the world of bodies is NOT TRUE, can the proof of sin become void and irrelevant, allowing heaven's peace to descend upon it.

The ONLY way you can be at peace is to recognize heaven's reality and this world's total unreality. You can only find peace here, be being not from here. You can only see this world with peace, by knowing it is not of God. That in truth, there is no death, and all the physical lies which say otherwise cannot be believed.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there is a body is sin possible."

"The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life."

"Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped. It is not the world which makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see that is impossible. Yet has God's Judgment on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace. And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace now belongs here, because a Thought of God has entered. What else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what It is? The earth bows down before Its gracious Presence, and It leans down in answer to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It is no longer, "Can peace be possible in this world?" but instead, "Is it not impossible that peace be absent here?"

"The world will end in joy because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven is the function of God's teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected."

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness."

"The body can be healed as an effect of true forgiveness. Only that can give remembrance of immortality, which is the gift of holiness and love."

Sounds like we need to get a handle on this atonement and forgiveness business because Jesus is claiming it can cure ALL sickness, whether it be mind or body. Sickness is actually rooted in guilt. It's a form of punishment and vengeance.

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt."

When there is sickness, it's really that the mind is sick. A sick mind believes it is guilty. It sees itself guilty because it believes it has really sinned. Its guilt demands punishment and projects attack which attacks the body.

"But sickness is not of the body, but OF THE MIND. ALL forms of DISfunction are merely signs that the mind has split, and does not accept a UNIFIED PURPOSE."

"Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that IT will suffer pain." "and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

"Unless the mind BELIEVES the body is ACTUALLY acting out ITS fantasies, it will attack the body by INCREASING the projection of its guilt upon it."

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

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."

Clearly there is a theme here that physical sickness is a form of guilt resulting from a sick mind. When there is guilt in the mind, the mind conceives of "sickness" and attacks the body with it. The body becomes sick, taking on the form of physical symptoms. And when the mind is guiltless the body becomes healthy because the mind believes in healing, harmlessness and life.

"The Holy Spirit KNOWS that ALL Salvation is escape from guilt."

"It (mind) will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey. Now is the body healed because the source of sickness has been opened to relief."

"(Atonement) It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

"There is no place where holiness is not, and nowhere sin and sickness can abide. This is the thought that cures."

"We will not be misled today by what appears to us as sick. We go beyond appearances today, and reach the source of healing from which nothing is exempt."

And we are reminded again that THE HOLY SPIRIT is the healer and the cure. "We will be still and listen for the Voice of healing which will cure all ills as one, restoring saneness to the Son of God. No voice but This can cure."

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

To be clear, sickness is IMPOSSIBLE without guilt. Guilt IS sickness. The sickness of the body - illness, disease, damage, death, is all a form of guilt projected out as a shadow to disguise the guilt in the mind. "Guilt remains the only thing that hides the Father, FOR GUILT IS THE ATTACK UPON HIS SON."

"Minds ARE joined; bodies are not. Only by assigning to the mind the properties OF THE BODY, does separation SEEM to be possible. And it is MIND that seems to be fragmented and private and ALONE. Its guilt, which KEEPS it separate, is projected to the body, which suffers and dies, BECAUSE IT IS ATTACKED to hold the separation in the mind, and let it NOT KNOW its unity."

By associating a person with a body, believing the appearance of flesh and bones is "them", identifying them as physical, and thus making physical sickness a real and blinding deception, the body is confused with the mind. If the body is the mind then the body can cause sickness, which is level confusion and magic.

Thus to heal, the body must not be thought of as that which is truly sick. The body must not be thought of as the person. And the appearance of sickness must be recognized as an illusion covering up the mind's guilt. It's the guilt in the mind that is producing all physical symptoms. The mind is trying to destroy the body, having confused the body for the mind/self, as an attempt to destroy God's son.

In a sense, the notion of someone being "sick", is another way of saying "there's something wrong with you". Like when you accuse someone of "being sick" because of some disgust you have about what they're doing. The physical sickness is an accusation of guilt and corruption, or being dysfunctional and evil, a condemnation and an accusation of sin.

This is why the body is an effect or symbol of the mind, and its really the mind that is causing the body to die. This is why the body itself doesn't really "need" healing because it is just portraying the mind's sickness, and in and of itself is nothing but an image, faithful to its user and his/her intentions. Heal the mind of its guilt and the body MUST follow.

"The body needs NO healing. But the mind that thinks it IS a body is sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His PURPOSE folds the body in His light, and fills it with the holiness that shines from HIM."

"And nothing that the body says or does but makes HIM manifest. To those who know Him not it carries Him, in gentleness and love, to heal their minds."

"Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have It not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die."

"With THIS as purpose IS the body healed. It is NOT used to witness to the dream of separation and disease. Nor is it idly blamed for what it did not do. It serves to help the HEALING of God's Son, and, for THIS purpose, it cannot BE sick."

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

"I have forgotten what I really am,

For I mistook my body for myself.

Sickness is a defense against the truth,

But I am not a body. And my mind

Cannot attack. So I can not be sick."

Bodies are incredibly separating. They are like anchors, and little prison cells. One body is over here, the other is over there, separated by a gap of space and time. If you are in and as your body, and if the other person is in and as their body, you are not connected, you have no relationship, and are kept apart.

This separation gap will fester with sin and attack and specialness and selfishness. Identifying that you, who are you and your brother, are only located in and as your separate body, rips you away from them and separates your mind.

Part of your mind is in and as their mind, which you have located as separated off and bound to their body, out of reach to you. Given they are separate, if they so much as flinch in the wrong way, you will take it as an act of war, inflicted by a separate will against your will. Being bodies is an act of war. There can be no undoing of specialness while you believe your brother is anchored to a physical object.

Both of you are supposed to share everything, join entirely, be in psychological union as one, and overlap with each other. Your brother is part of yourself, and ONLY by recognizing and identifying your sense of self WITH them, including them on who and what you are, can you enter into love. Without this joining, love is absent and separation has taken hold, and conflict will not be far behind.

"You" (separate body) "did this to me" (separate body) "and I" (separate body) "did not do this to you" (separate body) "and therefore you are guilty." It is the entire basis of scapegoating and all sense of victimhood. If you are NOT your brother, there are two sides and there is war. You have excluded him by associating him with a body. You do not see him, because his body blocks your vision, a wall of flesh around his mind, locking him into darkness.

Bodies literally are in the way. They are completely opposite to the nature of the mind. They are separation devices. Your whole life you have identified people AS a separate body, not a part of you, kept away from you, responsible for their own acts and not yours, and whose interests are not your own. And every body-identified (egoic) mind sees themselves as separated off and held apart by the body. This is completely unnatural.

No one is a body. Bodies are designed to keep apart what God has put together as one. Your brother is literally you. Your minds are one. Your self is shared. You are both the whole Kingdom. What many people don't realize is that Jesus recognized that he IS EVERYONE, and that is why he united the will of the whole sonship with the father, and why you were with him when he ascended.

"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."

"The sonship is your soul."

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

"No one can remember God alone."

"In a split mind, identity MUST seem to be divided. Nor can anyone perceive a function unified which has conflicting purposes and different ends. Correction, to a mind so split, MUST be a way to punish sins you think are YOURS in someone else. And thus does he become your victim, NOT your brother, DIFFERENT from you in that he is MORE GUILTY, thus in need of your correction, as the one MORE INNOCENT than he. This splits HIS function off from yours, and gives you both a DIFFERENT role. And so you CANNOT be perceived as one, and with a single function that would MEAN a shared identity with but ONE end."

If you perceive that you have lost something, then your logical response is despair. You are not grateful because you have not received. Something has been taken away instead, and it inspires ingratitude. You also can feel the same way if you think you are getting something you do not want - you resent it, judge it and reject it instead of being grateful for it.

You will then feel that you do not want what has happened. You will fight with it, resist it, hate it, and wish it was the way it used to be. Whatever has been lost, you want it back. And you feel justified in feeling loss so long as it remains absent.

At the same time, the ego wants what has been lost to stay lost, because it really believes in loss as death. Loss is the gap of spacetime. Loss is the absence of love. Loss is the suggestion that something of God is missing from reality. It is a rejection of life and love and happiness. It is an attempt to die.

Such a state of mind does not inspire gratitude because it feels more like a treachery, a theft, a taking away, a diminishment, in which you now don't have what you should have. And then there will be hate and anger and resentment and a sense of not wanting whatever else someone or some place is offering, because it's not the thing you're missing.

In loss, you will then reject everything, not acknowledge what you have, not appreciate or even recognise what is present, and will just wish that you had the thing that is absent. But wanting what is not there can only produce what we call grief, which is the unhappy despair and sadness and sense of horror that everything of value has gone away.

But what can this be other than a denial of God, a rejection of love, an unwillingness to live, an insistence that death is true, and a failure to recognise what has been given. There is no gratitude because there is no acknowledgement of what you are receiving.

In fact, loss can be a lesson in which you have to learn to become grateful, and to receive. It is a state in which you are are trying to do the opposite of receive, as if you gave and didn't receive in return.

It's based on the ego's breakdown of the golden rule, in which it insists that giving and receiving are not one, and therefore you have not received what you have given. This is a state of sacrifice, as if something has been sacrificed.

But such a state of mind, which is really the rejection of love and God and receiving, can only produce feelings of loss and despair. It can only incite an attachment to what is gone, a wish it be present, and yet a firm belief that it must not be. It is a way of pushing love away, pushing the valued thing away, while at the same time wishing it was here.

This can only produce a kind of "split" in the mind which produces insanity and intensifies the ego. The ego loves to be in this contradictory state of wanting and not wanting at the same time. It wants what it does not have, and it does not want what it has. This is completely backwards, of course.

The remedy requires the recognition and acknowledgement that you are NOT at a loss, and in fact the total opposite is true. It must entail realising that God has given you everything, and therefore you lack nothing at all, loss is impossible, and everything you could ever really want has been given you.

This requires you to be willing to receive. It requites a willingness to want what you have, and to no longer want what you don't have. But the ego will say, it's impossible not to want the thing that's missing because you love it so much. You want it badly. And the idea of not wanting it seems like a betrayal.

Yet badly wanting something is a state of lack and need, and the more you believe in this lack the more you will want it. So you aren't really wanting it based on love, but based on not getting what you want. The loss is therefore selfish, as part of the ego.

It is in fact by wanting what you don't have instead of what you do have, that you produce a rejection of what is here right now, and therefore a denial and unwillingness to be grateful for what has been given you in the present. It is a rejection of the acknowledgement of gain, and a dwelling on absence and death. But in fact, a willingness to want what you have, not what you don't have, is the only sane approach.

In truth, if you move into a space of being willing to receive, acknowledging that everything has been given you, and that you have everything from God, you will suddenly find that in fact that means that you have love. And the only way to really acknowledge that you have the love you thought you lost, is to acknowledge that it is still being given to you right now. In fact, God has eternally given you love, and the only problem in you seeming to "lack it" and being at a loss, is an unwillingness to receive it. You might complain by feeling it is lost, but this is really an attempt NOT to have it.

By moving into a willingness to RECEIVE, you therefore admit that God has GIVEN everything, and fully, and so completely, that in fact you have been gifted, blessed, honoured and completely recognised. In fact you have not been left out at all, you have been utterly showered with everything you could ever really want. And in that recognition that it is coming TO you, and you HAVE it, you immediately move into a natural response of gratitude. Gratitude opens your awareness to RECEIVE and to WANT what you are receiving, instead of wanting what you are not receiving.

Gratitude is therefore the antidote to loss, because it recognises gain and completely ignores the ego's insistence that death is possible. Loss is really ingratitude for what is. In fact, gratitude to God for life is the way to receive life, and is the rejection of death and the belief in death. And without a lack of God, there can be no sense of loss at all. And then suddenly you will find that everything you thought you did not want is suddenly something you can embrace and accept and want. And then you open up to a whole new life that was in front of your face all along, even while you were unwilling to acknowledge it.

And the good part is, that the love you thought you lost, is not only still with you, it is in you, as you, given to you, shared with you, and had never really left. And thank God for that. How could you actually experience that you had the love you thought was lost, if you weren't willing to gratefully receive it?! This is simply a lesson in becoming grateful to God for what he has guaranteed to be yours forever. A simple movement out of loss and despair and disaster and failure, into total happiness and gladness that everything is present and accounted for.

"Love is the way I walk in gratitude."

"And gratitude can only be sincere if it is joined to love."

"Walk, then, in gratitude the way of love."

"Today we learn to think of gratitude in place of anger, malice and revenge. We have been given everything. If we refuse to recognize it, we are now entitled therefore to our bitterness, and to a self-perception which regards us in a place of merciless pursuit, where we are badgered ceaselessly and pushed about without a thought or care for us or for our future."

"Our gratitude will pave the way to Him, and shorten our learning time by more than you could ever dream of."

"For gratitude is but an aspect of the love which is the Source of all creation."

"For love can walk no road except the way of gratitude, and thus we go who walk the way to God."

"A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benefit of some insight into the real extent of all the gains which you have made; the gifts you have received."

"Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair, and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. We sing the song of thankfulness today in honor of the Self Which God has willed to be our true identity in Him. Today we smile on everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is appointed us to do."

"In gratitude and thankfulness we come, with empty hands and open hearts and minds, asking but what You give."

"My gratitude permits my love to be accepted without fear. And thus am I restored to my Reality at last."

"What IS Heaven, but a song of gratitude and love and praise, by everything created, to the Source of its creation?"

"YOU are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude."

"And with My gratitude will come the gift first of forgiveness, then eternal peace."

"What is your life but gratitude to Him Who loves you with an everlasting Love?"

"The unhealed healer wants gratitude FROM his brothers, but he is NOT grateful to them. This is because he thinks he is giving something TO them, and is NOT receiving something equally desirable in return. His TEACHING is limited because he is LEARNING so little. His HEALING lesson is limited by his own ingratitude, which is a lesson in sickness."

"Your gratitude to each OTHER is the only gift I want."

"Let our gratitude unto our Teacher fill our hearts as we are free to choose our joy instead of pain, our holiness in place of sin, the peace of God instead of conflict, and the light of Heaven for the darkness of the world."

"God's justice warrants gratitude, NOT fear."

"And by this LACK of thanks and gratitude, you make YOURSELVES unable to EXPRESS the holy instant, and thus you lose sight of it." "Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. Man should thank God for what he really is. The Children of God are very holy. The miracle honors their holiness."

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

So even before having any sense of what you could change God's creation INTO, you started out with the idea that you COULD change God's creation at all. That includes the belief you can change God himself, change yourself, or change anything else real. This must include the 'mad idea' that things which literally are permanent and CANNOT be changed, can be changed. So this represent the first slip into believing something false, believing the impossible is possible, and thus denying reality.

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

So now having decided that you can change things that are permanently unchangeable, you start to explore what it can be changed INTO, and thus get this idea that the perfect can be made to be imperfect. That there can be something lacking, needs arising, problems developing, a sense of the absence of God growing.

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

This now includes the idea that even your own self, which God created to be permanent, is changeable, can be made to be imperfect, taken away from its perfection, converted into something else. And that YOU can be the one to do this, therefore CAUSING your own self to be whatever you decide to change it into.

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

So now you set about the belief that because you can change your own self, can make yourself imperfect, and can literally 'redefine' who and what you are "at will", you can determine the "direction of your own creation", ie whether or not you are created at all (life vs death), and that if you do continue to exist, what 'form' you take or what is true of your nature or how you function. You think you now have the power to "create yourself" or re-create yourself, in whatever way you please, which has to automatically deny the Father's role as your Creator.

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

You become "ego", by having taken on this position of believing you created yourself, God is not your father, God is absent, you have control over yourself, you can define yourself to be whatever you want to be, you are "constantly changing", you can destroy yourself, you have an ability to determine what you are, and that you have the power to redefine what is true and what is real. This is essentially what egotism is. It's this 'logical conclusion' we've come to on the basis of believing the permanent can be changed, and now we find ourselves in a state of constantly denying what's permanently real and trying to constantly change it into something that it's not.

"I want the peace of God." W185

There's over 100 references in ACIM to "the peace of God". Years ago I wouldn't have thought that peace is something I want. It wasn't a priority. I just wanted all the stupid people to go away, lol.

But the more I've done the course the more it's becoming apparent that peace is very central to the experience I SHOULD be having.

I had a dream a few years ago which showed me an example of extraordinary peace.

In the dream there was a small outdoor scene with some trees and a wild grassy area, and a sort of sky with clouds, although the clouds seemed to be very nearby.

The clouds parted and as they did, they took on an extraordinary emerald green color, rich and vibrant and beautiful. An opening appeared and there floated in, from beyond the clouds, were a pair of beautiful orbs of light, which seemed to be radiating life and light and coloring the landscape as they went.

These orbs were spheres, and glowed gently from within. It wasn't like a dazzling light, just a soft glow. They seemed mostly transparent, and about the size of a bowling ball.

The two orbs floated very slowly and quietly past where I stood, and continued to float on forward, under their own will. But the thing that really struck me was the quality of the atmosphere and how it felt.

The orbs were alive, and were aware, and were extremely peaceful. They seemed to have no ounce of a sense of attack or irritation or disturbance. They were so incredibly calm and quiet, so perfectly innocent, holy even.

They could not not have been more pure, more simple, or more beautiful. They just glided along softly together, as though accompanying each other, and were perfectly unhurried and peaceful.

That's about where the dream ends. But I still think back on it and, when I do, I feel that same peace, and it becomes an inspiration. As I think about what that felt like, I can draw a number of ideas from it.

A total lack of all conflict, a total absence of war, a total lack of any sense of fighting or disturbance or angry aggression. A total innocence, so pure and gentle and simple, like it was just born from God.

No sense of irritation, or annoyance, or frustration or any kind of bitterness or resentment. No sense of guilt or sin or shame or unworthiness. Not the slightest speck of inflammation or agitation or interruption of any kind.

Perfectly calm and tranquil, with no force or pressure, no sense of threat or danger, no concern or worry or doubt or fear. Nothing complicated or distorted, no denial or rejection, no defences, and absolutely no sense of urgency.

Just total calm and total peace and total simple being. Total freedom, total beautiful innocent simplicity, and total calm gentle joy.

This I feel is what I really want, and what we all want. And it highlights how all these things that were absent - are all things that we are so accustomed to living with and tolerating. All the ego emotions and hurts, all the fighting and war and conflict, all the fear and guilt. All of it has to go.

I used to think somehow that the pinnacle of human experience might be some kind of heroic role in which we have superpowers and can do whatever we want, flying around the room with a cloak on. But this ego fantasy of being the savior to wretched peasants is being replaced with a simpler goal of humbleness and quiet.

And when all of that stuff goes, stuff that we think is normal and commonplace, all the sense of separation and tension and conflict goes with it. And what is left is just this lovely extremely calm peacefulness, lacking all sense of something being wrong in any way.

Perhaps that's what we are really. Just simple orbs of light floating around calmly and happily, in total surrender and total contentment, with no enemies and no reasons for concern. Just being at peace with God. Free and alive, floating along with not a care in the world.

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt" - ACIM from "Only salvation can be said to cure".

Sickness is a form of guilt. You cannot recognize it as guilt if you do not clearly recognize what salvation is, ie the truth of the Atonement. You need to be able to be clear about what guilt IS, and what it is not, ie that it is not innocence, in order to clearly see sickness and recognize it as a form of guilt.

Accepting the atonement for yourself, which is accepting the "cure" for yourself, allows you to recognize what the truth is, on its terms, without your ego distorting it. In your willingness to accept it is true, to understand why it is true, and to experience its truth, it shines a light which reframes the illusion of sickness when seen in others.

Sickness is then more clearly recognized not as a valid state of truth, but as a state of guilt. A state of self attack. A state of punishment. If sickness is present, the person IS attacking themselves, and there is only one reason to do so - they believe that they sinned. Their sickness is literally a symptom of guilt.

Those who believe in sin do not believe in innocence. Those who believe in sin do not believe in health. Those who believe in sin are busy finding ways to punish themselves. Sickness becomes equated with, and actually seen as "guilt", when the Atonement is accepted and innocence is recognized as true.

When somenone is sick, (and in ACIM terms, sicknes means any kind of sense of separation from God, not just physical expressions of sickness), when they are mentally separated from truth, they are believing in guilt. And this will manifest as forms of sickness in the body and in other areas of life. And these will be areas of guilt and punishment.

If you are willing to accept salvation for yourself, which means to become able to ACCEPT that the Atonement is true, ie there is no such thing as real sin and real sin has not happened, your clarity and willingness then allows you to claim "for others" that they too are worthy of love because they too have not sinned.

Their sins become more obvious as being untrue of them, as much as your own are untrue of you. You will not see their sickness as truth or as reality. You will recognize the person is experiencing guilt and is acting against themselves. They do not deserve this. They deserve the same love that you have come to recognize you deserve, because of your acceptance of the Atonement's message and reality.

Cancelling the illusion of sickness, masquerading as sickness, seeing past it to recognize the guilt, and recognizing it as untrue, gives you the power to set your brother free. This is why Jesus was able to tell people that their sins were forgiven. It wasn't that they had been pardoned, but that He knew their sins were not really sins. Sin is not real.

He instead recognized their state of believing they were sinful needed to be healed and undone. He was so certain and clear that they were nothing short of completely innocent, that He did not get hung up on their illusion of sickness for a second. And that gave him the ability to dispel those illusions and cast them off like they were nothing.

If the Atonement is true for you, it MUST be true for your brothers and sisters also. The Atonement tells you that there is no division and there is no separation and there is no set of rules that apply differently to one person and not another. If love applies to you, because you are forgiven, then it also applies to everyone around you. They are seen as lovable because you see yourself as lovable.

Because they are you. They literally are your shared identity in Christ. One.

What we do in secret, and separately from God, and thinking that it is not something God is aware of, and which we hope other people do not know about, and how we suffer in silence, and feel things that we don't want other people to know we feel, and think things that we don't want to admit to thinking, this is all us doing it in the 'darkness' of the ego.

Darkness is the absence of light (God) and there can only be a darkness if light is SHUT OUT, which you do by entering into some kind of private, secret world, where you do not 100% fully share things openly. Indeed, coming into the physical world is an attempt to enter into a secret, private world, where God's light is absent - a world of darkness and despair.

If you are not fully 'open', like the shutter on a camera, light cannot get all the way in. If the shutter is closed, you will have a picture of darkness. When you 'shut down', become closed, withdraw, hide, go into secret fantasy land, conceal, deny, resist, attack, or in any way enter into EGO, you are shutting out the light.

Things that you KEEP in the dark, remain seemingly unhealable because you are not allowing them to gain light exposure. Exposure to light shows them for what they are and dismisses them, effectively revealing that they only existed IN the dark and do not really exist IN the light at all.

Therefore, everything that you do in the dark, or in secret, or which you keep buried, or do not want to admit to, ONLY EXISTS so long as you KEEP it in the dark, because it is MADE FROM darkness itself. All illusions are made from darkness. They are not made from light.

So as you expose yourself to God/light/love, these dark things must be exposed to the light and seen IN the light, and since they are not made OF light they do not exist in the light, so when you look IN the light for them you will not find them, because they will have DISAPPEARED. Light shines away darkness because darkness is only the absence of light, not a real thing in itself. This is why shadows disappear when light illuminates the scene. This is why the darkness of night disappears when the sun comes up. Where does it go? It does not exist.

You can stay in the dark and keep your dark illusions and dark fantasies about how dark you are and how real the darkness is, OR, you can open up and expose yourself courageously to God, knowing that GOD DOES NOT ATTACK, and GOD LOVES YOU UNCONDITIONALLY, and ALLOW the light to heal you of this darkness. Love replaces darkness with itself, and you are NOT held accountable for being dark, because you are MADE OF LIGHT.

Darkness is illusion. Light is reality. In truth you are innocent and holy, but if you don't allow yourself to step into the light, you will believe you are sinful and guilty. Only in the dark, where you cannot even see properly, could you think you are sinful and guilty. Only in the light, where you can finally SEE, can you be ABLE to recognize that you are only pure and innocent.

"I cannot see in darkness but in light"

"I am not an illusion but a reality"

- ACIM

God and his Kingdom are unlimited. They are EVERYTHING. In the separation from God, we tried to be opposite to God. We made-up a world opposite to everything. The opposite of everything is NOTHING At the same time, we confused the true with the false, and so believed that the nothing was actually SOMETHING. This is the entire problem to be corrected. It is a lack of recognition that the world is absolutely NOTHING. It is because you believe it is SOMETHING, that you think it has something to offer, or something to do to you.

What is nothing has no real effects because it is not really a cause. The world isn't right or wrong or good or bad. The world isn't anything at all. It is meaningless because of this nothingness.

God's Kingdom is all meaningful and means everything to you. The world you made means NOTHING AT ALL. But you tried to GIVE IT meaning that it does not have. Because it is NOTHING it can reflect the meaning you project onto it. But of itself it has none. Of itself it has nothing of anything. The world is not a something, it is an ABSENCE.

Our task then is simply to see through the lies and appearances produced by the wishful thinking, ie the denial, that the world IS something, when it isn't. To stop believing it can BE something it is not. Or indeed that it can be anything at all. There is nothing there. It's not really a world. It's an illusion of a world. A smokescreen. A hallucination of a world. It is unreal and does not exist. There is no world at all.

To recognize it AS nothing requires seeing through illusions. It requires correctly discerning that the world is NOT what you thought it was. It also requires the recognition of what it IS, which is nothing. You are not really afraid of nothing because, being afraid of nothing means you have no fear at all. You are afraid of nothingNESS because you think it's something you can experience - as if it is somethingNESS. Yet it cannot be both something and nothing at the same time.

Jesus asks us merely to come to our senses and realize that the world is nothing whatsoever. The body is nothing. Events are nothing. Nothing is happening. Or indeed, the nothingness is not happening. It's only because we think there really is a world there that we suffer. It's only because we give the body roles and duties and laws and purposes that it seems to become sick. We keep trying to twist a world of nothing into a dedicated something, which it cannot be. And so this denial attacks it.

Let the world be nothing. Only by it being nothing can you truly let it go. Its meaninglessness, emptiness, nothingness and absence must be recognized. What is absent CANNOT BE THERE. what is nothing cannot be the truth of everything. What is nothingness CANNOT HAPPEN. There is no world.

The world is not a guilty world or a sinful world. Nor is it an innocent world or a holy world. It is not a forgiven world or an accused world. The world isn't anything at all. To forgive it is to overlook it and to not see it. And so the world must disappear because it is not there to be seen or believed. Only the Kingdom of God remains.

"What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real."

"Symbols which but represent ideas that cannot BE, must stand for empty space and nothingness. Yet nothingness and empty space can NOT be interference. What CAN interfere with the awareness of reality is the belief that there is SOMETHING THERE."

"The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power IN ITSELF. As something, it CAN be perceived, and thought to feel and act, and hold you in its grasp as prisoner to itself." ... "Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee."

"His body's nothingness releases yours from sickness and from death."

"Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its NOTHINGNESS is guarantee that it can NOT be sick. In your demand that it be MORE than this lies the idea of sickness."

"What can the causeless BE but nothingness. The picture of your brother that you see is wholly absent, and has never been. Let, then, the empty space it occupies be RECOGNIZED as vacant, and the time devoted to its seeing be perceived as idly spent, a time unoccupied."

"For here is nothingness, where neither birth nor death is real, nor any form in the misshapen mind that spawned it has any meaning in the Mind of God."

"Dreams are dreams, and every one is equally untrue. This is the only lesson to be learned. Yet will fear linger until every one is recognized as nothingness, and seen exactly as it is and nothing more."

"Now the hosts of Heaven come with us, to sweep away all vestiges of dreams and every thought that rests on nothingness."

"The final judgment on the world contains no condemnation. For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin, and wholly purposeless. Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness. There it was born, and there it ends as well. And all the figures in the dream in which the world began go with it. Bodies now are useless, and will therefore fade away, because the Son of God is limitless."

"Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, "protective" clothing, "influence," "prestige," being liked, knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness which you endow with magical powers."

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see." ... "See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."

"To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT GO."

"To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it. As such, it is the prerequisite for vision."

"The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

"The "changes" the ego seeks to make are not really changes. They are but deeper shadows, or perhaps different cloud patterns. Yet what is made of nothingness cannot be called new or different. Illusions are illusions; truth is truth."

"God's Will is all there is. We can but go from nothingness to everything; from hell to Heaven."

"Such is the choice. What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed!"

"Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share."

"What is the SENSE in seeking to be safe in what was MADE for danger and for fear? Why burden it with further locks and chains and heavy anchors, when its weakness lies, NOT in itself, but in the frailty of the little gap of nothingness whereon it stands?"

"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the presence of God."

"God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you."

"Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly."

"Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary, and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it."

"Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized."

"And the alternative you think you chose seems fearful and too dangerous to be the nothingness it actually is."

"How can a battle be perceived as nothingness, when you ENGAGE in it? How can the truth of miracles be RECOGNIZED, if murder is your choice?"

"There is a silence covering the world that was an ancient dream so long ago no one remembers now. Its time is done, and in the little space it seemed to have is nothingness. The dream has gone, and all its dreams of gifts have disappeared as well. The first dream has been seen and understood for merely an illusion of the fear on which the world was based."

"To mean these words acknowledges illusions are in vain, requesting the eternal in the place of shifting dreams which seem to change in what they offer, but are one in nothingness."

"Pursuit of the imagined leads to death because it is the search for nothingness, and while you seek for life you ask for death"

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives."

"The more complicated the results become, the harder it may be to recognize their nothingness, but it is not necessary to examine ALL possible outcomes to which premises give rise to judge the PREMISES truly."

"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt."

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

"And so is ALL time past, and everything EXACTLY as it was before the way to nothingness was made."

"Specialness is the idea of sin MADE REAL. Sin is impossible even to imagine, without this base. For sin rose from it, out of nothingness, an evil flower with no roots at all."

"Only the ANTICIPATION will frighten you, for the reality of nothingness cannot be frightening."

"Very simply, then, you may BELIEVE you are afraid of nothingNESS, but you are REALLY afraid of NOTHING. And in THAT awareness you ARE healed."

"In the Divine psyche, the Father and the Holy Spirit are not incomplete at all. The Sonship has the unique faculty of believing in error, or incompleteness, if he so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement."

Once again, last evening, I asked God what he wanted me to 'do', thinking that there were actions or things to 'do', and His reply to me was:

"Receive."

I realize that my ego mind is SO used to 'seeking', which is kind of like an activity of 'going out' to try to manipulate the world, to find, to fix, to change, to perform actions, to rearrange furniture, etc.

It's like, we have a motor in our mind. The motor wants to keep running. It wants to keep going somewhere. It wants to keep doing something different. Finding something different. Searching for answers. Changing someone. It is all do do do do do do do go go go go go go all the time. This is its ONLY mode of operation.

And all of that is really encapsulated in the word "seeking". The ego mind is just constantly in this activity of seeking. Of thinking that it has to go somewhere or do something in order to 'get' or 'find' what it does not have HERE AND NOW.

So when I go to God and I ask, what should I DO.... really I'm saying, what should i seek for and where should I go to find it and what should I do to change it. And I have the best intentions. I think that this is noble or honest or helpful or holy or spiritual. But really, it is still seeking. It's still ego going away from the here and now, away from acceptance, away from stillness or surrender.

So God's answer to me - "receive" - really DOES actually address what the real problem is. The real problem is that I am addicting to seeking, because I continue to have this ego belief that I DO NOT HAVE GOD. This is what it all boils down to. If I'm absent from God and am not with God now and do not have God in me, then I seem to need to go fill this emptiness somewhere else.

So the remedy is clear and simple. I need to RECEIVE GOD. I need to open up to accept, admit and allow (the 3 A's?), that GOD IS HERE WITH ME NOW.

And this also means I need to SURRENDER the search, surrender the 'going and doing', surrender the 'something has to be done about this', and surrender all of the things I think are needed or have to be done 'because of' the lack of God. If I just accept that I am lacking God, I will be compelled to go find answers somewhere else, in some activity or change or manipulation. And I will think that God has to tell me what to DO in order to ACHIEVE those changes and manipulations, as if that would actually answer and solve them.

I don't realize that all of this compulsion to find - the seeking - satisfying that seeking or completing that seeking by finding outside of myself, WILL NOT bring me peace. AND, I will not be able to find those resolutions anyway because of "seek and do not find". What I think I want, is not there. The answer (God) is not there. The peace and certainty and clarity is not out there. The only thing 'out there' are illusions and distractions and dead ends.

So God knows. God knows what I need. God knows that I need to stop GOING AWAY FROM GOD, in order for this 'problem' to be solved. In order for ALL problems to be solved. Even the ones that I think are important, or every-day living types of problems. For these to be solved, I need to realize where they come from. ALL of these problems arise out of not knowing that God is with me. Of not depending on Him. I need to therefore undo THAT issue, which is by allowing God to be with me, and then the perception of all of these problems even being 'important' in any way, will dissolve.

"Let me recognize that all of my problems have been solved" - ACIM

And so.... I stop...... and I surrender....... and I receive God. And I just receive. And receive some more. And I say, "ok God, go ahead and flood me with more love".... and I receive more.... and I say "ok God, I receive your love, I receive your love, I receive your love". And I feel it. And I receive it. And all of the problems of life melt away. And who cares about fixing any of them anyway? They were all IMAGINARY!

All you need is love. It's being given constantly. You just need to receive it.

Love has a fundamental rule that it MUST be shared, otherwise it is NOT love. This means that love is tied to oneness. You must be one with your brother IN ORDER TO experience the state of love. They must be included in the love, included in who and what you are, otherwise love is absent.

When two separate people see themselves as separated off, but try to love each other, the love is CONDITIONAL. It is a special love. They may feel the love strongly or even describe it as unconditional, but so long as separation is preserved the love is limited. Nor will it be felt all the time.

In order to truly unconditionally love, there must be no conditions on who or what you are, which means your must INCLUDE your brother as part of yourself. Your must have shared interests and joined minds. You must be in total agreement and appreciation.

ONLY by sharing can you love, because love is the opposite of selfishness. It's a feeling or state that you experience WHEN your mind is OPENED UP to include others. A mind that is shut down, exclusive, isolated, limited and alone, is not a loving mind.

You also cannot be loving IN ISOLATION. It cannot be that you are loving fully and yet other people are EXCLUDED from your love, or from your self. Love must go out and it must extend and it must be given and shared without any strings attached. Otherwise it can't be love. And that REQUIRES ONENESS.

When you see yourself as one with another, as including them, encompassing them, uniting with them and sharing everything with them, THEN you will automatically feel love. Love isn't actually something that you can just invent on the spot. It is not something you MAKE. It is not something that you switch on or add as if it wasn't there.

Love is actually an inherent part of reality and of God's law and nature. It should be felt all the time. But if it is not being felt, it is because it is being blocked. That means there is denial and limitation and conditionality. Therefore in order to feel love for someone it's not a matter of you deciding to "invent some exclusive love" just for that person, which simultaneously shuts others out. In order to ACCESS to love, we are really talking about you accessing A SHARED STATE in which all love pre-exists and dwells AS GOD.

To love, therefore, requires you to enter into union with God, to share with God, to be open to God. And that means being inclusive of all God's children. It means shared identity, holy relationship, innocence, recognition of your brother as part of yourself, a willingness TO INCLUDE, and a complete absence of any kind of exclusions or exceptions. Love is then felt automatically without any effort whatsoever. It is simply there when you share. It is what true sharing feels like.

You can try this for yourself. Attempt to see someone close to you as being a part of you. Attempt to extend yourself to include them, as though enveloping them in the bubble of what BOTH of you are together as one. Recognize they are part of you and therefore everything applies to both of you. Share with them. You WILL notice that a feeling of LOVE just comes out of nowhere. This is because you have MET ITS CONDITIONS.

"Love MUST be extended. Purity is not confined. It is the NATURE of the innocent to be forever uncontained, without a barrier or limitation."

"Love MUST be total to give Him welcome"

"ACCEPT the miracle of healing, and it WILL go forth, because of what it IS. It is its NATURE to extend itself the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and RECEIVED."

"Where there is love, your brother MUST give it to you, because of what it IS. But where there is NEED for love, YOU must give it, because of what YOU are."

"Love goes out because of what it is"

"Holiness MUST be shared, for therein lies everything that makes it holy."

"Love is one."

"Love is a law without an opposite. Its wholeness is the power holding everything as one, the link between the Father and the Son which holds them both forever as the same."

"Love is not learned, because there never WAS a time in which you knew it not."

"Fear appears in many different forms, but love is one."

"And every one I give returns to me, reminding me the law of love is universal."

"In Heaven, where the meaning of love is known, love is the same as UNION."

"Love IS extension."

"In this sense, everything that comes from love is a miracle."

"Teach only love, and learn that love is yours and YOU are love."

"For if love is SHARING, how can you find it except through ITSELF? Offer it and it will come to you, because it is drawn to itself."

"LOVE IS FREEDOM."

"Love is incapable of ANY exceptions."

"That is because the function of love is One."

"How gracious is it to decide all things through Him, Whose equal love is given equally to all alike. He leaves you no one OUTSIDE yourself, alone WITHOUT you. And so He gives you what is yours, because your Father would have you share it WITH him."

For a short time yesterday, my body vanished from my conscious awareness. I had my eyes closed at the time and was thinking about some stuff...

I had this sudden vision of a small scene, perhaps a trail or some short stretch of path, and there was a body laying there. But then the body collapsed in on itself, and then flattened, and took on a dark shadow-like coloring, and then it completely just totally disappeared, like totally erased from the scene. I don't know if I was being shown this perhaps.

But then the next moment, as if related somehow, I suddenly had this awareness that my own physical body was not there anymore. Not simply that it was there but I was recognizing its unreality, it literally was gone. It had become invisible and totally absent.

I seemed to be still me as if some energy form or something, but the physical body that had surrounded me was gone. In an instant it seemed to fade and just vanish. I immediately thought of a quote from the course...

"Miracles are the absence of the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from lower order reality. That is why they heal."

Then I had this thought, is this a miracle, and does this mean I'm being healed somehow?

What then was the most stark and interesting fact, was just this amazing contrast between not having a body and all the various things that I believe about the body being real. Such as that it has biological mechanisms, or has a past history, or is physically solid, or that there's all these rules that have to be followed for its preservation, that it needs to be fed and slept and so on. All of those in an instant seemed completely irrelevant and meaningless.

I marveled to myself, that if the body can be just so easily switched off like that, it can't even really be a body. It's like some kind of hollow empty shell. Everything about it is fake and none of the stories about how it functions or what it depends on are true.

I also thought about how "miracles are teaching devices", because when you are exposed to something where the body is suddenly healed or something happens violating the laws of physics, or your body vanishes, there is just this incredibly profound education about the fact that the body is not anything at all. It uproots everything you ever believed. It confronts every bit of folklore about how the body works and behaves and must be protected and so on. All of it is suddenly false.

This went on for about 10 seconds or so as I felt myself bodiless. I noticed that I had a slight sense of the presence of the ends of my arms and legs, my hands and feet, but only mildly. And then I returned. Whether I was being shown this or escorted to see this or whatever I don't know. Nor could I get the experience to return on my own.

It was the most unexpected and peculiar thing, to have something you've always thought to be not only your self but also to be real and solid and important, to just be shown to be nothing but an imaginary image that can be flipped off like a switch. As though it means nothing whatsoever.

I'm reminded of this:

"You have made much progress, and are really trying to make still more, but there is one thing you have never done; not for one instant have you utterly forgotten the body. It has faded at times from your sight, but it has not yet COMPLETELY DISAPPEARED. You are not asked to let this happen for more than an instant, but it is in this instant that the miracle of Atonement happens. Afterwards, you will see the body again, but never quite the same. And every instant that you spend WITHOUT awareness of it gives you a different view of it, when you return."

I've seen how when I want to make something go away, I make myself sick.

We attempt to psychologically reject and push something away when we find it threatening, dangerous or undesirable, all of which is a perceptual error. This however immediately implements some form of sickness. Sickness is INDUCED by the attempt to separate from your BROTHER!

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

When we perceive a threat or danger, or someone is fear-mongering, or there is "bad news", or some obnoxious person is hanging around, or whatever... if we perceive it as having power to attack and we want it to stop, instead of making it stop or dis-believing in it, we put up defenses. We try to reject and separate ourselves from it. That's a bad move. It attacks our body. "If I defend myself I am attacked."

I gave myself a panic attack yesterday at a medical office when the staff started becoming serious about heart problems that aren't real. Try as I might I couldn't help but try to reject and resist, and thus induced sickness and almost fainted. Later during forgiveness I saw how I'd done that to myself, trying to make it go away, as the result of *perceiving* that there was a real threat or danger.

Previously also I recall a very talkative coworker kept hanging around at my desk trying to chat, and wouldn't go away. And then got into chatting with others nearby. And instead of standing up to tell them to leave I just tolerated and tried to be patient, but wanted them to go away. And this induced a sudden immediate headache. Trying to separate from your brother induces sickness.

I also once gave myself an ear infection in a matter of hours as a result of trying to make Holy Spirit go away, having perceived his lack of "boundaries" as a threat. I suffered for a few days before being able to re-approach him without fear and thus recognize what I'd done to myself, and upon recognizing I did not NEED the defense, all symptoms disappeared within a matter of hours.

Whenever we USE SEPARATION as a tool, which is an ego tool, to try to "deal with" perceived situations, our attempt to put up a defense and withdraw into ourselves cuts us off from life, blocks extension, fosters separation, produces sickness, and eventually death ("sickness is but a little death"). Our attempt to DENY GOD or our brothers (whom God is in) is the only cause of bodily death. This is why all death is suicide - we give our consent through our denial of God's will. IT IS NOT GOD's WILL THAT ANYONE DIE. A dream of death is not left THROUGh death, but through life - truth.

Sickness cannot happen at all when you do not have a belief in separation in any way. When your mind extends to your brothers mind sharing love, it undoes all sense of separation and your minds join. In this joining there is no split and no division and no attack, and nothing for sickness to latch onto. It therefore MUST heal, and as such death is surmounted. This is a miracle, it is resurrection.

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

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

Notice it says NOW IS THE *BODY* HEALED.

"You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible." This is literal. Sickness becomes impossible when your mind is whole and healed.

Atonement makes sickness IMPOSSIBLE. This DOES MEAN BODY SICKNESS as well as mental illness.

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

So sickness IS A FORM OF GUILT, and if there is no guilt, there can be no sickness or death. Period.

Anyone who is sick, is trying to kill themselves.

That's the harsh truth of it.

"Sickness is but a little death."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, ***for it is but another form of guilt***."

ALL sickness, is induced by guilt. And guilt is induced by believing that sin is real. If sin is real, you must be punished. This is the ego's law. It reasons logically that if you DID sin, you ARE guilty, and DO deserve to suffer as a result. It makes sense.

"The laws of sin DEMAND a victim."

"Guilt ASKS FOR punishment"

"The wages of sin is death."

"If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves."

These are harsh facts.

What this means in summary is, someone chooses to believe they have sinned, this automatically instills the belief they are guilty, the guilt turns into literal physical and mental sickness, which is an attempt to bring about self inflicted punishment - an attempt at suicide. The end result is always eventually death. Anyone who believes in sin or in being sinful has a death wish. And every single sick person is trying to destroy themselves.

The only way out of this seeming horror story, is through atonement, which entails the forgiveness of the belief in sin, the recognition and acceptance of innocence, and the undoing of the consequences of the mistaken belief in sin.

"Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

Sickness is NOT POSSIBLE without guilt. But where there is guilt, there is ALWAYS sickness.

Those who are sick DO believe they are guilty, deep down. Regardless of whether they admit it or are aware of it.

What that means is, everyone who has any belief in sin or guilt at all, IS sick, and IS trying to destroy themselves.

Which also means, this world is filled with people committing suicide.

"YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them""For the wages of sin is death, and how can the immortal die?""Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

"Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; Eternal life must die."

"Behold me, brother, at your hand I die."

Of course, keeping it all in perspective, it is not REAL sin, or REAL guilt, or REAL hatred, or REAL sickness or REAL death. These are all fiction and fantasy in an illusory dream world. Because nothing real can be threatened. But while we're here suffering we do not BELIEVE these things are unreal, and it is our belief in guilt and sickness and death that brings them to manifest in the body and mind. A guilty mind MUST suffer.

This is not a call to make anyone feel guilty for being sick, or to accuse anyone, or to try to make people feel worse about it. If you can put that ego reaction aside and look at it honestly, it's simply a truth which has the potential to set you free. Sickness is not necessary, or deserved, or needed. It is a reaction to condemnation of yourself. And you are literally incapable of really sinning. So you cannot be guilty, and you need not suffer.

"God does not will that you suffer."

No-one needs to be sick, to suffer, or to die a horrible death. Even if it's an illusion. The body can be healed by the mind that no longer believes in sin and death.

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone. We said before that illness is a form of magic. It might be better to say it is a form of magical SOLUTION. The ego believes that by punishing ITSELF, it will mitigate the punishment of God."

"Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts which are untrue. They are the "proof " that what has no reality is real. Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; Eternal life must die. And God Himself has lost the Son He loves, with but corruption to complete Himself, His Will forever overcome by death, love slain by hate, and peace to be no more."

"A madman's dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game. The Son of God may play he has become a body, prey to evil and to guilt, with but a little life that ends in death. But all the while his Father shines on him, and loves him with an everlasting Love which his pretenses cannot change at all.

How long, oh Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home? Perhaps today? There is no sin. Creation is unchanged. Would you still hold return to Heaven back? How long, oh holy Son of God, how long?"

Everything real is of God, within God. God has no opposite because God is infinite, everywhere, always. It is not possible to leave God. There is nowhere that God is not. Anywhere "else", which must be unreal, does not exist.

"Ego", is nothing but a concept. It's an idea of a TOTAL OPPOSITE to God. Since God is absolute existence, the idea of an ego is "total non existence". Literally, this conceptual idea of total opposition to God DOES NOT EXIST. Non-existence has no existence at all.

The ego is also the idea that you can totally LEAVE God, be OUTSIDE of God, totally separate from and cut off from God, in an entirely separate realm of "existence", in which God is 100% absolutely absent and there is NO LIFE. It's the idea that you can and have left God entirely, have successfully separated from reality, and are now NOWHERE, not existing, having no life, in total oblivion.

This notion, this idea, of total opposition to and separate from God, IS the idea of the ego. But IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. Non-existence HAS no existence whatsoever. It is not possible to go there, exist there, be there or live there. We have not done this. Not even in our dreaming. It's a "goal", a "wish", but it is wishful thinking to believe you can accomplish it. God has no exit.

It is literally impossible to be outside of God's being. It is therefore literally impossible to be "inside" or "in" ego. In fact, the idea of ego is the idea of nothing. "The ego" has never lived, it has no life, no mind, no will, no power, no force, no opinion, absolutely nothing. It DOES NOT exist. It is literally NON-EXISTENCE. So all it can ever be to us is a CONCEPTUAL IDEA.

The "tiny mad idea" is the idea that IMPOSSIBLE NON-EXISTENCE actually exists. It is INSANE to believe this. You CAN believe impossible lies if you choose to, but this does not make them REAL, and believing it you MUST BE MISTAKEN.

You could not EVER even in the greatest delusion produce a state of non-existence. You could not separate yourself off from God's being. You could not leave God's reality. You could not produce a state opposite to God that HAS existence. You could not place yourself in a location that you can call "non-existence". Non-existence does not exist. Ever.

But what you DID DO, is you ATTEMPTED to APPROACH this state. You attempted to TRY to leave God. You tried to imagine that you COULD leave God completely, and that you had. And given that this was literally impossible, you WERE very confused, delusional, deceived and mistaken. You HAVE NOT DONE what you think you have done. ("There is no sin.")

It's kind of like, you are inside God still, but you imagine God has "outer walls". And then you imagine that you can push against these walls causing them to stretch. You think that if you push hard enough you will cause the walls to thin out. And that perhaps even in the greatest opposition to life imaginable, you'll be able to actually BREAK THROUGH .... to non-existence. That you'll literally be able to LEAVE God forever. To enter into some state where He DOES NOT exist.

The good news is, you WILL NEVER accomplish this, because all you could possibly do is enter NON-EXISTENCE which DOES NOT exist, so you CANNOT GO THERE. The ego is the idea of that place, that non-existence hell of nothingness, emptiness, lack of God, darkness, absence of light, lifelessness, death. It's a CONCEPTUAL REALM that does not exist. But you have used this concept of an "idea" of "what's it like to totally leave God forever", as a way to TRY TO DO SO.

It should be obvious this attempt is utterly pointless and futile. It cannot succeed. You are guaranteed to never not exist. All that you've "done", is ATTEMPT to leave God. You've pushed up against fictional boundaries, you've stretched the envelope, you've tried to blot God out of you mind so that you THINK you are not still inside of Him, and you've tried to make his outer walls as thin as possible. You reason that if you can ALMOST break through God's perimeter, He will become so thin that you will be able to OVERLOOK Him. And that then you'll be able to see PAST God, TO that non-existent realm. And this is what gives rise to FALSE PERCEPTION.

False perception is the attempt to overlook God in order to NOT SEE God, and instead to ignore and see PAST God TO that non-existent ego realm. And you will then start to IMAGINE that you CAN SEE a realm that doesn't exist. That you CAN SEE things which are IMPOSSIBLE and NOT THERE. And as Jesus clearly and correctly identifies this, this MUST be form a of hallucination. Because you CANNOT SEE what is NOT THERE, but believing you can and are MUST be delusional and hallucinatory.

You CANNOT REALLY SEE non-existence, but you keep trying to. And so you hallucinate A WORLD believing you are SEEING one. There IS NO WORLD, because there is NO OPPOSITE to GOD. The world, the illusory world you made, including Earth, is the insane system of thought produced by those driven mad by guilt. By people who believe they CAN SEE GOD's OPPOSITE. "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way." Earth is an hallucination by the insane, believing they are or have escaped God.

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal? Could you have faith in what you see, if you ACCEPTED this? And would you SEE it? Hallucinations disappear when they are recognized for what they are. This is the healing and the remedy. Believe them not, and they are gone. And all you need to do is recognize YOU did this. Once you accept this simple fact, and take unto yourself the power you GAVE them, YOU are released from them."

The making of this hallucinated world was an attempt to leave God and to produce a state where GOD IS ABSENT. A world OUTSIDE the Kingdom, a world of NON-EXISTENCE, non-life, non-love, non-reality.

"Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born"

Yet even in this so-called "separate world", it STILL is not outside of God. We DID NOT produce a state of total non-existence. Even this world has a limited degree of seeming reality. It is not "totally not here". And so in this world, which is, let's say, hovering on the outer border between God and non-existence, still within God (a dream of exile within God), the idea of physical death is the FINAL attempt to TOTALLY LEAVE GOD. It's how we try to put as much distance between ourselves and God as possible. To be as opposite to LIFE as possible.

We reason that, in death, we finally can LEAVE the realm where God exists a little. As if we think death is a doorway into the NON-EXISTENT realm of the ego. As if even the fake illusions of life and almost-death of this world, are still not "unlike God enough", and ONLY death can seal the deal and take us TOTALLY into that ego state. To cross over into the realm of non-existence. And as such, when we produce death, we are trying our hardest to LEAVE GOD and be NOTHING LIKE HIM. Death is a total unwillingness to live, to exist, to have anything of God, and to make His Son NOT EXIST. The attempt to do this is of course murderous and suicidal.

EVEN WHEN the body dies, unfortunately we STILL do not succeed in reaching the non-existent ego realm. The Son of God's spirit cannot be affected or killed, so we HAVE TO then carry on and reincarnate. Death FAILS to take us outside of God. Death FAILS to end life. Death is not the end of life, it is merely DENIAL of the fact that you CANNOT DIE because you CANNOT LEAVE THE LIFE OF GOD. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists.

So think of this world, Earth, as merely A FAILED ATTEMPT to leave God. A failed attempt to completely separate from existence. A failed attempt to die. It does not accomplish what it claims. It cannot succeed in destroying God or His Son. Death is pointless and futile. You might as well just acknowledge you are alive in God and live forever.

"Swear not to die you Holy Son of God, you have made a bargain that you cannot keep."

In this world, "separation from God" or the LEAVING of God, producing a state of NEAR death, near non-existence, is REVERSIBLE, because it is not total. It is not total non-existence or total ego. If it were "absolute separation", it could not be undone. The fact that it CANNOT BE separation proves it is limited in its capacity to accomplish anything. And this is why death can be reversed and resurrection is possible, even physically, because death is NOT TOTAL.

This world does not work. It is a failed attempt. Death is failure. It doesn't do what it claims to do. It will NOT complete the separation or take you outside God. You might as well stop trying to die and just live. You HAVE eternal life, you just keep rejecting it. Denying it. You're an eternal immortal being pretending to suffer and die as if that were ever possible. Pretending you are limited and mortal and affected and sick and suffering. It is futile. It will not bring about an escape from God. And sickness's only purpose is to TRY TO escape from God.

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

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

"All forms of sickness even unto death (including physial death), are PHYSICAL EXPRESSIONS of the FEAR OF AWAKENING."

You cannot leave God. You have not left Home. You DREAM that you are outside the Kingdom. You imagine you have placed yourself BEYOND God's walls. You THINK you have succeeded in entering a non-existent lifeless realm where God does not exist. You have not. You are just sleeping and pretending to be exiled.

"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."

The ego DOES NOT EXIST. It's nothing but the CONCEPT of NON-EXISTENCE. It is another word for nothingness, impossibility, absolute void, godlessness, emptiness and absence. It HAS no existence at all. All our dramas are entirely a fictional attempt to BRING IT ABOUT, to get closer to it, to attach to it, to believe YOU ARE IT. This CANNOT BE. You can't do it.

BELIEVING THAT YOU CAN OR HAVE IS DELUSIONAL. It produces hallucinations of worlds that don't exist. Stuff that is NOT THERE, that you only seem to perceive because of your BELIEF in it. Your DESIRE to DREAM OF unrealities and fictional fairtytales. It is WISHFUL THINKING. And "there is no world apart from what you wish." You're not in non-existence, you're IN GOD, PRETENDING NOT TO BE. THERE IS NO WORLD.

Post-atonement awakening reawakens your mind to realize that THERE IS NO EGO, there is no non-existent world, you never DID leave God, you COULDN'T die, nothing has really happened, and ONLY the Kingdom of God exists. It is the end of DENIAL, the end of resistance, and the end of suffering.

"Ego" is nothing, literally. Your ATTEMPT to give "it" power does not give it power. You can't empower nothing. Ego does not exist. All you do is convince yourself that you are willing against yourself and that you are using your power against itself. You merely become divided against yourself and disassociated. All your efforts to be NOT LIKE God seem to manifest "the ego's characteristics", is an attempt to BE LIKE the ego. The non-existent ego. You never BECOME it.

It's just you being confused about what you are and where you are. You are safe in God at all times.

"We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection."

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

"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."

"Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION."

"You could not remain WITHIN the Kingdom without love, and since the Kingdom IS love, you believe you are WITHOUT it. This enables the ego to regard itself as separate and OUTSIDE its maker, thus speaking for the part of your mind that believes YOU are separate and outside the Mind of God."

"denial of Life perceives its opposite"

"your salvation lies in teaching exactly the opposite of everything the ego believes"

"You REALLY believe that doing the opposite of God's will CAN be better for you."

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

"Where there was darkness now we see the light. What is the ego? What the darkness was. Where is the ego? Where the darkness was. What is it now and where can it be found? Nothing and nowhere. Now the light has come: Its opposite has gone without a trace. Where evil was there now is holiness. What is the ego? What the evil was. Where is the ego? In an evil dream that but seemed real while you were dreaming it. Where there was crucifixion stands God's Son. What is the ego? Who has need to ask? Where is the ego? Who has need to seek for an illusion now that dreams are gone?"

"By steadily and consistently cancelling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT."

All sickness is merely a lack of love. When love is lacking, life is lacking. There is a diminishing of light, of presence, of strength. In the darkness there begins to be limitation, deterioration, fragmentation, weakness and corruption.

The simple task of miracle-working then becomes to "supply what is lacking". What is lacking is love. This is why "Miracles are expressions of love." "Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are performed by those who have more for those who have less."

If you have more of this "life", this light and love, this power, you give it to another. What can that mean other than to simply extend love from God to the person. God is life and to give love is to give life. "Miracles mean life, and God is the giver of life." "Miracles are a universal blessing from God".

Can it be any simpler really? To give life is to resurrect, to strengthen, to encourage, to uplift, to inspire, to rejuvenate, to energize. "Miracles are energizers." A lack of love or life is a lack of "energy", for want of a better word. A seeming withering or weakness, a reduction in the brightness of the spark of life.

Let's simply say that love is life, it is light, it is power, it is strength, it is innocence, it is invulnerability, and it is healing. If someone is seeming to "lack love", remembering that "sin" is merely a seeming absence of lack of love, and the "proof of sin" are merely the outward appearances of the "presence of an absence", then simply supplying the lack corrects the problem.

"Sickness is but another name for sin (a lack of love/life). Healing is but another Name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him."

Where there was darkness light is given. Where there was a manifestation of a lack of wholeness, wholeness re-establishes life. Where glimpses of death seemed to be showing up, they are merely shadows of the seeming absence of life. Evidence of sin, or of "unforgiveness". Because "forgiveness is an earthly form of LOVE."

Miracles are restorative. They resurrect and raise the dead. They raise the dead in the sense that someone lacking in love is "not fully alive." "No man who lives in fear is really alive." Fear is another name for the absence of love and life, especially since love is safety.

A lack of life is an illusion of a state of death, and "sickness is but a little death". The miraculous power of God that is love, enlivens and renews and undoes the consequences of wrong decisions. It removes the interference to perfection. By infusing the other person with life you are "raising them up", in terms of psychology and energy.

A person with more "life" in their mind and experience will stop manifesting symptoms of death. As the inner spark is ignited and amplified, the outer manifestations of that raised, more enlightened awareness, must give rise to what would outwardly appear to be the disappearance of sickness and death. And thus will the body literally appear to return from death.

Miracle-working is about giving love and life. It is about FUELING another through a flow of energetic healing power from God. People in absent states suffer from "drained batteries" if you will, and need to be recharged. Emphasizing the higher truth of the person, giving love, and extending God to them, must lift their spirits. You have to "pour love into them."

Miracles energize the weak and give them life. Loving expressions support and uplift and empower. What has light has life, and what has life is immortal.

"I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do."

"Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the Created with the Creator. Through prayer, love is received, and through miracles love is expressed."

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

All of the problems in the world, every sickness, every war, every argument, every lack and death, all separations, all special relationships, are all symptoms of the absence of God and nothing else.

Here's how Jesus puts it:

"A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct. This sense of separation would never have arisen if you had not distorted your perception of truth, and had thus perceived yourself as lacking.

The idea of order of needs arose because, having made this fundamental error, you had already fragmented yourself into levels with different needs. As you integrate you become one, and your needs become one accordingly. Unified needs lead to unified action, because this produces a lack of conflict."

Now, this is a huge thing to get your mind around but essentially, it means that being with God solves everything. It also means that the ENTIRE CONTENT of this universe is coming from a single idea of not being with God, and without that idea this entire universe would disappear.

It informs us also about how to pray. When we pray and we go to God with all kinds of problems and questions, what we're really doing is asking for these things to be solved or go away. But we often ask God, hey, fix this shit for me. But there's an unspoken premise - that God will fix the issues and then we'll remain separate from God, enjoying a better separation. That's absolutely impossible. The only solution to ANYTHING is becoming closer to God.

All suffering, every conflict, all sickness, all unhappiness, every broken relationship, all problems, all sense of lack, every death, it is all what LACK OF GOD looks like. When there is not a lack of God, these things CANNOT EXIST.

We had NO NEEDS when we were with God. There was no world. There was no "life and death". There were no problems. No lack. No sickness. Everything was perfect. So when any of these things are showing up, there IS a belief in being separate from God. These things CANNOT show up unless there is such a belief, because these things are merely the FORM of the illusion of God's absence.

War is MADE OF "God is not here". Sickness is MADE OF "I am guilty and separate". Death is made of "Sin is real". Broken cars are made of "I am limited". Cancellation of your favorite TV show is made of "God hates me". I'm not kidding. There is NOTHING in this entire world that can exist unless there is some degree of a belief in God being absent.

So what happens when God IS PRESENT? What happens when we simply return to awareness of God's presence and allow and accept and receive it? What happens to all this STUFF which is completely meaningless which showed up only after the separation? It simply DISAPPEARS. It must disappear because light shines away darkness and all of this shit is just the form of darkness. When God is present, death is impossible. When God is present, there can be no suffering or lack or tears.

So you think, well, there are many many separate problems. There are not. There is only one problem. It encompasses THIS ENTIRE UNIVERSE and everything in it. Every collision of every particle, every planet blowing up, ever sun being born, every murder, every success story, every sunset, every fire hydrant, it's all part of the "I'm not with God" experience.

So when you go to God to pray, if you're putting all this shit on the table and asking for it to be fixed but you're not asking for the NEED for it existing to be undone, or for God's presence to increase, or for you to be One with God, then you're not asking for a solution. You're asking to make shit real, to keep it, and to have God change it into an even more appealing illusion. The only true prayer is to commune with God and be one with Him, which SOLVES ALL PROBLEMS, makes all questions disappear, resolves all needs and lacks, heals all sickness, and reverses all death.

So you do not need to learn a whole bunch of techniques and strategies for coping with hell. You don't need to figure out how to get more. You don't need to figure out what caused certain problems. There is only one thing you need. It's God. And if you get God, you are done. All the rest, will be simply forgotten and disappeared like it never existed or mattered, because it doesn't. There is nothing to learn, only a whole bunch of crap to unlearn. All you need is love.

"I cannot see in darkness but in light"

"God is the light in which I see."

"Eternity will shine away the world."

"The world will disappear in light."

In ACIM there is a theme of the relationship of light and dark. We're simply told light dispels darkness, and that really there is no such thing as darkness. Darkness is a label for the illusion of a "lack of light". Essentially this means there is either light or a lack of light, and darkness isn't "a real thing". It's similar to saying there is love or a lack of love, but there isn't real evil. This is forgiving because it recognizes either love or a call for love and doesn't regard the "lack of love" as a state that's real or "actually evil."

That said, when we dreamed of death and made a world, which includes Earth, and all bodies, we made these things by pretending there is a lack of light. And this absence of light seems to show up as darkness, as if to say it is "made of darkness". As soon as you switch from realizing there is only light or its lack, to believing that the lack of light is itself something which can CAUSE light to go away, you start to believe that the darkness is real and that "darkness can hide." It's the belief that darkness has power, is evil, is real, and is capable of forcing light to be dispelled. It's nothing other than the mistaken belief in sin - a dark thought being able to attack the light of God. It's a level confused idea.

In truth, since there is only light or its illusion of absence, when light is supplied, the illusion of the lack of light disappears. Miracles supply a lack. Once the "lack of light" is overcome by supplying the light, and the light is present, there simply is no lack of light any more and so "the darkness" simply vanishes. In the presence of light there is no darkness. That which seemed to be "made of darkness" is really just light's seeming absence, and now that light has arrived, that which was "made of darkness" must be shone away and disappear. It really was only an illusion of darkness seeming to exist, when in fact it was nothing. Darkness isn't real.

For example, when clouds block the sun from shining, and the sun is still shining beyond the clouds, the underside of the clouds seem to become dark because it now seems as if the clouds have the power to block the light. The clouds are symbolic of the idea that darkness has power over the light and can prevent light from extending. Blocks to awareness do the same thing. But the fact is that the clouds only become dark because of the seeming illusion of an absence of light, not because clouds are inherently dark. They are made of transparent water. When light shines upon them, they are not dark at all. They are seen IN the light WITH light and this light thus dispels the belief that "the clouds are dark". Darkness is an illusion.

Similarly with shadows, a shadow is merely the illusion of an absence of light. When light shines onto the area which was "in shadow", the shadow disappears. Light always has power over darkness EVEN in this dream world. Whenever the light comes, darkness simply vanishes and whatever evil figures seemed to be made of darkness, absolutely cease to be. It has no protest, it has no power, it has no way to prevent itself from being shone away. Darkness has no defense against the light. It simply disappears because it wasn't really a thing in its own right, it was just the absence of light. Once the absence of God is supplied, once love is given to those who lack the love, the absence of love is restored to love and all seeming illusions and manifestations of darkness simply disappear. Light corrects the darkness by showing that there is no darkness, just as atonement shows there is no sin.

Light has power over darkness because there is no REAL opposite to light. Darkness is not reality. Light is reality. Darkness, as the opposite to light, is just an illusion of darkness and so the light always has power over it. Light is permanently true and unchangeable. Darkness is a temporary illusion that what is permanent is not permanent. Darkness is a lie, a deception. It doesn't really exist.

The world, which we made, with bodies, are all made out of darkness. They are the "absence of light" attempting to be maintained by minds that are trying to believe light is not present. And so they are trying withhold their light in order to stop the shining in order to make it seem like there is a "hole" in the light where light has become absent, where heaven has turned into hell. And then it becomes easy to believe, the seeming lack of light - which is showing up as darkness - is actually a "real darkness", as if the darkness itself is a thing in its own right, with a power and a will and a causality and capable of causing light to go away. Like since when did darkness ever have the ability to resist light? But while we believe there is a world here, we are believing that darkness has power over light. We're looking at nothing but an illusion of light's seeming absence, not real darkness. When light is allowed to shine and enter, light's absence is corrected and there is now no darkness for the world to be made of.

Given also that the world and bodies are all "made of darkness" or are the illusion of light's absence, when the light comes, those things will be shone away. When we are no longer interested in making illusions or playing with this idea that we can cause the light to be harmed or affected and caused to leave by our dark powers, we will simply allow light to shine and it WILL shine away the world and the body. They must be shone away because they are ONLY the illusion of the absence of light. When the light comes, the world has to disappear. All shadows must disappear. The body must disappear. They cannot coexist with the light because they are founded entirely on light's absence. Any more than the ego, which is darkness, can go into the light and keep its darkness. This is why that which is "made of darkness" cannot enter the light or have any ability to attack God's Kingdom.

This is also why "a forgiven world cannot last." If you forgive the world you are shining a light ONTO the world, illuminating it, and thereby SHINING IT AWAY, because it is made of light's absence and when the light comes the absence is corrected and undone, light replaces darkness, and so the world which was the illusion of light being absent, is shone away and undone. This is why ACIM says that "the world will disappear in light" and "the world will spin into the nothingness from which it came". You cannot forgive a world, shine light onto it, see it in light, and expect it to stay IF it is not made of light. And this world, Earth, is not made of light - it is the idea of sin which is the idea of darkness being able to hide or block the light of Heaven. As soon as there is light, there is no world. This is also why there are no worlds or bodies in Heaven - darkness does not exist there and these things are completely "made of" darkness. The illusion that there is no light. They were made to block the light. They cannot enter or be in the light and maintain their state of darkness, thus they cannot exist at all.

This is why eternity will eventually shine away the world. The world, its forms, its bodies, which are all lack of light, will become filled with light so much that the light will dispel the lack of light, and so all of the forms will be shone away entirely. They will leave absolutely no trace in their going because they were always illusions of darkness or light's absence. Temporarily, the world may seem to become a shining reflection of Heaven or to be so filled with light ("I am the light of the world") that it seems heaven-like... but only temporarily, in a transition from dark to light, because when enough light has shone upon it, it will be so infused with light its darkness simply MUST vanish. When the light becomes brilliant, intense, powerful and full, there is nowhere for darkness to exist or hide, and all things "made of darkness" will vanish as if they never existed. The world will be healed away.

So long as forms and objects are maintained, there is a protest against light and an attempt to block it. Physical objects are blocks to the light just as they are blocks to awareness. They are made of the idea of sin, the suggestion that darkness can block the light and have power over the light. This is why "to see a sinless body is impossible" - you cannot look upon sin unless you are sinful and when you are purely innocent you can see nothing but light. And this is why you cannot truly be 100% in the light of heaven, while having a body.

The light (of the great rays for example) will literally fill the void where the body was pretending to exist, and replace it, filling up the gap with light, since the body is nothing but the illusion that there is a lack of light or a block to light. The body is what a lack of light "looks like", something dark and an obstacle to light seemingly capable of obscuring it. And since the body blocks light, it also blocks the mind and awareness of truth and atonement. "The body is a limit" "The body cannot stay." So long as the body is present at all, it is blocking light or demonstrating that darkness still exists.

There are no obstacles to light in the living world of light, which is Heaven. There are no bodies, forms, objects, walls, or anything that can keep light from being absolutely infinite and intensely brilliant everywhere. There is nowhere "lacking light" for the body to seem to exist. There is only light everywhere.

"Nothing there but shines and shines forever."

"Only the creations of light are real."

Every question contains fear. Knowledge is a state of total certainty, in which there is nothing to ask, no questions, no doubts, no fear. When you have knowledge, there is no basis for needing to ask anything.

When you don't have knowledge, due to a denial of knowledge, you enter into a state of lack. Here, knowledge is missing, so you now have a basis of "needing" to ask questions. The questions are part of seeking for what seems to be missing, trying to make sense of what is now confusing.

This means you have gone into fear. Fear is uncertainty. Knowledge is certainty. Without knowledge you must be afraid. Something becomes "unknown", leaving an open door for possibilities, imagined monsters, unexpected threats and things you cannot predict. Instantly you are in fear because you are uncertain.

There is a spiritual self-help idea of "questioning everything". Now, what's important to realize is NOT everything should be questioned. What should be questioned is anything to do with questions. Because questions are fear, and that is ego. So you should be questioning whether the fear is true, whether you really need to ask the question, and why you have blocked knowledge.

But if you are asking any other kind of question, which is based on the assumption that knowledge is denied, an entire world has arisen from ignorance, a universe of fear is in front of your eyes, and now you are asking questions about it... those kind of questions are not helpful. "What is it?" "What is happening?" "What is causing it" etc are all based in the assumption that a world of doubt is happening, inspiring questions.

You could continue being in a state of fear and questioning for a very long time, asking a billion questions, and not becoming any more certain. In fact many ego questions are designed merely to maintain fear, keep you searching, distract you from knowledge, and send you on a very long wild goose chase "not finding" any real sense of answer, certainty, clarity or knowledge. Questions that take you away from the TRUE answer, are not really helpful.

The only answer to all questions is God. Only the truth is true. The true answer is there is no question. In knowledge of the Kingdom nothing is missing or lacking or unknown or absent. All is known. And so there is no fear, because there is no uncertainty. There is also nothing to learn, so no questions to ask in an attempt to learn. When you are learning, you are really moving away from the truth, UNLESS you are learning the Unreality of your doubts and fears.

If you use questioning to unravel false questions, then this is helpful. If you are being radically honest for example, going within and finding out the deeper truth through a kind of inquiry, that's great. If it's moving you out of fear into certainty, great. If it's moving you away from ignorance toward knowledge, great. But if it's moving you outward away from yourself, away from peace and certainty, and you're becoming lost in doubt and not knowing and worry and fear and terror, which turns into stress and desperation, then you're asking ego-affirming questions instead of ego-dissolving questions.

"I have no question, I forgot what to decide".

"I know nothing"

These are important elements of the course's approach. It's not that you must know nothing. In fact, you must become reunited with knowledge and know everything! But the stuff that you THINK you know, but which is NOT really knowledge, has to be identified as NOT real knowledge. It's fake ego knowledge. It's great to recognize you don't REALLY know that things are going to work out badly - you are just speculating. It's good to drop your past learning, your self-taught lies, your false beliefs, your made-up rules, your justifications and so on... to make room for ACTUAL knowledge.

Ego knowledge always goes hand in hand with not knowing, and so always entails uncertainty, and therefore fear.

"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."

Even true perception is not knowledge. Nor is it wholly certain. It is fundamentally unstable. It can be stabilized to seem to align with certainty but it is not fundamentally certain. All perception is a separated state, and anyone still perceiving still needs healing. Only when perception is gone can there be knowledge. And that means the body must go as well, because the body is the device you made to perceiving with. "Indeed, you cannot remain in this world with this knowledge."

The world you made is a world of fear, a world of lies, and a world of uncertainty. Nothing in it can really be known. It's all made up bullshit. Questioning its reality is useful, but asking questions about what, why, how, when, where such and such is happening IN it, is just the ego going down the rabbit hole. The form of a question seeming to be a question, but really being a desire to fear and NOT KNOW the answer. The answer is in the Holy Spirit. Ask Him the truth.

"The ego will demand many answers that this course does not give. It does not recognize as questions the mere form of a question to which an answer is impossible. The ego may ask, "How did the impossible occur?", "To what did the impossible happen?", and may ask this in many forms. Yet there is no answer; only an experience. Seek only this, and do not let theology delay you."

There is no evil, only the seeming absence of the good.

There is no sin, only the seeming absence of love.

There is no death, only the seeming absence of life.

There is no darkness, only the seeming absence of light.

To take something and suggest that just because it is ABSENT, must mean it is the PRESENCE of something negative, is an error.

Evil does not ASSERT itself and maintain its own existence. It seeming presence ENTIRELY depends on the absence of the good.

Darkness cannot prevent light from shining it away when the light is present.

Death similarly cannot RESIST life. When life is supplied, the appearance of death MUST change to resurrection. Death is nothing more than the seeming absence of life, a lack of love, and when the love returns there cannot be death.

Sin is not a "positive sin". It isn’t an assertion of real attack. It is literally nothing OTHER than the seeming absence of love. A lack of love is not the same thing as an ASSERTION of sinfulness. You don’t have to FILL the lack of love with fire and brimstone, or REPLACE an absence with some other opposite material.

All things illusory ARE simply the appearance of the ABSENCE of something REAL. They are just lack. A lack of love is not a presence of hate. Hate is an illusion of being unloving. Someone who seems evil is just a little bit loving. They could be more loving, but judging that amount of love as the PRESENCE of evil is a failure to overlook illusions.

Every seeming symptom, effect, sign or symbol of the ego, every form of sickness and death, all darkness and attack and murderousness and sinfulness, is not ACTUALLY what it appears to be. It is only the LACK of something. There is a NEED, and the need is a CALL FOR the supply of that need, such as the call for love.

Attack is not attack. It is a request for the lack of safety to be supplied. It’s a request for a reminder of immortality. It’s a need to be reminded that reality cannot be threatened and no one can sin. It’s not the PRESENCE of evil.

Shadows on a wall do not have their own existence. They can only maintain so long as light SEEMS to be blocked. As soon as the blockage is remove and the light is supplied, it fills that area with light. The supposed darkness simply VANISHES. It has no staying power, no properties of its own, no will or power to remain, and it cannot resist the light. The notion that the darkness can HIDE the light or MAKE the light go away, is insanity and falling for the delusion of illusions.

Similarly sickness and death are ONLY the seeming absence of health and life. And when health and life are GIVEN through extension, when lack is supplied, these things MUST vanish. They do not have reality of their OWN and they have no power or will TO RESIST the healing. There cannot be anything keeping them in place because they DEPEND ENTIRELY on life, health, and love being temporarily lacking. When life is supplied, death MUST BE UNDONE.

Sickness isn’t sickness. It is merely a lack of health. That is not the same thing. The appearance of a lack of health can SEEM LIKE the PRESENCE of a sickness, a damage, an infection, a malfunction, a breakage, a disorder or disease. But these appearances are NOTHING OTHER THAN the seeming LACK or absence of life and love. They are no different to a shadow. And when light comes the shadow cannot stay, just as when the healing power of God’s LIFE is supplied, all forms of sickness and death MUST BE CURED.

A failure to heal, thus, must be because you simply have NOT GIVEN what is lacking. Because if it were given, sickness cannot stay and has no way to resist its undoing. It DEPENDS on life’s absence. Giving life supplies what was missing, and now there is wholeness, with no lack that sickness can be based on. Sickness is guilt, just as it is caused by sin, because sin is the belief in a lack of innocence and guilt is a belief in a lack of deserving love. Supply innocence and love and sickness cannot be there.

Nothing can resist this healing, except for possibly an assertion of free will, whereby someone WANTS to maintain the belief that darkness is real, sickness is its own thing, the body is autonomous and causal, evil exists, or that they are sinful and it cannot be undone. If the person does not show at least some willingness, love does not enter and miracles do not frighten. If someone does not consent, God’s help is held back. Not because it can’t be given but because there is unwillingness to receive it. Those who are sick have to have some faith and willingness, in order to receive help.

Besides this, the law is simple. Either there is the presence of immortality or its seeming absence. And when it seems to be absence, supplying it corrects the absence. And then all sights of mortality must go.

"My Atonement was for the canceling out of all sins (ie., lack of love)"

"The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives it as a POSITIVE ACT OF ASSAULT. This is an interpretation which is necessary to its survival, because as soon as YOU regard it as a LACK, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will also succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but YOU must learn to regard it as freedom."

"Remember, I said before that because "nature abhors a vacuum", it does NOT follow that the vacuum is filled with hell fire. The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by love, because love and its absence are in the same dimension, and correction cannot be undertaken except WITHIN a dimension. Otherwise, there has been a confusion of levels."

"The second step is inherent in the first, because light cannot tolerate darkness. Light dispels darkness automatically, by definition. EXPLANATORY INSTRUCTIONS: Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide."

"There is no darkness that the light of love will not dispel, unless it is concealed from love's beneficence. What is kept apart from love cannot share its healing power, because it has been separated off and kept in darkness."

"My purpose, then, is still to overcome the world. 9 I do not attack it, but my light must dispel it because of what it is. 10 Light does not attack darkness, but it does shine it away. 11 If my light goes with you everywhere, you shine it away with me."

From lesson 48: "There is nothing to fear."

"The presence of fear is a sure sign that you are trusting in your own strength. The awareness that there is nothing to fear shows that somewhere in your mind, though not necessarily in a place you recognize as yet, you have remembered God, and let His strength take the place of your weakness. The instant you are willing to do this there is indeed nothing to fear."

You would think that trusting yourself and depending on you own strength more would make you somehow more confident. You’d think that if you can just be braver or more stoic or aggressive or assertive, maybe you can be unafraid. Or that if you come across as powerful, others will not intimidate you.

But there is a metaphysical basis for what happens here. When you trust your own *separate* strength, you are actually putting distance between yourself and strength. God is strength. Innocence is strength. Being separate is a belief in not being with God, and not being innocent. So as you move into separation and into "your own" separated self, you move away from the inherent nature of God’s creation, away from divine protection.

This makes you weaker, lacking, uncertain, filled with doubt, afraid of punishment for the sin of being separate, guilty for rejecting God’s help, and thoroughly limits what you can do. No-one can be separate from God and live.

Anyone who has struggled in life can probably tell you that when you are trying to do everything on your own, it sucks bad. Trying to overcome problems and deal with stress and manage everything and to be some kind of separate superhero, absent of God’s help, has its major limits. Trying to "go solo" is suicide.

The more you do it, the more you *seem* to become some kind of heroic savior, or successful achiever, or person of pride, or someone who has conquered the world. You come across on the surface as invincible. Nothing could be further from the truth. The more that you try to become the ego’s version of invincibility, the more you will become vulnerable, fragile, paranoid, empty, weak and sick. Being the hero of the dream is a trap. This is why heroes die.

True strength is only possible when you share with God. True resilience, invulnerability, power, confidence, certainty, immovability and permanence can only be found by allowing God to be the one who supplies your every need. Without God, you are without life. Without God, you are alone and you now have to defend yourself against an entire world you see as willing against you. Without God there is weakness and death. You cannot live without God.

So if you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you are depending too heavily on "your own" strength. It’s strange to think that you are feeling afraid because you are believing that you are powerful. Or that you are afraid because you think you are tough. Or you are afraid because you believe you can do anything and everything and don’t need any help. Or you are afraid because you see yourself as not needing any help. But this is precisely the backwards effects which the ego produces, pretending it is going to help you to be more distinctly separate, when all it does is hurt you more.

If you are afraid, it means you are not trusting God right now. It means you are listening to the ego and are fantasizing about how powerful you are. Trying to be powerful without God makes you powerless. To have power over others against their will strips you of your power and turns you into a vulnerable victim. If you are afraid, you need to let go of trying to do this all on your own. The more you try, the more you will fail. Seek and do not find.

It is not necessary to do everything on your own. Nor is it a matter of being a separate hero and having Holy Spirit back you up or having mighty companions to support you and surround you. I used to do that more, trying to retain my separate will and have Holy Spirit as a kind of servant to do my bidding and make my separate problems go away.

It’s more a matter of surrendering control of what you think is "your life", which you are trying to will independently of God, and give your life back to God. Make room for Him to help you. Let Him share it with you. Let Him solve the problems and carry the burden. Let Him look after others for you. Allow the freedom of not having to carry the whole world on your shoulders. It’s too big for anyone to do so in isolation.

Share your life with God and you gain the power of God. Paradoxically, allowing Him to live through you will allow you to live forever. Letting Him take over and direct you specifically, and being willing to listen and learn and do, to follow direction, will be far better for you than the outcomes you are trying to manipulate into being. Controlling your will and making it oppose God’s is not ever going to work in your favor.

God has a plan. God knows how to fix stuff. God knows what everyone needs, including you. Let Him lead the way and there will be no fear. Trust Him, and all your worries will vanish.

"To the extent to which you identify with the ego's self, you will identify with the ego's strategy, and so you will become afraid of the power of your mind."

Ask Jesus what to do! Learn to ask Him more than you ask yourself. So often I am considering what to do or not do, relying on my own self to know and be able ego decide. Jesus says, "ask!"

"Before you choose to do anything, ask me if your choice is in accord with mine. If you are sure that it is, there will be no fear."

The book, is an expression FROM truth, attempting to point to truth. It contains SYMBOLS of truth, twice removed from reality.

Because truth expressed the book, the symbols in the book are not necessarily all possible expressions from truth. Truth could conceivably express a million books, all from the same source or mind. They could all appear to take on different forms and use different words, yet essentially say the same thing.

The form of the book, the words used, the sentences, the sections/chapters, is only one collection of symbols, all coming from the same source.

It is entirely possible for that source of truth to continue to express itself in many, many more forms. It is possible that the Course could in fact be 1000 times larger, or a million. There is basically no limit to how many "forms" it could take, provided those forms express or symbolize a consistent source.

This is why it is then important to recognize that, of all the FORMS in the book, all of the words, you are not necessarily getting ALL words that can ever be said about truth, and you're not necessarily hearing every possible clarification.

For example, in the main Course itself Jesus doesn't really explicitly talk about making his body disappear. Yet, in the notes given to Helen later, from the same source/truth, he clarified further by adding extra information. That information is clarifying as to the meaning of various other parts of the Course, especially surrounding resurrection and how we might leave the dream without death being involved.

There are also times when Jesus says one little phrase somewhere in the Course and doesn't really expand upon it, and yet it's a very key phrase which puts many other things into perspective.

There are also times when I really wish Jesus would've gone into much more detail about certain things, especially miracles and some of the aspects of the end of the universe. In other words, if Jesus were present, there would be a lot of questions we could ask Him which would clarify many things. This is why it is VITAL to get in touch with Jesus/Holy Spirit and develop a relationship with them, so that you can learn from them DIRECTLY.

It's important then not to get too hung up on the specific exact WORDS which Jesus expressed, thinking that the FORM of those words is the truth. The form is not the truth, it's just one of MANY possible symbols and expressions. Further additional forms might possibly change your perception of those words and what they really mean.

If for example you will only accept something as correct if it has an explicit quote in the Course that you can point your finger at, then you are getting bogged down in form and are not seeing the metaphysics.

The form of the words of the Course are twice removed from reality. Once removed from reality is the metaphysics, and/or the symbols in the dream. For example, outer space, filled with seemingly nothing but emptiness, is symbolic for the ego's attempt to make God as absent as possible. Bodies are symbols of having an identity God did not create. etc.

When you look at the words and learn from the words, you should learn, or be able to infer/imply, what the metaphysics of the truth is. Stuff like the structure of the dream, the levels, what certain things mean, where they fit, etc... is not always necessarily 100% spelled out in words. You have to look deeper. As you "generalize the teaching", you will gradually build a clearer picture for yourself about how everything fits together.

Some of those clarifications will bring you insight into how, sometimes, Jesus uses words in certain specific contexts which, if taken verbatim, might imply or infer something which is incorrect. Also sometimes He speaks at certain "levels" and confusing those levels produces a lot of confused metaphysics. Some things apply at certain levels and not others.

Also sometimes Jesus uses words which He seemed to have build up quite a specific definition of elsewhere, but uses them quite loosely in "general conversation" in such a way that people then take this and think it's some kind of metaphysical fact. Sometimes Jesus is just simply talking casually and using normal language, how most people would, and not necessarily teaching doctrine in every word.

With enough exposure and learning you should be able to transcend the Course's words and get more in touch with the "core metaphysics" which is kind of hiding somewhat behind the words. The structure of the dream, the proper location of certain levels and their meaning etc, becomes more apparent when you go deeper into it, and Jesus hasn't necessarily "spelled it all out" directly.

We have to be careful not to get hung up on "where does it say that in the course" kind of approaches. Not everything IS said in the course. And yet, some things are true/logically consistent which may never have been expressed.

We also have to beware of thinking that only what is said in the Course is coming from Jesus's authority and therefore no-one else can say anything that Jesus hasn't said. As you transcend the words and get more of the metaphysics you'll be able to extrapolate it and come to conclusions which are completely consistent with Jesus's teachings.

That makes it possible to write additional content, additional words/symbols, based on the same metaphysical foundation, in order to be consistent with Jesus and not contradict his intentions. You don't need to be in his mind of authority to do this, you only need to grasp the basic logical structure of the separation.

There is a lot of material in the Course and it can become quite blinding through its sheer volume and seeming complexity. But we need to learn, in a sense, to forgive it, by learning to overlook its appearance and look deeper to see a closer or more accurate truth. The truth is simple, not complicated, but the ego has a field day with getting caught up in the form of things.

"I want the peace of God." W185

I've been realising more and more lately that peace is a vital core part of awakening to reality. And here's why.

Before "the separation" there was union and oneness. The idea of separation first began as nothing more perhaps than a very subtle sense of taking sides. Of there being a very slight difference between what seemed to be two things, instead of one thing. A hint of inequality and a vague notion of something belonging to one part and not another.

This mad idea later snowballed to the fullest extent of possibility, into greater and stronger senses of separateness, opposition, inequality, difference and all manner of exclusivity. In effect, "war broke out". A state of psychological war in which the peace of oneness was brought into question.

"And the peace of God's Son was shattered, for he no longer understood his Father." UrT12C11

"Angels came, too, but their protection was not enough, because the Separated ones were not interested in peace. They had already split themselves, and were bent on dividing rather than reintegrating. The levels they introduced into themselves turned against each other, and they, in turn, turned against each other. They established differences, divisions, cleavages, dispersion, and all the other concepts related to the increasing splits they produced." UrT2B43

Ultimately all of what we think of space and time, all physical matter, all objects, planet Earth, human bodies, and all the rest of it, descended as the crystallizing of this simple idea of being separate - separate instead of whole. And that was an idea of conflict, of war, of things disagreeing, of nothing being the same.

In heaven there is perfect peace because there is no possibility of war. There are no separated off things that can be enemies, nor can they attack anything else. There is no sense of threat or danger, no ability to harm or alter God's perfect creations. And without such threats there is no sense of fear, or a "loss of peace" or a disruption to "peace of mind."

Our minds did little more than enter into a state of believing in separate things. That sense of separation took on every conceivable form, including war and attack, blame and murder, sickness and death, destruction and change, judgement and condemnation, danger and threat, conflict and disagreement, inequality and disharmony, and everything we're all familiar with in our lives on earth - a planet which itself depends entirely on separation and war for its illusory existence.

We then need to seek to reclaim our peace of mind. That means, all the ways that we be SEPARATE have to end. All sense of attacking, all desire to hurt, all cruelty, all murderousness, all blame and judgement, all condemnation and grievances, it all has to collapse so that the SEPARATIONS between things are collapsed, restoring unity and oneness.

ONLY in that unity of oneness is true peace fully possible, because it's a state in which all sense of separation is absent. War becomes impossible, and without war there is no fighting, no conflict, no disturbance, no loss, no imbalance, no sin or guilt or death. Peace is an attribute of a sane healthy mind which has been restored to wholeness. Because in wholeness there is no split mind, no divided will, and you are no longer at war with yourself. This is accomplished through forgiveness.

"Forgiveness IS your peace, for herein lies the end of separation, and the dream of danger and destruction, sin and death; of madness and of murder, grief and loss." UrT29G1

"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others." UrT2A32

To gain peace, all your psychological weapons have to be laid down. All sense of wanting to attack, wanting to resist and fight, wanting to hurt and destroy has to be undone. And undoing all of this is a surrender. It is this surrender that ends the war, a surrendering of all ego pursuits and beliefs. When you wave the white flag, you return to peace, because the end of war is indeed peace. Nor will your peace mean defeat, but victory and invulnerability.

"Judgment is the weapon I would use against myself to keep all miracles away from me." URW347

"Now must you once again lay down your sword, although you will not recognize that you have picked it up again" UrM21A4

"Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head." UrW192L9

"Nor is it possible the two can ever be the same, while specialness stands like a flaming sword of death between them, and makes them enemies." UrT24D4

"Lay down the cruel sword of judgment that you hold against your throat, and put aside the withering assaults with which you seek to hide your holiness." UrW190L9

"How long, oh Son of God, will you maintain the game of sin? Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys?" UrW250W45

Originally, God created us and flowed all of His love to us. We were completely open to receive it and we flowed it onward, completely naturally, extending the Kingdom.

When the 'separation' happened, we put various forms of distance between ourselves and God. We closed our heart to God. We shut God out of our lives and out of our minds.

We then found ourselves 'cut off', disconnected, lost, alone, abandoned, as if the 'cord' that connected us to God had been severed. Now of course, this was very upsetting (and still is).

Because of this, it then seemed that we were disconnected from the SOURCE of life. And because we saw ourselves as cut off, what we were left with was the perception that we did not originate IN God. Instead, we believed we must've just come into being spontaneously by some other means as orphans (symbolized by birth).

So now, without a connection to God, we are all alone, desperate, afraid, confused, we don't know what the hell is going on, and we have very limited resources. Our power is hugely diminished, we're hallucinating, we're insane, scrambling around in the darkness trying to make sense of it all.

So without acknowledging that a source (God) is extending/creating us, we come to believe it all seems to start with ourselves as the source - that WE are the source. Thus is born the ego - the starting point of separate existence. And by this token, we have separated the Father and the Son.

What I mean is, in Heaven, God the Father extends His Fatherhood to His Son and His Son also therefore possess a nature of Fatherhood as well, by which the Son also extends Creation. The Son is a Father to the Son's Children.

Get this... When the separation happened, Father and Son were separated, not just in terms of being separate beings but in terms of their shared nature where the Son is also a Father. This now means that the Son does not SEE Himself as the 'Son' of God, he only retains the idea that he is the Father. He sees Himself as retaining fatherhood but of not retaining sonship. He retains 'output', if you will, but shuts off 'input'. So now he thinks of Himself as 'the' Father, since he Himself does not seem to have a father, and this is how the ego believes IT is God. The ego is 'Fatherhood' without 'Sonship'. In a way, you could also think of this as 'giving without receiving', which produces 'making' (creating stuff that didn't come from God) and 'sacrifice' (losing everything and not receiving at all). It is by this method that the ego then MAKES its own Father, out of itself, because it is fatherless, and this newly appointed Father is the ego's OWN version of God - its fake God, a God of hate and death. The ego then idolizes this fake God, who calls for sacrifice, and the ego now both worships and fears this (and all other) substitute for God. It should be apparent how insane that is.

An interesting bit of metaphysics there!

Anyway... So now we see ourselves as the source, which means we think that we have to govern existence, run the universe, obtain power, control everything, force things to be according to our own separate will, and act like God. Classical ego.

So.... what we need to do now... the whole point of doing A Course in Miracles.... is to heal the separation - or at least, all of the belief that it has really happened. But we DO believe it and it does SEEM real. We really do SEEM to be experiencing the horror of being without God, of being Fatherless, of being disconnected from God deep in our hearts, of having been abandoned or rejected, or being absent of REAL LOVE, of not having a SOURCE, of being without unconditional love, of having to do everything ourselves and failing miserably.

We need to HEAL this sense of separation between the Father and the Son, between God and us. And this is a very heartfelt matter. It's not intellectual. It's not just on a mental/mind level. Love is FELT and EXPERIENCED! What we really want is to experience the love of God. Period.

So to do that we need to get back to the kind of relationship, the kind of 'structure' of the relationship that we originally have with God. That means, restoring our CONNECTION to God through communion and healing and openness, being open to RECEIVE guidance and healing and love from God again (which we have been sorely missing and doing terribly without!), becoming able to SHARE in what God is offering, and to then extend it once again through creative acts (miracles), to extend the Kingdom.

Father and Son need to be reunited and set back in their proper place and arrangement where God is the Source of Life, Life has extended itself AS the Son, and the Son extends it further. This is the only NATURAL condition. The physical world's 'nature' is NOT natural. Or perhaps some people refer to this divine holy relationship as SUPERNATURAL. This is what we need to restore, for ourselves, in direct relationship with God, for real.

God loves us. We've denied Him. We need to open to receive His presence.

Real Love, is not like anything else in this world. Love, to be experienced, must be shared by all.

Love is a presence that exists everywhere and extends everywhere. It radiates. It flows. It overcomes all separations. It does not and cannot belong to any one individual without simultaneously belonging to everyone. Nobody can put a wall around it and deny it to everyone else.

So if you want to experience love, you can't do it by locking love in a box. You can't do it by being absent of love yourself and expecting someone else to give their portion to you. Love it not limited and finite, or lacking or scarce. It's not like some kind of substance or material or object or commodity that someone exchanges for something else. It's not money used to buy a favor.

The ego believes that if you give something, you will lose it. It thinks that giving produces sacrifice. That you're going to be worse off, and have less, if you give. And especially if you share, there is no way to share with anyone without loss.

To the ego, sharing doesn't exist. It doesn't see how you can share, in any way, without diminishing what you have. And it's enacted this belief in the way that all physical 'forms' appear to behave.

If you want to share your apple, you're going to have to cut it in half and give half away - sacrificing half, and now you will only have half an apple. And you will experience that in the ego as loss, and unworthiness of having the whole. You might think you are sharing the half in kindness or generosity, but to the ego you a secretly jealous and bitter at having 'taken a hit' for the sake of someone else.

And then, to the ego, this form of sacrificing becomes equated with giving. It says, if I give half of this apple, and I do it in spite of the fact that I believe it is a sacrifice, then I am doing some kind of 'good for others'. This then leads to guilt that you are not giving ALL of what you have to others, and that even more sacrifice is called for. Ultimately it would have you give all of your apple to others, and having nothing for yourself.

That is the culmination of its belief system - that you are left with nothing, in total sacrifice and loss. Such is martyrdom. Such is what we commonly think of as 'giving selflessly' when in fact it usually is the ego sacrificing. To the ego, you should just give everything you have to others in order to be 'good' so that you'll meet God's graces, which is bullshit. It is a death wish. If you still have an ego and you are giving in this way without giving equally to yourself (receiving), that's not being a saint, it's being a martyr and an idiot. And it's also not what giving means.

Where in the ego's form of giving is there anything other than sacrifice? How in the ego's world is there anything even remotely similar to real sharing, other than loss? How can the ego give without losing what it has? It can't. Because the ego's idea of what it HAS is an illusion, a false value, and its idea of sharing it is the same thing as NOT sharing it. To the ego, sharing means posession and a transfer of ownership.

Real love is not like this. Real love does not diminish when it is shared or given. Real love doesn't call for sacrifice. Real love doesn't give give give, endlessly from your ego self, in the guise of some kind of 'atoning' or being 'selfless'. Real love cannot be owned by you exclusively, and you cannot give it away without you keeping it. Real love can't exchange hands and be in one place and not in another place at the same time. Real love doesn't leave you empty and lifeless. Real love doesn't ask you to be a martyr or to please everyone else except yourself.

Real love is like a giant vast ocean of love. Love's rule is that you can share in it by opening up to it and allowing it to be in you, but you cannot possess it or own it exclusively. You can participate in it and enjoy it and experience it, but this does NOT prevent others from doing the same. And there is an infinite supply, so there is no way you can have it all to 'yourself' and deny it to others, nor is there a need to get it FROM others because they too have their own access directly from God.

So unlike the ego, where you must 'get' love from others, because you think you lack it, you can't actually experience it even if you could get it, because you're trying to deny it to the other person. You want them to love you, sacrificially, by giving you what they have so that they don't have any left. That bleeds them dry, just as you trying to be an ego saint bleeds you dry. The only way you can experience love, is to get in line with how God has arranged things.

Simply, as ACIM says, "to have all, give all to all". Which means, to experience love fully, fully GIVE LOVE to everyone unconditionally, by EXTENDING what God has given you (unlimited love). In this you receive love from God in unlimited supply, and you extend it to others. But notice this key point:

If you do not extend the love to others, YOU cannot have it either. If you do not radiate the love to others, YOU cannot feel its radiance. If you do not SHARE love with others, YOU cannot share IN it either. Love has to be shared to be experienced, otherwise it is stationary. It needs to be extended and amplified to be what it is, like a radiant shining light. It has to shine outward. So you need to shine it outward, not from a limited supply of your own, but from God. Extend God's love. Extend God's healing miracles.

Simply...

God... help me to love [person's name]. Help me to extend your love to them and see them as lovable.

You will then feel love in your heart, for the other person, and you will feel the love and share in the love. It is the privilege of the loved to be loving.

It's helpful to reframe everything in this world as the ABSENCE of something real, rather than the PRESENCE of something unreal. The world ITSELF is not the PRESENCE of a world, is is only the seeming ABSENCE of heaven.

We are very used to labeling the things of this world as if they EXIST, have reality, are true and happening. So we might refer to someone's sickness as if it is the PRESENCE of a sickness. Or we might refer to a hateful or fearful feeling as the PRESENCE of hate or fear.

But this is a form of being deceived by illusions. Fear is not the presence of something, it's actually just the seeming LACK of love. Anything of the ego does not really exist and is only the ILLUSION of the absence of something real, appearing to be the presence of something unreal.

There is a major difference between the absence of something and the presence of something else. The absence of light seems to produce a dark shadow, but the shadow is the not the PRESENCE of darkness. If you point to it and say "its dark there" you are really mistaken. It's just an area where light is less. You could say, it is partly lit there.

Similarly someone who seems evil, is not evil. They are just lacking some love and sanity. They have a seemingly low level of love and sanity. They are trying to lack love, rather than to have the presence of unlove. The ego has come up with a whole set of terms for the opposites to real things and uses them profusely, but this obscures the fact that the absence of something IS NOT the presence of something else.

The whole world and everything in it is merely the LACK OF the presence of something real. Like a hole. You might say a hole in the ground is the "presence of" a hole, but a hole is nothing. It's a lack of earth. When the earth fills in where the hole was, where is the hole? It simple ceases to exist. Similarly when light illuminates a "dark" area, the area becomes flooded with light and the darkness does not exist.

We should reframe everything in terms of ONLY the seeming ABSENCE of something, rather than the presence of its opposite. Because as soon as you believe that there is a PRESENCE of the opposite of real things, you give reality TO the unreal and you make illusions real and you fall for deceptions.

Giving "life" to things that don't really exist, suggesting they are a "something" when in fact all it is is a lack of a real something, produces EGO. It's a way to suggest that darkness actually can CAUSE light to go away, or that the world has REPLACED heaven, or that bodies don't NEED minds, or that death has power OVER life. As soon as you suggest that anything in the illusory world is a SOMETHING that "exists in its own right", you are deceived by illusions.

Flipping from "its a lack of light" to "its a real darkness that exists on its own", is what makes darkness seem real, and have power, and a will of its own, and its own existence. This is what gives the WORLD a seeming existence in our mind. THIS is ego.

This is the belief that illusions are not illusions, or that a lack of love is ACTUAL sin, or that a lack of life is REAL sickness. As if darkness, and sin and attack and sickness and death are ACTUAL THINGS which have EXISTENCE of their own and ARE THERE, fighting against the truth. That they are ASSERTIONS of evil, expressions of death, and actual PRESENCES of real things opposite to God's creation.

Believing this about ANYTHING in this world is being DECEIVED by it and failing to recognize the world IS NOTHING in and of itself. It is ONLY the illusion of the absence of God. And if God were permitted to be PRESENT, his light would shine away the world, his life would raise the dead, his love would replace all fear, and his Kingdom would replace the planet. Earth is ONLY the illusion of the ABSENCE of the Kingdom.

So let's re-frame the world in much more accurate terms.

The world is not the presence of a world, it's just the seeming absence of God's world.

Sickness is not the presence of a sickness, it' just the seeming absence of health and life.

Hell is not the presence of real hell, it's just the seeming absence of heaven.

Bodies are not the presence of actual bodies, they are just an illusion of the seeming absence of spirit.

Attack is not the presence of an attack, it's just the seeming absence of healing and wholeness.

Fear is not the presence of terror, it's just the seeming lack of love's presence.

Guilt is not really the presence of actual guilt, it's a lack of recognition of innocence.

Sin is not really a real sin, it's just the seeming absence of sinlessness and invulnerability.

Death is not really death or the presence of death, it's nothing more than the illusion of a lack of life.

The important thing to realize is that when the PRESENCE of something REAL is supplied, when the light comes and shines in a dark room, when life is given to the dead, the true things REPLACE the seemingly dark things, the true things CAUSE the dark things to go away, and the illusory things SIMPLY VANISH INTO THIN AIR when the LACK they were based on is filled.

And we must also recognize that the things we say "have an existence" but which really are just the LACK OF the existence of something real, do not have any POWER or WILL or ABILITY to deny, resist, prevent, or overpower, the return of the PRESENCE of real things. When the light comes it DOES shine away all darkness and darkness CANNOT remain. The darkness's presence ENTIRELY DEPENDS on light being absent, and when the light comes, it CANNOT STAY. Because it WAS ONLY the lack of light, NOT the presence of darkness.

We can say that the ENTIRE CONTENT of the spacetime continuum, including earth and all galaxies and bodies, all illusions of suffering, are ENTIRELY ONLY the seeming ABSENCE of something real. The absence of GOD. That is all they are. They are illusions of what it looks like when GOD IS MISSING. But they are not the PRESENCE OF an opposite to God. The planet is not a planet, it is the ABSENCE of a world. Death is not death, it is only the ABSENCE of life. When life comes, there is resurrection!

"Miracles supply a lack."

The light comes, darkness vanishes.

When love comes, fear vanishes.

When life comes, death vanishes.

When heaven comes, hell vanishes.

When health comes, sickness vanishes.

When wholeness comes, attack vanishes.

When innocence comes, guilt vanishes.

When immortality comes, sin vanishes.

The world is only an ILLUSION of a world "existing", "happening", "being something", "doing something". It is NOT those things. Believing it IS those things is false perception and it being deceived by illusions. Recognizing it is ONLY THE LACK OF something, taking on an appearance of the "presence of" something different to what is lacking, that you recognize illusions are ONLY illusions. And this sets you on the path to their undoing. In fact Jesus says this is the ONLY way you can correct your mind.

"The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives it as a POSITIVE ACT OF ASSAULT. This is an interpretation which is necessary to its survival, because as soon as YOU regard it as a LACK, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will also succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but YOU must learn to regard it as freedom."

"The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by love, because love and ***its absence*** (fear) are in the same dimension, and correction cannot be undertaken except WITHIN a dimension. Otherwise, there has been a confusion of levels."

"But to the Holy Spirit, the goal is life, which HAS no end."

The Holy Spirit's goal is eternal life and immortality. That means everything he is doing is working towards the complete resurrection of the entire sonship back to their original state of perfection. This also includes the return to a state of total wholeness, innocence, happiness and health. It is the complete undoing of ALL sickness, ALL suffering, and ALL death.

Whereas all the world's roads point toward death, and the ego tries to steer everything toward destruction, the Holy Spirit steers everything towards immortality. A Course in Miracle is a course in immortality, because it's a way to move you back towards God who is life.

If you can imagine, what if everyone in the world became healed? What if everyone was a healer? What if all the sicknesses started to disappear and everyone's bodies returned to total heath? What if people stopped dying and there was no further war or attack or murder or damage? What if the entire population of the planet resounded in laughter and joy and love as one happy family?

That ultimately is the goal, or a step toward the goal, because the Holy Spirit is tasked with nothing LESS than the TOTAL resurrection of everyone. His goal is to restore everyone to eternal life and health. His goal runs completely opposite to all the goals and paths of the world, all the likely outcomes, all consequences and effects, all prognosis and diagnosis.

What's happening here in the atonement is nothing short of the absolute global resurrection of every single person. If you think that Jesus managing to surmount death was astounding, and indeed it is, since he returned to immortality and eternal life, imagine what that's going to be like when the entire population does the same?

No more sickness, no more death, no more suffering, no more unhappiness, no more corruption, no more hospitals, no more separation, no more world. Everyone lifted up and resurrected and restored and renewed through miracles. Everyone healed and whole and happy and healthy. Everyone united in a single chorus of celebration and joy and gratitude.

"The offer of Atonement is universal. It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances. And in it is the power to heal all individuals of all forms of sickness. Not to believe this is to be unfair to God, and thus unfaithful to Him."

"The Bible enjoins you to be perfect, to heal ALL errors, to take no thought of the body AS SEPARATE, and to accomplish all things IN MY NAME."

"Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal the Son of God."

"It MUST be true the miracle can heal ALL forms of sickness, or it CANNOT HEAL."

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

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

"Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls to him to return, because it blesses and honors him even though he may be absent in spirit." "Yet would His justice not be satisfied until it is received by everyone."

"Healing must be for everyone BECAUSE he does not merit an attack of any kind."

"And everyone is EQUALLY entitled to His gift of healing and deliverance and peace."

"No-one can lose, and everyone MUST benefit. Each miracle is an example of what justice can accomplish, when it is offered to everyone alike."

"What is God's BELONGS to everyone, and IS his due."

"And because I am unafraid, everyone must share in my understanding, which is the gift of God to me and to the world."

"God has given everyone a Teacher Whose wisdom and help far exceed whatever contributions an earthly therapist can provide."

"Within its holy circle, is everyone whom God created as His Son. Joy is its unifying attribute, with no-one left outside, to suffer guilt alone. The power of God draws everyone to its safe embrace of love and union."

"Your special relationship will be a means for UNDOING guilt in everyone blessed through your holy relationship. It will be a happy dream, and one which you will SHARE with all who come within your sight."

"He uses everyone who calls on Him, as means for the salvation of everyone. And He will waken everyone through you, who offered your relationship to Him."

"The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone. "

"The Holy Spirit knows your part in the redemption, and who are seeking you, and where to find them."

"Salvation's song will echo through the world with every choice they make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near. In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy. Give me my own, for they belong to You. And can You fail in what is but Your Will? I give You thanks for what my brothers are, and as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny, scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus from a world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to You."

"To heal, or to make joyous, is therefore the same as to integrate and MAKE ONE. That is why it makes no difference TO what part or BY what part of the Sonship the healing is done. EVERY part benefits, and benefits equally. YOU are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude."

"Accept Atonement and you are healed. Atonement is the Word of God. Accept His Word and what remains to make sickness possible? Accept His Word and every miracle has been accomplished. To forgive is to heal. The teacher of God has taken accepting the Atonement for himself as his only function. What is there then he cannot heal? What miracle can be withheld from him?"

"The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness."

"Every decision is made for the whole Sonship, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of."

A selection of quites about the causes of physical sickness, from A Course in Miracles.

THE CAUSES OF BODILY (PHYSICAL) SICKNESS

"Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that it will suffer pain."

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. 2 Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. 3 Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies."

"The body cannot create, and the belief that it CAN, a fundamental error responsible for most of the fallacies already referred to, produces all physical symptoms."

"Sickness or "not-right-mindedness" is the result of level confusion"

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

"Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it FOR."

"Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that POWER CAN BE TAKEN FROM YOU."

"For sickness is a meaningless attempt to give effects to causelessness, and MAKE it be a cause."

"Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total."

"What is a sense of sickness but a sense of limitation? Of a splitting OFF and separating FROM?"

"This heals at all levels, because all sickness comes from confusing the levels."

"The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY."

"To believe that a Son of God can be sick is to believe that part of God can suffer."

"When a brother is sick it is because he is not asking for peace, and therefore does not know he has it."

"For sickness is an election; a decision. It is the choice of weakness, in the mistaken conviction that it is strength."

"Sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for placing God's Son on his Father's throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself. Only by His death can He be conquered by His Son."

"If sickness is but a faulty problem-solving approach, it is a decision. And if it is a decision, it is the mind and not the body that makes it."

"Sickness is a retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone."

"Sickness is but another name for sin."

"Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true."

"Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness."

"We said before that illness is a form of magic."

"The mind makes this decision as it makes all decisions responsible for the condition of the body."

"A damaged body is proof the mind has not been healed."

"Damaged bodies are accusers."

"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception."

"You suffer pain because the body does, and in this pain are you made one with it."

"It will be healed of all the sickly wishes that it tried to authorize the body to obey."

"If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

"Sickness is a decision. 2 It is not a thing that happens to you, quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. 3 It is a choice you make, a plan you lay, when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. 4 Now are you sick, that truth may go away and threaten your establishments no more."

"How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth? 2 Because it proves the body is not separate from you, and so you must be separate from the truth."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt."

"Physical illness represents a belief in magic. "

"All forms of sickness even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual."

"Pain demonstrates the body must be real. 2 It is a loud, obscuring voice whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness."

"Pain is a wrong perspective. 2 When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception."

"And idols are not wanted there, for guilt is understood as the sole cause of pain in any form."

"And you are free of dreams of pain because you let him be. 6 Unless you help him, you will suffer pain with him because that is your wish"

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. 2 No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. 3 No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. 4 And no one dies without his own consent"

"Let me not try to make another will, for it is senseless and will cause me pain."

"Yet can the mind deny that this is so, believing there are gaps in love where sin can enter, bringing pain instead of joy."

"How do you think that sickness can succeed in shielding you from truth?"

"When attack in ANY form enters your mind, you are EQUATING YOURSELF WITH A BODY."

"The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."

HOWEVER...

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness." ... "It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. 6 And that is cure indeed." "Peace be to you who have been cured in God"

The message here is CLEAR. The body is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SICK. Sickness of mind OR body is unnatural and unholy. Even death of the body is not supposed to occur. It demonstrates and proves that the person does not want to be awake and would rather be unconscious. Death is utterly unnatural and against God's will at mental and physical levels. All physical sickness is a demonstration of the presence of a false belief and an attempt to DENY HEALTH by denying God.

A Course in Miracles IS attempting to help us to see that YOU NEED NOT SUFFER IN ANY WAY, not even physically, and any presence of ANY kind of sickness CAN AND MUST be healed by miracles.

The body is a separation device. It was made to section off and fence in a SMALL PORTION of mind, which seems then to find itself housed "inside" the body, while the larger portion of mind appears to be "separated off" or unconscious, outside the body. The sense of being isolated, separated, limited, partial, not whole, thus belongs to the "inside the body" experience, which is an experience of being only PART of yourself. To return to wholeness you have to thus transcend the body, erase the body, have no separation devices in the mind, and therefore collapse the gap between the outer and inner. The body symbolizes the split in the mind and once the split is erased the body is erased.

"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe."

Since the body itself is a separation device BETWEEN parts of mind, designed to keep one part of mind sectioned off from the other part, it can only seem to EXIST at all while there is a sense of separation. If the mind is split, the split shows up as a body coming between "you" (within the body) and the rest of you (outside the body, in others). The body is thus a symbol of separation in the mind, and when the mind does not have separation in it there cannot be a body at all.

This is why God cannot enter a body, because that's like saying you can keep a separation device, something which sections off inner and outer, and keeps them apart. It's like saying the whole of God which is everywhere (within and without) can be stuffed inside a container which is less than everywhere, and all of God can thus be housed inside a box and be ABSENT from the outside. This is utterly impossible because God is unlimited and infinite and all encompassing.

Thus God, all of God, cannot enter a body or dwell in a body entirely. Nor can you, who find yourself to "be in a body" or rather, who have a split mind which shows up AS a body coming between you and the rest of you, join with God fully while maintaining a body. The body can only be there IF there is separation in the mind. If the mind has NO belief in separation it utterly not only transcends the body but ERASES the body. There can be no body at all without a belief in separation. Total wholeness wipes the body away completely. Meaning that to truly be whole you cannot be inside a body. And you therefore cannot fully MEET, join, be one with all of God, while there is a body present. You have to leave the realm of bodies entirely to be infinite and unlimited.

"Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although ***what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still.***"

This is similarly why you cannot be Christ in a body, IMO. Christ is similarly unlimited and whole and infinite. Just as is your soul. Your soul cannot enter a body either. "The body neither lives nor dies because it cannot contain you who are life." Christ cannot directly in a first-person way be CONFINED in a body or sectioned off and found to be isolated to one place and not another. However, I believe ACIM is saying that you can "channel" Christ in a body, to some extent. You can be close to Christ and you can extend His love and miracles, but it's like he is working "through you" once removed, not directly.

I don't think Jesus was thus "Christ in a body" because if Christ could be in a body, fully, with no limitation at all, bodies could coexist with Christ and be his equal, and bodies would then have to exist in heaven as creations. Christ is unlimited, infinite, everywhere, and bigger than the universe. In ACIM Jesus lets us know that he "was a man who remembered his soul" and he remembered it in the atonement and ascension to heaven. And prior to that, he still had some trials and lessons, not least of which was the crucifixion. He BECAME identified fully with Christ, but not until getting out of here.

"To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body’s nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

"The death of an illusion means nothing. It disappears when you awaken and decide to dream no more."

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was."

All sickness is just a form of GUILT. And removing this guilt makes sickness IMPOSSIBLE.

Guilt induces sickness because it demands punishment. It is an agreement to suffer. It is the result of NOT forgiving sin, thus believing sin is real. And once sin is real, you must become guilty and attacked, self destructive, suicidal, ready to suffer and die. Unforgiveness of sin is the root of all sickness. Removing all GUILT removes all sickness. A person is not "sick"... they are GUILTY, this guilt is IN THE MIND, in its unforgiving attitude, and THAT is what needs to be healed. Undoing this guilt, which is atonement, which is forgiveness, due to recognizing there is no sin, is the CURE which GUARANTEES PERMANENT HEALTH.

"Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea."

"If you WITHHOLD agreement, and accept the part YOU play in making sickness real, the other mind cannot project its guilt without your aid in LETTING it perceive itself as separate and apart from YOU. Thus is the body NOT perceived as sick by BOTH your minds, from SEPARATE points of view. UNITING with a brother's mind prevents the CAUSE of sickness, and perceived effects. Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds that separate."

"Do not allow your brother to be sick, for if he is, have YOU abandoned him to his own dream, by SHARING it with him. He has not seen the cause of sickness where it is, and YOU have overlooked the gap between you, where the sickness has been bred. Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him."

"For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."

"ALL sickness comes from separation. When the separation is denied, it goes. For it IS gone as soon as the idea which brought it has been healed and been replaced by sanity. Sickness and sin are seen as consequence and cause, in a relationship kept hidden from awareness, that it may be carefully preserved from reason's light."

"Guilt ASKS FOR punishment, and its request is granted. NOT in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin. The Son of God perceives what he would see, because perception IS a wish fulfilled."

--- Part of lesson 140 "Only salvation can be said to cure":

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. ***Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt.*** Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. ***It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible.*** And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return.

Peace be to you who have been cured in God, and not in idle dreams. For cure must come from holiness, and holiness can not be found where sin is cherished. God abides in holy temples. He is barred where sin has entered. Yet there is no place where He is not. And therefore sin can have no home in which to hide from His beneficence .There is no place where holiness is not, and nowhere sin and sickness can abide.

This is the thought that cures. It does not make distinctions among unrealities. Nor does it seek to heal what is not sick, unmindful where the need for healing is. This is no magic. It is merely an appeal to truth, which cannot fail to heal and heal forever. It is not a thought which judges an illusion by its size, its seeming gravity, or anything that is related to the form it takes. It merely focuses on what it is, and knows that no illusion can be real.

Let us not try today to seek to cure what cannot suffer sickness. Healing must be sought but where it is, and then applied to what is sick so that it can be cured. There is no remedy the world provides that can effect a change in anything. The mind that brings illusions to the truth is really changed. There is no change but this. For how can one illusion differ from another but in attributes that have no substance, no reality, no core, and nothing that is truly different?

Today we seek to change our minds about the source of sickness, for we seek a cure for all illusions, not another shift among them. We will try today to find the source of healing, which is in our minds because our Father placed it there for us. It is not further from us than ourselves. It is as near to us as our own thoughts, so close it is impossible to lose. We need but seek it and it must be found.

We will not be misled today by what appears to us as sick. We go beyond appearances today, and reach the source of healing from which nothing is exempt. We will succeed to the extent to which we realize that there can never be a meaningful distinction made between what is untrue and equally untrue. Here there are no degrees, and no beliefs that what does not exist is truer in some forms than others. All of them are false, and can be cured because they are not true.

So do we lay aside our amulets, our charms and medicines, our chants and bits of magic in whatever form they took. We will be still and listen for the Voice of healing which will cure all ills as one, restoring saneness to the Son of God. No voice but This can cure. Today we hear a single Voice Which speaks to us of truth where all illusions end, and peace returns to the eternal quiet home of God."

Many many times in the Course it talks about the importance of *extension* - that if you do not share what you have you cannot have anything. 'Having' to the ego means not sharing. 'Having' to Holy Spirit means sharing. But why is this?

God extends Himself AS you to Create you and sustain you. You are His Creation. And because He gives you all the properties of Himself - his 'Fatherhood', you also therefore would naturally be a Creator and express your own fatherhood by further extending. So provided there is all this extension going on, everything is natural and normal. It's when we refuse to extend, that we enter into ego, because we're trying to stop Creation.

Now, Course stuff is sometimes hard to really understand using our regular language. In Heaven there really isn't any time or distance and there isn't a before-and-after scenario. But the idea of extending you can't really get a sense of it unless you put it sort of a chronological order like that, i.e. God extends from him to you, then you extend from you to others etc.

So I asked myself, if it weren't for this way of looking at it, how would I understand extension and why does God even extend at all.

I see it as... God radiates everywhere. Like a glow of light. It is his Presence (I'm hearing). Presence everywhere, God everywhere. God being everywhere. It's not like, God is separate from you and he shines outward onto you or through you. It's more like, God radiates His Presence everywhere and you ARE this 'radiation', somehow. I know we really can't properly put it into words, but.

So God being everywhere shares Himself everywhere. This idea of 'sharing' really means... God is present everywhere. There is nowhere that God is not, so that must mean he is 'fully shared'. The opposite of that would be that God is absent somewhere, so that would mean God does not 'share in' that part of existence (thats the ego's idea). So sharing has a lot to do with presence and Oneness and wholeness.

So God shares himself, be's whole himself, shines himself everywhere, and that is extension. The Course then says God did not will to be alone. By this I assume it to mean alone as in lonely. The Course also describes being alone a an ego concept of being separate. God doesn't will to be separate. But God is ONE, and whole, so it's not like God's sitting there twiddling his thumbs wondering if anyone is going to show up to play with. But for some reason, at least in Course terms, he 'creates' a Son. The Son is this idea of the 'end result' or effect of His Cause.. but really cause and effect are One and this doesn't happen over the course of time. The effect is always present forever because God causes/sustains forever.

But how do we explain that God created a Son out of the need to not be alone? Perhaps this means that God didn't will to not receive. He willed to both give and receive, and in a sense, what he receives 'from' - although it is One with Himself - is what the Course is calling 'the Son'. The feedback, if you will. But again there is no separation or time involved here. God shines everywhere and the radiance of God upon Himself is the Son.... even though this again suggests a gap of separation of time or separate caused and effects etc... this is why it's impossible to really describe.

Anyway. God extends us and we therefore must be extenders also because we are like Him. When we withhold extending or deny extension, we're trying to put a stop to Creation and to being an end to Life. That is the ego's choice for death. So to choose Life you must extend in the same natural way that He Created you. This means God radiates 'through' you, in a sense, although again there is no space or time involved here. God doesn't broadcast and then the broadcast travels through space and time a bit and then is received by you or relays through you. There is no spacetime. Extension is His shared Presence. Extension is the idea that God is already everywhere.

So when we have blocks to love, are trying to deny God, are trying to stop Life's extension, are trying to bring about an end/death, we're standing in the way of Creation and suffering. When we lift those blocks away and ALLOW GOD, everything 'flows' naturally and there is no blockage, thus no sickness or death.

Sometimes God's suggestion to me is.. ... "shine".

So here I am, shining a bit.

Let's get back to 'having'. If you don't extend you can't have anything. What this means is... the presence of God is blocked when it is not extended, so it if is really thoroughly inhibited, this essentially prevents God's presence. God's presence is WHAT IS, which means that's what you can HAVE i.e. experience in reality, so you can't join in that experience if God's presence is not being allowed to extend. So in effect it's like snuffing out a candle... if you stop the light you can't have the light. If you stop God you can't have God. And you can't really have anything other than God because nothing that He didn't Create exists.

So if you want to 'have' you have to "give all to all" i.e. give God - all that is - to God - to everything. This sharing, giving, extending of presence, shining, radiating, allows God's presence and thus for you to 'have' and own your real Self, which is One with Him. You can have all of your real self by extending it. It gives because it shines and is present everywhere. Without shining/extending you have nothing - by not extending, you prove there is nothing to extend, which implies you have nothing to extend.

Something like that.

Those who are sane do not attack, are not sick, cannot hurt or be hurt, are immortal and invulnerable, recognize their oneness with others, have no interest in murder, cannot suffer or be unhappy, can only will with God, and can only heal. Nothing harmful or hurtful can come from a person in their right mind.

When a person is rooted in pure unconditional love, they can do nothing but love. All behaviors are coming from love. All thoughts and attitudes are loving. The right mind is healing, healthy, happy and whole. Sane people are innocent. Sane people are compassionate. Sane people cannot attack.

What this tells you is that 99.99% of the people in the world are not sane. They are not in their right mind. They are also not fully conscious. Anyone who is not in their right mind must have blocks to awareness, must be in denial, must be to some degree unwilling to do God's will, must be sick, and must be to some degree unhappy.

Anyone not in their right mind must have positioned themselves as a victim and a victimizer. The denial/blocks in their mind is preventing them from seeing their invulnerability and their innocence, causes them to be split-minded or in two minds, have a divided will which is acting against itself, and now sees themselves as under attack.

This produces state of non-awareness or unconsciousness. The amount of conscious awareness that remains, which pretends to be a full, complete conscious awareness, is still not fully conscious. Entire portions of the mind have become inaccessible to awareness. Entire portions of a person's identity are hidden from view.

The person thinks they wake up in the morning but they merely pass from sleep to slightly less sleep. The blocks in the mind block sanity. And those who are "sleep walking" in the world are typically not awake. They will tend to hurt and be hurt. They will tend to attack and project. They will tend to sin and feel guilty. They will tend to be afraid and suffer and be sick. And they will tend to be murderous.

What we can see then is that anyone not in their right mind has placed themselves into a state of at least partial unawareness, are attacking themselves unconsciously, do not see what they are doing to themselves and so seek to explain it with causes outside of them, and are in a state of attempted murder. What is not love is murder, and those not in their right mind are not wholly loving.

But someone who is not wholly loving, is not sane. They are insane. They are un-conscious. They are confused. They do not have the awareness that's needed to show them what the obvious truth is. They are out of touch with who they are. They can't tell the difference between what is real and what is not real. They don't know what they are doing. They are acting insanely and are in a state of being mistaken.

If we frame everything that insane people do as being a state of "not knowing what they do", that they are acting this way as a result of mental illness, not being in their right mind, and we can remember that the person is simply not aware of what they are really doing, we can enter into a state of greater compassion.

It's a state of recognition of what the truth is, in which we understand every person is innocent and holy and divine and invulnerable, and so if the person is acting foolishly or murderously they must be in need. They must be lacking love in some way and are calling out for love. They must need help. Something has gone wrong with them and even they are not in a position of awareness to know how to resolve it.

We really need to recognize that most of the people in this world are not sane. Just about everyone has mental illness. And that includes all the people who seem to be conscious, successful, holding down a job, raising a family, displaying confidence, seeming to be fairly happy and sociable, or what you'd consider an "average person". If they were truly fully sane they probably would not be in a body.

If we then recognize that anyone "not being as God created them" is not in their right mind, we can say that they aren't acting the way they are "on purpose". While it's true that on a higher level they ARE choosing everything they are doing, they are not aware of this in their present state of consciousness. They have denied themselves the love that would heal them and so do not want it. And the result of love's absence is insane behavior.

If we can see that everyone is supposed to be being completely happy, joyful, alert, healthy, holy, harmless and peaceful, then if they're not, we know something has gone wrong in their mind. And that means they are calling out for love. They may at the same time not want that love, because their denial of love is what put them into this state to begin with. But they do NEED love because love is all that's absent in their mind. They need the love they have blocked.

It's like, people have tried to unhook themselves from the life support machine of God. They've pulled out the wires and don't want the help. But they NEED the help because of what they've done to themselves and the state they've put themselves in. So now they are calling out for help in the form of not wanting help, which if taken at first appearance seems to be an attack on God and on you. But it is merely an absence of love, just as light would dispel the illusion of darkness.

"It is curious that the perfect must now be perfected. In fact, it is impossible. But you must remember that when you put yourselves in an impossible situation, you believed that the impossible WAS possible."

If you can remember people are mostly insane and not in their right mind and not acting "on purpose" and not really wanting what they are doing, it becomes easier to not be deceived by the illusions they present. There is something deeper going on beyond the surface, beyond behaviors and beyond attacks. Healing is needed, called for, and the only appropriate right-minded response.

This is a pretty deep and abstract passage from lesson 167, "There is one life and that I share with God." It speaks of how immortal mind is permanently awake, it thinks of being asleep in which it dreams of a world of spacetime, everything in that dream is nothing with no consequences (there is no world) because it’s a dream of NOT existing and NOTHING happening, and then it simply awakens, the dream world disappears, and it resumes creation with God. You have to read it slowly to really get a feel for it. So I added some commentary...

"The mind (shared with God in heaven) can ***think*** it sleeps, but that is all (has a THOUGHT of sleeping - tiny mad idea). It cannot change what is its waking state (can’t change the truth). It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body (cannot make a REAL body). What is alien to the mind does not exist because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are (all creations in heaven), and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. It cannot make the physical (literally impossible to REALLY create the physical). What seems to die (the illusion of the physical) is but the sign of mind asleep (mind can only imagine physicality, it cannot create it as a permanent creation, and we are currently "living" within that IDEA).

The opposite of (eternal) life can only be another ***form*** of life (a real opposite is impossible, the physical is not completely opposite, it’s still within God - safe in God, dreaming of exile). As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not opposite in truth. Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. Yet mind is mind (mind is still mind even if it experiences wakefulness or THINKS OF a sleeping state) awake or sleeping. It is not its opposite in anything created (mind MAKES the illusion that mind is absent, free will is used to make the illusion of imprisonment), nor in what it seems to make when it believes it sleeps (even death is a deliberately chosen idea by a *living* mind).

God creates only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them (not possible to make an actual separation, death, body, etc) The **thought** of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life (absolute death is not possible at all, the thought of death is just an idea WITHIN the awake mind and are illusions, love has no opposite, so death is not a true opposite, it’s just a state of thought). Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God (souls etc) remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere.

What seems to be the opposite of life (eternal life) is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not (e.g. trying to be a world or body), and to assume an alien power which it does not have (made-up ego laws or ability to really sin), a foreign state it cannot enter (illusions of vulnerability, sickness, suffering, death), or a false condition not within its Source (nightmares, attack, sickness etc), it merely ***seems*** to go to sleep a while. It ***dreams*** (thinks of) of time (this whole universe); an interval in which what *seems* to happen never has occurred (tiny tick of time, nothing in this world ever happened), the changes wrought are substance-less (no real consequences, no sin), and all events are nowhere (nothing ever really happens because its a thought of "nothing happening"). When the mind awakes (to the Kingdom of God, and stops dreaming up a world), it but continues as it always was (in heaven).

Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny our holy heritage. Our life is not as we imagine it. Who changes life because he shuts his eyes (failure to acknowledge reality, denial of God), or makes himself what he is not (trying to be a dead body) because he sleeps and sees in dreams (this world) an opposite to what he is? (Everything you see in this world is OPPOSITE to reality - "Earth, heaven’s opposite in every way.") We will not ask for death (this world - "without the idea of death tehre is no world") in **any form** today. Nor will we let imagined (bodies, planets) opposites to (eternal) life abide even an instant where the Thought of Life Eternal has been set by God Himself.

His holy home (heaven) we strive to keep today as He established it, and wills it be forever and forever. He is Lord of what we think today. And in His Thoughts, Which have no opposite, we understand there is one life (eternal life with God), and that we share with Him, with all creation (the Kingdom of God, not this world), with their thoughts as well, whom He created in a Unity of life (all created beings in heaven) that cannot separate in death and leave the Source of Life (God) from where it came.

We share life because we have one Source (God), a Source from Which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the ***holy minds*** which He created perfect (yes God DID create many minds!). As we were, so are we now and will forever be ("we" existing within reality). A sleeping mind must waken (individually) as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of Life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there (sees the real world, reflects holiness here). And now it is no more a mere reflection (when you go to heaven). It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. No vision now is needed (vision/perception has no purpose IN heaven/reality - "Indeed, you cannot remain in the world with this knowledge."). For the wakened mind (awake in heaven, not in a body or in this world any more, not in the dream, not having dreams, not having the thought of the world, not asleep, fully awake in God) is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness."

"Only salvation can be said to cure."

There is only one problem - the sense of separation from God. God is immortality and permanent health. If you deny God, you are denying life and inducing death. It is ONLY the separation from God which CAUSES ALL SUFFERING, including all forms of sickness and death.

To deny God is to attack your health. Defending yourself against God is an attack thought, attacking your invulnerability. Sickness becomes a defense against the truth (God), made to "protect you from God", but with the actual effect of "protecting you from health." In sickness you are attempting to "save your life" by protecting yourself from life. This is clearly insane and cannot work.

"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival."

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt (are mortal)."

"It is your task to heal the sense of separation that has made him sick."

"The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved."

There is no other problem. ALL sickness is caused by separating from God. Denying God induces illness. Your mind is the sole cause of all suffering, even death. The ONLY solution is the atonement, which COMPLETELY erases all sense of separation and accepts God as truth. This makes the denial of health impossible, making sickness and death impossible. Atonement cures wholly because it represents WHOLENESS.

"The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness."

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."

"Atonement heals with certainty, and cures all sickness. For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take. Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick (but does result in this), for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. (which heals the sick) And that is cure indeed.

***For sickness now is gone***, with nothing left to which it can return." Atonement is the restoration of your immortality. It makes you utterly invulnerable. You can no longer be sick or die. Nothing can happen against your will. You have no need for defenses because you know you cannot be attacked. Nothing real can be threatened.

"The mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable."

"Those who accept Atonement, ARE invulnerable."

"You are invulnerable BECAUSE you are guiltless."

"This heals the Separation, and places within man the one defense against all Separation-mind errors which can make him perfectly invulnerable." When you separate from (deny, oppose) God, you block your awareness of the presence of love (life) within you. Seeing lack and being in need, you seek for what is absent, outside of you. This begins "seek and do not find." You will not find it outside because it is inside.

You look for yourself, your love, your life and health, outside of you, where they do not exist. Seeking outside of yourself for this CAUSES sickness and suffering, because it takes you AWAY from God and life, which are WITHIN you. You try to find them where they do not exist, and the more you try the worse you suffer. Seeking for God outside yourself is the avoidance of God within yourself.

"Peace is an attribute ***in YOU. You cannot find it outside.*** All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace." Perceiving a lack of love within, you project lack without. This makes a world of lack. Coming from the internal attack on God, it is a projected attack-world. "The world was made as an attack on God." "The world of bodies is the world of sin." "The world is a (projected) picture of the crucifixion of God's son."

This is also a projection of, and a disowning of, causal power. You don't want to admit that YOU CAUSE YOUR OWN SUFFERING - ie you are the one denying health. You imagine that causation is outside of you, and you see yourself as caused BY it. This frames the world as "sinning against you" ie causing you against your will, making you a powerless effect. This sets you up to be a victim, or receiver of the world, which you now "sense" through the body's inputs.

You have given the world, which you are dreaming/hallucinating, all the power it seems to have. You have given YOUR power away in trying to empower it to have power over you. You have given it your causality and will. You think it has your life, and contains your self. And you see it as causing you. It is therefore attacking you. It is your enemy and your savior, because it does things to you.

The world now is seen as a world of sin, in which the world can hurt you. It decides when you will suffer. It decides how you become sick. It decides when you will die and how much pain you will endure. All of this seems to happen against your will from the outside in. Anything the world can do TO you, is against your will, regardless of it seeming to be positive or negative.

You then divide up the world into separate parts to try to "spiritualize" some and "demonize" others. You pick and choose certain aspects of the world to "do things to you" that you prefer. You try to avoid its attacks, while collecting its lovely treasures. You defend against its harsh weather with your little fragile house. You seek for its fancy cars while trying to avoid a crash. You want only the good food not the bad stuff. And so you make a bargain with the world, to try to induce it to "do only good things to you", while avoiding all the bad things. And when it seems to go well, you think you are "living the dream." But you have gained the world, and lost your soul.

"What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

The world is two-faced. The world is self-contradictory. It offers you pain, and offers you salvation from that pain. It hurts you, then offers you healing. It threatens to destroy you, then tries to save you. This is because the world has come from the belief that BOTH heaven and hell exist. That life and death are both possible. And so the world depicts the contradiction of opposites. It seems to partly help, and partly hurt.

As a result, EVERYTHING in the world is not one thing, but two. It is a world of dualities and a double-edged sword. Everything which seems to help, MUST also hurt. Everything which seems to hurt, in some way helps. Snake venom can be a partial medicine. Surgery can kill you. ALL foods have toxicity to them, some worse than others. All medicines exaggerate certain body functions while depressing others. The external manipulation of the body is thus seen as the only sane solution to being externally manipulated.

This is actually inescapable. Anything the world can seem to do to you against your will is MAGIC. All magic is a mixture of attack and defense. To be "affected by the world" is still a state of being victimized and in need, regardless of whether the effects are preferred.

We try to focus ourselves on finding the "least harmful solution" to problems, to minimize the risks, and to skew the picture to make it seem like there are "completely harmless solutions". We have a fictional idea that some things in the world are totally harmless. But the world HAS NO harmless solutions. EVERY one of its solutions is a problem in its own right. Its effects cause more effects.

In fact, the world has a somewhat sinister motive, which can appear to be hidden. It basically wants you dead. Sooner or later. Even if it gives you scraps and hopes and promises, every one of its helping hands is laced with poison. Its every attempt to "make you happy" sets you up for loss and sadness.

Anything it can give to you, it can just as easily take away. Anything you "get" from it, is a deception with a cost. This is because the world was made WITH and FROM the notion of the REJECTION OF LIFE. The world is made of the idea of death, because it came from rejecting immortality. So it cannot actually offer you life. It cannot give you wholeness. And it cannot provide a CURE for anything - or a cure for ITSELF. And being the inducer of death, it will do anything BUT cure death.

"There is a tendency to think the world can offer consolation and escape from problems that its purpose is to keep."

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. ... All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."

Because the world comes from the wish to die, ie the wish to deny God and health, it is driven by a MOTIVE of death. That was the PURPOSE in making it, as an attack upon God and life. Death motivates the world, and everything in the world ultimately drives TOWARD death. It cannot therefore induce immortality, cure you completely, or restore your wholeness. It cannot save you, nor can it give you eternal life. It MUST fail, because it came from the failure to recognize the truth.

"It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL. No worldly thought or act or feeling has a motivation other than this one. These are the witnesses that are called forth to be believed, and lend conviction to the system they speak for and represent."

"Everything in this world is little, because it is a world made out of littleness, in the strange belief that littleness CAN content you. When you strive for anything in the world, WITH THE BELIEF THAT IT WILL BRING YOU PEACE, you are belittling yourself, and blinding yourself to glory." "There is NOTHING in the world to teach him that the logic of the world is totally insane, and leads to nothing."

"There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."

"There is a light which this world cannot give."

"It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace, or upset you in any way."

Anything the world "does to you" is magic. Magic is the idea of a cause outside of yourself affecting you against your will. It is the opposite to internally-sourced miracles. This takes the form of anything the world seems to do to harm you, as well as anything the world seems to do to help you.

While you may prefer the "good stuff", having the world "do good things to you" is just as much a state of victimhood. It still focuses on you getting from the outside, what you lack inside, without your insides changing. It's still a state where you WANT the world to do something "to you" against your will, FORCING you to "be happy." This is "forgiveness to destroy", because you seek for the world to be the source of change, rather than yourself.

Since the world attacks and defends, and since its motive is ultimately death, and since it CANNOT induce wholeness or a total cure, ALL of its remedies are AT BEST partial. All of its remedies MUST therefore do the opposite to what they claim to do, as well. They MUST be two-faced and deceptive. If it is to "help you", it MUST also hurt you. There is ALWAYS a price to pay, and it does not help to deny this.

This means that ALL foods have a negative side-effect. There is no such thing as a perfect diet. It means that ALL medicines have harmful side effects. All surgeries have high risks of serious threats to your health. All vaccines INDUCE what they are ultimately trying to avoid. In some cases literally, while in others the form is less obvious.

It may not take the form of a certain vaccine "causing the virus" it was trying to prevent, but the real PURPOSE of a vaccine is to "ward off death", which it CANNOT really do. And in fact it must IN SOME WAY, induce it, to some degree. It MUST induce other symptoms as a result of its "interference". Some of these symptoms may be mild to barely noticeable, while others may be life threatening.

This has nothing to do with the competence of medical workers, or the proficiency of scientists, or the wonders of modern medicine, or the seemingly wonderful "benefits" of an extremely wide range of magical solutions. It would APPEAR that "lives are saved" by such things. Provided you recognize that at the same time, lives were also attacked by such things. There is NEVER a possibility of a perfect total "cure" through ANY magical external means. ONLY atonement can be said to cure completely.

This simply goes back to the fact that the ONLY PROBLEM is the separation from God, which is the sole cause of inducing all sickness, suffering and death. The MIND creates what appear to be viruses and invasions, putting them into the world. The world only then APPEARS to be their source. ONLY by correcting THAT problem, will sickness and death TRULY become impossible. Anything which does not address this ACTUAL problem, will not ultimately ward off death, even if it appears to in the short term.

This is the main problem which ALL magical solutions share. They appear to change the body, BUT NOT the mind. They may make the body seem healthier, but do nothing to fix the dripping tap of death-inducing separation.

There is no pill for "the separation". There is no medication that can induce runion with God. There is no surgery which can cut out the ego. There is no bandaid sufficient enough to heal the wound of the denial of health. And no vaccine can EVER fully guarantee your safety or that of others. It may seem to do SOMETHING, but it cannot do everything.

What that leaves you with is one of two options.

1) Heal the separation from God, accept atonement, receive a complete CURE, and never suffer again. This makes all sickness impossible because you choose to stop causing it, and there is no other cause.

2) Avoid healing the separation, MAINTAIN sickness, choose from a selection of LIMITED and PARTIALLY EFFECTIVE magical treatments which WILL hurt you in some way, and try to live with the consequences.

If you think that you can elect to use magical remedies WITHOUT ill effects, you are in denial. They only seem to do anything BECAUSE of your denial. You might weigh up the seeming risks, look at the manmade "statistics", and decide for yourself (or preferably with God) as to whether to indulge in magic or not. But let's be clear, for your health as well, that any magical solution cannot ONLY heal. It has to also cause some form of harm. It is because you BELIEVE in harm that you think you NEED it in the first place, and this belief works against your health.

Maybe you are willing to accept that, although you cannot honestly be fully at peace about it. No-one who recognizes without denial what magical solutions ARE and WHY they exist and WHAT their motive is, can rest in peace. You can resign yourself to a compromise, willing to suffer in some ways to OFFSET the others. But this is how the world worlds. This is the laws of physics and entropy. You become willing to suffer a seemingly "smaller pain" in exchange for the reduction of a larger one. It's a tradeoff. You buy and sell risk in an effort to minimize cost, while always having a cost.

Do not pretend though that medicines or a vaccine or an injection or a pill or a certain kind of food or drink or even any form of salvation - sex, drugs, rock and roll - can undo the separation in the mind and truly prevent illness. Nothing external can fix the INTERNAL problem. The internal problem has CAUSED the external to appear, as an hallucinated world of suffering. And then you are looking to a made-up death-induced world, to save you from death. It cannot ultimately work.

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

This doesn't mean you shouldn't necessarily USE magic IF you need to, want to, or for whatever reason. Sometimes such thing can seem to alleviate suffering. People wouldn't likely take them if they didn't "seem to help". Some people cannot "live" without external support, major medications, physical apparatus, and various other help. Surgery can seem to save lives. But surgery can also induce complications.

"All material means which man accepts as remedies for bodily ills are simply restatements of magic principles. It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the application of these very weak corrective devices are evil."

Your best bet is seeking spiritual guidance from a higher source - the Holy Spirit - Jesus - Angels etc.... as to what to choose. And if that means you have to "settle" for non-miraculous external help, for a non-whole treatment, due to what you are willing to accept right now, so be it. But then keep working on your forgiveness and moving towards the acceptance of atonement as well. Atonement is the GUARANTEE of health forever.

Please don't misinterpret that this post is telling you what to do or not to do, NOR is it trying to paint vaccines in an unfair or negative light or to "put you off". They are what they are. They can only do what they do. If you're okay with that, so be it. It's your free will choice.

What you are, and what your brother is, is ONLY what has been given by God. Your inheritance, shared with your brother, comes only from God. You are permanent host to God. God is in you. He has shared his Will with you. He has given his Mind to you. You have his freedom and his love. You are ONLY what HE intends you to be.

There is nothing about you which God Himself did not create, and anything He did not create does not exist. If it did not come from God, it is not really there. If God didn't give it to you, or you didn't extend it from Him, it is not yours. You have nothing that does not come from him.

"What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning."

"There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you."

The only seeming temporary difference between you and Jesus is that you think you have things which did not come from God. You think you are something He did not create. You think you have a will that is different to his. You think your body is really happening. You think problems in this world of problems need to be solved. You think there is a world you made to oppose his. Nothing that He did not create exists. Nothing you made is really there.

"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it."

If there appears to be sickness, it cannot exist. If God Himself personally did not put the sickness there, it cannot exist. God must be involved in anything real. If a person has any form of sickness, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, it cannot have come from God. If it did not come from God and is instead an attempt to shut God out, then it did not come from reality, nor can it be anything but an illusion.

Your brother cannot be sick because God did not create sickness. Your brother cannot be a body because God did not create bodies. Your brother cannot be unhappy, sad, suffering, dying, afraid, guilty, sinful, condemned, attacked, or even slightly annoyed, because God himself did not put it there.

There is no sickness in God, there is no pain in God, there is no hatred in God, there is no death in God. God does not have cancer or heart disease or diabetes or stroke or heart attacks or liver failure or brain damage or ulcers or lung disease or broken bones. He did not create these things. They do not exist in Him. He did not give them to you or your brother. Therefore they CANNOT be real, they cannot exist, and you and your brother CANNOT really have these things.

We are but to recognize that we have nothing other than what came from God. Only the truth is true and nothing else is true. If God isn't a co-creator of it with you, it is not real. If God Himself did not create it with you, it is not real. If you made it yourself, it is not real. There can be nothing true about the world or the body because God did not create it. He did not create war or sickness or death. These cannot be true, they cannot be real, they cannot be there.

"It is not God's will that you suffer."

"In the real world, there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division."

"God is very quiet, for there is no conflict in Him."

"There is no difference between your will and God's."

"Here there is no attack upon the Son of God, and YOU are welcome."

"There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form."

"There is no opposition to the truth."

"There is no death because what God created shares His Life."

"There is NO chance that Heaven will not be yours"

"If God is real there is no pain. If pain is real there is no God."

"There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are."

"There is no place where you can suffer, and no time that can bring change to your eternal state."

"There IS no hindrance to the Will of God"

"A Son of God is happy only when he knows he is WITH God."

"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it can blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true."

"There is no emptiness in him."

"There IS no barrier between God and His Son"

"For there is no lack in him."

"And in the Mind of God there is no ending, nor a time in which His Thoughts were absent, or could suffer change."

"If death is real for anything, there is no life. Death denies life. But if there is reality in life, death is denied. No compromise in this is possible."

"There is no veil the love of God in us together CANNOT lift."

"There IS no guilt in you, for God is blessed in His Son, as the Son is blessed in Him."

"There is no fear in perfect love."

"there is no possible alternative to God's plan that will save you"

"There is NO strain in doing God's will as soon as it is also your own."

"IN the Kingdom, there is no teaching OR learning, because there is no BELIEF. There is only CERTAINTY."

"There is no death, because the living share the Function their Creator gave to them. Life's function CANNOT be to die. It must be life's EXTENSION, that it be as One forever and forever, WITHOUT end. "

"God created ONLY the eternal, and everything YOU see is perishable."

"There is no sin."

"There is no death, the son of God is free."

"I am not a body,I am free.For I am still as God created me."

"There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist."

"Today's idea is true because the world does not exist."

"I who remain as God created me would loose the world from all I thought it was. For I am real because the world is not, And I would know my own reality."

This is where my mind went last night. I had no idea God felt so highly of me. Holy Spirit guided my thoughts.

God loves you.

God knows you.

God created you.

God designed you.

God chose you.

God still wants you.

You are God's treasure.

God cherishes you.

God holds you like a most beloved thing.

God feels happy with you.

God is pleased with you.

God is joyful that you are exactly perfect.

God values you.

You are worthy of God.

God sees you as being worth something.

God feels you are important and special to him.

God smiles upon you.

God wants you.

God is overjoyed that you can share with him.

God actually thinks you are highly valuable to him.

God knows you deserve to be loved.

You are worthy of receiving love from God.

You are worth loving.

You mean something to God.

You mean everything to God.

You are God's child.

God is very happy that you are like him.

God knows you are perfect.

God knows you are innocent.

God sparkles with delight at your beauty.

God wants you.

God welcomes you with open arms.

God desires for you to exist.

God wills to protect you always.

God wants to protect you because you are his treasure.

God treasures you and is enamored with you.

God adores you.

God loves to give you everything.

God loves being with you.

God is very close to you.

You are very intimate with God.

God protects you and surrounds you with himself.

God envelops you in his love and safety.

God knows he has created something very good in you.

You are a divine creation of God.

You are completely loved by God.

God deeply cares about you.

God sees you as permanently holy.

God recognizes you and knows you.

You belong to God.

You are God's personal property.

God maintains you with his power forever.

God shares all of himself with you.

God hides nothing from you.

God is open with you.

God wants you to be happy.

God wills that you be perfect and whole.

God has given you eternal life.

God depends on you.

God knows you are completely dependable.

God trusts you.

God is ecstatic at how lovely you are.

God created you with all his heart.

God loves you unconditionally.

God can never stop loving you.

God wants to love you forever.

You will never be alone.

You can never be out of his sight.

God will always be with you.

God wants to be with you always.

God enjoys you.

God is certain of your endless innocence.

God will never accuse you of anything.

God will never hold anything against you.

God is your family.

God is your creator.

God holds you like a perfect star, high in heaven.

God wants you to be surrounded with love.

God wants you to never be alone.

God has even created your brothers to enjoy being with you.

Everyone loves you like God loves you.

God finds you worthy of inheriting everything he has to give.

You have everything that God has.

God has opened himself up to you fully.

God himself shines upon you to light your way.

God goes with you everywhere.

God will never hurt you.

God will only heal you and support you.

God understands you perfectly.

God knows you completely.

God accepts you entirely.

God is very happy with you.

God sees you as deserving everything good.

God wants you to have everything.

God blesses you and harmonizes with you.

God wants to help you to create with him.

God is overjoyed to see you being yourself.

God loves you laugh with you.

God is your best friend.

God is completely benevolent toward you.

God beholds you as magnificent.

God finds you to be glorious and grand.

God could not have created anything better than you.

You are the absolute maximum of God's perfection.

God has pulled out all the stops for you.

God suspends you in his perfect love and adoration.

You can never offend God.

You can never make him stop loving you.

God will love you for eternity.

God loves you very much.

"The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. But still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. There was no time it was not there. No instant when its light grew dimmer or less perfect ever was."

"The difference is that I love ONLY what God loves WITH me, and, because of this, I treasure you beyond the value that you set on yourselves, even unto the worth that God has placed upon you."

"God wills you better. Could you not look with greater charity, on whom God loves with perfect love?"

"Every brother God loves as He loves you; neither less nor more."

"God loves His Son forever, and His Son RETURNS his Father's love forever."

"God loves His Son."

"God wants us to be healed"

"God WANTS you to behold what He created, because it is HIS joy. Can your grandeur be arrogant, when God HIMSELF witnesses to it?"

"God wants only His Son, because His Son is His only treasure. You want your creations, as He wants His. Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for YOUR creation."

"If God knows His children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as guilty. If God knows His children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows his children to be wholly joyous, it is blasphemous to feel depressed."

"Nothing that God knows not exists. And what He knows exists forever, changelessly. For thoughts endure as long as does the mind that thought of them, and in the Mind of God there is no ending, nor a time in which His Thoughts were absent, or could suffer change." "God knows what His Son needs before he asks."

"God knows His Son as wholly blameless as Himself, and He is approached through the appreciation of His Son. Christ waits for your acceptance of Him as YOURSELF, and His Wholeness as YOURS. For Christ is the Son of God, who lives in his Creator, and shines with His glory. Christ is the extension of the love and the loveliness of God, as perfect as his Creator, and at peace with Him. Blessed is the Son of God, whose radiance is of His Father, and whose glory He wills to share as His Father shares it with Him."

"You can know yourself only as God knows His Son, for KNOWLEDGE is shared WITH God. When you awake in Him, you will know your magnitude by accepting HIS limitlessness as YOURS."

"Say to the Holy Spirit only, "Decide for me," and it is done. For His decisions are reflections of WHAT GOD KNOWS ABOUT YOU, and in this light, error of ANY kind becomes impossible."

"Can YOU see guilt where God KNOWS there is perfect innocence?" "And so is Heaven's Son prepared to be Himself, and to remember that the Son of God knows everything his Father understands, and understands it perfectly with Him"

"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?" "God knows His Children with perfect certainty. He Created them by knowing them. He recognizes them perfectly."

"God knows you NOW. He remembers NOTHING, having ALWAYS known you exactly as He knows you now."

"God knows you are deserving of life"

"And you WILL find rest for your Souls. God knows you only in peace, and this IS your reality."

The ego's experience of someone dying is horrible. Ego thinks in transactional, finite terms. As if relationship is some commodity amount that you give and lose, and then you lack, and then you need the other to give it back by losing. This is the sacrifice of specialness.

This is the opposite of the golden rule, where the ego says giving and receiving are not one. That what you give you do not give to yourself. And therefore giving is loss. It sees someone's death in rather physical terms, meaning that the form has gone and therefore there has been a one-sided loss, and now they are not giving you what you gave. The thing that was supposed to give you back, albeit separately, has stopped giving, and so you now are in a state of lack because you depended on them.

From this viewpoint the only thing you can feel is loss, which feels horrendous. It's like saying, the person is dead and thats a true fact and there's nothing you can do about it, so you might as well just be in total despair forever. But this ego perception is rooted in victimhood, ingratitude, not recognising, not appreciating, seeing oneself as deprived, unfairly treated, taken from, stolen from, and diminished. And then the ego cries. A lot.

It can reason that there is no other way, and it will have no insight into the opposite of loss, which is gain. But the Holy Spirit gives another view entirely, a totally opposite view in fact. Because as far as He's concerned, there is no loss possible in the golden rule of God. What is given is received by both. What is given is given to yourself forever. There is no room for loss at all, and there is only gain.

The way forgiveness looks at death, it regards it as a gift and a blessing, rather than a curse. It sees that the event has simply purely given to you, by which you have purely gained. You have not been deprived at all, you have only increased. A great gift has been given, and you have received it, and by recognising that you have received it you can enter into justified gratitude. And this is how gratitude becomes part of forgiveness - the recognition of the truth that there is only gain and increase under God's laws.

Gratitude is the total opposite of loss. It acknowledges that you have not lost, that nothing is missing, and that in fact you have received so much that you are overwhelmed with how much you have been given, so much that not a single trace of loss remains. And how can you then feel loss in such a perspective of having been utterly blessed? Loss is literally a lack of gratitude, an unwillingness to receive, and a denial of God's blessing.

Of course, recognising this requires dismantling the ego's interpretation of death, which sees nothing except loss and no gain at all. It sees the situation as utterly hopeless and futile, with no possibility of finding any gain in it at all, dwelling entirely on what seems to be absent, what has been stolen away, and what is no longer there. As if loss is real and permanent and total. And this is the idea of "real death".

But of course this depends on form, because the ego only really registers form "as" content, and does not recognise content at all. If a physical body is gone, yes form is gone, but the love that was in and through the body is not gone. In fact it has been given in a blessing through the person's body to you, and you have received it, and now you are it, and you extend it, and it is alive in you, continuing to be given. And that is because miracles mean endless giving - they continually extend love.

To the ego there is no benefit to you that someone has gone away. It sees only the horrifying and seemingly real deprivation, the taking away of the specialness that you loved, the exclusive source that you thought was the love itself. It sees only a dark and deceitful treachery, that has ripped its beloved treasure away and utterly destroyed it beyond all hope of recovery. And it's never coming back - a stark and horrible fact. Such is the proof of sin and death and dissolution. Then it holds this up as the only reality and truth, as if there is nothing else to it. A total fact. And within this truth, you must simply feel like absolute shit because your whole world has been destroyed forever.

But the ego is utterly blind to the truth, it has no acknowledgement of roles played, of higher purposes, of the way that someone gave transcendent of form, that what was given is still with you and still giving, that loss is impossible, and in a forgiving view you can only possibly be blessed by everything. To forgive is to truly recognise that the world is not doing anything to you, death has no power over you, and therefore it cannot cause something to be taken from you. You cannot lose, you can only win. And if you cannot lose, you must be only gaining. You must be purely receiving, and to receive unconditionally with no strings attached is love. Upon receiving such unending love the only logic response in the mind is gratitude. And gratitude is also a part of giving.

It's similar to what happens when you at first seem to be a victim of someone, and you hate them and fight with them and they seem to deprive and hurt you. But then later you forgive, and you come to realise you hired them, and they played a role that you needed for your spiritual growth, and you gained tremendously from your enemies even if they seemed to be the very people you did not want to be around. You benefited. And then as your perspective grows, you come to more fully understand who did what and why, how you consented, how you used it, and what you did to yourself. And out of that comes a recognition of the innocence of the other and yourself, and the realisation that you have only happily gained from the encounter - that it is not a loss or an attack at all. And then you can be grateful to them for helping you to learn this lesson - to move you closer to God.

Another aspect of this is that if you believe someone else has become lost to you, or that love is lost, then by the golden rule you will also believe that you are lost. And then you will become lost as well, lost in despair and grieving and feelings of loss and hopelessness. And that is because you believe it's true that some other person can be completely lost, and if thats true of them it's true of you. This is why when the loss seems to happen, you feel like you have lost part of yourself. As if it was you that died. And then you stop living. But this is the ego's reasoning as well, because nothing real can die or be lost, and certainly nothing is missing from heaven.

The antidote to loss then is the broader and deeper perspective that you have not lost anything, and have in fact only gained. When you can see that you have only gained, then your response can only be gratitude, because you have been truly blessed and given everything. You've been given freedom and life and opportunity and a future. You've been given room to grow and learn and enjoy further relationships. This isn't a fake positivity either. It's not about just trying to put on a brave face and act as if things are great in denial of loss and feelings. It's a total uprooting of the belief in loss, which is really a lack of recognition. When lessons - and death is a lesson - is correctly perceived, it is recognised as being entirely beneficial. Something that happens only for your highest good.

This also leads into why the Holy Spirit's atonement plan is solely functioning for your highest good, and everything he arranges for you to go through - which you consent to - is leading you to eternal life. If you can see it from the perspective of gratitude and blessing, without the egoic interpretation of "its a loss" or "its difficult" or "i've been deprived" etc - which is a denial of the golden rule, then it is recognised as gentle and helpful and only a blessing. If the ego enters into it, it interprets the lessons as cruel and unwanted and a curse. Something that you want to go away and stop, to fear and resist. When you stop resisting you enter acceptance and presence, and then you also find forgiveness and gratitude. God has only given, he has never taken away.

The big picture truth is simply this: everything that happens is leading you home to God. Everything. Even people seeming to die. Only forms and illusions seem to die, anyway. What is true and real and our identity is permanent and eternal. And you literally are those who seem to move on, who must still be you as well. There is no loss in truth, no loss in God, and no loss in you. There is only a complete willingness to receive God's blessing and be fully grateful for it. Really, the only reason we despair is because we think God isn't loving us anymore, and this can only be a lack of recognition of what is actually true, or an unwillingness to see it. Undoing the belief in death as a block to love brings about a revolution into gratitude and happiness.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

"The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His."

"A happy outcome to all things is sure."

I believe I have received. Thank you God.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In ACIM there is a very strong theme, based on the Golden Rule, which describes a dynamic we are all supposed to adopt. It's the idea that giving and receiving are one.

"giving and receiving are the same" UrW225

In fact, that entire phrase appears SIX times in the course.

It is the backbone of the Golden Rule, which is a law of God, that what you do unto another YOU directly DO unto yourself. And this is on the basis that your brother - other people - are a PART OF YOU. And therefore, what you do to them, you literally are doing to the part of you that is SHARED with them.

But think about this for a moment, because it really makes NO SENSE AT ALL. Jesus presents it with what appears to be a nice voodoo-sounding phrase, which is laden with impossibilities:

"Therefore, His teaching begins with the lesson: To HAVE, GIVE all TO ALL." UrT6F13

How on earth, can you give everything, to everyone, and still HAVE everything? This defies normal logic, does it not? It does not make sense. Ask anyone in the world how this is possible, they will probably be stumped. It seems totally false.

If I give you my dinner, I will not have my dinner. If I give you my car, I will not have the car. If I give you my money, I will not have the money. HOW can it MAKE SENSE, to say that if I give you everything, I will HAVE IT ALL? Or even worse, that I'm supposed to give what I have ***TO EVERYONE***? How is that even possible?

If you are savvy and paying attention, you should conclude that these kinds of statements MAKE NO SENSE AT ALL. They seem absolutely nonsense. They are totally out of line with what we experience in the world. How can they be true?

The big thing is... Jesus seems to be telling us that it is not only POSSIBLE, but the true law of God, that things which seem impossible to us are the ONLY possibility. That there is some WEIRD way by which something that makes absolutely no sense, IS in fact the truth.

He is telling us that we're supposed to "love others as ourselves" - as we would love ourselves, and knowing that they ARE a part of ourselves. How can this make any sense though? And be careful not to go into denial here and just PRETEND that "you believe it" because it sounds all magical and spiritual.

It seems ONLY to make sense to say that whatever I GIVE, I WILL LOSE. Yes? Have you ever experienced otherwise? Anything you have ever given you have lost. You have had to compromise. You have never been able to keep what you have given to anyone. Why is Jesus telling you that it is some kind of divine law or dynamic or way of relating to others that you're supposed to adopt? What nonsense!

"A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously." UrT1B18A

The thing is.. .. God's truth and laws are nothing like the laws of this world, or the dynamics of ego relationships, or the way by which physical objects interact and relate. What SEEMS to make sense to us here, is in truth absolutely nonsense. And that which SEEMS to be absolutely nonsense, is in fact the truth.

Now... that's a REALLY BIG CLAIM. Because now Jesus is telling us that something that seems to make NO SENSE, is in fact the truth! Nonsense is the truth?! Not only is it the truth, GOD HIMSELF apparently has a nature which makes NO SENSE.

Somehow, we're told, God gives everything to everyone, and yet keeps everything. And, supposedly we're supposed to adopt the same function, of giving everything to everyone, in order to have everything. And he even tells us that if we do NOT give it all away, we will have nothing. WHAT NONSENSE, SURELY?!

"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." UrT3G15

Here for example Jesus is saying not only are there souls created by God (hold that thought), but also that EACH of them knows God COMPLETELY. Which means, that I can have everything, and you can have everything, and we can both have everything simultaneously. WHAT THE F?! .... How can that make any sense at all?

How can you have everything, while I also have everything, without either of us having to compromise or share or take turns? But he's telling us that's how it is. And he describes this dynamic as miraculous - it IS a course in the miraculous, after all.

So here's the big issue. It is CLEARLY evident that all of the things which are true of God, and all of the dynamics of his creation and reality and the workings of his relationships and so on, SEEM TO MAKE ABSOLUTELY NO SENSE.

They entail seemingly mind-bending possibilities, such as you handing over your entire inheritance and still having it all. Such that, in fact, when you give everything, the other person you gave it to now HAS IT ALL, AND YET... you ALSO have it all, which means the total amount HAS INCREASED. F me!

"God Himself created the law by creating BY it. And His Sons, who create LIKE Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the INCREASE of the Kingdom depends on it, just as THEIR creation did." UrT7C7

We're told that the entire Kingdom of God INCREASES, because when you GIVE ALL TO ALL, you still HAVE it all, and now everyone else HAS everything you gave, and now it is DOUBLED. So there is constant increase of everything real. This is a real dynamic in reality. How can this make any sense at all, that when you give stuff away IT MULTIPLIES?!!! What?

What it then boils down to, is that the ultimate truth is, God's nature, the nature of reality and oneness, what is possible, what is a fact, will always SEEM TO MAKE NO SENSE TO YOU. It will in fact seem like a collection of paradoxes. And it will seem like nonsense. And anything that is true WILL seem to be nonsense to your ego, and to your earthly way of thinking, and to the way that you REASON all your conclusions. They are all nonsense.

Here's the climax of my post. There is much debate about oneness and non-duality and so on. And people generally will say that whatever MAKES SENSE, must be the truth. Screw that! God has dynamics which DO NOT make sense to ordinary reasoning. Giving everything away in order to keep it, what?! What's given increases when you give it away, what?! It seems like nonsense. BUT IT IS TRUE.

So you should NOT be quite so certain, that God's reality and workings are supposed to fit nicely into what you think "makes sense". In fact, if you think that God's functioning makes sense based on ordinary reasoning, YOU ARE CONFUSED.

To normal reasoning, God's workings are supposed to look like paradoxes. They are SUPPOSED to look like contradictions. They are SUPPOSED to look like they make no sense at all and can't be true!! Because the reasoning being used to LOOK at it is itself BACKWARDS and false.

The people who thus claim ACIM is non-duality are using backwards reasoning to claim that "oneness" and "it's all God" and "you don't exist" makes perfect sense. That's a total fail. God is capable of BREAKING all your rules and TRANSCENDING all your little limitations and requirements.

ACIM clearly is teaching a transcendental thought system which, to the way that most people think, DOES NOT make sense. And this is supposed to reveal to you, at some point, that THE WAY YOU THINK IS WRONG. Not just what you think, but HOW. Not just the line of your thinking and the conclusions you come to that you THINK make sense, but the entire method and logic that you use to draw conclusions IS MISTAKEN. It is OPPOSITE to the nature of God.

This is why ACIM is not non-duality. Non-duality is far too absent paradoxes. It contains none of the mind-bending transcendence of laws and limits present in the Golden Rule. It has no recognition of the fact that God can do things which SEEM impossible, including the creation of multiple sons/souls who themselves are creators in reality, WITHOUT VIOLATING ONENESS. Which... you guessed it, seems like it would be "totally impossible" and "totally nonsense", BUT ISN'T.

So you should really get used to the fact that reality WILL NOT make sense to your typical reasoning. Your conclusions are all back to front and entirely within the separation-based thought system of the ego. Even non-duality and oneness are ego constructs resulting from a way of reasoning that doesn't even acknowledge the rule-breaking nature of God.

If you think this is not correct, think again. Think again about the facts we're being taught. We're being told to do something that seems TOTALLY COUNTER INTUITIVE. Which seems to run TOTALLY OPPOSITE to how your ENTIRE thought system works. To treat others in the knowledge that they are a part of you, such that what you do to them you do to yourself. That is not something that makes any sense to the world's thinking.

Don't be deceived that making sense of something means it is true. An entire system of thought can have internal consistency and seem to make total sense, and yet be entirely wrong. We are not here in the business of just being a sheep that follows the basic little conclusions the ego comes up with.

"It's all one therefore there can't be many"... nonsense.

"God couldn't create anything otherwise there would be separation" .... nonsense.

"If I exist then I must be an ego" ... nonsense.

"If there are many things in reality then reality is dualistic". ... nonsense.

The truth is FAR more mind-bending and waaaaaaaaay outside the box of how you think about things. If you have not encountered all the paradoxes and found a way to live with them, you are still squarely locked into the ego's thought system.

"ACIM is non-dualistic" is a conclusion drawn by egos following all of the ego's rules of separation-based reasoning, without showing the slightest sign of appreciation for God's PARADOXICAL nature, in which two completely opposite-seeming things can be simultaneously true, WITHOUT it being wrong.

If you think everything about God's nature has to sound like it makes nice tidy sense, you haven't even begun to recognize what God is like. God is a creator, and oneness DOES have real parts to it, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that fact at all. If YOU see a gross contradiction, YOU have not escaped the ego's mindset.

In the Kingdom of God, His creations and all of their creations are fully open to each other and share everything lovingly. Each of these beings is made of love and it is through love the they have full access to each other, to join and commune intimately.

In this way, communication is sharing and joining and oneness or kinship, whereby you can merge with others, overlap with them, share space with them, and directly connect with what they are. To communicate soul-to-soul or mind-to-mind is full communication.

Love is required in order to accomplish this communication or communion, because only in love is there a full openness to communicate fully. Only by communicating lovingly can you communicate at all.

When love is lacking, which occurs through an attempt to attack rather than love, communication breaks down. What would appear to be an outward attack is actually a withdrawal away from others and away from God and from yourself. This is what happens when you become "selfish".

Jesus says this of your soul, in contrast to your ego:

"Selfishness is of the ego but self-fullness is of the Soul because that is how He created it."

God therefore created souls/sons to be FULL of Self, meaning expressing fully as a being in an unlimited way, and therefore able to be open to and gain access to the rest of Creation, to connect with it and intimately share with it.

Therefore when you are not being fully loving, you actually are attempting to withdraw yourself from creation, to isolate yourself from Heaven, to contract yourself down in fear to a single point in space, to put a wall between you and everyone else (the body), and to confine yourself to the body. This is how you become body-identified instead of spirit-identified.

Attack and withdrawal are the same thing. As soon as you have an attack thought you are having a "withdrawal thought". It's a thought of no longer sharing everything openly with everyone. It's an attempt to shut yourself off and be excluded. The ego is all about being exclusive and therefore special. It focuses on SELFISHNESS, which means prioritizing your own self OVER or in a different way to other selves.

Ego is an emphasizing of how you seem to be not equal to others and how you therefore have something that they do not have. And by emphasizing that you have something they do not, you also simultaneously emphasize that they have something that YOU do not, and therefore you are automatically lacking. Moving into exclusivity you move into isolation, lack, limitation, partiality, and not having everything. The promise that an exclusive PART of existence is more desirable than ALL of it, is the ego's game, through which it robs you of all joy.

So basically this is an automatic law that the only way you can actually communicate with anyone or anything else, is to be fully open in a loving way. Since other beings ARE love, you can only communicate with them through the LANGUAGE of love, at their level. If love is absent, communication breaks down, you arrest the extension of your mind through the arresting of love, and therefore hold yourself back. This holding back isolates you to a point in space and binds you to the body. This is withdrawal away from wholeness, and is you not allowing yourself to express.

Therefore when you isolate into the egotism of selfishness or specialness, you are taking yourself away from life and from others. You are trying to steal yourself from God. This withdrawal guarantees that no matter how attacking you think you are, your attack IS withdrawal and therefore you have NOT advanced TOWARDS God in your attacking efforts, it is caused you to go AWAY from God and away from your brothers.

Either you communicate with other beings through openness and love, or you will withdraw away into a breakdown in communication, a failure to express, a giving up of life, a cessation of extension, and basically you become paralyzed. That IS mental illness because in order to withdraw from others, given that your SELF is IN them sharing with them, you must split yourself off from the part of you that is in them and now you have a split mind.

A split mind is an insane mind at war with itself, and now it is attacking itself. And in this SELF-ATTACK, it will harm only itself. It is not POSSIBLE to attack another because another person is LOVE. Love can only be accessed THROUGH love. Lack of love stops communication and denies access. Indeed, denial of your brother's love DENIES YOU your own abilities, and thus shuts down any ability for you to join or connect TO them, preventing your unloving attacks to REACH them in any way.

This is why you cannot sin. It is literally 100% impossible to hurt anyone. It is literally impossible to hurt God. Any attempts to do so result in a self-imposed imprisonment and isolation away from the thing you are trying to attack. THEY do not suffer as a result, YOU do. You have hurt your own self, and it is then ONLY YOU who needs to forgive yourself.

Nothing real can be threatened. God and His Sons cannot be threatened. They are perfectly safe because they are wholeness and love, and anything that is not wholeness or love CANNOT COMMUNICATE with them, and therefore cannot ACCESS them, and therefore cannot transfer anything TO them, and therefore CANNOT ATTACK THEM.

The idea of there being an ABILITY TO ATTACK LOVE, is the notion that communication channels can remain OPEN, while transferring a message of BEING CLOSED through the channel. This is an obvious contradiction and impossibility. You cannot communicate "lack of communication". You cannot transfer attack to another, because attack causes the communication channel ITSELF to become closed off. Either you express love to your brother which He CAN receive, OR you isolate yourself and are fighting your way out of paper bag. YOU CANNOT ATTACK.

The kingdom of God is PERFECTLY PROTECTED and does not even NEED a defense. If you try to defend yourself you are attacking yourself, proving you are vulnerable and in need of the defense, and therefore affirming that you are under attack. Defenses do what they would defend against. God's Kingdom - you in reality - do not need to be defended at all. Love is automatically invulnerable! No illusion can do anything to reality.

No part of the ego can wage war against God in any real way. You need ONLY to be real, to be love, and you are immediately off-limits to the ego. The ego can only attack itself. This is evident in all wars where one side seems different to another and they attack each other. This is the ego on BOTH sides, attacking itself, as evidence of a split mind. The ego is NOT attacking God. The ego is attacking the ego.

The ego cannot leave its own domain. It cannot leave the state of mind that is lives in. It HAS to remain in darkness otherwise it will disappear. If it were to try to step into the light to reach where the light IS, in order to attack the light, it would disappear instantly because light dispels darkness. Light shines darkness away. Light thus is perfectly protected FROM darkness because it has power OVER darkness and cannot be "made dark" by it.

The belief that darkness can hide is an ego belief that darkness can cause light to be blocked, and therefore can conceal the light. This is the ego's belief. This is how we try to hide from the light of God by pretending we CAN be in darkness and therefore that darkness has power over light to stop it from reaching us. In the ego, darkness can attack light and only through darkness can there be communication. In truth this is completely backwards. Only in light is there communication of any kind and darkness will NEVER be able to approach light or do anything to it at all.

Therefore you do not need defenses because, as love, you simply cannot be appraoched by darknesss or attack. This may seem counter-intuitive at first but each time you defend yourself or resist another or try to make something go away or use withdrawal to attack, you WILL notice that you become worse off and it doesn't help - in fact it makes you sicker.

Only by ALLOWING in the face of what appears to be attack, can you have the strength that comes from UN-ARRESTED EXTENSION, because only through extending love does it confirm you HAVE love and are therefore invulnerable. It is in your innocence that you are invulerable and strong, not weak. The ego says innocence is vulnerability and proves it with every bodily child. But this is 100% fiction. Innocence is powerful and cannot be hurt. It needs no defenses to keep it safe. What does it need to be kept safe from? An illusion of darkness?

You cannot be threatened. Only if you identify yourself with the ego, meaning you HAVE attacked yourself, and have withdrawn from your brother, does it indicate that you are trying to USE separation as a defense. Separation will always hurt you, it cannot defend you. It is the lack of defenses that makes you invulnerable. Standing in the strength of light and truth in the face of "danger" dispells the danger and makes you impervious.

Defenses lead to death. Death is nothing other than an attempt to withdraw from life and imprison yourself in darkness. It is the ultimate sacrifice of yourself. It arises from a complete breakdown in communication, using the body for attack instead of for communication and joining. Without withdrawing from life there can be no death. Death becomes IMPOSSIBLE when you are fully open to love and have identified with SPIRIT - with the fullness of sharing, the openness to all brothers, the lack of attack and the presence of love.

In love, there is no death. In love, death does not exist. In love, death is impossible. It must be, otherwise God would die. Life does not die. Life has eternal life. Only through the illusion of being able to sin, or the attempt to sin, which is really a failure to sin, can you produce a state of what seems like death. And yet as Jesus says, swear not to die, because you have made a bargain you cannot keep. The bargain is that you WILL be able to die because of having been able to sin. This is actually literally impossible. Even in dying it is only denial and illusion, and your spirit is utterly unaffected.

You cannot die, any more than you can sin. Sin and death are IMPOSSIBLE AT ALL TIMES. Even those who seem to sin and die ARE NOT DOING SO. No-one can die because it is not God's will. You can only have eternal life. Attack and death are only attempts to DENY that you have eternal life, and denial can only HIDE the truth, not change it.

You cannot be attacked any more than you have attacked God. Nothing real can be threatened. You are safe forever in God's love. "Spirit is in a state of grace forever."

This is key to understanding what this world of spacetime is. The mind makes IMAGES of things. Pictures of things. Visual thoughts. They are along similar lines to imagination, or visualization. We produce pictures in the mind. This is also the same process as dreaming, and as hallucination.

We imagine things and imagine their form and appearance and picture them mentally. And as Jesus is saying, this same process was used to make physical bodies, and therefore also the physical universe.

This means that this world we're in, it's not really an "actual existence", or containing any real objects. It's in fact just a 3D thought-driven PICTURE, an image, like a 3d hologram, pictured and maintained in the mind, which LOOKS LIKE a world.

But a world that is merely an image, is imagined. A world which shows up as visual objects, is really just a collection of pictures. It's not at all the same as a real creation, which has substance and existence. It's a manufactured, wishful-thinking, hallucination, dream, projected visualization, taking on the shape of a planet in a galaxy. As a result of wanting to see it, and therefore of "daydreaming" it.

Obviously the things that you daydream don't really exist, although they seem to exist while you are dreaming them. The mind is basically inventing a world, picturing it, imagining what such a world might be like IF it really existed. But this is not the same as causing it TO exist. It's really just a blueprint or photograph of such a world. A "what if". Like if you were to imagine a pink elephant and see it in your mind.

The body was formed to use precisely this kind of seeing, focusing on images and believing them to be real. When in fact it's a form of hallucination. The body forms pictures and presents them like little photographs to the mind. Like a realtime 3d movie feed of an imagined artificial world.

This is how the world is nothing, even though it appears to be something. This is how the body is nothing, even though it seems to show up as a picture of form with a shape. It's not REALLY there, because dreaming of something is nowhere near the same as it actually existing permanently in reality. The whole world is just a mad idea.

"And what you SEE there, YOU will recognize as what it is; a picture of what YOU THOUGHT WAS REAL, and nothing more. For, BEHIND this picture, YOU WILL SEE NOTHING."

"The Holy Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself in which there is NO pain and NO reproach at all."

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured."

"The picture of your brother that you see means nothing."

"The picture of your brother that you see is wholly absent, and has never been."

"The world I see is hardly the representation of loving thoughts. It is a picture of attack on everything and by everything."

"Forgiveness paints a picture of a world where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense."

"The picture of Heaven and eternity grows MORE convincing, as you look at it. And now, by REAL comparison, a TRANSFORMATION of both pictures can at last occur."

"It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition."

"Do you LIKE what you have made? A world of murder and attack, through which you thread your timid way through constant dangers, alone and frightened, hoping at most that death will wait a little longer, before it overtakes you, and you disappear. YOU MADE THIS UP. It is a picture of what you think YOU are; of how you SEE yourself."

"This sickly picture of yourself is carefully preserved by the ego, whose image it IS and which it loves, and placed OUTSIDE you, in the world." "Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within."

"The world you see is based on SACRIFICE of oneness. It is a picture of a COMPLETE disunity and total LACK of joining."

"No-one who makes a picture of himself omits this face, for he has need of it."

"And what are YOU who live within the world, except a picture of the Son of God in broken pieces, each concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay?"

"Perception seems to TEACH you what you see. Yet it but witnesses to what YOU taught. It is the outward picture of a wish, an image that you WANTED to be true."

"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

"Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated, or in need of ANYTHING, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell."

"A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape. This sick and sorry picture YOU accept, if only it can serve to punish him."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief."

"It is my own attack thoughts which give rise to this picture."

"Seen through understanding eyes the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself."

"Perception can make whatever picture the mind desires to see."

"What I see reflects a process in my mind, which starts with my idea of what I want. From there, the mind makes up an image of the thing the mind desires, judges valuable, and therefore seeks to find. These images are then projected outward, looked upon, esteemed as real, and guarded as one's own. From insane wishes comes an insane world. From judgment comes a world condemned. And from forgiving thoughts a gentle world comes forth"

"And when you think you see some value in an aspect or an image of the world, refuse to lay this chain upon your mind"

"Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction."

"If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind."

"An idol is an image of your brother, which you would value MORE than what he IS. Idols are made that HE may be replaced, no matter what their form. "

"Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness."

"Parents do not create the image of the

ir children, though they may perceive images which they do create." "It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing."

"My thoughts are images which I have made."

"The images I see reflect my thoughts."

"Let graven images you made to be the Son of God instead of what he is be worshipped not today."

"If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes which it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist."

"Once again, images are perceived, NOT known."

"Images cannot see."

"You do not doubt that the body's eyes can see. You do not doubt the images they show you are reality. Your faith lies in the darkness, not the light. "

"Images are symbolic, and stand for something else."

"The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images because you look on them as through a barrier which dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(...and why a sick body means the mind has NOT been healed)

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use if for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies." - ACIM

Think of the body as a blank canvas, onto which you can paint a picture representing who and what you are.

If you are in the business of believing in sin, you will deny it and attempt to project blame onto someone else. Perceptually you will see them as causing you in some way, and simultaneously your mind MUST implement the "effects" of that causality onto yourself.

You therefore put in place, or paint a picture of, an identity which has been affected by something external. You show yourself as suffering, you position yourself as looking like you are sick, you damage yourself, and you take out this attack upon yourself. You do so in an attempt to show everyone that THEY did this to you.

It's really the insight that we implement the EFFECTS upon ourselves BEFORE we blame the cause of those effects onto something outside of ourselves. This also would tie into the fact that in this case, cause and effect have been reversed. We express effects of sickness, suffering, damage, etc in order to attempt to accuse others of doing this to us. We actually sort of wear the costume of looking like someone who has been hurt, and then walk around trying to find someone to blame for causing it.

Projection makes perception, and denial makes for projection. But how about.... we first believe we are attacked and implement the effects that the attack would produce, and then project the cause outward?

So what we do is, we make ourselves sick, we show ourselves as a picture of suffering, and we do this with the body. The body is our canvas, our "picture" of our Self, our identity. We make the body sick in order to accuse our brother of making us sick. We say, "hah, look at me, you did this to me you fucker. It's your fault."

The fact is, it's not possible to accuse another of doing something to you without YOU experiencing the effects. The ego says, no, if you do something to someone else you can escape the effects. But in truth, the mind does not work that way. Whatever applies to you applies equally everywhere. So in order to accuse someone of attack and sin, YOU must picture yourself as attacked and sinful.

YOUR body is like a picture which YOU hold up in order to show to OTHERS what you believe THEY are! It is not just a picture of yourself, it is a picture of BOTH OF YOU. This is because the body is a device for separation and that is two-sided, the selves on both sides are kept apart and affected equally - as within so without. The body then as a separation device is a picture of YOU AND YOUR BROTHER in a state of attack!

You can't hold up a picture of THEM and say, you're sinful and I'm not. Instead you hold up a picture of your "self" (the body) in an attacked state as if to say to someone else, "this is what you are". You're talking to yourself, accusing yourself, and picturing yourself as suffering.

So you can't accuse without attacking your body, meaning you're trying to USE the body to attack someone and the result is that your body MUST become a picture of attack, showing symptoms of a belief in attack. If it applies to your brother, it applies to you. You try to take them down, and take yourself down in the process. This is why all death is suicide. As Jesus says, use the body for attack like this and it will appear weak and it will die.

The opposite of this is that if you do not attack "through" the body, you do not project sin, you do not accuse yourself of sin, and you see the equal innocence of yourself and another, you will not "picture yourself" as attacked, and thus the body WILL SHOW a picture of you in a non-attacked condition. Your mind will project a body which is "healthy". It must.

When the body is not used for attack, and is used only to express/extend love, the body will appear "lovely", or a symbolic picture of a self which has no attack in it. Thus all signs of sickness and disease must vanish from it, and it will demonstrate what you believe is true. You can't project an image of a body which is sick while being truly in the truth, any more than you can project an image of a healthy body while your mind is attacking.

Essentially, this also leads to the realization that when someone dies, they literally have committed suicide, but they also have attempted to "attack with death". Their attempt to die is an attempt to accuse everyone of being dead, to affect everyone, to make everyone suffer as well, and is an attack on everyone. The body becomes a picture of death to show that the mind is using it for attack. It is like a suicide bomber or a kamikaze attacker who is attempting to throw their own body at their enemy in an attempt to eradicate them.

Death is the ultimate attempt to destroy EVERYONE as well as yourself, except that it is only yourself that ends up suffering. It's like saying, I so hate everyone and so believe in separation, that I am going to completely cut myself off from all Life and therefore shrivel up and be weak and die, because this is what I think of myself and you, and I believe that both of us should not exist. What applies to me applies to you, and if I am dead so you will be as well! But the result is that the person's body itself dies, and other people's do not.

Whatever you attempt to do to God, you do to yourself. If you believe that God should be dead, you will destroy yourself. If you try to kill God, you will kill yourself. If you try to make out that God is sinful, you will become sinful. If you try to assert that God does not exist and you have escaped from God's Life, you will die. God won't, you will. Just as other people will not die when you attempt to kill them with your death, but you will. You will do it to yourself. YOU CANNOT ATTACK WITHOUT HURTING YOURSELF FIRST. All attack is self attack, and all attack will destroy YOU and not your so-called enemy.

This is why this is so ridiculously obvious, that it is in YOUR BEST INTEREST not to find anyone sinful or guilty, because it MUST mean that you are sinful and guilty, and YOU will suffer terribly. What you do to another you do to yourself. What you accuse your brother of you have accused yourself of. And what you would have them experience, you will experience. You cannot escape from the law that what you do unto others you literally are directly doing to yourself. You cannot get away with murder without you dying as well. You should recognize it is in your best SHARED INTEREST to not hurt or accuse anyone else, because doing so directly hurts and accuses you.

If you attempt to hurt someone else without hurting yourself, you are buying into the ego's thought system, which is a lie, and you will still receive the effects of your own attack. It is the ego's grand illusion that something can apply to you without applying to others and vice versa. The truth will always be true, and the law will always be in place, that the only way to attack another is to attack yourself and show your attacked self to them, and they may not even be attacked at all. All attack separates you from the other, which protects them in a way. This is why attack on God did not affect God, but affected you greatly.

Death is a weapon that doesn't work. It is always an attempt to prove that someone other than yourself made you be dead, accusing them of sin. Sin is punishable by death alone, in the ego's thought system. To die is to make a statement that everyone is a sinner, all are evil, and they have caused you to die. No-one dies without being a victim, and no-one dies without accusing the world of doing it to them. This is also why death is futile, because it is self-destruction which has no real effect on anyone else and only makes yourself worse off. To choose it is insanity.

It's fortunate that in the metaphysics of truth, there is a kind of protection against death. The illusion of death cannot assail the kingdom of God. God cannot be affected by what is unreal. Attempted attack or death is actually a movement away from Life and a movement away from existence. It is withdrawal, not attack. All forms of attack or illusions of attack seem to be outward expressions but this is an illusion. All forms of attack are withdrawals away from everything. Death is a collapse away from Life, and therefore confines all of the effects of death to the one who dies, not to who they were attempting to make dead.

God has been completely unaffected by our attempts at using death to hurt him. God cannot be changed whatsoever. This is also why death is merely a state of denial. It is powerlessness, weakness, is completely ineffective, and literally does nothing. It is a state of a lack of all will to live, and therefore all will is absent from it, and as such it is a state of total unwillingness and can produce no real effects at all. It is not a cause at all, being purely a state of being at the effect of everything. How WEAK it is then, this weapon of death which is supposed to be the ego's most extreme form of attack possible... the stronger the attack, the weaker the attack. Death is the most pathetic attack of all, causing nothing real to happen.

We do not need to die. We do not need to be under attack. We do not need to be sick. We do not need to suffer. But if we want to be free of these things, we cannot be accusing ourselves and/or others of sin. We USE OURSELVES to show our brother what we are accusing them of, which turns us into shriveled up sickly prunes with no ability to do anything. We cannot escape our own wrath. Accuse others of causing sickness and you will be sick. Blame them and you will suffer in guilt. Try to get rid of God and you will get rid of yourself. Your body is your picture of your state of mind. All of its sicknesses MUST GO if you are to show that you fully believe in your innocence and invulnerability. To be invulnerable is to not be at the effect of anything in the world, and therefore not to PUT EFFECTS into your body.

You need not attack yourself today.

"You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness. Show him that he cannot hurt you and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. This is the meaning of turning the other cheek." - ACIM

If you see the world through your filter of darkness, you'll see a darkened world. The world will appear to be unlovable because you do not see love in it. You see darkness in it, and no-one can love what is does appear lovable. Indeed you see it as unlovable because you do not see it WITH love. If you remove your filter of darkness, you'll see a lighter world, and without your condemnation upon it it will appear more lovable. You will then find that this world that you see WITH love is lovable, and so you can love it.

The world as you see it through eyes of fear, which is seeing in an unloving way, is not a lovable world. It is devoid of love because you do not love it, and what you're trying to love is a world disguised in lovelessness. No-one love can such an ugly world - the combination of the world plus your projected darkness, but it only appears ugly because of the lack of love with which you look upon it. Strangely enough, if you choose to look upon it WITH love, the world appears to change and reflect something that is loveable. And now you find yourself able to love it BECAUSE you are loving it. But your love has to come FIRST, and not DEPEND on what it seen, nor be conditionally loving BECAUSE of it.

In effect then, you are confronted with a paradox. When you do not love the world the world will appear not to be lovable. And how that world appears, you cannot love, because it is dark and ugly and cruel, and all its flaws and conflicts are emphasized and increased through your dwelling upon them. But although you cannot love a darkened world, when you decide TO love, to see WITH love, proactively, it changes how you see, and changes how the world appears. And now suddenly the world is lit up with the light that you've GIVEN to it, and a world illuminated with love does appear to be lovable. And yet, you could not love the world when you did not come from love.

"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it."

"The world can give you ONLY what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection, it HAS no meaning apart from what you found in it, and placed your faith in."

It's as if there are two versions of the world, and each "version" seems to be the whole world to you. Which version or interpretation/translation you see depends on what you GIVE TO the world. When you project hate and attack and guilt and sin onto it, having those within yourself and having accused yourself of them, you will see them overlaid on the world. And then the world will appear evil and wrong and attacking. But if you forgive yourself and cease your self attack, you will also project innocence and harmlessness and holiness ONTO the world. And now you will see the world WITHOUT your attack, and only WITH your innocence, and in this light it will appear to lack the dark heavy chains that you saw in it before. And THAT rendition of the world appears to be loved and forgiven.

"Beyond this world there is a world I want."

As ACIM says, the world you see through darkness and despair is NOT the world that God loves. He CANNOT love such a world. Nor can you. This is a metaphysical fact. You cannot love what you do not love, and you cannot see a lovable world when you are not BEING loving. But we're also told that God CAN love "the world" - not the world that is seen when attacking, but the world that is seen only in light when loving.

"The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world."

The loving has to come first, it changes how the world looks, a reflection of love is seen IN it, and this makes the world appear to be fit for love. God loves the LOVED VERSION of the world, because THROUGH eyes of love the world appears lovable. Such a world is "the real world", seen with forgiveness and with love, which CAUSES what it seen to be a reflection of heaven. Without seeing FROM love, the world will appear to lack love and reflect fear and hate, and no-one can love such a hell as that.

To love hell, therefore, you have to first switch on the light of love within, SO THAT love is projected out, SO THAT you no longer see hell reflected IN the world. You can't expect the world to be loveable "as it appears to be", while YOU are not in a state of love. You can't just force yourself to love something that, simultaneously, you are causing to appear NOT to be loveable because of your inner state of attack. The inner attack must be gone, first, because it completely influences how you see AND what you see in it. Only when there is a lovability within, can you truly SEE with vision and look WITH forgiveness, and when doing so you will ONLY see a forgiven world that reflects heaven.

Given that you cannot love an unloveable world, the ego would tell you that there is no way for you to love the world. Given that it appears dark and old and lackluster and broken, the ego tells you it can never BE forgiven. Its forms appear to prove sin real and the veil of sin upon it appears to confirm you cannot love it. It reasons then that because you do NOT love it, and because it does NOT appear to reflect something loveable, there is no way for you to ever love it.

This is where it becomes necessary to realize that what you see in it is reflecting what you see in yourself. Where you must realize that HOW you are looking has total influence over WHAT is seen. And this means having to become able to love, before looking upon the world. To forgive is really to fore-give, which mean to give ahead of time, which means to come FROM love and to GIVE love before projecting and making perception. Perception is just the result of what you GIVE. But you can't love an unloved world, because it's reflecting an unloved self. You have to unplug from the unloved world, love YOURSELF, and then look out from that love and peace upon a reflection of a loved self - a forgiven self - a forgiven world.

"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven."

"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it. Reflections are seen in light. In darkness, they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves."

"God DOES love the real world, and those who perceive its reality CANNOT see the world of death. For death is not OF the real world, in which everything is eternal. God gave you the real world in exchange for the one you made, out of your split mind, and which IS the symbol of death. For if you could REALLY separate yourselves from the Mind of God, you WOULD die. And the world you perceive IS a world of separation."

"This is a question everyone must ask. Certainly peace seems to be impossible here. Yet the Word of God promises other things that seem impossible, as well as this. His Word has promised peace. It has also promised that there is no death; that resurrection must occur, and that rebirth is man's inheritance. The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world. God's Word has promised us that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this."

"Again we come to the question of judgment. This time, ask yourself whether your judgment or the Word of God is more likely to be true. For they say different things about the world, and things so opposite that it is pointless to try to reconcile them. God offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it. God says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life. God's Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so."

"How is peace possible in this world? In your judgment it is not possible, and can never be possible. But in the Judgment of God what is reflected here is only peace."

"Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped. It is not the world which makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see that is impossible. Yet has God's Judgment on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace. And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace now belongs here, because a Thought of God has entered. What else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what It is? The earth bows down before Its gracious Presence, and It leans down in answer to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It is no longer, "Can peace be possible in this world?" but instead, "Is it not impossible that peace be absent here?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"My self is ruler of the universe. It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's really impossible to separate from God, given that God is everywhere and there is nowhere else to go. But the ego mind believes that the impossible is possible. It thinks it can actually succeed in being separate and can have an existence somewhere that God doesn't exist. To be separate from God, if it were possible, would have to mean you exist somewhere that God is absent, and that is why following the separation, God seemed to no longer be present.

But this is all really an illusion, being impossible in truth, and only by some illusory interpretation of what is happening could you believe that you have actually succeeded in achieving this separation. It's as if you found some kind of loophole or exception or special interpretation which allowed the impossible to become possible. There must be an illusion that God does not exist, otherwise you couldn't possibly believe that separation is possible, it would make no sense, and you would not believe it. Only by hiding or denying the truth does an illusion seem to make sense to you.

This mentality carries on through all stages of separation from sin to guilt to fear to death. At every step, we actually believe that if we buy into the ego's illusion, we're actually becoming capable of succeeding at doing something impossible. We then believe that doing it actually "works", that we're actually getting away with it. And because in this illusion there doesn't seem to be any reason why you can't do this, it seems justified and as though you have the freedom to do it. Nothing therefore seems to be stopping you from getting away with murder - the murder of God and His Holy Son.

It's not that you're an inherently evil person. You don't automatically see things in a twisted way. You're not fundamentally broken. You actually keep with you at all times an attempt to maintain some semblance of truth. You also always retain an attempt to make sense out of what you are experiencing, using some kind of logic or reasoning to explain it, to come to conclusions based on it, and to then act on those conclusions. Decisions are actions based on all previous conclusions.

You're actually just in the business of trying to make sense of your experience of reality (or unreality), and base your conclusions on all of the information that you are aware of. You look around you at everything you can see, and you look within at everything you aware of taking place within yourself, and you look at other people, and often it seems to just make sense that they must be the cause of your upset. You do not see what the real cause is because you do not see fully, or the whole of what is happening, but you believe you do.

At all times you believe that whatever is within the scope of your awareness is all that exists, is all that is true, and is all that is happening. This is true whether you are fully with God or whether you are hiding in a dark corner in an unconscious state. The extent of your awareness determines what you can SEE, and therefore the scope of your idea of "wholeness". You believe, even if you are not whole and are in denial of a great many facts, that you are a whole person, with a whole perception, seeing the whole situation clearly.

Given that you believe this is true, and you do not suspect there is anything hidden from you, you then attempt to make sense from the evidence. You look at it and examine it and judge it and then conclude certain things based on that. The trouble is, you're not really in a state of wholeness or full awareness, and there are many important facts and pieces of truth which are hidden from your awareness.

Whatever the scope of your awareness is, you'll also find that this correlates to your sense of identity. You will ALWAYS be believing that you are a whole self, regardless of how limited you are. However, when you become more conscious, to be aware of parts of you that you were blind to before, you become aware that you are more than you thought you were.

Your awareness uncovers not only the truth that love is present, but it also uncovers the rest of your hidden identity. And if you are unaware, you do not fully or clearly perceive who you really are, and so do not see all of your motivations or beliefs, or the full extent of your will, or the full extent of what you might be doing in the situation.

If you are having any kind of experience of unhappiness, unlove, unforgiveness, fear or guilt, punishment or suffering or upset, it is guaranteed that you must be in some kind of state that isn't really whole. Love and forgiveness and happiness come from true wholeness, so if this is absent, then immediately it means that you have some blocks to your awareness which are preventing you from being aware of those conditions. And yet you will believe that you are whole, in your partiality, and that there is nothing more to see.

Whatever is outside of your awareness you will believe does not exist at all, and you might not even suspect that there IS anything else. Whatever is unconscious to you is outside of your conscious awareness, as though it is nowhere, and so you do not see it. Any evidence it might provide you will dismiss. That is, unless you are willing to look deeper for the truth.

If you are upset or unhappy, and given that happiness is wholeness, you cannot truly be whole. There must be something blocked or something you are unaware of. But you will believe you are aware of everything. You don't see what you're choosing or why you're choosing it. You don't see what you're doing to yourself. You don't see who is truly responsible for what you are experiencing. You don't see how you might be using your reactions or behaviors for a secret motive. And you don't remember having asked for suffering.

Along comes what appears to be a situation which seems to attack you, and you look inside the confines of your awareness to examine all the possible causes or influences or reasons why it is happening. You use your ego mind's logic to try to come to some kind of understanding, to try to make sense of what you are experiencing. This is quite natural and everyone does this at all levels of awareness. Whatever you are aware of and are experiencing is the truth to you - reality, and its truth equates with 'sense' or with rationality or sanity, and so you attempt to make sense out of your limited viewpoint.

So you're now experiencing attack and you look around, you do not see that you are involved, you do not see that you're choosing it, you do not see that you're using the other person as an opportunity to get rid of a hidden sin, and you don't realize what you're doing to yourself. You see this other person is present and when they showed up the attack seemed to start and you started to suffer, and not seeing your involvement it seems to "make sense" that they are the cause of it. You seemed innocent, being unaware of any guilt or causality on your part, so it MUST be their fault.

It simply makes sense to you, based on your limited evidence which you think is the whole evidence, that they are the culprit and so you are now justified in being angry. You didn't seem to ask for this, it was unwanted and uncalled for, and it seems real. Given this fundamental basis for your deciding what the truth of the matter is, it seems only logical, sensible, understandable and rational, to be upset about what this other person apparently is doing to you against your will.

Anger becomes justified and so does a counter-attack, which is an attempt to defend yourself. You believe you are acting in self-defense, given that you did not seem to be the one to start all this. You see yourself as upholding your innocence, as having been needlessly and unfairly treated, at which you are outraged. You do not in any way see that your anger has another motive, or that it is self destructive, or that it does not work to alleviate your suffering. Instead, your unawareness of some key facts has led you to be MISTAKEN, so now you actually believe that your angry retaliation can succeed in achieving the impossible, once again.

If you could retaliate against the attack and prove them wrong, it would seem to prove you right, and thereby uphold your obvious innocence and keep you justified in maintaining your sense of identity and wholeness. Your enemy came to attack your truth and you must defend it. The trouble is, the goal being the defense of yourself and the maintaining of your truth, all of that is thrown into jeopardy as soon as you justify your anger.

Your belief in attack attacks yourself and undermines your innocence. Your counter attack therefore renders you guilty, which destroys your innocence and shakes the foundation of your truth. What you thought would "work", does not work. And yet in unconsciousness you may not even realize it is not working, and will just carry on with this device believing that it is helping your situation.

Only with a lack of information and a lack of truth could you continue using a device which is broken, does not work, isn't bringing about the peace you lost, and is working against your own goal. Yet you won't stop using it while you continue to fail to correctly recognize the faults in your system, the lack of truth in your reasoning, and the mistakes that you are making. You don't see them AS mistakes because you believe you're totally logically, naturally, and inherently justified.

This is how we continue to use the ego in the same way we did at the separation from God, all the way through our progress towards death, believing that whatever we are doing with the ego makes sense, is understandable, is justified, it works, it can succeed, and that if you will just do more of it you will reach your goal. It is extraordinary, however, that given how obviously the ego's promises are lies, and how they constantly fail to deliver, and how they always make your situation worse while pretending they will help, that we can so easily "overlook" the truth and believe that we're getting away with the impossible.

We'll keep using the ego this way, keep falling for its traps, keep reacting with anger and justification, and keep remaining in denial, simply because it all seems to make sense and seems rational given what we're aware of. So long as we are keeping our illusions and keeping the truth out of awareness, we're really just doing our best to respond to situations in a way that makes sense to us.

We're simply very mistaken and are making "errors" in perception and judgement, without realizing it. It's not as though we are fully aware of the whole entire truth and are then making a deliberate decision to defy it and ignore it and act in insane ways. We do not SEE them as insane. We've blocked out so much truth that we simply are not aware of the ways that our beliefs and perceptions are mistaken.

If we had all the evidence of what's really going on, and were aware of it, it would once again make sense. We'd evaluate it and look at all of the pieces and see how they fit together. Without any denial, it would be obvious and clear exactly who caused what to happen, why it happened, and what the effects were. There would be no confusion within that context. Everything would be completely clear and obvious and easy to accept.

And you would accept it, because you will always be accepting of whatever you have ALLOWED into your awareness. Whatever is inside your awareness and not outside of it, you have accepted into your mind, and it therefore becomes part of you and is your truth. You can only accept what you believe is true, and anything you believe is not true or of which you are not aware, you will see as false and dismiss it as false evidence.

If you had the whole truth, you'd see the part that you play in all of your experiences. You'd see exactly who it is that is doing things to you - it's yourself. And you'd see the entire chain of cause and effect stemming from your own initial decision to separate from God and all the way through to all of the forms of suffering you are experiencing. You would not be ABLE to deny that it is all coming from you. It would be so obvious. The only sensible conclusion you would be able to draw from it is that you did all of this to yourself and no-one else was ever to blame.

The trouble is, key evidence and key truth has been blocked from your awareness. You do not know what you do not know. And even in a state of profound denial and unconsciousness, whatever little amount of awareness you have left seems to you to be "all" that there is. And whatever you see, from that perspective, seems to show you a reflection outside of you which you also believe is "all there is". And since that is truth to you, that presents to you a world which seems hostile, unfair, confusing, dramatic, upsetting and unsafe.

These are conclusions which you must come to, albeit mistaken. You can't conclude anything else because you have no other evidence to the contrary. All of these beliefs and perceptions about how the world is against you, life is unfair, people are victimizing you, you are alone and afraid, you're suffering against your will, you're constantly in conflict with other people, etc... it all comes solely from a lack of awareness and a lack of truth. It all seems to make sense to you and you believe in it, even if it is very upsetting.

People believe in the inevitability and un-avoidability of death, simply because of a lack of truth and a block to awareness, which seems to show them that they have no say in the matter and no power to choose otherwise. Such power is unconscious, such ability to decide is unconscious, and such truth that shows them that they cannot die because they are really immortal is also unconscious.

Without those key facts, death seems like something that happens to you against your will and it just "makes sense" to you that you must die. You see no other way out of the dark maze of hell and will therefore ACCEPT it and allow it, even if you seem not to want to.

This is also why when things happen to you seemingly against your will, you experience them as upsetting and unwanted. And yet, simultaneously, you experience them. You can't seem to make them go away, because you don't see that you are choosing them. You'll be very upset or afraid or suffering and experience it as though you really, really do not want this and are not in any way choosing it. And death is the ultimate expression of this - the idea that you are not choosing what you experience whatsoever, and therefore have become a passive victim of fate.

You'll experience these upsetting situations as being so against your will that you resist them and hate them and wish they would stop. You'll kick and scream all the way to the grave as though someone else is deciding for you what will happen to you. You seem not to want to be a victim, that you don't want to be afraid, you don't want to be sick, you don't to suffer and die. But it seems to be happening. And given you are unaware of the secret fact that you can CHOOSE for or against all of this, you don't believe you have any power to stop it. And that is terrifying and very upsetting.

You'll then set about trying to change others, trying to stop events, trying to resist life, trying to prevent bad stuff from happening, and trying to defend yourself from all the ways that some "other will" - an unexplained influence - seems to be deciding when you are or are not happy. You want all those bad influences to just go away so that you can carry on being innocent and harmless, to enjoy your "life", but bad stuff keeps cropping up. You don't see what you are doing to yourself so it seems entirely unwelcome and you just wish it would stop. Why is life so unfair? Why can't they just leave you alone and let you live in (an illusion of) peace?

These dramas and stories of suffering and unfairness will continue until you become willing to look at how you might be mistaken. It takes for you to become a little bit open minded about the possibility of something which seems very unlikely. If you are experiencing that you are a whole person, that you are fully aware of everything that's happening, and that you know everything there is to know about what is causing what, then you may not be willing to entertain this idea. But the idea is, that you MIGHT NOT BE WHOLE, and you MIGHT NOT BE FULLY AWARE, and there MIGHT BE MORE TRUTH than you are currently aware of.

Sometimes this is expressed in the form of "there must be a better way". This can be a natural reaction to the experiences of unfairness and strife and misery which all SEEM to happen for no good reason, which perhaps after a while don't seem to make sense, which perhaps seem so unbearable and stupid that it surely can't be the truth. When life becomes too painful and unmanageable, there can be a stirring of awareness or a desire for peace of some kind that prompts you to start to question whether what's happening - your experience of it - is really the truth, or whether there must be some kind of "deeper" truth or meaning that you just aren't seeing.

This requires a willingness, however small, to consider that you MIGHT be mistaken about what you're experiencing, or about the conclusions you keep coming to based on the evidence you have. It means literally a willingness to question your SELF, your own righteousness and your own sense of knowing everything. It even means questioning the truth of your identity - who you are - and what is the basis for yourself. To the ego this seems like self-attack, but in truth it is a willingness to dismantle your false self to reveal the "True You".

It's the beginning of humility, it's the beginning of honesty, and it's the beginning of opening up to a possible truth that exists in 'addition' to your current idea of Self. In other words, you are beginning to make ROOM for the truth in your life, creating a space where a larger truth can dwell where you are not filling that space with all of your own egoic conclusions and interpretations. It means you are making room for God, stepping aside a little bit from your ego mind and becoming willing to LOOK AT the situation from a slightly different perspective. And that means, you are starting to ALLOW a bigger truth to enter your awareness - therefore you are starting to wake up.

Illusions will be kept so long as they make sense to you, so long as you do not see their real purpose, and so long as they seem to work. Or at least, even if they don't work, you keep them because you believe they CAN work, if you will just use them hard enough. You think for example that in your justified anger, your anger will somehow bring about happiness.

If you can be angry enough at someone else for what they did, and thus prove that you are right and justified, then there will be some kind of acceptance by the other person, a backing down of their attack on your truth, and you will get the respect and recognition that you believe your truth deserves.

In their acceptance and admittance of how they were wrong and you were right, you'll feel vindicated and satisfied having "proven" that your truth is true. It's as though you need others to admit to YOUR truth and accept it and humble themselves, in order for YOU to believe your own truth more - that you've given them the power to accept your truth for you, which is what you want because it's part of your disowning of responsibility for you own decision-making.

You think then that you'll find peace and satisfaction from this. But does anger ever produce peace and happiness? No. It does not really work. Getting someone else to admit to your truth for you will not cause you to be happy indirectly, but you think it will. And most likely their ego will not be humble enough to accept your truth on your behalf, meaning you cannot gain the happiness that lies in their hands. To admit to that fact is to admit to the truth, which means you are allowing a greater truth to shine its light on this response and to show that it is false.

Everything that you do in the ego thought system has a justification, a purpose, a reason behind it, a motive, a secret plan and an attempted goal that it would achieve. Just as in the truth everything you do is deliberate and intentional, producing exactly the results you ask for every time, this still holds true in your use of the ego. Every decision you make to believe in the ego's interpretation and follow its advice, is based in a deliberate, intentional decision to do so. You have a purpose and a use for every ego device you use.

Generally speaking the overall purpose of the entire ego thought system is to get rid of yourself by becoming an artificial self that doesn't exist. To replace yourself with non-existence. To replace God with death. And because your attempt to do this is based in your belief in SIN, the attempt to get rid of your sin is just another part of your attempt to get rid of yourself. Every step of the way, in every ego device that you use whether it be denial or projection or anger or reactions or suppression of guilt or punishment or death, all of these "tools" have a purpose for you, in furthering your attempt to get rid of sin and to get rid of yourself.

So when you are angry with someone, even though you are angry because it seems completely justified and sensible, given the (lack of) facts, this anger is actually also serving this goal. It is an attempt to get rid of sin by finding someone else guilty. Behind this anger, in greater truth, you actually are the one who believes YOU sinned, you have accused yourself of a horrible crime, and subsequently felt extremely guilty. You are trying to cover that up and get rid of it, because you believe deep down that YOU are the one who "did it".

When someone comes along and SEEMS to be the one who must have done something to you, instead of seeing that you believe that YOU are the sinful one, you take the opportunity quickly, based on the lack of awareness and the presence of denial, to scapegoat the person and put all your sense of guilt onto them. You might seem as though you are projecting onto them because "clearly" they did something to you against your will, and it therefore seems justified, but the rest of the evidence shows that you actually are USING that person to get rid of your sin and ultimately yourself.

In light of that additional information, it would also show you that your attempt to use them to get rid of sin is actually an attack on YOUR part, towards someone who is NOT the cause of your sin, and they in fact are the one who is innocent. So now you have committed a further crime, for which you will feel guilty. Even if you think your anger is justified, you will not be able to explain why you feel remorse and guilt and "bad" about having done so.

The truth would also reveal that you in fact WANTED that person to "seem" to attack you, because you wanted to have an opportunity to get rid of your sin. Even if it seems to you as though you did not want it, did not choose it or ask for it, and that it was completely uncalled for, you in fact DID call for it, ask for it, and were given what you asked for. You hired the person to play the role of attacker so that you could use them. Even if you suffered, even if you didn't SEEM to want it in your semi-conscious state, you really DID want it. You wanted to be hurt so that you could make out that you are not the one who is guilty.

Without this key information, without the awareness of what you are doing to yourself, without realizing and recognizing how you are using these ego devices for an ego purpose, and how everything is a deliberate part of your plan to get rid of yourself, it is easy to see how and why you would conclude what you do. It also then becomes easy to see why you are MISTAKEN, and are making an error, and why you therefore need CORRECTION. You need the truth in order to see what is REALLY happening here, and to have any hope of being set free.

If it is true that you did not ask for suffering, then you are stuck. Suffering is going to happen against your will and you will not be able to stop it. If it is true that you did not ask for death, then death will happen against your will and you will have no power over it. But if it is true that you made sickness and death and suffering, and have chosen them, and are using them for a special purpose (to get rid of yourself), and you want them, and you yourself are using them against yourself, then at least now there is potential for you to CHOOSE AGAIN and to decide to stop doing this to yourself.

It also means realizing that because you are doing this all to yourself - this is the truth which you have been keeping hidden from yourself - there is a possibility now for SALVATION. If you are doing it to yourself, you can change your mind. You can stop your self attack. You can forgive yourself. Your mistakes can be undone and corrected by your willingness to become more aware of the whole truth, and you can be free of all suffering and death. It also means you will realize that no-one else ever attacks you, there is no other will acting against you, and therefore you are perfectly safe forever.

The secret to salvation is that you are doing this all to yourself. But until you can become aware of and admit to this truth, allowing this truth into your awareness, you will not be aware of it and will not be able to use it to make sense out of what you are experiencing. If it also remains in the realm of intellectual concepts, you will not be able to experience it and know it and feel it and trust it.

You have to actually be willing to shift your experience by expanding your awareness, becoming more conscious of what was unconscious, admitting to or owning up to what you have been doing yourself, and bringing your unconscious mind back into your conscious awareness. That is only going to be possible if you are willing to question or doubt your current experience, reconsider whether what you think is true is really true, undermine your own beliefs which hold the truth prisoner or judge it wrongly as "false", and be willing to be corrected in your mistakes.

Essentially this means you need to be willing to surrender and let go of your ego's illusions, its holding onto false truths, its blame and denial, and its various ways of convincing you that you can actually get away with or succeed at using its tools to produce a desirable outcome. It is only because you do not see what the ego's outcomes are (always worse, leading to death), that you think they must work. And even if they don't work you'll still keep using them, insisting that they MUST work because they seem to make sense to you. You won't question what makes sense to you because you trust it as the basis for your whole reality.

But what makes sense in a limited ego consciousness makes no sense in a greater expanded awareness. And even if you believe that you know all there is to know or are aware of all there is to be aware of, both within you and without you, you need to be willing to question that. There IS stuff outside of your conscious awareness, stuff you have denied, stuff you have forgotten, stuff you have deliberately avoided wanting to admit to or allow into awareness.

Even if you see yourself as whole, complete, innocent, truthful, loving and caring, or seeing completely clearly, be assured that if there is something in your unconscious mind - if you have an unconscious mind - your facade of innocence and perfection WILL NOT hold up to the truth. And it will not be capable of stopping bad stuff from happening to you. Being ultra perfect and ultra pure is not going to stop your unconscious separate will from attacking you, and it's not going to keep you safe, and it's not going to prevent you from attacking yourself indirectly.

So if you think you are perfect and your life is still filled with suffering of any kind, you must KNOW that this means you have something outside of your conscious awareness, some way that you are attacking yourself and therefore you need to become willing to question whether your idea of perfection is really sound. There must be some way that you are in denial and there must be some truth you do not want to admit to. There must be some false belief you have which you think is true but which is not. And your sense of identity - of who you even ARE - must be not quite whole or complete or as true as you thought.

It can be difficult to look more deeply for a greater truth, and it can seem at first to be pointless given how much you are convinced you are all of yourself. But you have attempted to get rid of yourself, in a big way. You are Christ, maker of this universe, pretending to be a little suffering self in a body that dies.

There is much more to who you are than you are AWARE of, and that means that there is more to BE aware of than you are aware of right now. And that means it is highly likely you are going to be mistaken and come to false conclusions about what things mean and what sense it makes. It means you will act and respond to "reality" based in false perceptions and will make errors, and these will seem to hurt you against your will. But there is a way out.

The Holy Spirit, maintainer of truth in your mind, protector of your connection to Truth as God, is always with you and is the very truth in which you are recognized as being set free. Even your sin isn't real. Even your self attack isn't happening. And even your real identity has not been lost or changed or damaged. There is much truth that awaits you in which you literally will be set free from all suffering forever. There is no real death. There is no real sin. The Son of God is free.

A little willingness is all it takes to invite the truth into you - to invite Holy Spirit into you. A little willingness to put aside your ego identity and make room for the truth. A little willingness to open up to receiving a truth from beyond your little ego self, which also means receiving love. A little willingness to let go of what you thought was real, what you valued and what you thought was important, based only on false conclusions you came to just because you didn't have all the information.

There is more to your identity and more to your sense of self than you may be currently aware. Even if you think you are the whole of you, there is more to you than this. You are bigger and more magnificent than you realize. And you are far more free from suffering and death than you realize as well. There is no cause for fear because sin is impossible and separation is impossible. There is only cause for gratitude to God, that because of what God is, you can never be anything other than how He Created you.

You are innocent and holy, forgiven because you have done nothing wrong, are immortal and invulnerable, and permanently reside in Heaven as One with your Creator. And all is well.

In A Course in Miracles, we are taught that we’ve tried to separate ourselves from God. We’re taught this is impossible, but within an idea of it being possible, we seem to experience it as if it’s happening.

To be separated from God, must mean logically that we no longer have access to what God is or what God provides. Cutting ourselves off from Him, cuts us off from the abundant supply of fulfillment that He was providing.

God provides eternal life, perfect safety, love, joy, peace of mind, strength, innocence, no reason to be afraid, certainty, happiness, etc. If we separate from Him, we are separating from all of these things.

***We cannot find any of those things anywhere else.***

God is the only source of love.

"A Son of God is happy only when he knows he is with God."

"A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct."

"God gives you only happiness."

"I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else"

"God is the Light in which I see. God is the mind with which I think. God is the Love in which I forgive. God is the strength in which I trust. There is nothing to fear."

"Love is a law without an opposite. There is no love but God's, and what He is, is everything there is."

Metaphysically, when we introduce a separation between us and God, we separate ourselves from everything God provides. And God is the ONLY SOURCE of these things. There is no cheap knock-off shop down the street selling God’s wares. You cannot find God anywhere else.

This means that once separated, isolated, alone, going off by ourselves in the darkness we made, we will LACK all of these things, WITH NO WAY to find them anywhere unless we go back to God. The prodigal son CANNOT find his father when he is away from Him. We will then try to find CRAPPY replacements for everything God was providing, to try to fill this sense of lack and emptiness.

False idols, toys, special relationships, fake meaning, a spiritualized ego, illusions of peace, a whole laundry list of stuff we "make do with" in God‘s absence, believing it’s befitting and worthy of who we are. Believing it is satisfying us when all it’s doing is maintaing a gaping emptiness. Or in other words, it’s all we think we deserve because we believe we‘re guiltly little sinners.

Lacking God, creates artificial NEEDS. These needs were being filled by Him automatically but if we refuse to receive from Him, we will invent needs which have gone unfulfilled. An unfulfilled need is a refusal to let the need by filled by the only possible source of supply.

We then will go searching externally in the world we made for some substitutes for the things God can only supply. And not find them. We made the world TO SUBSTITUTE for God. The world we made, which includes Earth, CANNOT SUPPLY that which only God can supply, because this world is entire founded in the LACK OF HIM. You will not ever find God in the world, not even if you see God in everything here. That is just a reflection. A reflection in a puddle is not the thing itself, and who would settle for that?

****This entire world is a picture of death - the absence of Life.****

We will come up empty handed. This is seeking and not finding. Looking for love, happiness, peace, truth, where it IS NOT, ensures we will not find it. Yet we’ll try intensely to prove that IT CAN be found there. That the truth is out there somewhere in the world, that a special love can satisfy our craving for God, and that we can ACTUALLY "do okay" without Him.

There will always be a state of lack and neediness UNTIL we return to God and become willing to RECEIVE what He is only capable of supplying. It is impossible to undo that sense of lack without Him. We can cover it up and deny it, but it will not go away. Only the presence of God SATISFIES your every need. Only God can give the love that you NEED in order to be free of neediness. Only God can fill the empty hole that you made when you rejected His presence.

"Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness." This directly describes how the physical FORM of this world is LITTLE, objects, people, little critters, atoms, are LITTLE, because they are MADE of littleness. Littleness is the idea of LIMITATION, lack, deprivation, loss, absence of wholeness, you name it. Everything NOT OF GOD. It is fundamentally a world you made that is UNLIKE HEAVEN IN EVERY WAY.

The symptoms and conditions of suffering in the world are DIRECTLY a consequence of shutting God out. They ARE the "shutting out" itself. Every problem, every suffering, every sickness, every fear, every question, every doubt, every confusion, every war, is all happening because of a rejection of God. It has produced a state of LACK which has given rise to all manner of despair and depravation.

Absolutely ALL OF IT is "about God"... about your relationship to God, or lack thereof. Every event, object, personal encounter, whatever, is about you and God and whether you accept or reject Him. The ego loves to distract us with problems which seem confined to the FORM of the problem, suggesting solutions which fix only one FORM of the problem, ignoring the CONTENT of the problem which is actually, a belief in separation from God. THAT is the ONLY problem in the entire world. And the world IS that problem.

It may seem the individual problems are nothing to do with God. It may seem you don’t really need God in order to solve them. You will try to solve them on your own, but fail. Little illusions of success tempt you to believe you CAN be successful at existing without God. Only up to a point.

Solve one isolated problem, the answer to which solves no other problem and cannot be generalized, and you will simply encounter MANY MORE problems in different forms. To the ego, the perfect answer to a problem is a FORM which exactly matches the form of a problem, that "perfect tool" from your toolbox which solves this one exact situation really well. But which ensures the solution is totally cut off from all other problems, and so you are literally just as stuck as you were.

Your rejection of Him has rejected your own power, your own strength, your own innocence, and your own ability to live peacefully. You cannot find a substitute for that anywhere. Beign without God is death. Being without God is the sole reason for all of the unhappiness and suffering in the world.

This applies to everyone, course student or not.

The only way to return to a life which works and is not broken and is happy and joyous and love-filled and satisfying and meaningful, is to get GOD back into your life. One problem, one solution. "The ONLY problem you need to correct is the sense of separation from God."

There IS no other cause of the problems in the world. There is no form of suffering that does not stem from a sense of separation from God. All sickness, all death, all lack and deprivation, all fear and guilt and sin, all of it is directly descending from the belief that God is not supplying your every need. Withought Him, it is not possible to live at all. Death is the very IDEA of escaping God’s life completely... the consequence of trying to prove that you exist entirely without any trace of God in you whatsoever. Good luck with that. You NEED God to live.

To separate from God IMPLEMENTS every form of suffering. It automatically guarantees that you will not be happy. The consequences of separation are unavoidable, unless you become willing to UNDO the separation. Going to God and having God be your source, your provider, your guide, your protector, your safe-house, your healer, your sustainer, and that which maintains your life forever, and gives you EVERYTHING you need, is the ONLY SOLUTION to all the problems of the world. And this applies to everyone no matter their state of awareness or whether they are into the course or not. As John Lennon sang, "All you need is love".

The world is literally a picture of the idea of God’s absence. "The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God’s Son." Meaning, by crucifying ourselves, by condemning ourselves with an idea of sin, which is belief in separation, we PRODUCED a picture of ourselves as deprived, damaged, lacking, unwhole, and unholy, isolated, suffering and dead. What the Son would LOOK LIKE *IF* God were absent from Him. That is THIS UNIVERSE. The "world".

This is the condition of existence we LIVE WITH if we do not let go and let God. Insisting on being right, not happy, keeps us from God. This is why we originally made the world, to have somewhere to live without God, as a substitute reality. And one which is not capable of providing that substitution at all. We have made sorry little bullshit scraps of SHITE for ourselves to make up for the loss of God. Fun times!

It is IMPOSSIBLE to live without God. To live without God is to die. God is life. No-one can live without life. God is the ONLY SOURCE of what you need. The ego will never be able to supply you with what you truly want. "The world holds nothing that I want". Literally, this world/picture of deprivation and lack that we invented, DOES NOT HOLD that which we want and need. Earth, this world, this universe, DOES NOT CONTAIN what we need. What we need, cannot be found in the world. Ever. "Love was never in the world."

It doesn’t matter if you think the Earth is real or not or whatever other interpreation you have. You WILL NOT FIND happiness, peace, joy, love, health, meaning, fulfillment, satisfation, safety, or anything else that God offers, IN the world. "There is no safety in the world." "It is the world you see that is IMPOSSIBLE." "There is no life outside of heaven."

"Seek ye FIRST (only) the Kingdom of Heaven because that is where the laws of God operate truly, and they can operate only truly since they are the laws of Truth. But seek this ONLY because you CAN FIND NOTHING ELSE. THERE IS NOTHING ELSE. God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him who is all Being. You are therefore in Him since your being is His."

God is the only one who can give you these things. And He is offering them to you right now. And always. It is only a matter of your willingness to RECEIVE FROM GOD, which means accepting His Truth, which means accepting the atonement, and ceasing to be the one who supplies yourself with satisfaction. Of yourself alone you are nothing. Without God, you cannot be happy.

Any time that I have tried personally to go it alone and solve problems myself and or deal with life’s stresses using my own abilities and decisions and so on, it has never been enough. It always leads to fear (relying on oneself alone), additional incapability, increased suffering and a failure to correct the issue. I cannot live without God.

I could not have gotten through the things I have gotten through without surrendering my ego fight to be separate and ACCEPTING HELP from outside of me. From God. That means DEVELOPING TRUST IN HIM that he can and will take care of everything. And letting Him do so. And seeing Him do so. I can’t tell you the number of times that I thought I was supposed to or would have to DO SOMETHING to fix problems, only to have Jesus tell me "let me". I had to let go and let God.

God is all we need. God is the answer to every problem. God is the cure for all suffering. God dissolves all questions and fears. God heals all sickness and death. God is the ANSWER to every problem. In God there is nothing to fear. There is only love. Your every need WILL, and can only, be met by God.

Rejecting Him makes no sense whatsoever. "A sick body makes no sense" ec. To do so is denial, and ensures you will continue to fail to find what you need, to live with absence and lack and emptiness, and with no hope of any solution whatsoever other than to return to Him.

Love is not separate from God. God is not separate from you. You are not separate from love. The love of God is all you want. It will make you happy and fill your heart with gladness that He HAS provided everything that you ARE and everything you could ever want.

This is possibly the most threatening and mind-blowing teaching in A Course in Miracles. There is in fact NOT a world here! It's not even a matter of who made the world, it's the even higher truth that it DOES NOT EXIST. Earth is in fact NOTHING.

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it"

"There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere?"

Everything that happened in the separation from God, involves a belief in something existing which does not exist, something being true which is false, something being real which is unreal.

For example, we made a separate self which seems to have free will to do as it pleases. However, this self is in fact the DENIAL of self, which is why it results in death. But it APPEARS to be the presence of a self. This is why it's an illusion - it seems to be showing you something which is not there, as if it is. It's supposed freedom of will is in fact an imprisoned will, which is not free, but SEEMS free.

Take a look at the body. "The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist." The body SEEMS to picture "you", presenting an appearance and form, it seems to positively exist and move and do stuff. But, the body is NOT you, it is a replacement for you, and is only an image of what you THINK you are. What it SEEMS to be, is the opposite of what it actually is. The body is the ABSENCE OF YOU. And you do not look like your body. "What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."

It is the same thing with regards the difference between light and darkness. Darkness is not possible. Where there seems to be an absence of light, there must be an ILLUSION of darkness. If you believe the darkness is real, you are giving it false reality and are claiming it "is a something." But a shadow on a wall is not the PRESENCE of darkness, it is the absence of light. It appears to be a something, but is really the lack of a something.

It is also the same with regards to sin and error. Error or mistakes are just illusions of impossibilities, recognized as false. In their "true form" it is clear they cannot be true. But if you invest belief in them, are deceived and tempted by them, and buy into them, they turn into sin. And now it seems that they assert that something has REALLY happened, and something is REALLY possible, that isn't. So sin is really a lie, depicting stuff happening that CANNOT happen, as though it is really happening. It is deceptive.

The same applies to this world. This world is in fact NOTHING. But by believing in it and investing it with reality, it turns from an illusion of a something to an ACTUAL something. It seems to exist. It seems to host events and happenings. Things in it seem possible. But the world is impossible, and the things which happen are impossible, and sin is not real. The world was made to try to prove that sin and guilt are real.

"Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin."

So basically, we have a world that SEEMS to be here, which is made of sin, which testifies and proves that impossible things are possible, which hosts the idea of the death and murder of reality, and SEEMS to have real consequences. But it has none. And it does nothing. And it causes nothing. And it has no power. And it isn't really there at all.

"It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere."

"The world does nothing to him."

"There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."

The really deep thing to realize is this. The world is in fact, the ABSENCE OF EXISTENCE. It is the antithesis of heaven. It is the LACK OF HEAVEN. It is a HOLE, which we call the spacetime bubble, in which are housed impossibilities and unrealities. It is an hallucinated world, because it seems to be there to see, but isn't. You are projecting it and making it up as you go along.

The idea that there is no world isn't simply that the world "exists" and it has to be "undone". It's really the RECOGNITION that the world you thought was here, does not exist. And this doesn't mean there's a better view of it. It means the WHOLE THING IS GONE. It has no reality at all. No presence. No life.

"There is no life outside of heaven."

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"He does NOT realize that HE MAKES THIS WORLD, for there IS no world outside him."

Through unwillingness, we resisted God. We failed to create. We wanted not to shine. We tried to end eternal life. We wanted to stop reality. We opposed the Kingdom. We attacked will. We tried to deny our own existence. We blocked awareness. We tried to destroy. And ultimately this is all a matter of TRYING NOT TO EXIST.

In so doing, we seemed to make a world which SEEMS to exist, which is really actually the LACK OF A WORLD. It's like you took a part of heaven and DRAINED IT of all life. Held it back and prevented its extension. As though you could attack heaven and remove its presence. This world, which includes the Earth, is the ANTI-world. It is a mis-creation. It is empty and it is nothing.

We have GIVEN the world, the fake world, all manner of belief in trying to MAKE IT BE SIN, so that it is GIVEN reality, so that we can try to make it exist. It's our attempt to give it life and immortality. But we can't. We tried to make the world be a cause. We tried to make it have power. We gave our power to it to try to animate it. We tried to make it appear to be alive with "life forms", which are illusions of life. We tried to imagine it has a mind and alien will of its own. We tried to make ourselves subject to it and affected by it, to confirm its reality. We made bodies to sense it and to tell us that it is there.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

Quite simply, this world, this planet, this galaxy, all the stars, all bodies, all animals and "life forms", are NOTHING. They are life's ABSENCE. They are the LACK OF LIFE. They are something that is really NOT there, appearing to be there. Like an hallucination. A lack of light, appearing to be the presence of a real darkness. And to believe in it is to believe that evil is real, asserting that the world has power OVER heaven. That the world CAN CAUSE immortal beings to die. Believing this world is real is level confusion.

Our task in forgiveness, then, is not to find a way to give EXTRA reality to the world, but to recognize ITS UNREALITY, and see finally that it SO NOTHING, that it disappears and fades into nothingness. All it is is a veil of illusions, a block, hanging in front of the face of christ, pretending to exist. Our guilt makes it seem solid. Our fear gives it reality. Our belief in sin anchors it in our minds. But it is not there at all. It is an empty shell.

"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within YOU, there is a force which NO illusions can resist."

"What can the causeless BE but nothingness. The picture of your brother that you see is wholly absent, and has never been."

"Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its NOTHINGNESS is guarantee that it can NOT be sick."

"The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. "

"Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee."

"His body's nothingness releases yours from sickness and from death."

"For here is nothingness, where neither birth nor death is real"

"The final judgment on ****the world**** contains no condemnation. For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin, and wholly purposeless. Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, ****it merely slips away to nothingness.****"

"Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, "protective" clothing, "influence," "prestige," being liked, knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness which you endow with magical powers."

"To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it. As such, it is the prerequisite for vision."

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."

"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."

"But if you refuse to worship him, in whatever form he may appear to you, and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made."

"To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT GO."

"The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

"The "changes" the ego seeks to make are not really changes. They are but deeper shadows, or perhaps different cloud patterns. Yet what is made of nothingness cannot be called new or different."

"We can but go from nothingness to everything; from hell to Heaven." "What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed!"

"***The world stands like a block*** before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just ***a fragile veil***, so easily dispelled that it can ***last no longer than an instant***. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it ***cannot fail to disappear***, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot***, with time forever ended as ***the world spins into nothingness*** from where it came."

"What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real. How could God's Son as He created him abide in form or in a world of form?"

"What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions which remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because without belief they have no life, and so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains."

"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the presence of God."

"God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you."

"Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly." "Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary, and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it."

"All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding to be judged again, this time with Heaven's help, and all mistakes in judgment which the mind had made before are open to correction as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized."

"How can a battle be perceived as nothingness, when you ENGAGE in it?" "There is a silence covering the world that was an ancient dream so long ago no one remembers now. Its time is done, and in the little space it seemed to have is nothingness. The dream has gone, and all its dreams of gifts have disappeared as well."

"Pursuit of the imagined leads to death because it is the search for nothingness, and while you seek for life you ask for death.

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death."

"The more complicated the results become, the harder it may be to recognize their nothingness, but it is not necessary to examine ALL possible outcomes to which premises give rise to judge the PREMISES truly."

"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth.""

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

"And so is ALL time past, and everything EXACTLY as it was before the way to nothingness was made. The tiny tick of time, in which the first mistake was made, and ALL of them within that ONE mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and ALL of them that came within the first. And in that tiny instant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. What God gave Answer to IS answered, and IS gone."

"Specialness is the idea of sin MADE REAL. Sin is impossible even to imagine, without this base. For sin rose from it, out of nothingness, an evil flower with no roots at all."

"In the Divine psyche, the Father and the Holy Spirit are not incomplete at all. The Sonship has the unique faculty of believing in error, or incompleteness, if he so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement."

The metaphysics of ACIM is not something that someone made up, it is not an interpretation, it is not subject to someone's opinion, and there is no room for questioning it. It is not one of many possible definitions of the truth. It is THE truth. Either you understand it as it is and accept it as logically true, or you are in denial and confusion.

Metaphysics are FACTS. The thought system of the Holy Spirit is completely logically consistent, as is the thought system of the ego. There is absolutely no room for interpretation. What is "true" can easily be determined by looking at the logical structure of what has happened and where things fit. If you master the metaphysics, you will be able to extrapolate the logical thought system to explain absolutely anything in its correct perspective.

What happens after the separation from God is completely 100% logical. Everything that happens after separation MUST happen, and it MUST happen in a very specific way. The effects of separation are not varied or one possibility among many. There is only one way to separate, there is only one scenario which comes about when separation seems to have happened, and there is only one outcome.

If you can learn the fundamental, completely logically consistent metaphysical structure of the separation, it gives you a framework in which everything else fits into place. A Course in Miracles is teaching this metaphysical structure, but it is not always very obvious. Its obscure nature tends to lead people to not even realize there is a solid "core" to the Course or that you can use this structure to perfectly explain everything the ego does, the meaning of death, and what MUST be true based on it.

For example, separation from God is not possible, because you cannot be somewhere that God is absent. God is everywhere. This immediately tells us that, logically, to believe that this IS possible is insanity. It also must tell us that to believe in such a separation is to believe in a DREAM, a fiction, something which is false or not true and not real. This is already the beginning of some very solid metaphysics, and many people grasp this basic starting point.

But then there is a progression, because as soon as there is a belief in separation, the ENTIRE ego thought system can be logically described and predicted for how it will operate, what it will perceive and believe, what it will value, and everything else about it. Even such things as special relationships, special hate, unconscious guilt and so on, are not just things that happen to be a part of the situation we're in, they MUST ABSOLUTELY FEATURE in an experience of being separate from God. There is a completely LOGICAL progression of thought and circumstance which HAS to come about when there is separation, which leads to all of these things.

Jesus describes some of this in the Laws of Chaos, where he says that first there are separations into individuals/bodies, then this MUST give rise to the perception that each individual is different and therefore lacking, and this MUST then give rise to a sense of competition because others have something you lack, and this MUST mean every individual is sinful for the attack that their "independence" inflicts on each other, and you then end up trying to "get" from others what you lack, by valuing what they lack and trying to possess it - which is the purpose of "specialness" and leads to all special relationships. All of this is a completely logical progression. It's simply what must happen and must unfold based on the separation having taken place.

Another example is what happens right after separation in terms of the split mind and how it becomes at war with itself. If the mind believes in separation, in order to be separate from God, it MUST have separation within itself. There is nowhere else for the separation to be. So the mind becomes divided, believing in "self and other". This MUST mean that WILL is also split, and this MUST mean that both of those parts are in conflict. There are two wills operating seemingly separately or with separate goals, since they logically cannot be the same or in agreement otherwise they could not BE separate. They MUST be at war with each other. They MUST be in a state of conflict. This conflict leads to ALL expressions of war and attack and vengeance and eventual death. It all progresses completely logically.

The metaphysics also shows that what once was a single whole mind, or whole self (Christ), must have become divided and split apart following separation. This mind that believes in separation thus gave rise to multiple illusions of individuals. The illusion of these individuals BEING individual is completely dependent on a strong illusion of the ways they are different, and as this illusion of difference becomes stronger and more established, it turns into what we call "form", which is what the BODY is. So a body is actually a logical progression of the thought system of separation and MUST come about if the separation has happened. Bodies are just very strongly-believed-in fragments of mind appearing separate and unique in order to maintain the ongoing breakdown of wholeness. This is also why bodies are a "picture" of the destruction of Christ, made as separation devices to keep individuals apart and therefore keep Christ from being whole.

There is no guesswork here. There are no opinions. There is no interpretation. This is simply a completely logical, consistent development which takes place. If there is a separation, it has "features" which come from it quite "naturally" and which are completely unavoidable. They are not optional. Bodies, worlds, special relationships, death, sickness, it is ALL a "natural" part of a thought system of separation. The metaphysics recognizes this and gives a perfectly consistent structure to it. The metaphysics can explain WHY all of these things come about.

As you learn the metaphysics, which is somewhat deeper than just "the words" of the Course, you will acquire a kind of template or set of simple laws which you understand to make perfect sense. These can be somewhat abstract so it can require some learning to "generalize" the learning and realize that it's all based on a simple set of logic. But once you then "get" the simple logic, you can now USE that simple logic to examine absolutely any aspect of life, any activity or purpose or way that something happens, and describe it in terms of what the METAPHYSICS says about it, which will be the truth. Irrefutable truth. Provided your grasp of the metaphysics is clear and consistent and you're not making subtle logical errors, the metaphysics gives you VISION to be able to see the truth of what's happening or where things fit together.

For example, recently there have been discussions about whether you can be at peace with death. There were many opinions given. None of the opinions were relevant. The only truth is in what the metaphysics says. In the metaphysical truth, the body is a separation device, it is an illusion, and it is within the mind of Christ. It blocks and hides what is behind it and its only function and purpose is to maintain the illusion of the mind being separate. The metaphysics also tells us that since God is life, and being opposite to God is the separation, separation MUST be death. It also must be a fiction of death - a dream of death. It HAS to be. It also tells us that therefore when the body is "alive", the body is still inside a dream of death. This also tells us that the death which occurs at the end of "life" is just a symbol for death, because what happens before it is also death. This is why Jesus says "death is not an end, it is a continuation."

Also since the metaphysics teaches that death is the opposite of life, and life and peace are one, and therefore death is not peace, we VERY SIMPLY can conclude that it is IMPOSSIBLE for there to be death and peace at the same time. This is irrefutable, perfect logic. This is the truth that the metaphysics tells us. It has nothing to do with anyone's opinion, anyone's lack of understanding, anyone's version of what they think is true based on their so-called experiences, or anything else. It CANNOT be true that death and peace are the same thing or that they truly can be 100% experienced at the same time. Yet many people have tried to justify that they are at peace with death or have come to accept it. They MUST be in denial. The metaphysics makes this clear.

Another simple truth which you can conclude based on the simple metaphysics of separation, is that the split mind is in a state of war BUT it also simultaneously NEEDS that war to continue, in order to maintain a sense of being less than whole and of having an opposite. If truly the opposition were completely wiped out of existence, there would be no more possibility of being at war, and war is entirely founded on being separate and having a split will. So on the one hand, the ego now is constantly trying to attack and be opposed to the "other", but at the same time, it MUST KEEP the other as an enemy for as long as possible. It does not want war to actually SUCCEED, it wants war to be CONTINUOUS.

This is a simple logical conclusion based on the metaphysics of separation. It's not my opinion or someone's interpretation. Therefore all states of conflict and war entail people choosing to suffer for as long as possible. It also means that if one group of people wins the war and totally wipes out the opposition, there would have to be PEACE, because without an opponent there is no basis for fighting. To end the war would thus truly undo the separation, it would be the undoing of those who tried to wage war, and this is not what the ego thought system wants. This is all simple logic. So if someone comes along and has a discussion about war or conflict or attack, if you grasp the metaphysics you can use it to explain what MUST be true about war and conflict.

The separation from God is an entirely CLOSED SYSTEM. There is no room for accidents, there is no room for multiple opinions or interpretations. There is only the FACT of what has happened. You can accept it or you can deny it. If you have a solid grasp of the metaphysics you can DEPEND on it so much that you can TRUST it and you can use it to discern whether people are saying bullshit or whether they are aware of the truth. It also however requires that YOU not be in denial and you not be making logical errors. And the fact is there are a lot of people making a lot of logical errors. Sometimes they are quite subtle. But when someone thinks they know what the truth is but have not quite got it, they will defend it to the death and it must produce war.

Metaphysics reveals that there is only one truth. There is no room for error. There are facts, and that's it. You don't get an opinion. You don't get to interpret it to fit what you want it to be. You don't get to change it. In fact, this extends to your relationship with God and the fact that you keep trying to believe that God has changed His mind about you, or that you can change God. Both must be logically false. But that doesn't stop us believing otherwise, because we are insane. To not get the metaphysics is insanity, and the ego will use it to confuse you and delude you.

There is so much "insight" which can flow out about all kinds of topics if you will just learn the fundamental basic structure of separation. It also reveals to you that there really is only one problem, one dream, one solution. Illusions of how certain things seem different or unique or unlike each other, calling for a special explanation, can be "seen through" if you have the metaphysics right. You will know what to trust, and how to discern. You will be clear about what is true and what is false. You will also be amazed at how you're able to use the metaphysics as a powerful TOOL to give you the truth - what MUST be true - based on what you have learned is logically consistent, EVEN IF you have never thought about the particular topic before. The metaphysics will tell you WHAT IS the truth of the situation, and MUST be true about it, regardless of whether you even believe it yourself.

This logical consistency also builds upon itself. It's like, if you have this blueprint and you use it to place the first few pieces exactly where they belong, then you start being able to draw further logically consistent conclusions from it. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, where if you start out with the correct corners and the correct edge pieces, all of the other pieces can be correctly positioned and discerned, leading to a completely consistent whole picture. It's almost like effortless learning. You don't need to keep learning lots of individual separate modalities or pieces of information. You just get this one 'guidance system' which is the light of truth, the thought system of the Holy Spirit, which puts into perspective absolutely everything else. You switch on this one light and ask IT what is the truth, instead of being in the business of MAKING UP what you want the truth to be all the time, and it will very obviously and clearly tell you exactly what the truth is, from a clear and consistent perspective.

This is also why it is imperative to surrender your egoic attempt to always be the one who decides everything, to always be the one who decides what things mean, to always have your own opinion, to always be running "your own life" which you see as a possession of your own separate from God's will. Trusting Holy Spirit/God is trusting the metaphysics of the truth. The metaphysics completely correlates to the Holy Spirit's thought system. As you trust IT, you are trusting HIM. And as you begin to THINK WITH it, you are thinking WITH HIM, and you will start to have thoughts which are in line with, compatible with, and consistent with, HIS way of thinking, which is perfectly supportive of the metaphysics. The metaphysics of truth IS the way that the mind functions from a true perspective.

So our opinions mean absolutely nothing. Our separate viewpoints are an act of war. Thinking we know that our interpretation of the Course is right, unless it actually IS in line with Holy Spirit's thought system, MUST be a state of denial and MUST entail the authority problem - the ego trying to be the one who determines what is true or not. Only the truth is true. We can accept it, or we can be in denial. If we are in denial, believing we know the truth, we are mistaken. You can accept God's love, or you can reject it, but you cannot change it. You can deny that God is real but that won't change the metaphysics of reality whatsoever. You can pretend all you want, but ultimately, all of reality is a CLOSED SYSTEM with no options and no alternatives. It is what it is. Trying to make it be something it is not, is ego, and WILL produce the illusion of death.

God and the ego work in completely opposite ways, but we are so used to how the ego works that even our prayers function according to the ego's laws, we ask for ego with the ego, and receive the ego, and therefore it seems our prayer was not answered.

The ego says, there is a problem here now, and I want help to fix it. In so doing, the ego makes the problem real, turns it into an enemy, then wants to fight to remove it. This produces NO ACTION, because it is a stalemate. You can't be both holding onto something and wanting to be free of it at the same time. A split will, willing two things at once, is a divided will, which is unwillingness, and produces NO RESULTS.

So when you pray with the ego, you first have believed you've got a serious problem and now you turn to God and ask, please heal this for me. It will not work. Indeed you can beg and plead. That especially will not work. The more that you believe this problem exists, the more you are actually asking to keep it.

Regardless of your words, regardless of your motives, expressing the belief behind the words that "I have this giant problem", says to God, "I want to have this giant problem and I'm going to keep believing in it, so don't take it away." Essentially, ALL PRAYERS ARE ALWAYS ANSWERED. So when you are asking and you are praying, "please fix my big problem", you are literally actually praying, "I believe in this big problem so I value it so I want it so let me have it"

And so God GRANTS that and accepts and allows it, because He does not want to take away from you YOUR free will (which He gave all souls) to choose to want to suffer, if you want to. The fact however that all prayers are answered ALSO tells us that IF YOU ASK CORRECTLY, you CAN AND WILL be given what you ask for, so you need to be clear about what you are ACTUALLY asking. Are you asking with "my illusions are real" - ego, asking for more ego - or are you AFFIRMING and BEING AWARE OF what you ALREADY HAVE, as given by God already, as the joyful experience of manifest perfection?

So the ego's dynamic always boils down to this simple structure. You believe the problem exists now or is like a wall blocking your way to the future. You believe it is real, and seek for power to rise against it, as if to overpower it and destroy it forcefully. This is absolutely not the way God operates. It is totally opposite. God doesn't fight with imaginary problems.

God is present. God knows there are no real problems now. He knows that only His Creation/Kingdom is real and present right now, and nothing unreal exists. God knows that everything is already healed and perfect and that there never has been a problem. He does not see problems in the future, nor does He see problems that "exist now" that need to be fixed in the next moment. He does not think in terms of time. He does not make problems real to then address them. He does not even really acknowledge that there is a problem at all. God simply EXPRESSES PERFECTION at all times, establishing the presence of perfection pro-actively rather than ever having to deal with its absence.

This attitude correlates to the law of forgiveness, which is that forgiveness recognizes that there IS NO SIN and therefore all the sins are forgiven, all the consequences do not exist, and there is only perfection (innocence, health, happiness etc). Forgiveness expresses - ie extends - the present reality and truth of God only. It does not look for stuff to forgive, it does not make errors real, and it does not move into judgement. It does not attack and it does not really "do" anything, recognizing that there is nothing that need be done, because no problems exist.

Therefore, in order to receive God's "help" with healing something, you need to get totally out of the ego's way of "asking because I need it", and get into God's way of "expressing so that I have no needs". YOU need to be a conduit through which God's healing flows and expresses, as though you are sitting in Heaven WITH God and He is shining and extending love through you. This puts you at the SOURCE of the healing, not as the end recipient as such. This is because healing must be GIVEN, in order to be received, and vice versa. YOU have to become the giver of the miracle in order to receive it. YOU must PARTICIPATE in the function of providing the miracle from above, and not just sit there like a potato waiting for God to fix you passively.

It also means you need to think about "the problem" in an entirely different way. You must look at all of the ways that you are thinking about the problem with the ego - the belief that the problem is real, the belief in how it was caused outside of you, the belief in how severe it is, the belief in it being "not healed yet", the belief that healing is "in the future", the belief that you "do not want it" (a lie), the belief that you did not choose it, and the belief that it even exists. These are all FALSE ideas, which actually BLOCK God's help, even if they masquerade as attempts to attract God's help.

"I really suck bad, help me", is not a question asking for help. It's a statement asserting how much you do not accept or want love. It is not ever a matter of whether God is providing love and perfection or not. He is ALWAYS HEALING and ALWAYS EXPRESSING PERFECTION. It is YOU who are not being willing to truly receive and acknowledge it, and that is the only problem standing in the way of complete healing. You threw heaven away, now you must reclaim it.

So how you work with God, goes more like this.. and this can seem "backwards" to the ego so there's a bit of a knack to it. You need to collapse and let go of every single belief that suggests you have a problem at all. All of these beliefs are attempts to keep it, and God will not take it from you while you value it. God honors your freedom. So you have to be WILLING to GENUINELY let go of all of this story and drama you've INVENTED about why this thing exists, why it is still present, and why it has a power preventing it from being let go. Wipe the slate clean of the entire story about what is causing this thing to be present.

Then you need to get to where you recognize and affirm and accept that this thing DOES NOT EXIST. It is NOT happening, there is NOT a sickness, there is NOT suffering, there is NO REALITY to this problem, it is NOT real, it has NO truth in it, it has NO power, etc. This is TRUTH! It is truth because, in truth, ONLY God's Kingdom exists, only what is real (perfection, happiness, health) exists here now, and all other things are LIES - illusions which are not true. There is NO SUCH THING as "real sickness" or "real guilt" or "real sin" or "real death." If you want the thing to go away, you need to RECOGNIZE THAT IT IS ALREADY GONE and was never really there to begin with. To really believe that and thus perceive it.

Then, you are getting yourself out of the bullshit victim story and into a position of power, a position of responsibility, a position of willingness, a position of acceptance of truth, and an openness to RECEIVING.

This is the key part. You need to acknowledge and be greateful for GOD HAVING ALREADY GIVEN what you thought you needed or lacked. So that in essence, you do NOT lack it OR NEED IT any more, because God HAS already provided. That means, acknowledging that God has ALREADY GIVEN the healing for this thing, and that IT IS ALREADY HEALED. This confirmation that it is healed already, means that the healing must've already been GIVEN, the healing must have already been RECEIVED, and therefore almost as though the healing was "in the past", not in the future. ie, you are NOW experiencing God's perfection in your life with no trace of problems whatsoever.

The ego puts all healing into the future, keeping it hidden behind a gap or brick wall which separates you from it. God places all healing in the past, because God's creation was ALREADY PERFECT before time began. You need to acknowledge the pre-existing already-established perfection of God's creation, and ITS PRESENCE NOW. So you focus not on... I have a problem now and its not fixed yet. You focus on, the situation NOW (here and now present) is that HEALING HAS ARRIVED and HEALTH IS PRESENT and CORRECTNESS IS HERE and EVERYTHING IS ALREADY PERFECT.

This acknowledgement of perfection does NOT mean the way that the ego would use it, which is to say, well, stuff is still broken and unhealed and I'm still going to die but "I'm at peace with it". Bullshit. That's the ego trying to justify death by making it out to be acceptable. It is not acceptable. Instead, acknowledge WITH THANKS, that God HAS GIVEN a miracle, and YOU HAVE RECEIVED IT ALREADY. It is here now! You are already enjoying the absence of problems. You are focused on what God has given and what you have extended from God, rather than what seemed to lack, because the only problem you need correct is the sense that God is absent or that He failed to give perfection.

By focusing on being grateful to God for you having ALREADY BEEN HEALED, and health being your PRESENT condition, you automatically open up the gateway to RECEIVE a flood of healing power from God. This is how you "unlock" access to Heaven's help, by aligning with it and putting yourself in its shoes and expressing how IT would express, believing what IT would believe, perceiving how IT would perceive, and acknowledging what is real in the way that IT would acknowledge it right now.

By saying, thank you God for having already healed this, and actually BELIEVING IT, accepting it as true, and thus EXPERIENCING IT, you are not only inviting God's presence (which will heal and manifest Heaven in you) but you are also saying "I HAVE received from you God", which... if for any reason you have not seemingly "yet" received, will now trigger a grand receiving.

It seems almost backwards, because you have to acknowledge receipt seemingly "before" it seems to have been given. You assert that you have NOW what you seem "not to have" so that it comes to you! You be grateful for what you WANT, as if you HAVE IT, so that it comes to you!

There is a line in the bible which says this: "Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours."

The believing in the receipt of it is VITAL and key. If you do not believe you HAVE IT NOW, it WILL NOT COME. In other words, you need to focus on expressing belief NOW in what it is that you want your "condition" to be, instead of even giving ANY attention to "what you do not want" or what you seem to have that you want to change. Get all of your attention off of trying to deal with what seems to be manifest now that you don't prefer, and put all of your attention on what you are RECEIVING FROM GOD, acknowledging its receipt, IN ORDER TO welcome it into the present and receive it HERE AND NOW.

This is totally backwards from how you would pray with the ego. It is totally the opposite of how the ego asks for things. It puts the receiving ahead of the giving, so that the giving flows, rather than focusing on lack first and then asking for it to be filled. This is how God functions.

You cannot be in a pity party feeling sorry for yourself about how much of a victim you are and expect God to bail you out. By doing that you are putting yourself into the role of NOT receiving, by focusing on God's absence, creating a distance between where you are at now and what you think you want in the future. This is no different than avoiding the Holy Instant. This is also what the Course means when it says "miracles are by believers, for believers", because YOU have do YOUR PART of the work to believe in what God is wanting to share with you, in order to receive it, otherwise your disbelief will reject the miracles.

If you want God's help - remembering also the Biblical teaching that "God helps those who help themselves" - you MUST be willing to fulfill the ROLE and FUNCTION of forgiveness and being the light of the world and acknowledging and receiving God's pre-existing abundance and perfection. You can't be saying, "I can't fix this" and then asking God to do the work "for you". You need to LINE UP with the way God functions and thinks, get yourself into the HELPING mode of GIVING, acknowledge receipt and welcome love, so that you are PART OF THE ATONEMENT.

You don't just go to God and pray and say, "hey, my life sucks, fix it". You have to stop believing your life sucks otherwise God can't help. And once you stop believing your life sucks, it would SEEM then that you do not NEED God's help because your life doesn't seem to suck any more, right? Which seems pointless. But it's not. It is the prerequisite for you RECEIVING God's help to clean up the mess of your previously sucky life, by ALLOWING Him to help.

"He will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM." If you are not truly willing to allow and receive that help, you are blocking Him, and He will honor your free will. Holy Spirit CAN HEAL ANYTHING if you allow it, but you MUST be willing. You can't be in a victimy state of unwillingness, resistance, fear and making problems real, if you want help. You need to show some willingness to go TOWARD GOD, to melt the separation, to undo the ego beliefs and to put yourself back into your proper FUNCTION as outward extender of love, IN ORDER that you can HAVE what you are GIVING. "To have all, give all to all."

God's healing has to be shared, it has to be received in order to be given, and it has to be given in order to be received. It is not something you can get in isolation just for yourself, it entails a willingness that you accept it is TRUE FOR EVERYONE. If you deserve it, so does everyone, because you no longer believe in undeservedness. It's almost like "be the change you want to see in the world." Be the healing that you want to receive from God. "I will heal as I let Him teach me to heal" literally says this... if I become willing to be PART OF the healing flow, then I will receive healing myself as well as become able to extend it.

So focus on God having already given full perfection and healing NOW and since forever, recognize its PRESENCE, get your attention totally off the illusion of a "real problem", and find gratitude which opens you to RECEIVE and manifest Heaven on Earth. It is here now! Do you want to focus on your problem and be right about it being real, or do you want to be happy? God already gave perfection in Eternity and in Heaven, and we already resisted it and threw it away with illusions of problems to come between us. Get rid of these illusions and acknowledge and demonstrate the presence of the Kingdom here and now!

Looking for God outside? He's inside you. In fact, you have to look inside first, find God there, then look out with God, in order to see God.

When I had an experience of God this wasn't clear to me. I saw God seemingly in everything external, in addition to my tremendous inner awareness of him, but then it faded. And then I sought to reconnect externally because that's where I'd seen him. But God wasn't first found outside and taken in, he was inside my mind and awareness and extended out. I found him inside because I went within and above, not because I sought outward. In fact all sickness is a form of external searching. Seeking out there for God will take you away from where he is.

God is in everything you see when awareness of love's presence is in your mind. Not because God is out there, but because you are shining his light from inside of you. You look first within and project out what is in you, then you see it. You can't find God "out there" in the world. There is no world out there. Everything external is artificial and unreal.

God being in everything you see does not mean the world is God. This is completely backwards. It means you're looking out from God. And thus you are giving God and extending God and therefore projecting God. He is in everything you see because he is in your mind, and not without that key ingredient. If God were not in your mind first, you would not see him in everything you see, at all.

During the time that I was close to God I felt a great radiance of joy and light shining out of me, particularly out of my face and eyes. It was so strong it was like beaming light at people. It was also so strong that I felt nothing could come into me from the outside, which felt very secure. As though everything was given from within.

"The strength of the Soul leaves no room for intrusions." I felt I had no needs because I didn't lack anything within. Getting anything into me from the outside seemed completely alien and utterly pointless, including eating food for a while. It was like shoving lumps of nothing into a hole for no reason. I had to force myself to swallow. It seemed completely ridiculous to suggest that I lacked anything at all such that I needed to get anything from the world to make up for it.

When you're not seeing God outside you will start seeking externally to find him. This is because he seems externally absent. This is temptation and is a trick of the lack of love in you. It makes the world seem dark and lacking. And then you seek externally and do not find him. Because you try to find God first externally, and seek to get him, and take him into you from the outside in. This never works and makes you more deprived. It is idol worship, and special relationships. You cannot absorb God from any physical object, or get him on sale, or shove him down your throat, or make him give everything the ego wants to get.

To counteract the seeming absence of God in your sight you cannot try to look for God as if he's sitting out there on a rock. You have to look within, inside your mind, where you are connected at the inner altar, with your soul. That's where the unity with God is. You have to go there first. You have to plug into the light socket deep within. This is why Jesus repeatedly says in the course there is a place WITHIN you that is deeply at peace and filled with light.

Light bulbs don't shine by reaching out and grabbing ahold of light and taking it into themselves. They shine by plugging themselves into the power source and being in the light and then radiating it outwards. Only what you extend outward from within do you see or are aware of. So if you want to see love you have to find love within you first. If you want to see God in everything you see, in spite of everything you see, you have to find him in your mind, in your inner world.

If God appears to be outside, it is because he is inside, and there is no outside. If God does not appear to be outside, it's because you're lacking God on the inside. The lack of God outside has no bearing on causing God to go away or to make him appear. But whether you are in touch God on the inside makes all the difference. It is the only way to find God "outside" at all. Cause is INSIDE of you. God is cause. Effect is its extension or projection. Trying to find God (cause) by trying to love effects is backwards.

The course isn't really trying to get you to be one with the world, or to love it. It's trying to reunite you with God, within you, so that you can extend and create with him from the inside out. So that YOU are the love you keep trying to find in the world. What seems to be "external", including the body and planet, are not where God is. They were made from the idea of being outside of God's Kingdom in exile. They are the illusion of "not within you".

The world is just a picture of the lack of God ("a picture of the crucifixion of God's son"), a hallucination, a projected image of something being outside of or beyond your self, not contained within or included in what you are. And even though the course speaks of how the light of Christ is BEYOND the body and the world, as though on the OTHER side of its walls, as if you need to see THROUGH matter to see reality, it's really right here INSIDE you. It's here, and there. It's within you.

I used to think God was "out there" in the far distant reaches of the universe. Then I experienced him, and he was so intimately close he was literally under my skin and behind all my defenses against the world. God is here now, in your mind, in your soul. Inside of you. Underneath your defenses. Behind your walls. In the back of all your thoughts. Underneath your blocks. Beyond your denial. Deeper even than your own avoidance of inner self. Look for him without and you will be without him. But look for him within and the without will be filled with him.

What the course does do is push you to go deeper within. To get behind your clouds. To dig behind the darkness. To examine with deep honesty your innermost issues. To move beyond them into a complete alignment with your true self. To get under the blanket and snuggle up with God. To know that God goes with you, beside you, within you. To rest within. And to settle into his tranquil love. And all of this requires no movement away from his immediate presence, no seeking, and no loss.

I looked up at the night sky this evening and reached out to God a little, and Jesus corrected me, "he's not out there, he's inside." The path forward moves inward, which in truth seems to be backwards or the reversal of the world, that there may be an outward extension of what you find.

The body was made to put all your attention on what is external, its eyes looking always outward to seek for what is not there. This is why the inner vision of Christ is directed inward mentally, not outward. And only by going within can you see God again.

Here are Jesus's clear affirmations of this message... "Deep within you is everything that is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the whole world. It will cure all sorrow and pain and fear and loss because it will heal the mind that thought these things were real, and suffered out of its allegiance to these beliefs."

"As I share the peace of the world with my brothers, I begin to understand that this peace comes from deep within myself. The world I look upon has taken on the light of my forgiveness, and shines forgiveness back at me."

"Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father wills you hear His Word today. He calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear Him today." "Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you. He will be there. And you can reach Him now."

"And what attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it, and COMPLETELY One." "The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within."

"Salvation flows from deep within the home you offered to my Father and to me. And we are there together, in the quiet communion in which the Father and the Son are joined."

"Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God"

"The extension of the Holy Spirit's purpose, from YOUR relationship to others, to bring them gently IN, has already begun. This is the way in which He will bring means and goal in line. The peace He laid, deep within BOTH of you, will quietly extend to EVERY aspect of your lives, surrounding both of you with glowing happiness, and the calm awareness of COMPLETE protection."

"His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and shining from the holy altar within him, where you laid the lilies of forgiveness."

"The holiness that leads us is WITHIN us, as is our home."

"The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision."

"Knowledge comes from the altar within, and is timeless because it is certain."

"For perfect effectiveness, the chalice of the Atonement belongs at the center of the inner altar, where it undoes the Separation, and restores the wholeness of the Spirit."

"This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. For there the altar to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar. There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness. God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete."

"And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God."

"And what enables Him to SEE His purpose shine forth from every altar, now is yours as well as His."

"His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and shining from the holy altar within him, where you laid the lilies of forgiveness."

"If you will recognize that ALL attack which you perceive, is in your own mind, and NOWHERE ELSE, you will at last have placed its source, and where it began it must end. For in this place also lies salvation. The altar of God, where Christ abideth, is there."

"But Christ has placed the Atonement on the altar FOR you. Bring your perceptions of the world to this altar, for it is the altar to truth. There you will see your vision changed, and there you will learn to see truly. "

"We clear a holy place within our minds before His altar, where His gifts of peace and joy are welcome, and to which we come to find what has been given us by Him."

"Forgiveness sweeps away distortions, and opens the hidden altar to the truth. Its lilies shine into the mind, and call it to return and look within, to find what it has vainly sought without. For here, and only here, is peace of mind restored, for this the dwelling-place of God Himself."

"At the altar of God, the holy perception of God's Son becomes so enlightened that light streams into it, and the Spirit of God's Son shines in the Mind of the Father, and becomes one with it."

"But the next step is to realize that a Temple is not a building at all. Its REAL holiness lies in the INNER altar, around which the building is built."

"It is not easy in the world to know what giving means, and how to give a gift that God and all creation will accept as shining outward from a thankful heart and inward to the altar of its God."

"God has not left His altar, though His worshippers placed other gods upon it. The temple still is holy, for the Presence that dwells within it IS Holiness."

"Only at the altar of God will you find peace, and this altar is in you, because God put it there. His Voice still calls you to return, and He will be heard, when you place no other gods before Him."

"If you would look within, you would see only the Atonement, shining in quiet and in peace, upon the altar to your Father. Do not be afraid to look within."

"Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God."

"Right perception is necessary before God can communicate DIRECTLY to his own altars, which he has established in His Sons."

"This is the true communion of the Spirit Who sees the altar of God in everyone, and by bringing it to YOUR appreciation calls upon you to love God and His Creation."

"This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, NOT in the Kingdom, but IN YOUR MINDS. The altar there is the ONLY reality. It is PERFECTLY clear in its thought, because it is a reflection of PERFECT Thought. It SEES only brothers because it sees ONLY in its own Light."

"But you will notice that I have knelt at your altar as readily as I would ever have you kneel at mine."

"The innocence of God is the true state of the mind of His Son. In this state, man's mind DOES see God, and because he sees Him as he Is, he knows that the Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate gift to His OWN altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs. The understanding of the innocent is TRUTH. That is why their altars are truly radiant."

"A miracle reawakens the awareness that the spirit, and not the body, is the altar of Truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle."

"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?"

"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others."

"As this peace expands, from deep inside yourselves, to embrace ALL the Sonship"

"For still deeper than the ego's foundation, and MUCH stronger than IT will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, AND HIS FOR YOU."

"We are Creation; we the Sons of God. We seem to be discrete and unaware of our eternal unity with Him. Yet back of all our doubts, past all our fears, there still is certainty. For Love remains with all Its Thought, Its sureness being Theirs. God's memory is in our holy minds, which know their oneness and their unity with their Creator. Let our function be only to let this memory return, only to let God's Will be done on earth, only to be restored to sanity, and to be but as God created us."

I've been wrong about the world. Again.

My view of what the world IS has changed a lot recently. I see now that ACIM is telling me the world itself was projected out as "nothing", or an empty screen, and THEN we projected secondary meaning onto it and "gave" it meaning. We can give it egoic meaning, or we can give it heavenly meaning. And thus it acts like a mirror to REFLECT an outward picture of an inward condition. This is projected on top of what the world IS, which is a veil of illusions.

What I USED to believe was quite different. Some people say there is an "objective world", and that the course is telling us we have "subjective" perceptions about it. In this view we have beliefs ABOUT the world. I never liked this approach because it seemed to imply the world had to be objective, which meant it was real. And clearly other parts of ACIM tell us God did NOT create the world. So then I threw out the idea that we were really having ideas ABOUT the world, which led to believing the world ITSELF was a more direct "belief".

What seemed to make more sense was to say that there is no objective world, especially in light of "there is no world." And there are statements like "the world is false perception" and "there is no world apart from what you wish", etc. These seem to imply, coupled with "projection makes perception", that we literally project out the physical world in one single act, and how it appears to us depends on "how we made it" or what we projected it from. Such that there is no objective world, ONLY subjective fluctuating worlds that live INSIDE of subjectivity.

I thought this made sense for a long time because there is a lot in the course about how you cannot see both worlds, how you can have either false or true perception, how you see what you project, and how forgiveness/christ-vision doesn't look upon bodies. Again, major parts of the course seemed to click into place, but there were always a few things which seemed to not quite line up.

I'd also find that there would always be SOME people who believed certain other chunks of the course, which contradicted my ideas about the world. Maybe they got those parts RIGHT, BUT also got OTHER parts wrong, and so still didn't have the whole picture. Some things they said seemed to side with a partial view, that the world must be objectively real, created by God, and that's why the course talks about projecting ONTO it. But this couldn't be based on what else is written.

So it always seemed like everyone had a big chunk of the truth but not the whole picture. And I thought I had the whole picture too. But apparently I did not. Because what I see in the course now tells me something different. Something which produces far less contradictions and seems to be a more complete picture.

What it says is that in the separation, we came up with the idea of an opposite to God, which is really an idea of nothingness, since God is everything. This was projected out from the mind, which "made the world". We're talking here about the making of space and time and setting the wheels of physical objects/evolution in motion. But because this was an idea of nothing, it really had no meaning of its own. You might also notice that "outer space" is really mostly empty nothingness.

"That was the first projection of error outward. ***The world arose to hide it (a first projection), and became the screen on which it was projected ( a second projection)***, and drawn between you and truth."

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

"***The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning.*** And what you behold ***upon it*** are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real."

"It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written ***in the empty space*** which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that ******the void****** may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality."

"Yet separation is but empty space, enclosing nothing, doing nothing, and as unsubstantial as the vacant place between the ripples that a ship has made in passing by."

Clearly then, what has taken place are TWO steps. The first is that we projected out the physical world of bodies - really empty nothingness ("the body is nothing" etc). This was a world of nothing and the idea of sin or "absence of love/everything". It's really neutral because it's nothing and has no meaning. A meaningless world. This world then became A SCREEN onto which we SECONDARILY PROJECTED the mind's belief in it, which GAVE it meaning, GAVE it reality, and projected sin and guilt onto it.

In a sense then, there ARE two kinds of layers to the world. What the world IS, and what we MAKE OF IT. This then doesn't mean the world is objectively real, only that it is in some way "separate" from the secondary projections we put ONTO it. The meaning we GIVE to it. This also corresponds to the idea that the world itself is an illusion, which we have further illusions ABOUT.

For example, the world is an illusion and is unreal. When we then project untruth onto it, trying to MAKE it real by GIVING it reality, this is what we call false perception. It makes a world which is actually an illusion, SEEM as if it's is REAL world. And now physical form is believed and appearances deceive and the mind is lost, insane and confused. The alternative is true perception which recognizes the world for WHAT IT IS, "accurate perception", which reveals the world IS an illusion, IS nothing, and does not really exist.

So it all still lines up perfectly with what the course says, provided you now recognize that the interpretation of what you THOUGHT it MEANT, or what it was referring to, might be a little different. That the world is "distinct" from what you project onto it, doesn't have to mean or imply that God created it. And because it IS "separate" from your projections onto it, or beliefs about it, you CAN change your mind ABOUT it. And we are indeed asked over and over again to do this.

"The world you see (false perceptions about an illusory world) cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world (loves the illusory world through truth). God's Word has promised us that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible. But it is true that the world must be looked at differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is but a fact (as though, a distinct separate "thing"). You cannot choose what this should be (because it was projected in the first projection). But you can choose how you would see it (per the second projection). Indeed, you must choose this."

So now it becomes possible to reinterpret the "world you made", by reinterpreting the "world you see" ie your psychological interpretation of what you made, or what you "make of" what you made. When you take the neutral meaningless illusory world you made, and you take away from it the projection of sin and guilt, and leave "an empty space", uncluttered from ego projections, UPON which you project God, love, light, holiness, the "world you made" now reflects heaven's light, and you see "God in everything you see." But bear in mind this is a REFLECTION in a mirror which has no meaning of its own, and is STILL just nothing. It does not mean the mirror is God or is heaven.

What this means for me is that I now recognize there ARE two parts to this world. There is the world we made, the physical world of forms, which in and of itself is nothing and means nothing. Then there is meaning we GIVE to it which is what I project ONTO it which produces my perceptions ABOUT it.

This results in my "joining the camp" which claimed that perception was always "about the world", but WITHOUT the clause that suggested "this must mean God created it." Rather than merely think that "the world is in my mind", ie that its contents are my mind's contents, I can now approach "the world I made" but without the false-perception ego baggage.

In a way this means no longer "throwing the world out with the bathwater". The dirty water of ego projections ONTO it can be let go, and I can then become more willing to look at this same world, the physical world, through eyes of Christ. Devoid of the projected sin and guilt, or labels of wrongfulness. Which also overlooks appearances and differences and forms and transcends the hierarchy of illusions.

Recognizing that, eventually, I can still look at "this world" through more loving eyes, WITHOUT it having to mean that God created it, because of the clarity that we DID project it out in a first step BEFORE we projected ONTO it. I notice now many references to how we look UPON the world, project UPON the world, and therefore FILTER the world, depending on where our mind is at, and this can be thought of as SEPARATE FROM the physical world itself.

I can now stop resisting the idea of blades of grass being "a sign of God's perfection", because if seen through loving eyes they are reinterpreted as SYMBOLS that REFLECT God's perfection. Not because they are made of God or are created BY him, but because they are forgiven.

"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there, he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there in peace."

What this means is that a kind of ... reunion of sorts, between me and the physical world, up to a point of course. A willingness to recognize that it can MAKE SENSE, to suggest I can look at it still but in a way that doesn't take its illusions seriously, OR condemn it, OR needing to make it out to be negative. Because what the world IS is in fact completely neutral and nothing, ultimately.

My egoic false perceptions about it, were mistaken for what the world IS. Guilt and sin and fear we ASSOCIATED WITH the world, thought to be ONE THING, when in fact they are two things. I did this as part of my DIS-association of guilt in my mind, which bound my guilt to the world and made me believe IT was inherently guilty. The world cannot be inherently anything, because it is really nothing. There is no world at all.

If what the world IS is not inherently evil, because it is nothing, then this at least provides the logical basis for being able to project love onto it. Rather than the impossibility of loving an inherently false world. If the world can act to reflect heaven, then it makes it OK to "love it", even if this is a temporary love designed ultimately to dispel it.

I also see that I thought that moving into a higher perception meant "not seeing the physical world", and I had associated the physical world with false perception. I thought it should become invisible and unseen, when approaching christ vision. But I see now that in fact a big part of reaching forgiveness still entails looking upon the physical world but WITH forgiveness, which overlooks its forms and such and gives it a love to reflect back. Recognizing it as a mirror with no meaning of its own. As such blades of grass and leaves can become "things of wonder" and the world can appear beautiful, as it prepares to vanish.

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created (but still looks upon a body). It beholds a light beyond the body (at the same time); an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events (which is still physical), without the slightest fading of the light it sees."

"For you will not interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. And in His sight there IS another world. You live in that world just as much as this, for BOTH are concepts of yourself, which can be interchanged, but never jointly held."

"Have you wondered what the world is REALLY like? How would it look through HAPPY eyes? The world you see is but a judgment on YOURSELF. IT is not there at all. But judgment lays a sentence on it, JUSTIFIES it, and MAKES IT REAL. Such is the world you see; a judgment on yourself, and made by YOU. This sickly picture of yourself is carefully preserved by the ego, whose image it IS and which it loves, and placed OUTSIDE you, in the world.”

Notice how that paragraph is really talking about your secondary projection onto the world, which places an image INTO the world, seemingly outside of you, which is a picture of your sick self you projected ONTO it. This is what the EGO makes of you and of the world - the void - the emptiness, in trying to fill it with images.

"It is essential, therefore, that you learn to ***recognize the meaningless, and accept it without fear***. If you are fearful (in ego/false perception), it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes which it does not possess, and crowd it (project onto it secondarily) with images that do not exist."

The world we made ITSELF, can be "a thing of wonder." But only if it is seen through "loving eyes".

"There IS another purpose in the world that error made because it has another Maker, Who CAN reconcile its goal with His Creator's Purpose."

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

"Again we come to the question of judgment. This time, ask yourself whether your judgment or the Word of God is more likely to be true. For they say different things about the world, and things so opposite that it is pointless to try to reconcile them. God offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it. God says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life. God's Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so."

"Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped. It is not the world which makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see that is impossible. Yet has God's Judgment on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace. And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace now belongs here, because a Thought of God has entered. What else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what It is? The earth bows down before Its gracious Presence, and It leans down in answer to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It is no longer, "Can peace be possible in this world?" but instead, "Is it not impossible that peace be absent here?"

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

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for ***only what it is***. And now it ***cannot fail to disappear***, for now there is an ***empty place made clean and ready***. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is ***the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness*** from where it came."

One thing has been a constant throughout your whole life. You have always been you alone. You have always been a separate person, autonomous within the confines of a body, and not once has there been anyone in there with you. Everyone else is just like you, in that they are unlike you, and unlike everyone else. And never have you found anyone who is the same as you.

This experience comes with a sense of "I am only me", completely cut off from others by a wall of bodies. And that seems to suggest "I am wholly myself." And yet, it is not an experience of knowing who you are, but of being out of touch with who you are. It's an experience of "I don't know who I am" while at the same time clutching at straws to define who you are. Looking for something to identify with, to convince yourself it is your self, because you have lost yourself.

You have been lost, confused, afraid, alone, lonely, weak, powerless and constantly bombarded with attack. And every time it has been "only my self" that has experienced this - the poor-me victim. And every time you have been unhappy it has seemed you are unhappy alone, afraid alone, suffering alone, sick alone, guilty alone, dying alone. And not once has it seemed that anything you have felt within yourself has been the same as that of anyone else at all. You haven't even had the slightest clue what anyone else is thinking or experiencing.

This is the experience of what we might call someone who is "being an ego". It is the automatic experience of anyone whose sense of self is a "separated off" self. A self that is excluded, isolated, imprisoned in a body, kept apart from sharing anything with anyone, and thoroughly limited to what the body dictates.

"This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time" Such a person has not really changed in terms of their perfection, but they have changed in terms of their relationship. There has been a communication breakdown between themselves and others. The body depicts this breakdown as a tremendous hurdle which filters and translates everything into confusing symbols. This is a person who once was free, but who has been locked up inside a body and has forgotten what it means to share. Their mind seems isolated and unaware of anyone else's mind.

Let's say there is no such thing as "an ego" at all. There are only people. And some of these people have decided to try to cut themselves off from others. They have done this by placing themselves inside a prison cell, and have tried to identify with that prison cell so that their whole sense of self narrows and confines to within its walls. They are a self which once was glorious and magnificent, expansive and unlimited, which has dimmed its light and condemned itself to a dungeon, to die alone and in solitude.

"The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real. "There is no man who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this has been the result of his own free will, he must regard his will as if it were NOT free, or the obviously circular reasoning of his own position would be quite apparent."

"For his belief in limits HAS imprisoned him."

"An imprisoned mind is not free by definition. It is possessed, or held back, by ITSELF. Its will is therefore limited, and not free to assert itself."

It is unnatural to be only yourself. Some people will model what ACIM says on the basis that, when you are awake, you are wholly yourself. And therefore when you are in ego, you are not entirely yourself, or are unwhole. But this is not entirely accurate. It is more accurate to say that when you are in ego you are ONLY yourself to the EXCLUSION of others, and when you wake up you are waking up to being MORE THAN just yourself. You are a whole self AND MORE THAN a whole self.

The entire premise of being "in ego" or "in separation", is that you are excluded from others. You are not sharing with them. You are not identifying with them. You don't regard them as part of you and you see yourself as a standalone, independent, self-reliant being. Not that being self-reliant is wrong. In fact you were created to be wholly sufficient and complete and lacking nothing, sharing the power of God. It isn't that you are "capable" that's wrong, it's that you try to be capable ON YOUR OWN.

This means that fundamentally the separation is really about you rejecting your inheritance from God. It's about you not wanting to be an effect of God. A rejection of God as your father. An unwillingness to acknowledge that you ONLY have what he has given you. That you do not have anything, nor can you BE or DO anything, WITHOUT him. That everything you are, comes from him, and is part of him and shared with him. Rejecting all that God has given is what makes you "separated off".

As soon as you are separating yourself off, to be a powerful being who does not want power, you immediately disempower yourself. You immediately enter into fear, because you know deep down that you have actually stripped yourself of power. You know you are not capable anymore. You can't successfully do ANYTHING on your own, although you can try. It will fail in some way. Anything you make will die. And all your mis-creations will crumble. You can't give immortality to anything because you are denying it in yourself.

You can be with God and be guaranteed of success. Or you can be without God and be guaranteed of failure. Realize then that everything that you try to do ALONE, WILL FAIL.

Everything. You are fundamentally in a state of fear whenever you try to be without God, think without God, do without God, see without God, think without God, live without God. You are fundamentally rejecting success, and life, and power, and happiness, and health, by trying to go it alone. Imprisonment as a solo-self is not freedom.

What this reveals then is that, for your whole life, you've been acting LIKE an ego. You've been trying to independently figure everything out, to understand what everything is, to give meaning to everything based on your whims, opinions and beliefs, and there is nothing that you've ever done that wasn't a solo effort. Even when you did things in a team or with others, you were still alone. And even your efforts to be a part of something bigger than yourself kept you in the dark.

This means there is a logical premise at work, behind every failure, and guaranteeing everything you do will fail. And it goes like this: IF you are a separated-off self, you LACK EVERYTHING. And therefore everything you do will be a mistake, will break, will be wrong, will upset you, will make you suffer, and will be depressing and frustrating. Being alone IS a limitation.

IF you are a separated-off self, you are automatically in a state of fear and anxiety which you will not be able to get rid of. It doesn't matter how much you work on it. It doesn't matter what path you take, what you believe, what choices you make, what thoughts you have, how you feel. Nothing you do will work completely, if you do it separately. Doing it separately CAUSES you to suffer. Doing everything alone PUTS YOU IN PRISON. There is NO freedom there. Or as some may put it, "there is no rest for the wicked."

"Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering, and intense fear of loss."

See how Jesus confirms that if you are a "separated one", you WILL experience all manner of unhappy things. Note that he also says that since the separation, no-one has been sure of ANYTHING...

"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."

We have quite literally entered into a state of FAILURE, by participating in the separation. It is a state of being flawed, of fundamental attack, insecurity, unholiness, suffering and despair.

The problem then comes when you start to believe that there is something you can DO about it, WITHIN the confines of this situation, that will make it better. You will try to fix it yourself. You will try to think your way out of it with your own thoughts. You will try to do techniques on your own. You will be the one who decides what you prefer and what will work for you. You will make all the wrong choices. And you will always be the central figure in every single thing that you do. Your whole life will revolve around yourself, and you will be trying to SAVE this self at the same time.

This self will do A Course in Miracles. This self will pray. This self will try to become more spiritual. This self will try to become separately enlightened. This self will try the latest techniques and sample the spiritual buffet-line, looking for something it thinks it needs, something it has lost. Some kind of salvation, which will save it from all the fuck-ups and failures that continue to plague it. And as it seeks for this, it will not find it.

"Everyone is looking for himself and the power and glory he thinks he has lost."

"Yet the ego, though encouraging the search very actively, makes one proviso; - do not FIND it. Its dictates, then, can be summed up simply as, "Seek and do NOT find."

The problem is that it is this very sense of being an isolated self that is the ENTIRE problem. The confinement, the walls that surround you, the body, the gap, the lack of communication, the broken relationship, the isolation and the exclusive specialness, all CONTINUE the problem. Being "separated" is the problem, the problem is NOT being a self. Because when you are separated, you are NOT being yourself.

This "self" that you are working WITHIN the confines of, trying to get IT to be holier and more awakened, just stays WITHIN those confines and does not want them to ever be questioned. It doesn't consider that ITSELF, or, its way of identifying itself as "separated", is the whole problem. It's the ONE problem behind all problems. The one issue that isn't getting solved. You think you are already all of yourself, and only yourself.

So then some people will say that you have to GET RID OF, ie KILL AND DESTROY, this self, in order to be free. In order to be truly spiritual, it has to die. This is utterly bullshit. It's just another in a long line of solutions which separated selves have come up with for how to deal with their suffering. The whole act of trying to BE separated off is an attempt to destroy the unlimited nature of yourself, in the first place. So making the self FULLY dead is just a continuation of that. Self needs to expand, not die.

"The sudden EXPANSION of the self that takes place with your DESIRE for it, is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds."

The self does not need to be destroyed. The self needs to EXPAND its definition of its identity. It needs to realize that it is MORE THAN the confined limited sense of self that it has been living under. That it is MORE THAN ITSELF.

Because ego really is just a notion of selfishness or being self-absorbed, as though to say, putting your whole attention on YOU EXCLUSIVELY. If you being exclusive is the problem, destroying you isn't the solution. What you need is freedom from exclusivity.

"You have made much progress, and are really trying to make still more, but there is one thing you have never done; not for one instant have you utterly forgotten the body."

What Jesus is saying here is that the one thing we have never really done is question THE PRISON that we're in, the sense of what it is that has defined us as "separated". We have not brought into question whether we actually ARE separated, and have not been willing to realize that ALL our suffering has been CAUSED BY that sense of isolation. If I am ONLY me, then I have become separate.

Identifying WITH the body has made us narrow and limited. The body is narrow and limited. It's like an anchor in time and space. When we think of it as "my self", we have to think of ourselves as narrow and limited. And now we are small and special and selfish and cut off. We have to forget the body in order to expand the sense of self beyond the separation. The body symbolizes the separation (as a separation device), so we have to open up to being MORE THAN a body. And if I am more than ONE body, I am more than JUST myself.

Before the separation, every soul that was created by God in heaven, was whole, and also overlapped with each other. Everyone shared everything including identity. Christ is the one identity of every soul, and every soul is a member of that identity. I am christ and you are christ and we are one as two christs. The fundamental premise here is that everything is shared including yourself. You are you, but YOU ARE ALSO me. You are everyone. Therefore you are more than JUST a separate being - you are not just ONE creation of God, you are all of them.

It is natural therefore that you should regard yourself as ... fully wholly yourself, AND fully wholly everyone. This is a normal sense of identity. You are the whole sonship. You are in fact the entire Kingdom of God. And all its contents, every part of it, all its beings and creations, are a part of your self. This is what a natural identity is supposed to be. You, as an individual whole being, are ALSO one with everything.

"The Kingdom of Heaven IS you."

"The sonship is your soul."

"Is he the Christ? Oh yes, along with you."

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds."

"The separation" was nothing more than a WITHDRAWAL of the parts of you which are shared with others, a retreat into fear, into being small and scared and vulnerable trapped in a little tiny body in a corner of spacetime. It was simply your unwillingness to SHARE YOUR SELF, and an attempt to have exclusive ownership and control over who you are. It was just your attempt to break away from the family unit and orphan yourself, like a black sheep who has become estranged and unwanted.

After the separation you simply wandered off "alone", as though you had been unplugged from the hive mind, disconnected from the input of spirit/soul, and unable to communicate with God anymore. You saw yourself as lacking everything and absent of anything. And so you were starting out empty and bereft. You had nothing left but your little sense of "there's only myself left". And this "only me, not you", formed your sense of identity. This is what we call "an ego". It's not really something new you made, it's the self God created that has been locked in chains.

The one thing we therefore need to do for salvation, and the one thing we may never have done in our entire lives, is consider that we are NOT JUST OURSELVES. We are more than just ourselves. To really truly SHARE with anyone we have to BE them. We have to open up to an identity, a sense of self, that INCLUDES OTHERS. Others have to actually become a part of you again. Not to the exclusion of you, nor calling for your destruction. You are a self who is whole, who must also reconnect to the whole.

If your every effort to go it alone and do everything independently of God has meant AUTOMATIC FAILURE, in every case, then your ONLY salvation from all forms of suffering is to stop doing everything on your own. The end of separation is simply the end of "trusting in your own strength" to the exclusion of all else. It means waking up from a sense of "I am only me", to "I am us." From ME to WE. From individual, to mutual. This is what shared interests are about.

Only if I am willing to let God decide WITH me can I be sure that the decision will be accurate and wise and certain of success. Only if I am willing to let the Holy Spirit judge the meaning of everything for and with me, can I be sure that the meaning I SEE is correct and sane. Only if I admit that everything I do alone WILL BE FUCKED UP, by default, can I be open to allowing myself to be HELPED. Opening up to His Help is opening up to RECEIVE.

The Holy Spirit is there to HELP us. He is the help, because he is the notion of being more than limited. He is unlimited, as we are in truth. And to remember our unlimited nature we have to be open to allowing something MORE THAN JUST ME to participate in everything I do, think, feel, plan, decide, pursue, live, say, etc. Only by allowing God back into our lives, in effect, can we resume our natural state of DOING EVERYTHING WITH HIM. And therefore, no longer being alone.

Everything you have ever done alone, no matter what it is, no matter how intelligent you've been, no matter how much you planned and schemed, no matter how much you figured out or understood, no matter how many concepts you came up with or how accurate they were, ALWAYS produced suffering in one form or another. Because all of them were attempts to narrow and confine yourself. And always because of the simple fact that YOU DID IT ON YOUR OWN.

That was ALWAYS the problem, because being alone is unnatural. God did not will that you be alone, so to be yourself you must rejoin the brotherhood of light.

"For you dwell in the Mind of God WITH your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone."

"To be alone is to be separated from Infinity, but how can this be, if Infinity has no end?"

"There IS no end to God and His Son, for we ARE the universe. God is not incomplete, and He is not childless. Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself. Do not deny Him His Son, for your unwillingness to accept His Fatherhood has denied you yours. See His creations as HIS Son, for yours were created in honor of Him."

"He is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be alone. He SHARES His Will with you; He does not thrust it UPON you."

"To be alone MUST mean you are apart, and if you are, you cannot BUT be sick."

"To be alone IS to be guilty. For to experience yourself AS alone, is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son, and thus to ATTACK REALITY."

"God would not have us be alone because HE does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son and gave him the power to create with Him."

"The gratitude of God Himself is freely offered to everyone who shares His Purpose. It was not His Will to be alone. And neither is it YOURS. Forgive your brother, and you CANNOT separate yourself from him, nor from his Father."

MY SICKNESS IS MY RESPONSIBILITY

OTHER PEOPLE'S SICKNESS IS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY

YOU CAN’T WAKE PEOPLE UP FOR THEM

Jesus has the power to undo all sickness in a brother right now, BUT WILL NOT if they do not want it. Love cannot enter where it is not welcome!

I am responsible for everything I experience. Other people are responsible for everything they experience. This is directly supportive of the secret to salvation, that "we are doing this to ourselves".

All sickness we are experiencing is something we are doing TO OURSELF.

Right now, God is 100% awake, and because of this, it IS IMPOSSIBLE that there be sickness in any mind anywhere. In reality anyway. However, Sons of God have the illusory "ability" to DENY GOD. When they do so, they put denial in place, which is a block to life, which implements sickness. This is a FREE WILL CHOICE.

Love does not force anyone to be healed of this against their will. Jesus will simply WAIT for us until we are ready to accept the truth.

This is also why we must have A LITTLE WILLINGNESS, because only when we are WILLING to receive the truth, can the Holy Spirit take the opportunity to heal us. And he WILL take any opportunity we give him, no matter how small. But if we do not give that willingness, we will stay in our illusions of sickness for as long as we choose to against His will.

If we are not willing with God, doing God's will, we are willing against God. That's the entire point of the separation, the idea of sin being that we willed against God (yes, its fiction). If we BELIEVE it, individually, we will enter into a dream of suffering and death. And sickness will feature heavily in that dream because it is what we choose. It won't be real sickness at all, but we'll believe it is, using it as a device for keeping God's love at bay. Sickness is a DEFENSE against the truth. A block to awareness.

To understand this correctly REQUIRES that you believe that there are multiple sons of God, each with their own individual free will. Because if you don't, it will not make sense. To be able to have "your own choice" as to whether you are WILLING to receive healing, your own choice as to whether to ALLOW LOVE IN, is necessary in order to have a "separate will" which acts against God's will. There are many separate wills.

This is also required in order to understand how Jesus could wake up completely and yet that the rest of us are dragging our feet in snoozeville. We do not have the free will to set the curriculum ("learning to love"), but we DO have the free will to DELAY it or to choose WHEN to take it. That means we can choose NOT to accept God's will or God's healing. We can deliberately KEEP sickness if we want to, against God's will, and against Jesus's will. And it is true that there is NOTHING they will or can do about this, except gently lead us to see the error of our ways over time.

Jesus tells us that our will is AS POWERFUL as His, and that this is why he cannot forcibly take away our fears or sicknesses against our will. If we want them or hold onto them, he cannot take them. We have to be WILLING TO LET GO. Just because we are using our powerful will to make an illusion of being weak and little and powerless, doesn't mean our will is diminished at all. Mind retains its creative power at all times. Jesus CANNOT and WILL NOT go against this.

This means that even though AWARENESS OF LOVE can be complete in one brother (e.g. Jesus), it can be highly absent in another, at the same time. "Miracles are gifts given by those who temporarily have more, to those who temporarily have less." This is because IT IS POSSIBLE in illusions for some individuals to be MORE AWAKE THAN OTHERS. That means, it is NOT TRUE, that one person's healed perception automatically heals everyone. It does not. It OFFERS healing to everyone, but other people CAN REFUSE IT. And they CAN retain forms of sickness as long as they want "against your will."

Awakening to the awareness of love's presence cannot extend to the entire sonship UNTIL the sonship is FREELY WILLING to receive it, every single "individual son" has to choose it and be willing to accept it. IF they do not, the sonship remains incomplete, and there's nothing it can do about it other than to keep OFFERING love and waiting patiently for the rest of the sonship to wake up. Love is not forceful. It has INFINITE PATIENCE, which would not be NEEDED unless people weren’t so resistant.

It is true AT SOME LEVEL that your mind is ONE with the mind of others. That you share a mind. You share a mind with Jesus. However, awareness of that sharing can only be fully experienced when both of you are completely purified and healed. And then you will SHARE that state of love.

But until then, it is perfectly possible within illusions for you to REJECT that union, to deny reality, and to choose against God's will. Thus you will retain your own freely chosen sickness and problems, regardless of whether you are surrounded by infinite love and healing or not. God surrounds us RIGHT NOW with unlimited healing, and yet we STILL keep projecting images of sickness in order to REFUSE IT.

This is also why it was possible for Jesus to go around giving a GIFT OF HEALING to those who were suffering, sick, missing limbs, blind, even dead, unable to help themselves due to their own unawareness that they were doing this to themselves, and yet who had enough FAITH in HIS ability, enough trust, enough willingness, to ALLOW Him to heal them for them. You do NOT need to be fully awake in order to receive a miracle! And you CAN only receive it if you TRULY WANT IT.

"The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it.."

Having enough FAITH i.e. trust and WILLINGNESS to receive HELP, from outside of yourself, from a brother who has more love than you do right now, who is more ABLE to help right now, is enough to RECEIVE help from beyond your own current abilities. All you need is ENOUGH trust to allow the Holy Spirit HIMSELF to perform the miracle FOR YOU, from beyond your awareness, showing up as demonstrations of TANGIBLE CHANGES (witnesses), which helps you to learn that HE REALLY IS THERE, and HE REALLY CAN HEAL. This develops trust.

Jesus went around performing miracles for those who temporarily had less, who temporarily were blind, who temporarily were sinful, who temporarily were UNAWARE of the whole truth. He did NOT do this by having a mind which was "pure yet contained sick people". His mind could NOT have been WHOLE, if it was "one with sick people", or had "sick parts" in it. The presence of sick parts in his mind would've rendered him UNCONSCIOUS, just as the presence of ego persona/shadow in our own mind right now renders us UNABLE to be aware of the WHOLE of our identity. Mis-identifying with ego BLINDS YOU. Jesus was WHOLE MINDED, and yet could still perceive the "unwholeness" others were experiencing, without their unwholeness affecting HIS.

Jesus had true perception. Jesus could SEE. He was aware of the truth. He was able to RECOGNIZE that sickness is a complete illusion, not real, and posing no problem whatsoever. This gave HIM this ability to extend the HOLY SPIRIT who is the mechanism of miracles, to perform a healing WHERE it was welcome. And where it was not welcome, HE COULD NOT PERFORM ANY MIRACLES. He had to leave entire villages in suffering because their minds were too resistant to receive healing. His state of awakening did not FORCE anyone else to wake up!

Even if He saw those other people as one with Him, even if He knew them to be "himself" or "ourself", even if He was connected to the entire Power of God, there was NOTHING he could do to help those, at that time, who DID NOT WANT IT. This is because, YOU are responsible for YOUR sickness, and for your willingness. If you are unwilling, healing will not "happen to you". Sick people, with broken limbs and defective organs, will not be healed by your true perception, UNLESS they want it. And thinking that you are "healing yourself" by healing what is showing up "as their sickness" is NOT going to work if they do not want it, because IT IS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY. THEY MADE IT, NOT YOU.

You are responsible for choosing the atonement for yourself. You are responsible for being WILLING to REJOIN the sonship's oneness for yourself. You are responsible for every sickness you experience within yourself, NOT outside of you in others. You are responsible for your own belief in sin. You never attack anyone else, you never affect anyone else, you never do anything to anyone else. And the reverse is true. No-one ever affects you, no-one ever does anything against your will. You are not at the effect of the world. And no-one is at the effect of you. Your attack does not affect others whatsoever, and nor does your love, unless THEY CHOOSE WHAT THEY WILL EXPEIRNCE.

Love can be shared, WHEN it is welcome, and when it is welcome, the person is effectively giving it to themselves. It can be given to those who have a "lack" of it, BY those who have an abundance of it, BECAUSE people are in different states of perception simultaneously. This IS possible because people have an individual will and mind, even if at the highest level they are the One Son. Jesus’s resurrection DID NOT CURE EVERYONE because they did not want to be cured. YOU MUST CHOOSE IT.

Trying to bring about healing by assuming that other people are "you" and therefore their sickness is "your sickness" and that if you undo "that sickness" it will heal the other person, is a twisting of what happens. First of all, it's true that you and your brother are one, yet you are BROTHERS, with your own free will. Secondly, "their sickness" is THEIR CHOICE, not yours, and it is NOT PART OF YOUR MIND, and it is NOT YOUR SICKNESS OR SIN.

When you project YOUR sin, it DOES NOT LEAVE YOUR MIND. Ideas leave not their source. IT stays inside of you. You become split minded and perceive this sin as a separate attacker, attacking some other split off part of yourself. You interact with it as though it is outside of this part of you, as though not yours, but it is ALWAYS IN YOU. It never ever even leaves you and goes over to someone else.

It does NOT put sickness into other people against their will! To suggest you can heal someone else’s sickness "because its really your own" is actually to suggest YOU CAN MAKE SOMEONE SICK AGAINST THEIR WILL AND TAKE IT AWAY AGAIN. This is FALSE! If someone else were choosing never to be sick, your attempted projection of sin could not put sickness into them. And if someone else was choosing never to be sick, YOU COULD STILL be believing that you are a sinner and STILL be trying to project your sin and STILL seeing it in the other person. Your projection has NOTHING to do with other people’s state of mind. Withdrawing your projected sin WILL NOT HEAL THEM, if they have chosen to be sick on their own and want to keep it. Go ahead and try to heal someone who does not want to be healed. It will fail!

Otherwise, if someone could be causing someone else to be sick against their will, which is an EGO BELIEF, someone's sickness would INFECT JESUS by the power of their will. This is an extension of the idea that we CAN sin and hurt God, which is impossible. Our sickness is OUR CHOICE against ourselves. Thirdly, just because you RECOGNIZE that their sickness is entirely an illusion, that does not disappear it FOR THEM if they continue to WILL TO KEEP IT. You cannot override their will. You getting healed WILL NOT wake everyone up. You will wake up FROM them, FROM the illusion, FROM the ego, INTO a state of awareness, but if other people choose to stay in the ego, THEY WILL.

The ACT of attempting to undo that sickness, by cancelling it or not believing in it or asserting it is not there or pushing it away or shining love onto it or whatever, that ACT of trying to FORCE IT TO GO is actually the EGO attempting to have power OVER something it made real. This is the attempt to "heal to destroy", to first make real then try to undo what you made real. That’s you fighting with your own sin. It won’t heal the person’s sickness or yours.

The Holy Spirit MUST BE INVOLVED in all miracles, because He is the mechanism of miracles. HE is the one who heals. HE is the one who is capable of raising the dead. He must be the one who performs the healing of the mind because healing must come from outside of separation. While He does not perceive sickness as REAL, He still nevertheless KNOWS that people are experiencing nightmares and that they NEED HEALING, in spite of the fact that HE is already in a state of TOTAL AWARENESS AND LOVE. He will not FORCE himself onto anyone, and just because HE is healed/healing it does not mean PEOPLE WANT TO RECEIVE HIM. This is why we have to CHOOSE to be willing to listen to his voice rather than the ego. It’s up to us.

It is difficult to accept that some people DO NOT WANT TO BE HAPPY. It is difficult to accept that some people WILL AGAINST GOD AND REFUSE TO ACCEPT LOVE. It is difficult to accept that PEOPLE CHOOSE TO BE SICK and that they want to keep being sick to protect themselves. It is difficult to accept PEOPLE DON'T WANT A MIRACLE, and they DON’T WANT YOUR HEALING. And that's their right. And their freedom. And we are to respect that and be patient in waiting for them to BECOME willing. Love isn't forceful. Miracles don't happen to people against their will.

Believe me I've tried... I've tried many times to heal someone who is very sick, and who was not ready to heal, and it did not work. It was very upsetting to me that I could not heal it. It was a difficult lesson personally, but a necessary one, because until we can see how healing might FAIL (be blocked by the recipient), we may not come to LET GO of the belief in sickness for ourselves.

I eventually asked Jesus why this wasn't working. Despite many prayers and attempts at miracles. Even one time I did a miracle-working act where angels came to help and I felt it was very powerful, and Jesus said that "it was fully given". But.... just because it was fully given, DOES NOT mean it was fully received. I asked Him, why didn't it seem to work.

Why was the person still sick?! And I don’t mean... why was I still believing in sickness... the question was, why did that person still maintain an illusion of symptoms of sickness.

His answer simply... "they are not ready to receive it."

This was discouraging, because I used to believe, like many, that it SHOULD BE POSSIBLE to HEAL EVERONE if I just learn HOW. But it does not work that way. It was, however, encouraging to me to also be told that at some point THEY WILL become ready to receive it, which is heartwarming, but we still have to learn, just because WE are waking up to love and are willing to be miraculous, it does NOT mean other people will suddenly stop being sick or unloving. It is their lesson. It is their choice. We have to allow other people to be sick IF they want to. It's not God's will, but it's that person's will. God does not condone sickness, he offers to HEAL IT RIGHT NOW, but people refuse.

Trying to heal everyone, or to "perform miracles indiscriminately", is what Jesus tells us NOT to do. He knows WHO is willing and ready to receive them, and He will send the appropriate WILLING people to us. This won't be EVERYONE. It will only be those who are ready to receive. Some people are, some people aren't. We won’t get to be hero saviors or "ego healers" because other people are NOT playing along with our fantasy.

And just because Jesus COULD POTENTIALLY heal everyone in an instant, THEY DO NOT WANT IT. I asked Jesus time and again to heal someone and do you know what he said, "I cannot". And I asked why - why would someone so powerful and capable and miraculous NOT be able to heal it. "They don’t want it."

Sorry to say... this is why TIME is still ticking over with events happening and lessons being learned RATHER THAN God simply snapping his fingers and waking everyone up RIGHT NOW "against their will". God ALLOWED US to have our free will dream illusion of separation, knowing that at some point we would return to him unscathed. It is not happening because God wills it. If God had his way we never would’ve even DREAMED of separation. But WE had the free will to choose to pretend it’s possible, and it’s still our free will to keep doing that, EACH OF US, if we want to. Individually.

So please let's get off this perspective that if you heal YOUR perception, everyone else will suddenly be free of sickness. That if YOU don't perceive "sickness", you will not SEE anyone suffering with sickness. That if you gain true perception for yourself, you will be incapable of seeing anyone suffering. Or that their sickness is part of your own mind and therefore you need healing. You are only responsible for what YOU DO TO YOURSELF. And even though at a HIGHER LEVEL they are one with you, THEIR CHOICE is their own.

You will still see the form of people’s bodies being projected with sick characteristics, because that's the will of you brother! But you won't see it AS real sickness, you'll see THROUGH it, and recognize it is JUST AN ILLUSION. Just because you don’t believe sickness is REAL, doesn’t mean you will be incapable of seeing that OTHER PEOPLE still think it is real, or that they are still projecting bodies that are sick. Jesus was perfectly CAPABLE of SEEING people who were in need, people who were suffering, and people who were dying or dead, EVEN THOUGH His perception did not INTERPRET those things as reality. Your recognition of it being an illusion WILL NOT BE SHARED by them until they are WILLING AND READY.

Believe me I've tried many many times to heal indiscriminately and to alleviate suffering and it's not necessarily because I can't, but because the people involved were not willing to be healed. THEY HAVE THE POWER TO REFUSE LOVE. They already HAVE refused love. They already DID reject God's eternal life and totally healed condition. They already HAVE attempted to block miracles and to reject life. (Yes, its an illusion) Even GOD did not overthrow their free will to do this. (yes I know its an illusion, didn't happen)... but God RESPECTS free will and will ALLOW people to keep being sick IF THEY WANT TO. And so did Jesus.

This unfortunately is a hard lesson to learn, that some people simply do not want to be well, want to be sick, want to keep being sick, and there IS nothing you can do about that right now. All you can do is keep praying and offering and extending love that MAYBE they will accept and receive it BY their will, and therefore CHOOSE to be well BY THEIR OWN WILL, and therefore CONCUR with the will of God, and thus RECEIVE the love that heals them. Receiving is a choice. You can still attempt to perform miracles, but even if you give a bucketload of love, it STILL won’t produce effects if it is not welcome or goes against the person’s will.

Until you can receive the atonement or even a small piece of atonement on one particular issue you will not be willing to RECEIVE LOVE AT ALL. The first time that I did a really thorough forgiveness and took it all the way to the atonement principle, becoming WILLING TO ACCEPT THAT IT IS TRUE that I was innocent on a particular topic, I became willing to RECEIVE LOVE FROM GOD finally on that topic, and Jesus said to me "Now you will be able to perform miracles". Because I had be WILLING TO RECEIVE for myself. "You can only give the miracles you have received".!

We can offer healing. We cannot force it. We will not undo everyone’s suffering just by undoing our own. Even if we go to Heaven as Jesus did, knowing sickness is impossible, brothers will STILL be dreaming of sickness for as long as they want to. We can but OFFER love to them and pray for them and send miracles to them, but it’s up to them to let go of their resistance, to CLAIM the healing that has already been given.

God has ALREADY GIVEN ALL HEALING, He has already given eternal life, and yet we refuse it. It’s our choice

Oneness does not mean "one thing."

In reality, all thinking follows along the lines that whatever applies to one creation, applies to all creations. What is true of one son, is true of another. What is true of you, is true of the entire sonship. Whatever applies to you, applies to everything. It either applies to BOTH of you, or NEITHER of you.

This is a LOGIC system, a way of THINKING, based on the simple idea of "BOTH-AND". What applies as true, is true of BOTH you and others. It is true of me AND you. It is a system based on INCLUSION and EQUALITY. The entirety of God's mind and all of creation runs on this form of reasoning, this kind of THINKING. It's how God thinks and how all of creation functions in harmony. And it's how you should think of ALL your brothers, as being equal to you in every way.

In the dream, the ego's thinking was devised as a way to OPPOSE God's way of thinking. To develop another thought SYSTEM and WAY of thinking that breaks away from God's system and DENIES IT. What better way to disrupt equality and everything applying equally to everyone, than to introduce the law of chaos that the truth is DIFFERENT for everyone.

In the ego's thought system and its way of thinking about anything, it does not think in terms of both/and. It thinks in terms of EXCLUSION, because the whole system is based on separation/exclusion/isolation/specialness. So to the ego, what is true of you is NOT true of your brother. What applies to you does NOT apply to them. This ISOLATES you from them and sets up a special rule that seems only to apply to some PART of the sonship, not everyone. And "me not you" is murderous.

The entire ego MIND runs on "EITHER-OR" logic. The ego never wants to confirm that anything is EQUALLY TRUE of more than one thing, because this would erase separation and differences. It emphasizes how, one thing is NOT another thing. How you are NOT the same as your brother. How what is over here, is NOT over there. How what you have, your brother does NOT have. This belief alone, this kind of mindset, gave rise to SPACETIME, in which what is true in one location is not true in another.

Now, spacetime IS THE THOUGHT SYSTEM OF THE EGO. And because everything IN spacetime is "laid out" logically on a basis of exclusion and isolation, where one object appears to be over here and not over there, and one object appears to be different to thus not equal to other objects, this maps exactly onto the way the ego THINKS. And so then it seems to be natural to THINK in terms of either/or, about everything in the world, because it happens to map exactly or "naturally" onto the physical world.

You can for example easily talk about how your car is parked in the first parking space and not the second one. How you were in Australia for a week and not the USA. How your body is not the same as your neighbor's body. How you own a particular car while your neighbor does not. How your hair is brown while your neighbor's hair is blonde. All of these ways that you pick apart the world, is inherently a direct reflection of the entire ego thought system (which is the world), and so makes it seem easy to talk ABOUT the world using either/or logical reasoning.

However, because this "way of thinking" is COMPLETELY OPPOSED to God's SYSTEM, his thought system,which is HEAVEN and how heaven functions, whenever you use this kind of either/or reasoning to think about ANYTHING to do with heaven, creation, sonship, sons, god etc, MAJOR DISTORTIONS HAPPEN, hugely FALSE conclusions are arrived at, and all kinds of confusion erupts. The ego's system was made to DENY AND DESTROY heaven's system, so if you USE the ego's system to try to understand heaven's system YOU WILL FAIL. Guaranteed.

Here's what happens. In ego thinking, you think in terms of boxes. Either something is in box A, or its in box B. Those are the only accepted possibilities. All of spacetime's "reality" seems to support the idea that this is the only possibility ie something cannot be in two boxes. However, Heaven is outside of spacetime and transcends its nature and its laws. Things having to be separated out by space, things not being equal, things not SHARING a location, things having to be in one place at a time and not everywhere at once, etc... are all DEFIED by heaven's thought system. The ego's laws are BROKEN by Heaven's laws.

The truth is, in heaven's reality, in God's system of both/and thinking, it is possible for very "strange" things to happen. For example it's possible for one thing to be in multiple locations at once, simultaneously. Not only is the thing in multiple locations, it is FULLY in EACH of those locations. This is because everything in heaven has OMNIPRESENCE. God is omnipresent and so are all his creations. Meaning LITERALLY, that a being in reality is capable of showing up in multiple locations simultaneously.

God is not only everywhere, he is FULLY PRESENT in EVERY location. Without compromise. Without only one "part" of him being over here and another "part" of him being over there. He is not partial. ALL of God is simultaneously in multiple locations at the same time. To the ego, that is regarded as ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. But it is nevertheless possible, because God does abide by the ego's limited laws. The ego would say, anything that is in this location, must be TOTALLY ABSENT from another location. And if it thinks that is true of God, it is not TOTALLY FUCKED In its comprehension of the truth and has come to a completely INCORRECT conclusion. Ego thinking is BROKEN!

Now, that's a problem for ego reasoning, because the EGO wants to put things into nice discreet boxes. It wants to say, well, either a son of God is in this one box, or he is in another box, but he can't be in both at once. But in reality that is actually a LIMITATION which is being placed on what is possible. In reality, A son of God CAN be in both boxes at once! He transcends boxes even when there are boxes. So the ego looks at reality and sees a son of God and says, this Son of God is either:

a) totally separate from all other sons of God because he MUST be ONLY in one completely discreet box by himself, thus "multiple sons" MUST mean SEPARATE sons and this is therefore an "idea of separation", thus the sonship is an ego thing, or

b) the division between the boxes must be erased completely so that there is only ONE box, resulting in there being in truth only ONE son, which by erasing the boxes, has now destroyed the individual sons of God because the ego can't comprehend how many sons can SHARE existence or OVERLAP boxes.

Similarly, if we talk about the notion that a single son of God can be in two places at once, or that there can be multiple sons of God, the ego has no way to comprehend that correctly. It WILL come to false conclusions. All it can conclude is either:

a) if there are multiple sons of God there must be multiple SEPARATE boxes whereby the sons do not SHARE boxes at all and thus are separate - which renders the idea of multiple sons an EGO idea of separation to be discarded as untrue, or

b) there aren't really multiple sons because there can only be "one son per box" so if you take away all the "separations" by taking away all the boxes, there can only be one box left containing only one son, thus completely ignoring the fact that God created many permanent sons IN reality.

This is the kind of ego reasoning that almost everyone in this WORLD uses because it seems to match up to the LAYOUT of spacetime and thus goes unchallenged. To think about or try to understand reality, heaven, creation, and the sonship THROUGH this ego lens, is an AUTOMATIC DISTORTION of the truth. The result is FALSE CONCLUSIONS that SEEM to make SENSE, but are TOTALLY NONSENSE.

It is FALSE to say that God only has one son, by reasoning that there can only in truth be one box in order to have no separation. Separate boxes in reality does NOT mean separation, because the contents of the boxes TRANSCEND the boxes. "One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds" does in fact mean there ARE many boxes!

It is FALSE to say that multiple sons implies multiple separations and is therefore a separation idea. If you think of "any kind of separation" as being an ego thing, not realizing that it's OKAY and NATURAL for there to be NATURAL DIVISIONS in reality WITHOUT it implying EXCLUSION, ignoring that the boxes are SHARING with each other, then you are making a mistake.

SONS OF GOD SPAN BOXES. THEY TRANSCEND THE LIMITS OF EGO REASONING. THEY CANNOT BE CONTAINED BY OR ACCURATELY MAP ONTO A SYSTEM OF THOUGHT BASED ON EXCLUSION! YOUR WAY OF THINKING IS FAULTY!

So in order to actually comprehend how and why there ARE MANY sons in reality, and why AT THE SAME TIME they are "all one", YET MANY STILL, and why this is NOT an ego idea of separation or duality, you have to go BEYOND "box based thinking." And another way of saying that is "thinking outside the box". If you don't think outside the EGO box you WILL come to ALL of the ego's logical conclusions such as "god has only one son" (because it SEEMS to make sense) and "multiple sons is a separation idea" (which SEEMS to make sense) because that's all the ego CAN conclude. It's automatic as a result of either/or thinking.

To think like God, means to stop thinking in terms of either/or. For example, in this world, you have to learn to stop thinking about how your brother is DIFFERENT from you. You have to stop thinking that some truth can apply to him and NOT you. You have to move past this ego model of "its true of you, but not me" or "you're sinful, I'm innocent". You actually have to learn, in thinking like God, that what is true of you is true of THE WHOLE SONSHIP. What is true of you is true of your brother. And you and your brothers are totally EQUAL in every way. And that also means you are transcending the LAWS OF SPACETIME, and you are transcending the entire WAY that the ego thinks, which opens you up to POSSIBILITIES that the ego considers totally impossible.

It's quite a big transition to go from constantly thinking in terms of "true of me, not true of you" or vice versa, to thinking in terms of "whatever is true of me is true of everyone". Or to go from "having individuality is an ego separation idea" to "having individuality that we share but still retaining my SELF is TOTALLY NATURAL." God's system is a matter of either:

a) its true of BOTH of us, or

b) its true of NEITHER of us.

That's totally different to the ego's system of "its true of either A or B but but not both."

It's a TOTALLY different SYSTEM of thought. A totally diffeent MIND. It's a totally different WAY of thinking. It's a totally different way of REASONING and performing logical conclusions. God's system simply is not LIKE the ego's system. And so to understand heaven's dynamics you HAVE to move past either/or thought. If you don't, if you just keep thinking of ANYTHING to do with God's Kingdom USING the ego to THINK WITH, you will conclude falsely!

You have to realize WHY either/or thought is LIMITED, why it was made to produce CHAOS, why it leads to CONFUSION, and why it is totally NONSENSE. In fact, when ego thinking looks at anything to do with reality, anything true registers as nonsense, and anything false registers as making sense! That's because the ego is NUTS and totally OPPOSED to truth. IT CANNOT SEE REALITY CLEARLY. But that doesn't mean YOU can't comprehend heaven's nature, you just have to ditch the WAY you have always been thinking.

So let's say the ego looks at heaven and it sees ok, over here there seems to be a son of God, but over there there also seems to be a son of God. There seems to be two things, two brothers. What will the ego conclude? It will conclude that if there are two things, there are two separate boxes, and the two things are EITHER in one box OR another, but they do not share boxes at all. And thus that this means there are two SEPARATE beings, thus there is *separation* happening, thus its an EGO situation so the two brothers MUST BE ILLUSIONS. And thus it turns the sonship, which comprises MANY INDIVIDUALS, into an ego concept.

That's a PROBLEM, because the fact is that one brother is IN the other brother, and both brothers are SHARING their INDIVIDUAL boxes. There ARE two boxes, but the CONTENTS of the boxes SPAN the boxes. The ego can't handle that! So it sees joined unified SHARED experiences/minds, multiple INDIVIDUALS who SHARE EVERYTHING, as being "separated off" isolated units, and thus concludes that the idea of multiple children of God must be an ego idea of separation that IT has put INTO an ego framework. TOTAL FAIL!

It is PERFECTLY POSSIBLE, in reality, in heaven, for there to be MANY INDIVIDUAL THINGS, which SIMULTANEOUSLY are one. One AND many. Truth that applies to one thing AND to another. Truth that is true of BOTH OF THEM. Something in box A which is ALSO in box B, supporting oneness AND individuality. THAT is heaven's nature! It's a realm, a mind, a thought system, where there ARE many things, in number, many INDIVIDUALS, but AT THE SAME TIME, those individuals are SHARING everything of themselves with each other and God and therefore are "one". The one doesn't cancel the many!

"God who encompasses all being, NEVERTHELESS (defiant of ego logic) created *SEPARATE BEINGS*, who have EVERYTHING INDIVIDUALLY and want to share it to increase their joy."

There is nothing false in this statement and "separate beings" does NOT mean EXCLUSIVE ISOLATED BEINGS. It means MANY beings, who SHARE everything. Who have boxes, and SPAN boxes. They TRANSCEND LIMITATIONS.

Beware. Just because they are ONE, does not mean they are NOT TWO. THAT would be an ego conclusion. And just because they are TWO, does not mean they are NOT ONE! That too is an ego conclusion. Are you following? It's mind bending. The truth about God's creation TRANSCENDS EGO LAWS. Transcends ego logic. Transcends limitations. And transcends the "layout" of spacetime. Omnipresence is the total opposite of spatial relationships, just as eternity is the opposite of time. Spacetime and its structure (thought system) was made as an ATTACK on God.

Heaven is NOT LIKE THIS WORLD, because it is a SYSTEM OF THOUGHT (God's creation) totally opposite to the SYSTEM that runs spacetime. Heaven does not THINK like how the ego thinks! It's laws and rules are BEYOND the ego's laws and rules. Your entire WAY of THINKING has to be transcended and recognized for its limitation in order to go BEYOND it to SEE clearly and correctly the metaphysics and dynamics of heaven. It is not of this world. And in fact you have to unlearn "thinking with the ego" and LEARN TO THINK LIKE GOD. This is in the course! Your mind has to get out of the either/or paradigm!

Ego says, "how can something be two things and yet one thing at the same time? that makes no sense". OF COURSE! It makes no sense to the EGO's way of thinking, so it registers as nonsense, even though IT IS TOTALLY SENSIBLE. One thing CAN be two things! God HAS CHILDREN!!!!!! God has a FAMILY! The Holy Trinity is real and DOES HAVE 3 PARTS TO IT. The Holy Spirit *IS* a permanent distinct ETERNAL CREATION. The sonship DOES have its own children! God DID create legions of angels!

"We are creation, we, the sons of God."

"The Kingdom of God includes ALL HIS CHILDREN, and their creations."

"God's angels".

Until you can recognize and move beyond the limitations of either/or-based ego thinking you will not be able to SEE or ACCEPT why God has created many sons or why it makes TOTAL SENSE to say so. You have to think way outside the box and use an entirely different KIND of thinking. If you look up "paralogical reasoning" you will get an idea of how this works.

This is also why heaven is NOT DUALITY.

This is also why heaven is ****NOT NON DUALITY.***

***BOTH of those concepts are EGO CONCLUSIONS!!!!***

THEY ARE BOTH FALSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The ego can't help but think that way. "Either its one thing, or its two things". That's ALL the ego thought system can conclude, ever! And so it thinks "one thing" is "more spiritual" than two things, so let's go with that. BUT IT's WRONG! IT"S NO BETTER! "Either its duality, or its non-duality, there's no other possibility". THAT'S EGO!! THERE IS another possibility beyond the limits of that assumed way of reasoning. THERE IS A BETTER WAY!

Reality is not duality OR non-duality. It is "paraduality" or "transduality", to coin a phrase. It TRANSCENDS BOTH OF THEM. Stupid ego rules DO NOT APPLY. God is one AND MANY. Creations are one AND many. One brother is ALL brothers. One mind is ALL minds. There are MANY!!! And it's not duality!

Omipresence! Transcendence of the limits of space and time. Transcendence of finite boxes or being one box or many boxes. SHARED experiences. Transcendent experiences. Unity which does not obliterate individuality. Oneness which does not undo or cancel the multitude of God's creations who are, according to ACIM, "in number infinite"!! Equality which acknowledges REAL BROTHERHOOD. A sonship which DOES CONTAIN MANY INDIVIDUALS who are all "the one son of God" AND WHO ARE THE MANY SONS OF GOD. At the same time! Doesn't make sense? TO THE EGO!

Some of you reading this will get it. Most probably will not, and most have not, mainly because we don't realize just HOW steeped we are in ego reasoning. Thinking like God is VERY DIFFERENT to what you're used to. Any time you go towards "one box", or you go towards "many separate boxes", you are IN THE EGO and failing to comprehend the nature of reality.

"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." (notice how the ego's reasoning comes to false conclusions because it can't comprehend how multiple souls could have everything AT THE SAME TIME and not exclude each other).

"It goes against all the thinking of the world, but so does Heaven. The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed." (Heaven's thought system of both/and GOES AGAINST the ego's thought system of this WORLD)

"...but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world..." (the true nature of heaven is ALIEN to the ego's idea of it)

"Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell." (Recognition of reality REQUIRES that you ditch either/or based thought and adopt both/and based thought, which is INCLUSIVE REASONING)

"You will need no rule but this to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body's eyes." (to reach true perception you have to transcend the body's perception, ie transcend EGO THINKING and the EGO WORLD/SYSTEM, so that you can SEE SENSE and SEE REASON and return to reality, only possibly through an acceptance of how everything applies equally to everyone everywhere always.)

"I and my father are one"

Oneness does not mean "one box"! THAT IS EGO!!!!

Oneness means SHARED UNITY AND BEING JOINED AS TWO THINGS IN HARMONY WHO ARE NOT SEPARATE YET ARE STILL TWO THINGS!

In A Course in Miracles there are hundreds of references to FREEDOM scattered throughout. Freedom is also contrasted against its opposite, which is imprisonment, enslavement, being bound to the ego, to the body, to darkness, suffering and death. The whole course is geared towards you reclaiming your freedom, and giving freedom to others. Through your miracles you are setting others free, and releasing them from the chains of imprisonment you held them in before.

"I am not a body I am free."

"Essentially, ALL healing is the release from fear."

"I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God. I was bitterly mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want."

"It is NOT your will to be imprisoned, BECAUSE your will is free."

"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom."

"I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.

I know that you will be released, UNLESS I WANT TO

USE YOU TO IMPRISON MYSELF."

"But their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God's Son IF THEY SO CHOOSE."

"For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it." "When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made."

"They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned himself. By freeing his mind from illusions, they restore his sanity, and place him at the feet of Jesus."

The idea of freedom really goes back to your creation as a free-willed being by God. God has absolute freedom, being free from all limitation. God is unlimited. He who is unlimited can only give complete freedom, because he knows not of imprisonment. God does not create by imprisoning, he creates by giving freedom. All his children are not only free, they are fully free. It is because they are completely free ... in a sense, free from God .... though still sharing freely with him, that they are established as truly cooperative co-creators in heaven.

"Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but KEEP your will forever and forever limitless."

"Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His."

Any attempt you make to imprison another, to attack, to judge, to condemn, to blame, to project, to hurt, to destroy, to make guilty, to accuse of sin, to be victimized by, to victimize, to narrow to a body, to induce suffering of any kind, is actually an attempt to take away the freedom of others, AND to deny your own freedom. You cannot be a victim or suffer in ANY way if you acknowledge your total freedom. But in order to gain your own freedom, you MUST acknowledge that everyone else is also free from YOU, and you from them. You are not bound BY your brothers, any more than they are bound by you.

Dwell for a moment on the feeling of "keeping to yourself", in the sense that you ALLOW everyone to be free FROM YOU. Acknowledge that everyone is completely free. You are free from their tyranny over you. They are free from your tyranny over them. Let go of all manipulation, expectation, wanting others to be a certain way, or resisting their choices. Withdraw all your efforts to control and coerce, to blame and accuse. Let go of everyone. Let the whole world be itself. Settle back into your own inner freedom. You are free from enemies, free from attack, free from the choices of others, free from the body, and free from the world.

The course is in fact leading entirely to your TOTAL FREEDOM. Claiming your freedom is the restoration of your birth right. You cannot however claim your total freedom if you are imprisoning others, because the attempt to do so is an attempt to reinforce the idea that freedom doesn't exist. And thus you imprison yourself. It is said that your brother can set you free, or is the key to your salvation. By GIVING him total freedom, you give it to yourself. By recognizing he IS FREE, you recognize YOU are free. Try it.

Atonement is all about claiming freedom for yourself and the whole sonship. It is an act of setting everyone free from imprisonment. It releases you and everyone from slavery, bondage, body identification, death identification, and from all forms of suffering. You cannot BE affected by forces outside of you. The world cannot make you imprisoned or take your freedom away. No-one can deny your freedom for you. Not even God can decide whether you are free or not. He established you as free forever, and only you can deny your OWN freedom by denying it to the whole sonship.

When you acknowledge that you are COMPLETELY FREE FROM EVERYTHING, you settle back into your soul, you lift your hands away from the territory and lives of others and you set everyone free. In so doing you BECOME free yourself. You can feel it inside you, an acknowledgement of your own freedom, and it makes you feel happy and safe. You are safe from all attack because you are claiming your freedom. You are even save from suffering and death and from all the forces in the world. Nothing can imprison you or act against your will, but your will itself. When you stop imprisoning, you stop imprisoning yourself.

Below is an extensive collection of quotes from ACIM on the topic of freedom.

"How wonderful it is to do your will! For that IS freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom's name."

"The world awaits the freedom you will give, when you have recognized that YOU are free."

"And no-one walks upon the earth but must depend on YOUR decision, that he learn death HAS no power over him because he shares YOUR freedom, as he shares your will."

"No-one but yearns for freedom, and tries to find it, but he will seek for it where he believes it IS, and CAN be found."

"But be you, rather, grateful that YOU can be the means to serve His end. This is the ONLY service which leads to freedom. To serve THIS end, the body MUST be perceived as sinless, BECAUSE the goal is sinlessness."

"Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom if it be at all. Yet in reality his dreams are gone, with truth established in their place. And now is freedom his already. Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now?"

"I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me. And the way to You is opening and clear to me at last. Father, my freedom is in You alone. Father, it is my will that I return."

"How glad are we to find our freedom through the certain way our Father has established. And how sure is all the world's salvation, when we learn our freedom can be found in God alone."

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found."

"We sound the call of freedom 'round the world with this idea."

"The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom."

"In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well. Without the power to enslave, it is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Spirit seeks."

"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body."

"For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God."

"Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance."

"For as we offer freedom it is given us. And we would not remain as prisoners, while You hold out our freedom unto us."

"He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond EVERYTHING that would hold you back."

"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom"

"That is because you have taught YOURSELF that imprisonment IS freedom"

"The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only one direction, and has only one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God."

"Will to BE without you. When you have learned that your will IS God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without YOU. This IS freedom and this IS joy."

"Father, I thank You for today, and for the freedom I am certain it will bring. This day is holy, for today Your Son will be redeemed. His suffering is done."

"Thanks for today, my Father. I was born into this world but to achieve this day, and what it holds in joy and freedom for Your holy Son, and for the world he made, which is released along with him today."

"Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world."

"Let us not worship idols, nor believe in any laws idolatry would make to hide the freedom of the Son of God. He is not bound except by his beliefs. Yet what he is is far beyond his faith in slavery or freedom."

"But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided in HOW they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS true."

"And is it THIS that you would see within your Savior FROM insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in the freedom that you see in HIM, you see your own."

"Those who choose freedom will experience only ITS results. Their power is of God."

"Nothing but this can touch them, for they see ONLY this, sharing their power according to the Will of God. And thus their freedom is established AND MAINTAINED. It is upheld through ALL temptations to imprison and to BE imprisoned. It is THEM, who learned of freedom, that you should ask what freedom IS."

"And where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment, and to remember freedom."

"Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's." "I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of freedom."

"Forgiveness, truly given, is the only way in which your hope of freedom lies."

"Yet you must learn alternatives for choice, or you will not be able to attain your freedom."

"The level of your prayer depends on this, for here it waits its freedom to ascend above the world of chaos into peace."

"For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to understand."

"If you want to be LIKE me, I will help you, knowing that we ARE alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I can TEACH you, but only you can choose to LISTEN to my teaching. How else can it be, if God's Kingdom IS freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of ALL God's Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God's Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the ONLY lesson I can teach, knowing that it is true."

"In our remembrance of EACH OTHER lies our remembrance of God. And in this remembrance lies your freedom, because your freedom is in Him."

"This is our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with ALL His Creations, to whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. BECAUSE it is acceptable to Him, it is the gift of freedom, which IS His Will for all His Sons. By OFFERING freedom you will be free, because freedom is the only gift which you can offer to God's Sons, being an acknowledgment of what they are and what HE is."

"Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do NOT love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including YOURSELF, you do not love him and you cannot identify with him. When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father."

"Only the function God has given me

can offer freedom. Only this I seek,

and only this will I accept as mine."

"In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; this choice is always between two choices or two voices. Will is not involved in perception at any level, and has nothing to do with choice."

"It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Son of God finds his freedom."

"When I see the world as a place of freedom, I will realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules which I made up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me."

"Can I lay limits on the Son of God, whose Father willed that he be limitless, and like Himself in freedom and in love?"

"So will YOU learn the freedom that I taught, by teaching freedom to each other, and so releasing me. I am within your holy relationship, yet you would imprison me behind the obstacles you RAISE to freedom, and bar my way to YOU."

"So would I liberate all things I see, and give to them the freedom that I seek. For thus do I obey the law of love, and give what I would find and make my own."

"Today's idea is one step we take in leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom."

"And you are free, and glad of freedom. You have sought to be both weak and bound, because you feared your strength and freedom. Yet salvation lies in them."

"All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom FOR you."

"Accept this key to freedom, from the hands of Christ, Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light to darkness. For, like your brothers, YOU do not realize the light has come, and freed you from the sleep of darkness."

"Behold your brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be FREE of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave YOU asleep."

"His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER."

"You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it."

"Think what a happy world you walk, with truth beside you! Do not give up this world of freedom, for a little sigh of seeming sin, nor for a tiny stirring of guilt's attraction."

"How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value MORE than this? For here is YOUR salvation and YOUR freedom. And it MUST be complete, if YOU would recognize it."

"But You have offered freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today."

"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me."

"The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to Spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own."

"Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave."

"Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge."

"Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you."

"Thus do we lift the chains which bar the door to freedom from the world, and go beyond all little values and diminished goals."

"Peace and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world when you release your mind from chains, and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. It will be grateful to be free a while. It knows where it belongs. But free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love.

"He would only have you learn your OWN will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom."

"The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it CAN be offered you through the grace of God."

"It contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve."

"The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds."

"LOVE IS FREEDOM. To look for it by placing yourself in BONDAGE, is to SEPARATE yourself from it. For the love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you BE released."

"The holy instant is His most helpful tool in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the REAL lure in the special relationship. You do NOT recognize that this IS its REAL appeal, for the ego has taught you that FREEDOM lies in it."

"It is impossible to see two worlds.

Let me accept the strength God offers me

And see no value in this world, that I

May find my freedom and deliverance."

"It is impossible to see two worlds.

I seek my freedom and deliverance,

And this is not a part of what I want."

"And think how holy HE must be, when in him sleeps your OWN salvation, with HIS freedom joined."

"What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home."

"It is no sacrifice that he be saved, for BY his freedom will you gain your own."

"He HAS no need but this; that you allow him freedom to complete the task God gave to him."

"But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom."

"The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release, because YOU made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war, the guilt, the past, are gone as one, into the unreality from whence they came."

"In the holy instant, in which you see yourself as bright with freedom, you WILL remember God. For remembering Him IS to remember freedom."

"Practice GIVING this blessed instant of freedom to all who are ENSLAVED by time, and thus make time their friend FOR them."

"Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. For you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape."

"Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic vain pursuits and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God." "Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father's Love for him belongs to you."

"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you."

"It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved."

"The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace."

"Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real."

"But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself."

"The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all."

"For you have cause for freedom NOW. What profits freedom in a prisoner's form?"

"You have denied HIS freedom, and by so doing, you have denied the witness unto YOURS. You could as easily have FREED him from the past, and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him TO it. And in HIS freedom would have been your OWN."

"Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God's plan for salvation."

"There is ANOTHER vision and ANOTHER voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place your faith in them, you will perceive ANOTHER Self in YOU."

"The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone."

"You will have to choose between TOTAL freedom and TOTAL bondage, for there are no alternatives but these."

"In the name of MY freedom, I WILL your release,

Because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.

So will the year begin in joy and freedom."

"For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace."

"Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now you are prepared for freedom."

"A madman thinks the world he sees is real and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last." "Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world"

"Where COULD his freedom lie but in himself, if he be free ALREADY? And who could bind him but HIMSELF, if he DENY his freedom?"

"Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand what freedom IS."

"Strengthen your hold, and raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies."

"Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create, but its APPLICATION is different."

"Today escape from madness. You are set on freedom's road, and now today's idea brings wings to speed you on, and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace."

"The first step toward freedom, then, MUST entail a sorting out of the false from the true. This is a process of division only in the constructive sense, and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse."

"Give joyously to one another the freedom and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other's holy altar, where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home."

"His is the Voice of God, and also yours. And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth."

"There is no death. The Son of God is free. And in His freedom is the end of fear."

"Whom you forgive is GIVEN power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto YOU."

"Behold the gift of freedom that I gave the Holy Spirit, for BOTH of you. And be you free together, as you offer TO the Holy Spirit this SAME gift, and, giving it, receive it OF Him, in RETURN for what you gave."

"Offer each other freedom and complete release from sin, here in the garden of seeming agony and death. So will we prepare TOGETHER the way unto the Resurrection of God's Son."

"Fear of escape makes it difficult to welcome freedom, and to make a jailer of an enemy seems to be safety."

"It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son."

"There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom."

"Do not ALLOW him to belittle himself in YOUR mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and escape from YOURS."

"Freedom from illusions lies only in not BELIEVING them."

"Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized."

"And what they see upholds their freedom FROM imprisonment and death." "Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's Saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and RELEASE from suffering to everyone who NEEDS a miracle to save him."

"The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom." "We bless the world as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, now our own."

"Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace."

"Accept today's idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it."

"We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom."

"What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours."

"Above all else you want the freedom to remember who you really are."

"It is your special function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you"

"The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness they do not see. Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death."

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

"The miracle teaches you that you have chosen guiltlessness, freedom, and joy. It is not a cause, but an EFFECT. It is the natural result of CHOOSING RIGHT, attesting to your happiness that comes from choosing to be FREE of guilt."

"Therefore, make your INVULNERABILITY manifest to everyone, and teach him that, WHATEVER he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can BE harmed, shows him HE is guiltless."

"You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies. Your Father loves you."

"The possibility of freedom has been grasped and welcomed, and the means by which it can be gained can now be understood."

"I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world, for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom."

"He cannot choose to change His Son, nor make your mind accept the perfect freedom He has given you." "Healing is freedom, for it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth."

"Your special relationships will remain, NOT as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom. It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery."

"The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because HIS grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because of the complete lack of investment in it."

"For faith can keep the Son of God in chains, as long as he believes he IS in chains. And, when he is RELEASED from them, it will be simply because he no longer BELIEVES in them, WITHDRAWING faith that they can hold him, and placing it in his freedom INSTEAD."

"Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute to the body, or LET himself be given freedom from it."

"He may not yet have learned HOW to exchange his guilt for innocence, nor realize that ONLY in this exchange can freedom from pain be his."

"My role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your egos cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible moment, and in every possible way."

"Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons, because it separates segments of reality according to highly unstable scales of desire."

"Miracles need freedom from fear. Part of their Atonement value involves just that. Note that the word "atone" really means "undo."

"In this phase of learning, working miracles is more valuable because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you."

"Look on your brother, and behold in him the whole reversal of the laws that SEEM to rule this world. See in his freedom YOURS, for such it IS."

"To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that you HAVE accepted the Atonement for yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you OFFER the gift of freedom from the past, which you have RECEIVED." "Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship, for freedom lies here."

"For the body IS little and limited, and only those whom you would see WITHOUT the limits that the ego would impose on them, can offer YOU the gift of freedom."

"Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds."

"For you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your true intent was NEVER absent. Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice."

"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it."

"And you will carry its message of love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto your temple, where healing waits for him."

"The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God, IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES."

"You could accept peace NOW, for everyone you meet, and offer them perfect freedom from ALL illusions, BECAUSE YOU HEARD. But have no other gods before Him, or you will NOT hear."

"Nothing of God will enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by HIS Being."

"HIS slip (rivet) was an expression of a Soul gaining enough strength to request freedom from prison. It will ultimately DEMAND it."

"Because of his failure to accept his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as similarly free."

"Freedom from fear can be achieved by BOTH teacher and pupil ONLY if they do not compare either their needs or their positions in regard to each other in terms of higher and lower."

"In the service of the "Right Mind", the denial of ERROR frees the mind and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is REALLY free, it CANNOT miscreate, because it recognizes ONLY TRUTH.