"Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life."

"you made death, and it is but illusion of an end."

"Miracles make time and tide wait for all men. They can heal the sick and raise the dead because man himself made both death and taxes, and can abolish both."

This world we seem to be in, is not really a world. It is an illusion of a world, hallucinated by an insane mind, imagining that something impossible exists. It is a meaningless world. It is not good or bad, or evil or holy, or positive or negative, it is absolutely nothing at all.

What we call "the ego" then picks out certain parts of this singular illusion, and says that some parts of it are more alive than others, and other parts more dead. We GIVE it this meaning. We say, ok, this form and shape and behavior means death, and other forms and shapes and behaviors mean life.

And so we assign death to certain states or conditions. We say ok, there's decay and decomposition and damage and seeming lack of life or motion, so we're going to call this death. And when there is motion and vitality and symbols of aliveness, we're going to call this life.

This is literally what you made up. You decided some parts of the one illusion mean death just based purely on appearances. As Jesus says, life and death then seem like opposites in the SAME illusory world, made of ONE substance, and you then decided within that scope that "death ends life". Or that some of the illusions cause other illusions to change and lean towards the "dead state" that you gave the meaning of death to.

It's all made up. There is no part of the illusory world that is more alive OR dead than another part. A dead tree is not really any more dead than a living tree. A dead body in a grave decomposing is really not any different to an exuberant newborn baby smiling at its parents. Nor is a healthy dude at a gym any more alive than a seeming sickly old woman in a hospital. It's all the same stuff.

The ILLUSION is that they are NOT the same. That's the whole trick of it. The suggestion that some FORMS MEAN SOMETHING DIFFERENT to other forms. That their FORM IS their meaning, and their meaning sets them apart as not the same.

"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."

"It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived."

"The FORM it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from REASON's eyes."

"Therefore, He (Holy Spirit) OPPOSES differences in form as meaningful, and emphasizes always that THESE DIFFERENCES DO NOT MATTER."

In the big picture, ALL of the contents of the illusory world are EQUAL in the illusory nature, EQUALLY unreal, and EQUALLY nothing. There are NOT parts which are more alive, and there are NOT parts which are more dead. The body and the world are not alive, or dead. They are neither and nothing.

"The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life."

"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose which the mind would use it FOR."

What this means is the body as a meaningless illusion in a meaningless world, cannot HAVE any properties inherent to it. The world HAS no inherent meaning. When you USE it for an ego purpose, you actually distort the body and steer it towards unnatural states which produces what appears to be physical sickness and death. But as we just said even these states are illusions equal to the rest.

When the mind uses the body to bring the word of God, or the perspective of sanity in which the world is all one illusion, to those who lack this awareness, ie when we love and extend God, we stop distorting the world into states of difference, contrasts, conflicts and opposites, and this lifts away from the "body image" the signs of sickness and attack and conflict. Thus the body "resurrects" to what SYMBOLICALLY is a state of health and life. But even this is still not really life.

There is no death because it only seems to happen in a made-up world with made-up meaning based on made-up forms. A dead body is no more dead in truth than what we call a living body. They are totally the same illusion. One illusion of strange separate things, to which we've assigned arbitrary meaning based on nothing in particular.

WHEN the mind can recognize this, it is no longer participating in the hierarchy of illusions, recognizes both "life and death" as the same one illusion, and now has power over ALL states of matter. It has become miraculous because it sees no order of difficulty. It is no longer believed to be any harder or more difficult or strange or intense or chronic or stubborn to make one thing change into another thing.

Then it becomes EASY to change one state of matter into another, just as Jesus demonstrated materializing food and converting a branch into a snake and back, raising the dead and so on.

"Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED."

"You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed."

You become able to change material objects into any particular form, as part of your awakening to the fact that they are in fact ALL THE SAME. Overlooking their differences is forgiveness. Recognizing there is only ONE PROBLEM is forgiveness. Seeing the world as having no meaning of its own is overlooking illusions. Recognizing that a body IS NOT REALLY DEAD, and is no more dead than another living body, allows you to convert that body back to the living. Or at least to the symbolic illusion of living.

There are a number of stories in the book "The saints who raised the dead" which is a great read to hear about actual miracles. For example one saint visited a woman who was insane, and had attacked her children and killed them, and then was actually chopping them up and cooking them and eating them. And some of the parts had already been eaten. Totally greusome story yes. However, the saint arrived and, knowing none of these appearances were TRUE, performed a miracle and re-constructed the bodies of the children, putting all of the material back together into fully-formed, fully functioning, unharmed and seemingly totally alive and happy young kids again.

In another story, a man had died and was buried and had already been in the ground for several days starting to decompose. Surely this would mean that it was "too difficult" to resurrect the person to life. But a saint arrived and performed a miracle, recognizing that again the states and forms of matter meant nothing at all. And raised the body up out of the grave and recomposed it into a healthy living body, and the man walked away happily.

There are NO LIMITS on what your holiness can do because your holiness has the power of God in it, plus the awareness that this entire world is NOTHING, and so how can it be DIFFICULT to do anything? All forms CAN be changed precisely because they ARE illusions. Nothing here is permanent or fixed or beyond help. It is precisely because the world is NOT real that it CAN be changed by miracles.

"If sin were real it would forever be beyond the hope of healing."

"Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found."

You made death. You invented death. You decided it is death. You made it up, imagined it, labelled in, assigned it to certain forms, and tried to separate it out from other forms. It is not any of that. Death is no different than life in a world of singular illusion. Raising the dead should be effortless for someone who knows this deeply and uses it.

"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."

When something dies, it fails. The body fails. Organs fails. Tissues fail. It depicts failure on a physical level. The final failure of the body is what we call death. It is when everything fails. Total failure is death.

Which means that if you go toward death of the body, you are going towards failure. Which means you are failing to accomplish something. And accomplishing death is really an act of doing nothing whatsoever. Which means there is something to SUCCEED at, which is NOT death, which you are supposed to be succeeding at.

So to die is to fail at the thing you are supposed to succeed at. And the thing you are supposed to succeed at is the surmounting of death, the overcoming of death, the total cancellation of death, and the demonstration of eternal life symbolically through the body.

ACIM does not end in death, it ends only in resurrection. In the resurrection our curriculum ends. Nowhere else does it end. It does not end in failure. Therefore it does not end when you attain death. Attaining death is achieving nothing worth anything. Only by achieving LIFE are you a living example of the resurrection and the life.

"Swear not to die you holy son of God. You've made a bargain that you cannot keep."

"A dream of death cannot be left by death but by truth."

"What is the resurrection?":

"The resurrection is the denial of death, being THE ASSERTION OF LIFE. 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. Love is no longer feared, but gladly welcomed. Idols have disappeared, and the remembrance of God shines unimpeded across the world. Christ's face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness, apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it."

"Here the curriculum ends. From here on, no directions are needed. Vision is wholly corrected and all mistakes undone. Attack is meaningless and peace has come. The goal of the curriculum has been achieved. Thoughts turn to Heaven and away from hell. All longings are satisfied, for what remains unanswered or incomplete? The last illusion spreads across the world, forgiving all things and replacing all attack. The whole reversal is accomplished. Nothing is left to contradict the Word of God. There is no opposition to the truth. And now the truth can come at last."

In the assertion of LIFE, all death is snuffed out. The attraction to death is ended. The desire for death is cancelled. The end of death has arrived, and it is blotted out by a decision to LIVE. The will to live represents the willingness to regain the total freedom of the will, which means the complete embracing of eternal life in God. Only through LIFE can this course be completed. Death is never an accomplishment of anything useful. Only through a realignment with your IMMORTALITY can to finally return home to the LIVING WORLD OF LIGHT, where everything lives forever. Heaven's doorway is made of life, and you must be alive to enter.

"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."

When something has an end. .. just that fact alone... makes it NOT ETERNAL. Because very simply, ETERNAL means WITHOUT END! God ONLY creates that which is eternal because HE is eternal and creates in his own likeness. He can't even CONCEIVE OF anything "ending" or being "not forever." You have eternal life, because God does.

Now if you look around you at this world you made, planet Earth. Look at it. Look for a while and notice that things end. Things come and go. There are seasons. There is birth and death. Things change. There is no sign of permanence anywhere. Not even the solid rocks last forever. Not even planets and stars. It all ends. So how can we sit here and claim that this is ETERNAL? That this is ETERNITY?

Think about this also. In the linear timescale of things, planet Earth came about LONG BEFORE human beings arrived on the planet. The Earth was here before a single soul set foot on it. IF God created it, the world's condition was set up BY GOD, PRIOR to the human race. Think about that for a moment. Because it means that if there was anything going wrong in the world BEFORE human kind came along, it was GOD'S DOING, nor ours.

So take a look at 4 billion years ago. No humans to be seen anywhere on the Earth. What was happening? Well, there were volcanos erupting, causing massive lava flows and killing off all kinds of creatures who were burnt and suffocated to death or destroyed by toxic fumes. There were massive floods the likes of which we haven't seen for millennia, wiping out entire continents of "living creatures", none of whom could do anything to stop it. There were horrendous storms during which all manner of things were zapped to death. There were asteroids impacting the earth and wiping out entire civilizations of animals, dinosaurs and the like. This all was happening before facebook, FYI.

So all that stuff is GOD's DESIGN, right? That was all HIS doing. HE created it. HE put it in place. HE manipulated the weather. He forces the tides to move. By an act of God he struck down an entire continent. If God made it, God SET IT UP, God set the wheels in motion, and it had NOTHING to do with humans.

So what does that mean, it means IF God did that, God is ***EXTREMELY CRUEL***, murderous, malicious, hateful, vengeful, careless, irresponsible, destructive and deadly. Is that REALLY what you think God is like? Is that REALLY how a loving, all powerful, eternal-life giving father acts? Is that REALLY the kind of environment that He would CREATE for his children to live in? Of course it's not. If he created it, he WOULD be *extremely cruel*.

And fortunately, God is NOT cruel. God is loving, kind, gentle, considerate, compassionate, protective, empowering, equal, perfect. He does not go around making death planets or hell words. He does not manufacture suffering. Nor does he calculate the ways that innocent creatures will be made only to be later destroyed. God is not like this. God is life-sustaining, loving, nurturing, holy, peaceful, benevolent.

How can ANYONE go through this Course and come out the other side believing that God made this planet? Are you in denial? I mean... are you just turning a huge blind eye to the things that happen here? And by blind eye I do not mean christ vision. I mean actual DENIAL. It makes NO SENSE to claim that God made a world where this kind of crap happens on a daily basis.

Did you know that over 130,000 human beings DIE every day? And if God made this world, is that not God's fault? YES. He made it possible. He must want it. That's what it means if He made the world. No exceptions. He is all in, and it's not human's fault. Can we really believe this and be sane? There should not be one SINGLE death in God's plan, in God's world. Not one. Yet alone 130,000 a day. I don't know why some people are so in denial of this. Why can't we admit that this world IS VERY CRUEL and because of its cruelty IT CANNOT BE LIKE GOD?

And that perhaps, just maybe... there is ANOTHER WORLD that God DID create which is TOTALLY PERFECT? Our heavenly true natural HOME, where we belong? And perhaps the Course is right when it says we are a STRANGER here in this alien, crumbling, tired old world, which has nothing but the STAMP OF DEATH on it?

"The laws of this world go against your nature"

"To be without a body is to be in your natural state"

When will we wake up and accept that this world is not our home? That we are a fish out of water here? Just visiting, in a dream nightmare. A world which thankfully IS NOT TRUE and will end. Because it's end IS guaranteed, just as it never was begun.

"HOW WILL THE WORLD END?

Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as it began."

I am grateful for the world GOD created. I am grateful that it is NOT THIS ONE. Because if it was, fucking hell we're all screwed.

Jesus refers in the course to sickness as "a magical solution". It's an attempt to solve a problem. The only problem is, this solution is mistaken, because it actually does something opposite to what the person thinks it will do.

If you are confused about what the truth is, you perceive the truth as something false or evil. You even will feel threatened by it. Then you will seem to defend yourself against it. And so you will erect defenses to push the truth away. The trouble is, truth life and health. So when you push it away, even on grounds that you think it is not truth, you are pushing life and health away. And this results in sickness. Even if you believe you have pushed sickness away.

"Sickness is a (mistaken) defense against the truth."

The person then ends up sick, using sickness as a defense, to try to protect themselves, to save their life, from the truth. But the truth is life, and what they're really doing is trying to save themselves from life. And this is why they've induced illness by mistake, thinking that they're inducing life. They've mistaken life for death, and have chosen death by mistake.

"Sickness is but a little death."

All this means is that sickness is a MISTAKE. It's what someone produces when they are MISTAKEN. They come to a wrong conclusion, based on a false belief or a wrong perception, and then seek to erect defenses that they don't even need, and try to protect themselves from something beneficial, believing that they'll be better off. There is no SIN involved here, it's just a matter of being very mistaken. A choice made on a false premise.

The form of sickness, even physical death, becomes nothing more than the outcome of someone's mind that is confused. It's the result of a creative person, a person who is powerful and making choices, who happens to just be making unwise choices, because they don't realize they are mistaken. They are confused about what is true, they are not entirely sane, and so they THINK they're making a totally sound choice and acting on it, when in fact they don't really recognize what they're doing wrong.

So now you've got a world filled with powerful creative minds, who are constantly choosing and creating, but who are confused. And so they keep creating mistaken stuff, stuff which hurts them, stuff which produces suffering, stuff which makes their bodies sick, not because they're inherently sinful or guilty or deserve it, but simply because they are mistaken about what things are. They don't recognize what is really true, and have made false conclusions, and now are choosing things which they think are one thing, but are another.

To be sick therefore is nothing more than a mistake in the mind. It just means the mind isn't really recognizing what the truth is, and has mistaken the truth for something false, and mistaken something false for something true. And now they're convinced that they are in fact pursuing the truth, all the time, except their navigation system is off because their truth-detector is faulty. And so they head towards death, thinking it is life. And hell is confused with heaven.

Everyone always protects what they believe is true. What is true is your treasure. What is true defines your identity. It's close to your sense of self. Of life. Of what you think is holy and pure and good and worth having. Truth is what you accept and allow and want. But if your idea of truth is faulty, if you are confused and mistaken, you will still have this attitude about your truth, except it won't really BE the truth in the big picture. But you don't know that, because you have mistaken something false for something true.

The simple confusion of what is true and false is the entire basis for people producing ALL of their own suffering. It's merely a mistaken choice. It's powerful creators mis-creating by mistake because they have not mastered their own creative power. And result is a world if conflict and suffering which the people are creating by mistake, being unmasterful of their abilities.

It's chosen by mistake, or in error. A wrong conclusion was arrived at. A faulty response was activated. Someone thought that a "magical solution" would work, when in fact it produced the opposite effect. And everyone who has chosen sickness thinks that they have chosen continuity and life. Even those who have chosen death believe they have chosen the preservation of themselves.

All suffering is just a mistake. Mistakes call for correction. They don't need judgement or condemnation or punishment. No-one needs to be kept suffering. No-one deserves to linger in torment. Or to be destroyed or killed. Even the most heinously evil-seeming person is merely a person who is very confused about what is true and false. They are just insane, lost, alone, frightened, uncertain, out of touch with reality, and making poor choices. They just don't know what the truth is.

This is why ACIM is constantly suggesting that we simply "choose once again". That we have made a wrong decision somewhere along the lines. A mistaken choice. Which has produced unfortunate effects, symptoms, conditions. And now we are suffering because we chose something on faulty grounds, without proper justification. And now if we don't want to keep suffering, we need to have a little willingness to be open to being mistaken, to recognizing that our idea of truth is faulty. To recognize that we just made a mistake and need correction.

Then we can be willing to not only open up to a greater truth, to accept atonement, but also to allow the Holy Spirit to undo the consequences that we came up with. The unfortunate "mis-creations", the side-effects of unwise decisions, the suffering we induced for ourselves due to being a confused creator. All we need is to become un-mistaken. To recognize our mistakes and receive correction. So that instead of being mistaken, we are correct. And when you are correct, you can cause nothing but immortality and happiness, based on truth.

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences."

"Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.

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

"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."

"Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly."

"Your brother thinks he made the world with you. Thus he denies creation. With you, he thinks the world he made, made him. Thus he denies he made it."

"Your mind is capable of creating worlds."

When you sleep at night, you dream, and in the dream you find yourself in a fully-developed environment, where it seems the walls have been weathered, the ground has eroded, things have aged, time has passed, as if all this existed before you arrived and must have taken many years to reach this condition. As though buildings took time to be built and as if creatures took years to grow. The trees are 50 years old and the hills are older still. As if the body merely existed already and you simply "incarnated" into it, electing to join with it, having not made it.

But, the fact is, you only just started dreaming, and since 10:30pm last night you literally just made this whole environment IN this condition, spontaneously, now. You just made an entire world, which LOOKS AS IF, it's been there for a long time. You PUT the erosion there, you PUT the signs of decay there, you MADE the illusions that this is a very old place which took thousands of years to come to its current condition. You did it in an instant. Just because it SEEMS old, does not mean it is. It is a fresh image of time having passed.

Consider this. In your waking life, on Earth, which is a dream also, you seem to arrive in a little body into a world which SEEMS to have been here for billions of years. It has all the hallmarks of time having passed, erosion, decay. In fact so accurate is the depiction of a "great history", that you can even study this history, examine the evidence, and seemingly prove that the world is very old.

But, is that true? Did this tremendous history EXIST before you started dreaming? Did this universe REALLY begin with a big bang, or did we simply BACK-FILL the illusion, invent evidence of time passing, put in place what seem to be effects with causes that SEEM to stretch back billions of years, SO THAT we can, in PRESENT TIME, make this ILLUSION that we're in a world that has existed forever?

What if NOW, your mind is dreaming of an OLD WORLD? What if NOW, you are making up the proof that the universe all leads back to a starting point? What if there was no start? What if the big bang is totally an invention of your mind, made to SEEM as if it occurred, as part of the way that you have DECORATED your present dream? What if there is only the presence and what you are dreaming NOW, and what if you are making this world NOW, and what if this world is an hallucination? What if you are NOW having an hallucination of an OLD-looking world, which literally HAS NO PAST? What if you are forcing it to seem old?

What if the entire history of the universe is being written NOW, to SEEM LIKE it "happened before" chronologically, but is merely you exercising your mind's power to DREAM OF a world that has "signs of aging" in it? What if the world is not even a second old? What if there is no past, or future? What if there is no time, or space? What if you made this all up? What if you're dreaming of a world that doesn't even exist at all, yet alone one that is the end result of billions of years of evolution? What if you made up the laws that seem to imply it all began with a giant explosion? And what if the state you hold it in NOW *causes* the past to be re-written to align with it?

There is evidence arising of objects appearing in places in the world where they should or could not be. As though they have been there far longer than before they were even invented. There are things showing up as if to suggest they were around millions of years ago, and yet were not invented until recently. Why is that? Why are we PUTTING nearer-time objects into the further past? Why are we MAKING UP this stuff? Why are we inventing a past? We are literally RE-WRITING HISTORY in the present moment. We are causing the ILLUSION of a history to be changed.

NONE OF THIS IS REAL.

THERE IS NO TIME.

THERE IS NO HISTORY.

THERE IS NO PAST.

THERE IS NO WORLD.

IT'S A DREAM.

YOU'RE DREAMING IT.

YOU'RE MAKING IT ALL UP AS YOU GO ALONG.

Although God's kingdom is a state of changelessness and permanence, THIS world isn't. This world is a world of shifts and changes, transformations, beginnings and endings. Nothing here remains the same whatsoever.

In and of itself this wouldn't be a problem if we would LET IT CHANGE. If we would not fight against, resist, or try to control its fundamental changing nature. If we would not hold onto its states and conditions, not want it to be a certain way, not prefer even that it stay in a certain configuration, we would be better off. But to do this we would have to let the entire world go and be attached to nothing.

The world has to be allowed to change because that's all it CAN DO. And it will be a bit of a rude awakening to say this, but, regardless of what you WANT, you WILL NOT be able to stop it changing. And everything that came will go, and everything that arrived will leave, and everything that was born will die.

This is the nature of illusions, of unreality, or dreams. They are not permanent, they are not immortal, they are not eternal. They canont stay the same. They depend on relativity and differences. They have to constantly fluctuate and move and change form in order to seem to exist at all. There is no stillness, no peace, no rest, no constancy of any kind in spacetime.

In order to recognize this and allow the world to be like this, it means you have to stay entirely in the present moment, in which you resist nothing and have no issue whatsoever about how anything else. No resistance against what arrives, no holding on to what is leaving. And that would be enlightenment.

The problem we have is that we tend to live in a way that assumes things can NOT CHANGE. We form relationships, we build houses and cities, we spend time accumulating, we become attached, we develop favorites, we form emotional bonds, we cling to treasures. All of this is an attempt really to DENY that the world IS going to change, to dream a little while that we can find a way to make the world stay the way we want it.

Most of our urges to do something in the world are based on a drive to try to make it permanent in some way. We build the house we want to live in and decorate it and fill it with objects hoping to make a home that will last. We work on relationships and deepening bonds and falling in love with bodies in the hope that they will always be there. But inevitably it all comes tumbling down because the harsh truth is that the world MUST change, and it will.

"It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."

The suffering we experience is the direct result of attempting to CONTROL THE CHANGE. To resist it, to deny that the world has a fundamental nature of change, and attempting to keep things how we want them. Every time that we become invested in NEEDING or WANTING something to stay a certain way, we are going to suffer. Because it IS going to change, and then we are going to be unhappy because we've come to depend on it being that way.

We develop expectations that things will stay how we want them. And then our expectations are dashed and smashed. We set the world up to CAUSE US, to give us what we think we want in a certain specific form that we agreed to. And then it changes, and it fails to give, and then we are left hanging.

When there is a disconnect, a gap, a distance of spacetime, a contrast, between how the world IS NOW in its present configuration, and how we WANT it to be, that contrast is LOSS. It is discord and tension and stress and war. The ego says "I want it thus!", and the world just repeatedly says "no". And so the world moves on and you stay in the past, clinging to what once was, hoping it will continue, hoping it will return, and it never does.

"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."

As such, the world disappoints you over and over again WHEN you are expecting it to be a certain way that you prefer. It can't satisfy your wishes. It can't give you what you want. You can manipulate it and control it and manage it and rearrange it to try to fend off change (death), to try to keep an illusion that it is going to stay the same. You can repaint the walls and repair the rotten wood and redo the garden but again and again the onslaught of time - which is change and death - will keep happening.

The degree to which you have strings attached, psychological investment in, and desire to KEEP the things of the world, to that degree you will suffer when it ignores your wishes and changes anyway. Because it can't help it. You hold onto possessions, places, things, relationships, people, bodies. You resist them changing, you don't want to lose them, you fear loss, you try to preserve bodies for as long as possible, and maybe you don't even conceive of your favorite things coming to an end at some point. But they will.

This is not to be morbid. The world is a dream of death and it can't help but keep recycling itself. It transforms from birth to death and back to birth again. It is utterly incapable of staying the same forever. Expecting that it can and trying to live as though it can will make you suffer.

When something changes "against your will", and you cling to how it was, and live in the past, and don't want to accept the change, you will experience loss and despair. In order to "move on" from the perceived loss and stop perceiving it as a loss, you have to let go of CONTROL, and of wanting things to be how you want them. That means, to move on, is to move WITH the change and let it happen, accepting that change HAS occurred and surrendering to the fact that you can do nothing to stop it.

In a way that seems like beign powerless and a victim, in that you have to accept the change and LET IT change. To let go is to let go of the resistance against change, to admit it has changed, and to stop fighting against it. When you fight change you fight the world. When you fight the world you are also fighting reality and moving away from the present. The only way to live, is to live in the present and go with the flow of whatever happens with no resistance to it.

That means letting go of all your wishes, all your wants and desires and needs, all your dependencies, reclaiming all the power you gave to wordly things to affect you how you preferred, letting all bodies go, letting people come and go, surrendering control and allowing whatever happens. Ultimately you can only fully do that in the present, in the holy instant, in the eternal now. And it means relinquishing all attachmen to everything you value here, because the world holds NOTHING that you want.

It's in the present that you really transcend change, and become changeless, as you observe changes come and go without resistance. It's in the present that you find peace, and God, and love, and become open to what is. It's in the present that you gain "reality contact". And it's in the present that you find freedom from suffering. Dropping the "unreasonable expectation" that the world can be something it can never be, sets you free. Accepting how it is NOW, is the only way.

"Whenever we move from one instant to the next, the previous one no longer exists."

"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. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to GAIN that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. 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."

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it into another world."

"Simply do this: Be still and lay aside all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself. Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."

"The power to work miracles belong to you."

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

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

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

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

How is ALL of this a miracle?

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

The key... is POWER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The fact that each Soul has this POWER completely"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

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

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

"They will strengthen him and stabilize you."

"Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That you HAVE THE POWER to perform.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The POWER to work miracles belongs to you."

"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."

"Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself." It was not His Will to be alone. And neither is it yours."

There are two thought systems, one is God’s system, the other is of the ego’s system. God’s thought system produces Creation/Heaven, the ego’s thought system produces hell/earth. Both systems run on impeccable logic based on a logical premise, and are systems of thought. They both start with a premise and follow through to a logical and natural conclusion. The conclusion of Heaven’s thought system is eternal life, the conclusion of the ego’s thought system is death. Both are arrived at through perfectly logical reasoning. As Jesus describes:

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit"

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and away from truth. Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end."

The two systems THINK differently. The ego’s system is entirely founded on separation and exclusion. Everything in the system obeys the premise of exclusivity. God’s system is totally opposite, and is founded on INCLUSION and sharing. Jesus tasks us to learn to "think like God", which does not merely mean to use EGO thinking to think about God, or to use exclusive logic at all when considering the nature of Heaven.

One of the biggest fundamental errors in ACIM circles is USING the ego’s thought system to THINK ABOUT the thought system of God. God’s system is SO unlike the ego’s, that doing so automatically produces two effects: a) what seems to make sense is nonsense, b) what seems like nonsense is actually true sense.

The ego always thinks in terms of separations and exclusions. And this maps directly onto objects in SPACE. You can say for example, if bananas are yellow, and this fruit is purple, it is not a banana. Or if my car is parked in the first space, it is not parked in the last space. Or if I have the whole pizza, you do not have any. Everything is put into a contained, confined box (body) and what is inside the box is considered separate from what is outside. What is outside is *excluded*, and there is no SHARING between the two regions.

This kind of thinking is based entirely in separation thought, a way of thinking that excludes, isolates, separates off, and "reasons" based on whether something is fully in or out of a box. You think about objcts in the world this way because the world ITSELF is the ego thought system, based on the same reasoning, the same logic, the same functioning and the same relationships of separation.

This WAY of thinking, exclusive logical reasoning, is EXTREMEY POOR at evaluating the nature of God’s thought system. When it looks at God’s system (everything in Heaven), it tries to put everything into nice tidy boxes. It separates things out. IT excludes. It has no regard for ANY form of sharing, oneness, Union, or anything that transcends boundaries.

It cannot SEE or comprehend how it makes SENSE, that something can be in more than one box at once, that the inside and outside of the box are joined, that something can be in more than one place at the same time, that two entities can have full access to share the same thing at the same time without compromise, or that two seemingly opposite statements can be NOT contradictory.

For example, when ACIM says something like "God has one son", the ego is delighted, because it gets to put God’s system into a nice confined box. When ACIM then says something like "We are creation, we, the sons of God", it now concludes either a) they can’t both be true, b) the statement about the one son is true and the statement about multiple sons is false, or c) God has many sons and not one son. These are the ONLY ways that can seem to "make sense" to ego thinking. NONE OF THEM ARE CORRECT.

The correct truth about God’s system,is that God has one Son AND many sons. The truth is also that each son has full unlimited access to share ALL of God, WITHOUT excluding anyone else from doing the same at the same time. The truth is also that as you give, you do not lose anything, and you keep what you had, and now BOTH of you have it. This sounds like absolute nonsense to the ego thinker. It does not conform to boxes. If there were pizza in heaven, you and I both would be able to eat the entire pizza. That sounds ABSURD to the ego. It is the way God’s system works!

His thought system is entirely run by INCLUSIVE logic. This is based entirely on sharing. Logically it means, we BOTH share things. Everything applies to me AND you. This is what the Golden Rule is based on. Equality. Whatever is true of me, is true of you. So if I have the whole of something, and I share it with you, we BOTH have the WHOLE of it. We share space. We overlap. We commune. We share . We are united. We are one. All things real COMPLETELY DEFY exclusive boxes. If you are thinking about Heaven, God, sonship, sons, creation etc WITH exclusivity in your logical reasoning, you HAVE TO come to a false conclusion.

For example, "I and my father are one". What does the EGO make of it? It thinks ok, it said me and my father , that’s two things, two boxes. So now we have two boxes. It then says "are one". So now..... there are two seemingly contradictory things happening (to the ego). Is it two boxes, or one box? And usually this is where an ego thinker wil THROW OUT the first half of the statement or forget it entirely, and home in on the second part., in an attempt to RESOLVE the contradiction. This is BULLSHIT. Total failure. Trying to MAKE it make sense, by butchering it.

The ONLY correct way to grasp what is said, is to literally think outside the box. You have to THINK differently. Use inclusivity. Inclusivity says, two things can SHARE. It says two things can JOIN. It says two things can be mutual in their likeness and nature. And it even says that two things can be TWO THINGS, while simultaneously SHARING EVERYTHING. And so here, being one with God does NOT end the TWO-ness. Two distinct things are SHARING with each other.

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

And so oneness, being one-with, are-one, DOES NOT mean "one box". In fact Jesus even says you can "be one with your self". It means BOX DEFYING sharing and singularity of NATURE, in which the two ARE STILL TWO, while ALSO being as if one. They are two AND one. Oneness to THE EGO means "one thing". Oneness to God means OF LIKE KIND. And here also SHARING does not mean "only has one" like a single identity, it means TWO THINGS are joined in their NATURE while still retaining their two-ness and INDIVIDUALITY! AND THIS IS NOT DUALITY. NOR IS IT NONDUALITY!

Similarly when Jesus says something hyper cryptic like "one brother is all brothers, one mind is all minds" or "healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad", IT DOES NOT mean that "the one box" is true, NOR does it mean the "two boxes" is true. It is not oneness (as in a count of one) OR duality. THEY ARE BOTH TRUE. There is simultaneously INDIVIDUALITY AND ONENESS. This is why you have a self AND are one. This is why you are one of many sons of God AND part of THE son of God. And this is also why the idea of many sons is NOT a separation idea. It is NOT an idea of "many boxes". It is more like the idea of many boxes which share the same space and overlap each other and share their contents.

The Kingdom of God, the sonship, creation, the relationship of souls, the nature of reality, the way God thinks, Heaven’s functioning, the Holy Spirit, extension, giving and receiving being one, the golden rule, sharing, communication, multiple minds, etc are all GROSSLY misunderstood, because anyone USING ego logic to think ABOUT them is blind, making no sense, using faulty tools, and coming to automatically false conclusions, putting stuff in boxes that is not in a box, and just creates confusion upon confusion.

You have to THINK LIKE GOD if you want to understand these things correctly. And the Holy Spirit’s thought system is based on this inclusive logic. And you are supposed to be learning HOW to think this way, as part of true perception. You have to let go of thought processes that follow the LAWS OF SEPARATION AND EXCLUSION. Otherwise you will think in terms of boxes and shutting everything out. You cannot INCLUDE your brother with that kind of thought process. And you cannot grasp oneness by locking it in a prison cell and falsely concluding "there is only one thing" or "its all one thing" or "there is only god" or "only one son". All of that is ego bullshit.

Creation is one and many. The "one" sonship has many perrmanent parts. You have brothers who are one with you. God has many children who are a united family. Not one or two. Many AND one. And that is natural.

"The whole power of God's Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. 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. Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself, and therefore as holy as He is. Through our creations we extend our Love, and thus increase the joy of the Holy Trinity."

What if our mind has the power to modify the world, given we are the dreamer and it is a dream - our effect? What if by mental intention you can cause events to proceed differently? What if you can steer outcomes? What if you can change physical matter? What if the world is really NOT the seemingly fixed, closed, solid, permanent-seeming thing that we think it is, and that's all an illusion?

This is the next area of exploration for me having recently focused very much on how the world is very locked into its nature. By realizing the world is stuck being the way it is, I had to then naturally ask myself, how does one go about escaping its impossible ways, forgiving it, and being free of it? How can it be overridden? And this is now leading to me to the simple progression of QUESTIONING the world, what it is, and what our minds can do to CHANGE IT DIRECTLY. And the fact that IT IS THE EFFECT OF MY DREAMING.

Jesus says in ACIM that if you change your mind about the world, ALL THE WORLD MUST CHANGE. He also says the world is an effect, and therefore, that if you change the CAUSE in your mind the world MUST change. Like LITERALLY PHYSICALLY change. He also tells us we are the dreamer of the dream. To me what he is actually getting at is that our minds are powerful, thought exerts real influence, the physical is not really physical but dream-stuff, and we have the POWER to modify it.

I've seen some evidence for this INFLUENCE of mind over the "physical world". so I'll tell you some stories.

At my job, I deal with computer stuff, as a sort of IT-department fix-it person at times. But it would turn out that very often the problems people came up with would seem to "fix themselves" when I showed up. They definitely had the problem beforehand, but then suddenly it seemed like something "in the world" just happened out of the blue to changed the course of events. The problem became seemingly "magically" (miraculously really) solved. It usually took the form of someone realizing something, a change of mind, some fact that was overlooked comes to light, or even literally physical devices which were not working suddenly work and no-one could explain why.

Over time some people called me "the computer whisperer" because it literally seemed uncanny that when I came along to help them the problem just melted into "not a problem any more". And I mean on a physical level. Something kept transpiring in terms of the FORM of how it seemed to change, something tangible or what you might call what APPEAR to be natural changes in circumstances, environmental factors, whatever, but although it LOOKED LIKE just normal "reasons why" stuff got fixed, it was actually due to something in my mind that caused a change.

There are also some times where in my mind I am not interested in playing into a problem or having to deal with an issue. So my mental attitude is one of "I do not agree with this", not like in an annoyed wanting it to go away sense, but like I don't believe in this - not buying it. I hold firm somehow to another truth, or perhaps to another intent or desire, and somehow this has a power in it. And this power seems to alter the course of events and cause problems to go away.

A boss approaches with some issue and then I mentally reject it or want nothing to do with it and suddenly he seems to realize something or changes his mind or things just suddenly resolve themselves. And I can't tell you how man times when I've needed some "time to myself" he just seems to have somewhere else to be. What I'm literally saying here is along the lines of .... when you walk through a dying forest flowers start springing up around your feet out of nowhere. That would be a very vivid example and I'm not at that level but it seems like that is possible.

"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."

Mind can have such power and influence that it can actually produce real changes in what we call "physical stuff". In effect, your mind can "dream" a different dream and have power over what the dream contains. And as I read about how the physical world/earth IS A DREAM, and see Jesus's references to us dreaming of worldly events and how he calls it a dream, it seems to make so much sense that our mind ACTUALLY IS dreaming and producing the environment in realtime, AND it can change the environment to another form at will. And behind material happenings there are "mind forces" at play, including the atonement plan.

"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."

Some years ago some people were walking down a path and it was spring, so the blossom petals on a tree were falling across the path. The couple walked under it and the petals fell onto them and for some reason this was a happy thing to me. I watched this from inside a room with a closed window, from probably a couple-hundred feet away. I had a sudden feeling of joy in my mind out of nowhere, and suddenly literal blossom petals materialized in front of my face, inside the closed window in the room with me.

Another time I was looking for money in a coin box, in which there was no "pound coins". There were only 1p a 2p bronze coins left (british). I rifled through insisting that there must be higher value money there. I did this for some time maybe even a minute, and somehow in my mind I was convinced and insistent that there MUST be some higher currency in there. Suddenly in front of my eyes as if they had been there all along, yet out of nowhere, two pound coins appeared on the top of the pile. There was no magical effect of anything to them being there, they were just not there one moment and the next they were there. And they were definitely not in the coin box hidden before.

There have also been other times where if I am fairly centered in my mind and in what I believe is true, or perhaps what Jesus calls "being strong in the truth" or at least clear about when someone is bullshitting, if I mentally stand my ground and do not buy into someone projecting or scapegoating me, it actually has an influence on them. Something changes in their mind and they suddenly become self-aware of what they're doing as if they adopted my view of them, and will suddenly realize there's something about what they said which isn't true. And then they will take it back and reconsider what their position is, because somehow the truth-focus in MY mind influenced theirs.

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

I've had to pick up subtle clues and nuances to come to realize this and this is definitely still new territory, but it seems clear that this world we're calling a physical solid world IS NOT THAT. It is in truth actually just a bunch of dream images. And our minds are not just inert little observers, they are powerful and quite capable of CAUSING the dream to change. And by dream I am NOT talking about projected meanings and interpretations of perception, I'm talking about the PHYSICAL MATERIAL WORLD. It can be changed by the mind. Mind literally has power over matter. It can steer events, cause objects to materialize, can manipulate weather, and can do all kinds of stuff - including healing sickness and reversing death and decay.

My wife has a strong will also and she has this ability too. In the past we would joke about having power to control the weather, which has proven a number of times. If I ask her to pray for me for example, my whole inner experience lights up and becomes far more happy and light and energized. She is quite capable of having a powerful influence, even at a distance. One time that we went to visit the UK for example usually the weather is crap and very consistently cloudy, but for like 3 days solid as soon as we arrived it became very clear and sunny non-stop which was very unusual. Also I know I've had influence in calming storms a couple times that I've tried to do that.

I am also convinced from some stories other people have shared that our minds influence each other including each other's bodies. Such as that for example a person was in fear and this fear was affecting the other person they were with and causing a medical condition. And then as this was pointed out the fear lifted and the medical condition just went away quickly. How is that possible unless mind has the power to influence the minds and bodies of others? That it can actually cause a different dream to just emerge out of nowhere?

Are we to really believe that the world is literally this kind of paper-thin fragile tentative sort of "material only" existence, in which everything is just the laws of physics holding it together and there's nothing else to it besides solid form? Because that's just how it APPEARS to be. The world is not actually that, because it's a dream, and it is an illusion, and it presents an illusion of a world, and this illusion CAN BE CHANGED BY THE MIND.

"Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED."

"Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found."

"You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed."

We are being asked to become aware that the world is an EFFECT of our mind. Jesus literally says "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts" and "Both heaven and earth are in your mind." The whole planet, the whole dream, is a mental construct. It's a fairytale of imagination in the mind, and the mind is literally projecting an imaginary world complete with all its "physical" details. And even though it LOOKS physical and as if it has laws that govern it and reasons why it cannot BE changed, that's all illusions, because it can EASILY be changed by a mind that knows it is dreaming.

"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."

So imagine the physical world is in fact like a LUCID DREAM. A dream in which you are awake and aware that IT IS a dream. And then you are aware that even though it appears solid and fixed, it is in fact your dream, and you CAN DO ANYTHING. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do." You can literally put your hands through physical matter, you can materialize objects, you can fly if you want to. You can change one thing into another. This is all a totally malleable dream environment, NOT really a hard solid fixed physical reality.

Do not be deceived by its illusion of hardness, solidity and so on. "What He (Holy Spirit) enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

And as MIRACLE WORKERS we are being trained and asked to adopt a position as the "dreamers of the dream", where we recognize it IS coming from us, and WE CAN CHANGE IT in any way we see fit at any time, just by the power of the mind. The Holy Spirit is capable of manipulating the atoms of the world, just as Jesus also says that space and time are under his control.

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

Jesus was masterful at this "dream manipulation". His mind was in touch with being THE CAUSE (the dreamer), and knew the world was HIS EFFECT. Therefore he was not a victim of it in any way, and had power OVER IT. He recognized he was not affected BY IT in any way because he was DREAMING it - putting it there. This is what resurrection is about, the SURMOUNTING of death - the ability to have POWER OVER DEATH. Which includes the ability to reverse "physical death" and to manipulate bodies by the mind, into any state, and any form.

He was able to give body parts that were missing, he could walk on water, calm storms, change outcomes, turn objects into other objects, multiply and materialize objects out of nowhere, appear in different body forms, could likely levitate and fly if he so willed it, and pretty much NO LIMIT to what he could do. The examples of his USE OF his power only paints a limited picture of the fact that he was able to do literally anything. And so can you, because this world is NOT a fixed solid world, it's totally at your whim and under your power!

We have barely begun to realize the sheer power of our minds, the influence our minds have on the world, the ability of our minds to change matter, the ability of our minds to heal both mind AND body, and the influence we have on ALL THE WORLD when we change our mind. Our healing literally heals the world. Our focus on truth literally awakens our brothers. And our broadcast signal of love literally transforms the dream in unlimited ways.

Miracles as expressions of love are expressions of love from a powerful mind. I think in ACIM terms perhaps miracles are actually a SUBSET of what the mind can do. When mind is aware and expresses, which must also be a loving state, it has tremendous power, and this can CHANGE THE DREAM. It can cause literal physical transformations, impossible changes, violation of laws, breaking of space and time and distance and possibility. It can heal the sick and raise the dead, produce and change objects, and even move entire mountains.

This is not even a difficult feat for such a power, but so many people are afraid and skeptical and not even suspecting that such a power of POSSIBLE, yet alone that it is in their own minds. "While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don't really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains."

"Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? This is indeed a little feat for such a power."