Holy Spirit's suggestion to take the next step in a healing, was to "cancel".
This means that you cancel, as in undo, your belief that an illusion is a reality. Whatever has been asserted by the ego as true or real, you cancel it. You confirm it is false and delete it from your mind.
So if someone seems to be sick, initially you probably believe that the sickness is real in various ways. You've seen it, heard about the symptoms, know the story, believe in the body, think it's actually happening, give it value, attribute it to various fake causes, etc. All of that needs to be collapsed because it is not God's truth.
So to cancel it, you first need to forgive, i.e. undo the delusions. You need to come to recognize that all of it is an illusion, NOT a reality. There is NOT a real sickness. The person is NOT a victim. The symptoms are NOT real. It is NOT really happening. The story is NOT the proof of how it happened. The explanation for it is NOT the real cause.
Cancel out all those false beliefs. Just reverse them. If they seem true, and if it's not God's truth, it is FALSE. This undoes all of the belief in the reality of the problem in your mind so that you're not SUSTAINING the sickness. Believing the sickness is real, at all, empowers it, fuels it, feeds it, keeps it, protects it, desires it, and chooses it.
So negate, cancel, undo, collapse, disappear, dissolve, make vanish, all of everything about 'it'. Get every single belief about the sickness being real out of yourself and out of your life. Get rid of all beliefs in sickness in yourself and others, let there be no permission for sickness to stay, reject all suggestions by everyone that sickness is real or true or permanent or justified, and do not believe in it.
Cancel the lies in whatever way that seems to be needed to get your mind to a place where you find yourself starting to state the core truths... like, there isn't even a sickness there, the sickness does not exist, there is no sickness, IT IS ALREADY GONE.
As you approach the truth, you are empowering yourself, by undoing those illusions. And you may (should) start to experience a building up of POWER in you. That's the Holy Spirit. Because you're aligning yourself with God's truth, you should start to feel His flow of 'electricity'. Your words are becoming more powerful, they are starting to contain Spirit, and you're expressing a higher vibration of love.
This is kind of like a prayer that ascends up to the truth of the Atonement: there is no real sin, nothing has happened, the sickness cannot exist because God did not create it. Or even, recognizing the sickness was a defense against the Atonement, there is no real NEED for the sickness, therefore the need for it was the problem that caused it, the need is unfounded, therefore the symptoms are unnecessary defenses. Illusions recognized as illusions must disappear.
As you hook yourself up to the truth, plugging your mind into God on one end, out of the other end you can utter miraculous healing words - commands of what MUST be, given God's truth. Dispel illusions, replace them with a higher order, something more symbolic of divine health. Speak LIFE into people. Stop them from constantly reinforcing, repeating, reiterating and compounding the reality of their problems. Someone needs to stop the madness and step in and make a statement of THE REAL TRUTH.
Later, you will then find that because you undid your own illusions about the sickness being real, you will not need to make much effort to defend against ego assertions that the healing didn't work etc... those thoughts mostly will not arise, and if they do you won't believe them. Because you already got done undoing the belief in those truths. This puts you on a much firmer footing for being convinced that, believing, that the healing has been accomplished by God and that the person MUST be healed.
Cancelling the delusions about sickness being real automatically cancels out the foundation for doubt, and doubt defends against miracles.
I see now that giving love is giving life. It uplifts and heals, restores and purifies. It's almost like putting someone up on a pedestal, not to worship them but to acknowledge their perfection and lovability as one of God's children. A child of God that God loves.
If someone is an enemy, your task is to heal them. It is to love them, to express toward them the perfection and beauty and holiness that they are, and which they deserve. Even if they themselves do not believe it.
Giving this love to them and reinforcing God's truth about them, is the same thing as forgiving them, and as performing a miracle. It's like they are damaged and your job is to repair the damage. To patch it up. To cure it and heal it and restore the wholeness.
I used to think of forgiveness more in terms of what I am doing within, how I am seeing, what I believe, what I'm projecting, trying to take it all back within. But now I'm seeing that forgiveness is also an outward expression of love. As the light within is uncovered, it radiates outward. You shine a light which dispels the darkness.
If you have an enemy and you are at war with them, you may not want to love them. You may want to keep them imprisoned in a box or kept separate. You may want to exclude them from love and only let the good people receive the love. But clearly as you learn to love and resurrect even one person, it becomes apparent that you really should be doing this for everyone, all the time.
I think a lot of ACIM focus in on the processes we individually perform for ourselves, the attempt to find peace, to be healed, to lighten up, to receive love etc. But a huge part of it is also in the giving, because giving and receiving are one.
You in fact HAVE to extend (give) love in order to receive it. It's the only way it can work. If you don't give the love, you will lose out on the love. Which means if you don't love your enemy, you are depriving yourself of love.
To give light and life to everyone is very simple. I can well imagine the likes of Jesus walking around just being very loving, very uplifting, very encouraging and healing, shining into people, lifting them up, raising their spirits, strengthening them and reinforcing their health and wholeness. Just being a loving person and loving people. Resurrecting them with love.
"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life."
"The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."
"I am YOUR resurrection and YOUR life. You live in me because you live in God. And everyone lives in YOU, as YOU live in everyone."
"Believe in the resurrection because it has BEEN accomplished, and it has been accomplished IN YOU. This is as true now as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, Which knows no time and no exceptions."
"Hold him not back with thorns and nails, when his redemption is so near. But let the whiteness of your shining gift of lilies speed him on his way to Resurrection."
"Let us give redemption to each other, and SHARE in it, that we may rise as one in resurrection, and not SEPARATE in death."
"But the Resurrection IS the symbol of sharing, because the re-awakening of every Son of God is necessary to enable the Sonship to know its wholeness."
"The resurrection of the world awaits YOUR healing and YOUR happiness, that you may DEMONSTRATE the healing of the world."
"And you will see within today's idea the light of resurrection, looking past all thoughts of crucifixion and of death to thoughts of liberation and of life."
"My resurrection comes again each time I lead a brother safely to the place at which the journey ends and is forgot. I am renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain."
"The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness. "
"This is why the healer is part of the Resurrection and the LIFE."
In the beginning of the ACIM Workbook, we're instructed to look around the room and tell ourselves, indiscriminately, that this thing we're looking at doesn't mean anything. And we're asked not to be selective in what we apply it to, applying it to everything equally. This EQUALIZING is what's important.
I'm finding that this basic idea is core to the process of mind training in order to awaken from this world. Basically, our minds have become very used to fragmenting everything into separate boxes, with separate labels.
We become blinded by perception of form, and we take the form of something to determine its meaning. Yet we've given it all the meaning it has. Differences and shifts and changes all seem to stand out as separate and exclusive. One thing is not another etc. And before you know it we have 1000 different responses to 1000 different things and never are we simple unconditional.
But the mind is not supposed to be in this kind of viewpoint, with a massive complicated hierarchy of illusions, with multiple different reactions and responses, treating one thing differently to another, adapting and changing based on circumstances etc. These are all unnatural for the mind which must be unconditionally constant in order to be healthy.
As we peruse the room and identify that one different seeming object is really to be treated no differently than another, we're beginning the process of collapsing the hierarchy of illusions, undoing the belief in separation, dispelling the illusion that one thing is NOT the same as another, and are gradually reprogramming the mind to be less conditional.
For me a huge way this has recently come to light is in the idea of the death of a body. On the physical level the ego world says that a body has been utterly destroyed and irreversibly erased from existence. But on the spiritual level the person still persists in eternal life. And they can't both be true.
Given that God would never allow one of his immortal creations to ever be destroyed, and there is no power greater than God's to overthrow his will, death is an absolute lie. The body's demise means absolutely nothing. It does not mean a person is dead, it does not mean God's son is destroyed, and it does not imply anything. Death is ultimately meaningless.
"The death of an illusion means nothing."
So then if you look at this closely and see that death cannot have a meaning, it causes nothing and has no effect, it is completely meaningless. And this then means that it doesn't MEAN anything DIFFERENT to a living body. And both of those bodies do not really mean anything.
"Nothing I see means anything."
It's in this erasing of the MEANING of separation, whereby you isolate something and give it a different unique meaning compared to something else, that the mind begins to split and fragment. Believing in separation plays out as believing the seeming messages we get from separate different objects.
It's as though the whole of physical unreality is screaming constantly to tell you that this one thing IS NOT another thing, this thing is NOT the same, this thing has unique properties, this one's red and that one's green, this one's bigger, that one's smaller etc. All constantly tempting you to believe that EVERYTHING is separate. And this couldn't be more OPPOSITE to how the mind is supposed to function.
When we see objects meaning something unique we are deceived by illusion, blinded by form, deceived by temptation, lost in a dream, and find our mind to be imprisoned. When we EQUALIZE forms and give them the SAME meaning, recognizing they have NO meaning of their own, that's when mind is entering a state of unconditionality, which means love.
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."
So then we look at a body that seems dead and we do not assign it any meaning. And we look at bodies which seem alive and we do not assign them any meaning. And we recognize that both types of bodies are not really different in their meaning, or in what they are. They are both illusions, both unreal, both in ONE category.
Consider then that the mind in this state is a very cohesive whole unified mind. It's not a mind that goes putting labels on everything, putting things in separate boxes, emphasizing differences, or thinking of the things of the physical world as unique.
It's a mind that has ONE state, one feeling, one undivided will, one power, one wholeness, one unconditional action. It treats everyone and everything with the same singular completely still peaceful loving relationship. It responds to everything in the same way, and sees no "orders of difficulty".
Such a mind is not deceived by forms. Such a mind does not really pay any special attention to things which seem different, more important, less important, more serious, less serious. It has learned to see that both living and dead bodies are the same one illusion, the same one lie.
On a way then, the waking mind is finding a way to be whole and unmoved by the world, always constant and honest, always peaceful and loving. It doesn't buy into any temptations, it doesn't fall for the appearance of something seeming easier or harder, bigger or heavier. It finds a way to transcend all differences. And it really is about psychological transcendence. Completely disregarding the appearance of any differences of form whatsoever.
Such a mind isn't finding a way to see that the forms are ONE, or that God is the forms. It isn't finding oneness in them as such. It's transcending them toward the oneness that is behind and beyond them, a oneness that the forms don't even touch or influence in any way.
Because mind becomes whole and unified and loving and disregards differences, it sees in a sense a "reflection of heaven" - a unified transcendental perception - looking upon the physical separate objects still but NOT believing them, NOT falling for their forms, NOT blinded, NOT regarding them as truly different or true at all. But seeing them with a unified mind can't help but see unity IN PLACE of the differences, reflected there.
Cars are still separately driving down separate roads. Bodies are still separately walking down separate streets. Dogs are still barking at separate cats. But the healed mind is not deceived by how any of these things look. The healed mind becomes transcendental of all separate forms, all separate labels, all separate distinctions and differences.
So really in the start of the Workbook we're basically in at the deep end, starting off running, because we're already practicing this simple idea - getting the mind to wean off interacting with the world from a complicated chaotic jumble of vantage points, and shifting toward a singular vantage point which pays no attention to form whatsoever.
Its an odd idea really. Adopting a state of mind which is centered on a singular oneness, and unchanging wholeness, an unconditional love, rather than being 1000 separate things to 1000 separate people. Just being you, knowing thyself, unmoved and unchanged and unaffected. Simple and unified. Ignoring all separations and divisons. Having no belief in the false illusion of the material world at all. A wholeness of mind from another world.
"And what more transcendent aim can there be than to recall the Way, the Truth and the Life, and to remember God?"
"Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change."
"The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."
"Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend to the Father?"
"Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST transcend the body."
"Then lay aside the body and quietly TRANSCEND it, rising to welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple look you not back on what you have awakened FROM. For no illusions CAN attract the minds that have TRANSCENDED them, and left them far behind."
It is impossible not to believe what you see, but it is equally impossible to see what you do NOT believe. Perceptions are built up on the basis of experience, and experience leads to beliefs. It is not until BELIEFS are fixed that perceptions stabilize. In effect, then, what you believe you DO see. That is what I meant when I said, "Blessed are ye who have not seen and still believe," for those who believe in the resurrection WILL see it. The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom.
Would you join in the resurrection or the crucifixion? Would you condemn your brothers or free them? Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend to the Father? For these questions are all the same, and are answered together. There has been much confusion about what perception means, because the same word is used both for awareness and for the INTERPRETATION of awareness. Yet you cannot BE aware without interpretation, and what you perceive IS your interpretation. This course is perfectly clear. You do not see it clearly because you are interpreting AGAINST it, and therefore do not BELIEVE it. And if belief determines perception, you do NOT perceive what it means and therefore do not ACCEPT it.
Yet different experiences lead to different beliefs, and with them different perceptions. For perceptions are learned WITH beliefs, and experience teaches. I am leading you to a new kind of experience which you will become less and less willing to deny. Learning of Christ is easy, for to perceive with Him involves no strain at all. HIS perceptions are your NATURAL awareness, and it is only distortions which YOU introduce that tire you. Let the Christ in you interpret FOR you, and do not try to limit what you see by narrow little beliefs which are unworthy of God's Son. For until Christ comes into His Own, the Son of God WILL see himself as fatherless.
I am YOUR resurrection and YOUR life. You live in me because you live in God. And everyone lives in YOU, as YOU live in everyone. Can you, then, perceive unworthiness in a brother and NOT perceive it in yourself? And can you perceive it in yourself and NOT perceive it in God? Believe in the resurrection because it has BEEN accomplished, and it has been accomplished IN YOU. This is as true now as it will ever be, for the resurrection is the Will of God, Which knows no time and no exceptions. But make no exceptions yourself, or you will not perceive what has been accomplished FOR you. For we ascend unto the Father together, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, for such is the nature of God's Son as His Father created him.
Do not underestimate the power of the devotion of God's Son, nor the power of the god he worships over him. For he places HIMSELF at the altar of his god, whether it be the god he made or the God Who created him. That is why his slavery is as complete as his freedom, for he will obey ONLY the god he accepts. The god of the crucifixion demands that he crucify, and his worshippers obey. In his name they crucify THEMSELVES, believing that the power of the Son of God is born of sacrifice and pain. The God of the resurrection demands nothing, for He does not will to TAKE AWAY. He does not require obedience, for obedience implies submission. 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.
Resurrection must compel your allegiance gladly because it is the symbol of joy. Its whole compelling power lies in the fact that it represents what YOU want to be. 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. And you can ACCEPT it by His grace, for God IS gracious to His Son, accepting him without question as His Own. Who, then, is YOUR own? The Father has given you all that is His, and He Himself is yours WITH them. Guard them in their resurrection, for otherwise you will not awake in God, safely surrounded by what is yours forever.
You will not find peace until you have removed the nails from the hands of God's Son and taken the last thorn from his forehead. The Love of God surrounds His Son whom the god of the crucifixion condemns. Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather THAT I DID NOT DIE by demonstrating that I LIVE IN YOU. For the UNDOING of the crucifixion of God's Son is the work of the redemption, in which everyone has a part of equal value. God does not judge His blameless Son. Having given HIMSELF to him, how could it be otherwise?
You have nailed YOURSELF to a cross and placed a crown of thorns upon your own head. Yet you CANNOT crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die. His Son HAS BEEN redeemed from his own crucifixion, and you cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal life. The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. While you perceive the Son of God as crucified you are asleep. And as long as you believe that YOU can crucify him you are only having nightmares. You who are beginning to wake are still aware of dreams and have not yet forgotten them.
Forgetting of dreams and the awareness of Christ comes with the awakening of others to SHARE your redemption. You will awaken to your own call, for the Call to awake is WITHIN you. If I live in you, you ARE awake. But YOU must see the works I do through you, or you will not perceive that I have done them unto YOU. Do not set limits on what you believe I can do THROUGH YOU, or you will not accept what I can do FOR you. For it is done ALREADY, and unless you give ALL that you have received, you will not know that your Redeemer liveth and that YOU have awakened WITH Him. Redemption is recognized ONLY by sharing it.
God's Son IS saved. Bring only THIS awareness to the Sonship, and you will have a part in the redemption as valuable as mine. For your part must be LIKE mine if you learn it of me. If you believe that YOURS is limited, YOU are limiting MINE. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because all of God's Sons are of equal value, and their equality is their Oneness. The whole power of God is in every part of Him, and nothing contradictory to His Will is either great or small. What does not exist HAS no size and no measure. To God ALL things are possible. And to Christ it is given to be LIKE the Father.
God is wholeness, or Holiness. He is the whole of everything, everywhere. There is no lack in Him. He is unlimited and infinite. He is omnipresent. He is the all in all.
"The mark of Wholeness is Holiness"
"God is all in all in a very literal sense. All being is in Him because He IS all Being. YOU are therefore in Him because YOUR being IS His."
Every part of God contains all of God. All of God is everywhere. All of God is shared, within Himself, with all of Himself. All of God has access to all of God. And all of God is God.
"The Will of God is without limit, and all power and glory lie within it. It is boundless in strength and in love and in peace. It has no boundaries because its extension is unlimited, and it encompasses all things because it CREATED all things."
God cannot access anywhere that He does not exist, and there is nothing outside of God. He already exists everywhere, so there is nowhere to be added, and no space to add into.
"Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else. Nothing OUTSIDE THIS Oneness, and NOTHING ELSE within."
God cannot create an external space, nor can he add a separate thing outside of Himself. He cannot "tack on" any kind of a creation to the outside of Himself.
The internal nature of God, however, is one of sharing. God fully shares with Himself. He is fully open. He loves Himself, and therefore gives Himself to Himself.
"Nothing that is real can be increased EXCEPT by sharing it. That is why God Himself created you. Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."
Within God, within His mind, within His being, there is total unlimited sharing. This sharing is a transcendence of space and time and limitation. It enables God to be a host, and to share Himself by giving Himself.
"Everything He created is given ALL His power because it is part of Him and shares His Being WITH Him."
"Being is known by sharing. Because God shared His Being with you, you can know Him."
"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but Him."
"You cannot separate your SELF from YOUR Creator, who created YOU by sharing HIS Being WITH you."
"I am forever host to God."
God wants to give Himself because it is His nature to share everything. This giving is what we call love, or life. It also leads to what we call projection, extension, or creation. Love loves itself.
"God shares His Fatherhood with you who are His Son"
"God shares His function with you in Heaven"
"Divine Abstraction takes joy in application, and that is what creation MEANS."
"projecting outward of God. That is why everything which He Created is like Him."
God is able to share Himself, within Himself, and can extend Himself as what we call Thoughts or Creations. These thought-creations can only occur provided they inherit the whole of God, and in turn share His will to share the whole of themselves.
"Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only Love creates, and only like Itself."
"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind."
"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul." "ALL princes INHERIT their power from the Father"
"the Children of the Father inherit from Him"
"Glory is your inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator, that you might EXTEND it."
Any thought-creation of God can only share what they are given, and can only give what they inherit. They also must create by sharing, and can only create by sharing, by hosting within their own being.
"By CREATING all things, it made them PART OF ITSELF. YOU are the Will of God, because this is how you were created. Because your Creator creates only like Himself, you ARE like Him."
"accept the Thought of God as its inheritance."
"Perceiving the majesty of God AS your brother is to accept your OWN inheritance."
"The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation."
Creation, therefore, really occurs as a kind of internal expansion, or a giving inward. God shares the whole of Himself, which produces creative thoughts, which must inherit the whole of God, and be wholly like God. "The Father and the Son are not identical, but you CAN say "Like Father, LIKE Son."
"GOD gave you the function to create in eternity."
"God gave Himself to BOTH of you in equal love"
"God GAVE you Heaven"
"God GAVE you all there is."
God also can only share wholly, or fully. He cannot only partially give, or partially create, or partially share. When He shares, He creates wholly, and creates only wholeness. And anything He creates must be completely whole. "Each part you remember adds to YOUR wholeness, because each part IS whole." "which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator."
"That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of His Son." "God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they, were created neither partially nor in part."
This means that any creation of God, any extension of God, MUST be a completely whole creation. It must be fully given, fully established, fully sharing, and fully created.
"This is the ONLY love that is fully given, AND FULLY RETURNED."
"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect."
This leads to the FULL creation of living thought-beings, ideas of children, which are the living thoughts of God. Each is a miracle, and each inherits absolutely everything from God. Each HAS everything, and IS everything. "You ARE the Kingdom of Heaven"
"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."
"God and HIS miracles are inseparable."
Absolute wholeness is passed down and is SHARED by every creation. Therefore, two things become true. 1) Every thought-creation is a completely autonomous being who is a whole fully-created being, and 2) Each being shares AND IS the whole of creation.
"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy."
This results in a scenario where each Son of God literally IS God, and is PART of God, and IS EACH OTHER. There can only truly be one whole, which must be shared by EACH whole. And therefore each whole is the one whole. This is what oneness really means.
"The wholeness of God, which IS His peace, cannot be appreciated EXCEPT by a whole mind, which recognizes the wholeness of God's creation and BY this recognition knows its Creator."
"God's wholeness IS the wholeness of his Son."
This means that each Son of God IS the other Sons of God, as well as being an individual Son of God. "Individual" does mean "undivided". And thus each brother is all brothers. And every soul is part of God. And every child of God is every other child of God. And all of them share the same whole - all of themselves - with all the rest.
"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."
"For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself."
"to know your brother IS to know God."
This produces the Sonship, which is the family of God, the Kingdom of Heaven. And having inherited everything from God, as His perfect extensions, each Son of God is a fully created being and has SO much freedom and autonomy that they are established as TRUE co-creators - free-willed "separate" beings.
"the Sonship is your Soul"
"you are part of God, and the Sonship is one"
"in a relationship in which ALL the Sonship is together blessed"
"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." "If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship."
This doesn't merely mean that they just do God's bidding, or that he dangles them like puppets, or that they are slaves to His will. They have been WHOLLY created, and therefore do in fact have free independent will. But remember that, at the same time, this will is ALSO shared with everyone. And to remain free it has to be shared, yet still retain freedom.
"The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."
Blessed with free will, in a sense "free from God", or as "separate beings", individuality has been established. They are individual because they are whole in and of themselves. Yet they are one because they share everything.
"For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me."
"be reminded of His Son, our holy Self, the Christ in each of us"
"every member of the family of God must return"
They now proceed to naturally share everything that they have, because this is their one nature. They can only share everything because it is by the sharing of everything that they exist at all.
"You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."
"We said before that WHAT you project is up to you, but it is NOT up to you WHETHER to project, for projection is a law of mind."
"Every mind MUST project, because that is how it lives, and every mind IS life."
So in turn they create their own creations by sharing everything and hosting them within their own mind and being, just like and with God. And as such the Kingdom continues to expand internally as a continuous line of extension and creation.
"all loving creation is freely given. Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order." "As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations."
"YOUR creations belong in YOU, as YOU belong in God. You are part of God, as your sons are part of His Sons. To create is to love. Love extends outward simply because it cannot be contained. Being limitless, it DOES NOT STOP. It creates forever"
"YOUR creations add to Him, as YOU do. But nothing is added that is different, because everything has always BEEN"
Wholeness, within wholeness, shared by the whole, in which each whole is the one whole, and all wholes are one. And yet at the same time, there are many wholes because God constantly shares itself. And all living beings therefore continually create and extend and think and give, and the increase of the Kingdom is endless.
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God, and you will know ALL Creation."
"And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die."
"A co-creator with the Father must have a Son (your creations). Yet must this Son (your sons) have been created like Himself. A perfect Being, all-encompassing and all-encompassed (by you and your brothers and God), nothing to add and nothing taken FROM; not born of size nor weight nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of ANY kind."
"You do not know YOUR creations, because you do not know your brothers who created them WITH you."
"for in him you will find your creations, because he created them WITH you."
The simple fact that God, who is whole, gives the whole of himself, wholly, to wholly create whole beings, who share the whole of himself, alignes exactly with the holographic principle. That the whole is in every part, and every contains and IS the whole, and every part is the SAME whole. And therefore all the wholes are one.
This is why heaven is a truly holographic structure. Not holographic in the sense of 3d projected images - which have nothing to do with holograms. But in the sense that the whole of God is in every creation of God, and every creation of God IS the whole.
"The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part, is PERFECTLY natural. For it is the way GOD thinks, and what is natural to Him, IS natural to you."
This is what heaven is like. It is not some singular blob that sits there by itself. It is not just some kind of singular oneness which doesn't create or extend. It isn't populated by God alone. It is not devoid of individuality. Nor is it devoid of relationships or free will. It is host to an entire family of unlimited thought-beings, and every part of it is part of God, and part of you, and of your own spirit-children.
"God, who encompasses ALL Being, nevertheless created separate beings who have everything individually"
"Each Soul knows God completely."
"By HIS willingness to share it, He becomes as dependent on you, as you are on HIM."
"God is as dependent on you as you are on Him, because HIS autonomy ENCOMPASSES yours, and is therefore incomplete WITHOUT it."
"TOTALLY dependent on their One Creator for EVERYTHING"
"God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other."
"God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly."
This is why certain other conceptual models of reality are not a good fit. Traditional ideas of oneness don't quite cut it, because they fail to acknowledge that oneness MUST share itself, MUST extend, and MUST be given to create.
Ideas of non-duality don't cut it either, because God is a creator and HAS to create whole expressions of Himself, forming a divine family. He does not will to be alone, or that you be alone, or that you will beings that are alone. All of heaven is about creation and sharing and openness and inter-dependence.
"the whole family of God, or the Sonship"
"the Holy Family"
"If you created GOD and He created you, the KINGDOM could not increase through its OWN creative thought. Creation would therefore be limited, and you would NOT be co-creators WITH God. As God's creative Thought proceeds FROM Him TO you, so must YOUR creative thoughts proceed FROM you to YOUR creations. In this way only can ALL creative power EXTEND OUTWARD. God's accomplishments are NOT yours. But yours are LIKE His. HE created the Sonship, and YOU increase it. You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."
"The Kingdom is forever extending, because it is in the Mind of God."
"Your gifts TO the Kingdom are like His to YOU."
"God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit."
"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."
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father. Know then the Sons of God, and you will know ALL Creation."
"The Kingdom of Heaven IS you."
"You, too, have a Kingdom which your Soul has created."
"I have a kingdom I must rule."
"God HAS kept your kingdom for you"
"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."
"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer."
"The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him."
"His Kingdom has no limits and no end, and there is nothing in Him that is not perfect and eternal."
"For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."
"The inheritance of the Kingdom is the right of God's Son, given him in his creation."
"My Kingdom is not of this world, because it is in YOU. And YOU are of your Father."
"Because you are all the Kingdom of God, I can lead you back to your own creations"
"What God calls one will be forever one, NOT separate. His Kingdom IS united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be."
"The Kingdom of Heaven is the right of the Soul, whose beauty and dignity are beyond doubt, beyond perception, and stand forever as the mark of the love of God for His Creations, who are wholly worthy of Him and ONLY of Him. Nothing else is sufficiently worthy to be a gift for a creation of God Himself."
God established His relationship with you TO MAKE YOU HAPPY, and nothing YOU do which does NOT share His purpose CAN be real. The purpose GOD ascribed to anything IS its only function. Because of HIS reason for creating HIS relationship with you, the function of relationships became forever "to make happy." AND NOTHING ELSE. To fulfill this function, you relate to your creations as GOD to HIS. For nothing God created is APART from happiness, and nothing God created but would EXTEND happiness, as its Creator did. Whatever fulfills this function NOT, CANNOT BE REAL.
In this world, it is impossible to create. Yet it IS possible to make happy. We have said repeatedly that the Holy Spirit would not DEPRIVE you of your special relationships, but would TRANSFORM them. And by that, all that is meant is that He will RESTORE to them the function that was GIVEN them, by God. The function YOU have given them is clearly NOT to make happy. But the holy relationship SHARES God's purpose, rather than aiming to make a SUBSTITUTE for it. Every special relationship that YOU have made IS a substitute for God's Will, and glorifies yours instead of His, BECAUSE OF THE DELUSION THEY ARE DIFFERENT.
You have VERY REAL relationships, even in this world, which you do not recognize, simply because you have raised their SUBSTITUTES to such predominance that, when truth calls to you, as it does constantly, YOU ANSWER WITH A SUBSTITUTE. Every special relationship which you have ever undertaken has, as its fundamental purpose, the aim of occupying your minds so completely that YOU WILL NOT HEAR the call of truth. In a sense, the special relationship was the EGO's answer to the creation of the Holy Spirit, Who was God's Answer to the separation. For, although the ego did not understand WHAT had been created, it WAS aware of threat.
The whole defense system that the ego evolved, to PROTECT the separation from the Holy Spirit, was in response to the Gift with which God blessed it, and BY His blessing enabled it to be HEALED. This Blessing holds, WITHIN ITSELF, the truth about everything. And the truth is that the Holy Spirit IS in close relationship with you, because, in Him, is your relationship with God restored to you. The relationship with Him has never been broken, because the Holy Spirit has not been separate from anyone SINCE the separation. And through Him, have all your holy relationships been carefully preserved, to serve God's purpose FOR you.
The ego IS hyper alert to threat, and the part of your mind into which the ego was accepted is VERY anxious to preserve its reason, AS IT SEES IT. It does NOT realize that it is totally insane. And YOU must realize JUST WHAT THIS MEANS, if YOU would be restored to sanity. The insane PROTECT their thought systems, BUT THEY DO IT INSANELY. And ALL their defenses are AS INSANE AS WHAT THEY ARE SUPPOSED TO PROTECT. The separation has NOTHING in it, no PART, NO 'reason,' and NO attribute, that is NOT insane. And its 'protection' IS part of it, as insane as the whole.
The special relationship, which is its chief defense, MUST therefore be insane. You have but little difficulty now in realizing that the thought-system it protects, is but a system of delusions. You recognize, at least in general terms, that the ego is insane. But the special relationship still seems to you somehow TO BE DIFFERENT. Yet we have looked at it far closer than at many other ASPECTS of the ego's thought-system which you have been more willing to let go. While this ONE remains, you will not LET the others go. FOR THIS ONE IS NOT DIFFERENT. RETAIN this one, and you HAVE retained the whole.
It is essential to realize that ALL defenses DO what they would DEFEND. The underlying basis for their effectiveness is that they OFFER what they defend. What they defend is placed IN them for safe-keeping, and as THEY operate, THEY BRING IT TO YOU. Every defense operates BY GIVING GIFTS, and the gift is ALWAYS a miniature of the thought-system the defense protects, set in a golden frame. The frame is very elaborate, all set with jewels, and deeply carved and polished. Its purpose is to be of value IN ITSELF, and to divert YOUR attention from what it encloses. But the frame WITHOUT the picture, you CANNOT have. Defenses operate TO MAKE YOU THINK YOU CAN.
The special relationship has the most imposing and deceptive frame of all the defenses the ego uses. Its thought-system is offered here, surrounded by a frame so heavy and so elaborate, that the picture is almost obliterated by its imposing structure. Into the frame are woven all sorts of fanciful and fragmented illusions of love, set with dreams of sacrifice and self-aggrandizement, and interlaced with gilded threads of self-destruction. The glitter of blood shines like rubies, and the tears are faceted like diamonds, and gleam in the dim light in which the offering is made.
LOOK AT THE PICTURE. Do NOT let the frame distract you. This gift is given you for your damnation, and if you TAKE it, you WILL believe that you are damned. YOU CANNOT HAVE THE FRAME WITHOUT THE PICTURE. What you VALUE is the FRAME, for THERE you see no conflict. But the frame is only the wrapping for the GIFT of conflict. THE FRAME IS NOT THE GIFT. Be not deceived by the most superficial ASPECTS of this thought-system, for these aspects enclose the whole, complete with EVERY aspect. Death lies in this glittering gift. Let not your gaze dwell on the hypnotic gleaming of the frame. LOOK AT THE PICTURE, and realize that DEATH is offered you.
That is why the holy instant is so important in the defense of truth. The truth itself NEEDS no defense, but YOU DO need defense against your own ACCEPTANCE of the gift of death. When you who ARE truth, accept an idea so DANGEROUS to truth, YOU THREATEN TRUTH WITH DESTRUCTION. And YOUR defense must now be undertaken, TO KEEP TRUTH WHOLE. The power of Heaven, the Love of God, the tears of Christ and the joy of His Eternal Spirit are marshalled to defend you from your own attack. For you attack THEM, being PART of them, and they must SAVE you, for they love themselves.
The Holy instant is a miniature of Heaven, sent you FROM Heaven. It is a picture, too, set in a frame. But if you accept THIS gift, you will NOT see the frame at all, because the gift can only BE accepted through your willingness to focus ALL your attention ON THE PICTURE. The holy instant is a miniature of eternity. It is a picture of timelessness, set in a frame of time. If you focus on the picture, you will realize that it was only the frame that made you THINK it was a picture. WITHOUT the frame, the picture IS SEEN AS WHAT IT REPRESENTS. For, as the whole thought-system of the ego lies in ITS gifts, so the whole of Heaven lies in this instant, borrowed from eternity, and set in time for YOU.
Two gifts are offered you. Each is complete, and cannot be partially accepted. Each is a picture of all that you can have, SEEN VERY DIFFERENTLY. You CANNOT compare their value by comparing a picture to a frame. It MUST be the PICTURES ONLY that you compare, or the comparison is wholly without meaning. Remember that it is the picture that is the gift. And ONLY on this basis are you REALLY free to choose. LOOK AT THE PICTURES. BOTH of them. One is a tiny picture, hard to see at all beneath the heavy shadows of its enormous and disproportionate enclosure. The other is lightly framed, and hung in light, lovely to look upon for what it IS.
You who have tried so hard, and are STILL trying, to fit the better picture into the wrong frame, and so combine what cannot BE combined, accept this and be glad; These pictures are each framed perfectly, for what they represent. One is FRAMED to be out of focus, and NOT seen. The other is framed for perfect clarity. The picture of darkness and of death grows less convincing as you search it out amid its wrappings. As each senseless stone that SEEMS to shine in darkness from the frame is EXPOSED TO LIGHT, it becomes dull and lifeless, and ceases to distract you from the picture. And finally, you look upon the PICTURE ITSELF, seeing at last that, unprotected by its FRAME, it HAS no meaning.
The other picture is lightly framed, for time cannot contain eternity. There is NO distraction here. 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. And each is given its RIGHTFUL place, when both are seen IN RELATION TO EACH OTHER. The dark picture, BROUGHT TO LIGHT, is NOT perceived as fearful. But the fact that IT IS JUST A PICTURE is brought home at last. 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 picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture. As you look on THIS, you realize that IT IS NOT A PICTURE, but a reality. This is no figured REPRESENTATION of a thought-system, but the Thought Itself. What IT represents is THERE. The frame fades gently, and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation, in exchange for your little picture, wholly without value, and entirely deprived of meaning. As God ascends into HIS rightful place and you to yours, you will experience again the MEANING of relationship, and know it to be true.
Let us ascend, in peace together, to the Father, by giving HIM ascendance in our minds. We will gain EVERYTHING by giving HIM the power and the glory, and keeping NO illusions of where they are. They ARE in us, through HIS ascendance. What He has given is HIS. It shines in every part of Him, as in the Whole. The whole reality of your relationship with Him lies in OUR relationship to one another. The holy instant shines alike on ALL relationships, for in it, they ARE one. For here is only healing, ALREADY complete and perfect. For here is God, and where HE is, only the perfect and complete CAN be.