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.
There are a number of aspects to 'being spiritual' that you do not have to TRY to be. And 'trying' actually works against you.
For example, being present. You can try to be in the 'now' all you want but you will continually be pulled back out of it by your unhealed guilt. So you need to heal that guilt and then you will naturally find yourself in the present without effort. Otherwise you'll be one of these people that is just constantly trying to be present all the time and its a great big effort. You can't be present while you're still attached to an unhealed past.
Another example, you do not have to work at being 'more loving'. To be more loving reinforces the idea that you are not loving enough. You don't need to do that. There's a reason why you think you're not loving/loveable enough and its again got to do with unhealed baggage and faulty perspective. Those are blocks to the *awareness* of love's presence, and those blocks need to be healed and undone.
One the shit is undone, then you are naturally left with an awareness of the presence of love - because IT IS ALREADY THERE. It's not something YOU have to put there, or create, because God has already put it there. And also, realize that just because you are not aware of love does not mean it has gone away, it's just covered up. You are already enough love, even if its hidden from you. So stop trying to be loving and let it be.
Similarly there is not much point trying to be spiritual. That doesn't mean of course you don't have a goal of becoming more aware of your pre-existing spiritual nature, it just means you need more acknowledgment of the spirit that you already are, rather than trying to 'spiritualize' yourself - trying to 'make spiritual'.
Trying to make spiritual is what leads to the spiritual ego, because it reinforces the idea that you are not spiritual. If you're not spiritual, you feel compelled to have to add more spirit. You don't need any more spirit. You ARE spirit. You just need to work on becoming aware of your pre-existing spirit. There's plenty of it already. Don't become more spiritual, because it also makes you un-spiritual, in denial of your existing nature. There's a difference.
This is why the Course doesn't try to teach the meaning of love, but only how to remove the obstacles that make you believe it is not here, or that you are not it. These are all MISTAKES, because a) you are already 100% love, b) you are already 100% spiritual, and c) you are already 100% perfect in God. So you don't need to 'be perfected' or 'become'. You only need to cease the crap that blocks and prevents you from ACKNOWLEDGING what you really are already.
This is all very different than 'adding more' to yourself, or 'attaining' or 'building up' or 'becoming more'. All of those are driven by the ego's idea that you came into existence from some kind of EMPTY VOID, in which you are completely at a loss for love - God having left you in the dirt - so now you have nothing, so now you have to be super-compelled to go seeking for it (where you won't find it). You seek everywhere other than to acknowledge that it was always where God put it, because separation from it has NOT happened. Separation from YOURSELF has not happened, and you are love already. Perfect love. So you have to question the emptiness, it's an ego construct to try to deny that you're already and still as God created you.
So stop the fucking effort of trying to become a better person or better behavior or more spiritual or more loving bla bla bla... you don't need to. And you won't. The more you try to do that the more you will come up empty handed AND create a bunch of bullshit reinforcement in your mind that you're still not good enough. And then you'll be a perfectionist that never is good enough, because you're not willing to UN-DO the false belief that there's not enough love in you already. The idea that you're not already perfectly okay with God is a complete pile of crap.
You're already enough. And you're already you. And God already loves you.
Your natural condition is that you are a powerful, loving, mind-causal, capable, miraculous being, who can do literally anything.
"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."
"There is no order of difficulty in miracles."
That "nothing" is utterly literal and all encompassing. Anything you can possibly imagine you can do, no matter how radical.
When there are blocks to awareness, these blocks are blocks to this natural ability. It is a block to love, a block to power, a block to will. A block to awareness is a form of denial, which is part of a split mind. And a split mind is willing against itself, which cancels out the power of the will because it's now a divided will, working against itself instead of being undivided and unopposed and powerfully causal.
There is a lot of emphasis in ACIM on removing these blocks. In fact, most of the course is aiming towards the removal of the blocks rather than the "teaching of the meaning of love" which it says is impossible. "Love goes out because of what it is, but you are needed that it can begin" speaks to how you need to give back your willingness to love so that you aren't blocking it, but the love and power in you naturally EXPRESSES when it is unblocked.
The thing is, a vast majority of course folk see this emphasis on block removal and think it is the entire course. To the point where they are constantly focusing on "shifting perception", undoing their false beliefs, stopping judgements, etc to try to heal their minds. Which is valid, and we are supposed to be doing that. But the emphasis on this process, which is "the work" that needs to be done one way or another using whatever process, the REASON for doing this work starts to become eclipsed and forgotten and denied.
What happens when the blocks are removed, is that the flood gates are opened and the power of God starts to stream out. The will becomes unopposed, whole and powerful. Thought begins to express causally with the power to make things happen. The blocks are literally like resistances to allowing the power to come out. They are a reluctance to EXPRESS love. When the blocks are removed you NATURALLY become more loving. The lovingness and power are already there underneath or behind the blocks. When the blocks go, the love expresses and you get back in touch with being miraculous, powerful and capable. Capable of moving mountains with your mind.
"Miracles are natural and should be happening all the time. When they don't, something has gone wrong" (awareness is blocked).
"Miracles are everyone's right but purification is necessary first" (block removal - purification - must be done first in order to REVEAL the miracle working power).
So there are really two parts to this. You first remove the blocks by doing "work" (purification)and THEN when the mind is free enough the light is free to shine. The Holy Spirit can extend through the body. Mind can extend to and join with other minds. Separation can be undone and erased. And it is this EXPRESSING (all expressions of love are miraculous) that a vast majority of ACIM students are missing, ignoring, hiding from, even not wanting.
It has resulted in a widespread belief that all you have to do is basically do this work, undo the blocks, and then sit on a cloud in a state of happiness and peace DOING NOTHING. NOT EXPRESSING. NOT BEING MIRACULOUS. It's a very "safe", self-help-ish way of going about it. People think you just need to get rid of these false beliefs and attain a STATE of mind in which you will dwell with no further need to do anything. This state of mind is "miracle mindedness". Right mindedness, true perception, atonement etc. And the course very much DOES focus on attaining that state. And you could say it's a state of acceptance.
But the part that a lot of people are missing, afraid of, avoiding, in denial of etc, is the EXPRESSING. The stuff that happens when the blocks are gone. The fact that you become part of the atonement plan and perform miracles all the time every day. The fact that you now regain the power of the mind and will OVER the body and the world. The fact that you can now move mountains, heal the sick and raise the dead. That you can DO ANYTHING. Even things which BREAK the laws of physics.
"Miracles break all the laws of this world." "What the holy spirit allows you to do is clearly not of this world." "You cannot see the Holy Spirit but you can see his manifestations." "Your mind has the power to make worlds."
This is the aspect which I find very commonly LACKING in a vast majority of teachings and interpretations, especially those that focus on "accepting the world" or "accepting what's happening".
The "going within" and "doing nothing" becomes a trap, which completely ignores the outward expression, miraculous power, ability to heal others, the performing of miracles etc. I just don't see enough people talking about this part of it. The whole REASON for doing "the work" AT ALL is to get the blocks out of the way so that you can perform miracles all over the place! It's not just about you and about your ego becoming peaceful.
It's almost as if people think they have this state of "peaceful non-activity" lurking buried underneath a stockpile of ego stuff, and all you need to do is uncover it and then settle into this peaceful, non-expressive state, where you dwell forever. This is a complete failure to recognize the real NATURE of that peaceful state, the fact that it entails the POWER OF GOD, the fact that it EXTENDS naturally, the fact that it goes out and expresses and HEALS, and the fact that you naturally WANT to share it with everyone and help them to experience this natural state as well. THAT is what the Great Crusade is about.
"The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything TO you. (That is, to restore the awareness. Later clarification.) You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did." (your natural state isn't just peace and non-action, it's having everything and being able to do everything)
"Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself." (you accept the atonement NOT to ignore everyone, but to become PART OF A LARGER PLAN TO HELP OTHER INDIVIDUALS).
"You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself ***and in everyone else***, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO." (this is not voluntary, Jesus says you MUST help others)
"This means: Listen to MY Voice, Learn to undo the error, and DO something to correct it. The first two are not enough. The real members of MY party are ACTIVE workers." (It is not ENOUGH to not "do something"! You must ACT in the world).
I cannot comment on whether particular teachers are doing this or not. Maybe some teachers are in support of this also but often it sounds not to be the case. Many avoid the supernatural aspect of the course. There is a lot of fear surrounding the power of the mind.
"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it. People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them. "
I just want to make sure we're not JUST focusing on purification/work, we're also clearly focused on what is NATURAL to us, the expression of the power of love and the willingness to help others. It's not just about attaining miracle mindedness, it's about MIRACLE WORKING. And you don't even BEGIN to perform miracles until AFTER a large amount of blocks to awareness have already been removed. Until love can express, you are not miraculous. But when the blocks are gone, you ARE miraculous. And now you can be OF SERVICE TO OTHERS.
"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer."
Whenever you are presented with a choice in this world, you'll find it always entails an impossible situation. It's not "you" that is making choices difficult, it is the nature of the world.
"It is the world you see that is impossible."
Option A will offer something which seems to be mostly what you want, but it will lack something.
Option B may have what the other lacks, and offer something it doesn't have.
But in all cases, you will never find two choices which offer exactly everything. Or even one.
This fundamentally makes for an impossible situation, in which you are torn. You cannot feel a sense of total certainty regardless of which one you choose.
If you choose A, you know you'll be missing out on something. If you choose B, you know you'll be missing out on something.
The thing is, with our egos, we actually believe that there is a "perfect choice" in this world. That its possible to find the exact perfect something, be it an item you're buying, or a person to relate with, or a place to hang out, or a tv show to watch, or whatever.
But there is nothing perfect in this world. This world is based on separation, which requires that nothing be whole, nothing be perfect, and everything be only partially anything.
Often then you'll find that if you are seeking the perfect choice, you will feel flrustrated, uncertain, doubtful, mis-trusting, not sure whether to go with this or that.
Option A seems to tantilize you with its offferings, but you know it's flawed. And option B seems to offer something of its own. Even if you have both, they still would lack something. But you can't decide, because neither of them seems to "do it all".
Sometimes, depending on if you lower your standards, or are open to compromise, or don't mind some shortcomings, or can live with the absence of certain features etc, you'll allow yourself to use this adjustment of attitude as a way to "settle" for one of the options. And you might talk yourself into that being satisfactory. Even though you know deep down it is less than ideal.
This in a way seems to give you a sense of less stress or more sanity, but it's only an illusion. Settling for the fact that the situation is an impossible choice, and then trying to justify why its okay that it's impossible, and settling for a compromise, is not really attaining perfection. So you make do.
And so once again, the world comes up short, and it offers you less than what you want, and it can never please you fully, never totally satisfy you, and is always disappointing.
"All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives."
Looking at this clearly, you can recognize that any choice to be made between illusions, will always be fundamentally impossible, incomplete and less than ideal. If you seek for the ideal you will be disappointed and lost and frustrated and disillusioned.
If you can accept that the world is fundamentally flawed and you cannot have everything here, accepting the fact that every option is less than whole, less than total life, and thus an idea of death, maybe you can choose on a more practical basis and just go with the devil you know, or the lesser of two evils.
There is no perfect choice in the world because the world was made in an effort to reject perfection and to offer no real choice. It is an assertion that you have no choice, that death is inevitable, and there is no alternative.
But there is a real choice. There is a perfect choice. That is, to choose NOT this world, and to instead choose the TRUE perfection of the Kingdom. God's world is the only world that offers you a total lack of compromise, total satisfaction, complete wholeness and perfect completion. There is no lack or frustration or impossibility or pointlessness in its offering.
To choose God again is to make a choice FOR perfection, which is a perfect choice. And it is the only choice that is perfect, when made. All other choosing is imperfect and unholy. And only a choice for holiness can bring you what you want.
"This world holds nothing that I want."
"It takes great learning to both recognize and accept that this world has nothing to give."
I don't want to let go of attachments because I don't trust that everything will be okay unless I am in control.
Holy Spirit is asking us to be set free (!) of the need to have outcomes be controlled, or follow what we think is in our best interests. We want to be in the drivers seat with our ego, directing things and enforcing things, trying to resist what IS and instead enforce what we THINK things should be.
This is all about ego control and manipulation. I want to control so that I can seem to 'make happen' a particular situation. I don't trust that things will be okay unless I don't do this. I do this because I've become convinced that I NEED the situation to be this way. I think I have this need because I've got some kind of funky ego belief telling me that if things AREN'T this way then I will not be happy, or getting what I want or need. ie I'm going to lose or have lack or have something taken away if I don't make things be a certain way.
So this really boils down to fear, not feeling safe, and the belief that we need to put up defenses against what's happening in order to protect ourselves from attack. The trouble is that these very mechanisms, which are mechanisms of control and resistance, are the very things which CREATE a belief in attack because they ARE an attack.
Each time you create an expectation, or invest into attaining a particular outcome, you are setting yourself up for failure. There's a good chance events are not going to go the way you expect them to, and when that happens you will react unhappily. There is also a chance things will go the way you want, which is the ego's carrot on a stick, and then you think you have somehow 'won' the prize of getting away with murder. But its a gamble that you will likely at some point lose.
These investments into NEEDING things to be a certain way, to fulfill some kind of strange belief that 'then I will be happy' or 'I can't be happy when things aren't the way I want them to be', 'attach' us to these outcomes. We're pinning our hopes on them. We're depending on them. We're relying on things going the way we want and build up all this fear and anticipation about it turning out.
This 'attaches' our mind to these outcomes because if we DEPEND on these outcomes/events/people for happiness then we're HOLDING ONTO the ego's false promise or fantasy that GETTING this outcome will bring you salvation. Salvation will free you from whatever supposed 'need' you think you have and deliver you from the 'suffering' that you think you will experience, or maybe even do experience, when outcomes aren't the way you want them to be.
So really this is all about looking for salvation in the wrong place. Putting our faith into being CAUSED to be happy when certain things happen or certain events line up in a certain way. We're depending on EXTERNAL stuff to change what our experience is, and are relying on someone or something else to happen TO us to indirectly CHANGE us into the desirable state we're trying to achieve. This indirectness is passive and is also the role of the victim, in which you are sometimes at risk of attack and sometimes at risk of reward, and are gambling that if you steer things toward reward then you can avoid attack. But both are depending on the ego and both depend on external, separate things, to come along and affect you in a preferable way.
You can only be affected by things if you are not being responsible for yourself. You can only be changed by external things if you are not being who you really are. You can only have your happiness affected positively or negatively by outside influences if you are not aware that Joy is within you and comes from God and can never be removed. And you will only seek and not find salvation in these external outcomes if you are not finding contentment and needlessness within yourself. You will keep seeking (attaching to/depending upon) and not finding (losing/suffering) while you believe that you have a real need that is unfulfilled and that needs to or can be fulfilled (finding salvation) by some external, separate source beyond your control. And so then your attempt to control is an attempt to control what is beyond your control, to try to coerce it into becoming what you want (your savior).
So it really all comes back to whether you believe that you don't have God. Or that you are not as God created you. Or that you're lacking or failing in some way or have an absence of sustenance from God. If you're `in need` then you will seek and you will project and you will seek for false idols and you will attach yourself and become DEPENDENT UPON external stuff. This dependency is a form of slavery and is a form of losing yourself or 'transferring' yourself into the external thing. And this BINDS you to the ego's `level 1` world of duality and suffering. It binds you to the physical form and it binds you to a separate existence. All of your external dependencies and false needs keep you weighed down in the quagmire of darkness in the ego's world, and prevent you from staying squarely in the Holy Spirit.
So we need to let go of mentally and emotionally depending on anything other than God, essentially. Depending on God means looking to God for fulfillment and happiness and meeting all needs and TRUSTING that you will be taken care of if you let go of trying to care of everything yourself. But it does involve a surrender. You have to let go of your tight grip of fear that says... I won't fully let go because if I do, shit is going to happen that I don't want... which really means, shit will happen that does not align with your ego's plans for what IT thinks will bring you salvation, which is GROSSLY MISTAKEN and actually leading you into suffering. Holy Spirit's plan is better ;-)
So it's really about learning to trust Holy Spirit, to develop a trust that you CAN and should let go and allow and accept in order to RECEIVE LOVE and SUPPORT and HOLY HELP, and that it is SAFE to do so, and that it does not mean horrible suffering will follow. Going from fearfully holding on to surrendering and letting go takes a bit of a leap of faith. But once you've taken it, you'll let God be on your side. And you have mighty companions.
When I came to A Course in Miracles, it was largely based on "non-duality" teachings from certain ACIM teachers.
The books spoke of the world as being a shitty place, a hell hole, psycho planet, a world of death and suffering, spinning its wheels and going nowhere. A world which you would not want and should want to leave behind. This seemed to provide a kind of motivation to want to escape it.
The solution that was presented then was a form of forgiveness which largely entailed maintaining the view that the world sucked, but realizing that it was not real. That it was just a dream. This formed a picture where, you're in the world, dreaming of the world, the world STILL sucks, but you recognize it's not real. There was nothing positive about this, it was a very clinical view.
More importantly, in this view there was NEVER a single mention of the "real world". There was no mention of saving the world, the great crusade, being a miracle worker, performing miracles to help others, healing others, healing bodies, or anything else which could be construed as "making the world better".
It was kind of an attitude of, the world is hell, so let's jump straight out of hell into heaven. And that the way we do this is by remembering it's a dream of hell, will always be hell, and once you can just "not believe it" you'll be saved. This basically reinforces a view that the world still is hell, it can only ever be hell, and there is no point or way to actually come to love or forgive the world. It was more like a message of, the world it shit, let's escape it.
In fact part of what made those books popular was the self-proclaimed "brutal honesty" about the world, which acted to judge it harshly and point out its flaws. This was supposedly a refreshing honesty but at the same time portrayed the world as only CAPABLE of being a negative place. And that therefore you had to do what you could, psychologically, to try not to be affected by it, by remembering it's just a dream of death.
The problem as I see it now, is that this model was largely fostered by the non-duality conceptualization of the course, which is deeply flawed. That is, this idea that there's either heaven as the only reality, or earth as the opposite ie hell. And nothing in between. Either duality, or pure non-duality. Either you're in the shit world, or you're in God's arms. But that's a major issue, because it COMPLETELY ignores a vast majority of what ACIM actually teaches.
In particular, there is absolutely no mention made of the real world. There is no presentation of the idea that the Holy Spirit has MADE an alternative dream world which is seen through the eyes of Christ, is a forgiven world, has no sin or guilt in it, and is not seen as hell. It's true also that the real world does not contain bodies, since it transcends forms. And it's also true that we're supposed to be learning to SEE the real world, by learning to LOVE the world.
If you were to try to present the idea of loving the world to the non-duality folks, they would run the other way. It's incompatible with the cold, clinical view of the course's structures, which attempt to maintain that the world is hell at all costs - kind of a form of false forgiveness really in which the world is made real and then you try to forgive it. If we BYPASS the real world, as a VITAL stepping stone on our way to awakening, we're NOT really getting the course's message.
The course isn't asking us to love hell. It's not saying hey, this world has ONE form, one nature, and you need to learn to love it. Rather, it's saying that, the world of form seems like hell because of HOW you are looking at it, and WHO you are looking at it with. Which yes btw means a HUGE emphasis on looking WITH the holy spirit, with christ vision, which was more or less obliterated from these teachings about non-duality (because certain teachers do no like the idea of the Holy Spirit having anything to do with this).
It is telling us that the reason you see bodies, forms, objects, planets, is because this is how the BODY was made to see, and it can ONLY see falsely. Everything it sees is a false INTERPRETATION of the world ladened with sin and guilt. It's not capable of seeing the world as it is. The body can never see the real world. But that does not mean you should not attempt to see the real world. In fact, this is what the ENTIRE course is aimed towards.
You are meant to awaken another form of vision - the spiritual eye, which does not use the body's eyes, and sees BEYOND what the physical sees, so that you are not really looking at or distracted by forms, bodies, appearances of sickness and death, etc. You temporarily use the body to allow you to interact with "the world", but "the world" as you have known it is actually a combination of a neutral world + false perceptions. And without the false perceptions, the neutral world becomes the FORGIVEN world - the real world. And this real world is beautiful, lovely, forgiving, shining and sparkling like new, innocent and free from all sense of sin and guilt. You are meant to be learning to SEE THAT in place of the physical separations of form. An underlying, transcendental unity BEHIND all forms.
And when you do this, instead of seeing "the world is a shit hole", which focuses on the closed box of being blinded by sight of form, you start to see a "world" beyond the physical, a canvas of love, which IS LOVABLE, and which God loves, and which the Holy Spirit sees as the face of Christ. This is a VITAL step in the course. Becoming able to see that happier dream. The happy dream is the forgiven world. A reinterpreted world, reinterpreted by the Holy Spirit, where sin and guilt and fear no longer exist and where you have forgiven yourself and everyone. ie not simply a "hell recognized as a dream" world, but a world which is practically almost the same thing as HEAVEN, because you see PAST its illusory forms and separations.
I was fooled by this omission. I bought into it totally, that yes it's true, the world of bodies is a world of sin and death and suffering and victims and war and murder. As Jesus himself even tells us in the course, THAT world IS a cruel world, a world God did not create, a world opposite in its nature to heaven, basically hell on earth. A nightmare world. That IS what you see when you have NOT forgiven. The UNFORGIVEN world. That's the hell you'll see when your mind has sin and guilt in it. That's NOT the world you'll see when your mind has forgiven itself. Because it will now look within, see love, and extend love TO the world, seeing love IN IT.
This is why we're supposed to learn to see God in the world. Not to see God equated at the same level as forms and physicality, but to see that God is "in" or rather BEHIND or UNDERLYING the illusions of forms and objects. That this "Real world" is there, a world of love, which can be seen INSTEAD of the world of bodies. This is what the whole teaching about "you cannot see both worlds" is about. "Beyond this world there is a world I want" speaks to this also - there is a "real world" that you should WANT TO LOVE (not heaven), which is hidden behind the illusion of form. And developing "vision", the entire function of the workbook, is what allows you to see it.
So if someone had told me years ago, hey, the world you see seems like hell but only because you have sin in your mind, and when you remove the sin in your mind you'll see PAST the world and see a world that you can love and forgive.... that would've painted a very different picture, and would've set things up quite differently to come to different conclusions about the world. It would've changed my attitude, and I would've have become so negative about the world's faults.
We are to learn to forgive and love the world FIRST, to approach the happy dream of the holy spirit's christ vision, which looks upon OUR wold WITH forgiveness to show us an underlying love that we didn't see before, in it... and THEN transition to heaven. We can't get there by making the world's sinfulness real to ourselves and to then attempt to forgive it. This is exactly what we do in false perception - body perception. There is another way of looking at the world, this is a VITAL piece of information. And it means you no longer have to hate the world or think of it as "inherently hell."
Change your mind about what you want to see IN the world, and it's transform into a reflection of heaven. Not physically as such, because the physicality ONLY exists in FALSE perception, but psychologically and perceptually you'll see the truth.
"Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see now. Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you will love them, even though they were made of hate. For you will not be making them alone."
"The world you see (with false perception) cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the (real) world."
"God's Word has promised that peace is possible here, and what He promises can hardly be impossible."
"But it is true that the world must be looked at differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this."
"God's Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right? For one of you is wrong. It must be so."
"Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped!"
"It is not the world (as neutral) that makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see (in false perception of the neutral world) that is impossible. Yet has God's Judgment on this distorted (false) world redeemed it (neutral world seen with true perception) and made it fit to welcome peace. And peace descends on it in joyous answer"
"Knowledge (flipping to a non-duality level 1 viewpoint) is not the remedy for false perception since, being another level, they can never meet. The one correction possible for false perception must be true perception (a third state which we should focus on attaining first). It will not endure. But for the time it lasts it comes to heal. For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to oneness far beyond themselves. True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees."
"To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself, is thus the way to remember God."
"To HAVE, GIVE all TO all."
This is hard for an ego-identified person to understand. It sounds backwards. It's saying that if you want to have anything, you have to give it someone else. We are not used to functioning this way. It seems counter intuitive, to give to someone ELSE what YOU want. We are used to trying to have stuff by getting it, or taking it away from another, and excluding them from it. We think we should receive first, in order to be able to give.
The natural functioning of mind, per God's law, however, is the opposite. Since we all share everything, you have to actually give what you want to someone else, so that they are included in it along with it. In order to have anything, everyone must receive it. The direction of this acquisition therefore seems to be outward, in that you seem to "give away" the very thing you want to receive. And the ego would interpret this as loss and sacrifice.
If you are ego identified, you are probably used to applying forgiveness for "self benefit". Whether you see it as forgiving yourself or others, you are doing it to improve your own situation. You take your projections away from others, and work on your internal stuff, and accept atonement for yourself. But this all revolves around you as a separate ego. It's really a selfish and isolated way of doing the course.
What Jesus is telling us is that true forgiveness entails the forgiving of your brother and yourself, AS yourself, not simply that your separate self takes YOUR accusations away from him, but that your forgiveness undoes BOTH his accusations and yours. That your healing and his healing are supposed to occur together. That you forgive him FOR him, bringing light and love to his mind, as the only real way that your own mind can be restored to health.
"My forgiveness is the means by which the world is healed, together with myself. Let me, then, forgive the world that it may be healed along with me."
"And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, or who cross your mind, or whom you touch, or those who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you."
This is because you are one with your brother, a part of you is in him and so it seems like you have to give love to the part of you that seems "outside of you", in order for what's inside of you to be included in healing. And in the extreme you can't really attain a state of love that's exclusive, it has to include everyone in it and you have to be joined in mind with everyone. That means you are giving love to everyone as much as you are giving it to yourself.
Jesus is basically saying, how your mind expresses toward others, lines up with how it expresses toward itself. If you want to BE healed, you have to GIVE healing to another. We're used to thinking that our mind lives separately inside our body, and no part of us is in other people. But in truth your mind spans beyond bodies and includes your brother.
"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."
So the truth is your mind is shared with and is in your brother, as much as it seems to be in you. And it's really your ego that is the idea of being a separated-off exclusive isolated self, stuck in a body. Forgiveness can't apply ONLY to this "separate you", it has to span bodies and apply to others as well.
To love your neighbor as yourself means you recognize that you are the whole sonship, and your brother is the whole sonship, and everyone contains everyone, and you therefore have to love everyone as if they are everyone, in order for you as everyone to be loved.
In a sense, we're actually used to "doing the course" for a somewhat selfish motive, based on a selfish view of ourselves, seeing ourselves as separate people with a separate ego in a separate body. We see forgiveness as a means to "get more for ourselves". As a way of attaining some higher "stuff" for ourselves. We think that to forgive, we have to withdraw OUR ego projection and work on our inner content. As if this inner content exists solely inside the boundaries of our bodies. But in truth you are everywhere and in everyone.
If I am isolating myself off as a separate self, or ego-identified, thinking of myself as "not others", I will try to apply the whole course to my separate self. And I will expect to receive the benefits separately. And this will mean I am not including my brother in what I receive, and am excluding them from being part of myself. That means I literally am only feeding one half of myself, and am depriving the part of me what is in them.
So the only way to truly fully "receive all", is to "give all" to all, ie everyone. To truly give it to myself, I have to give it to them, because they are part of me. Nor does this mean giving ONLY to them, whereby I become excluded, or where I am unwilling to receive. Because now the ego twists it backward into a state of sacrifice and self-deprivation. To be "selfless" in this sense, where I'm not included in the receipt, is really sacrificial.
Ultimately, giving and receiving are ONE. Which means if I want to receive love, I have to also give love. Giving is the part of the mechanism of sharing, that gives to the part of myself that seems to be my "separate brothers". In truth we are not even really separate at all, but through a separation lens it appears that way.
True giving is sharing inclusively. If I want to have anything, I have to share it, because nothing is for me alone. Everything God gives is for everyone and belongs to everyone. I can have all of the gifts of God, IF I am also willing to share it with my brothers. Which means a willingness to do what we call "giving it" to them. Giving and receiving are two ASPECTS of the same one thing. The part that seems to come to me I call receiving, and the part that shares with others I call giving. Yet to give to another IS to give to myself. It kind of goes out and comes right back.
Love purely gives, because it has to go out, because it is unlimited. It has to be shared. God purely gives, and does not take. He doesn't need to take (away) because his total giving gives everything to himself, and he is included in what is given and received.
As I give God to another, as I resurrect, as I shine my light into another's mind, as I uplift and empower, I am doing this TO MYSELF as well. And I can't do this ONLY to myself at the EXCLUSION of another. I can't have the receiving of shared gifts come ONLY to me, so that only I have it and no-one else has it. That's been the ego's approach - the approach of me seeing myself a a separate self - all along.
It's kind of like the pay-it-forward thing. God gives you all of himself in your creation, and you inherit ie receive everything from him. But by giving it, God also has it to give. And so for you to have it as well, you have to share it with him. You can't have it exclusively, because it is his, and thus it is yours also. And in order to have it, you cannot hold onto it exclusively, you have to give it, by using your inheritance to create, to bestow on your creations the same gifts God gave you. You have to give what you have been given because it was given so that it could BE given.
"The gifts you have are not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make, in which to hide from God."
So now to function correctly, for your mind to be healed and natural, it has to be part of this creative flow. Of giving what is received, and receiving all from God, and having no lack or need, and therefore no need to get or take, and therefore to give everything away to others, so that you share it all, so that you can share IN it all, and thus have it all. It's all about total inclusion.
You AND your brother need healing. You AND your brother must receive your love. You AND your brother need to be reminded of their innocence. You AND your brother are healed together. This is the shift from "I'm doing this course for myself" to "I am doing this course for US". From "I am healing myself" to "I am healing US". From "I will give to myself and thus receive" to "I will give to US and WE will receive together."
All this time we've been trying to do the course "alone" and "for me." It's time that we need to open up and join and realize that the only way forward, to take it to the next level, is to do it for US. To share it and to give it to your brother, SO THAT you can share in it and have it. This means you are now a minister, healer, teacher, guide and giver of life.
You must give life to have life. And you must resurrect BOTH yourself and others, if you are to receive atonement. If you want to be loved, you're going to HAVE TO give love to others. This is part of your natural function. "Your function on earth is healing." To give healing is to receive healing. You will BE healed as you let the Holy Spirit teach you HOW to heal others. "The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT."
"When I am healed I am not healed alone.
And I would share my healing with the world,
That sickness may be banished from the mind
Of God's One Son, Who is my only Self."
"It is impossible that anyone be healed alone. In sickness must he be apart and separate. But healing is his own decision to be one again, and to accept his Self with all its parts intact and unassailed."
"God gives and does not ask for recompense. There is no giving but to give like Him." ... "God GIVES; He does NOT take."
"A miracle is a reversal of the physical order because it brings more love to the giver AND the receiver."
"A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."
"You understand that you are healed when you give healing. You accept forgiveness as accomplished in yourself when you forgive. You recognize your brother as yourself, and thus do you perceive that you are whole. There is no miracle you cannot give, for all are given you. Receive them now by opening the storehouse of your mind where they are laid, and giving them away."
"And you MUST see your brother as yourself. Framed in his body you will see YOUR sinfulness, wherein YOU stand condemned. Set in his holiness, the Christ in him proclaims HIMSELF as you."
"It is no dream to love your brother as yourself."
"When you have seen your brothers as yourself, you will be RELEASED to knowledge, having learned to FREE yourself, of Him who knows of freedom." "And God created it for YOU. Look at your holy brother, sinless as yourself, and let him LEAD you there."
"Faith is the acknowledgment of UNION. It is the gracious acknowledgment of everyone as a Son of your most loving Father, loved by Him like you, and therefore loved by you as yourself."
"For sin would keep you separate, but your Redeemer would have you look upon each other as yourself."
"Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer HIMSELF. Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love. And to give a brother what he REALLY wants, is to offer it unto yourself. For your Father wills you to know your brother AS yourself. Answer HIS call for love, and YOURS is answered. Healing is the love of Christ for His Father, and for HIMSELF."
"I will be healed as I let him teach me to heal."
"Your function here on earth is only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your identity. He is as God created him. And you are what he is. Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him."
"Every altar to God is part of your Soul, because the Light He created is One with Him. Would you cut a brother off from the Light that is yours? You could not do so, if you realized that YOU CAN ONLY DARKEN YOUR OWN MIND. As you bring HIM back, so will YOUR mind return. That is the law of God, for the protection of the wholeness of His Son."
"Your brother's holiness shows you that God is One with him AND you; that what he has is yours BECAUSE you are not separate from him OR from his Father."
"For you dwell in the Mind of God WITH your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone."
"Join not your brother's dream, but join with HIM, and where you join His Son, the Father IS."
"A Miracle makes souls one in God"
"The present offers you your brothers in the light that would unite you WITH them, and free YOU from the past"
"Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their oneness, and become glad."
"To learn that giving and receiving are the same has special usefulness, because it can be tried so easily and seen as true."
"Peace to my brother, who is one with me."
"Salvation is a better gift than this, and true forgiveness, as the means by which it is attained, must heal the mind that gives, for giving is receiving. What remains as unreceived has not been given, but what has been given must have been received."
"Here are both giving and receiving seen as different aspects of one Thought Whose truth does not depend on which is seen as first, nor which appears to be in second place. Here it is understood that both occur together, that the Thought remains complete."
"Father, I must return Your Love for me. For giving and receiving are the same, and You have given all Your Love to me. I must return It, for I want It mine in full awareness, blazing in my mind, and keeping it within Its kindly light, inviolate, beloved, with fear behind and only peace ahead."
"The unforgiving mind does not believe that giving and receiving are the same." ... "In the teaching-learning situation, each one learns that giving and receiving are the same."
"Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."
"Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health."
"Accept him as his Father accepts him, and heal him unto Christ, for Christ is his healing AND YOURS."
"And not one sin you see in him but keeps you BOTH in hell. Yet will his perfect sinlessness RELEASE you both, for holiness is quite impartial, with one judgment made for all it looks upon."
"Look on your brother, and see in him the gift of God you would RECEIVE." "He is as free from this as you are, and in the freedom that you see in HIM, you see your own."
This will be a touchy and controversial subject. But we need to be more honest about death and what exactly is going on when spiritual people keep getting sick.
When someone's body dies, and when people have believed that the body IS the person through body-identification, there is a sense of loss. And this makes sense.
Something "real" seems to have been destroyed. If this were true, it SHOULD induce grief. If a real being has ended, it is definitely grounds for grief. This perceived "real death" can induce horrifyingly intense feelings of loss, massive waves of grieving and anger and hurt and loneliness etc.
All of those experiences and feelings can be extremely difficult to go through. Pangs of grief that come out of nowhere. Constant floods of emotions causing huge amounts of crying. A sense of missing and longing, an unfairness, and a justified anger. All of this accompanies the belief that something real has died.
Because of this, it then becomes very difficult to say ANYTHING about death, about what the person chose, about how the sickness came about, or to QUESTION in any way whether the person themselves had something to do with it. To even suggest that someone wanted to die, caused it to happen, chose it, or used it on purpose, seems like a horrible slander against the central character in the dying.
Indeed, when some body person dies, the dying, as the ego interprets it, appears to be the loss of an innocent victim. Ego beliefs tell you that they did not ask for this, they could not stop it, they did not want it, it could not be avoided, it happened unfairly, it victimized them, the person suffered greatly, it was horrible to watch, it was so sad and such a loss, etc. All of this appears to be true when a person is regarded as a body.
In light of this, when we are framing a person as the face of innocence, an innocent helpless victim of death "happening to them" or of diseases being "acquired" from the world, or the environment hurting someone etc, we make it look like the person is "untouchable" in their innocence. We start talking about them as if they were an angel. We go into a total denial of anything they seemed to do wrong. And no-one then dares to say a single word which might imply the person was anything OTHER than absolutely pure and perfect.
As a result of this behavior and this "falling for" the APPEARANCE that the person died against their will, death itself becomes protected. It becomes shielded by a facade of innocence and victimhood, helplessness and powerlessness. As if the person couldn't lift a single finger to influence anything that happened, and as a result was completely unfairly ripped away by forces beyond their control.
Death itself benefits from this view. By framing "dyers" as innocent victims, it puts up a powerful shield of denial, which seems impenetrable. And because it is framed as innocence, everyone suddenly is watchful of anyone even remotely suggesting that the person was "not innocent" in any way. There is a protectiveness that suddenly comes over people, which then justifies immense anger and projection, if anyone should dare to even HINT at the idea that the death was not how it appeared to be. As if death is an innocent baby that no-one can touch with a bargepole.
To even then question death at all, to suggest a person might've chosen it, that they caused it, or wanted it, or made it happen, or used it to try to kill the Son of God, would be considered a kind of blasphemy. And anyone who speaks out against death then is considered some kind of horrible insensitive accuser, victimizer and attacker, who has come to trample on the very carefully laid picture-frame of death-encrusted jewels that surrounds the tomb. To question death then seems completely off-topic, inappropriate, un-asked for, unwanted, and an act of war. How dare you suggest death is a lie or that all death is suicide?
By doing do, we never really get to question death itself. We keep hiding it behind this shield of illusions. We keep framing people as innocent victims who never wanted what happened. We keep denying that anyone ever chose any of it. And all that revolves around false perceptions, perceptions of a person AS a body, and AS a victim of the world.
It is a fact, however, that A Course in Miracles takes a radically OPPOSITE view of death than this. A view which would actually reveal a lot of activities taking place by the egos of not only those who die, but by those who mourn for them also. Those who are in grief and loss, as horrible as those experiences may be, are revealed to nevertheless be mistaken. Jesus even goes so far as to quite blatantly point out that those who attend funerals and who grieve over dead bodies, are completely going against God's will. He basically calls them death-worshippers.
"But what of those whose dedication it is NOT to live? The black-draped "sinners," the ego's mournful chorus, plodding so heavily AWAY from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death."
"One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin NOR its result. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, ***Whose Will it is they LIVE. They are not FOLLOWING it; they are OPPOSING it.*** And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body THEY dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, OFFERED to sin to feed upon, and keep ITSELF alive. A thing condemned, ***damned by its maker***, and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself."
So the way Jesus describes this is that, those who die, AND those who react to the death on the basis of body-identification and ego loss and "something real died", which is a mistaken perception, are death worshippers. They are people who are themselves dead. The walking psychologically dead, who are actually worshippers of death and sickness, who make bodies real, who react to body deaths in horror, but whose egos are secretly celebrating the proof that yet another Son of God has been slain.
These truths are underneath the grief and the loss and the horrible aftershocks of "someone dying", and as such remain buried in the minds of most people. These truths are so opposite to "how terrible it is that someone died" attitudes that it would embarrass and likely induce guilt in someone to whom it were revealed. And that's because people who are circling around death like vultures are trying to perpetuate death and keep it going.
Jesus is very clear in A Course in Miracles that this is a course in life, in living, in resurrection, and in the surmounting of death. We are being asked to "swear not to die", and to be so committed to the goal of LIFE, that we completely blot out and make death IMPOSSIBLE. Even that our bodies should enter a state of completely healthy functioning, not merely devoid of sickness but actually INCAPABLE of becoming sick or dead. Where they are locked into health because the mind is healed.
Jesus once told me personally, that the entire purpose of this life, is "to eradicate death in all its forms."
Such a teaching is obviously completely diametrically opposed to death, to sickness, to suffering, and to any kind of pity party about someone's body seeming to come to an end. We're even told that the Holy Spirit will produce a "picture of you" (a body) which has never been hurt or suffered pain in any way, and therefore symbolizes eternal life and immortality, teaching your brothers who look upon it that they are sinless.
"Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have It not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die."
"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."
There is even an entire radical teaching in ACIM about the fact that when you project sin or use the body for attack in any way, the body itself becomes sick. And the body is thus used as a messenger to try to communicate to those who look upon it that they are the CAUSE of its sickness. Thus, a body which is sick, broken, damaged, diseased, or in any way defective, in fact physically ACCUSES others of being sinful. It is what the course calls "a picture of crucifixion", which you show to your brothers in order to condemn them and be contagious in negatively affecting them.
"This sick and sorry picture YOU accept, if only it can serve to punish him. The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."
As a result, Jesus is EXTREMELY clear that any amount of sickness in the physical body at all IS PROOF that the mind HAS NOT been healed. That if there is still physical sickness, there has NOT been a forgiveness. The forgiveness is not REAL, unless it has brought a healing to your body and to the body of your brother. That if the body remains broken, it CONTINUES to accuse your brother of sin, and teaches by double messages. That no-one can learn from this contradictory demonstration because a) mind is claiming to be healed and b) body is proving otherwise. No-one will listen to such a hypocritical assertion.
So basically Jesus is saying that we need to put our money where our mouth is, and we need to become genuinely healed in the mind, SO THAT the body is FORCED to be healthy. And by doing so, we make all physical sickness and death IMPOSSIBLE. So much so, that the body can no longer become sick, be made to be sick, be caused to die against your will, or in any way decay. That it cannot even age and grow old, or become decrepit over time, or malfunction as a result of "natural processes."
Jesus wants us to learn that we are NOT at the effect of death. That we have power OVER death. And in fact that we MUST gain power over death if we are to reach atonement and resurrection. If there is any way, any loophole, any exception, in which the body could potentially still be made to be sick WITHOUT your consent, there is still a power in the separation that can KEEP the son of God in hell forever. The notion that there is a force in the world that can MAKE you die, against your will, is nothing more than a fantasy belief in death and an attempt to GIVE it power over you.
"No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent."
Whether you are an ACIM person or not, if the body is sick, it is simply because the MIND is sick. And if the mind is sick, it projects its sickness onto the body. And therefore the mind has to be healed. And when the main is healed, the mind DOES ALWAYS heal the body. And the body cannot resist this, it cannot maintain its own sickness, it cannot keep dying on its own, and it cannot stop the mind from forcing it to be well. A guiltless mind HEALS the body and makes sickness and death impossible.
"It is the dream in which the body functions perfectly, having no function except communication."
THIS ..,. is what everyone is supposed to be achieving...
"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live.""
If you do not reach this state, then you have not reached the resurrection, and you have not finished the curriculum of ACIM. The curriculum of ACIM ends in resurrection, NOT death, and resurrection means LIFE, which is the opposite of death. Anyone who produces sickness in the body HAS in truth CAUSED it to be sick on purpose, for the purpose of hatred and attack and murder, in an attempt to prove that the son of God is guilty and deserves to die. Anyone who HAS died as a seeming "effect" of physical sicknesses such as cancer, HAS NOT HEALED THEIR MIND fully.
So to put it simply, people keep dying because they have not reached resurrection. They keep dying because they keep identifying with the body. They keep dying because they have not fully healed their minds. They keep dying because they are not done with the curriculum. A person can become closer to not dying, for sure, and can still cause death while being mostly healed. But until a person is fully healed the body will be attacked. Only in TOTAL RESURRECTION does a person reach a state in which they can be said to be "fully awake" and able to leave the dream permanently. "A dream of death is not left by death but by truth."
In such a state, the body is INCAPABLE of being sick or becoming sick. It cannot rot or decay. It cannot contain cancers or any other malfunctions. In fact, the only way to remove it then is to make it disappear. And this is precisely what Jesus did in his resurrection, causing his body to DISAPPEAR because he recognized it was NOTHING. This happened because recognized that the body IS an illusion of death (separation) and that it was not true. He erased the body and erased the separation in his mind, attaining total resurrection.
We need to drop the idol worship, we need to stop thinking that death is natural and inevitable, we need to stop buying into body identification which is guaranteed to induce grief and loss, we need to stop thinking that death is God's will, we need to stop believing that you OR your body can die as a result of causes outside of your control, we need to question death and recognize it as a lie, and we need to STOP CHOOSING IT. You do NOT have to die!!!
"A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."
"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."
"To witness sin, and yet forgive it, is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof (a sick body) he is not REALLY innocent. The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well."
"The power of witness is beyond belief, because it brings conviction in its wake. The witness is believed BECAUSE he points beyond himself, to what he REPRESENTS. A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape. This sick and sorry picture YOU accept, if only it can serve to punish him. The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."
"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely."
"Here the curriculum ends."
"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt."
"What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."
Jesus "My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was. And that is what "rolling the stone away" means. The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."