Did a healing for myself after feeling pain in my hand, which was anger I was holding onto.

After a process of visualizing the healing and commanding it to leave etc, I was again not expecting it but.... there was an angel kneeling at my side holding my hand very gently. It kissed my hand.

I felt extremely touched that a being so innocent and pure would bow down and kiss "me"... the impure. It made me feel very worthy beyond my own unworthiness. It then maneuvered and kissed the back of my hand a few times.

I could feel its presence beside me. Again I did not ask for it to come nor did I in any way imagine that there would be an angel involved in what I was doing. But what I was doing once again attracted the angels to assist me.

All pain has disappeared, such that I didn't even remember that this happened until now.

Clearly when we are fulfilling God's will and are expressing the truth that sickness is unreal and that we deserve healing and love, and actually take steps to bring that about, we "align" ourselves with heaven and do what Heaven would do, and Heaven comes to support us in that!

Here is the simple LAW OF GOD’S EXTENSION.

1. God can ONLY create (cause) that which is LIKE HIM (as the source), made OF HIM (same substance), with the same inherited abilities.

2. What God creates must be able to do what God does. It must SHARE all of God’s properties, AND pass them on fully to its own creations.

3. God does NOT create ANYTHING that is NOT LIKE HIM. He can only create based on Himself, using Himself, expressing Himself. He can ONLY create in his own likeness.

4. What is not LIKE God’s true nature is NOT OF HIM, and MUST be an illusion. What is not eternal, permanent, perfect, powerful, everlasting, holy, loving, infinite, unlimited, omnipresent, etc CANNOT BE HIS CREATION.

5. What God does not Create does not exist, has no reality, is not alive, and must be false. Anything you attempt to create NOT LIKE HIM, MUST be all illusion and CANNOT exist. Or be real.

6. God cannot create trees, or buildings, or bodies, or planets, or galaxies, or mountains, or food, or humans, or animals, or planet Earth, because He would HAVE TO BE LIKE THEM IN EVERY WAY. God has no end, does not decay, has no form, is NOTHING LIKE this world. Therefore God cannot have created it.

7. God cannot create planets because God is not a planet. The planet cannot inherit its nature from God. The planet is not n extension of a "God planet". God is not a planet. God does not create planets. The planet is not a creation of God. There are no exceptions to this law of perfect extension. God only creates more God!

"The world you see (Earth) is an illusion of a world. God DID NOT CREATE IT. For what He creates MUST be eternal as Himself, and the time will come when all things visible will have an end."

"Earth, Heaven’s opposite in every way". Earth is therefore NOT LIKE GOD. Because Heaven IS like God. And so are you.

"what God creates is eternal."

"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father."

"His will is like His Father's"

"God's accomplishments are NOT yours. But yours are LIKE His."

"The Son's creations are like his Father's."

"And He is like His Father."

"And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore will not die."

"I see my own thoughts, which are like God's,"

"Without your Father you will not know your fatherhood. The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are like the Sons as they are like the Father."

"God creates only "that which, or one who, is of surpassing excellence or merit". Man is capable of this kind of creation, too, being in the image and likeness of his own Creator."

"Only what God creates is irreversible and unchangeable"

"God creates only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them."

"God created Souls so He could depend on them BECAUSE He created them perfectly."

"Anything that God creates is as true as He is. Its truth lies only in its perfect inclusion in Him Who alone IS perfect. To deny this in any way is to deny yourself AND Him"

"While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"What is the same as God IS One with Him."

"We have said many times that ONLY what God creates, or what man creates with the same will, has any real existence."

"It is BECAUSE he is God's Son that he must ALSO be a father, who creates as God created him. The circle of creation has no end. Its starting and its ending are the same."

"In the Creation, God projected his Creative Ability out of Himself toward the Souls which He created, and also imbued them with the same loving wish (or will) to create."

"God created nothing beside you, and nothing beside you exists, for you are part of Him. What except Him CAN exist? Nothing BEYOND Him can happen, because nothing EXCEPT Him is real."

"There is no death because what God created shares His Life."

"No accident or chance is possible within the universe as God created it"

"Forgive the world, and you will understand that everything that God created cannot have an end, and nothing He did not create is real."

"Everything God created KNOWS its Creator. For this is how creation is accomplished, by the Creator, and by His creations."

"Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God gave your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His."

"The Son that God created is as free as God created him."

"I and my father are one."

This is an important passage which describes how you bring the ego and its world TO the holiness of truth, EXPOSE IT to the light, and it is SHONE AWAY by the light. Earth, which is part of the ego's world, is to be brought "to holiness", so that it is shone upon BY the light of holiness, which MAKES IT VANISH. Because the ego's world is made of darkness and illusions.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world and God DID NOT CREATE IT."

Earth, CANNOT, EVER, BE CONVERTED INTO HEAVEN, because it is UNHOLY and an ILLUSION. If it approaches the light, it will temporarily SEEM to become more holy because the light ITSELF is shining on and through it, and only the light is holy. The Earth will be shone away by eternity. Keeping it AWAY from the light maintains it in your mind and gives it "reality". Earth is never holy because it is not WHOLE. Holiness is only of Heaven. Eternity SHINES AWAY the world you made. This is A Course in Miracles.

"The Atonement does not MAKE holy. You were CREATED holy. It merely brings UNholiness TO holiness, or what you MADE, to what you ARE. The bringing together of truth and illusion, OF THE EGO AND GOD, is the Holy Spirit's only function. Keep not your making from your Father, for hiding it has cost you knowledge of Him, and of yourselves. The knowledge is safe, but wherein is YOUR safety, APART from it? The making of time, to TAKE THE PLACE of timelessness, lay in the decision to BE NOT as you WERE. Thus, truth was made past, and the present was dedicated to illusion. And the past, too, was changed, and INTERPOSED between what ALWAYS was, and NOW. The past that YOU remember NEVER was, and represents only the denial of what ALWAYS was.

Bringing the ego to God, is but to bring error to truth, where it stands corrected, because it is the OPPOSITE of what it meets, and is undone because the CONTRADICTION can no longer stand. How long can contradiction stand, when its impossible nature is clearly revealed? What disappears in light is NOT attacked. It merely vanishes, because it is not true. DIFFERENT realities ARE meaningless, for reality MUST be one. It CANNOT change with time, or mood, or chance. Its changelessness is WHAT MAKES IT REAL. This CANNOT be undone. Undoing is for UNreality. And this, reality WILL do for you.

Merely by BEING WHAT IT IS, does truth release you from everything that it is NOT. The Atonement is so gentle, you need but whisper to it, and all its power will rush to your assistance and support. You are not frail, with God beside you. But WITHOUT Him, you are nothing. The Atonement OFFERS YOU GOD. The gift which you refused, is held by Him in you. His Spirit holds it there FOR you. God has not left His altar, though His worshippers placed other gods upon it. The temple still is holy, for the Presence that dwells within it IS Holiness. "

One of the difficult things about trusting Holy Spirit is the idea of 'showing up' empty handed and not knowing what the heck to do, and yet things still working out 'in the moment'.

Usually our minds are filled with all kinds of predictive, planning thoughts which try to know, beforehand, what needs to be known in order to do whatever it is that needs to be done, at the time. And we won't budge if we don't know what's going to happen first, because we're afraid.

When Holy Spirit asks me to write my book for example, I hesitate with thoughts like "I don't know what to write" or "what will I write about". And then Holy Spirit will keep on reminding/suggesting, "book, book, book". And I will keep on protesting mentally, "what shall I do". What He really wants me to do is to just stop the mental chatter and sit down and start writing AND THEN in the moment, in the flow, in the spontaneous present, HE IS THERE, and He helps me write.

So then it ends up being, I didn't need to know, by myself, what to do beforehand, because by `just doing it` was an invitation to Spirit to join with me in the PRESENT and support me and help me spontaneously and unrehearsed.

Going to do something when you have to put aside all notion of knowing what it is you will do, and all plans, and all sense of "I can only do this IF I know what will do"... its very exposing. It makes me feel empty-handed and blindfolded and clueless. It doesn't exactly support a concept of ego confidence. It's more like, I have to `just do it` anyway with a tremendous call to have COURAGE and FAITH and TRUST.

So when Holy Spirit is urging you to do something, I think we have to remember to trust that He WILL be there in the moment with us and He WILL be helping us and he WILL be working through us. It's like you have to take the leap first AND THEN the wings appear. You act 'as if' you will have all the support in the world and then it shows up.

This is difficult to learn, because I'm so used to ... hah... being in control. Lol, (thanks HS for that insert). So used to being in the drivers seat and relying on prior learning (the past) and thinking (lol) that I can only do anything if it's been premeditated and planned out. This is an ongoing lesson for me and probably for many people, because the ego is basically the thing that comes between surrender/letting go and being too afraid to make a move when you can't yet see the safety net - a safety net that you don't even really NEED when Holy Spirit goes with you. "If you knew Who walks beside you on the way that you have chosen, fear would be impossible" - ACIM

The ego doesn't understand how to put trust/faith/spirit first and to expect support from outside of itself. It doesn't know how to let itself be abundantly supported or to be included in a bigger plan not of its own making. Holy Spirit has a plan. But it calls for us to step OUT of our own plan and our own controls - letting go of controlling all outcomes - so that we can step into the spontaneous flow of Spirit directing us and moving through us and healing through us. Which reminds me of this wonderful ACIM quote:

"I am here only to be truly helpful.

I am here to represent Him Who sent me.

I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do,

because He Who sent me will direct me.

I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.

I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal." - ACIM

To just show up, ready, willing, available, to be directed and used by Spirit, with no prior agenda, with perfect willingness and readiness, as an agent of God, without necessarily knowing or needing to know who/what/where/why/how ... that's what I/we need to get to. To go around doing God's will, working miracles, healing people, teaching and inspiring people, being moved by Spirit and supported in 'supernatural' ways. We need to learn to trust in Spirit's support and that, if we leap first, then we will find the power to fly.

Those who are holy are not worried about the ego. They don't fear attack. Who they are, is so innocent and free of sin and guilt and fear.

Since there is no sin in them, there is nothing to latch onto.

The only way that the ego can attack is to attack that which is already less than innocent. You have to somehow believe in ego, which is a belief in attack, in order to be attackable and to create effects of attack in you. If you don't believe this, attack cannot produce effects in you.

You have to have some kind of sin in you in order for it to be able to even conceive of attacking what you "are". If you "are" sin then you're automatically a part of ITS thought system, and therefore ITS attack thoughts can seem to attack what you are.

This is the same as how in Christianity it's taught that the devil cannot attack you unless you have sinned, and that once you sin this gives him "access" and "permission" to come into you and have his wicked way. This is an analogy for the ego.

If you do not step off the innocence pedestal and put some kind of sin into your self, to change your identity from "innocent person" to "sinful person", the ego has absolutely no grounds to access you whatsoever. There is nothing true that it can claim about what you are. You are innocent. You are out of its reach. It cannot even conceive of a way to access you, not through magic or hatred or energy attacks or wars, nothing. Absolutely nothing can touch those who are truly without a belief in being sinful.

So when you choose to believe something that is a part of the ego's thought system, this automatically gives it access. If you believe sin is real, it can attack you. If you believe bodies and worlds are real, it can attack you. And where there is attack, there is the potential for sickness and death.

But if there is no sin in you whatsoever (no real sin), and there is therefore no belief that you are made of guilt (not guilty), and there is no belief that you need be afraid (not a victim), quite LITERALLY, and absolutely, the ego has NOTHING it can do to you.

Its thought system does not apply to you. And the ego is nothing more than a thought system based on illusions. Its illusions do not even TOUCH the innocent. They don't even come close. They simply don't apply, cannot be applied, and have no way to corrupt or reach out and infect the innocent. To do so is TEMPTATION, but it is up to the innocent to not be tempted. And when you, as innocent, are truly convinced of your PERFECT INNOCENCE as given by God, there will be no way to tempt you to believe in sin.

This is what temptation means - to attempt to pull you into the ego thought system where you can be attacked, but not yet having actually accomplished this. It is an "offer" by the ego, which you do not need to listen to.

When you are purely innocent you also do not need a defense of any kind whatsoever. Your innocence IS perfectly protected and beyond the realm of all illusions. Illusions disappear in your presence. You have the authority of God. You also won't have to be constantly putting in effort to be vigilant for the ego's temptations, because once you are FULLY CONVINCED of your innocence and immortality, you will awaken and be permanently safe from all illusions.

This is why nothing real can be threatened, BECAUSE nothing unreal exists. And this is why "a guiltless mind cannot suffer." You ARE immortal!. You just need to stop confusing your identity with that which is mortally untrue of you.

How can innocence sin?

I sit beside the ocean.

The world comes and goes.

Nothing happens to me.

If you're open-minded to the idea that heaven is a place you can go, which is not the Earth, the retelling of a profound near death experiences will be clarifying and validating for you.

After leaving the body, we travel to a kind of summer land, a beautiful "other side" dimension (which is not Earth), complete with beautiful landscapes and people etc ... likely what we might call the astral plane or "lower heaven". Then we move on to a direct encounter with God in his higher dimension of heaven.

For me this is roughly the "structure" that I believe "exists", ie Earth and spacetime are a much denser lower-order realm, above is the astral "spirit world" dimension where people typically hang out between lifetimes etc, and then beyond that is heaven proper where we are one with God.

A Course in Miracles does lend itself to these ideas because as it states in Song of Prayer:

"If there has been true healing, this can be the form in which death comes when it is time to rest a while from labor gladly done and gladly ended. Now we go in peace to freer air and gentler climate" This "gentler climate" is the astral spirit world - still a dream perhaps but a higher dream and more beautiful than this lower denser world we call Earth. I do SOMETIMES wonder if "the real world" spoken of in ACIM might be perhaps in some way a reference to that "summer land", another dimension beyond this one yet short of heaven.

One possible clue is when Jesus speaks of rivers which never waste away - which have been spoken of in various near-death experiences.

"when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision? And AFTER vision, who is there who COULD refuse what MUST come after?"

I guess we'll find out. For sure I am firm in the belief that this physical level of human bodies and bullshit is not and never could be God's Kingdom. Beyond this world there is at least another entire dimension, if not many. When you hear people speaking of actually experiencing it, we can no longer remain closed-minded or regard the spacetime of the "physical universe" to be real, or our true home in God. Ultimately, it is nothing.

"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world (Earth/Spacetime) is NOT your home"

"The (physical) body can be made a home like this BECAUSE it lacks foundation in the truth. And yet, BECAUSE it does, it can be seen as NOT your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the home (when you leave it behind) where God abides (in heaven)."

When I am reminded of things like this, which sometimes are thought to be outside of "acim teachings", but nevertheless hinted at by them, I feel more in touch with my own inner truth. I recall that there are indeed other dimensions, life beyond the physical, and a heaven that is not of this world.

"Your Kingdom is not of this world (Earth/Spacetime) because it was given you from BEYOND this world (Heaven)."

"Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world (Earth/Spacetime) does not exist because what they behold (Heaven) must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world."

Illusions are not just your misperceptions "about" something.

An illusion is something which appears to be there, but which is not really there. It only appears to be there because you have lost sight of the whole picture, are lacking some information, and have taken something out of context.

Yes, in terms of your misperceptions, it could be that you are projecting something onto what's there, having illusions about it, seeing something "in" it that isn't there.

But illusions are more than just your misperceptions. And they don't only take place inside your head. They occur outside of you as well.

The body's eyes, look upon an illusion, and as if it is really there. The world, Earth, is an illusion. It is a picture of something existing that doesn't exist.

"Who is afraid to look upon illusions, knowing his Savior stands beside him?"

"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain."

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. 3 No one who looks on it without the help of reason would try to pass it. 4 The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it."

"Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole without the meaning that the whole would give."

"The body's eyes see only form. 4 They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. 5 And they were made to look on error and not see past it. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for THEY CAN SEE ONLY ILLUSIONS, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. "

"See how the body's eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond."

Since the body's eyes can ONLY see illusions, and since the body's eyes CAN SEE PLANET EARTH, planet Earth MUST BE AN ILLUSION!

The world itself, is an illusion. And that means it is presenting to you a temptation to believe that something is there, something is happening, which is not happening. If you fall for the illusion, you will think the world is real. If you recognize the illusion for what it is, you will not fall for it and will see past it or "see through" its deception.

To see through a deception you need to see the bigger picture.

If for example you have a puzzle, and before you solve the puzzle you do not know the answer, you are deceived by the form of the puzzle. Maybe it's some 3d puzzle with blocks or something that you have to twist just the right way to get them to unlock. You mess with it for hours trying to figure it out. Then finally you suddenly have an awakening and SEE the TRICKERY that was being used to deceive you, and you suddenly realize how to overcome the illusion. You solve the puzzle instantly. And no longer are you deceived by the illusion that it was something else.

It's the same with the world. Earth is an illusion. Believing it is real is false perception. The body's eyes were made to SEE IT as if it's really there and believe it's real. You have to learn the body's eyes are lying to you. And you need a different kind of vision - Christ Vision - to help you to see the bigger picture BEYOND the illusion, so that you can recognize that the illusion is a deception. Only then can you be free of illusions, because the world itself is an illusion.

Your misperceptions of the world are your inability to recognize that *IT* is an illusion. They are illusions on top of illusions. When you perceive the world correctly you will recognize it is an illusion, not a reality. And illusions do not really exist. There is no world.

We can think of the body as a prison cell, and the ego as a prison guard and prisoner.

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a ***wall*** of flesh ***AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner*** in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master."

This wall of flesh, is what we call the body, but it is really the idea of SEPARATION, as a "separation device", just like a prison cell, designed to keep you isolated and cut off from others. The body keeps you IN, and keeps them OUT. It fences in actually a PART of your mind, and fences OUT the rest of your mind.

Now the thing is, what is your RELATIONSHIP to the prison body? If you identify with being separate, special, selfish, alone, cut off, abandoned, lost, lonely, in darkness, hiding from God, small/little, weak/frail, having no relationship, sharing nothing, etc... then you IDENTIFY WITH the prison cell.

When you identify WITH the separation device, you believe you ARE DEFINED BY the separation device. That its truth becomes your truth. And now that means you BELIEVE IN what the prison cell implies about you. And this forms "the ego", or the sense of "who and what I am", as defined BY the separation device.

If you see the body as hemming you in, keeping you separate from others, separating you off, causing you etc, then this imprisoned part of mind sees itself as IN the prison, and this produces a sense of identification WITH the prison (a bodily identity), which is what we generally call THE EGO. A sense of... who and what am I, if it's true that I am defined by this separation device.

This buying-into the body identity PRODUCES the sense of ego self. If it is true that you are a separate body, then it's true that you are unwhole and unholy. If it's true that you are disconnected from the whole by the body, then you are alone. All of this "I am separate" identification produces a sense of a "separated self." A self that WAS whole, which has BECOME separated, only because it sees itself as IN a body.

"This thing you made (the body) to serve your guilt, stands between you and other minds. The minds ARE joined, but you do not IDENTIFY with them. You SEE yourself as locked in a separate prison, remote and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached. You HATE the prison (body) that you made, and would destroy it. Yet you would NOT escape from it, leaving it unharmed, WITHOUT your guilt upon it. But only thus CAN you escape. The home of vengeance is not yours; The place you set aside to house your hatred is NOT a prison, but an ILLUSION OF YOURSELF."

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found. The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it, and sheltered by its presence. If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!"

"To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body."

"See yourself as bound, and bars become your home. Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized."

"Listen to what the ego says, and see what it DIRECTS you see, and it is sure that you will see YOURSELF as tiny, vulnerable, and afraid. You WILL experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You WILL believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far more powerful than you. And you WILL think the world you made directs your destiny."

"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body. "

"The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death."

"Our upside-down perception has been ruinous to our peace of mind. We have seen ourselves in a body and the truth outside us, locked away from our awareness by the body's limitations."

"The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT."

"In Heaven God's Son is NOT imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin."

Right now, living in a human body with an ego, your experience is that you are separate from God. As if you are somehow outside of God. As if you are living in exile in some kind of separate world that seems to exist in a dimension where God doesn't exist.

"You are at home in God, dreaming of exile"

"There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning."

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts."

If you are not experiencing that you are in heaven, and are not with God, at home in reality, and instead find yourself in a body, it means your mind believes in this exile and sees itself as though it is "outside of heaven."

It's not really possible to be outside of God, but in the separation from God we had this idea and belief that we CAN exist without God, outside of heaven. This produced a sense of being in exile, which literally was a belief in existing "outside" of God in some external world, which in turn produced the entirety of spacetime and all its contents. As if a kind of world outside of heaven itself, set apart from it and designed to keep God on the other side of some kind of wall.

"To this distorted form of vision, the OUTSIDE of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."

So now in your experience, there are certain things which belong to God, which are found only within God, and are a part of him, which you must therefore have difficulty accessing.

If God is on the other side of the wall, hidden in what seems to be an entirely different dimension of reality, beyond space and time in heaven, and if you consider yourself to not be squarely rooted and at home in God, then you're going to find it hard to experience the properties of God.

Some things ARE God, thus belonging to God, and there is no substitute for them, no other source, and no way to have them or experience them WITHOUT including God. That includes happiness, joy, love, peace, eternal life, power, certainty, fearlessness, wholeness, reality, identity etc. So if you are seeming to live in some kind of world "outside" of heaven, away from God, you are pretty much cut off from these things.

What that means is, you're going to have to find a way to move closer to God, including God, sharing with God God's nature and properties, if you want to have any of the things that can ONLY truly be found within God. It's like God is this whole other Kingdom that is outside of spacetime that you need to find a way to access, in order to gain access to love and happiness and peace etc. You have to, essentially, go there, if you want to have those things.

"Infinity is meaningless WITHOUT you, and YOU are meaningless without God. There IS no end to God and His Son, for we ARE the universe."

Before you entirely disembark and zap yourself out of spacetime completely, however, you can take steps to move closer to God, and thus to allow God to enter into and share your mind. It's possible to bring a taste of heaven to your earthly experience, such that God can be mostly in your mind, and mostly seen in everything you see.

What happens here is a kind of phasing in and out. The physical world is gradually phasing out, along with its bodies and objects, while the nonmaterial spirit world is gradually phasing into your awareness. The more you attune to God the more you tune out of the physical, including physical sight.

"This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."

So you start to see more of God, so to speak, and less of the world. The world becomes a thin transparent veil, turning invisible, as God's world become more and more visible. In terms of your perception, it will seem as though you are looking on what lightly remains of your perception of the physical world through more spiritual loving eyes, which of course renders that physicality with greater forgiveness and love.

"Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are ALWAYS miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws."

This is only possible because the physical is phasing out and love is taking over. Eventually the exchange results in the world disappearing from view entirely, replaced by the face of Christ, in which the world is forgotten and the veil that seems to separate you from God's dimension lifts and you find yourself eventually awakened in heaven.

To experience joy and happiness and love and peace, you have no option but to include God more and more in your mind and awareness. There is no way to have light without it, no way to see without him, no way to love without him. Nor will you be loving independently on your own, you can only love by sharing God's love. So as you love, it's not just you loving, it's you plus God loving, you extending his love. You can't even muster a "separate love".

Lesson 127 "There is no love but God's."

"Alone they are nothing. But in their joining is the Power of God."

"You are not frail, with God beside you. But WITHOUT Him, you are nothing." "Of yourselves you can do nothing, because of yourselves you ARE nothing. I am nothing without the Father, and YOU are nothing without me because by DENYING the Father you deny YOURSELF."

"I could not atone for MYSELF ALONE. Listening to one Voice implies the decision to share It in order to hear It yourself. The Mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to EVERY MIND CREATED BY GOD, because God's Wholeness is the Wholeness of His Son. You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show YOUR BROTHER anything except your wholeness. Show him that he cannot hurt you and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. This is the meaning of turning the other cheek."

"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being, He encompasses all things. NO MIND (implying there are many) holds anything but Him (therefore he created many minds)."

"Miracles make MINDS one in God. They depend on cooperation because the SONSHIP is the SUM OF ALL THAT GOD CREATED. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time."

"God speaks for you in answering your question with these words: I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and ALL THE MINDS WHICH GOD CREATED ONE WITH ME"

"ONE CHILD OF GOD (implying there are many) is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach ANOTHER (there are many!). One Teacher is in ALL YOUR MINDS, and He teaches the same lesson TO ALL. He always teaches you (one such mind) the inestimable worth of EVERY SON OF GOD, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite love for which he speaks."

"The Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy. He is the Call to return which God blessed THE MINDS OF HIS SEPARATED SONS. This is the vocation of the mind."

"Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will. And let us receive only what You have given, and accept but this INTO THE MINDS WHICH YOU CREATED AND WHICH YOU LOVE. Amen."

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I don't know about you guys-n-gals but it sounds to me very clearly that there are MULTIPLE SONS and MULTIPLE MINDS. And that the presence of multiple minds is completely natural and normal because God CREATED THEM. Therefore EACH ONE has its "own mind". Each mind may well be "one" or in harmony with other minds, but there are still many minds, and each still has its own potential to choose whether to do God's will or not.

This is why some parts of the Course refer on ONE LEVEL to the ONE SON OF GOD, and on another level to the MANY INDIVIDUAL SONS (or souls).

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References to BROTHERS who are one with God:

"You are afraid of God because you fear your BROTHER. This BROTHER who stands beside you still seems to be a stranger."

"Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only BROTHER to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a BROTHER he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God."

"To know your BROTHER is to know God."

"Miracles unite you directly with your BROTHER."

"One moment of real recognition makes everyone your BROTHER."

"Any BROTHER with whom you have a limited relationship, you hate."

"Don't deny yourself the message of relief that every BROTHER offers you now."

"It is not up to you to change your BROTHER, but merely to accept him as he is."

"In your BROTHER is the light. See him as sinless, and there can be no fear in you."

"The miracle enables you to see your BROTHER without his past, and so perceive him as born again."

"Your BROTHER does not have to be aware of the Holy Spirit in himself or in you for the miracle to occur."

"What you acknowledge in your BROTHER you are acknowledging in yourself, and what you share you strengthen."

"The miracle acknowledges everyone as your BROTHER and mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God."

"Because the miracle worker has heard God's Voice, he strengthens It in a sick BROTHER by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does not share." (again confirmation that your brother can refuse healing even if you are healed)

"Where there is love, your BROTHER must give it to you because of what it is. But where there is a call for love, you must give it because of what you are." (similarly again, you give love to those who lack it)

"How willing are you to forgive your BROTHER? How much do you desire peace instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the same, in different form."

"Trials are but lessons you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one. In every difficulty Christ calls to you and gently says, My BROTHER, choose again."

"If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot know your BROTHER when you attack him. Attack is always made upon a stranger. You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him, and so you cannot know him. It is because you have made him a stranger that you are afraid of him. There are no strangers in God's creation."

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your BROTHER did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is the will of God."

"Not one does Christ forget. Not one He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. He has not forgotten you. But you will not remember Him until you look on all as He does. Who denies his BROTHER is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come."

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It seems to me what the One Son of God, as Christ, is considered a BROTHER to the MANY SONS, who were also created (souls?) as extensions of him/god, ... and that at times the course refers to them on an equal footing because they are made of God-stuff equally, even though Christ appears to be a "larger" identity than the individual sons. But Christ+the individual sons make up "the sonship". So the sonship is not just the individual sons, it also includes the one son, and all are considered equal brothers in that sonship.

The idea that you are totally equal to God, is what's called the Authority Problem. Actually it's also the idea of sin. Some who think their relationship with God is to be "one" with Him, and thus completely equal with Him, are not understanding that God came FIRST. Or that oneness does not actually mean "you are Him".

He is the creator of you, you are not the creator of Him. He created the Sonship and you were created to ADD TO the Sonship. But you cannot create God or cause God or add to God Himself. That makes you "below" Him in a sense, or as Jesus says in the course, "the Father is GREATER".

It is also appropriate to have AWE of God because He IS greater and above you, and not to have awe of your brothers who ARE your equals. God is GREATER because He is all encompassing, and you are within God, as a part of God, caused BY God, as one of His thoughts, and He therefore spans more than just your own soul.

The idea that being one with him means total equality completely ignores these dynamics and suggests you are as much the creator of God as he is of you. And that unfortunately is where the tiny mad idea began, where you as an effect of God attempted to be the cause of Him, and where the entire ego thought system started. His Kingdom also cannot increase at all if you are God's exact equal because you and God would be in a deadlocked power struggle.

You have to be a son, in order to set up the dynamic that "A Son of a Father must have a Son", establishing God's fatherhood and your sonhood. And being like the father you too become a father, thus co-creator with Him. But your co-creatorship does not allow you to co-create God Himself, and yet God Himself does create you.

And so you are not equal to God in all ways and functions, but you ARE like Him in terms of mirroring the ability to create, IN ADDITION TO what already has been created BY Him. The notion that you have equal creative function with God is to suggest you are capable of creating yourself, and that is what the ego believes is true.

You can add your creations to His Kingdom, but you cannot overthrow the Kingdom itself. Nor can you attack or destroy what HE already created, that being yourself, your brothers, the Holy Spirit, and the angels. All of this "state of the union" is somewhat more elaborate than simply to say that "it's all just oneness", and it certainly is not compatible with an idea of non-duality which implies "no sons at all."

God has a family, and you are part of it. God is a creator with many creations and those creations have many creations and all of them co-create together. This is what A Course in Miracles teaches, not that we're all going to just dissolve into nothing, with no self and no creative function. God has established you as a free-willed co-creator forever.

In fact, if you weren't a SON of God and not God's equal, you would have INHERITED NOTHING, and would never be a HOST to God Himself. God GAVE you everything He had in your creation, thus extending His Self to you, sharing His will and mind and power, and establishing you as SHARER of his being. Because God is your father, you have an inheritance which is waiting for you to reclaim it.

"The world, in its original connotation, included both the proper creation of man by God, AND the proper creation by man in his Right Mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given."

"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."

"My mind holds only what I think with God. That is a fact, and represents the truth of What you are and What your Father is. It is this thought by which the Father gave creation to the Son, establishing the Son as co-creator with Himself."

"Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man (souls). This is because God and man are NOT equal. "

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

"The creative power of both God AND His Creations is limitless, but it is NOT in reciprocal relationship. You DO communicate fully WITH God, as He does with YOU. This is an ongoing process in which you SHARE, and BECAUSE you share it, you are inspired to create LIKE God. But in Creation you are NOT in a reciprocal relation TO God, because He created YOU, but you did NOT create Him. We have already stated that only in this respect your creative power differs from His."

"I have repeatedly emphasized that awe is not appropriate in connection with me (Jesus), BECAUSE of our inherent equality."

"The word "Awe" should be reserved only for revelations, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriately applied to miracles, because a state of true awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a lesser order stands before the Greater One. This is the case only when a Soul stands before his Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and should be struck with awe in the presence of the Creator of Perfection."

"Equals cannot be in awe of each other, because awe ALWAYS implies inequality. Awe is not properly experienced even to me (awe of Jesus). That is why in that short introductory vision, I knelt beside you, FACING the light."

"Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation. They do not leave you, any more than you have left your Creator."

"He (God) does nothing last, because He created first and for always. It must be understood that the word "first" as applied to Him is not a time concept. He is first in the sense that He is the First in the Holy Trinity Itself. He is the Prime Creator, because He created His co-creators. Because He did, time applies neither to Him nor to what He created. The "last step" that God will take was therefore true in the beginning, is true now, and will be true forever. What is timeless is always there, because its being is eternally changeless."

People like to think they don't have an ego, or that if they have one it's tucked away somewhere. Distancing from it is a way to protect it. But having ego means being to ANY degree, even slightly, outside of heaven. The tiniest belief in separation is all it takes. And that applies to just about everyone on the planet.

So we have to at least acknowledge honestly that if we're still here we probably still have egotism to some degree. And that means we can't just pretend that we don't have one. It means that there's some part of our mind which is mentally ill, and distorted, and lost and confused. A part of the mind that believes things which are not true, but still believes them anyway. And that part of mind has a sense of identity attached to it, a sense of truth about oneself.

And that ego-identifying mind is going to have false perceptions and egoic viewpoints, regardless of how much a person is doing ACIM, how often, or for how long. So we can't just be in denial and pretend we're not being egotistical, we are being egoistical pretty much 100% of the time in one way or another. And denying this will only produce sacrifice and repression and even more separation in the mind.

There has come to be an ACIM 'culture' now of ego denial. It's one thing to recognize that yes we have to work on undoing our egotism and return to wholeness, but it's another to just pretend we don't have egotism when we do. Shoving it under the carpet isn't healing the mind, any more than throwing the book at it 24/7. It will generally take a long a slow and gradual process to correct all of the mind's errors and until then you have to 'work with' your ego and be gentle with yourself.

We have to admit that we DO have an ego right now and we - at times, need to be IN that ego, in order to feel a sense of being "what we are", because our sense of what we are has become ego-identified. If we pretend not to be e.g. body-identified, while still being so, we will move into sacrifice and body shaming and other things which are unhealthy. People are developing increased senses of shame and guilt over 'having an ego', or outright denial at having one while demonstrating it, instead of being gentler with ourselves about where we are at.

It's ok to acknowledge that you're being/having an ego while you are doing it, while you are working on undoing it, and not pretend that just because you believe the truth of the theory of ACIM that you somehow are above it all. Or that you can live as though you don't have an ego, before you are truly ready to do so. Everyone is mired in ego and mental illness until they reach enlightenment, and no-one is excluded from that.

So we have to then recognize this and be gentle with our self-deceptions and our delusions, even if that isn't an ideal scenario, and isn't healing it. We have to be where we're 'at', while we're trying to move closer to God. Once we've moved closer, great, we're more spiritually aligned, but while we have ego we shouldn't be treating it like some kind of enemy or bashing it or hating it or trying to lock it in a box, because YOU will experience the effects of that.

It comprises part of your belief about yourself, and a sense of your current identity, and denying or attacking that will be experienced as an attack upon yourself, which will not make you happy. You don't have to snuggle up beside it and love it and want to keep it, but you also shouldn't be demonising it or not having compassion for where you're at. Everyone's trying to run and they don't even know how to walk.

Many ACIM students think that they are not only miracle workers but also egoless selfless lovers of everyone, having barely stepped foot on the road to God. This is part of the ego arrogance itself. Can we just for goodness sake just be where we're at and relax and stop pressuring ourselves to be perfect and flawless when we're clearly riddled with issues that we're working on? It's okay to be a mess while you're working on cleaning up the mess.

"The Soul in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does NOT attack the ego."

"The voice of the Holy Spirit does not command, because it is incapable of arrogance. It does not demand, because it does not seek control. It does not overcome, because it does not attack. It merely REMINDS. It is compelling only because of what it reminds you OF."

"Truth does not struggle AGAINST ignorance, and love does not ATTACK fear."

"Light does not ATTACK darkness, but it DOES shine it away."

I see now that forgiveness of another must entail an appreciation of how we are joined in oneness, sharing everything. We have to realize that we ARE each other, and that we are included in everything. There has to be awareness of the golden rule and the fact that giving and receiving are one. Whatever applies to me must be seen to apply to the other. And there must be shared interests. Without this there is not forgiveness.

It used to seem as though forgiveness was some act performed by one separate person towards or with regard to another separate person. There was something that the separate person did to the the other separate person, and now the separate person had to do something to forgive them. This is clearly not in accord with ACIM’s teaching on forgiveness because forgiveness requires the two minds to be one. You have to love your brother as yourself.

When your brother is seen from the perspective that they are included in who and what you are, and are thus part of you, sharing everything with you, everything now applies to both of you equally and simultaneously. You ARE each other. In that light, any unforgiveness is an attempt to separate from one another, while forgiveness is a reunion. The two become one in forgiveness.

The same applies to atonement, true perception, salvation, and miracle mindedness. It is not just some separated-off state, it’s an entirely shared state. It’s just a tiny bit short of total oneness. Communication means immersion and union and sharing everything as one, and miracles raise the level of communication and sharing. Miracles make minds one in God. Miracles unite you with your brother. Being IN the miracle is to be IN a united shared state.

More and more now it is becoming extremely clear that, very simply, “being separate” is the entire problem, and “being joined” is the entire solution. There is nothing else. Either you’re separating off of you are one with each other. Oneness isn’t two separate people bumping bodies. It’s literally a fusing, melding, merging, unifying, sharing of everything. True connection. True opening and trust. True communion.

You can’t see forgivingly without that shared union because it is literally the light in which you see. It is the way to recognize your brother’s attempts to separate as untrue and as a call for love. It the proper framing of your holy relationship. Without the union there is a breakdown in forgiveness. To be completely forgiving is to recognize that everything applies to both of you equally at once, as one, together, as the whole. Wholeness is inclusive, and wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles.

Either you live in such a way as to always regard your brothers as a fundamental part of your own self, in which you are literally one and two, sharing the same spark of life, in the same light, or you are moving into separation and grievance and war. It’s very simple. Separate or join, fear or love, die or live forever. Atonement is a lesson in sharing, because we’re forgotten how to do it.

All miracle mindedness requires a shared state of mind and identity. You have to BE the other person to join with their mind and share light with them. We can’t do any of this correctly if we remain separate. There is no miracle without sharing, there is no love without sharing. There is no atonement without sharing, there is no salvation without sharing. Your brother is your savior because he is your self.

“Your Father is as close to you as is your brother. Yet what is there that could be nearer you, than is your Self?” “This state, and only this, must YOU attain with God beside you. For until you do, you will still think that you are separate FROM Him. You can feel His Presence NEXT TO you, but CANNOT know that you are one with Him.”

“And He will speak to you, reminding you that you are Spirit, one with Him and God, your brothers and your Self.”

“He must see someone ELSE as NOT a body, one with him, without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things who know not that they live.”

“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?”

“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.”

“No-one unites with enemies, nor is at one with them in purpose.”

“Then let him offer you the light you see in him, and let your "enemy" and Friend unite in blessing you with what you gave. Now are you one with them, and they with you. Now have you been forgiven by yourself.”

“I trust my brothers, who are one with me.”

Did you know God is very, very, very powerful?

Did you know that you inherited that power and are also very powerful? God is the source of all power, and is all-powerful, but he also shares his power with you, so that you too have power.

"The power to work miracles belongs to you."

Without God, you would have no power at all. But with God, you have all power.

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

"The power of God and not of you engenders miracles."

This in no way means that you have no power to work miracles. It means you have ALL of GOD's power to work miracles.

This also means that miracles, of the supernatural kind, actually do involve a use of a POWER.

There are far too many people doing ACIM who either do not realize or refuse to be open to the idea that miracles require a utilisation of POWER.

This isn't just some weak force or some willingness or a bit of help from above. It's actually a real power, a very very strong power. The power of God.

God is also love, which is why love is also power, and since love and forgiveness are related, being forgiving is also powerful.

We live in a very, very disempowered state right now, which is why it seems that we not only do not have any power but cannot access it and don't even know it's there to use. We think that we're going to remain just as un-powerful when we wake up or get closer to reality. It's not true. To be a miracle worker you must be able to use the power of God, and it really is VERY POWERFUL.

"You who have tried to keep power for yourselves, have lost it. You still HAVE the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your AWARENESS of it, that you cannot use it. EVERYTHING you have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you. You know not WHAT it is, nor WHERE. You have made a SEMBLANCE of power, and a SHOW of strength, so pitiful that it MUST fail you."

If you have never experienced this power in this life, you may not have a clue what I'm talking about. I've experienced it a few times. It's a power so strong, so certain, so absolute, that it feels like it could accomplish literally anything. It could move mountains, it could change bodies in an instant, it could raise the dead with effortlessness and ease. It has such strength and, if you like "force" in it, that it's like some kind of 1000-foot tall giant compared to a little ant.

"What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

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

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

Jesus isn't kidding here. There is a power, a real capability, an immense supernatural strength, far far far beyond anything you've ever encountered in this world, that is literally unlimited and absolute. It is not relative power, or partial power, or a high wattage of power, or even an extreme power. It is total unlimited absolute unmoveable permanent power that is so strong it can create entire universes.

"Your Father created you Wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

You USED your power to make space and time and all the galaxies and planets and all bodies and all events here. Not through some "laws of physics" bullshit or some "evolution" bullshit. POWER OF GOD. Immense psychological ability.

"He, too, MUST begin to think of himself as a very powerful receiving and sending channel"

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force."

Just FYI, we're not weak little frail little nuggets wiggling around on a little planet. We're super immensely powerful beings. The power of God is in us. How do you think Moses parted an ocean, and how did Jesus raise the dead and calm storms and materialise food and so on? It was through utilisation of a power that's so strong and capable that there is NOTHING it cannot do.

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

This is not a course in sitting on fences and observing and doing nothing and having no power to do anything. It is a course in EMPOWERMENT and you getting your power back so that you can act and carry out God's will!

"My holiness is unlimited in its power to heal, because it is unlimited in its power to save." ... "In the presence of my holiness, which I share with God Himself, all idols vanish."

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance, and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator."

"Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do."

"The miracle ITSELF is but the witness that you HAVE the power of God in you"

"The power of God IS limitless."

"It is therefore in my power to change every mind along with mine, for mine is the power of God."

"Alone they are nothing. But in their joining is the Power of God." "Then let the power of God work in you and through you, that His Will and yours may be done."

"God's Teacher, and His lesson will support your strength. It is only your weakness that will depart from you in this practice, for it is the practice of the power of God in you."

"I am not weak but strong." "I am not afraid but all powerful."

"There is now no limit on his power, because it is the Power of God."

"His task is mighty, but the power of God is with Him. Therefore, to Him, it is so easy, that it was accomplished the instant it was given Him for you."

"Who can limit the power of God Himself? Who then can say who can be healed of what, and what must remain beyond God's power to forgive? "

"The whole power of God is in every part of Him"

"The power of God, and all His Love, without limit, will support you, as you seek only your place in the plan of Atonement arising from His Love."

"The power of God will support every effort you make on behalf of the magnitude of His dear Son."

"And He will do so, for the power of God in Him AND YOU is joined in REAL relationship, so holy and so strong, that it can overcome even this, WITHOUT fear."

"All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception of man's ability to USURP the power of God."

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

"My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth. My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision FOR YOURSELF. The will for this decision is the will to SHARE it, because the decision itself IS the decision to share. It is MADE BY GIVING, and is therefore the one act of mind that resembles true creation."

"If you knew Who walks beside you on THIS way, which YOU have chosen, fear would be impossible."

Innocence is goodness. If guilt is equated with evil, then innocence is equated with good. In order to forgive someone or something requires looking for the good in them - looking for their innocence. Seeing their harmlessness, their gentleness, their holiness and their perfection.

"Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son."

"The good" is also combined with love, and light, and power, and strength. It is the realm of miracles. In effect, evil is a breakdown, malfunction, failure, weakness and a loss. So its opposite, good, is all that can actually work, solves all problems, repairs all sickness and resurrects.

"The good is what works" is a sound though insufficient statement. ONLY the good CAN work. Nothing else works at all."

The Holy Spirit also represents the state of forgiveness and the miracle, as the power of God which performs miracles, as the healer as the resurrector. Therefore seeing the good in your brother for example also equates with seeing the Holy Spirit in him.

"And now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful followers, with Him as Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real. Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good. Let Him prepare you further."

Jesus encourages us to find the good in things. To "look on the bright side". To make of the world a forgiven world where all is seen as innocent and harmless and guiltless and sinless.

"Have you been similarly grateful to each other? Have you consistently appreciated the GOOD efforts, and OVERLOOKED mistakes?" Indeed forgiveness puts you in touch with your true nature, brings you closer to God, aligns you with your soul, and reawakens the power of God in you. It is your natural divine function to create the good and to do only good.

Ultimately "the good" is God, and anything of God is good. The world, as an illusion, is not good, and can at best only reflect God's goodness. Moving away from evil takes you toward the good of God. And in God, everyone and everything is good.

"Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy. Do not lose sight of this."

""I am blessed as a Son of God."

Herein lies my claim to all good and only good. I am blessed as a Son of God. All good things are mine because God intended them for me. I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son."

"You have been told that everything brings good that comes from God."

"And as you gave your trust to what is "good" in him, you gave it to the "good" in you. In terms of concepts, it is thus you see him MORE than just a body, for the "good" is NEVER what the body seems to be."

"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good.""

"And look upon the "good" in him, that you may not be fearful of your "evil" thoughts, because they do not cloud your view of him." "ALL things work together for good. There are NO exceptions except in the ego's judgment."

"Man will ultimately look upon his own creations, and will to preserve only what is good, just as God Himself once looked upon what he had created, and knew that it WAS good."

"For what God gives can only be for good. And I accept but what He gives as what belongs to me."

"God is said to have looked on all He created and pronounced it good. No, He declared it perfect, and so it was."

"Something good must come from every meeting of patient and therapist. And that good is saved for both, against the day when they can recognize that only that was real in their relationship."

"And so there is a place for all relationships in this world, and they will bring as much good as each can accept and use."

"We look on everyone as brothers, and perceive all things as kindly and as good."

"The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing ELSE. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM. The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is WHY its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for this you could not accept, but it always ADDS something that is NOT real TO the real, thus CONFUSING ILLUSION AND REALITY. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in truth AND illusion you CANNOT TELL WHICH IS TRUE."

"The perception of goodness is not knowledge, but the denial of the OPPOSITE of goodness enables you to perceive a condition in which opposites do not exist."

"What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it?"

"But "good" and "deprivation" are opposites, and CANNOT meaningfully join in ANY way."

"Any ability that anyone develops has the potentiality for good." "Nothing good is lost, because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the voice for Creation. Nothing that is not good was ever created, and therefore CANNOT be protected."

"There is always some good in any thought which strengthens the idea that life and the body are not the same."

"The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness."

"It is secure in certainty that obstacles can not impede its progress to accomplishment of any goal which serves the greater plan established for the good of everyone."

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

"Now close your eyes and see him in your mind, and look at him a while. Try to perceive some light in him somewhere; a little gleam which you had never noticed. Try to find some little spark of brightness shining through the ugly picture which you hold of him. Look at this picture until you see a light somewhere within it, and then try to let this light extend until it covers him, and makes the picture beautiful and good."

"The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His."

"The Biblical quotation should read "In this world you need NOT have tribulation BECAUSE I have overcome the world." THAT is why you should "be of good cheer.""

"He will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them. You will no longer doubt that only good can come to you who are beloved of God, for He will judge all happenings and teach the single lesson which they all contain."

"The Holy Spirit USES time, but does NOT believe in it. Coming from God, He uses EVERYTHING for good, but does not BELIEVE in what is not true."

"Out of Love he was created, and in Love he abides. Goodness and mercy have always followed him, for he has always extended the Love of his Father."

"You can do ANYTHING I ask. I have asked you to perform miracles, and have made it VERY clear that these are NATURAL, CORRECTIVE, HEALING, and UNIVERSAL. There is nothing good they cannot do."

"But to the Holy Spirit, the goal is life, which HAS no end."

The Holy Spirit's goal is eternal life and immortality. That means everything he is doing is working towards the complete resurrection of the entire sonship back to their original state of perfection. This also includes the return to a state of total wholeness, innocence, happiness and health. It is the complete undoing of ALL sickness, ALL suffering, and ALL death.

Whereas all the world's roads point toward death, and the ego tries to steer everything toward destruction, the Holy Spirit steers everything towards immortality. A Course in Miracle is a course in immortality, because it's a way to move you back towards God who is life.

If you can imagine, what if everyone in the world became healed? What if everyone was a healer? What if all the sicknesses started to disappear and everyone's bodies returned to total heath? What if people stopped dying and there was no further war or attack or murder or damage? What if the entire population of the planet resounded in laughter and joy and love as one happy family?

That ultimately is the goal, or a step toward the goal, because the Holy Spirit is tasked with nothing LESS than the TOTAL resurrection of everyone. His goal is to restore everyone to eternal life and health. His goal runs completely opposite to all the goals and paths of the world, all the likely outcomes, all consequences and effects, all prognosis and diagnosis.

What's happening here in the atonement is nothing short of the absolute global resurrection of every single person. If you think that Jesus managing to surmount death was astounding, and indeed it is, since he returned to immortality and eternal life, imagine what that's going to be like when the entire population does the same?

No more sickness, no more death, no more suffering, no more unhappiness, no more corruption, no more hospitals, no more separation, no more world. Everyone lifted up and resurrected and restored and renewed through miracles. Everyone healed and whole and happy and healthy. Everyone united in a single chorus of celebration and joy and gratitude.

"The offer of Atonement is universal. It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances. And in it is the power to heal all individuals of all forms of sickness. Not to believe this is to be unfair to God, and thus unfaithful to Him."

"The Bible enjoins you to be perfect, to heal ALL errors, to take no thought of the body AS SEPARATE, and to accomplish all things IN MY NAME."

"Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal the Son of God."

"It MUST be true the miracle can heal ALL forms of sickness, or it CANNOT HEAL."

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

"You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation. This happens to be true. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive. The Disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others, as Physicians of the Lord. They were also told to heal themselves, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me."

"Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return. The miracle calls to him to return, because it blesses and honors him even though he may be absent in spirit." "Yet would His justice not be satisfied until it is received by everyone."

"Healing must be for everyone BECAUSE he does not merit an attack of any kind."

"And everyone is EQUALLY entitled to His gift of healing and deliverance and peace."

"No-one can lose, and everyone MUST benefit. Each miracle is an example of what justice can accomplish, when it is offered to everyone alike."

"What is God's BELONGS to everyone, and IS his due."

"And because I am unafraid, everyone must share in my understanding, which is the gift of God to me and to the world."

"God has given everyone a Teacher Whose wisdom and help far exceed whatever contributions an earthly therapist can provide."

"Within its holy circle, is everyone whom God created as His Son. Joy is its unifying attribute, with no-one left outside, to suffer guilt alone. The power of God draws everyone to its safe embrace of love and union."

"Your special relationship will be a means for UNDOING guilt in everyone blessed through your holy relationship. It will be a happy dream, and one which you will SHARE with all who come within your sight."

"He uses everyone who calls on Him, as means for the salvation of everyone. And He will waken everyone through you, who offered your relationship to Him."

"The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone. "

"The Holy Spirit knows your part in the redemption, and who are seeking you, and where to find them."

"Salvation's song will echo through the world with every choice they make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near. In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy. Give me my own, for they belong to You. And can You fail in what is but Your Will? I give You thanks for what my brothers are, and as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny, scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus from a world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to You."

"To heal, or to make joyous, is therefore the same as to integrate and MAKE ONE. That is why it makes no difference TO what part or BY what part of the Sonship the healing is done. EVERY part benefits, and benefits equally. YOU are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude."

"Accept Atonement and you are healed. Atonement is the Word of God. Accept His Word and what remains to make sickness possible? Accept His Word and every miracle has been accomplished. To forgive is to heal. The teacher of God has taken accepting the Atonement for himself as his only function. What is there then he cannot heal? What miracle can be withheld from him?"

"The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness."

"Every decision is made for the whole Sonship, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of."

"Do not perceive ANYTHING God did not create, or you ARE denying Him."So you can PERCEIVE something God CREATED, which is in heaven?

"ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they were created neither partially nor in part. ... The Holy Spirit enables you to PERCEIVE THIS WHOLENESS NOW."

These statements clearly tell you that you are able to PERCEIVE the contents of heaven. To perceive Christ. To perceive Creation.

This doesn't mean that perception is the same as knowledge. "To perceive the truth is not the same as knowing it". But this again implies that you CAN perceive the truth - and God is truth.

"God is in everything I see because God is in my mind?" should perhaps read "I can use perception to perceive God."

"Perception, at its loftiest, is never complete. Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception can be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach everywhere under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds everything in light. Yet no perception, however holy, will last forever."

I did a very in-depth study of EVERYTHING that ACIM says about "the real world". It seemed ultimately very clear that the real world is a little removed from heaven itself. e.g "The real world still is but a dream."

It also became clear that there is such a thing as perceiving the "face of Christ". Yet.... Christ is in heaven, so are you not perceiving heaven?

I STILL keep coming back to this idea, that the real world, the reflection of heaven, the face of christ, the perception of truth, perceiving God, seeing the Son of God, etc.... is in some manner... YOU LOOKING AT HEAVEN, but THROUGH the filter of perception.

This would seem to make more sense in terms of the "real world" being used a a term (which is not the same as the forgiven world). The forgiven world is the overlooked ILLUSORY world (earth etc), while the real world is the PERCEPTION or vision of reality. Appropriately named "real" as in, it reflects reality or is "true". True perception can perceive the truth.

We know that the real world is a "borderland of thought" in between the illusory world and heaven. Just outside the gates. But we also know it is so much on the 'border' of the illusory world of dreams that it is practically outside of it and beyond the VEIL of illusions, which was covering the face of Christ. ie it IS the face of Christ.

It makes more sense also to say that the FACE of christ, is the PERCEPTION of Christ (which is not the same as the KNOWLEDGE of Christ). And that the real world isn't just some static state, but is you looking AT heaven through perception.

"You will first dream of peace (heaven) then awaken to it."

I continue to come back to this idea that the "real world" really is a kind of "window shopping" into heaven. Like looking into heaven from the outside, from a vantage point of separation. Because "perception is a separated state." It is like an IMAGE or a photograph of heaven. A reflection in a mirror. Just once removed slightly from the actual thing.

It's appropriate to then say that the REAL real world is heaven, and "the real world" we PERCEIVE through interpretation, is "the real world" ie the light seen through the filter of consciousness. This is also why ACIM says that "nothing there but shines and shines forever" and that everyting in the real world IS ETERNAL.

If eternal means PERMANENT, the real world HAS to be a perception OF that which is permanent (heaven)... even though the real world "state of mind" ITSELF is temporary, because it's happening via perception. So what you see in true perception is heaven, eternity, but through a judgement/interpreration based way of seeing, which is itself removed from the direct experience.

In the first quote above, it is implied that you CAN see things that God created. I also did a very deep study of all terms relating to VISION, and SEEING within heaven, and there is very strong evidence that congition is able to SEE... the mind can SEE... in reality. This seeing isn't PERCEPTION, which is an interpretative function and a substitute for knowledge. "Nothing there is perceived, only known."But knowing, cognizing, is a direct awareness of what is really there. e.g. "The soul never leaves the SIGHT of God." And we're told many times that Christ lends us HIS EYES. There is a whole lot of material about being able to see in reality, without a need for perception. There, seeing is KNOWING what is there.

We should then perhaps think of "the real world", aka the face of christ, or the "interpretative image of heaven", as an actual PERCEPTUAL experience of the Kingdom. It's not quite the same as being IN the Kingdom or KNOWING it, but it is very closely correlated. "Those who perceive still need healing."

And as another quote says, perception can reach ANYWHERE under the Holy Spirit's guidance. That should include being able to perceive the Kingdom. And how would the Holy Spirit look upon CHRIST, given Christ is IN the Kingdom?

There is a curious line, like this, for example, which perhaps is literal, relating to seeing gardens and endless dancing brooks..."When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of ****violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear, life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away****; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after vision (knowing heaven), who is there who could refuse what must come after? Think but an instant just on this; you can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see."

It also clues you in that when the course talks of "you cannot see both worlds" and "beyond the world there is a world I want" etc... it's ACTUALLY referring to the comparison of Earth vs Heaven, but it saying that you can at first PERCEIVE heaven using vision/true perception, THEN go there. ie the perception of the real world is not like an internal vision inside a closed box where you see the interior walls, like its own 'state'. It's actually like a GLASS ROOM where you can perceive heaven beyond it, so clear that it's almost like being there.

So what if, false perception shows you the unforgiven world, earth. .... true perception renders the false world untrue and forgiven, recognized as an illusion, overlooked, and seen beyond, and true perception/christ vision also allows you to look to the LIGHT of heaven beyond the world, to christ and God, which you first perceive, then know. ie we're being asked to see the IMAGE or REFLECTION of heaven, using perception, before we cross over into it.

If we say that seeing the face of Christ, is really a use of perception from WITHIN the realm of perception, INSIDE the separation, LOOKING OUT BEYOND the separation at heaven OUTSIDE the bubble of spacetime and matter, then the true perception we are cultivating is really an ability to SEE Christ, who is OUTSIDE the dream, FROM the inside. The veil of matter becomes invisible, like a glass room, allowing you to look OUTSIDE its walls.

This renders "the real world" - a perception - not as simply some kind of "inbetween state", where all it sees is its own content, but rather than it is a PERCEPTION of reality, seen from a separated vantage point, but with such clarity and accuracy and openness that it is like peering into heaven itself. There is no perceptual function IN heaven (where you have true sight), but there is a perception OF heaven from the outside looking in.

And so forgiveness brings the ability to SEE truth, reality, love, light, heaven, holiness, christ, God, peace, perfection, etc."The miracle perceives everything (in heaven) as it is. If nothing but the truth (heaven/reality) exists, right-minded seeing cannot see anything but perfection. I have said that only what God creates or what you create with the same Will has any real existence. This, then, is all ***the innocent can see*** (can see perfection, which is in heaven). They do not suffer from distorted perception."

I've been getting hints for a while, that there is a disconnect between inner and outer states, or between how I experience the world and what the world does. That it's possible to remain in a state of happiness or love, in spite of what's happening externally. That my inner condition doesn't depend on the outer condition.

The question came up, what if I could just remain happy regardless of what happens? What if how I feel isn't actually tied to the world or events or people? If I were to be happy while something was happening, I probably wouldn't care so much about it. It isn't an issue of what happens, but of how I experience it internally.

So there's the external happenings, and then there's the internal experience of it. What that also tells me is that who and what I am, isn't part of the physical level. It isn't the body or an emotion or an event or a reaction. It's actually possible to step away from the external stuff and sit above it, out of reach of suffering.

In truth then there aren't actually any causes of suffering in the world. There is nothing outside of me that can bring oppression. It really is only my mind that can affect my experience. And if I so choose, I can in fact elect to be in a state of happiness and safety which the world can do NOTHING about. Just as the course says, the world cannot give you peace, OR take it away.

It's kind of like saying, when you're in a good mood, nothing can bother you. You just float above it and are much less affected. When you are happier and stronger in light and life and love, you laugh in the face of death.

The simple secret of salvation then is that you cannot suffer unless you make yourself suffer. You can't suffer unless you step down from your throne of love, in which you share God's strength and power, and see yourself as a victim in some way. As soon as you choose to go into a fear state, the whole world starts to seem like it is out to get you, unsettling you, topping you off balance, making you lose your center.

So I started thinking about.. well, if I could just remain in a state of inner happiness, love, peace etc, it would not matter what happens outside me. It wouldn't even matter if everything was falling apart and going wrong. I would just remain happy and laugh about it. Whether I am happy or not should not depend at all on the world or other people. It depends entirely on my state of mind. And "the world was made that problems could not be escaped. Seek not escape from problems here", so it's really how I use and see the world that offers me escape from it.

As Jesus says, if we identify with love, we will feel safe, and will enter into the protection of God. If we tune to love, our mind will become whole and happy and healthy and our body will follow suit. Love is the single main ingredient of all miracle working, as expressions of love, which is also the power of God. If you are close to love then what you are literally moves away from the bodily level into the mind/spirit, above the battleground and out of reach of threat. Because you are not of this world.

I think we've been so used to living in fear, being out of touch with safety, that we just assume the whole world is unsafe. Everything is seen as a threat or attack, then we become defensive and try to make ourselves safe. But it doesn't work. And then we're insecure and feeling vulnerable and attackable, weak and victimized, offended and upset. Then we get really lost in this idea that I'm afraid or upset because of the world.

The only reason I am ever afraid or upset is because I've gone into fear in my mind, having rejected love in my mind, and this is an attack upon myself by myself. And now I look out through fearful sight and this taints everything I see. It now seems like because I am unsafe, everything in the world is reminding me of that unsafely. Everything becomes a threat because my mind is in a state of threat. Everyone becomes an enemy because I have become enemy to myself.

The key is that it's not them that's the problem. They're not the cause of my fear or upset. They're not doing anything to me. They're not putting the fear in me, threatening me, attacking me, or victimizing me. I only think they are because I'm confused and am not realizing that I'm doing all that to myself. Either I identify with love and feel totally safe and SEE safety everywhere, or I identify with fear/ego and see reasons to be afraid everywhere I look.

As Jesus says, "you can escape the world you see by giving up attack thoughts", ie "your attack thoughts are attacking your invulnerability." "You can be hurt by nothing but your thoughts." "It can be but myself I crucify" etc. We do stuff to ourselves and then it flavors everything we see. The problem isn't out there, it's in our minds. It's in our minds before we even project and make perceptions. It's in our identification. Either we are identifying with the body and with the idea of a fearful fake self, or we're identifying with spirit and with strength and safety and invulnerability.

As a man thinketh. Here Jesus tells you that if you want the world to not appear to be frightening, you need to change YOUR MIND, so that you PROJECT safety from a loving mind, and then perceive it as a result. This isn't a statement about not changing the world, only that you can only make the world appear to be safe as a side-effect of choosing safety in your mind FIRST, and then projecting it. This will change how you interpret the world that's perceived, once projected from an inner state. The inner state comes first. Choose love and you are safe. And you are safe because you are body and cannot be attacked.

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no MORE than that, it is NOT less. Therefore, to YOU, it IS important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the WORLD, but will to change your mind ABOUT the world. Perception is a RESULT, and NOT a cause."

"Destructiveness becomes benign, and sin is turned to blessing under His gentle gaze."

"When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and SEEN it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision? And AFTER vision, who is there who COULD refuse what MUST come after? Think but an instant just on this. YOU can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And NEVER need you think that there IS something else for you to see."

"There is a light which this world cannot give. Yet YOU can give it, as it was given YOU. And AS you give it, it shines forth to call you FROM the world, and follow it. For this light will attract you as nothing in this world can do. And you will lay aside the world and find another. This other world is bright with love WHICH YOU HAVE GIVEN IT. And here will everything remind you of your Father and his holy Son. Light is unlimited, and spreads across this world in quiet joy. All those you brought WITH you will shine on you, and you will shine on them in gratitude, because they brought you here. Your light will join with theirs, in power so compelling, that it will draw the others out of darkness as you look on them."

"What is the single requisite for this shift in perception? It is simply this; the recognition that sickness is of the mind, and has nothing to do with the body. What does this recognition "cost"? It costs the world we see, for the world will never again appear to rule the mind. For with this recognition is responsibility placed where it belongs; not with the world, but on him who looks on the world and sees it as it is not. He looks on what he chooses to see. No more and no less. The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did. Nor does he do anything to the world, because he was mistaken about what it was. Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea."

"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others."

Let's just be VERY, VERY clear for a moment. Heaven and Earth are definitely TWO VERY DISTINCT STATES/PLACES in A Course in Miracles. If they were the same place there'd be no point Jesus referring to them as opposites or as two things. Or as "in heaven" or as "on earth". THEY ARE TWO PLACES. You cannot be in, or see, both of them, at once. THEY ARE OPPOSITES, diametrically opposed in every way.

This is important to realize, because Jesus frequently states how Heaven is DISTINCT from Earth and being IN Heaven is very different to being ON Earth. And yes folks, EARTH DOES MEAN THE PLANET EARTH, not some strange twisted metaphoric interpreted labelling of your inner ego interference "about" a world. The only way the Earth is "about" anything is in that it is an attack on Heaven.

Heaven and Earth. TWO PLACES. Earth has "place" because it is inside spacetime. Heaven is "not a place" only in that it has no FINITE LOCATIONS, because IT IS EVERYWHERE, and so transcends spacetime. It is STILL A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN EXIST AND LIVE!!!

If you EVER think that Earth is Heaven, you are stuck and have totally missed the obvious. Anyone reading theses statements SHOULD, using NORMAL LANGUAGE, get the impression and message that Jesus literally means TWO WORLDS, and that they can never be one because they are OPPOSITES. And only Heaven really exists. If someone reads these and doesn't get that? Read it again and take it literally.

"He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"Only this is the real world, and perceiving ONLY this will lead you to the real Heaven, because IT WILL MAKE YOU CAPABLE OF UNDERSTANDING IT."

"For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing IS yours."

"Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth."

"You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego."

"Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both are in your wills, and therefore in your minds."

"It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth."

"The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

"Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him."

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

"Just under Heaven does he stand, but close enough not to return to earth."

"As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

"You have been told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is creating. The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and that you have no function AT ALL in Heaven."

"The miracle, without a function in Heaven, IS needful here."

"The golden ASPECTS of reality which spring to light under His loving gaze, are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them."

"As miracles in this world join you to your brothers, so do your creations establish your fatherhood in Heaven."

"Deny a brother here, and you deny the witnesses to your fatherhood in Heaven."

"The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him."

"This is the ONLY justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth. "

"Reason will tell you that there is no middle ground where you can pause uncertainly, waiting to choose between the joy of Heaven and the misery of hell. Until you choose Heaven, you ARE in hell and misery."

"The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there."

"The sky embraces it, and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from earth as earth from Heaven. It is not the distance nor the time which keeps this star invisible to earth. But those who seek for idols cannot know this star is there."

"For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

"No one on earth can grasp what Heaven is, or what its one Creator really means. Yet we have witnesses."

"There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven."

"I give You thanks for what my brothers are, and as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny, scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus"

"There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not. Yet here on earth, it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things."

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects. But let us again remember that both are in you."

"It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace."

"Forgiveness is an earthly form of love which as it is in Heaven has no form."

"His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth."

"And you will have conviction then of Him Who knows the function that you have on earth as well as Heaven. "

"Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God's plan."

"There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it."

"It is the bond by which the giver and receiver are united in extension here on earth as they are one in Heaven."

"It is the reflection of God's Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me to my home."

"No-one outside of Heaven knows how this can be. For understanding this is Heaven itself. Even the real world has a purpose still beneath creation and eternity."

"God limits not. And what is limited can NOT be Heaven. So it MUST be hell."

"Now a quiet time has come in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven's children and the Son of God. We pause but for a moment more, to play our final happy game upon this earth. And then we go to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless."

"Father, in Heaven it is different, for there, there are no needs. But here on earth the miracle is closer to Your gifts than any other gift which I can give. "

"His Words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. His Words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven's love upon them."

"The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions."

"Nothing at all has happened but that you have put yourself to sleep, and dreamed a dream in which you were an alien to yourself, and but a part of someone ELSE'S dream."

The VITAL thing thing to realize, which is brought to light by the Atonement principle, and seen with true forgiveness, is this.

IT IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE TO SIN. You cannot do it in reality. You are literally incapable of changing God. You are literally incapable of making effects in God, stopping His will, changing who you are, corrupting your innocence, becoming sinful or dying. LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

You HAVE NOT sinned. You HAVE NOT separated. You cannot leave God. You cannot do anything to change reality whatsoever. God's Kingdom is totally the same as it always has been. His Kingdom cannot be assailed, it is permanent. NOTHING HAS CHANGED. You are 100% incapable of separation or sin or death. This is literally absolutely true. You simply HAVE NOT DONE, what you think you have done, and you ARE NOT doing it now.

So the question remains, what exactly IS this "state" that you are in? If it is impossible to sin or be separate, why does it seem like you are?

Simply, because you cannot ACTUALLY sin or attack reality or kill yourself, you have ONLY IMAGINED that it is possible. And that means, you are simply IN DENIAL, and you have made the ERROR of BELIEVING that you can do what you cannot do, that the impossible is possible, that you have done what you have not done, and you think something unreal is real.

So it's not like, you actually DID separate or sin, and that now you need to undo all that and heal it. You DIDN'T do it. You HAVE NOT produced real consequences. NOTHING REAL HAS HAPPENED AT ALL because nothing real can be threatened. So it has not been threatened. Whatsoever.

All that's "happened" is you've pretended to be ABLE to do what you CANNOT do, pretending to have done what you CANNOT POSSIBLY have done, and now you are "dreaming", literally "wishful thinking", having a fantasy, that you've convinced yourself you actually DID do it. That you are doing it now. That you are PROVING that it is real and possible. But you're not. You're failing to prove it. Reality is unaffected. You are just delusional.

So it's not that you're inside a real separation trying to get out. It's ONLY that you BELIEVE you are, you THINK you are, and you are MISTAKEN in believing and thinking you are, because in truth YOU ARE NOT. You have not done anything real whatsoever. You're just someone who believes they have committed a crime that they HAVE NOT committed. You think you sinned, but you didn't. You think you had a power that you do not have. You think you've CAUSED something REAL to happen against God, but you DID NOT.

LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE.

All you have is a case of BEING MISTAKEN. All you have is a case of having MADE THE ERROR, of believing, that you can and have done something that you shouldn't have done. It's not even that you DID make a real mistake. You just THINK you did.

It's like, a child who does something and they think they broke something, and they become upset and start crying, and hurting themselves, because they feel bad about what they did. And there's the adult trying to reassure them, that what they THINK they did, it totally does not matter, they DIDN'T cause any real harm, nothing has really been affected, and if they will just open their eyes and LOOK, they will SEE that it's TRUE, that NOTHING HAS GONE WRONG.

It's the recognition that everything is STILL AS GOD CREATED IT. Everything is still perfect, holy, whole, innocent, unharmed, safe, protected, undefiled, unattacked, completely happy, and totally healed. Because it's only your MISTAKEN BELIEF that ITS NOT, that needs to be undone. You are just mistaken. Just very deluded and deceived, in believing something is true that isn't. YOU ARE JUST CONFUSED.

What you think you've done, you HAVE NOT DONE. What you think was possible, IS NOT POSSIBLE. You're merely in a state of denial, pretense, trying to convince yourself that you ACTUALLY CAN DO what you cannot do. You're using all kinds of illusory dreams of weapons against yourself and others to TRY to bring about the death of God's son, to try to attack, to try to produce PROOF that you ACTUALLY HAVE sinned and that you ACTUALLY DO deserve to die. But not only have you not sinned, YOU CANNOT DIE. And even your attempts to prove it with a DREAM, wherein the dream body seems to die, STILL does not prove it. Because you carry on.

"You have made a bargain that you cannot keep." You literally are NOT CAPABLE of proving to be true, what is NEVER true. You literally CANNOT destroy the Son of God. So this whole ENTIRE dream world, designed to try to demonstrate and prove that God's Son can be anything less than immortal, is TOTALLY FUTILE. It DOES NOT WORK. Death does not work. Death is FAILURE, failure to make illusions real, failure to prove death overcomes life, and failure to have ANY REAL EFFECTS WHATSOEVER.

So basically, there you are, an innocent IMMORTAL BEING, who can NEVER stop being immortal, PRETENDING to be mortal, pretending to suffer against your will, pretending to be a victim, pretending that a dream world is choosing everything for you against your will, and pretending that you can die. ALL TOTALLY FICTIONAL. All fake. All made-up. All illusions. Because NOTHING can change the sheer FACT of what you are, a totally immortal spirit being that IS STILL AS GOD CREATED IT. Which you can NEVER CHANGE. EVER.

"I am still as God created me" is atonement thinking. This is a forgiving perception. It is a recognition that only the truth is true. It is a remembering that NOTHING HAS REALLY HAPPENED. Nothing has gone wrong. You are totally safe and loved in Heaven. You HAVE NOT SINNED WHATSOEVER. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING REAL HAS BEEN AFFECTED!!! Not even a tiny bit! You're just sleeping and dreaming of being a sinner. You'll wake up to realize and remember, that dream was so ridiculous, it's ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE for you to sin!

Absolutely EVERYTHING In this ENTIRE WORLD, this whole universe, is UTTERLY RIDICULOUS NONSENSE. Not one single thing about it is true. It is the dream of death, a TOTAL FICTION, absolutely bullshit in every way imaginable. It is a state of denial, a state of unconsciousness, a state of dreaming that you're exiled from Heaven.

You are having nothing more than a bad dream of death, in which terrible things seem to happen, impossible things, unthinkable things. And yet when you wake up, you will know, without a doubt, the ENTIRE THING was totally impossible. And you will thank God that NOT ONE SINGLE THING IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD WAS EVER TRUE.

This is atonement. This recognition is forgiveness. This truth, that you HAVEN'T done anything, that NOTHING happened. That THERE IS NO WORLD, NO EARTH, NO SPECIAL THINGS, there is NO DREAM, there is ONLY HEAVEN. "Only the creations of light are real" "There is no life outside of heaven." Therefore you are JUST MISTAKEN to believe otherwise, and recognizing this is a forgiving attitude.

You ARE forgiven, fully, because you LITERALLY have NOT DONE ANYTHING!! Your only choice now is whether to recognize and accept this truth, or whether to stay in denial and pretend you can and should suffer. And it's not God's will that you suffer in any way.

"Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death."

In A Course in Miracles there are hundreds of references to FREEDOM scattered throughout. Freedom is also contrasted against its opposite, which is imprisonment, enslavement, being bound to the ego, to the body, to darkness, suffering and death. The whole course is geared towards you reclaiming your freedom, and giving freedom to others. Through your miracles you are setting others free, and releasing them from the chains of imprisonment you held them in before.

"I am not a body I am free."

"Essentially, ALL healing is the release from fear."

"I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God. I was bitterly mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want."

"It is NOT your will to be imprisoned, BECAUSE your will is free."

"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom."

"I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.

I know that you will be released, UNLESS I WANT TO

USE YOU TO IMPRISON MYSELF."

"But their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God's Son IF THEY SO CHOOSE."

"For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it." "When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made."

"They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned himself. By freeing his mind from illusions, they restore his sanity, and place him at the feet of Jesus."

The idea of freedom really goes back to your creation as a free-willed being by God. God has absolute freedom, being free from all limitation. God is unlimited. He who is unlimited can only give complete freedom, because he knows not of imprisonment. God does not create by imprisoning, he creates by giving freedom. All his children are not only free, they are fully free. It is because they are completely free ... in a sense, free from God .... though still sharing freely with him, that they are established as truly cooperative co-creators in heaven.

"Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but KEEP your will forever and forever limitless."

"Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His."

Any attempt you make to imprison another, to attack, to judge, to condemn, to blame, to project, to hurt, to destroy, to make guilty, to accuse of sin, to be victimized by, to victimize, to narrow to a body, to induce suffering of any kind, is actually an attempt to take away the freedom of others, AND to deny your own freedom. You cannot be a victim or suffer in ANY way if you acknowledge your total freedom. But in order to gain your own freedom, you MUST acknowledge that everyone else is also free from YOU, and you from them. You are not bound BY your brothers, any more than they are bound by you.

Dwell for a moment on the feeling of "keeping to yourself", in the sense that you ALLOW everyone to be free FROM YOU. Acknowledge that everyone is completely free. You are free from their tyranny over you. They are free from your tyranny over them. Let go of all manipulation, expectation, wanting others to be a certain way, or resisting their choices. Withdraw all your efforts to control and coerce, to blame and accuse. Let go of everyone. Let the whole world be itself. Settle back into your own inner freedom. You are free from enemies, free from attack, free from the choices of others, free from the body, and free from the world.

The course is in fact leading entirely to your TOTAL FREEDOM. Claiming your freedom is the restoration of your birth right. You cannot however claim your total freedom if you are imprisoning others, because the attempt to do so is an attempt to reinforce the idea that freedom doesn't exist. And thus you imprison yourself. It is said that your brother can set you free, or is the key to your salvation. By GIVING him total freedom, you give it to yourself. By recognizing he IS FREE, you recognize YOU are free. Try it.

Atonement is all about claiming freedom for yourself and the whole sonship. It is an act of setting everyone free from imprisonment. It releases you and everyone from slavery, bondage, body identification, death identification, and from all forms of suffering. You cannot BE affected by forces outside of you. The world cannot make you imprisoned or take your freedom away. No-one can deny your freedom for you. Not even God can decide whether you are free or not. He established you as free forever, and only you can deny your OWN freedom by denying it to the whole sonship.

When you acknowledge that you are COMPLETELY FREE FROM EVERYTHING, you settle back into your soul, you lift your hands away from the territory and lives of others and you set everyone free. In so doing you BECOME free yourself. You can feel it inside you, an acknowledgement of your own freedom, and it makes you feel happy and safe. You are safe from all attack because you are claiming your freedom. You are even save from suffering and death and from all the forces in the world. Nothing can imprison you or act against your will, but your will itself. When you stop imprisoning, you stop imprisoning yourself.

Below is an extensive collection of quotes from ACIM on the topic of freedom.

"How wonderful it is to do your will! For that IS freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom's name."

"The world awaits the freedom you will give, when you have recognized that YOU are free."

"And no-one walks upon the earth but must depend on YOUR decision, that he learn death HAS no power over him because he shares YOUR freedom, as he shares your will."

"No-one but yearns for freedom, and tries to find it, but he will seek for it where he believes it IS, and CAN be found."

"But be you, rather, grateful that YOU can be the means to serve His end. This is the ONLY service which leads to freedom. To serve THIS end, the body MUST be perceived as sinless, BECAUSE the goal is sinlessness."

"Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom if it be at all. Yet in reality his dreams are gone, with truth established in their place. And now is freedom his already. Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now?"

"I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me. And the way to You is opening and clear to me at last. Father, my freedom is in You alone. Father, it is my will that I return."

"How glad are we to find our freedom through the certain way our Father has established. And how sure is all the world's salvation, when we learn our freedom can be found in God alone."

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found."

"We sound the call of freedom 'round the world with this idea."

"The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom."

"In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well. Without the power to enslave, it is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Spirit seeks."

"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body."

"For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God."

"Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance."

"For as we offer freedom it is given us. And we would not remain as prisoners, while You hold out our freedom unto us."

"He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond EVERYTHING that would hold you back."

"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom"

"That is because you have taught YOURSELF that imprisonment IS freedom"

"The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only one direction, and has only one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God."

"Will to BE without you. When you have learned that your will IS God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without YOU. This IS freedom and this IS joy."

"Father, I thank You for today, and for the freedom I am certain it will bring. This day is holy, for today Your Son will be redeemed. His suffering is done."

"Thanks for today, my Father. I was born into this world but to achieve this day, and what it holds in joy and freedom for Your holy Son, and for the world he made, which is released along with him today."

"Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world."

"Let us not worship idols, nor believe in any laws idolatry would make to hide the freedom of the Son of God. He is not bound except by his beliefs. Yet what he is is far beyond his faith in slavery or freedom."

"But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided in HOW they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS true."

"And is it THIS that you would see within your Savior FROM insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in the freedom that you see in HIM, you see your own."

"Those who choose freedom will experience only ITS results. Their power is of God."

"Nothing but this can touch them, for they see ONLY this, sharing their power according to the Will of God. And thus their freedom is established AND MAINTAINED. It is upheld through ALL temptations to imprison and to BE imprisoned. It is THEM, who learned of freedom, that you should ask what freedom IS."

"And where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment, and to remember freedom."

"Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's." "I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of freedom."

"Forgiveness, truly given, is the only way in which your hope of freedom lies."

"Yet you must learn alternatives for choice, or you will not be able to attain your freedom."

"The level of your prayer depends on this, for here it waits its freedom to ascend above the world of chaos into peace."

"For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to understand."

"If you want to be LIKE me, I will help you, knowing that we ARE alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I can TEACH you, but only you can choose to LISTEN to my teaching. How else can it be, if God's Kingdom IS freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of ALL God's Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God's Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the ONLY lesson I can teach, knowing that it is true."

"In our remembrance of EACH OTHER lies our remembrance of God. And in this remembrance lies your freedom, because your freedom is in Him."

"This is our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with ALL His Creations, to whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. BECAUSE it is acceptable to Him, it is the gift of freedom, which IS His Will for all His Sons. By OFFERING freedom you will be free, because freedom is the only gift which you can offer to God's Sons, being an acknowledgment of what they are and what HE is."

"Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do NOT love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including YOURSELF, you do not love him and you cannot identify with him. When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father."

"Only the function God has given me

can offer freedom. Only this I seek,

and only this will I accept as mine."

"In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; this choice is always between two choices or two voices. Will is not involved in perception at any level, and has nothing to do with choice."

"It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Son of God finds his freedom."

"When I see the world as a place of freedom, I will realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules which I made up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me."

"Can I lay limits on the Son of God, whose Father willed that he be limitless, and like Himself in freedom and in love?"

"So will YOU learn the freedom that I taught, by teaching freedom to each other, and so releasing me. I am within your holy relationship, yet you would imprison me behind the obstacles you RAISE to freedom, and bar my way to YOU."

"So would I liberate all things I see, and give to them the freedom that I seek. For thus do I obey the law of love, and give what I would find and make my own."

"Today's idea is one step we take in leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom."

"And you are free, and glad of freedom. You have sought to be both weak and bound, because you feared your strength and freedom. Yet salvation lies in them."

"All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom FOR you."

"Accept this key to freedom, from the hands of Christ, Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light to darkness. For, like your brothers, YOU do not realize the light has come, and freed you from the sleep of darkness."

"Behold your brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be FREE of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave YOU asleep."

"His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER."

"You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it."

"Think what a happy world you walk, with truth beside you! Do not give up this world of freedom, for a little sigh of seeming sin, nor for a tiny stirring of guilt's attraction."

"How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value MORE than this? For here is YOUR salvation and YOUR freedom. And it MUST be complete, if YOU would recognize it."

"But You have offered freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today."

"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me."

"The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to Spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own."

"Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave."

"Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge."

"Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you."

"Thus do we lift the chains which bar the door to freedom from the world, and go beyond all little values and diminished goals."

"Peace and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world when you release your mind from chains, and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. It will be grateful to be free a while. It knows where it belongs. But free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love.

"He would only have you learn your OWN will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom."

"The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it CAN be offered you through the grace of God."

"It contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve."

"The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds."

"LOVE IS FREEDOM. To look for it by placing yourself in BONDAGE, is to SEPARATE yourself from it. For the love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you BE released."

"The holy instant is His most helpful tool in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the REAL lure in the special relationship. You do NOT recognize that this IS its REAL appeal, for the ego has taught you that FREEDOM lies in it."

"It is impossible to see two worlds.

Let me accept the strength God offers me

And see no value in this world, that I

May find my freedom and deliverance."

"It is impossible to see two worlds.

I seek my freedom and deliverance,

And this is not a part of what I want."

"And think how holy HE must be, when in him sleeps your OWN salvation, with HIS freedom joined."

"What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home."

"It is no sacrifice that he be saved, for BY his freedom will you gain your own."

"He HAS no need but this; that you allow him freedom to complete the task God gave to him."

"But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom."

"The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release, because YOU made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war, the guilt, the past, are gone as one, into the unreality from whence they came."

"In the holy instant, in which you see yourself as bright with freedom, you WILL remember God. For remembering Him IS to remember freedom."

"Practice GIVING this blessed instant of freedom to all who are ENSLAVED by time, and thus make time their friend FOR them."

"Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. For you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape."

"Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic vain pursuits and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God." "Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father's Love for him belongs to you."

"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you."

"It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved."

"The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace."

"Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real."

"But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself."

"The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all."

"For you have cause for freedom NOW. What profits freedom in a prisoner's form?"

"You have denied HIS freedom, and by so doing, you have denied the witness unto YOURS. You could as easily have FREED him from the past, and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him TO it. And in HIS freedom would have been your OWN."

"Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God's plan for salvation."

"There is ANOTHER vision and ANOTHER voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place your faith in them, you will perceive ANOTHER Self in YOU."

"The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone."

"You will have to choose between TOTAL freedom and TOTAL bondage, for there are no alternatives but these."

"In the name of MY freedom, I WILL your release,

Because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.

So will the year begin in joy and freedom."

"For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace."

"Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now you are prepared for freedom."

"A madman thinks the world he sees is real and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last." "Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world"

"Where COULD his freedom lie but in himself, if he be free ALREADY? And who could bind him but HIMSELF, if he DENY his freedom?"

"Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand what freedom IS."

"Strengthen your hold, and raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies."

"Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create, but its APPLICATION is different."

"Today escape from madness. You are set on freedom's road, and now today's idea brings wings to speed you on, and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace."

"The first step toward freedom, then, MUST entail a sorting out of the false from the true. This is a process of division only in the constructive sense, and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse."

"Give joyously to one another the freedom and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other's holy altar, where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home."

"His is the Voice of God, and also yours. And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth."

"There is no death. The Son of God is free. And in His freedom is the end of fear."

"Whom you forgive is GIVEN power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto YOU."

"Behold the gift of freedom that I gave the Holy Spirit, for BOTH of you. And be you free together, as you offer TO the Holy Spirit this SAME gift, and, giving it, receive it OF Him, in RETURN for what you gave."

"Offer each other freedom and complete release from sin, here in the garden of seeming agony and death. So will we prepare TOGETHER the way unto the Resurrection of God's Son."

"Fear of escape makes it difficult to welcome freedom, and to make a jailer of an enemy seems to be safety."

"It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son."

"There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom."

"Do not ALLOW him to belittle himself in YOUR mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and escape from YOURS."

"Freedom from illusions lies only in not BELIEVING them."

"Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized."

"And what they see upholds their freedom FROM imprisonment and death." "Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's Saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and RELEASE from suffering to everyone who NEEDS a miracle to save him."

"The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom." "We bless the world as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, now our own."

"Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace."

"Accept today's idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it."

"We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom."

"What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours."

"Above all else you want the freedom to remember who you really are."

"It is your special function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you"

"The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness they do not see. Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death."

"When you have seen your brothers as yourself, you will be RELEASED to knowledge, having learned to FREE yourself, of Him who knows of freedom. "

"The miracle teaches you that you have chosen guiltlessness, freedom, and joy. It is not a cause, but an EFFECT. It is the natural result of CHOOSING RIGHT, attesting to your happiness that comes from choosing to be FREE of guilt."

"Therefore, make your INVULNERABILITY manifest to everyone, and teach him that, WHATEVER he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can BE harmed, shows him HE is guiltless."

"You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies. Your Father loves you."

"The possibility of freedom has been grasped and welcomed, and the means by which it can be gained can now be understood."

"I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world, for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom."

"He cannot choose to change His Son, nor make your mind accept the perfect freedom He has given you." "Healing is freedom, for it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth."

"Your special relationships will remain, NOT as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom. It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery."

"The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because HIS grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because of the complete lack of investment in it."

"For faith can keep the Son of God in chains, as long as he believes he IS in chains. And, when he is RELEASED from them, it will be simply because he no longer BELIEVES in them, WITHDRAWING faith that they can hold him, and placing it in his freedom INSTEAD."

"Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute to the body, or LET himself be given freedom from it."

"He may not yet have learned HOW to exchange his guilt for innocence, nor realize that ONLY in this exchange can freedom from pain be his."

"My role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your egos cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible moment, and in every possible way."

"Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons, because it separates segments of reality according to highly unstable scales of desire."

"Miracles need freedom from fear. Part of their Atonement value involves just that. Note that the word "atone" really means "undo."

"In this phase of learning, working miracles is more valuable because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you."

"Look on your brother, and behold in him the whole reversal of the laws that SEEM to rule this world. See in his freedom YOURS, for such it IS."

"To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that you HAVE accepted the Atonement for yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you OFFER the gift of freedom from the past, which you have RECEIVED." "Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship, for freedom lies here."

"For the body IS little and limited, and only those whom you would see WITHOUT the limits that the ego would impose on them, can offer YOU the gift of freedom."

"Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds."

"For you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your true intent was NEVER absent. Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice."

"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it."

"And you will carry its message of love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto your temple, where healing waits for him."

"The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God, IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES."

"You could accept peace NOW, for everyone you meet, and offer them perfect freedom from ALL illusions, BECAUSE YOU HEARD. But have no other gods before Him, or you will NOT hear."

"Nothing of God will enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by HIS Being."

"HIS slip (rivet) was an expression of a Soul gaining enough strength to request freedom from prison. It will ultimately DEMAND it."

"Because of his failure to accept his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as similarly free."

"Freedom from fear can be achieved by BOTH teacher and pupil ONLY if they do not compare either their needs or their positions in regard to each other in terms of higher and lower."

"In the service of the "Right Mind", the denial of ERROR frees the mind and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is REALLY free, it CANNOT miscreate, because it recognizes ONLY TRUTH.

When we are introduced to this world, it is through false perception. That means we SEEM to "see it with" the body's eyes, and we believe the body's way of seeing. And the body shows us the world of form, which is cruel and dark and a place of death.

We do not even realize our mind is in any way making, or interpreting, how the world is. We observe. We see its suffering and carnage. And we decide the world is an inherently bad place.

Jesus then tells us:

"The world is false perception".

"The world IS perception."

"There is no world apart from what you wish"

"Projection makes perception."

What this suggests is, when your mind is in a dark attitude, it projects a world which it simultaneously perceives as a dark place. And when the mind is in a light attitude, it projects a world which is simultaneously perceived as a light place.

What it also suggests is, there IS no world, beyond your mind's dreaming and projecting of one. Ie the world is in your mind. And Jesus agrees to that.

"You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts."

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you, it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive."

What this tells us is there is not really an objective world. The world doesn't exist without someone dreaming of it, in their mind.

It may appear, conceptually, that there is a neutral, meaningless world, like a mirror, waiting for you to project whatever kind of images you want onto. And it might suggest this neutral world is a receiver of either your dark projections or your light projections. And that you see this darkness or light "in" "it" accordingly.

But He is also telling us that at no time does the body or world exist. That it is an hallucination.

"Perception is a result, not a cause."

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal?"

"Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by which the outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin, and seems to witness to its reality. ***It still is true that nothing is without.*** Yet, upon nothing, are ALL projections made. For it is the PROJECTION which gives the "nothing" all the meaning that it holds. ***What has no meaning, cannot BE perceived.*** And meaning always looks within, to find itself. And THEN looks out. ***All meaning that you give the world outside, must thus reflect the sight you saw within.*** Or better, if you saw at all, or merely judged against."

You look within your mind first, and then you project. And what you see, is only what you have projected, because projection MAKES what you perceive, and perceiving is the RESULT of what you projected.

Therefore you see only "a world" "out there" because you are projecting it inside your mind. It is not really out there at all. It is nothing. There is nothing to project onto. Only what you project AS.

This tells you essentially that the world you see in false perception, when your mind is dark, when you look within and see darkness, and then project it outward for perceiving, is seen ONLY in the dark of mind.

And this tells you that, essentially, there is ANOTHER WORLD, another "version" of a world, unlike what you saw in false perception, which is seen in light. It is seen only by looking within, seeing the light of Christ, and then projecting outward as Christ Vision. That "real world" has no resemblance to the world of false perception.

In fact, because there is no objective world, and you maintain it entirely in your mind, and because your mental attitude "tunes you out" of one world and "into" another, the Holy Spirit's happy dream, seeing one makes you unable to see the other.

"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

"Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began."

It's kind of like saying, when you are in a bad mood, you project a hellish version of a planet Earth. When you are in a good mood, you project the real world, which contains no forms, no suffering, no sickness, no death. They are like tuning into different TV stations. Investment in the spiritual eye weakens investment in the physical sight.

"Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos."

The world, which we call Earth, seems to exist only so long as we dream of it. A forgiven world, is how Earth appears to be when seen through forgiving eyes. It is not the real world, because in the real world there are no forms. But it may appear close.

Earth is a veil, hanging in front of the real world, and must be seen through to the light. This is what Christ Vision does, overlooking the world. And eventually this veil lifts entirely to reveal the real world/face of Christ in its fullness. And in this Vision, the world - Earth, is completely forgotten, and disappears from sight entirely.

"This world of idols is a veil across the face of Christ, because its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself."

"Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world."

"the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ."

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

The Earth, hell, the forgiven world, the real world even, are all dreams in your mind. The real world offers you an entirely different outlook, vision, and something to look at, beyond the world of bodies and sin.

"This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. "

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."

"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him. But while he still lays value on his own, he will DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves WHAT HE LOVES NOT, and following not the road that love points out."

"Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. "

"When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision?"

"Damnation is your judgment on YOURSELF. And this you WILL project upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the witness to the choice you made, and learn from this to RECOGNIZE the one you made. The world you see but shows you how much joy YOU have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as YOURS. And, if this IS its meaning, then the power to GIVE it joy MUST lie WITHIN you."

"You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would JUDGE reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."

"Here is the fear of God most plainly seen. For love is treacherous to those who fear, since fear and hate can NEVER be apart. No-one who hates but is afraid of love, and therefore MUST he be afraid of God."

We need to realize that when Jesus talks about fear, he isn't talking about you suddenly having an increase in a sense of fright. Or a temporary worry. He's actually saying that the ENTIRE SEPARATION is a movement away from love, into a state of love's absence. That state is called fear.

But we need to also realize that Jesus says we have entered into seemingly many things, all of which are one illusion. This includes fear, sin, attack, guilt, death, suffering, sickness, murder, etc. Even the ego itself is nothing more than a fearful thought. It may seem to house all the many aspects or attributes of separation but it is also fear. It is insanity and guilt and fear and death and many other things all rolled into one.

When you are stressed out, you are afraid. When you are worried for someone's physical health, you are afraid. When you are concerned whether something will work out or not, you are afraid. When you are seeing yourself as victimized and attacked, you are afraid. When you have a sense that everything is going wrong and there is no hope, you are afraid.

When you are entering into that familiar and horrible state of "this is a nightmare", you are afraid. When you feel like you are dependent on the world and of something being a certain way, you are afraid. When you are taking illusions seriously you are afraid. When you think that someone "is really sick", you are afraid. The fear can seem to take on many forms and in many degrees and levels and most of the time you may not even realize it.

When Jesus says that fear comes from trusting in your own strength, he is reflecting on the fact that if you listen to the ego and focus on self-sufficiency without God, you will be afraid. Because this means you're separating off from God and thus are trying to distance yourself from him - in fear. In essence, separation from God, or separation from anything or anyone, is a state of fear. Just as it is also a state of guilt, and of sickness, and of death.

Jesus tells us that "all healing is the release from fear." This pertains to you in terms of you needing to be healed, and in terms of your miracle working for others. Where there is fear there is separation and seriousness, darkness and despair. When there is fear, there is no lightness or happiness or freedom. Fear binds you and imprisons you and makes you powerless. Fear is literally a rejection of love, or life, of health, of God, of everything.

This is why he casually has said that we have made a "detour into fear". The whole separation is a detour away from fearlessness into fear. This tells you then that when you get OUT of the fear, you will find happiness and joy, lightness and peace, health and wholeness. All "forms" of separation from God have to be undone and fear is a really big part of this. Teachers of God cannot be afraid. We should be fearless. This does not mean having a lot of arrogance or physical strength or competitiveness, it means you literally are not feeling fear or having reasons to be afraid.

Ultimately this is all wrapped up as simply the opposite of love. Fear is love's absence. Fear is God's absence. Fear thus becomes the "fear of God", seemingly, as if God is causing the fear. But in truth, the fear is being used to FRAME God as the cause of fear. To justify shrinking and withdrawing.

As Jesus says, if you are afraid, know that you have withdrawn from the light. If you are afraid, you are hiding from God. This is not because God in any way is a threat, but because you have to believe God is a threat in order to pretend that you don't love him.

When Jesus was in a body he would often say, "fear not". This quite literally is like saying "do not deny God" "do not be separate" "recognize you are safe" "choose love over fear" "do not attack" "choose not to die" etc.

"There is, however, considerable clarification of this concept, which must be understood before the real meaning of the "detour into fear" can be fully comprehended."

"ALL illusions are of fear, and they CAN be of nothing else."

"The ego is quite literally a fearful thought."

"Faith is the OPPOSITE of fear, as much a part of love, as fear is of attack."

"And hate must be the opposite of love, regardless of the form it takes."

"There are no scraps of dreams. Each one contains the whole of fear, the opposite of love, (in all its ways), the hell that hides the memory of God, the crucifixion of His holy Son."

"Life has no opposite, for it is God. Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life."

"If perfect love casts out fear,

And if fear exists,

Then there is NOT perfect love.

But

Only perfect love really exists.

Therefore, if there is fear, it creates a state which does not exist."

"THE FEAR OF GOD, the final step in your dissociation."

"For once you understand it is impossible that you be hurt except by your own thoughts, the fear of God must disappear."

"When the fear of God is gone, there are no obstacles which still remain between you and the holy peace of God."

"Let this grim sword be taken from you now. There is no death. This sword does not exist. The fear of God is causeless. But His Love is Cause of everything beyond all fear, and thus forever real and always true."

"No-one can look upon the fear of God unterrified, unless he has ACCEPTED the Atonement, and learned illusions are not real. No-one can stand before this obstacle alone, for he could not have REACHED it unless his brother walked beside him. And no-one would dare to LOOK on it, without COMPLETE forgiveness of his brother in his heart. Stand you here a while, and tremble not. You will be ready."

"To look upon the fear of God DOES need some preparation. Only the sane can look on stark insanity and raving madness with pity and compassion, but NOT with fear. For only if you SHARE in it does it seem fearful."

"Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God."

"The fear of God and of each other comes from each unrecognized belief in specialness."

"The fear of God is fear of life, and NOT of death."

"The fear of God results as surely from the lesson that His Son is guilty as God's Love must be remembered when he LEARNS his innocence."

"What seems to be the fear of God is really only the fear of YOUR OWN REALITY."

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

The ego's experience of someone dying is horrible. Ego thinks in transactional, finite terms. As if relationship is some commodity amount that you give and lose, and then you lack, and then you need the other to give it back by losing. This is the sacrifice of specialness.

This is the opposite of the golden rule, where the ego says giving and receiving are not one. That what you give you do not give to yourself. And therefore giving is loss. It sees someone's death in rather physical terms, meaning that the form has gone and therefore there has been a one-sided loss, and now they are not giving you what you gave. The thing that was supposed to give you back, albeit separately, has stopped giving, and so you now are in a state of lack because you depended on them.

From this viewpoint the only thing you can feel is loss, which feels horrendous. It's like saying, the person is dead and thats a true fact and there's nothing you can do about it, so you might as well just be in total despair forever. But this ego perception is rooted in victimhood, ingratitude, not recognising, not appreciating, seeing oneself as deprived, unfairly treated, taken from, stolen from, and diminished. And then the ego cries. A lot.

It can reason that there is no other way, and it will have no insight into the opposite of loss, which is gain. But the Holy Spirit gives another view entirely, a totally opposite view in fact. Because as far as He's concerned, there is no loss possible in the golden rule of God. What is given is received by both. What is given is given to yourself forever. There is no room for loss at all, and there is only gain.

The way forgiveness looks at death, it regards it as a gift and a blessing, rather than a curse. It sees that the event has simply purely given to you, by which you have purely gained. You have not been deprived at all, you have only increased. A great gift has been given, and you have received it, and by recognising that you have received it you can enter into justified gratitude. And this is how gratitude becomes part of forgiveness - the recognition of the truth that there is only gain and increase under God's laws.

Gratitude is the total opposite of loss. It acknowledges that you have not lost, that nothing is missing, and that in fact you have received so much that you are overwhelmed with how much you have been given, so much that not a single trace of loss remains. And how can you then feel loss in such a perspective of having been utterly blessed? Loss is literally a lack of gratitude, an unwillingness to receive, and a denial of God's blessing.

Of course, recognising this requires dismantling the ego's interpretation of death, which sees nothing except loss and no gain at all. It sees the situation as utterly hopeless and futile, with no possibility of finding any gain in it at all, dwelling entirely on what seems to be absent, what has been stolen away, and what is no longer there. As if loss is real and permanent and total. And this is the idea of "real death".

But of course this depends on form, because the ego only really registers form "as" content, and does not recognise content at all. If a physical body is gone, yes form is gone, but the love that was in and through the body is not gone. In fact it has been given in a blessing through the person's body to you, and you have received it, and now you are it, and you extend it, and it is alive in you, continuing to be given. And that is because miracles mean endless giving - they continually extend love.

To the ego there is no benefit to you that someone has gone away. It sees only the horrifying and seemingly real deprivation, the taking away of the specialness that you loved, the exclusive source that you thought was the love itself. It sees only a dark and deceitful treachery, that has ripped its beloved treasure away and utterly destroyed it beyond all hope of recovery. And it's never coming back - a stark and horrible fact. Such is the proof of sin and death and dissolution. Then it holds this up as the only reality and truth, as if there is nothing else to it. A total fact. And within this truth, you must simply feel like absolute shit because your whole world has been destroyed forever.

But the ego is utterly blind to the truth, it has no acknowledgement of roles played, of higher purposes, of the way that someone gave transcendent of form, that what was given is still with you and still giving, that loss is impossible, and in a forgiving view you can only possibly be blessed by everything. To forgive is to truly recognise that the world is not doing anything to you, death has no power over you, and therefore it cannot cause something to be taken from you. You cannot lose, you can only win. And if you cannot lose, you must be only gaining. You must be purely receiving, and to receive unconditionally with no strings attached is love. Upon receiving such unending love the only logic response in the mind is gratitude. And gratitude is also a part of giving.

It's similar to what happens when you at first seem to be a victim of someone, and you hate them and fight with them and they seem to deprive and hurt you. But then later you forgive, and you come to realise you hired them, and they played a role that you needed for your spiritual growth, and you gained tremendously from your enemies even if they seemed to be the very people you did not want to be around. You benefited. And then as your perspective grows, you come to more fully understand who did what and why, how you consented, how you used it, and what you did to yourself. And out of that comes a recognition of the innocence of the other and yourself, and the realisation that you have only happily gained from the encounter - that it is not a loss or an attack at all. And then you can be grateful to them for helping you to learn this lesson - to move you closer to God.

Another aspect of this is that if you believe someone else has become lost to you, or that love is lost, then by the golden rule you will also believe that you are lost. And then you will become lost as well, lost in despair and grieving and feelings of loss and hopelessness. And that is because you believe it's true that some other person can be completely lost, and if thats true of them it's true of you. This is why when the loss seems to happen, you feel like you have lost part of yourself. As if it was you that died. And then you stop living. But this is the ego's reasoning as well, because nothing real can die or be lost, and certainly nothing is missing from heaven.

The antidote to loss then is the broader and deeper perspective that you have not lost anything, and have in fact only gained. When you can see that you have only gained, then your response can only be gratitude, because you have been truly blessed and given everything. You've been given freedom and life and opportunity and a future. You've been given room to grow and learn and enjoy further relationships. This isn't a fake positivity either. It's not about just trying to put on a brave face and act as if things are great in denial of loss and feelings. It's a total uprooting of the belief in loss, which is really a lack of recognition. When lessons - and death is a lesson - is correctly perceived, it is recognised as being entirely beneficial. Something that happens only for your highest good.

This also leads into why the Holy Spirit's atonement plan is solely functioning for your highest good, and everything he arranges for you to go through - which you consent to - is leading you to eternal life. If you can see it from the perspective of gratitude and blessing, without the egoic interpretation of "its a loss" or "its difficult" or "i've been deprived" etc - which is a denial of the golden rule, then it is recognised as gentle and helpful and only a blessing. If the ego enters into it, it interprets the lessons as cruel and unwanted and a curse. Something that you want to go away and stop, to fear and resist. When you stop resisting you enter acceptance and presence, and then you also find forgiveness and gratitude. God has only given, he has never taken away.

The big picture truth is simply this: everything that happens is leading you home to God. Everything. Even people seeming to die. Only forms and illusions seem to die, anyway. What is true and real and our identity is permanent and eternal. And you literally are those who seem to move on, who must still be you as well. There is no loss in truth, no loss in God, and no loss in you. There is only a complete willingness to receive God's blessing and be fully grateful for it. Really, the only reason we despair is because we think God isn't loving us anymore, and this can only be a lack of recognition of what is actually true, or an unwillingness to see it. Undoing the belief in death as a block to love brings about a revolution into gratitude and happiness.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

"The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His."

"A happy outcome to all things is sure."

"The power to work miracles belong to you."

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

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

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

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

How is ALL of this a miracle?

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

The key... is POWER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The fact that each Soul has this POWER completely"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

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

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

"They will strengthen him and stabilize you."

"Healing ONLY STRENGTHENS."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That you HAVE THE POWER to perform.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"The POWER to work miracles belongs to you."

To believe God created Earth or that Earth is worth keeping, is clearly in contradiction to what the course says about the earth, frequently contrasting it as being the OPPOSITE of heaven and not something worthy of the Son of God. The world seen with forgiving eyes might well be "lovely", but it’s still not heaven.

Here is how the Course speaks of the "Earth"... (with my emphasis and minor comments)...

"Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in HEAVEN, so on EARTH (does not mean heaven=earth, it means you have the power to create here). Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your Effects into the tranquil HEAVEN of Your Love, where EARTH WILL DISAPPEAR, and separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God"

"His little life on EARTH was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you. He will remain with you to lead you from the HELL YOU MADE (earth) to God."

"My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my decision that gave me all power in HEAVEN AND EARTH (separate places). My only gift to you is to help you make the same decision."

"God has one Son, and He is the resurrection and the life. His will is done because all power is given him IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH (separate places)."

"You cannot understand how much your Father loves you, for there is NO PARALLEL in your experience of the world (earth) to help you understand it. There is NOTHING ON EARTH with which it can compare, and nothing you have ever felt apart from Him resembles it ever so faintly."

"It is our function to remember Him (God) ON EARTH as it is given us to be His own completion IN REALITY (not on earth). So let us not forget our goal is shared. For it is that remembrance which contains the memory of God, and points the way to Him and TO THE HEAVEN (pointed to away from the Earth) of His peace"

"Father, IN HEAVEN it is different, for there, there are no needs. But HERE ON EARTH (which is not heaven) the miracle is closer to Your gifts than any other gift which I can give."

"Who can share a dream? And what can an illusion offer me? (references to earth) Yet he whom I forgive will give me gifts BEYOND the worth of ANYTHING ON EARTH. Let my forgiven brothers fill my store with HEAVEN’S treasures, WHICH ALONE ARE REAL (earth’s treasure are dreams and illusions). Thus is the law of love fulfilled. And thus Your Son arises and returns to You (reference to ascension!)."

"Let all God’s holy Thoughts surround me, and be still with me while HEAVEN’s Son is born. Let EARTHLY sounds be quiet, and the sights to which I am accustomed DISAPPEAR."

"(speaking of true perception/real world...)EARTH is being born again in new perception. Night has gone, and we have come together in the light. From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world (earth) that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God’s Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, ETERNITY HAS SHINED AWAY THE WORLD (illusion of earth), and only HEAVEN now exists at all."

"(talking about Holy Spirit) His Words will work. His Words will save. His Words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this EARTH (cus otherwise it sucks). His Words are born in God, and come to you with HEAVEN’S love upon them. Those who hear His Words have heard the song of HEAVEN, for these are the words which all merge as one at last"

"Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to HEAVEN’s GATE; the quiet place of peace where you await with certainty the final step of God (to take you home to heaven). How far are we progressing now from EARTH (something you do not want!)! How close are we approaching to our goal! How short the journey still to be pursued!"

""I will forgive and this will DISAPPEAR." To every apprehension, every care, every form of suffering repeat these selfsame words. And then you hold the key that opens HEAVEN’s GATE, and brings the Love of God the Father down to EARTH at last (extending Holy Spirit temporarily), to raise it up to HEAVEN. God will take this final step Himself. Do not deny the little steps He asks you take to Him."

"Forgiveness represents your function here (on earth). It is not God’s creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon HEAVEN (opposite to earth where forgiveness is needed)? Yet on EARTH you need the means to let illusion go. Creation merely waits for your RETURN (to heaven) to be acknowledged, not to be complete. Creation cannot even be conceived of in the WORLD (definitely talking about earth here). It has no meaning here (earth is meaningless). Forgiveness is the closest it (heaven) can come to EARTH. For being HEAVEN-BORNE, it has no form at all. (Earth, place of forms, is not heaven)"

"All power is given you in EARTH and HEAVEN (two distinct places apparently). There is nothing that you cannot do."

"Repeat the Name of God and call upon your Self, Whose Name is His. Repeat His Name and all the tiny, nameless things on EARTH slip into right perspective. Those who call upon the Name of God can not mistake the nameless for the Name, nor sin for grace, nor bodies for the holy Son of God."

"There is one major difference in the role of HEAVEN’s messengers which sets them off from those the world (earth) appoints. The messages which they deliver are intended first for them. And it is only as they can accept them for themselves that they become able to bring them further, and to give them everywhere that they were meant to be. Like EARTHLY messengers (but only like, not the same as), they did not write the messages they bear, but they become their first receivers in the truest sense, receiving to prepare themselves to give."

"Now a quiet time has come in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of HEAVEN’s CHILDREN and the Son of God. We pause but for a moment more, to play our final happy game UPON THIS EARTH And then we GO (to heaven) to take our rightful place where truth abides and games are meaningless."

"HEAVEN remains your ONE ALTERNATIVE to THIS STRANGE WORLD YOU MADE and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with HEAVEN as the glad effect of one, and EARTH THE OTHER’S SORRY OUTCOME WHICH IS HEAVEN’s OPPOSITE IN EVERY WAY."

"You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Just as your light increases every light that shines IN HEAVEN so your joy ON EARTH calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you (in heaven) in God’s plan"

"How could there be a meeting place at all where EARTH AND HEAVEN can be reconciled within a mind where both of them exist? (Clearly they cannot both exist) The mind that sees illusions (earth) thinks them real. They have existence in that they are thoughts. And yet they are not real because the mind that thinks these thoughts is separate from God."

"Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down UPON THE EARTH after HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him. The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is ETERNAL and has never changed. He was "called down upon the EARTH" in the sense that it was now possible to accept Him and to hear His Voice. His is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form. This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him."

"There IS no change in immortality, and HEAVEN knows it not. Yet here on EARTH (place that changes), it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things"

"What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into HEAVEN, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes HOME. The incomplete is made complete again, and HEAVEN’s joy has been increased because what is its own has been restored to it."

....

I pulled the quotes from a searchable urtext version. There are MANY MORE references to being "in heaven" versus "on earth", making it clear and obvious they are both distinct and OPPOSITE, and that only heaven is real, only heaven is what you want, and only heaven is befitting the Son of God.

God did not create the earth. This world is not our home. There is no life outside of heaven! The world - earth - holds nothing that we want. There is no world (earth). A teacher of God will gladly give up all the pleasures of the world (earth) (beacuse Heaven is FAR BETTER!) :-) Heaven is EVERYTHING, Earth is NOTHING.

What if the world is really a highly malleable dream, not some fixed objective place, and our minds have the power to change it at will? Then this perhaps redefines physical miracles.

If the state of objects, the events that happen, the people that show up, the things that happen, are all chosen and consented and actually put there by the mind, then the mind is in a position of orchestrating, arranging, organizing and putting in place the contents of the dreamworld. Literally projecting physical matter.

This then means that if the mind is changing, its current state is going to project and manipulate and steer the dream in different directions. If it is in fear and war it's going to produce more conflicting nightmarish dreams, and that literally means causing the physical world to have more fights, arguments, conflicts, and so on. Not merely that you're interpreting such events in a more negative way but literally the physical number of problems increases.

Then if the mind is moving into a lighter, higher perspective, it is projecting a broadcast of more tranquil "surroundings", it will outwardly picture its inner condition and make a world in which there literally is less conflict. Less fights, less arguments, less wars, less attacks. Not merely that wars and attacks are now looked up in a more loving way, but that literally the count of them decreases.

This would then mean that someone who is anti-miraculous will be tending to mis-create life scenarios, events, occurrances etc which are generally more conflicted and upsetting. And someone who is more at peace and in line with God will produce life scenarios which are literally, on the physical level, calmer and more cooperative and easier to deal with.

A miracle worker would then be someone of a high mind who literally "manifests" a more healed world. Not merely healed as in, on I'm looking at the same world in a happier way, but that literally a higher world is projected and made. A higher world is hallucinated. Not a projection onto the world, but the ACTUAL world itself is a higher kind of world, with more peace and less problems and less sickness and so on.

For example, Jesus speaks of this:

"When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and SEEN it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision?"

Jesus isn't merely speaking there of interpreting a warzone AS IF it were a beautiful garden. He is saying that literally it transforms INTO a beautiful garden, a physical garden. How else does "all around the signs of life spring up" when miracles fall like drops of healing rain?

We have to now ask ourselves, is Jesus referring here to vision being some kind of just "happier way of looking at the same stuff", in which there are still wars and conflicts and so on but you "read into" them more positively? OR is he LITERALLY saying, that terrifying scenes, harmful arrangements of objects, frightening events, and so on, are literally erased, and replaced with a different kind of "reality" where there is now literally a beautiful garden instead of a warzone? Not a warzone reimagined or reinterpreted, but a warzone REPLACED by a garden?

What if our attempted understanding of perception is totally fucked up, and Jesus is actually NOT saying that you have "perceptions about" a separate world "out there", but instead that there is NO objective world, there is only a wishful-thinking dream projection hallucination of a world, which takes on different literal FORMS, depending on the content of your mind? Because now we're talking about mind literally changing the physical content, the events that transpire, the people that interact, how relationships go, problems that arise etc, and not merely looking at them in a different way.

Perhaps Jesus has thrown out the idea of there being an "objective world" entirely, and is speaking solely to the fact that our minds are literally PROJECTING A WORLD in realtime? That the reflection of hell on earth isn't merely a darkened interpretation of earth, but an actual projection of a warring world? And that vision or true perception or sight of "the real world" may actually be a way to project a heaven-like illusory world where there is no more sickness or death or suffering? Not a heaven ON earth, but a dream of heaven replacing earth?

When you go back and re-read many of Jesus's statements about perception and what you see and so on, perhaps they take on a different light if you consider them as NOT referring to an objectively separate world. Such as when Jesus says "The world IS perception" and "The world is false perception." Perhaps he is literally saying that when the mind is in false perception it projects planet earth, and when it is in true perception it projects the real world which REPLACES ENTIRELY the "actual world"? That perceptions of the world are always SUBJECTIVE hallucinations.

There is no world to really project onto. There is only an outward picturing of your present inner condition. There is no perceptions "about" the world as such. Changing how you feel about the world actually changes the world, itself, into a different form of a world, a different dream.

You see, when Jesus says that your self is ruler of the universe and nothing happens without your consent, he's not giving any exceptions to that. He's telling us that nothing happens unless we consent to it. That means the events, the happenings, the people, the encounters, the relationships, etc are actually orchestrated by the mind. Not merely interpretations of a world. The mind IS the world. "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts."

So now when you are a miracle worker, turning water into wine, walking on water, raising the dead, these are not merely perceptual reinterpretations of things. Jesus didn't look at lazarus's body in "a happier light". He transformed the FORM of his body from a dead decaying corpse into a living healthy active form of a body. That is direct reality manipulation. That is mind over matter. That is changing the dream world with the mind. That is what we might call a "physical miracle".

I'm really starting to lean more now toward this idea that there is no objective world here, there is only a dream, and it does not exist without our mind dreaming it. Therefore its content is entirely mind driven, mind chosen, mind consented. What happens is what we desire. If the world is going to pot its because we're making a world that's going to pot. If events are improving its because your mind is improving. And this leads to the notion that eventually we will actually orchestrate a world state which is actually somewhat like "heaven on earth", before we ascend. Where things are PHYSICALLY more harmonious.

What if the world is not a mirror or a screen or something to project onto. What if it IS the projection? And what if there is no world without such dreaming? And what if you as the dreamer can dream any kind of world, and have it become physically manifest?

"But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

"There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and ***all the world must change accordingly***."

"There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and ***you maintain the world within your mind in thought***."

"***external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many***, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet."

The body is a wall, like a fence, which was drawn around a PART of your total mind, in order to section it off and claim it as personal territory. The purpose of this body fence is to define that some tiny portion of your mind is yours alone, not shared with anyone, and that all of God and Creation are kept outside. Within this fence is the idea of the selfish self, the ego, which now regards itself as a whole self, but through bodily identification lacks the relationships that imply being.

This means that as you return to the wholeness of yourself, of your soul, you necessarily must re-inherit and open up to the vast expanse of the rest of your mind, which had been disconnected and externalized. Literally, the rest of you is out there, in your brothers. You are much larger than the tiny little PIECE of self that is hidden in a body. Only a PART of your mind finds itself imprisoned in flesh and the rest of you is unlimited.

Your mind is in fact so unlimited it is larger than the universe of spacetime. And symbolically we invented bodies as a tiny speck of a fence around a tiny speck of the total mind/self. This tiny piece of yourself is what finds itself within the body, as an ego, believing it is the whole of yourself. The whole rest of yourself symbolically is outside the body fence as the external universe. And it is huge in comparison. When you awaken, you reunite with the rest of the universe that you separated a PART of your mind off from. Thus not ALL of you went into the separation, only a tiny portion of your total mind.

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

"The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built to separate ***parts of his Self from other parts***. It is ***within this fence he thinks he lives***, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love (the whole of himself). Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love (the rest of him) outside (symbolized by the external world)?"

"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. The body is a tiny fence ***around a little part*** of a glorious and completely limitless idea (your full self). It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little ***segment*** of Heaven (a PART of your full mind), splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules (the selfish/special/posessive self that produces the body fence), and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe (the rest of you which seems outside the body and symbolically extremely vast).

***This fragment of your mind ("the ego") is such a tiny part of it***, that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam is to the sun (you are much bigger than your little body self). Or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it IS the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean. Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal illusion, holding itself apart, against the universe. The sun (God/soul/oneness) becomes the sunbeam's "enemy," which would devour it. And the ocean terrifies the little ripple, and "wants" to swallow it.

Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless activity (God does not acknowledge your belief that part of you is separate from the rest). They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny segment of themselves. ***Even that segment is not LOST to them*** (this tiny part of mind must be KEPT and reintegrated), for it could not survive APART from them. And what IT thinks it is in no way changes ***its total dependence on them FOR ITS BEING***. Its whole existence still remains IN THEM (you are always joined to the rest of yourself). Without the sun, the sunbeam WOULD be gone; the ripple WITHOUT the ocean IS inconceivable.

Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a SEPARATE mind (a part of your total mind that is separated off), a DISCONNECTED thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. Each tiny fragment seems to be self-contained (your little sense of self), needing each other for SOME things, but by no means TOTALLY depended on their One Creator for EVERYTHING. And needing the whole to give them ANY meaning, for by themselves, they DO mean nothing. Nor HAVE they any life apart, and by themselves. (the little part of mind separated off in the body is still part of the whole).

Yet, like the sun and ocean, your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part regards ITSELF as you. It is not missing; ***it could not EXIST if it were separate*** (its not really separate), nor would the whole BE whole without it. It is not a separate kingdom, ruled by an IDEA of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it (body is an illusion), preventing it ***from JOINING with the rest*** (of you), and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little aspect is NO DIFFERENT from the whole (still holy mind), being continuous with it, ***and at one with it***. It leads no separate life, because its life IS in the Oneness in which its being was created.

Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect ***as*** your Self (because you are unlimited). The sun and ocean are as nothing, beside what YOU are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight, and the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the power that rests in you. Would you remain WITHIN your tiny kingdom (body), a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all he surveys, who looks on nothing (the world/gap), but who would still die to DEFEND it? This little self is NOT your kingdom. Arched high above it, and surrounding it, with love, is the glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and deep content to EVERY part. (including the separated off mind that's in a body)."

Here is also an additional quote from elsewhere in the course which confirms further that only a small part of our mind was stolen away from heaven, not all of us, and finds itself now to be in a body.

"Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.

This is the LITTLE part of you you think you stole from Heaven. Give it back to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it, but YOU have lost sight of Heaven. Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered kingdom in which you set it up, surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack, and reinforced by hate. Within its barricades is still a tiny segment of the Son of God, complete and holy, serene and unaware of what you think surrounds it. Be you not separate, for the One Who DOES surround it has brought union to you, returning your little offering of darkness to the Eternal Light."

After some recent insights, I have a theory... that God's Kingdom actually has locality and non-locality, meaning there is a kind of timeless time, and spaceless space. Whereas 'spacetime' is the idea of locality only.

God's whole system runs on a BOTH/AND kind of logic. Something true of me is true of you - golden rule, etc.

God is both personal and impersonal. He's personal because he gives 100% full attention to each individual being, yet he is impersonal because he treats all beings the same.

Similarly there has to be locality in order to have a creation distinct from God - "separate beings", souls that God created. It requires some sense of multitudes and some way to say "I'm here, you're there" sort of thing. But at the same time, non-local as in - we're both overlapping at one everywhere.

I think what happened in the separation is we denied the non-locality shared qualities of reality and tried to emphasise just the local ones, which produced space and time. Space is this idea of being isolated to one location, similarly with time being isolated to one moment.

If true, this suggests that in heaven there is a kind of "space" but it's not the same as the space of spacetime... its simultaneously locations but also the presence of everything everywhere all at once. That God is in everything still. Both local and non-local.

This would go on to allow there to be multiple creations, and for example the course makes reference to things like "you too have a kingdom your soul has created" and "your mind has the power to create worlds" etc. Why have the power to create worlds, if we haven't created worlds somewhere? And he says we basically have created kingdoms somewhere.

It requires a kind of 'space' but it's like... the things in the space are so shared and so one that everything is also everywhere. And it could imply that there is an enormous amount of universes of 'stuff' up there in reality. Not PHYSICAL forms, but forms of some kind that are also formless.

Another important property of reality is that everything is always open and fully accessible to everyone. And nothing real can be threatened. This means there's no hard surfaces, no walls, no impacts, no possibility of destruction or attack, nothing firm or solid, no things that can reject or repel or resist.

There could be for example some kind of 'thought creation' or 'idea' of a thing, perhaps a place, a gathering, a created world/environment or structure perhaps .... but its not made of of things which "keep people out" or "keep people in". You can't attack it because it's made of spirit. You go to touch it and you become one with it, overlap it, pass through it. No-one is denied any access ever.

So I think its possible on this basis that heaven could have "stuff in it", made of spirit/light, but the stuff doesn't have the repelling hard surfaces of spacetime matter, and because everyone IS everything nothing can sort of "block you" or "attack you" or anything like we see with physical objects. There could be spirit forms, ideas, thought-creations ("miracles are thought creations"), which we can merge with, pass through, overlap with, share, be one with.

Our experience there would be quite different than in the physical realm. In physicality, it's all made of walls, blocks, resistance, attack, denial, imprisonment, impacts, rebounds, forces keeping things separate, damage, decay, etc.... all these physics things all require a 'barrier' of some kind that says "keep out". Those barriers don't exist in heaven - you can pass right through it and be one with it. Total freedom to come and go anywhere and everywhere.

This is also why spacetime and the physical are illusions because they're basically formed from the idea of saying "no" to something, not allowing freedom, not allowing access, pushing away, forcing, etc.... a world of walls and blocks and solid lies and prison cells. This is how spacetime is fundamentally different from heaven. And also is why the physical world is a total illusion, formed from ideas of separations between everything rather than shared unity. And without separateness there can be no solid matter.

Also an interesting part of this is the non-locality of time. In 'time' we have localised time but not non-local time. So it's all sort of like one moment of 'now' but the things in it come and go (die), there is no sense of "always and forever". In heaven there could be local time - which is actually necessary in order to allow for example "the kingdom to increase", and for you to "add to the kingdom". And for God to create the holy spirit in response to the separation, and being in our right minds before the separation etc, and there being an "after the atonement".

All that creation requires is essentially a kind of causal chain which requires a kind of linear progression - a sort of time. But at the same time, heaven has total non-locality so it has non-local time everywhere as well, meaning, the now moment ie every moment in which we "live and move" through local/non-local space, also features a sense of this being always and forever, that all times exist at once as one thing, transcending 'local time' as we know it.

Cus there's some things about heaven's reality, creation, God's nature, which really need to have the presence of some kind of progression or time or sequence, as well as some kind of order or sort of places to create kingdoms and such. It has to have a 'kind of spacetime', it's just that it's not purely spacetime - it's spacetime + non-localised space and non-localised time. It's BOTH, eternal and time, unlimited and local.

Space is the local+non-local space of heaven stripped of its non-local shared nature. Time is the local+non-local time of heaven stripped of its non-local eternal nature. Separate spaces, separate times, instead of 'oneness spaces' and 'all times'. This idea at least seems to, for me, clean up some loose ends and open some doors to some possibilities that were overlooked.

Talking out loud to flesh this out... might be right, might not. But it's interesting.

"When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and SEEN it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision?" UrT20I12

"You are wholly lovely. A perfect shaft of pure light." UrT1B30W

"The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky." UrT30D8

"When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was." UrW167L9 "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." UrT7A2

"it was forever created TO increase. If you perceive it as NOT increasing, you do not know what it IS." URT7B5

"And His Sons, who create LIKE Him, follow it gladly, knowing that the INCREASE of the Kingdom depends on it, just as THEIR creation did." UrT7C7

"We have spoken often of the INCREASE of the Kingdom by YOUR creations, which can only BE created as YOU were." UrT7F12

"You, too, have a Kingdom which your Soul has created. It has not ceased to create because your ego has set you on the road of perception." URT4D3

"A co-creator with the Father must have a Son. Yet must this Son have been created like Himself. A perfect Being, all-encompassing and all-encompassed, nothing to add and nothing taken FROM; not born of size nor weight nor time, nor held to limits or uncertainties of ANY kind." UrT24H7

"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." UrT9A2

"THERE IS ***NO LIFE*** OUTSIDE OF HEAVEN. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best ***it seems like life; at worst, like death.*** Yet both are judgments on WHAT IS NOT LIFE, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. Outside of Heaven (planet Earth, galaxies etc), only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their content is never true."

A seed is sown. It sprouts. The plant grows tall. A bud appears. The bud opens and the flower blooms. The flower pollinates. The flower dies. The leaves wilt. The plant is dead. It crumbles, and all it becomes is the ground in which other seeds are sown.

THIS, is the fundamental nature of spacetime. Because you'll notice that the plant has to be in a constant state of CHANGE in order to be in ANY state. It cannot remain constantly the same. It has to always be transforming, growing, sprouting, adjusting, dying.

We like to say that new things are born, and old things die. This is a lie. There are not two states here, there is only one state. It is all death. All things here are changing, always, and they can never stop changing. Change is death, because only permanence is life. So even birth is death as well.

This is what stuff in this universe does, fundamentally, because everything here is based on the idea that "nothing ever stays the same." Which is the opposite of "everything lives forever."

We made it to be this way. It's a world based on the laws of death. Death is built into it. Not just the end result of death but even the sprouting and the flowering is a sign of death. It's death because it's not an eternal state. Change means the opposite of immortality, and therefore the opposite of life.

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

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."

Even if things appear to be born, to grow, to transform, to seem to live and then to die, all of it is death. All of it is what happens when nothing ever lasts and all things are constantly coming and going.

Nothing here is ever still. The idea of something being constantly the same is totally alien. Nothing here ever perpetuates forever. Nothing here can hold onto any sense of stable identity for any amount of time. Nothing is ever quite here and now, it's always transitioning from the past to the future. And therefore nothing here has an identity, because nothing is stable or ongoing or inherently permanent.

There is no self in a world of shifts and changes. There is no reality in such a world either, because reality cannot be shifting and unstable and constantly in flux. That which is real must always be the same, reliable, trustable, constant and changeless. It's like a rock that you can rely on. But nothing in this world provides this stability, because it's an unreal world.

Human bodies in any stage of development, ranging from fetus to birth to children to teens to adults to those older of age, it doesn't matter. Every stage is just one more version of a state of death in a dream of death under laws of death. Death is change. Life is eternal changelessness. Even as a newborn arrives, the body is already not really there and not really anything.

If something can change from one thing into another, it cannot really be what it seems to be. If it were a seed, and now its a plant, and then its a flower, and then it is garbage, it is not any of these things. There is no permanent nature to it. It has no continual identity that is unwavering and consistent. And so every state it transitions through is an illusion of appearances.

This ultimately is why there is no world. Everything that shifts and changes is unreal and does not really have any real here-and-now existence. And the body is never really in a state of complete here-and-now. It seems to be here now, but it is transitioning from what it was to what it will be. It has not stopped to be here and now, it will not stay the same for even a nanosecond.

"The body does not really exist."

"At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all."

"None of this existed before, nor does it actually exist now."

Fully in the holy instant, in the total present, there is no body and there is no world. The world and the body are a little bit removed from here and now. In fact, the world is the past. And the body is either a memory or an anticipation. There is a slight delay between here and where the body and world are. Even in terms of the body's functioning, there is a delay in the perceiving of the world's signals.

A flower is not a flower, because it was a stalk, and was a seed, and will be a bush, and will be dirt. It is not fully anything, and so it is fully nothing.

Space, in general, is really the idea that nothing fully exists anywhere. It was made to oppose God. God exists fully everywhere. Space, and its contents, which includes flowers and bodies and the planet, depicts the idea that God is not fully anywhere, nothing exists everywhere, and therefore God is dead and has been replaced by non-existence. This is why it is an attack on God, an opposition to the nature of the Kingdom.

Time is no better. Time suggests that everything must always be different and nothing can ever be permanent. This too is an attack on eternity. It constantly changes what is into what it was not, and back again, and on it goes, never stopping to be anything truly. And so time is the idea that you never fully exist, and have no identity, and there is nothing true about you.

Space-time is just a belief. It's an ego belief in separation. When the belief is gone, space time is gone. And without space time you cannot have flowers and bodies and planets. There is nothing to keep things separate. Nothing to hold the atoms apart. Nothing to keep time ticking. They just vanish and all their dream contents go with them. Because there is not really a world here. It's an illusion. A world of death does not exist because death is an illusion. And the world is already dead.

"Their death is sure and this alone is certain in their world. It is the ego's world because of this."

"But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death."

"In this world, there appears to be a state that is life's opposite. You call it death."

"Yet each must fail and crumble and decay, because a form of death cannot be life, and what is sacrificed cannot be whole."

"Leave the world of death behind, and return quietly to Heaven. There is nothing of value here, and everything of value there."

"It is the world of birth and death, founded on the belief in scarcity, loss, separation and death"

"For this world is the opposite of Heaven, being made to be its opposite, and everything here takes a direction exactly opposite of what is true."

"All the world of pain is not His Will"

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear (=death). And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God (life) could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him."

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?"

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

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

"Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death."

"He has overcome death because he has accepted life."

Here a beautiful and inspiring collection of short quotes all to do with going BEYOND. Beyond the body, beyond appearances, beyond forms, beyond sin, beyond the world. This is the goal of the course. To return home to Heaven.

"Beyond all idols stands his holy will to be but what he is."

"Beyond the body"

"Beyond this world there is a world I want. I choose to see that world instead of this, For here is nothing that I really want."

"You can only GO BEYOND it, and look back from a point where SANITY exists, and SEE THE CONTRAST."

"It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body to LET yourselves be joined."

"Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

"Understanding IS beyond perception, because it introduces meaning. But it is below knowledge, even though it can grow TOWARDS it."

"Not yet is Heaven quite remembered, for the purpose of forgiveness still remains. Yet everyone is certain he will go beyond forgiveness, and he but remains until it is made perfect in himself."

"The Holy Spirit is the Christ mind that senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception."

"Let us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look beyond them, understanding what they are, not what they would maintain."

"We go beyond the veil of fear, lighting each other's way. The holiness that leads us is WITHIN us, as is our home."

"I DO go before you, because I am beyond the ego. Reach therefore for my hand because you want to transcend the ego."

"Appearances deceive but can be changed. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all. And if you fail to see beyond appearances, you ARE deceived. For everything you see will change, and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and capable of change. 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."

"Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception both. It is obscured by changing views of him which you PERCEIVE as his reality."

"Each speaks in time of what is far beyond it. Two voices, raised together, call to the hearts of everyone, and let them beat as one."

"And It must use all learning to transfer illusions TO the truth, taking all FALSE ideas of what you are, and leading you BEYOND them to the truth that IS beyond them."

"Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. "

"Your destiny and purpose are far beyond them, in the clean place where littleness does not exist."

"You whose hands are joined have begun to reach BEYOND the body, but NOT outside yourselves, to reach your shared identity TOGETHER."

"Desiring to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of belief and faith goes far beyond the body, SUPPORTING vision, not obstructing it."

"ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely. "

"NOTHING beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because nothing IS beyond you."

"One instant of complete belief in this, and you will go beyond belief to Certainty."

"The holy instant's radiance will light YOUR eyes, and give them sight to see beyond ALL suffering, and see Christ's Face INSTEAD."

"Who stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens up an ancient door that leads beyond the world? You are a stranger here."

"Do not defend this senseless dream, in which God is bereft of what He loves, and you remain beyond salvation."

"Truth is so far beyond time, that ALL of it happens at once. For as it was created one, so its oneness depends not on time at all."

"Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sounds and sights of this insane world. You do not live there."

"He will enable you to go far beyond the healing YOU would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole He will lay His Own COMPLETE Will and make YOURS whole. What can the Son of God NOT accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him? "

"And now the mind returns to its Creator; the joining of the Father and the Son, the Unity of unities that stands behind all joining but beyond them all."

"But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines in me and in itself. "

"He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond everything that would hold you back."

"It is this that makes it holy and beyond the world. It is its holiness that points to God. It is its holiness that makes you safe."

"This thought has power to wake the sleeping truth in you, whose vision sees beyond appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is."

"Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to him."

"The universe beyond the sun and stars, and all the thoughts of which you can conceive, belong to you."

"How far beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God!"

"If they understood what is beyond them, they would not BE handicapped. You do NOT know the meaning of love, and this IS your handicap."

"Then turn to one who laid all limits by, and went beyond the farthest reach of learning. He will take you with him, for he did not go alone."

"No-one but must accept this thought as true, if he would leave this world behind and soar beyond its petty scope and little ways."

"Who, then, can say which one can be healed of what, and what must remain beyond God's power to forgive?This is insanity indeed.It is not up to God's teachers"

"Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS. "

"Otherwise, you still are free to choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought, and one which comes to you from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a heritage forgot, yet holding everything you really want."

"He is here because He wills to be, and what He wills is present now beyond the reach of time."

"He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them."

"But what is that to those who have been given one true relationship, BEYOND the body? Can they be long held back from looking on the face of Christ?"

"Only joy increases forever. Joy and Eternity are INSEPARABLE. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit. "

"When truth has come it harbors in its wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain but looks beyond it, steadily and sure."

"It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that demonstrates you did not do them."

"What lies beyond them cannot BE attacked."

"For His answer is the reference point BEYOND delusions, from which you can look back on them, and see them as insane."

"It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never died, but has been kept obscure."

"They choose for all mankind; for all the world and all things in it; for the unchanging and unchangeable beyond appearances; and for the Son of God and his Creator. "

"For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind."

"NOTHING is beyond His will for you. But signify your will to remember Him, and behold! He will give you everything but for your asking."

"The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture."

"Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held within His holy Will beyond all possibility of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness. We are creation; we the Sons of God."

"Its holy purpose stands beyond your little range. When vision has shown you the holiness that lights up the world, you will understand today s idea perfectly."

"The power set in you, in whom the Holy Spirit's goal has been established, is so far beyond your little conception of the infinite, that you have no idea how great the strength that goes with you."

"Yet, for all its might, so great it reaches past the stars and to the universe that lies beyond them, your little faithlessness can make IT useless, if you would use the faithlessness instead. "

"For the words we use are mighty, and they need no thoughts beyond themselves to change the mind of him who uses them."

"You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace."

"Yet this is writ in hell and NOT in Heaven, where you are BEYOND attack, and prove his INNOCENCE. "

"Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied your simple request."

"Today we will make our first real attempt to get past this dark and heavy cloud, and to go through it to the light beyond."

"The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked."

"Knowledge is far beyond your individual concern. You who are part of it, and all of it, need only realize that it is of the Father, NOT of you."

"And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see."

"Today's exercises are an attempt to go beyond these differences in appearance, and recognize a common content where it exists in truth."

"From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks."

"And it is given us to look past death and see the light beyond."

"It is the world s most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely."

"It is past the clouds, and in the light beyond. Remember that you will have to go through the clouds before you can reach the light."

"Help him go in peace beyond it, with the light of his own innocence lighting his way to his redemption and release."

"But it begins within the world perceived as different, and leading from this fresh perception to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond."

"Grace is not given to a BODY, but to a MIND. And the mind that RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT was healed."

"Far beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a Savior first, before he can remember what he is. And he must save who would BE saved."

"There is no Thought of God that does not go with you to help you reach that instant, and to go beyond it quickly, surely and forever."

"Accept these little gifts of thanks from us, as through Christ's vision we behold a world beyond the one we made, and take that world to be the full replacement of our own."

"You have many times been urged to look beyond the body, for its sight presents the symbol of love s "enemy" Christ s vision does not see."

"And so they need a teacher who perceives their madness, but who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them."

"We go beyond appearances today, and reach the source of healing from which nothing is exempt. "

"The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives, the Father of the Universe, and of the Universe of universes, and of everything that lies even BEYOND them, would you remember."

"The fourth obstacle to be surmounted, hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to JOIN with Him at last."

"From BEYOND each of these OBSTACLES to love, Love Itself has called, and each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies BEYOND. Your WANTING fear SEEMED to be holding them in place. Yet when you heard the voice of love BEYOND them, you answered, and they disappeared."

"No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear, nor the cold sweat of seeming death, CAN stand against your will. And what attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it, and COMPLETELY One. "

"Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt BECAUSE it goes beyond the body."

"This One can teach you how to look on time differently and to see BEYOND it. But NOT while you believe in sin."

Sometimes it seems as though, to say something like "Heaven and earth are opposites" is actually a statement of separation. This is because whenever we talk in terms of "two" of something we think there is duality at work. That both of the two things being compared exist.

If you compare an apple to an orange for example, both seem to exist in the same realm and so you can make a comparison. One is orange, one is red (depending on what apples you like ;-)

However, if you compare something that does exist, to something that does not exist, this isn't the same logical comparison. Comparing everything to nothing, is not like putting the two things side beside within a realm where both exist, being able to look at one then look at the other and ask yourself how they differ.

You actually cannot truly compare everything to nothing, and nor does it mean there is a duality, and nor does it mean there is a separation. Only conceptually, and imaginatively, could you ever think it possible to actually strike a comparison between everything and nothing, because nothing is... well, nothing at all.

If love, heaven, God, truth, reality, eternity, creation, sonship, is EVERYTHING, there is no room for anything opposite to compare it to. There is nowhere to be and nowhere to go outside of this everything to FIND something opposite.

So then when we draw a logical comparison between everything and nothing, we're not "making separation real" by contrasting them, we're actually showing that because ONLY love is real, and because only everything exists (in God, not earth), whatever else we're comparing it to DOES NOT EXIST ANYWHERE AT ALL.

If truly we grasp that that second item does not exist whatsoever, we are actually NOT making a real separation. And we would have to also understand that this means, love HAS no opposite in truth. The truth of the logic is that there IS NOT a separation because ONLY ONE OF THEM EXISTS.

Here is how Jesus speaks of this:

"Perfect love casts out fear. If fear exists, Then there is not perfect love. But: Only perfect love exists. If there is fear, It produces a state that does not exist. Believe this and you will be free."

"The truth is simple; it is one without an opposite. "

"Love is a law without an opposite. There is no love but God's, and what He is, is everything there is. "

"There is no death because what God created shares His Life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist. "

"You cannot join with anything except reality. God's glory and His Son's belong to you in truth. They have no opposite, and nothing else can you bestow upon yourself."

"In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite."

To compare everything to nothing, you MUST also be aware that the nothingness DOES NOT EXIST, and therefore, THERE IS ONLY THE EVERYTHING. If there is only the everything, the thing which was said to be "nothing" DOES NOT EVEN EXIST AT ALL. It has zero existence. So all that remains, is what God created, which is 100% of existence in heaven.

Now, sometimes, the Course will tell us something in slightly subtler terms, like this:

"Heaven and earth are opposite in every way."

So once again, we need to realize what this is saying. Since heaven is EVERYTHING THAT REALLY EXISTS, and since Earth (planet earth) is the "opposite", planet Earth DOES NOT EXIST AT ALL, because it is nothing. Love, heaven, does not HAVE a "real opposite", only a fake opposite. Therefore, there is no earth, there is no world, and ONLY HEAVEN IS REAL. Meaning, only heaven exists, SO THERE IS NO SEPARATION. Recognizing this does not create a split in the mind or emphasize separation, because to properly understand this is to recognize that THERE IS NO OPPOSITE.

Heaven and earth are opposites, but this actually MEANS, that earth does not exist at all! Heaven is everything God created, earth is NOTHING that God created and has no reality or existence. It is an illusion of something existing which does not. Earth is nothing. It WILL disappear into the NOTHINGNESS from which it came.

This therefore tells us, logically, that because Heaven HAS no opposite, and Earth was "part of" what we were saying is an opposite to Heaven, Earth does not exist NOW, and it will not exist LATER, and therefore it CANNOT ever be a part of heaven, or converted into heaven, or translated into heaven, or merged into heaven, or joined together WITH heaven.

There is nothing here that can be joined! This *ILLUSION* of a planet showing up, is ONLY AN ILLUSION, not a real thing. It's not there! You're sitting on a seat which does not exist at all! There IS no world TO become one with heaven in any way! Not now, not a year ago, and not in the future. Similarly, "at no point in time does the body really exist", and the earth is just another body.

The course CANNOT be teaching that Earth and Heaven will merge together, become one, unify, or transcend the separation between the two.Here is the part where people get CONFUSED LOGICALLY about what the Course is saying:

"Heaven and earth shall pass away’ means that they will not continue to exist as separate states."

First remember heaven is everything God created that DOES exist. Second remember that earth as its total opposite (and unlike it in every way), DOES NOT EXIST AT ALL.

The IDEA that there are two states, that Heaven HAS a REAL OPPOSITE, will pass away. That idea was the idea that Earth was in fact real, existed, was alongside heaven somehow, and could be compared to it! That was FALSE. That was a result SEPARATION. When separation is undone, it is recognized, perfectly logically, that HEAVEN NEVER DID HAVE AN OPPOSITE, Earth NEVER WAS ITS "REAL" OPPOSITE only an imaginary one, Earth NEVER EXISTED AT ALL IN THE FIRST PLACE, THERE IS NO WORLD, and therefore, Heaven and Earth are no longer "opposites" because ***ONLY HEAVEN EVER EXISTED AND HEAVEN HAS NO OPPOSITE****.

(ok ok, too much all-caps ;-)

If you get this LOGIC, which should be completely clear, and is bulletproof, then you will understand what the course is telling us about why "there is no world". There is no earth OR separate universe from God's universe. The world we made, never did exist at all. There IS no opposite to heaven TO translate into heaven. Heaven will REPLACE earth and ONLY HEAVEN WILL BE LEFT, because only heaven exists NOW.

"There is no life outside of heaven" literally means, love has no opposite, heaven has no opposite, and anything which is categorized as its opposite DOES NOT EXIST. Anything categorized as its opposite, IF believed to actually exist, will create a STATE WHICH DOES NOT EXIST, and will be experienced as FEAR! The world, that we made, planet earth and so on, IS MADE OF FEAR. It is an illusion and is not even here at all! 0% existing! Absolutely just a figment of your imagination. Never existed 15 billion years ago, will not exist 15 billion years from now, DOES NOT EXIST NOW.

Earth is NOT life, because ONLY HEAVEN IS LIFE. Earth is therefore DEATH, and its "life forms" are ALL DEATH FORMS. They are the opposite of life, NOT REAL LIFE. Eternal life does not shift and change and grow and suffer and die. Eternal life is not a form or an animal or a tree or a human being body. This is a DREAM OF DEATH, because it is a dream of experiencing something that is opposite to heaven that does not really exist, but we are thinking it does. It's pure fiction, and a LOGICAL ERROR.

Heaven HAS no opposite. Life HAS no opposite. Earth is NOT REALLY the opposite of heaven right now because heaven HAS no REAL opposite, and therefore, THERE IS NO WORLD. There is nothing here in this world, as this world, TO become part of heaven, ever. Not ever. Not even in some special twisted magical way that manipulates the words in the course with wishful thinking to make it SEEM as if earth becomes part of heaven because "the two real opposites" of earth and heaven cease being opposites. This is a total logical fallacy. You can never compare "all and nothing" and claim they are BOTH existing.

Only heaven is real. Only the creations of light are real. Only God's creation is real. Earth does not exist. There is no world. This is the central thought the course would attempt to teach. The central core thought of the atonement principle, that SEPARATION DID NOT HAPPEN, and therefore THERE IS NO WORLD that came about as a "real alternative" to Heaven. There is no world, IS THE ATONEMENT. It is confirmation and PROOF, experientially, that planet earth DOES NOT EXIST AT ALL. And in this *recognition*, what appeared to exist, WILL DISAPPEAR AND VANISH without a trace, because IT WAS NEVER ACTUALLY THERE TO BEGIN WITH!!!!!!!

WHY WOULD YOU EVEN WANT THIS WORLD, given the stunning beauty and magnificence of God's Kingdom? You think this world is a fantastic place? Even the forgiven world in all its loveliness, sparkling in the light with no guilt upon it, IT STILL NO COMPARISON to heaven. Earth will always be a "strange world you made", which in comparison to heaven, if it were possible to compare them, is UGLY and LIMITED. It is not the world you want. It is not your home. God did not create it. And there is world God DID create, heaven, which YOU DO WANT, and which is the only world lofty enough to be appropriate for the Son of God.

Earth does not exist.

"The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone." In the separation from God, we rejected the meaning of divine order and replaced it with meaningless chaos. Through separation and fragmentation, there was no longer a single truth shared by everyone. Instead, everyone believed their own truth, and now everyone was in conflict.

In a state of fundamental disagreement, this gave rise to an entire seeming universe, or system of thought, in which conflict, clashes, wars, disagreement, argument, inequality, domination, submission, tyranny, attack, fighting, selfishness, hoarding, scarcity, and all manner of separation became commonplace.

This also expressed as the world itself, on a physical level, in terms of the seeming laws of physics and of space and time, which are utterly opposed to the divine laws of God. This produced an environment in which every particle of matter is at odds with every other, all things are different, kept apart, and in conflict, and where one thing can seem to destroy another. In a world without divine order, "senseless laws" seem to govern it.

"Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven. Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. "

"The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His. Everything else is merely lawLESS, and therefore chaotic. But God Himself has protected EVERYTHING He created BY His laws. Therefore, everything that is not under them does not exist."

In a chaotic world, the most random-seeming things can happen. They appear to happen without the involvement of any kind of will or mind. Seemingly without the participation or attention of anyone. As if the world is simply on some kind of autopilot, allowing for things to happen which make no sense, for no useful purpose, and producing effects which appear completely random and unintended.

As such "accidents" seem to arise and we enter into a realm of "bad luck", where coincidence seems possible and shit can just seemingly happen "by chance." Physical objects and their interactions seem to trigger a cascading chain of effects, as rocks tumble from a mountain, as people slip on banana peels, as decay sets in, as random wind finally blows the roof off, as meteorites happen to strike a person's body, as the weather happens to be worse, as sick bodies seem to take a turn for the worse, and as you just happened to step on a specific piece of dog shit today.

We think this world is normal and natural but it is completely devoid of divine order and meaning. Utter nonsense can transpire for no good reason. Things can seem to happen, unfortunate events, strange twists of fate, odd unlikelihoods transpire, trees fall on cars, rotten wood crumbles, a person steps on a nail which was left behind 50 years ago, there isn't quite enough energy to keep the phone running to capture that UFO in the sky, and someone's wheel falls off because the bolts on the hub were just slightly loose enough today.

When you look at all the stupid stuff that happens in the world, all the dangers and pitfalls and strange occurrences and injuries and houses falling on people's heads and so on, most of it really boils down to a seemingly lifeless environment, run by chaotic laws. Unfair, mean, cruel laws, where animals starve because they get stuck in a hole between some rocks. Laws which seem to be consistent and make sense, but which are founded on the complete absence of love and belonging and harmlessness and wholeness.

In a way, most of what transpires is "forgiveable" in the sense that, most of it is just the laws of physics playing out, as if it's not "personal". We might yell at the door for slamming on us, but it was just the physics in the hinges and the weight of gravity. We might be annoyed at the handle falling off the saucepan but it was just the rust setting in to corrode the metal. We might stub our toe and swear at the little bump in the sidewalk, but it's just an arrangement of matter sitting there. It isn't transpiring against you, as such, it's just ticking over like a mindless dead program, like some kind of debris that's just left behind from centuries of pointless events.

The world really is kind of like a dead world, a graveyard in which "stuff" just sits around doing next to nothing, until it is disturbed slightly, and seeming forces and energies collude into the mix, resulting in seeming new effects. And now the rock falls on your head and the tree crashes into the car and the tornado throws a random cow through your window.

And then the little stone tumbles off the hill, and bounces off the recently grown leaf, and hits you on the head as you just happen to walk past. All seemingly totally at random. In a world where everything seems to be utterly chaotic, pointless, senseless, meaningless, purposeless, without divine design, orderless and lifeless. Where the dust comprised of the dead corpses of skin cells clog your nose and triggers and chemical reaction.

In heaven there are no such accidents, no things which happen in chain reactions of random collisions. There is no chance or bad luck or probability or likelihoods. There is no unintended consequence, or lifeless discarded piles of trash, or little objects that sit around waiting to be victimized by external forces, or giant "natural disasters" that bring totally arbitrary suffering and completely unpredictable chaos to all concerned. Where who survives and who does not depends on whether a particular piece of wood floats past at the right time.

The world is like an old trash heap where all manner of garbage has just been collected together and piled up, and now the pile is unstable and it topples over, and once in a while just enough gravity affects something to cause a sudden shift, and a landslide begins as particular specific items are involved and others left out, falling and plummeting to their new doom, until they settle and are stifled and end up in a new meaningless ugly formation of rotten stench.

This is the world we made. This is the opposition to heaven and to the divine order. This is how we wanted our life to be - dangerous and victimizing and unfair. And now most of our lives we spend trying to navigate through an obstacle course, barricades on a battlefield, with pokey nails sticking out and nasty sharp corners and little annoying things that just keep breaking and stuff that wears out and even your tangled shoelaces transpire against you.

The entire world has taken shape as an unpleasant and seemingly dangerous, unstable, and untrustworthy torture chamber, just to piss you off on a Monday and to reach out of the blue with its sudden breakdowns. Most of us then spend most of our lives trying to just "manage" to "survive" in such a strange and meaningless environment, angered when the laws of physics dictate that something else random and badly timed happens, trying to keep our frail bodies from being affected, and trying to scrape by unscathed in what effectively is a harsh and unnatural environment.

"There IS no safety in a battleground. You can look down on it in safety from above, and NOT be touched. But, from within it, you can find NO safety. Not one tree left standing still will shelter you. Not one illusion of protection stands against the faith in murder. Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate, and the unnatural intent to murder and to die."

Battlefields are places for thorns and spikes and bombs and armies. We have to find a way to rise above and out of the chaos if we are to reconnect with order, with peace and with divine order. There is no peace to be found amongst the twisted thorns and sharp corners of a meaningless world. Only the reality of Heaven offers a safe and meaningful home. And no-one can experience a sense of holy protection while standing on a landmine, which may or may not take them with it.

"The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus."

"When he is NOT in a state of grace he IS out of his natural environment, and does NOT function well. Everything he does becomes a strain, because he was not created for the environment which he has made. He therefore CANNOT adapt to it, nor can he adapt IT to HIM. There is no point in trying"

"A Son of God is happy ONLY when he knows he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make."

"You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

"The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone. Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is separate, and has a different set of thoughts which SETS HIM OFF from others. This principle evolves from the belief there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are MORE valuable, and THEREFORE true. And each establishes this FOR HIMSELF, and MAKES it true by his attack on what another values. This is justified BECAUSE the values differ. And those who hold them SEEM to be unlike, and THEREFORE enemies."

""Laws of chaos" are meaningless, by definition. Creation is perfectly lawful, and the chaotic is without meaning, BECAUSE IT IS WITHOUT GOD. You have given your peace to the gods you made, but they are not there to take it FROM you, and you are NOT able to give it TO them. You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it. YOU CANNOT DO WHAT GOD DID NOT INTEND, because what He did not intend DOES NOT HAPPEN. Your gods do not BRING chaos; you are ENDOWING them with chaos, and accepting it OF them."

""I am upset because I see a meaningless world." Insane thoughts are upsetting, and They produce a world in which there is no order anywhere. Only chaos rules a world which represents chaotic thinking, and chaos has no laws. I cannot live in peace in such a world. I am grateful that this world is not real, and that I need not see it at all unless I choose to value it. And I do not choose to value what is totally insane and has no meaning."

"The "laws of chaos" CAN be brought to light, though NEVER understood. Chaotic laws are hardly meaningful, and therefore out of reason's sphere. Yet they APPEAR to constitute an obstacle to reason and to truth. Let us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look BEYOND them, understanding what they ARE, NOT what they would maintain. It IS essential it be understood what they are FOR, because it is their PURPOSE to make meaningless, and to ATTACK the truth. Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they govern nothing, and need NOT be broken; merely looked upon and gone beyond."

"Dreams are chaotic BECAUSE they are governed by your conflicting wishes. And therefore they have NO concern with what is true."

"This is the characteristic of the ego's judgments. SEPARATELY, they seem to hold, but PUT THEM TOGETHER, and the system of thought which arises from JOINING them, is incoherent and utterly chaotic. For form is not enough for meaning, and the underlying LACK of content, makes a cohesive system impossible."

"For the ego IS chaos, and if it were all of you, no order at all would be possible."

"To think that God made chaos, contradicts His Will, invented opposites to truth, and suffers death to triumph over life, all this is arrogance."

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

"Except he judges this as does a child, who does not KNOW what hurts and what will heal. And bad things seem to happen, and he is afraid of all the chaos in a world he thinks is governed by the laws he made."

"In the world, not even the body is perceived as whole. Its purpose is seen as fragmented into many functions which bear little or no relationship to each other, so that it appears to be ruled by chaos."

God willed that you be innocent forever, and God's will is done. Nothing can ever change this. This innocence isn't merely some kind of judgement of your condition. It's your actual permanent state of being. In your being, in your mind, there is still a place that is wholly completely innocent and pure and will never be guilty.

"We seem to be discrete and unaware of our eternal unity with Him. Yet back of all our doubts, past all our fears, there still is certainty. For Love remains with all Its Thought, Its sureness being Theirs. God's memory is in our holy minds, which know their oneness and their unity with their Creator."

In the separation, we merely went into a state of denial. We pretended that the truth was not true. We also pretended we were no longer ourselves, no longer innocent and no longer a part of God. This denial isn't a fact, because denial doesn't actually make anything go away.

All denial does is hide the awareness of the presence of that which is STILL THERE, pretending it is gone. In fact, Jesus speaks to this property of denial and the fact that even the denial confirms the existence of that which it denies.

"For the separation is only the DENIAL of union, and, correctly interpreted, attests to your eternal knowledge that union is true." So a part of your mind does in fact still believe, right now, and always, that you are perfectly innocent forever. Then your mind became split, and now a second portion of your mind believes it is guilty. You therefore have two conflicting opinions about yourself in your mind at the same time.

"You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your minds, and they CANNOT BOTH BE TRUE."

The problem we typically have, is that once we go into denial, the denial DOES SEEM to block the AWARENESS OF the presence of love. It seems to block the awareness that, in truth, you actually still are holy and innocent. You still are an immortal being in God. And you will never change, nor have you been changed by the denial.

So some portion of you is literally still innocent right now. And some other portion of you believes the opposite. That second portion is what we call ego.

"The ego is a part of your belief about yourself."

However, in order TO DENY the part of you that is still innocent, your mind does block awareness. This produces a shift in premise, which makes it potentially possible to become convinced that what you've denied HAS GONE AWAY. Ie, out of sight out of mind. If you are not aware of it, surely it's not there.

Entering into denial tends to make you believe that you have actually CHANGED, from an innocent holy being, into an evil anti-christ false-self. The denial suggests your real self has been destroyed, and no longer exists. That you have literally transformed from one state to another, and now you are SOLELY in a state of guilt. The unawareness of the continued presence of your innocent self tempts you toward believing these illusions.

All of the world, all bodies, space and time, all sickness and death and suffering, is entirely designed to try to HIDE FROM THE TRUTH. It's an attempt to shut out the FACT of what you STILL ARE. That you actually literally still are as God created you right now. Just as the world was made as an attack on God, it was an attempt to ASSERT a one-sided ego war upon the truth about you. To depict you as if you have been destroyed and turned into something dead.

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son."

All suffering, all death, all states of sickness, all resistance to reality, all defenses against the truth, all blocks to awareness, all lies and deceptions, all body identification, its entire purpose was to resist God. To try to stop God's will. To try to overthrow and usurp his completed permanent works and replace it with something else, in order to PRETEND that his kingdom had been destroyed. That the son of God could be killed.

The strange scenario, however, is that while you are busy being guilty and worthless and deserving of horrible punishments, SIMULTANEOUSLY, there is another self, another PART OF YOU, that is right this instant STILL HOLY AND INNOCENT. It has not in truth changed.

What this then reveals is that the world, the mindset of the ego thought system, all of space and time, and every separation ego idea, is all a COVER UP. It is literally a veil placed OVER the truth of the permanence of the Kingdom of God. It is put there to come BETWEEN you and the truth to HIDE the truth. To hide from the attraction of God. To smother reality with illusions. To keep you from realizing that NOTHING HAS CHANGED.

"To this distorted form of vision, the OUTSIDE of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true." "The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear"

Therefore, we can say that "underneath" your guilt, there is ALSO a place any our mind where you are STILL innocent. That innocent place was NOT converted into guilt, it was NOT transformed into an anti-christ, and it remains exactly as God created it. Right now. Even in PARALLEL with the guilty false sense of self that you maintain is your whole identity.

THERE IS STILL INNOCENCE IN YOU AND THERE ALWAYS WILL BE.

"The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within."

"But most of all, try to sink down and inward, away from the world and all the foolish thoughts of the world. You are trying to reach past all these things. You are trying to leave appearances and approach reality."

"Go past all the raucous shrieks and sick imaginings that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God."

"and then try to reach past all your images and preconceptions about yourself to the truth in you. If Love created you like Itself this Self must be in you. And somewhere in your mind It is there for you to find."

So Jesus is actually telling us that below the murky surface "clouds of guilt" which seem to smother and obscure, block and distract, deflect and deceive, BELOW and BEYOND the world and the body and the ego guilt, there is STILL a quiet place within you where you are perfectly innocent still. Where you are still as God created you.

This means that you actually have two parts to you right now. A holy self and a false self. Because your mind is split. The guilt is in one part, and the innocence is in another. And the guilt merely seems to HIDE the innocence, so you think there is no innocence in you, or that you can ONLY be guilty OR innocent at one time. This is not true.

Your mind is in fact divided between TWO goals, and wants two conflicting things at once. One part of you still accepts your innocence while another part is attacking it. The only reason you tolerate this is because you've identified WITH the guilt and have believed the illusions of the denial, such that you don't think the innocent part is EVEN THERE any more. And you maintain the guilt IN ORDER TO keep the innocence hidden.

Because if you were to actually become aware of the sinlessness within you, it would then become obviously clear that you cannot be both innocent AND guilty at the same time. And yet this is what your mind has actually been believing. Covered up, below, beyond, and underneath your guilt, there is a dwelling place of innocence and being as God created you still. And how can that be compatible with being guilty?

If you go within and look for that innocence and realize it MUST still be there, then it also becomes apparent that you cannot ACCEPT being both innocent and guilty, in conscious awareness. Only one of them can be true. One of them must go! And since the innocence has the property of permanence and unchangeability, the guilt MUST be fake. The guilt must be false and a mistake and NOT TRUE. And this also means the world must be false as well.

Jesus actually refers to "the real world" as this borderland of thought or place within your mind, where you come to fully realize that the innocence is true and the guilt is false. Allowing yourself to recognize that ONLY THE TRUTH CAN BE TRUE, ie only the permanent innocence in you can be really there, the guilt is correctly framed as IMPOSSIBLE, and is finally let go.

"Here is the meeting place where thoughts are brought TOGETHER; where conflicting values MEET, and ALL illusions are laid down beside the truth, where they are judged to be untrue. This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven."

"It HAS BEEN recognized that, if they were BROUGHT TOGETHER, their joint acceptance WOULD become impossible. But, if one is kept in darkness FROM THE OTHER, their SEPARATION seems to keep them both alive, and equal in their reality. Their JOINING thus becomes the source of fear, for, if they meet, acceptance MUST be withdrawn from one of them."

"They are brought together, and only ONE continues past the gate where Oneness is. Salvation IS a borderland, where place and time and choice have meaning still, and yet it can be seen that they are temporary, OUT of place, and EVERY choice has been ALREADY made."

"WHAT DO YOU WANT? Light or darkness, knowledge or ignorance are yours, but not both. Opposites must be brought together, and not kept apart. For their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by union, as YOU are. In union, everything that is not real MUST disappear, for truth IS union. As darkness disappears in light, so ignorance fades away when knowledge dawns."

"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there is to choose between, and nothing more than these."

As Jesus states here, the real and the unreal are all that you can choose between. Each of these is a "world", or a system of thought or order or thought. Reality is the higher order reality, an unreality is the lower order "reality" - the illusion of spacetime. These are the only two states that you can choose between. Two worlds, not three.

The "real world" described in A Course in Miracles, sometimes speaks in a manner which makes it sounds as if it is some kind of "in-between world", between heaven and earth. Not earth, not heaven, but something else. There are also references to it being a borderland of thought between the two. Kind of like the threshold of a doorway which is not really a place but a transition or meeting place, like a bridge.

But there are also other references to the real world which are framed more as if references to heaven itself. Such as "nothing there but shines and shines forever." And "This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all." And "Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT." These references are to me clearly references to heaven, yet use the term "real world".

I think in ACIM circles the attempt to grasp "what is the real world" has led to a lot of confusion especially due to the use of the term "real", and has led people to think it is a third world interposed between heaven and earth. I don't think this is really the case. I've been shown and told that the real world is the kingdom of God.

In terms of what Jesus has said about there being only TWO options, the "real world" becomes a far more appropriate term for HEAVEN. Because after all, Jesus is very careful and accurate in his choice of words, and heaven IS very appropriately "a real world". Not a pseudo-reality or an inbetween-almost-reality but actual reality. What else would you very appropriately call heaven but "a real world" - because it is actually completely real.

I see also references to christ vision looking beyond the physical unreal world to the light of heaven. I see references to us seeing christ - and christ is in heaven. I see references even to seeing God or having visions of God, who is not in this world. There are references to seeing your creations as well, which are in heaven. These all seem to further point to "the real world" being heaven.

Now, that said, it IS clear that there is a CONTEXT, and it also is the most frequent context, in which "the real world" term is referring to something seemingly "outside" of heaven. Particularly in terms of "For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight." And "The real world still is but a dream." Plus "And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love."

Now here's how I'm interpreting this. Let's simply and logically clearly say that heaven is the only real world. It is appropriately titled the real world. Let's also recognize that in spacetime we are using perception. Perception is once removed from knowledge. It is judgemental and interpretative rather than direct cognition or knowing. Perception is image-making. This "layer" of images overlays reality.

So now let's say that there is heaven AS a real world, and then there is a PERCEPTION OF heaven from "outside of it". This is a perception experienced by those who still have perception, who are looking in the direction of heaven, toward the light of God. They are literally peering INTO heaven from the outside. I think of this as "window shopping". They're outside heaven, in a body, having a perception or "vision" (true perception), but they're looking towards and upon reality.

"when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision?"

This PERCEPTION OF reality is a dream still. It's like an image or a surface crust or layer of how heaven would appear TO perception. And let's not forget that "Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception CAN be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light." This to me implies that perception can reach to heaven and can see heaven.

So now what I'm saying is, the context where "the real world" is described as a borderland, a bridge, an image, a symbol, the face of christ, still a dream which can disappear, this is all talking about the PERCEPTUAL INTERPRETATION OF HEAVEN. It's not a direct experience of heaven or christ but it's how heaven and christ look when you use perception to look at them instead of direct knowing. It's still a little removed from heaven but it forms a kind of "image" or symbolic experience of it. This image is still a dream and that's why it comes to an end.

"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love"

"But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate."

So here Jesus seems to be confirming that "the real world" as used in its more common context, being removed from heaven, is SYMBOLIC - a symbolic version of the ACTUAL REAL HEAVEN. And symbols aren't something in themselves, they POINT TO the thing. They represent it, like a photograph. By using PERCEPTION to look upon the reality of the kingdom, you see it symbolically and no longer see the physical world. The "face of christ" then literally is like a surface appearance of christ, an outside "facade" ie a symbolic representation of the christ that is WITHIN heaven.

This to me is currently the only way to support the idea that there are ONLY two worlds. Not that there is a "real world" sandwiched in between them, or that this borderland has stuff in it. Because we're also told ""The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."

To me, the only way "the real world" can have contents that shine FOREVER, in contradiction to the fact that "even the real world will vanish from your sight", is that it's a reference to HEAVEN. Heaven's contents will shine forever. Heaven IS the real world. But the PERCEPTUAL VISION of heaven is what he refers to in the context of "the real world" that is a symbolic dream, which ends. First you see the kingdom as accurately as perception CAN, within its limits, and then you go INTO it.

"Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light. But no perception, however holy, will last FOREVER."

"Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for."

Note here that he's telling us that in the holy spirit's PERCEPTION, we will see the son of God. Where is the Son of God? He's in heaven. He IS heaven. He is the sonship. The Holy Spirit loves to look upon christ who is in heaven. His perception is a vision of christ, which later gives way to the direct cognitive knowledge of christ.

"And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ's love for what he looks upon."

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God."

This is why I've concluded that essentially the forgiven world is the ILLUSORY world of space and time and matter, which is looking AWAY from heaven towards form. It is earth, the world, which has been forgiven. And forgiveness forgives it BY OVERLOOKING IT, looking beyond it towards heaven. The real world is heaven, and it is the light which christ vision sees, which is initially seen using perception. When this perception is full and complete, as in seeing the face of christ or "christ as if seen from the outside", perception ends and you now enter into heaven.

ie "the real world" really is the kingdom of God. The perceptual interpretation of that real world is what is commonly thought to be "the real world". The real world is NOT a reinterpreted earth. That's the forgiven world. Because reality cannot be forgiven, only illusions can be overlooked. Christ vision which is true perception forgives the world by looking past it to the light of reality.

There are only two worlds. Reality and unreality. Perception is always within the realm of unreality, but can be adjusted to be more accurate and thus to perceive reality from the "outside". To interpret the kingdom. This is its view of the real world of heaven from within the perceptual landscape. When this perception is whole, the illusory forgiven world disappears entirely and is forgotten, and perception comes to an end.

So the commonly referenced "real world" (outside of heaven) is actually a perceptual interpretation OF the ACTUALLY REAL world of heaven. It's you looking at heaven through perceptual interpretation, with vision (true perception). It looks just like heaven because it is looking AT heaven. It is not a third world but is actually an experience of heaven's reality and contents through the heaven-aligned filter of true perception. Perception no longer distorts it and perceives it directly. This perceptual layer thus becomes irrelevant because it is not needed, and you then move into the direct experience without perception in the way, to SEE the SAME REAL WORLD of the kingdom, forever.

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream."

"Beyond this world there is a world I want."

"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."

"Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other."

"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him."

"The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true, and wholly YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it God created you as one with Him."

"As mediator between the two worlds, He (Holy Spirit) knows what you have need of, and WHICH WILL NOT HURT YOU."

"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains." "Heaven remains your only alternative to the strange world you made."

"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,"

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

"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

Looking for God outside? He's inside you. In fact, you have to look inside first, find God there, then look out with God, in order to see God.

When I had an experience of God this wasn't clear to me. I saw God seemingly in everything external, in addition to my tremendous inner awareness of him, but then it faded. And then I sought to reconnect externally because that's where I'd seen him. But God wasn't first found outside and taken in, he was inside my mind and awareness and extended out. I found him inside because I went within and above, not because I sought outward. In fact all sickness is a form of external searching. Seeking out there for God will take you away from where he is.

God is in everything you see when awareness of love's presence is in your mind. Not because God is out there, but because you are shining his light from inside of you. You look first within and project out what is in you, then you see it. You can't find God "out there" in the world. There is no world out there. Everything external is artificial and unreal.

God being in everything you see does not mean the world is God. This is completely backwards. It means you're looking out from God. And thus you are giving God and extending God and therefore projecting God. He is in everything you see because he is in your mind, and not without that key ingredient. If God were not in your mind first, you would not see him in everything you see, at all.

During the time that I was close to God I felt a great radiance of joy and light shining out of me, particularly out of my face and eyes. It was so strong it was like beaming light at people. It was also so strong that I felt nothing could come into me from the outside, which felt very secure. As though everything was given from within.

"The strength of the Soul leaves no room for intrusions." I felt I had no needs because I didn't lack anything within. Getting anything into me from the outside seemed completely alien and utterly pointless, including eating food for a while. It was like shoving lumps of nothing into a hole for no reason. I had to force myself to swallow. It seemed completely ridiculous to suggest that I lacked anything at all such that I needed to get anything from the world to make up for it.

When you're not seeing God outside you will start seeking externally to find him. This is because he seems externally absent. This is temptation and is a trick of the lack of love in you. It makes the world seem dark and lacking. And then you seek externally and do not find him. Because you try to find God first externally, and seek to get him, and take him into you from the outside in. This never works and makes you more deprived. It is idol worship, and special relationships. You cannot absorb God from any physical object, or get him on sale, or shove him down your throat, or make him give everything the ego wants to get.

To counteract the seeming absence of God in your sight you cannot try to look for God as if he's sitting out there on a rock. You have to look within, inside your mind, where you are connected at the inner altar, with your soul. That's where the unity with God is. You have to go there first. You have to plug into the light socket deep within. This is why Jesus repeatedly says in the course there is a place WITHIN you that is deeply at peace and filled with light.

Light bulbs don't shine by reaching out and grabbing ahold of light and taking it into themselves. They shine by plugging themselves into the power source and being in the light and then radiating it outwards. Only what you extend outward from within do you see or are aware of. So if you want to see love you have to find love within you first. If you want to see God in everything you see, in spite of everything you see, you have to find him in your mind, in your inner world.

If God appears to be outside, it is because he is inside, and there is no outside. If God does not appear to be outside, it's because you're lacking God on the inside. The lack of God outside has no bearing on causing God to go away or to make him appear. But whether you are in touch God on the inside makes all the difference. It is the only way to find God "outside" at all. Cause is INSIDE of you. God is cause. Effect is its extension or projection. Trying to find God (cause) by trying to love effects is backwards.

The course isn't really trying to get you to be one with the world, or to love it. It's trying to reunite you with God, within you, so that you can extend and create with him from the inside out. So that YOU are the love you keep trying to find in the world. What seems to be "external", including the body and planet, are not where God is. They were made from the idea of being outside of God's Kingdom in exile. They are the illusion of "not within you".

The world is just a picture of the lack of God ("a picture of the crucifixion of God's son"), a hallucination, a projected image of something being outside of or beyond your self, not contained within or included in what you are. And even though the course speaks of how the light of Christ is BEYOND the body and the world, as though on the OTHER side of its walls, as if you need to see THROUGH matter to see reality, it's really right here INSIDE you. It's here, and there. It's within you.

I used to think God was "out there" in the far distant reaches of the universe. Then I experienced him, and he was so intimately close he was literally under my skin and behind all my defenses against the world. God is here now, in your mind, in your soul. Inside of you. Underneath your defenses. Behind your walls. In the back of all your thoughts. Underneath your blocks. Beyond your denial. Deeper even than your own avoidance of inner self. Look for him without and you will be without him. But look for him within and the without will be filled with him.

What the course does do is push you to go deeper within. To get behind your clouds. To dig behind the darkness. To examine with deep honesty your innermost issues. To move beyond them into a complete alignment with your true self. To get under the blanket and snuggle up with God. To know that God goes with you, beside you, within you. To rest within. And to settle into his tranquil love. And all of this requires no movement away from his immediate presence, no seeking, and no loss.

I looked up at the night sky this evening and reached out to God a little, and Jesus corrected me, "he's not out there, he's inside." The path forward moves inward, which in truth seems to be backwards or the reversal of the world, that there may be an outward extension of what you find.

The body was made to put all your attention on what is external, its eyes looking always outward to seek for what is not there. This is why the inner vision of Christ is directed inward mentally, not outward. And only by going within can you see God again.

Here are Jesus's clear affirmations of this message... "Deep within you is everything that is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the whole world. It will cure all sorrow and pain and fear and loss because it will heal the mind that thought these things were real, and suffered out of its allegiance to these beliefs."

"As I share the peace of the world with my brothers, I begin to understand that this peace comes from deep within myself. The world I look upon has taken on the light of my forgiveness, and shines forgiveness back at me."

"Let this day be a day of stillness and of quiet listening. Your Father wills you hear His Word today. He calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear Him today." "Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you. He will be there. And you can reach Him now."

"And what attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it, and COMPLETELY One." "The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within."

"Salvation flows from deep within the home you offered to my Father and to me. And we are there together, in the quiet communion in which the Father and the Son are joined."

"Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God"

"The extension of the Holy Spirit's purpose, from YOUR relationship to others, to bring them gently IN, has already begun. This is the way in which He will bring means and goal in line. The peace He laid, deep within BOTH of you, will quietly extend to EVERY aspect of your lives, surrounding both of you with glowing happiness, and the calm awareness of COMPLETE protection."

"His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and shining from the holy altar within him, where you laid the lilies of forgiveness."

"The holiness that leads us is WITHIN us, as is our home."

"The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision."

"Knowledge comes from the altar within, and is timeless because it is certain."

"For perfect effectiveness, the chalice of the Atonement belongs at the center of the inner altar, where it undoes the Separation, and restores the wholeness of the Spirit."

"This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. For there the altar to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar. There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness. God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete."

"And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God."

"And what enables Him to SEE His purpose shine forth from every altar, now is yours as well as His."

"His innocence will light your way, offering you its guiding light and sure protection, and shining from the holy altar within him, where you laid the lilies of forgiveness."

"If you will recognize that ALL attack which you perceive, is in your own mind, and NOWHERE ELSE, you will at last have placed its source, and where it began it must end. For in this place also lies salvation. The altar of God, where Christ abideth, is there."

"But Christ has placed the Atonement on the altar FOR you. Bring your perceptions of the world to this altar, for it is the altar to truth. There you will see your vision changed, and there you will learn to see truly. "

"We clear a holy place within our minds before His altar, where His gifts of peace and joy are welcome, and to which we come to find what has been given us by Him."

"Forgiveness sweeps away distortions, and opens the hidden altar to the truth. Its lilies shine into the mind, and call it to return and look within, to find what it has vainly sought without. For here, and only here, is peace of mind restored, for this the dwelling-place of God Himself."

"At the altar of God, the holy perception of God's Son becomes so enlightened that light streams into it, and the Spirit of God's Son shines in the Mind of the Father, and becomes one with it."

"But the next step is to realize that a Temple is not a building at all. Its REAL holiness lies in the INNER altar, around which the building is built."

"It is not easy in the world to know what giving means, and how to give a gift that God and all creation will accept as shining outward from a thankful heart and inward to the altar of its God."

"God has not left His altar, though His worshippers placed other gods upon it. The temple still is holy, for the Presence that dwells within it IS Holiness."

"Only at the altar of God will you find peace, and this altar is in you, because God put it there. His Voice still calls you to return, and He will be heard, when you place no other gods before Him."

"If you would look within, you would see only the Atonement, shining in quiet and in peace, upon the altar to your Father. Do not be afraid to look within."

"Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God."

"Right perception is necessary before God can communicate DIRECTLY to his own altars, which he has established in His Sons."

"This is the true communion of the Spirit Who sees the altar of God in everyone, and by bringing it to YOUR appreciation calls upon you to love God and His Creation."

"This is how having and being are ultimately reconciled, NOT in the Kingdom, but IN YOUR MINDS. The altar there is the ONLY reality. It is PERFECTLY clear in its thought, because it is a reflection of PERFECT Thought. It SEES only brothers because it sees ONLY in its own Light."

"But you will notice that I have knelt at your altar as readily as I would ever have you kneel at mine."

"The innocence of God is the true state of the mind of His Son. In this state, man's mind DOES see God, and because he sees Him as he Is, he knows that the Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate gift to His OWN altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs. The understanding of the innocent is TRUTH. That is why their altars are truly radiant."

"A miracle reawakens the awareness that the spirit, and not the body, is the altar of Truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle."

"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?"

"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without, and capable, through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions, which proceed from lack of love in others."

"As this peace expands, from deep inside yourselves, to embrace ALL the Sonship"

"For still deeper than the ego's foundation, and MUCH stronger than IT will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, AND HIS FOR YOU."

"We are Creation; we the Sons of God. We seem to be discrete and unaware of our eternal unity with Him. Yet back of all our doubts, past all our fears, there still is certainty. For Love remains with all Its Thought, Its sureness being Theirs. God's memory is in our holy minds, which know their oneness and their unity with their Creator. Let our function be only to let this memory return, only to let God's Will be done on earth, only to be restored to sanity, and to be but as God created us."

In ACIM Jesus makes many clear references to a distinction between heaven and earth. He particularly uses the term "in heaven" as an opposite to "on earth". This clearly implies to most readers that heaven is some kind of place which is "not earth", which is "other than earth", which is "beyond earth", and which you can "be in" as an alternative to "being on earth".

"The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father, and dwells not apart from Him."

"Heaven waits for his return, for it was created as the dwelling place of God's Son."

Jesus clearly distinguishes that there are two places. You can be in heaven, and you can be on the earth. And they are not the same. Heaven is actually a vast realm of creation and living beings which earth barely has any awareness of. And heaven is a place you can "go to". Do not be deceived by statements such as "heaven is not a place", because this refers only to it not being localized in space. Heaven is everywhere, earth is nowhere.

It is also clear that heaven's properties are not like the properties of earth. We can bring some aspects of heaven "down" onto the earth, such as forgiveness which symbolizes heaven, and such as holy relationships which symbolize real relationships in heaven. Indeed earth can even "reflect" heaven. But it cannot BE heaven.

Jesus is clear that these are two states and two orders of reality and they are opposites. And even when earth is reinterpreted "as if part of heaven", it is still not the same. Nor is there any life outside of heaven, and earth is outside of heaven.

You can be on the earth, or in heaven. On the earth, your function is to forgive and heal to prepare your mind for God to take the final step, which literally takes you OFF the earth and INTO heaven. Back home to God where you belong. Heaven is your home. Earth is an alien world to you. Forgive the world and go home.

"Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your Effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will disappear, and separate things unite in glory as the Son of God."

"Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him."

"He was "called down upon the earth"

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

"Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God's Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me to my home."

"His holy will can never be denied, because his Father shines upon his mind, and lays before it all the strength and love in earth and Heaven."

"Forgiveness represents your function here. It is not God's creation, for it is the means by which untruth can be undone. And who would pardon Heaven? Yet on earth you need the means to let illusion go. Creation merely waits for your return to be acknowledged, not to be complete."

"Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all."

"The gifts of God are in my hands, to give to anyone who would exchange the world for Heaven."

"Father, in Heaven it is different, for there, there are no needs. But here on earth the miracle is closer to Your gifts than any other gift which I can give."

"For God's Will is done in earth and Heaven."

"The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there."

"The sky embraces it, and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from earth as earth from Heaven. It is not the distance nor the time which keeps this star invisible to earth. But those who seek for idols CANNOT know this star is there."

"Yet he whom I forgive will give me gifts beyond the worth of anything on earth. Let my forgiven brothers fill my store with Heaven's treasures, which alone are real."

"The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace. For it REMEMBERS Heaven. And now it sees that Heaven HAS come to earth at last, from which the ego's rule has kept it out so long. Heaven has come because it found a home in your relationship on earth. And earth can hold no longer what has been GIVEN Heaven as its own."

"His Words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven's love upon them. Those who hear His Words have heard the song of Heaven, for these are the words in which all will merge as one at last."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father. Let today be celebrated both on earth and in your holy home as well."

"Your will be done! In Heaven as on earth this is forever true."

"It does not matter if you think you are in earth or Heaven. What your Father wills for you can never change."

"You become the symbol of his Father here on earth."

"No-one on earth can grasp what Heaven is, or what its One Creator really means. Yet we have witnesses. It is to them that wisdom would appeal." "All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do."

"The Holy Spirit is the way in which God's will can be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Both Heaven and Earth are in YOU, because the call of both are in your wills, and therefore in your minds."

"It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth."

"But God has given him a better Friend, in whom all power in earth and Heaven rests."

"In Heaven, means and end are one, and One with Him. This is the state of true creation, found not within time, but in eternity. To no-one here is this describable."

"His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth."

"It is His holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one."

"He denies NOT his own reality BECAUSE it is the truth. Just under Heaven does he stand, but close enough NOT to return to earth. For this relationship HAS Heaven's holiness. How far from home can a relationship so like to Heaven BE?"

"It does not judge your proper role. It but acknowledges the Will of God is done on earth as well as Heaven. It unites all wills on earth in Heaven's plan to save the world, restoring it to Heaven's peace."

"Forgiveness is an earthly form of love which as it is in Heaven has no form."

"Everyone on earth has formed special relationships, and, although this is not so in Heaven, the Holy Spirit knows how to bring a touch of Heaven to them here."

"It is the bond by which the giver and receiver are united in extension here on earth as they are one in Heaven."

"Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God's plan."

"For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter."

"As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares HIS with you on earth."

"You want to see the sunlight and the glow of Heaven shining on the face of earth, redeemed from sin and in the Love of God."

"Prayer is a ladder reaching up to Heaven. At the top there is a transformation much like your own, for prayer is part of you. The things of earth are left behind, all unremembered."

"Today's idea takes another step toward quick salvation, and a giant stride it is indeed! So great the distance is that it encompasses, it sets you down just short of Heaven, with the goal in sight and obstacles behind. Your foot has reached the lawns that welcome you to Heaven's gate; the quiet place of peace where you await with certainty the final step of God. How far are we progressing now from earth!"

"And you will have conviction then of Him Who knows the function that you have on earth as well as Heaven."

"You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego."

"The miracles you do on earth are lifted up to Heaven, and to Him. They witness to what you do not know, and, as they reach the gates of Heaven, God will open them. For never would He leave His own beloved Son outside them, and beyond Himself."

"How could there be a meeting place at all where earth and Heaven can be reconciled within a mind where both of them exist?"

"He understands all power in earth and Heaven belongs to him because of who he is."

"And then you hold the key that opens Heaven's gate, and brings the Love of God the Father down to earth at last, to raise it up to Heaven. God will take this final step Himself."

"Not yet is Heaven quite remembered, for the purpose of forgiveness still remains. Yet everyone is certain he will go BEYOND forgiveness, and he but remains until it is made perfect in himself."

"There is a hope of happiness in him so sure and constant he can barely stay, and wait a little longer with his feet still touching earth. Yet is he glad to wait 'til every hand is joined, and every heart made ready to arise and go with him. For thus is HE made ready for the step in which is all forgiveness left behind."

"You have been told that your function in this world is healing, and your function in Heaven is creating. The ego teaches that your function on earth is destruction, and that you have no function AT ALL in Heaven."

"But what is true in earth and Heaven is beyond your naming."

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

"There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not. Yet here on earth, it has a double purpose, for it can be made to teach opposing things. And they reflect the teacher who is teaching them."

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects. But let us again remember that both are in you."

"This is the ONLY justice Heaven knows, and all the Holy Spirit brings to earth."

"Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth."

"Your other life has continued without interruption, and has been and always will be totally unaffected by your attempts to dissociate."

"The body is the symbol of the world. Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there anytime you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so."

This is a MAJOR axis in the course, transitioning from false perception to true perception. Learning to overlook the world of bodies and see beyond it to the light of the real world, so that you are ready to move on to Heaven. It is VERY CLEAR that the physical world of bodies is ONLY SEEN through the body's eyes, and learning to OVERLOOK it and not believe any of it is forgiveness.

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant."

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would try to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, BECAUSE it is an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."

"ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not recognize, and does not know if it is there or not. Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole, without the meaning that the whole would give. And yet mistakes, regardless of their form, can be corrected. Sin is but error in a special form the ego venerates. It would preserve all errors, and make them sins. For here is its own stability, its heavy anchor in the shifting world it made; the rock on which its church is built, and where its worshippers are bound to bodies, and believe the body's freedom is their own."

"If you but recognized how little stands between you and your awareness of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist. This body only seems to be immovable. This force is irresistible in truth. What, then, must happen when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for what is quietly passed through and gone beyond?"

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and not see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."

"It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"The body's eyes will NEVER look on it. Yet they will SEE what it dictates. The body will remain guilt's messenger, and will act as it directs, as long as YOU believe that guilt is real. For the REALITY of guilt is the illusion which seems to make it heavy and opaque, impenetrable, and a REAL foundation for the ego's thought system. Its thinness and transparency are not apparent, until you see the light BEHIND it. And then you see it as a fragile veil, before the light."

"This world you see (with the body's eyes) MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision (christ vision). YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

"You do not really want the world you see (with the body), for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it."

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

"The purpose of these exercises (workbook intro) is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world. The workbook is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the undoing of what you see now, and the second with the restoration of sight."

"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."

"Corrective learning always begins with awakening the spiritual eye, and turning away from belief in physical sight. The reason this entails fear is because man is afraid of what his spiritual eye will see, which was why he closed it in the first place. We said before that the spiritual eye cannot see error, and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement. There is no doubt that the spiritual eye does produce extreme discomfort by what it sees. The thing that man forgets is that the discomfort is not the final outcome of its perception. When the spiritual eye is permitted to look upon the defilement of the altar, it also looks immediately toward Atonement. Nothing which the spiritual eye perceives can induce fear. Everything that results from accurate spiritual awareness merely is channelized toward correction. Discomfort is aroused only to bring the need to correct forcibly into awareness.

What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can it be corrected by any device which can be physically seen. As long as a man believes in what his physical sight tells him, all his corrective behavior will be misdirected. The reason why the real vision is obscured is because man cannot endure to see his own defiled altar. But since the altar has BEEN defiled, this fact becomes doubly dangerous unless it IS perceived. This perception is totally not-threatening because of the Atonement. The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what man has done to himself."

"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."

"But the outcome is as certain as God. The spiritual eye literally CANNOT SEE error, and merely looks for Atonement. All the solutions which the physical eyes seek, dissolve in its sight. The spiritual eye, which looks within, recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled, and needs to be repaired and protected."

"The REAL beauty of the Temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision."

"Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."

"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good".

"The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images because you look on them as through a barrier which dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity. The light is kept from everything you see. At most, you glimpse a shadow of what lies beyond. At least you merely look on darkness, and perceive the terrified imaginings that come from guilty thoughts and concepts born of fear. And what you see is hell, for fear IS hell. All that is given you is for release; the sight, the vision and the inner Guide all lead you out of hell with those you love beside you, and the universe with them."

"And this he learns when first he looks upon ONE brother as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him. Thus is the concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the Face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this One. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight.

The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him. The sword of judgment is the weapon which you give to the illusion of yourself, that it may fight to keep the space that holds your brother off unoccupied by love. Yet while you hold this sword, you must perceive the body as yourself, for you are bound to separation from the sight of him who holds the mirror to another view of what he is, and thus what YOU must be."

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

"If you send forth ONLY the messengers the Holy Spirit gave you, WANTING no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt, and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear that you laid not upon it. And none you cannot ask love's messengers to REMOVE from it, and see it still. The Holy Spirit has given you HIS messengers, to send each other, and return to each with what love sees. They have been given to REPLACE the hungry dogs of fear you sent instead. And they go forth to signify the END of fear."

"My holy vision sees all things as pure" - "And while we still remain outside the gate of Heaven, let us look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of Christ. Let all appearances seem pure to us, that we may pass them by in innocence, and walk together to our Father's house as brothers and the holy Sons of God."

"Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision and give you joy. And place no value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is."

"Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him."

"There is no problem, no event or situation, no perplexity, that vision will not solve. All is redeemed, when looked upon with vision. For this is not YOUR sight, and brings with it the laws beloved of Him Whose sight it IS. Everything looked upon with vision falls gently into place, according to the laws brought to it by His calm and certain sight. The end, for everything He looks upon, is always sure. For it will meet His purpose, seen in unadjusted form, and suited perfectly to meet it. Destructiveness becomes benign, and sin is turned to blessing under His gentle gaze.

What can the body's eyes perceive, with power to CORRECT? Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and seeing it everywhere, in everything. Look through its eyes, and everything will stand condemned before you. All that could save you, you will never see. Your holy relationship, the source of your salvation, will be deprived of meaning, and its most holy purpose bereft of means for its accomplishment. Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination. But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway of Heaven's laws."

"The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you."

"Anger but screeches, "Guilt is real!" Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God's Word. The body's eyes now "see"; its ears alone can "hear." Its little space and tiny breath become the measure of reality. And truth becomes diminutive and meaningless."

"Reason would tell you that the world you see through eyes that are not yours, MUST make no sense to you. To whom would vision such as this send back its messages? Surely not you, whose sight is wholly independent of the eyes which look upon the world. If this is not your vision, what can it show to you? The brain can not interpret what YOUR vision sees. This you would understand. The brain interprets to the body, of which it is a part. But what it says, YOU cannot understand.

Yet you have listened to it. And long and hard you tried to understand its messages. You did not realize it is impossible to understand what fails entirely to reach you. You have received no messages at all you understood. For you have listened to what can never communicate at all. Think, then, what happened. Denying what you are, and firm in faith that you are something else, this something else, which you have made to be yourself, BECAME your sight. Yet it must be the SOMETHING ELSE which sees, and, as NOT you, explains its sight to you.

YOUR vision would, of course, render this quite unnecessary. But, if your eyes are closed, and you have called upon this thing to lead you, asking it to explain to you the world it sees, you have no reason not to listen, nor to suspect that what it tells you is not true. Reason would tell you that it can't be true, BECAUSE you do not understand it. God has no secrets. He does not lead you through a world of misery, waiting to tell you, at the journey's end, why He did this to you. What could be secret from His Will? Yet you believe that YOU have secrets. What could your secrets be except ANOTHER will, that is your own, APART from His? "

"Your sight was given you, along with everything that you can understand. You will perceive no difficulty in understanding what this vision tells you. For everyone sees only what he thinks he IS. And what your sight will show you, you will understand BECAUSE it is the truth. Only your vision can convey to you what YOU can see. It reaches you directly, without a need to be interpreted to you. What needs interpretation MUST be alien. Nor will it ever be made understandable, by an interpreter you cannot understand. Of all the messages you have received and failed to understand, this course alone is OPEN to your understanding, and CAN be understood."

"Reason will tell you that they must have seen each other through a vision not of the body, and communicated in a language the body does not speak"

"My condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my sightless eyes I cannot see the vision of my glory."

"The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another. That is because the real vision is still so dim."

"Miracles are seen in light" "It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system and the perception which it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see it in the light; you will not see it in the dark."

"Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body's eyes."

"To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent you will perceive attack cannot BE justified. This is in strict accord with vision's FUNDAMENTAL law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this."

"But on His Vision sin can NOT encroach, for sin HAS BEEN corrected by His sight."

"What is the resurrection?" "Here the curriculum ends. From here on, no directions are needed. Vision is wholly corrected and all mistakes undone."

"Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. What further sight is needed? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love behind all forms, beyond all purposes."

"These things await us all, but we are not prepared as yet to welcome them with joy. As long as any mind remains possessed of evil dreams, the thought of hell is real. God's teachers have the goal of wakening the minds of those asleep, and seeing there the vision of Christ's face to take the place of what they dream. The thought of murder is replaced with blessing."

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

"These are among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see. You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea." " Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain can know."

"It is your weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes which cannot see and cannot bless. Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there."

"The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances."

"You can SEE reason. This is not a play on words, for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. Vision is sense, quite literally. If it is not the body's sight, it MUST be understood. For it is PLAIN, and what is obvious is not ambiguous. It CAN be understood. And here do reason and the ego separate, to go their different ways."

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means. But not for seeing. See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning."

"Let not the FORM of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is yours. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. What is there in him that you would attack, except what you associate with his body, which YOU believe can sin? Beyond his errors is his holiness, and YOUR salvation. You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him, to save yourself. And yet his holiness IS your forgiveness. Can YOU be saved by making sinful the one whose holiness is your salvation?"

"There has been some controversy (in human terms) as to whether seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all." " The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything." "Only the mind sees".

"Your world is seen through eyes of fear, and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind. The real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness"

"I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ."

"You keep an ancient memory before your eyes. And he who lives in memories alone is unaware of where he IS."

"The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.

All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."

"Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God upon the universal altar to Creator and creation, in the Light of perfect purity and endless joy."

"Seen through understanding eyes the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself."

"Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are His substitutes for all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego's purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They step away from sin, reminding you that it is not reality that frightens you, and that the errors which you made CAN be corrected.

When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after vision, who is there who could refuse what MUST come after? Think but an instant just on this. You can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see."

"This is your purpose now, and the vision that makes it yours is ready to be given. You have the vision that enables you to see the body not. And as you look upon each other, you will see an altar to your Father, holy as Heaven, glowing with radiant purity, and sparkling with the shining lilies you laid upon it."

And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see. For you will not interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. And in His sight there IS another world. You live in that world just as much as this, for both are concepts of yourself, which can be interchanged, but never jointly held. The contrast is far greater than you think, for you will love this concept of yourself, because it was not made for you alone. Born as a gift for someone not perceived to be yourself, it has been given YOU. For your forgiveness, offered unto him, has been accepted now for BOTH of you."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."

"Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."

"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

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

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

I really like this term - "sinlessness". It feels good. It feels the way "there is no sin" feels when I say it. That my sinlessness is guaranteed by God, is right up with there "I am still as God created me." It specifies not only what I AM, it also specifies what I am NOT. I am not sinful, because I am sinless. I am free from the sinfulness that I am not.

Sinlessness is more than merely the absence of sin, as well. It is the presence of immortality. It is strength and innocence. It is invulnerability and fearlessness. Where there is sinlessness there is no reason to be afraid. If your brother is sinless, he is not threatening you. If the world is sinless, it is doing nothing to you. Sinlessness is safety. Sinlessness is your purity as Christ!

Sinlessness is also the end result of forgiveness. When forgiveness is completely, you are in sinlessness. When you have forgiven your brother, you recognize and can see his sinlessness. The sinlessness in him is your own. It is the light of Christ. It is the guaranteed purity of God, which was given you in your permanent creation. You are sinless because God created you sinless forever.

The juicy quotes...

"Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated until it is accepted. It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing can touch it, nor can change what God created as eternal. The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you."

"Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought; you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself. Whatever evil you may think you did, you are as God created you. Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is unchanged. Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created. Light and joy and peace abide in you because God put them there."

"If a situation arises which seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:

"Light and joy and peace abide in you. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.""

"Brother, come and let me look on you. Your loveliness reflects my own. Your sinlessness is mine. You stand forgiven, and I stand with you."

"If you but knew how much your Father yearns to have you recognize your sinlessness, you would not let His Voice appeal in vain, nor turn away from His replacement for the fearful images and dreams you made. "

"True light is strength, and strength is sinlessness. If you remain as God created you, you must be strong, and light must be in you. He Who ensured your sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God created you. Darkness cannot obscure the glory of the Son of God. You stand in light, strong in the sinlessness in which you were created, and in which you will remain throughout eternity."

"How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so."

"The state of sinlessness is merely this: The WHOLE desire to attack is gone, and so there is no reason to perceive the Son of God as other than he is."

"And so you walk toward Heaven or toward hell, but NOT alone. How beautiful his sinlessness will be, when you perceive it! And how great will be YOUR joy when he is free to offer you the gift of sight God gave to him for you."

"Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him. For peace will come to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, SHARED with the Holy Spirit, and at one with Him on what salvation IS."

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

"My sinlessness protects me from all harm."

"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me. What must I do to know all this is mine? I must accept Atonement for myself, and nothing more. God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine, to feel God's Love protecting me from harm, to understand my Father loves His Son; to know I am the Son my Father loves."

""You who created me in sinlessness are not mistaken about what I am. I was mistaken when I thought I sinned, but I accept Atonement for myself. Father, my dream is ended now. Amen.""

"I choose to see my brother's sinlessness."

"I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother's sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light."

""What could restore Your memory to me except to see my brother's sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well.""

"I can attack but my own sinlessness, and it is only that which keeps me safe."

""Father, Your Son is holy. I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so deep and dear and still the universe smiles back on You, and shares Your holiness. How pure, how safe, how sacred, then, are we, abiding in Your smile, with all Your love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing Him.""

"Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness. For it contains the Word of God to us, and in its kind reflection we are saved."

"Remove your focus on your brother's sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. And you will not transcend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond."

"Therefore, in practicing today, we first let all such little focuses give way to our great need to let our sinlessness become apparent."

"We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within."

"And we will also use these thoughts to keep us safe throughout the day. We do not seek for long-range goals. As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain."

"The world which once proclaimed our sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self Which knows no sin, and never could conceive of anything without Its sinlessness."

"Our sinlessness is but the Will of God. This instant is our willing one with His."

"The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the Son of God. It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace. It has not changed creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin and love to hate."

"I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, "God wills that I be saved from this," and merely watch them disappear. I need but keep in mind my Father's Will for me is only happiness, to find that only happiness has come to me. And I need but remember that His Love surrounds His Son and keeps his sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I am saved and safe forever in His arms. I am the Son He loves. And I am saved because God in His mercy wills it so."

"Father, Your holiness is mine. Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness forever part of You. I have no guilt nor sin in me, for there is none in You."

"Behold his sinlessness and be you healed"

"Father, today I would let all things be as You created them, and give Your Sons the honor due their sinlessness; the love of brother to his brother and his friend. Through this I am redeemed."

"I will forgive all things today, that I

May learn how to accept the truth in me,

And come to recognize my sinlessness."

"In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to You in perfect sinlessness, and with this thought we gladly say 'Amen'."

"And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear."

"Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again." "Surrounding me is perfect safety. Can I be afraid, when Your eternal promise goes with me? Surrounding me is perfect sinlessness. What can I fear, when You created me in holiness as perfect as Your own?"

"In quiet may forgiveness wipe away my dreams of separation and of sin. Then let me, Father, look within and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart."

"Today I would behold my brother sinless. This Your Will for me, for thus will I behold my sinlessness."

"I am the means by which God's Son is saved, because salvation's purpose is to find the sinlessness which God has placed in me. I was created as the thing I seek. I am the goal the world is searching for. I am God's Son, His one Eternal Love. I am salvation's means and end as well."

"Our Father, let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes. For we who are Your holy Son, are sinless."

"Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of guilt and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with Which I would identify."

"And we, God's children, rise up from the dust and look upon our perfect sinlessness. The song of Heaven sounds around the world, as it is lifted up and brought to truth."

"Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. What further sight is needed? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love behind all forms, beyond all purposes."

"Their patients can but be seen as the bringers of forgiveness, for it is they who come to demonstrate their sinlessness to eyes that still believe that sin is there to look upon. Yet will the proof of sinlessness, seen in the patient and accepted in the therapist, offer the mind of both a covenant in which they meet and join and are as one."

"The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom. Now it is no longer a contradiction in terms. Rather it is a statement of the unity of Christ and a recognition of His sinlessness. And now it has become holy, for it acknowledges the Son of God as he was created."

"Now, without needs of any kind, and clad forever in the pure sinlessness which is the gift of God to you, His Son, prayer can again become what it was meant to be."

"Creation is the opposite of all illusions, for Creation is the truth. Creation is the holy Son of God, for in Creation is His Will complete in every aspect, making every part container of the whole. Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held within His holy Will, beyond all possibility of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness."

"What he has done now must God's Son undo. But not alone. For he has thrown away the prison's key; his holy sinlessness and the remembrance of his Father's Love."

"I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His own."

"Now prayer is lifted from the world of things, of bodies, and of gods of every kind, and you can rest in holiness at last. Humility has taught you how to understand your glory as God's Son, and recognize the arrogance of sin. A dream has veiled the face of Christ from you. Now can you look upon His sinlessness."

"He will hear his sinlessness proclaimed around and around the world, setting it free as God's final judgment on him is received. This is the judgment in which salvation lies. This is the judgment that will set him free. This is the judgment in which all things are freed with him."

"In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness. Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind, where it MUST be, and light the BODY up INSTEAD of it."

"Now He can remind the world of sinlessness, the one unchanged, unchangeable condition of all that God created. Now He can speak the Word of God to listening ears, and bring Christ's vision to eyes that see. Now is He free to teach all minds the truth of what they are, so they will gladly be returned to Him. And now is guilt forgiven, overlooked completely in His sight and in God's Word."

"All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All that is false proclaims his sins as real."

"Do you not see the OPPOSITE of frailty and weakness is sinlessness? INNOCENCE IS STRENGTH, and nothing else is strong. The sinless cannot fear. And fear of any kind is weakness."

"It is HIS sinlessness that eyes that see can look upon. It is HIS loveliness they see in everything. And it is HE they look for everywhere, and find no sight or place or time where He is NOT. Within your brother's holiness, the perfect frame for YOUR salvation and the world's, is set the shining memory of Him in Whom your brother lives, and you along with him." "In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality."

"Your special function is a call to Him, that He may smile on you whose sinlessness He shares. HIS understanding will be YOURS. And so the Holy Spirit's Special Function has been fulfilled. God's Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness, and NOT his sin. "

"To serve THIS end, the body MUST be perceived as sinless, BECAUSE the goal is sinlessness."

"The means of sinlessness can know no fear, because they carry ONLY love with them."

"Your home is built upon your brother's health; upon his happiness, his sinlessness, and everything his Father promised him. No secret promise you have made INSTEAD has shaken the Foundation of his home."

"His holiness gives life to you, who CANNOT die because his sinlessness is known to God, and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not."

"And as we see the sinlessness in him come shining through the veil of guilt that shrouds the Son of God, we will behold in him the Face of Christ, and understand that it is but our own."

"Give me your blessing, holy Son of God,

I would behold you with the eyes of Christ,

And see my perfect sinlessness in you."

"Consider once again your special function. ONE is given you to see in him his perfect sinlessness."

"You still are holy with the Holiness which fathered you in perfect sinlessness, and still surrounds you in the arms of peace. Dream now of healing. Then arise and lay all dreaming down forever. You are he your Father loves, who never left his home, nor wandered in a savage world with feet that bleed, and with a heavy heart made hard against the Love that is the truth in you. Give all your dreams to Christ and let Him be your Guide to healing, leading you in prayer beyond the sorry reaches of the world."

"Only Christ forgives, knowing His sinlessness. His vision heals perception and sickness disappears. Nor will it return again, once its cause has been removed."

"Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe."

"Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the body?" Ask only, "Do I REALLY wish to see him sinless?" And, as you ask, forget not that HIS sinlessness is YOUR escape from fear. Salvation is the Holy Spirit's goal. The means is vision. For what the seeing look upon IS sinless. No-one who loves can judge, and what he sees is FREE of condemnation. And what he sees he did NOT make, for it was GIVEN him to see, as was the vision which made his seeing possible."

"The sinless give as they received. See, then, the power of sinlessness within your brother, and share with him the power of the RELEASE from sin you offered HIM."

"What danger can assail the wholly innocent? What can attack the guiltless? What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness?"

"No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. You will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away, yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it. You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness."

"Christ cannot doubt Himself. The Voice of God can only honor Him, rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness."

"Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness."

I took a deep dive into every single statement about "the real world", to find out all possible implication of what it IS and IS NOT referring to.

It is clear to me that what Jesus calls "the real world" IS "the borderland of thought" in between the world we MADE in false perception, and the reality of Heaven. The real world is a REFLECTION of heaven, seen in forgiveness through the eyes of Christ. It includes your ability to see WITH love, looking with forgiveness upon/past the world you made, so that the world you made in attack is seen in the holy instant present as the forgiven world.

The real world also clearly comes BEFORE your re-entry to heaven, and this is backed up in numerous statements. It is entirely within the realm of perception and consciousness, as the highest state of consciousness possible prior to awakening to knowledge. It is still a DREAM but it is a happy dream, a forgiving dream, in which there is no idol worship or illusion or fantasy. And Jesus does distinguish that it has "reality" to the extent that it shares or reflects the reality of heaven.

The real world was also given by God to REPLACE the world you made. In essence, you MADE hell, which is an illusory world of sin and death. Then the Holy Spirit answered this in the co-making of the real world, which is like an alternative dream. A dream of forgiveness and light and love. It REFLECTS heaven, but is not heaven. It is true perception, salvation, atonement, the miracle, right mindedness, and is GIVEN by God. God GAVE you this real world to replace the one you made, made by the Holy Spirit.

God loves the real world, because it is seen WITH love, and seeing the world you made WITH love makes it impossible to see the world of sin and death. Forgiveness overlooks bodies and looks beyond to the light of the real world, the face of Christ. BY loving the world, the UNREAL world is not seen, because love influences perception. And by projecting love, the HOly Spirit projects the real world for you to see, IN PLACE OF the unforgiven world.

What I found also are many statements clearly discerning that the term ILLUSION refers to an UNFORGIVEN world only, to false perception. The world we originally tried to make without God/Holy Spirit. The world of sin and death and sickness. The world of bodies and forms and planets. That is the world WE made, through unforgiveness, and through attack and guilt and sin and fear.

Jesus refers to THAT world as "an illusory world" and quite consistently, all references to ILLUSION appear to refer ONLY to that world, not the forgiven/real world. Because IN the "real world" state you reflect truth and DISPEL all illusions, RECOGNIZING what is there. This is why true perception is ACCURATE perception.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it." thus refers to the false perceptual world of bodies, UNFORGIVEN, unreal, untrue, in which the truth is obscured and lies seem like truth. A world seen without any reason or sanity or light. A world of deception. When you approach true perception, ILLUSIONS are seen through and undone and removed, and so true perception does not see an ILLUSORY world, it sees "the real world". The world as it is WITHOUT the distortion of illusion, and free from the ego's shadow. It's kind of like the world with minimal ego.

The real world, or the sense of it "having reality", doesn't mean it IS reality as in Heaven, but it does mean it is "as is", founded on love, and is not MIS-perceived. True perception is accurate perception and LINES UP WITH what knowledge or direct sight would see. It is truthful.

I also saw references indicating that THE VEIL, which is a reference to the physical world hanging in front of the face of Christ (whereby the face of christ is another synonym for the real world/true perception), refers ONLY to the unforgiven world. The veil entails the world of bodies, the granite block of sin, the forms of error, the gap, etc.

This veil is SEEN THROUGH AND PAST to see the real world/face of Christ. Also when you see the real world you DO NOT SEE the unforgiven world of sin and bodies. It is forgotten. And in its TOTAL forgetting you ONLY see the real world. And as Jesus says, you will barely have time to thank God for this before he takes you home. The veil of illusions parts, the real world is seen, then you go to heaven.

There are numerous references to you FIRST arriving at the real world, the borderland of thought between the world of sin that you made, and actual Heaven which is God's Kingdom, and THEN God taking the last step to take you home. Out of time, into eternity. Out of bodies, into the light of eternal life. There is a clear distinction between Heaven and the real world, whereby the real world is at most Heaven's REFLECTION, and is seen through the eyes of Christ. And also interestingly, we are to recognize Christ FIRST, before we move onto the love of God.

So the "real world" is a state of light and awareness and wakefulness, WHILE still dreaming. It is a DREAM OF being awake. And in this sense as you approach the real world you DO seem to be waking up, becoming more aware. And at the real world you are practically fully awake, but slightly asleep still. Only moving on from the real world INTO heaven do you fully awaken. But prior to this you can be exceedingly wakeful while still in a body.

The real world, being a reflection of heaven, also is a state that reflects sharing. Holy relationships reflect real relationships. There is equality and a kind of oneness. There is a lack of separations and divisions. A kind of unity is seen spread across chaos. And what used to be a world of sin and death is reinterpreted in such a way that a hidden song of gratitude and light is seen and heard radiating from it. Sights of war and death are reinterpreted, through perception, as harmless and gentle and welcome. And the healed peaceful mind projects peace and love and sees only peace and love in it.

Note that seeing from love, you look toward love, which is a light BEYOND BODIES. The illusory world, the veil, is seen through, and overlooked, by forgiveness, through extension, which is christ vision. The world is seen as "forgiven" because it is recognizes as an illusion and is not seen as real sin. It is seen PAST. And this overlooking makes the illusory world seem holy and forgiven. But simultaneously sight (spiritual eye) reaches beyond the illusory world TO the light of the real world. Eventually it sees ONLY this light, as the veil disappears, fully revealing the face of Christ.

After this, the real world DOES END, because it IS a dream, except for the eternal love that was reflected in it through thoughts of love, which are saved as gifts. Because the real world IS still a dream and it vanishes as true perception is converted into knowledge. Being FULLY in the real world is like being on the OUTSKIRTS of the world, standing on the edge, not involved, not confused, not caught up in the world. Being passer by. Seeing from love and truth. Illusions recognized and dispelled. In a state of mind outside of separateness and form. Awareness of dreaming. A borderland of thought just shy of heaven and outside of heaven's gate.

I have a lot of quotes, but here's a handful of the clearer snippets that I highlighted along the way...

"Only this is the real world, and perceiving ONLY this will lead you to the real Heaven"

"The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you, out of what you have made"

"your new and ONLY real perception"

"For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight."

"In the real world, there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division."

"For you share the real world as you share Heaven"

"When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then your Father will lean down to you, and take the last step for you, by raising you unto Himself."

"If only the loving thoughts of God’s Son ARE the world’s reality, the real world MUST be IN HIS MIND"

"God DOES love the real world, and those who perceive its reality CANNOT see the world of death."

"For death is not OF the real world, in which everything is eternal." (eternal means something a bit different than "will be there forever", because the real world does end).

"God gave you the real world in exchange for the one you made, out of your split mind, and which IS the symbol of death."

"relinquish your investment in the world as YOU have projected it, allowing the Holy Spirit to project the real world TO you"

"Make the world real (loving, innocent etc) unto YOURSELF, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit"

"In His sight, the Son of God is perfect" "He will SHOW you the real world"

"The awakening of His Son begins with his investment in the REAL world"

"And then the real world will spring to your sight, for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen" "He looks quietly on the real world, which He would SHARE with you"

"we will look upon the world as God "created" it together. Through the eyes of Christ, ONLY the real world exists, and can BE seen"

"The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the world YOU made, and which you SEE. But take it from the hand of Christ, and look upon it. ITS reality will make everything ELSE invisible, for beholding it is TOTAL perception"

"And perception has never been. Being corrected, it gives place to knowledge, which is forever the ONLY reality."

"as His from Love. And He sees FOR you, as your witness to the real world. "

"Even in sleep has Christ protected you, ensuring the real world FOR you when you wake" (sleep means false perception, waking is true perception, but is not the FINAL awakening FROM sleep)

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."

"YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other.

"The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance"

"You will first DREAM of peace (the real world), and THEN awaken to it (heaven)."

"This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the truth. The bridge between that world and this is SO little and SO easy to cross that you could not believe it is the meeting-place of worlds so different. Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all. This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time into eternity, and beyond all ugliness, into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection."

"The real world, in its loveliness, YOU learn to reach. Fantasies are all undone"

"by YOUR OWN forgiveness, you are FREE TO SEE. And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it."

"the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose."

"The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."

"The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness"

"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the T(634) - 461 - past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God’s perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home (heaven). "

"For salvation IS the end of dreams, and, with the closing of the dream, will have no meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, COULD dream that there could ever be NEED of salvation? "

"The spark of beauty, or the veil of ugliness (the veil is the unreal world seen in false perception only!); the real world, or the world of guilt and fear; truth or illusion; freedom or slavery"

"The holy relationship, a MAJOR step toward the perception of the real world, is LEARNED. It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and seen anew."

"In your relationship, the Holy Spirit has gently laid the real world; the world of happy dreams, from which awaking is so easy and so natural."

"The dream of waking is easily transferred to its reality. For this dream comes from your will, JOINED with the Will of God."

"This world of light, this circle of brightness, is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here, the world OUTSIDE is seen anew, WITHOUT the shadow of guilt upon it."

"There is a borderland of thought that stands between this world and Heaven. It is not a place, and WHEN you reach it is APART from time. Here is the meeting place where thoughts are brought TOGETHER; where conflicting values MEET, and ALL illusions are laid down beside the truth, where they are judged to be untrue. This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that IS, received instead.

This is the journey’s end. We have referred to it as the "real world.""

"Salvation IS a borderland"

"Salvation (real world/forgiven world) stops just short of Heaven, for only perception NEEDS salvation. Heaven was never lost, and so can not be saved. "

"The real world is the second part of the hallucination time and death are real, and have existence which can be perceived. This terrible illusion was denied in but the time it took for God to give His Answer to illusion"

"The real world still is but a dream. Except the figures have been changed. They are not seen as idols which betray (idols are part of false perception)"

"And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love."

"The real world is the state of mind in which the ONLY purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness. "

"No-one outside of Heaven knows how this can be. For understanding this is Heaven itself. Even the real world has a purpose still beneath creation and eternity. But fear is gone, because its purpose is forgiveness, NOT idolatry."

"The real world is a state in which the mind has learned how easily do idols go when they are still perceived, but wanted not."

"Thus is the real world’s purpose gently brought into awareness, to REPLACE the goal of sin and guilt. "

"Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror"

"This understanding is the ONLY change that lets the real world rise to take the place of dreams of terror."

"The real world is achieved when you perceive the basis of FORGIVENESS is quite real and fully justified."

"As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected. "

"Today the real world rises before us in gladness, to be seen at last. Sight is given us, now that the light has come. We do not see the ego's shadow on the world today. We see the light, and in it we see Heaven's reflection lie across the world."

"and the sight of the real world which has come to replace the unforgiven world you thought was real."

"Healing might thus be called a counter-dream which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth"

"Just as forgiveness shines away all sin, and the real world will occupy the place of what you made, so healing must replace the fantasies of sickness which you hold before the simple truth. When sickness has been seen to disappear in spite of all the laws which hold it cannot but be real, then questions have been answered."

"Christ's vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven that what God created perfect can be mirrored there. The darkened glass the world presents can show but twisted images in broken parts. The real world pictures Heaven's innocence."

"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made. Your world is seen through eyes of fear (world you made without hs, false perception), and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind. The real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness blesses, so they see a world where terror is impossible, and witnesses to fear can not be found."

"The real world holds a counterpart for each unhappy thought reflected in your world"

"The real world shows a world seen differently, through quiet eyes and with a mind at peace. "

"There are no cries of pain and sorrow heard, for nothing here remains outside forgiveness. And the sights are gentle. Only happy sights and sounds can reach the mind that has forgiven itself."

"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love; the certain promise that he is redeemed. The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless."

"hymns of gratitude the world is singing underneath the sounds of fear. There is a real world which the present holds safe from all past mistakes. "

"How surely, therefore, must the real world come to greet the holy sight of anyone who takes the Holy Spirit's purpose as his goal for seeing. And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ's love for what he looks upon."

"There is no point at which the contrast between the perception of the real world and that of the world of illusions becomes more sharply evident."

"RIGHT-MINDEDNESS listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ's vision sees the real world in its place. This is the final vision, the last perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Himself. "

"Both this world and the real world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives, what never happened. Therefore it is not the ONE-MINDEDNESS of the Christ Mind"

"Consciousness has levels and awareness can shift quite dramatically, but it cannot transcend the perceptual realm. At its highest it becomes aware of the real world, and can be trained to do so increasingly. "

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality."

"THE FACE OF CHRIST has to be seen before the memory of God can return. The reason is obvious. Seeing the Face of Christ is perception"

"But the Face of Christ is[5] the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world."

"Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate. Yet from this gate it is no more than just a step inside. It is the final step. And this we leave to God. "