Each of us has free will. Each of us has everything within us, given by God. No-one can add to what you are or to what is true of you. However, when you are denying your own perfection, a situation arises where you may seem to need guidance or teaching from others.

But the ultimate aim of this teaching isn't to give you something you don't have, it's to help you to find it within yourself, given that it's there already. Actually in the Psychotherapy pamphlet we're told that really psychotherapy is the only form of therapy, ie teaching. That any teacher is really a healer/therapist who should be helping you to heal from your self-induced amnesia.

But what often happens is that we become enamored with certain teachers, particularly in terms of personality worship. We grow dependent on them, look up to them, put them on a bedestal, and look to them to give you everything you lack. And when they do seem to give you things you think you lack, you think of them as a kind of savior. And you will then start to defend them rather blindly against any questioning of their integrity or truth.

What happens here is that when we lack total responsibility for what we are doing to ourselves, and for owning up to being CHRIST, we project this responsibility onto teachers. We more or less want them to be what we are insisting on not being. We want them to have all the answers, to do for us what we don't want to do ourselves, and to lead us out of the desert.

There is a high likelihood that, when it appears that someone else has stuff that you lack, or knows stuff you don't know, that you'll form a dependent relationship with them. You'll actually be forming a SPECIAL relationship with them. This means that you include them and allow them to give to you, or to get from them, at the same time as shutting others out and rejecting them.

It's a conditional relationship permitted only within the confines of your limitations. It's even possible to use a teacher to keep yourself in the dark, by finding someone who agrees with everything you say and never questions your mistakes. And so your specialized ego "likes" them and sees them as an ally, precicely because they really don't challenge or teach you anything you don't already believe. Using them as a way to prove yourself right isn't really an openness to learning.

These special relationships with teachers lead a lot of "followers" to become sheep, or blind cattle, the herd, simply following along and hanging off every word as if it's the whole truth. Not questioning anything and trying to just absorb whatever is expressed. This happens when a person stops thinking for themselves and places far too much responsibility into the hands of another.

Particularly if that other is quite intelligent and seems to know more than you, in that they can run circles around you and keep you bound to them because you lack the ability to see through their deceptions.

What is supposed to happen to move towards a holy relationship, is that you are supposed to become EQUAL with everyone. And that means you can't be under the thumb of a teacher, or bound to a specific individual, or worshipping the ground someone walks on, or just blindly believing everything someone says without any discernment of your own. You're not supposed to be a sheep, you're supposed to be a fully autonomous perfect being with no needs and dependent only on God. And if you're becoming defensive on behalf of some teacher you think is infallible, you've got a problem.

What I see is that these dynamics of idol worship and specialness mirror a lot of what happens in parent-child relationships. Whereby the parent takes on a role of "being parental", which often involves control and protection and manipulation and so on, and in many cases an obsession or "need" to forever maintain that role. The parent can identify with the role and see themselves as only that, instead of an equal.

And in turn, the child can often "be a child" for life, always under the parent's thumb, not seeing themselves as equal to the parent or having a holy relationship with them.

There's always tons of skewed dysfunctional relationship dynamics, where the child can't get out from under the weight of the parent's overbearing nature, and the parent doesn't want to stop being a parent. So that sets up a vicious cycle of being kept in the dark, disempowered, overpowered, and unequal.

The same thing happens with all kinds of teachers IF the teacher or the student develops a special relationship with them. If the teacher doesn't lift the student UP to their own level and SET THEM FREE of themselves, then they are not really teaching a whole lesson. If the student is addicted to the teacher and of remaining in their shadow and having a conditional exclusive relationship with them, they are trying to remain a child, treating the teachers as a parental figure.

You can see this happening a lot when people hang off every word a particular teacher says under some kind of assumption that everything they say is correct. Or people who seem to "resonate" with a certain person, and who "seems to make sense" to them, and so they don't see a need to question anything. People then form into camps and groups and little armies which fight silly wars about which one is right.

What any ACIM student should be doing is honoring their TOTAL FREEDOM, by recognizing that a guide should always respect their free will, and the fact that you were created perfect. This means recognizing that no other person can give you what God gave you in your creation. And any person can only at best ADVISE you and give you guidance or information, and you're not supposed to treat them like an idol to be worshipped or as some kind of God-like parental figure that you live in the shadow of. We are all supposed to be equals.

Addiction to teachers can particularly happen, I think, for people who perhaps struggle with the course a lot, and need someone else to help them. But if we are not careful we in fact give our power away to such people and blur the lines as to who is responsible for CHOOSING TO BELIEVE whether something is true or not. We are all supposed to discern and freely decide whether to accept or deny truths, not to just "feed off" someone who looks like a leader who seems to spoonfeed endless volumes of food to you.

Think for yourself. Question your teachers. Find out if IF something is true and WHY. Be willing to be mistaken. And be willing to recognize that any and all teachers may be mistaken as well. Only the Holy Spirit and the ascended ones truly know what the whole story is.

The ego in each of us acts like a gatekeeper, or controller, who decides what will be accepted or rejected. Everything has to go through it and meet its approval. It acts like "the boss" who has authority and who gets to decide whether something is true or false.

We feed everyting through this "opinion maker", and if we decide not to agree with something we’ll push it away. This really is the ego’s arrogance in trying to be that which decides what the truth is. If it decides something is false, it is false, and will not be acceptable.

So with regards to ACIM, Jesus has written various things and all of them are true. It is our job to actually trust Jesus and trust what He has said is true. But our ego is not happy about that. It wants to decide whether it is true or not, or what it means. It will accept some things, and reject others. It will only "approve" certain things that meet its criteria.

But what we’re supposed to be doing is to trust that Jesus is being truthful, which means, instead of asking ourselves whether what he says is true or not, to put aside the function of deciding if Jesus can be believed, to "blindly accept it" through FAITH, and to THEN spend time figuring out how it MUST be true.

Do we trust Jesus? Is he always telling the truth? Does he lie? Does he contradict himself? Do we have faith in his word? Do we put aside "trying to be right" or "being the decider", and let Him be the authority? This is part of surrendering our ego role of defensiveness and reluctance and having a heartfelt trust and willingness to accept the truth. To accept it not because we even necessarily understand it, but because it’s coming from Jesus.

I trust that what Jesus is saying is true, and then try to learn how and why it is true. I accept it first, and explain it later. And where I fail to trust and want to decide what the truth is myself, those are my lessons in trust.

Jesus is the man.

When I used to be sick or suffering, the only options at my disposal was to take a medication, or "wait it out" or "let it run its course" or go through the suffering until I had "fully suffered". Like waiting for the body to heal itself.

Like there was some kind of requirement or this was the only way to "get past it". There was no quick fix. And so I was simply used to this way of existing where problems could not be easily resolved. This seemed "normal."

But then Holy Spirit started to do his thing. And all of a sudden this assumption that suffering and healing take a lot of time, came into question.

All of a sudden it started to seem possible that, "maybe I don't have to suffer"... or "maybe I don't have to tolerate this" ... or "why should I have to wait for this to run its course"... or "what if I can choose not to just let this snowball into weeks of turmoil?"

And as I began to receive Holy Spirit's help and healing, I started to discover that if I was willing, I could start to challenge whether or not I HAD to suffer... I could start learning a little at a time to question this.... maybe I don't HAVE to go through this, or let it just have power over me to dictate how long I have to put up with this. What if there is a better way?

And so I stated to peel back my alignment with the ego and my belief that I should just "go along with" the suffering, as if I had no other option. I started to get used to this idea of stopping myself and not just blindly going along with the program, and realizing that maybe I don't HAVE to. And as there started to BE another option - that I could get healed by Holy Spirit, that really started to bring into question whether suffering had to be TOLERATED or put up with.

What also has increased is a kind of REFUSAL and strength to say NO to the prescribed suffering, to rebuke it, to realize that I DO have a choice, and that in actual fact there IS a POWER in decision. That I can decide NOT to suffer. That I do not have to accept or tolerate it. If I am willing, there is another way. I can instead refuse to just lay down and accept this and instead forgive and get into willingness and choice and get out of victimhood and learn to let go, to let myself receive help and get some healing.

This has really undermined the sense of having to just let shit happen. Holy Spirit is adamant that you DO NOT HAVE TO SUFFER. There is no merit in it. You don't have to be guilty for a month and suffer with a sickness. All He wants is for you to return to happiness - it's God's will. So as you start to practice this and open up to it and receive help, you also start to erode the belief in "required suffering", which is a belief in sin and guilt.

This is also part of why sickness and death are NOT GOD'S WILL, and being sick or dead is AGAINST God's will. God wills instead that you be FULLY HEALED, that you do not have to merely tolerate or put up with suffering or being sick or hurt or damaged in any way. He wants to release you from this torture and help you to realize that you deserve and CAN ACCESS permanent healing and health and happiness. That death and sickness are not supposed to be part of your experience AT ALL.

"Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally"

In the separation from God, each of us has condemned ourselves. We've accused ourselves of sin, and condemned ourselves to suffer. We want ourselves to be punished, murdered, and destroyed. Ultimately this is a death wish, in which we have become suicidal because we don't believe we deserve to live or to be loved by God. You might be thinking, suicidal? I'm not suicidal. Well think again.

At the same time as trying to destroy yourself to prove you don't exist in God, your true self is utterly sinless, guiltless, innocent, holy and pure. You have never sinned or hurt or commit a crime or broke a law. You have never done anything to anyone, and no-one has ever attacked you. You are immortal and eternal and endless and permanent. And no harm can come to you because God himself protects you.

"The Thought of God protects you, cares for you"

The problem is, there is a seeming "gap" between what is really true of you, and what you currently BELIEVE. And if you are not in touch with your utter immaculate sinlessness, then some part of you DOES believe you are condemned to hell. God isn't doing this condemnation, nor are your brothers.

It's all an inside job of your own self attack. It is your self destruction. And this is suicidal. Even though death isn't real, this needs to be undone because the belief in your non-existence keeps you from being happy.

Looking at what you are doing to yourself is not pretty. If you are not accepting your sinlessness, it means you are believing you are sinful. It means you don't love yourself. It means you actively attack yourself and are trying to destroy yourself. Such as in "my attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability." It means you don't really like yourself, yet alone love yourself with the love of God.

So now if you think about it in terms of the "relationship" that you have "with yourself", as if you could relate to yourself like a third party, how do you really feel about yourself? What is your honest current attitude towards yourself? If it's not one of total unconditional perfect love, then it isn't a very healthy relationship.

If there is a belief in being sinful, or evil, or a monster, or unworthy, or not good enough, or you resent yourself, or are angry at yourself, or keep judging yourself, or see yourself as weak, or hurt yourself emotionally or physically, or keep being abusive towards yourself, there are all signs of a breakdown in relationship.

And what that ultimately means is that you have not forgiven yourself. You're in this relationship with someone that you don't want to be with. And that is going to split your mind and hurt your mind. If you don't love yourself and embrace yourself with acceptance then how can you possibly relate to yourself at all?

Think of yourself as in the shoes of a person that you don't like in a similar way. If you don't like that person you don't want to be near them. You don't want to give them things. You don't want to share with them or spend time with them. You don't want them to exist. You don't care if they get hurt or suffer. You want them to suffer. And you may even feel so bitter towards them that you wish they were dead. Is that the relationship you are having with YOURSELF?

You have to look deep within yourself with much honesty to find this out. And it's probably going to be somewhat painful or even scary. You may not actually even realize or recognize that you have it in for yourself, or want yourself to suffer, because you may be so used to a general level of background destructiveness that you think it's totally normal. You might not have even seen how much you hate yourself.

"You who think you hate your bodies, deceive yourselves. YOU HATE YOUR MINDS, for guilt has entered into them, and they would remain separate, which they CANNOT DO."

"You HATE the prison that you made, and would destroy it."

"You are afraid of Him, and do not see you hate and fear your Self as enemy."

"And why do you attack them anywhere except you hate yourself?"

"But if you hate part of your own Soul, ALL your understanding is lost, because you are looking on what God creates AS YOURSELF without love."

"You do not realize how much you hate each other. You will not get rid of this until you DO realize it, for UNTIL then, you will think you want to get rid of EACH OTHER and KEEP THE HATRED. "

So you have to look at this stuff. And typically you need a strong contrast in order to recognize it. Get in touch with what it means to be sinless. That your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Get a feel for total pure innocence and the complete absence of all attack, even slight annoyances. And then in that light, look at how you feel about yourself.

Do you still feel like attacking? Do you still feel a need or requirement to judge and blame? Do you condemn others to hide your self condemnation? Are you constantly fighting with people? Do you feel unhappy most of the time? If you have any of the "symptoms" of the ego, which is anything not of God, then certainly there is room for improvement in your relationship with yourself.

First you need to recognize that you even DO hate yourself, before you can be willing to take steps to heal that relationship. And you can't see that unless you have some kind of higher truth about you to compare it to. Your utter pure sinlessness in God, your immortal innocence, the guarantee of eternal life, can act as a contrast and at reality-tester to find out just how you really do feel about yourself. And once you find that out, you have healing work to be done upon yourself. You need correction and forgiveness. You need to FORGIVE YOURSELF, in order to recognize you are sinless and free.

"You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God."

"You who believe you have condemned the Son of God"

"But in the dream of judgment, you attack and ARE condemned."

"And unless He had given you a way to remember, you would have condemned yourselves to oblivion."

"Now has the mind condemned itself to seek without finding; to be forever dissatisfied and discontented; to know not what it really wants to find."

"If the Son of God is guilty, then is he condemned, and he DESERVES no mercy from the God of justice."

"Guilt is ALWAYS in your OWN mind, WHICH HAS CONDEMNED ITSELF. Project it not, for while you do, it cannot BE undone."

"The delusional can be very destructive, for they do not recognize they have condemned THEMSELVES."

"It is not God Who has condemned His Son. But ONLY you, to save his specialness, and kill his Self."

"Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy, and have condemned yourself to death."

"You have handled this wish TO KILL YOURSELF by NOT KNOWING WHO YOU ARE, and identifying with something ELSE. You have projected guilt blindly and indiscriminately, but you have NOT uncovered its source. For the ego DOES want to kill you, and if you identify WITH it, you MUST believe ITS GOAL IS YOURS."

You don't need to die. You need to forgive yourself.

God is the truth. Originally there was only the truth. But then we made up an opposite. We thought there could be something false as well, a falseness which had truth to it.

"For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM." UrT10H2

And so we swapped what is true and what is false, and confused them. We took all the attributes of truth (God) and assigned the to something untrue (an illusory world). And then we took all of the attributes of illusions (non-existence, death, evil etc) and assigned it to God.

So there was this huge reversal in our minds. Not only did this put us out of touch with reality, which meant we were insane, we also were extremely confused and lost. We became lost because we could no longer tell whether something is true or not. We lost track of which way is up, what God is really like, etc.

This meant we lost the ability to properly discern the difference between what is true and what is false. It meant we developed a belief that God is cruel and evil and wants us dead. And it also means we invested all our sense of value and attraction into a false world in order to stay as far away from him as possible.

"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING." UrT7J9

So now when you look at death, you actually do in your mind believe it has some properties of life and truth and reality. And when you look at attack you think it is salvation. And when you look at hell you think of it as heavenly. And when you look at suffering you think it is atonement. And when you look at God you think he is an evil enemy to be avoided.

So then you have this sort of totally mixed up radar. Your whole navigation system of "what you want to go towards" is all thrown off by a kind of huge magnetic storm, which is affecting your compass. All your arrows which point in directions you think you want to go, are actually pointing in the opposite direction from where they're supposed to point.

The problem is because you're so lost in the woods you can't tell which way the arrows are supposed to point. So everyone in the world keeps making suffering for themselves because they keep choosing things which they believe are good and true which are not. And people will create sickness because they think that getting away from God (life, health, wholeness) is saving their lives. And people will even destroy and kill the body believing that it's going to set them free.

So there's not only a huge amount of confused and lost people in the world, all these people have a backwards upside-down thought system. They don't recognize what they are actually choosing in the big picture, and believe they're making excellent choices in the narrower picture. But the ego temptations are leading them down dark paths under the guise of making good progress.

This is really the problem of the world. That we're all mis-creating very faulty outcomes, poor choices, which are bringing us suffering, because in the big picture we are actually choosing suffering but we don't recognize that we are. We think we're making choices that will lead to us being better off. We are deceived, confused, insane, and lost. We don't know which way to get home, so we keep heading down a dark tunnel to death.

This also brings with it a huge amount of resistance and unwillingness to go towards God. It creates a fear of being helped. It can cause people to suspect that a miracle is going to destroy them. That the Holy Spirit is a threat. That God is not going to love them. Who would stay away from God's love unless they thought that it would make things worse for them? But that's what people believe.

So when you go to help people often they do not want the help because they see it as harm or as a threat, as if its going to take away their treasure. And they want to keep their suffering and keep trying to destroy themselves because they think that's in their best interests.

You've got a world full of very confused backwards-thinking people who don't know what they are doing or why they are doing it, but they think they do, so they keep blindly choosing very poorly and ending up suffering, having not mastered their creative power.

What we need is to get our minds straightened out and to learn to recognize again what is really true. But that's going to mean that you have to question what you believe, and be open to the possibility that you are VERY mistaken, and you have to then be willing to want something better. Not something you think is better, but something actually better in God's terms. And you will resist that and NOT want it.

It will literally be like you're being asked to go towards the very thing you want to get away from. You will advance in fear and see the destination as a threat to your existence. This is because the ego is so backwards and has framed God as the opposite of love. All of this confusion has to be sorted out and undone. And that's really all we have to do. A lack of recognition is the problem.

This is why we are to learn that "only the truth is true", ie to find out that only God's truth is true, and it's a loving truth. And to recognize also that false things ARE false and ARE unreal. Such as this world, and the body. Because while we believe we are a body in a real world we'll want to KEEP that, because letting it go or questioning it would be a threat to our entire existence.

This is why there is a lot of reluctance in some people to question whether this world even exists, and they'd rather stay asleep in a pleasant dream of a physical reality and not upset the apple cart. Some people are just not ready for the higher truth.

It also means that because people are confused, they do not recognize they are confused, and they believe they have the whole truth already when they don't. It requires great humility to be willing to be mistaken and to become open to something you were heavily resistant towards before. Everyone will get there eventually but it will take a lot of time for everyone to overcome their reluctance to go home to heaven.

"ALL are called but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose RIGHT." The "chosen ones" are merely those who choose right SOONER." UrT3F23

When you think of guidance you think of you being separate from the source of guidance - God, and attempting to receive some kind of communication. You hope at first to get any kind of communication at all, and later that you MIGHT actually listen to it and act on it.

I can tell you honestly and personally that even though I receive a lot of guidance in this way, in which it seems to be a separate communication to me, I do NOT always believe it or act upon it, because I still have an ego. Sometimes I struggle with it significantly or outright resist accepting it, and can fight with it for days or weeks before finally doing what it says.

There is a vast spectrum between what you could call a state of 'no guidance' and a state of 'total guidance'. The ego separated state, in which you are identified with ego and see yourself as very separate from God, is a state of no or low guidance. And because of how separate you believe you are, and how unconscious you are, you would be scared by more direct forms of guidance and intimacy. So in that state, it can be appropriate for you to receive guidance in a 'form' that you can accept. And at first that might be simply some synchronicities or some subtle intuitions or insights. Whatever you can accept. And likely you will be quite confused by it and mis-trusting of it and not very likely to listen to it.

It takes a lot of ego-undoing, a lot of surrendering, a lot of developing of trust, a lot of healing, a lot of relinquishing control of 'your life', a lot of opening up to love, and a lot of waking up, in order to get to a point where the 'gap' between you and God closes to such an extent, that there is no longer any NEED for guidance. Instead, in the ultimate state, God is one with you, lives through you, your will is God's will, you simply DO God's will immediately and spontaneously, and you have no need to get some kind of special messages that you might be prone to reject. Instead, you have full acceptance and full openness and trust, so you simply LIVE a divinely directed, divinely orchestrated, and divinely 'guided' life. This is God living in and through you, and you expressing and extending His Kingdom. Total oneness.

So most people are somewhere in-between these two extremes. And depending on where you're at, you're going to have various spiritual lessons and things that you're going to have to go through in order to 'enhance' your guidance. That is, to open up to and trust most in ... what essentially is... your relationship with God. Guidance is just another word for communication, and communication is just another word for your direct experience of and intimacy with God. So to whatever extend you are open to God, that is how much you are going to be guided, and the extend of that guidance, and what form it will take. So long as you are heading in the direction of HEALING your relationship with yourself and God, you are moving in the direction of enhanced guidance, or rather, an enhanced UNITY with God, joining with and accepting His will as your own.

So you don't need to necessarily have 'courage to act' on guidance, as such. You only are doubtful because you don't yet trust its source enough. Which really means you still listen to the ego or trust the ego too much, or rather, you rely on yourself - your own guidance - too much. It's a toss-up between whether you will follow the guidance or whether you'll do what 'you' think is better. You learn to trust guidance by getting in touch with guidance that comes from TRUTH, and which is based in LOVE, otherwise you cannot develop trust. So the source has to be loving. Or at least, more awake than you are. You need to keep discerning that it is acting in your best interests or is on your side or is 'trust-worthy', and not just blindly trust it at first without having some scrutiny. The scrutiny comes from your ego but you kind of need it at first in order to sort of prove to yourself that it CAN be trusted. Ultimately each step you take towards trust development is a step in your willingness to let go of the ego and to become more 'dependent' on the guidance. If the guidance has your best interests in mind and does not hurt you and does not deceive you and, over time, helps you and heals you, then it will earn your trust and you will open to ever increasingly deep levels of... communion with its source.

So if at the moment you are at the stage where you are experiencing what you call 'noise', and are trying to discern what is guidance or what is not.... I am guessing the ego is interfering with your efforts, which is normal. In other words, parts of you still rely on your own mind. Your mind, your intellect, because easily engaged in trying to figure out stuff on its own. Make it shut up. Make it quiet. Or rather, watch for it trying to do that. Stop trying to fix and solve and figure out. You can't be guided if you are trying to figure out what to do of your own capacity to understand the problem or know what to do.

So to some extend the mind that you have, has become 'posessed' by the ego and is being used for control. This is not natural. And it does this because it is DISCONNECTED from Holy Spirit. Or seems to be. He who perceives and experiences himself as 'separate' HAS to depend on his own ego abilities, the ego use of the mind, to try to survive and get through life or make sense of things. But you're not MEANT to be in that mode of functioning. The mind is supposed to be in service to God, in which God - Spirit - informs the mind of what it needs to know, and USES IT, utilizes it, like a tool, to work THROUGH.

This is the natural, healthy use of the mind, and it requires that the ego is not trying to control the mind or use it for its purposes. So you have to practice this, and this is ultimately all to do with your entire spiritual path and growth - learning to trust Spirit, to trust God, learning to let go of ego control, learning to surrender, learning to LISTEN, learning to DISCERN THE TRUTH, etc. YOU need to learn to discern what is true and what is false so that you can be open to the truth, which means the truth can then direct you, NOT so that you can then act on it in separate isolation.

As the Course says a few times, you will be told SPECIFICALLY what to do. And this is also why this prayer has deep meaning:

"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."

This is kind of a statement of what it is like to be in TOTAL UNION with Holy Spirit, where your mind is completely under the direction of spirit, with no ego. You won't be able to really 'get' or 'do' this prayer and actually act this way until you've completely surrendered the ego - which I have not.

Miracle principle 4: "All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice will direct you very specifically."

Being directed specifically is ultimately what we will experience when we becoming willing enough, trusting enough, open enough.

If you are in a state of having too much 'noise' then you are listening to the ego too much and still believe the ego too much, which means it's just going to have to take some time (not essential but likely) to continue waking up and developing trust, in order for that noise to become... sorted out.... for you to USE the opportunity of ego interference to continue to discern what is true, what is false. Over time your guidance will become stronger and clearer and you will experience it more as your open invitation for Spirit to live through you rather than you getting occasional text messages.

In other words, don't think of the ego noise as just interference - that's the ego's use of it - instead USE it as an opportunity to sharpen your discernment skills, what is true and false, to sharpen your listening skills, your surrendering skills. Use it to improve your TRUST in and DISCERNMENT OF real guidance. The ego is really just there to stimulate you, to act as a catalyst, to help point you in the right direction by tempting you in the wrong direction - if you use it that way.

Living with God is your natural way of life.

That which is real cannot be threatened. Reality is permanent truth. What is real cannot attack or be attacked. It cannot be at war with another because it is everything. And it cannot be at war with itself because it is undivided.

The denial of reality is the ego, which is a system of thought in the mind which believes in separation. Separation leads to division, to inequality, to differences, and to conflict. This begins the laws of chaos, in which the truth seems to be different for everyone.

As soon as everyone is different, they are automatically conflicting. There is a breakdown of unity, harmony, equality, wholeness and relationship. Just the mere notion that you are different to another is a state of conflict. This applies to different particles of matter, materials, forces, events, bodies, places, times etc. They are all conflicting all the time because they do not share.

The whole ego thought system is really a system of SELF DENIAL - the denial of the soul. As such, it is a state of self attack, an attempt to destroy oneself. This self destructiveness means that one part of self is trying to destroy the rest. This also means the mind has to be split in two, with one part at war with the other.

It doesn't take much for one part of mind to SEEM to contain different beliefs, attitudes, appearances, forms, states to the other part. And before you know it, there is internal conflict. There is war, on the basis of differences in form and belief. One side of mind seems to NOT BE the other part, and so now there seem to be two identities, who separately disagree with each other.

The illusion is that one part of mind SEEMS not to be of the same mind as the other part. The differences in belief and appearance make it SEEM as if there are TWO, not one. Two identities. Two selves. Two sides. Opposing forces. Clashing attitudes. Disunity and misunderstanding. Mis-trust and suspicion. Conflict and war.

This internal war plays out on what appears to the the stage of the world, because the world is in the mind. It is a projection of the ego thought system. The forms of countries and nations, people in bodies, armies, weapons, nationalities and cultures and so on, are all just aspects of the ONE ego thought system playing the part of taking sides.

If you fall for the illusion and are deceived, you will listen to what one side says against the other and believe it. And by believing it you will disbelieve what the other side says. And the forms and behaviors of one will tell you what it means, and what its truth is. And before you know it, you think one country is more righteous or sinful than another on the basis of which difference you prefer.

But the truth is that the ego is playing BOTH SIDES. Both sides are part of a single whole. The ego is the oppressor and the oppressed. It is the victim and the victimizer. It is the bigger country and the smaller country. It is the unprovoked and the provoker. It only PRETENDS not to be EACH OTHER, through dissociation and through the illusion of forms of separation.

If you buy into this you will take sides and feel sorry for one over the other and use one as an innocent victim to accuse the other of war crimes. This happens every time. It means you have failed to recognize that BOTH sides are ego attacking itself. One side attacks the other, the other attacks back, and BOTH of them are warring, regardless of how it appears.

Nor are there really two sides, nor two camps, nor two countries, nor two armies, nor two sets of people. If you believe there are, you are buying into the ego thought system. The ego is at war with ITSELF. It splits itself apart and the armies of one part fight with the armies of another. It destroys itself, it blows up its own buildings, it attacks its own "people", and wars against its own countries. The whole thing is internal conflict.

This may seem to be playing out between two particular groups of people, in a given part of the world. Or maybe it was happening in another part of the world. Or on your doorstop. Or thousands of miles away. And it will keep happening. Because it's always the SAME LESSON over and over and over again. Yet another conflict presented as an opportunity for forgiveness and for undoing the separation. Remember the one lesson - you are doing it to yourself.

If you look at all the reactions people are having about a particular war, you'll find 99% of it is a form of scapegoating. People taking sides. People buying the illusion of innocent victims. People buying that one country IS NOT the other country. That there are two, not one. That this is a fight between TWO parties, instead of ONE overall mastermind. THE EGO is the culprit behind all wars, all divisions, all conflicts, all invasions, and is the RECIPIENT of ALL attacks as well.

The ego thought system is in fact SICK, in that it actually takes pleasure in hurting itself. It would pleasure itself to death. It would destroy parts of itself in order to preserve parts of itself. It would rip off its own arms and burn off its own legs if it meant that it could perpetuate suffering and victimhood. It is twisted and insane and evil and makes no sense. It wants to perpetuate itself AND destroy itself.

It is both the evil dictator AND the defenselessly oppressed. So don't just blindly buy into how things APPEAR to be on the physical level. There is NOT a war between two sets of people. There is an internal war by ONE set of people, ONE mind, that is trying to split apart and destroy itself, and it just LOOKS like a conflict between two sides on the physical stage. If you take either side, assign innocence to either side, assign guilt to either side, you are INTENSIFYING THE SEPARATION BETWEEN THEM and making it WORSE.

The only way to undo this is to not buy into the ILLUSION OF WAR, and instead to offer UNITY AND HEALING through unconditional love for ALL sides at all times. Don't be praying for one side to win over another. Pray for reunion and forgiveness and real peace. When you buy into external war, YOU ARE SPLITTING YOUR OWN MIND AND ARE HAVING AN INTERNAL WAR which you are projecting onto the world. Then it is YOUR mind that needs healing as well.

"When we said that prayer is the medium of miracles, we also said that the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven HAVE everything. "

"How strange indeed becomes this war against Yourself!"

"War is impossible unless belief in VICTORY is cherished. Conflict WITHIN you MUST imply that you believe the ego has the power TO BE VICTORIOUS. "

"Surely you realize the ego IS at war with God. Certain it is it HAS no enemy."

"The war against yourself is but the battle of two illusions, struggling to make them DIFFERENT from each other, in the belief the one which conquers will be true."

"War is the condition in which fear is born, and grows and seeks to dominate. Peace is the state where love abides, and seeks to share itself. Conflict and peace are opposites; where one abides, the other CANNOT be; where either goes, the other disappears."

"Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war DOES deprive you of peace."

"Yet in this war THERE IS NO OPPONENT."

"Yet no-one sees himself in conflict, and ravaged by a cruel war, unless he believes that BOTH "opponents" in the war are real. Believing this, he must escape, for such a war would surely end his peace of mind, and so destroy 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."

"God did not create that war, and so it is not real."

"Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace."

"Yet peace is stronger than war, because it heals. War is DIVISION, not increase. No-one gains from strife."

"The world will end in peace because it is a place of war."

"Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself."

"Who COULD be hurt in such a war, unless he hurts himself? He HAS no enemy in truth."

"It is only the wish to deceive that makes for war. No-one at one with himself can even conceive of conflict. Conflict is the inevitable result of self-deception, and self-deception is dishonesty."