The Holy Spirit can indeed make use of memory, for God Himself is there. But this is NOT a memory of past events, but ONLY of a PRESENT state.
You are so long accustomed to believe that memory holds only what is past, that it is hard for you to realize it is a skill that CAN remember NOW. The limitations on remembering the world imposes on it are as vast as those you let the world impose on YOU. There IS no link of memory to the past. If YOU would have it there, then there it IS. But ONLY your desire made the link, and ONLY you have held it to a part of time where guilt appears to linger still. The Holy Spirit's use of memory is quite APART from time. He does NOT seek to use it as a means to KEEP the past, but rather as a way TO LET IT GO.
Memory holds a message it receives, and does what it is GIVEN it to do. It does NOT write the message, nor appoint what it is FOR. Like to the body, it is purposeless within itself. And if it seems to serve to cherish ancient hate, and offer you the pictures of injustices and hurts that you were saving, this is what you asked its message BE, and this is what it IS. Committed to its vaults, the history of all the body's past is hidden there. All of the strange associations made to keep the past alive, the present dead, are stored within it, waiting your command that they be brought to you, and lived again. And thus do their effects appear to be INCREASED by time, which TOOK AWAY their cause.
Yet time is but another phase of what DOES NOTHING. It works hand in hand with all the other attributes with which you sought to keep concealed the truth about yourself. Time neither takes away, nor can restore. And yet you make strange use of it, as if the past had CAUSED the present, which is but a CONSEQUENCE, in which no change can be made possible, because its cause has GONE. And change must have a cause that will endure, or else it will not last. No change can be made in the present, if its cause is PAST. ONLY the past is held in memory, as you make use of it, and so it is a way to hold the past AGAINST the now.
Remember NOTHING that you taught yourself, for you were badly taught. Who would keep a senseless lesson in his mind, when he can learn and can preserve a BETTER one? When ancient memories of hate appear, remember that their cause is gone. And so you CANNOT understand what they are FOR. Let not the cause that you would give them NOW be what it was that made them what they were, or seemed to be. Be GLAD that it is gone, for this is what you would be pardoned FROM. And see, instead, the NEW effects of cause accepted NOW, with consequences HERE.
They will surprise you with their loveliness. The ancient NEW ideas they bring will be the happy consequences of a cause so ancient that it FAR exceeds the span of memory that your perception sees. This is the Cause the Holy Spirit has remembered FOR you, when you would forget. It is NOT past, because He let it not be unremembered. It has never changed, because there never was a time in which He did not keep it safely in your mind. Its consequences will indeed SEEM new, because you thought that you remembered not their Cause. Yet, was It NEVER absent from your mind, for it was NOT your Father's Will that He be unremembered by His only Son.
What YOU remember never WAS. It came from causelessness which you CONFUSED with cause. It CAN deserve but laughter, when you learn you have remembered consequences which were causeless, and could never BE effects. The miracle reminds you of a Cause forever present, perfectly untouched by time and interference. NEVER changed from what It IS. And YOU are Its effects, as changeless and as perfect as Itself. Its memory does NOT lie in the past, nor waits the future. It is NOT revealed in miracles. They but remind you that It has not gone. When you forgive It for YOUR sins, It will no longer BE denied.
You who have sought to lay a judgment on your own Creator, cannot understand it is NOT He Who laid a judgment on His Son. You would DENY Him His effects, yet have they never BEEN denied. There WAS no time in which His Son could be condemned for what was causeless, and AGAINST His Will. What YOUR remembering would witness to, is but the fear of God. He has not DONE the thing you fear. No more have YOU. And so your innocence has NOT been lost. You need NO healing to be healed. In quietness, see in the miracle a lesson in allowing Cause to have Its OWN effects, and doing NOTHING that would interfere.
The miracle comes quietly into the mind that stops an instant, and is still. It reaches gently from that quiet time, and from the mind it healed in quiet then, to other minds to SHARE its quietness. And they will JOIN in doing nothing to prevent its radiant extension back into the Mind that caused ALL minds to be. Born out of sharing, there can BE no pause in time to cause the miracle delay in hastening to all unquiet minds, and bringing them an instant's stillness, when the memory of God returns to them. Their OWN remembering is quiet now, and what has come to take its place will not be wholly unremembered afterwards.
He to Whom time is given offers thanks for every quiet instant given Him. For in that instant is His memory allowed to offer all its treasures to the Son of God, for whom they have been kept. How gladly does He offer them unto the one for whom He has been given them! And His Creator SHARES His thanks, because He would not be deprived of His effects. The instant's silence that His Son accepts gives welcome to eternity and Him, and lets them enter where they would abide. For in that instant does the Son of God do NOTHING that would make himself afraid.
How instantly the memory of God arises in the mind that has no fear to keep the memory away. Its own remembering has gone. There IS no past to keep its fearful image in the way of glad awakening to present peace. The trumpets of eternity resound throughout the stillness, yet disturb it not. And what is NOW remembered is not fear, but rather is the Cause that fear was made to render unremembered and undone. The stillness speaks in gentle sounds of love the Son of God remembers from BEFORE his own remembering came IN BETWEEN the present and the past, to shut them out.
Now is the Son of God at last aware of PRESENT Cause and Its benign effects. Now does he understand what he has made is causeless, making NO effects at all. He HAS done nothing. And, in seeing THIS, he understands he never had a NEED for doing ANYTHING, and never did. His Cause IS Its effects. There never WAS a cause besides It, that could generate a DIFFERENT past or future. ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely. What has been lost to see the causeless NOT? And where is sacrifice, when memory of God has come to TAKE THE PLACE of loss?
What better way to close the little gap between illusions and reality than to allow the memory of God to flow ACROSS it, making it a bridge an instant will suffice to reach beyond? For God has closed it with Himself. His memory has NOT gone by, and left a stranded Son forever on a shore where he can glimpse ANOTHER shore which he can never reach. His Father wills that he be lifted up, and gently carried over. HE has built the bridge, and it is He Who will transport His Son across it. Have no fear that He will fail in what He wills. Nor that you be excluded from the Will that IS for you.
From "Sickness is a defense against the truth", Lesson 136:
"No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear."
...
Here Jesus tells us simply that if we can clearly recognize a sickness for what it IS - an illusion, it will disappear automatically.
When we look at sickness we think it has a variety of causes. None of them are true. We also think it has a valuable purpose. The purpose is supposedly to defend our ego identity against truth. That's because we're mistaken about the truth and think that it will destroy us, so we "naturally" defend against it. Defense (denial) manifests reasons to believe that illusions are more real than God.
It is because we have a multitude of beliefs that tell us that sickness is real, that we have the sickness at all. It is sustained by those beliefs and created by them. It seems the sickness has no purpose and is a victimization, but really it does have a secret purpose. Its purpose was to block reality by demonstrating that illusions are real. Therefore we 'manifest' illusions that seem real, to try to prove that this is true. Manifesting illusions and making them real invents sickness.
We need to become willing to see instead that the purpose of sickness was to block the truth, not to make something true. It's purpose wasn't to affirm reality, it was to lend reality to something that is unreal. It's purpose wasn't to confirm how real the body is, but to deny how real the truth is. And finally we need to become able and willing to RECOGNIZE that sickness is an illusion, NOT a reality.
This is the defining principle. Sickness is the illusion that illusions are real. It is a denial of the truth - an attempt to hide the truth from awareness. This denial of truth causes sickness because it is your attempt to make God sick and dead. Your attempt to destroy God destroys you. Your belief that God (reality) is sick, produces sickness in your reality.
Your challenge in undoing sickness is to shift your sense of reality away from the sickness and place it on the real truth - God. If the sickness is true and real, God cannot be. And because your sickness is a choice to believe illusions are more real than reality, they are choices to believe that God is not real. They therefore block God, which is the giver of Life, and blocking life manifests as sickness (and death).
To undo sickness you must be willing to admit and recognize that sickness is not REAL, it is an illusion. It can't be real because of the ways in which God is real. God has to be more real than the sickness otherwise you will keep the sickness and continue to believe in its reality. Your belief in its reality is what puts it into your experience, because you are mis-creating.
You need to un-believe that the sickness is real in all its respects, in every way. There is nothing about sickness that can be "true" for you. Otherwise you will value it and keep it. When you can see that it LITERALLY is NOTHING, i.e. its an illusion that isn't real at all, you will cause it to disappear, because you will cease to GIVE it reality.
That's a miracle, an acknowledgement of God's truth and its equal meaningfulness to everyone.
This segment spells it out plain and clear. YOU are 100% responsible for EVERYTHING you experience, you CHOOSE everything that happens, and nothing happens to you against your free will.
"This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:
"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."
Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear.
It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is possible within the universe as God created it, outside of which is nothing. Suffer, and you decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you gave the power of decision to Him Who must decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gave to you to give YOURSELF. For, by this gift, is given you the power to release your Savior, that he may give salvation unto you."
This is also further reflected here:
"My self is ruler of the universe.
It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me.
You are the Self Whom You created Son, creating like Yourself and one with You. My Self, Which rules the universe, is but Your Will in perfect union with my own, Which can but offer glad assent to Yours, that It may be extended to Itself."
And also reflected here:
"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.
My holy brothers, think of this awhile; the world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable forever and forever. And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain, a sickly place where living things must come at last to die?
The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects. As an illusion it is what you will. Your idle wishes represent its pains. Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live."
The truth is that this world is merely an EFFECT, coming from the mind, and mind is the only cause.
Since the world is only an effect, we are deluded when we believe that it has some kind of causal power. We look at the things that seem to happen and we say, this caused that, and that caused this, but this is not true. Effects are not really causing anything.
To recognize the world is nothing but an EFFECT, is to recognize that its seeming ability to cause things is only an illusion. You as the dreamer of the dream are NOT being caused by the dream. You are cause, the dream is the effect.
This means if the world can't cause anything, it has no power, it can't create, it can't change what you are, it can't act against your will, it can't do anything to you, it can't hurt you, it can't make you sick or suffering or dead.
Effectively, the world IS NOT CAUSING YOU AT ALL. It is literally not doing anything whatsoever.
You are only ever caused by God - forever an effect of God. Gladly what God chooses that you be, is good, and gives you eternal life and happiness. You are caused by God, you are not caused by the world. The world is doing nothing to you at all.
"The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects."
"There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically."
"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."
"You may cause a dream, but never will you give it real EFFECTS. For that would change its CAUSE, and it is this you CANNOT do."
"The miracle establishes you dream a dream, and that its content is not true. This is a crucial step in dealing with illusions. No-one is AFRAID of them, when he perceives HE MADE THEM UP. The fear was held in place BECAUSE he did not see that he was AUTHOR of the dream, and not a figure IN the dream."
"He CANNOT doubt his dreams' reality BECAUSE he does not see the part he plays in MAKING them, and MAKING them seem real. No-one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming FOR him."
Our mind in its natural state is joined with our Soul and with God. In this state, it receives the causal expression and extends it. In a sense, the mind does not have its own content, it just extends what it receives.
After separating from God and ourselves, the mind is cut off from its "owner". This is due to a separation introduced between cause and effect. That which at the effect, the mind, starts to see itself as causeless, and so begins to make up its own ideas about what it is and what is true.
This turns the mind from being an extender of truth, to being a solo broadcaster of imagination.
The problem then is that anyone with an ego tends to broadcast a lot, and tends to receive very little. Being alone or isolated or trying to live without God makes us weak, vulnerable, afraid and helpless. Yet it also makes us spew out "noise", the noisy broadcasts of the ego, which basically is an attempt to be recognized as the cause of oneself, rather than being caused by God or Soul.
In a world where so many people are broadcasting themselves, there isn’t much listening. Consequently, even though people are broadcasting loudly, 24/7, everyone is talking over everyone else. People then are not really being present, available, un-distracted with themselves, or able to pay full attention. That means that those who are broadcasting, paradoxically end up not being heard.
This is because the rest of the broadcasters are not willing to receive. So no matter how loud you shout, if everyone else is also shouting your expressions will be stunted and stifled and you won’t feel like anyone really listens to you. In fact, the more that you shout louder in an attempt to be heard more, you will be heard less.
Many people in this world are expressing the ego. Few are expressing silence or stillness or presence or quietness or a willingness to receive. If you yourself become willing to receive from Spirit, your own mind will become quiet and you will subsequently become willing to receive ie listen to and pay attention to, what other people are expressing. Without distraction from your own thoughts or memories or judgements or attempts to process or reflect on what someone said.
Learning to listen is part of waking up, because it entails your own willingness to listen to Spirit. That means instead of running your own show, you turn your mind and your life over to the care of God. You become willing to receive input from Spirit. You become willing to trust Spirit. You become willing to let Spirit guide your every action, to even speak for you and through you.
The willingness to receive is what has become blocked by the ego. Separations and blocks to awareness are attempts to not listen to God, to hide from God, to replace God’s Word with your own, and to make up your own truth. Becoming willing to accept Atonement entails becoming willing to receive from God, to be guided by God, to allow yourself to accept love, and to let miracles be performed through you.
Therefore as you tune into Spirit, handing over your stolen life to its rightful owner, and giving back control of the mind to Love, you automatically become a better receiver and listener. You become better at being present. You become more available. And you start to allow others to fully express, willing that you receive everything they are offering. This simultaneously creates space for them to fully express themselves, to be heard, and to know that their expressions are not being met by deaf ears or a wall of selfishness. This holding space alone can be very healing.
You simply need to put all of your ego distractions aside, pay full undivided attention to the person, let them express absolutely anything they want to without interrupting or interfering or offering advice or any kind of transmission, without your secret mental judgements or attempts to chew on what they expressed, free of your reactions and defenses, just totally being fully present for them.
Do this for someone and you’ll be offering a tremendous healing service just by listening attentively without judgement. Afterwards, even if their ego erupts in a free-flow of expression, they will feel so peaceful and relieved that finally they could express themselves fully without someone being self-absorbed with their own ego reactions.
Give the gift of unconditional receiving and listening to someone this year. Let them have the microphone 100%, not 50%. Let them tell you whatever they want to tell you and just receive it.
Giving and receiving are one.
If you are affected in any way, it is not YOU who is affected, it is an illusion (body etc). And if it is affected in any way, you are trying to use it to prove you can be affected. You cannot be affected, you are immortal. So you're faking it, and it's pointless. You can't change the fact you are immortal, ever. Your permanence is guaranteed.
"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."
"He can see no evil; nothing in the world to fear, and no-one who is different from himself."
"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."
"I am not the victim of the world I see."
"It is but an effect that YOU have caused, and you would not BE cause of this effect."
"And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects. "
""My Self is ruler of the universe." - It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen."
"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this."
"He MUST deny the world of pain, the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. "
"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. 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. ...This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."
"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."
"You are immortal and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do."
"I am not afraid but all powerful."
You can't sin. What is sin but the ability to actually achieve separation from God in some way? Whichever way that separation manifests, whether it is a thought of murder or attack or withdrawal or hate or a split mind or a tiny mad idea or whatever, the fact remains it is impossible for it to happen in *reality*.
God CANNOT be separated from. God is so pervasive and so everywhere that there just is nowhere to go that He is not. Believing it is *possible* to do this is just insane.
You can't sin because you are permanently innocent.
If you are completely pure and holy, do you think it's really possible for you to do anything or act in a certain way that is not pure and holy? How could you even CONCEIVE of it being possible to do anything that isn't innocent? It can't even occur to you or enter your mind. Your innocence is permanent because it is established by and recognized by God, forever.
It is SO holy and pure that it simply CANNOT PRODUCE SIN. Sin cannot COME FROM innocence. So it is utterly impossible for there to one moment be a state of perfect innocence, and then the next moment, for sin to suddenly show up. Sin CANNOT have come from innocence or from an innocent mind or an innocent Son of God. Sin 'appearing' has to be totally unreal and fictional.
Sin therefore HAS to be a huge lie. It is causeless. Sin is bullshit.
Symbolically speaking, it would be like saying that a newborn baby is capable of murdering thousands of people as soon as it emerges from the womb. It's obviously absurd because the "innocence" of the baby is so obvious (even at the level of illusion). No-one in their right mind would even begin to consider that this crime is possible, it is utterly ridiculous. (nb: this is just an analogy, innocence in bodies is not real innocence)
As the course says, "no one can argue with a fact." When something is plainly obvious and has not been denied, it simply cannot BE denied. You just have to admit that it is plainly true. It is plainly true that you are STILL 100% as innocent as you always were and that you are utterly incapable of anything you could call "real" sin.
Sin is not real. It doesn't take place in reality. It does not have consequences which are real. It does not affect what is real. It has no truth to it and is entirely a fictional story you are dreaming. The sin is INSIDE the dream, not outside of it in reality. All of the consequences that sin supposedly has inflicted or produced, are HALLUCINATIONS. Not one of them is accurate or truthful or real.
The intent of sin is to murder God, to get rid of yourself, and to deny Life. Its natural consequence is death. From the very start it is an act of war and vengeance and a strong belief that sin has power OVER the will of God, able to affect God, hurt God, change God, and destroy God. It is the authority problem - believing you have power over God's will, which you don't. Right off the bat, sin is a lie.
One of the problems is that, since you are dreaming and you THINK you are a PART of the dream, inside the dream, you believe that sin is real. You think it is real because you think the dream is reality. The dream is NOT reality, even if it seems real.
You think that your sin against God REALLY HAPPENED. Somewhere in the dark recessed of your mind hidden behind layers of denial is a belief that you sinned IN REALITY, caused reality to change, and now deserve to die. This gave rise to the death wish, which will not stop until it finishes you off, unless you undo the belief that sin is real.
When you start to explore your mind and undo denial and remove blocks to awareness you will likely encounter this belief in sin within yourself. You'll experience it as though it is real and true, as if you actually DID something horrendous, causing you to be guilty. But as you question sin and take a closer look at the facts, admitting the truth, you can actually start to RECOGNIZE that this thing you referred to as "real sin" is actually FAKE SIN. It is an ILLUSION of sin happening. You thought it was real, which is why you have freaked out. But it's not. It's a PRETEND CRIME.
There is nothing that sin claims that can be true. It is not possible to oppose the will of God. It is not possible to change God. It is not possible to make God hate you. It is not possible to hurt or attack or damage God. It is not possible to make God disappear. It is not possible to kill God. It is not possible to kill yourself. It is not possible to change your permanent innocence. It is not possible to oppose reality and replace it with an illusion which isn't even real. Everything sin claims you HAVE DONE, is not true.
It's like, you're this kid who THINKS that they did something terribly wrong, because they were in a state of fear and misunderstanding and did not really perceive correctly what happened. They think they did something really terribly bad and that they're going to be horribly punished, and because they think they really did it, they will be convinced they deserve to die, and will refuse any suggestion to the contrary. But this is all based on a MISUNDERSTANDING.
Another example might be, if someone were driving a car and accidentally didn't see someone step into the street, and their car seems like it hit something right at that moment, which you thought was the person. You were so horrified that you fled the scene, without having actually seen IF it was true, and lived the rest of your life in guilt and self-torture. What you didn't realize is that you did NOT hit the person, no-one got hurt, and you're not even guilty. You just drove over a piece of wood in the road that you didn't see. So then you try to kill yourself for something YOU DID NOT EVEN REALLY DO.
God is here to tell you, "My Son, you are innocent and always will be. There is nothing you can do to deter me from loving you. I am forever in your presence and reminding you gently of your lovability and worthiness. You have done nothing to offend me. I am at peace. I am unharmed. I love you now and have for eternity. There is nothing you can do to make me resent you. My only will is for your return to me to embrace in love and live forever in my sight. I love you now and always will."
Sin is not true of you. You did not do what you think you did. You imagined a crime and made it up, wanting to believe it was real and possible. THANK GOD it is NOT TREU! Sin isn't real. It's a fantasy. "What if you looked within and saw there was no sin?"
You are forgiven. Come home.
Cause produces effects. This is God's permanent law, without exception. It applies everywhere always. There is a secret to performing miracles based on this, resulting in the undoing of effects. This is directly tied into the Atonement and The Miracle.
"the word "atone" really means "undo." (remove illusory effects)
"The miracle does nothing. All it does is to undo (removes effects). And thus it cancels out (by not causing) the interference (effects) to what has been done (caused in reality). It does not add, but merely takes away (removes effects)."
I have experienced several times the instant vanishing of symptoms when causation was removed. This takes place at the level of the mind and the mind's belief in causes. As I stripped away belief in who or what caused this, the entire symptom literally disappeared in a split second.
Nothing happens without causation. Effects can only appear when there is a cause. This includes the **belief** in there being a cause, even if the cause is made up in dreaming. When the cause stops causing, or is undone, the effects immediately disappear. Causation is like a broadcast, emitting consequences, effects, symptoms and results. Effects come from it.
Just as God is first cause, He MUST create effects. His effects are His Kingdom of Creation, including the Sonship. Because God is permanently causal, and true cause means creation, His creations have eternal life and always exist. True causality creates permanent, living beings. You did not cause God (which would be sin, authority problem, level confusion), God caused you.
"I am forever an effect of God."
There is also what we call "making", which is also a form of causality. It causes destructive illusions instead of creative reality. It is a made-up BELIEF in a cause, as an attempted cause, in the mind. It's a made-up cause that we believe is real, and which in turn produces made-up effects which we believe are real. Just because it is made-up doesn't mean it does not DO something.
A **belief** in a cause isn't a real cause, or of God. So what it produces is not a real effect, but is an effect nonetheless. Artificial causes produce artificial effects. But they DO produce these effects, which includes symptoms of sickness in the body, and ultimately the body itself.
"The body cannot remain without illusions (illusory causes)."
When the mind believes there is a cause, it MUST include the belief that there are effects. The mind thus believes in BOTH. They are made together, and are undone together. Effects cannot remain without a cause of some kind. When you switch off the broadcast projector, there is no more making of images. Both the broadcaster and the broadcast disappear.
It would be easy for us to switch on and off causes and effects at will. This always takes place in our minds. The problem is that we keep disassociating from the part of our mind that is causing or believing in causes, and project the ownership of the causation onto external things - anything other than our own mind.
So if we think a person is causing us to be upset, we're in false perception. We see cause as separate from and outside of our own mind. Yet this BELIEF in cause, is INSIDE our mind because "ideas leave not their source."
We are confused in thinking that someone else is causing our upset. But the IDEA of "someone is causing me to be upset" is our own mind's idea, which projects, resulting in a false perception. And this idea IS STILL CAUSAL. By believing, "I am being caused", we literally are CAUSING ourselves, and our mind DOES produce effects within us, from it. And this is actually part of the belief that we are creating ourselves, the result of a split mind.
It is not possible to believe in a cause, WITHOUT the belief itself having an effect. Even if the visualized cause seems to be mapped onto some other person, it is STILL a "belief in cause" in our mind, and this gives it power. If our mind is generating, picturing, imagining, "there is a cause", it WILL and MUST also picture, generate and imagine an effect to correspond to it. And usually the severity of the effect lines up with where the cause falls in the hierarchy of illusions.
This now means that as we picture ourselves as being caused, we WILL also picture ourselves as being affected. This believing in and use of causality, no matter how it is dressed up in appearances about others, will result in OUR MIND producing EFFECTS in ourselves. These will show up as symptoms in mind and body, as emotional reactions, fearful thought responses, justified anger, and other effects.
As the secret of salvation tells us, it does not matter how it appears that someone is a victimizer, or who is doing what. When your mind "sees itself" as being victimized, that way of seeing itself ALONE victimizes you. And you cannot see yourself as being victimized WITHOUT seeing yourself ALSO as a victim.
Funny that - as you believe in victimization it sets up a causal belief in your mind which causes you to MAKE YOURSELF a victim. Your mind then generates the effects and symptoms of having been affected. It pictures itself in the roles of victim AND victimizer.
Now, here's the key. Based on this law, that even your BELIEF in a cause IS CAUSAL, and has illusory believed-in effects, removing this belief in a cause MUST remove the effects. This even includes the physical symptoms of sickness which YOUR MIND put into your body, as a result of YOUR MIND visualizing itself as at the effect of its own causal beliefs.
If my belief is that a person is upsetting me, three things are happening. 1) I am "projecting" causality onto the person falsely, resulting in a false perception that "they" are causing me. 2) MY belief in being caused is causing me, 3) I am inventing the upsetting effects because of this belief, BY this belief. If I clear up the confusion about WHO is causing who, and then STOP causing through this belief, the effects MUST go.
If my mind is thinking, "I am upset because of them", and I"m feeling the upset, my mind MUST be seeing a line of causality starting with "them" and coming into me and impacting upon me, producing upset. This is what my mind is picturing. This is HOW I am making the effects. If I tell myself, "they are not causing me to be upset", I am taking a step towards undoing the cause.
I'm almost saying, "since they are not causing this upset, I am not upset." or "everything that came from them, has not come". They then become your savior because now you are using them to explain why you are NOT affected negatively, or as a way to say "I am healed because of you". Or as the course puts it, "Brother, at your hand I live." This requires the removal of all symptoms of attack in the body and mind, accomplished by removing fake causality or accusing your brother of causing (sinning against) you.
Sometimes, if the causing seems fairly clear-cut and well defined as to who I think did what, and I remind myself I am NOT caused by the person, it can be enough to undo my mind's belief in the cause, and thus stop causing my own upset. Symptoms of upset vanish instantly. Even physical symptoms, because *I* was producing them.
Other times, I've found I've built up a collection of beliefs in causes, which have to be dismantled more methodically, piece by piece. I have to remove all belief that anyone or anything else is causing my issue. I must not believe that I am at the effect of anyone else's mind or any "causes" that I THINK are in the world. My BELIEF in them being causes does not make them causes. This is confusion/projection/disassociation.
MY BELIEF in being caused is what causes me to suffer. When something is seen as having NO causes left, and being the cause of nothing, it disappears.
I have to also remove all belief that I am causing any issue in others, because this too ties me to guilt. For example if I have an argument, it is not enough to undo the belief that I am being upset by them. I will likely believe I upset them also, and this too is fake causality. Anything THEY are experiencing, THEIR mind has chosen to cause. I must be accepting of this by dismantling my belief that I caused them, which in turn will heal them and set them free from imprisonment.
"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself."
Once this is clarified, that no-one caused my effects but myself, and that cause is in my mind because I believed I was caused, I must now recognize that my own choice to believe I am being negatively caused DID produce my own symptoms. I am responsible for it. This is the secret of salvation. But we can't stop there. WE must STOP causing our own suffering.
This requires us to stop believing that even WE have caused our suffering. Seeing that we did it to ourselves, and recognizing our own mind is causing itself, may be enough to collapse it. Recognizing the futility of hurting ourselves, we will drop the desire to continue. Seeing that we are causing our own suffering, we cannot escape the causation or blame it on anyone, have to admit the truth, and admitting the truth presents us with a fact - we did this, and we no longer choose to.
We might have to work on undoing the belief that we are caused, as well as being willing to no longer suffer the role of victim. Without a cause that we believe in, we cannot believe in being affected. In recognizing we were the victimizer of ourselves, we can stop being the victim. No-one has ever been victimized by another person.
Remember that you have no neutral thoughts. All thought creates form on some level. All thought is causal. You cannot neutrally casually think about stuff without producing effects. Imagining fearful things happening to you, IS actually you DOING them to yourself. Dreaming about scenarios isn't a freebie thought. We deliberately DO, or DO NOT. We cause, or do not cause. And only what we cause happens.
""My Self is ruler of the universe." It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens (effects) is what I desire (cause). What does not occur (effects) is what I do not want (cause) to happen. This must I accept."
"I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."
"My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."
Stripping away all sense of "the cause of this", MUST undo the effects. When you cease attacking yourself with thoughts of being attacked, you will not be attacked or attackable.
Without a cause, there can be no effects. Without belief in separation, there can be no sickness. Without seeing yourself as a victim you cannot be victimized. Without victimizing yourself you cannot be hurt. Without belief you are sinful (caused bad stuff) you cannot be guilty, and without guilt you cannot frighten or threaten yourself. Without a cause, your sickness must vanish. And without a cause, the dead must rise.
All illusions have no REAL cause. The causes are made up beliefs, which DO cause illusory effects, and without maintaining these beliefs the effects cannot stay. Anything not of God or made without love has no real cause. We MADE sickness and death by believing they have been caused and are the cause of us (the God of sickness and death), and can abolish it by believing they have NOT been caused.
To recognize something has NOT been caused, is to recognize it CANNOT have happened. Without a cause, the effects must go. What has not been caused cannot exist. And since illusory effects and symptoms DEPEND on the mind believing in them, without believing in them they MUST vanish. Which undoes physical suffering, sickness and death
This is forgiveness and atonement. The recognition that separation has not been caused and sin has not caused effects because there is no sin. The lack of belief in sin as "causing evil" erases death. The knowing that there is no death. Withdrawing causes of illusions will undo them all.
"Illusions recognized (I caused this myself, it did not cause me) must disappear."
This literally is tied into the atonement. If to atone is to undo, then by cancelling the fake causes that we were using to make things "be done", and if miracles undo and take away the effects by recognizing they have not been caused, then to accept the atonement is to accept that there are NO CAUSES other than God. We HAVE NOT CAUSED separation, there is no cause of death (sin), illusions DO NOT exist, and we are no longer manufacturing fake effects.
This will ultimately UNDO the world because the world is nothing but an EFFECT of a belief - the spacetime belief.
Shifting away from made-up causes, and aligning ourselves with God's Will, which is truly causal and creative, we become miracle workers. Operating from vertical causation, not mis-creation. Our causing now becomes love-based, constructive, creative, healing and miraculous. No longer against ourselves, no longer affected by the world, we regain invulnerability and power. We can now give life and cause resurrection.
We become a cause that does not cause itself. We become free from effects of our own making, or the illusion of effects made by others. Our will is now undivided and single-minded. Nothing can oppose us as ruler of the universe. We are free to carry out the will of God. To cause with IMMEDIATE effects. And to be truly helpful to others through causal miracles.
"This is a course in cause and not effect."
"miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""
"Without a cause there can be no effects, and yet, without effects, there is no CAUSE."
"Who can predict effects without a cause? And who could fear effects UNLESS he thought they had BEEN caused, and judged disastrous NOW?"
"Who can perceive effect WITHOUT a cause? What can the causeless BE but nothingness."
"And this DENIES the fact that ALL are senseless; EQUALLY without a cause or consequence, and CANNOT have effects of ANY kind."
"In its passing went its consequences, left without a cause."
"And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything."
"Nothing can have effects without a cause, and to confuse the two is merely to fail to understand them both."
"Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness."
"It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to effect you in any way."
"Fear cannot be real without a cause, and GOD is the only Cause."
"The healing of effect WITHOUT the cause can merely shift effects to other forms."
"A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief."
"And therefore all your sins have been forgiven because they carried no effects at all."
"There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression."
"And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects."
"What is projected OUT, and seems to be EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has NOT left its source."
"Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind."
"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move (cause) mountains. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it. People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert (cause) real control (effects) because they are literally AFRAID of them."
"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."
"And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place?"
"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."
"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."
Since you are OF God, being FROM God, you are exactly LIKE God. You cannot BE like anything else because you are not of or from anything else. You are not OF this world, or OF the body, or OF your parent's bodies. You are not FROM this world. You are not of or from the ego. You have been given BY God because you are a part of him. And anything he has not given you is nothing.
Your real identity must therefore be a part of God as well, aligned with Christ and shared with all your brothers. What you are can ONLY be of God. It cannot include anything else because only the truth is true. Anything you made, anything you invented, including the ego, the body, suffering, sickness, death, despair, unhappiness, depression, lack or loss or grief, fear or guilt, cannot be a part of what you are. It therefore cannot exist.
Anything which is not OF or FROM God, must be denied and rejected. It must be filtered out and forgiven. It must be handed over and let go. Anything in you which God did not put there, must be exhumed and purified away. All the barriers you built against love must be removed, because they are barriers against your real self, suggesting that you have and want something not of God.
"This is the PROPER use of denial. It is not used to HIDE anything, but it IS used to correct error."
"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it."
"THIS peace is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to affect you in any way."
As Jesus states here, if you want SANITY, then you MUST deny anything AND everything which is not of God. This is in the extreme. It means you have to deny the ego and the body and the world and all forms of suffering. To deny them is to withdraw value and belief and truth and reality from them. It is to dis-identify with them, recognizing them as NOT of God, and therefore that they cannot possibly be a part of you or your experience.
You have to take this ALL the way, because enlightenment is the recognition that only that which is of God exists, and nothing else has ANY power over you. Nor does it really exist at all. Enlightenment IS sanity. It is the end of false perception. It is forgiveness. Anything not created by God has to be thrown out. Anything not of God is impossible. Anything he did not create or give has no truth, no reality, no meaning, and no existence. It cannot therefore be WHAT you are.
You cannot be your emotions, your upsets, your unhappiness, your losses, your pain, your physical sickness, your death, your stresses, your thoughts, your body, the bodies of others, or part of the world. God did not create the world so you cannot be OF the world, or IN the world, or FROM the world. You are from another world. Your real self is IN HEAVEN WITH GOD. That is where you must anchor your whole sense of who and what you are. You are not ANYTHING that you made.
"Sickness and separation are not of God, but the Kingdom IS. If you obscure the Kingdom, you are perceiving WHAT IS NOT OF GOD."
"That is why you can choose to listen to two voices within you. One you made yourself, and that one is not of God. But the other is given you by God, Who asks you only to listen to it. The Holy Spirit IS in you in a very literal sense. It is the voice that calls you back to where you were before and will be again."
"Recognize this gladly, for in this recognition lies the realization that your banishment is not of God, and therefore does not exist. You are at home in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of awakening to Reality."
"Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completeness, unity and peace. You cannot lose the gifts your Father gave. You do not want to be another self. You have no function that is not of God. Forgive yourself the one you think you made. Forgiveness and salvation are the same. Forgive what you have made, and you are saved."
"Failure is of the ego, NOT of God. "
"Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of the ATTACK on God. This is a totally meaningless concept EXCEPT to the ego, but do not underestimate the power of the ego's belief in it. This is the belief from which ALL guilt really stems."
"We therefore are embarking on an organized, well-structured, and carefully planned program, aimed at learning how to offer to the Holy Spirit everything you do NOT want. HE knows what to DO with it. You do NOT know how to use what He knows. Whatever is revealed to Him that is not of God, is gone. But you must reveal it to YOURSELF in perfect willingness, for otherwise His knowledge remains useless TO you."
"You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God. Therefore, it is not true. No more are any of the RESULTS of your condemnation."
"God is the ONLY Cause, and guilt is NOT of Him. Teach no-one he has hurt you, for, if you do, you teach YOURSELF that what is NOT of God, HAS POWER OVER YOU. THE CAUSELESS CANNOT BE. Do not attest to it, and do not foster belief in it in any mind."
"NOTHING you made has ANY power over you, unless you still would be APART from your Creator, and with a will OPPOSED to His."