"The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not."

"Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past EVERYTHING you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes."

Let's draw a large circle and call it heaven.

Then inside of that circle, let's draw a smaller circle and call it earth.

You could say that the small circle overlaps with the big circle. In a sense, when you are in the small circle, you are in BOTH circles. As such, being in the smaller circle, or on Earth, it is possible to be aware of the fact that in truth you are ALSO inside the big circle. That you are always in heaven with God, even if you are dreaming of exile inside the small circle.

It's also possible while you are in the smaller circle, of focusing so much on the small circle to the exclusion of the big circle, that it can seem like ONLY the small circle exists. This is what being "blinded by perception of form" means, focusing on a limitation of smallness and not seeing the bigger picture. Focusing on the small circle and not seeing the big circle. Focusing on believing earth (small circle) is real, and not seeing the reality of the big circle at all.

But it is also possible for the small circle to be overlooked (forgiven) to such an extent that its boundaries become transparent and you become able to see the bigger circle behind it. As such, as you look toward the things in the small circle you will see the light of the big circle shining through underneath it. As though you are in two places at once. One foot on earth, and one in heaven.

Your perception takes on a temporarily parallel functioning, part physically focused on the small circle, and part spiritual-eye focused on the vision of the big circle. When seeing the big circle more clearly, the smaller circle is framed differently, and the things in the small circle become less important, less solid, less believable.

This smaller circle, when seen through, and when seen beyond, is regarded as the forgiven world, or real world. This includes the earth which is a small circle within the small circle. As mind becomes aware of its thinness and transparency, it simultaneously becomes increasingly aware of God, which is a very large circle beyond all small circles.

God is the big circle. This means the small circle is an illusion, because there can only be one circle. A separation is needed in order to imply that there is a second circle. Temporarily there seems to be two circles. But you cannot have two circles without opposition and conflict. With separation, the small circle is a dream of death, and without separation, there is no death because there is no small circle (no world).

At best, the small circle can be interpreted AS IF it is LIKE the big circle, as though reflecting heaven, and while the small circle persists you can seem to be in the small circle and mostly aware of the big circle at the same time. This makes the small circle seem less like an actual thing, and more like a faint illusion of a thing. It becomes less valued, and more overlooked. It seems more lovely, framed in the holy wholeness of the big circle, but is still a limited circle.

If you really want to go ALL the way to awareness of the big circle, you will have to transcend the small circle completely. You will have to go OUTSIDE the small circle, beyond its small reach, and beyond its limits. This isn't possible while remaining in any way inside the small circle, because the small circle doesn't cover all of the area that big circle covers. Also the small circle requires a belief in being separate in order to have a second circle. Without separation there is no small circle at all.

When you are ready to transcend the small circle and completely open up to the big circle, which is totally accepting atonement and ascending to heaven, you will transcend the small circle world and wake up in the big circle. At this point you will be completely aware of the fullness of the big circle, and there will be no small circles anywhere. In truth, only the big circle exists, and there is no small circle at all.

I once thought that unconditional love meant that I would unconditionally love one person. That is, that I would love them a lot. I thought that this 'big love' was an unconditional love, until I found out that I sometimes failed to love when certain conditions occurred. So I wasn't really being unconditional.

At the same time, this really wasn't unconditional love anyway, because it was applying mainly to only one person. Unconditional love does not just apply to one person. To be unconditional, it has to be impartial and it must apply the same to everyone, all the time.

In God, we are asked to unconditionally love everyone the SAME all of the time with no exceptions. That seems like a really tall order.

Can you unconditionally love, fully love, equally love, every single person including all the people that you had beliefs of blame or anger or annoyance or a grudge about? And not just the people in your close circles, but even complete strangers? That's what unconditional love means.

It takes a lot to admit that you are not unconditionally loving, and that you probably have practiced conditional love all your life. It takes some honesty to admit you do not love other people, maybe you don't love your neighbors or someone at work or certain groups in society. At least admitting that you don't can start to give way to you being open to learning why you don't, and correcting that.

Ultimately, YOU won't be fully and completely and unconditionally loved, or experience unconditional love, if you are not willing to both receive it AND give it.

When you love unconditionally, you represent God.

God DOES love you unconditionally, and that's pretty special ;-)

I've been finding myself lately starting to 'take it to the people'. I don't know how this happened, it was sort of a subtle thing that just seemed like the next right thing.

I find myself in situations where I'm starting to bring what I know of ACIM to help people who are not into ACIM. I don't explicitly state ACIM stuff or quotes or lingo as such, but it's sort of like stepping outside the box and taking it to the streets.

I've had some focus on Jesus's "great crusade" which I posted about recently, about being an active part of the atonement and taking the miracles to the people. Obviously it's not right to only stay 'isolated' within ACIM circles, or to only talk to ACIM people, and to not reach out to those who need help.

It's possible once you have generalized Holy Spirit's lessons, and have grasped the abstract nature of truth, to articulate it in ways that are appropriate for different people. I could target only ACIM people or focus on ACIM 'beginners' which is helpful, but this is very narrow.

I'm not saying I'm leaving ACIM behind at all. I am firmly rooted in it and in Holy Spirit's thought system which becomes clearer all the time. Instead I'm seeing that these truths apply to people all over the place, whether they are into ACIM or not. I am also seeing that certain people, if they are receptive, can be helped with some form of this teaching without them having to explicitly be ACIM students.

The metaphysics in A Course in Miracles is the 'Truth', and is the same truth that applies to everyone everywhere regardless. It's God's laws. It's how things work. Yes there are other paths and other descriptions but there is only really one metaphysics, one Truth. And that gives it universal appeal.

Ultimately this is all about unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, unconditional truth. And that is something to experience within and to express without, including all our brothers.

As within, so without.

Fear is the opposite of love.

Fear isn't just what it feels like when you are typically afraid or scared or worried or doubting or anxious or nervous. Fear can be subtle.

Fear is any belief whatsoever that anything other than God's love is real. Fear is any belief whatsoever that it is 'true' that something has gone wrong. Fear is any belief whatsoever that you are separate from God and are not 100% supported by God.

The distortion in your mind that occurs when there is no trust in God, even to a subtle degree, is the same distortion that manifests in larger, more familiar forms, that you would normally label 'fear'. You do not realize that even in your 'better days' of being separate from God, where things seem to be going your way, you are still in a state of fear.

You have to be afraid if you believe you are separate from God, because the belief in separation demands a belief in sin and guilt which leads to fear of punishment and ultimately death. Whether it is in the background of your mind or deeply repressed or blaring in your present awareness, it is still fear.

"All healing is essentially the release from fear". - ACIM/Jesus

Which means, all sickness and all suffering is a form of fear. Even death is really the fear of life.

We do not understand fear when we compartmentalize it and think of it as just an occasional event, intermixed with 'things going ok in the dream'. We will always be afraid until we are One with God.

You also are not really exempt from fear when you are feeling proud of your own separate abilities, or of who 'confident' and assertive you seem to be in social circles as a separate self, or when you are seeming to find answers to problems which really don't solve all problems. You are still afraid on some level.

The only end of fear is when love is present. Which means God.

Recently I find myself waiting for someone to decide for me what it is I will do. I even ask within to Jesus or Holy Spirit for them to decide for me. It is one thing to surrender and open up to guidance and to express from love, but part of the lesson I've been learning is that I need to learn how to make real decisions.

What has become apparent is that most of life is spent simply reacting to the world, dealing with stuff that crops up, managing day-to-day maintenance activities, working 9-5, just doing 'stuff' - stuff that everyone else wants or needs me to do. Stuff that the world itself wants me to do. Stuff that the ego is organizing to try to keep me from being responsible for my own life.

And this makes me realize just how much I have not really been decisive before and have not really known how to make a firm decision. To be causal, instead of reactionary. To really choose something, commit to it and follow through. To be so aligned with being responsible for my experience that I choose what my experience is going to be, or I choose what I am going to experience, instead of simply waiting for experiences to happen passively.

So when I go to Jesus and try to get Him to decide for me, and He remains quiet, or He nudges me, and I don't get it, it's because He's trying to get me to act from a place of certainty instead of fear. A place of knowing, instead of figuring out. A place of being tuned within, instead of tuned out. And then he says, "decide". And I'm like... yah.. I am just blowing out hot air going around in circles in what I'm calling decision making which is really just "not deciding" and spinning my wheels.

To make a 'real decision', which isn't a reaction, and which involves being true to myself, and not doing anything that I don't want to do (which produces fear).... it's a new thing.

When I am in a state of indecision, I am clueless about what to do. I don't have any sense of certainty or clarity. I think somehow it's possible to 'become clear' while in that state, or that the clarity is lurking somewhere in the midst of options and if I just figure out the right option, it will become clear. It doesn't apparently work this way. The clarity needs to come FIRST.

So the way forward is, get out of indecision. Recognize it for what it is, that it is not decision making, but decision avoidance. Get out of all of that behavior, and COME BACK to certainty, back to clarity, to confidence, to knowing, to within the heart, and THEN I rediscover an obviousness - a clear path, which I already know is the right way to move forward, which was simply sitting there the whole time with me not being aware of it. So then the decision is easy and certain. And when you make certain decisions in clarity and not in fear, then you will have commitment.

The ego doesn't have any real power of its own. Its only strategy is to try to get you to willingly give your power to it.

To do this, it has to present to you some kind of temptation or lie, something untrue, and generally something that upsets you in some way. If it can especially get you to have a reaction, or be triggered, then you have fell for its trap.

The ego uses your own beliefs and your own blind-spots, as a way to get you to agree to go along with it. While you remain unconscious and attached to a certain egoic belief, you are quite literally agreeing with the ego and giving it permission to use this against you.

The ego cannot take power from you, you have to give it away. When you give it away, you give it away through playing the role of a victim, perhaps entering into fear or guilt etc. This is your way of making it seem as though the power you share with God has now been separated from God and is handed over to the ego.

In certain other religious circles, this principle is taught in terms of the devil, sin, and how the devil operates. That is, that you first must sin which means you believe in something that's mistaken. Then based on this sin, you have literally agreed that something untrue is true. And now this creates an 'open door' and an invitation and a resonant agreement, which allows 'the evil' to come in and control you. This is also how evil 'spirits' enter people's lives. Because YOU have violated a law of God, so to speak, by going against it, you have permitted darkness/ego/devil to use this darkness against you.

But notice here that the ego/devil does not actually have its own power. And it completely depends on you agreeing with it, and continuing the 'sin' i.e. the false belief. It also does not actually have any power to prevent you from undoing that belief, or choosing again, or waking up. It has ZERO 'actual' control over you, besides your own willingness to play along. If you were to decide to stop playing along, and to withdraw your belief, and to take back your power knowing it is yours, and knowing that the ego can do absolutely NOTHING to stop you, the ego would be dis-empowered.

The only tool the ego has is the presentation of illusions, in an attempt to try to play upon what you believe and to convince you that it is either your friend and ally, or to distract you from choosing again by throwing fears or guilts or rationalizations or whatever else your way, to try to once again push your buttons or pull up your past hurts or play upon your own fears, to keep you ensured in its mindset. And often, in unconsciousness, you will go along with this and be pulled right back in, but ONLY because you have not become conscious/aware enough yet to discern and to decide not to listen or believe what it's saying.

So really the ego is just a mirror for your own mis-beliefs. And it shows you and reflects back to you what you currently believe. Change your belief, and the reflection of that belief - the ego - must disappear.

There is nothing keeping you stuck. There is nothing stopping you but yourself. There is no reason why you can't be loved. There is no reason why you can't wake up. The only thing keeping you asleep is yourself.

In ACIM circles a lot of said with regards to "the separation", and usually always in terms of the separation from God. Some kind of giant distancing which occurred a long time ago and is so vague and nebulous that no-one is aware of it.

What is less obvious though is that the separation also took place between members of the sonship. Individual brothers experienced separation between them, which became a kind of competition and war.

This separation now in fact plays out in ALL relationships on earth. Every way that you are considered separated off from others, are not them, are not joined with them, do not share with them, IS the separation playing out.

Jesus also remarks how when the ego uses projection to try to project blame/sin, it is trying to perpetuate the separation. This is because anything that increases the rift between you and your brothers IS increasing the separation.

It might not have seemed so obvious but the separation from God IS playing out between you and other people right now. It's not distant and vague or happening in the distant past. It's right in front of your nose right now.

The way that you consider yourself to be identified with your body, is one way that you separate off from others. The body is used as a kind of anchor to keep you away from other people. Only when it is used to allow you BYPASS the body and join with the minds of others, is it being used for a holy purpose.

So yes there was separation (belief in) between you and God, but this also affected all your relationships, including those with your brothers, AND also with your own creations. Your direct immediate way of relating to ANYONE testifies to whether or not you are still perpetuating the separation or are healing it.

This is why our brothers are so important or are considered part of our salvation. It is REQUIRED that we rejoin with others in order to undo the separation. There is no way to leave them out of it. We have to learn how to share again, which can only happen by transcending physical boundaries.

"The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because YOU HAVE FORGOTTEN HOW TO DO IT. The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of what is your NATURAL ability."

"The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of his Atonement. The mind is then in a state of Grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to the Host within and the stranger without. By bringing in the stranger, he becomes your brother."

"Forget not, when you feel the need arise to be defensive about ANYTHING, you have identified YOUR SELF with an illusion. And therefore feel that you are weak, BECAUSE YOU ARE ALONE. This is the cost of ALL illusions. Not one but rests on the belief that you are separate. Not one that does not SEEM to stand, heavy and solid and unmovable, between you and your brother. "

"How EASY is it to offer this miracle to everyone! No-one who has received it for himself COULD find it difficult. For, BY receiving it, he learned it was not given him alone. Such is the function of a holy relationship; to RECEIVE together, and give as you received. Standing BEFORE the veil, it still seems difficult. But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share."

"The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist."

The body is nothing. It's not something. It's not this or that or these states or conditions. It's not really well or sick. It's not alive or dead. It's actually nothing at all. It doesn't have a meaning or its own purpose. It doesn't have mind or will or causality or power. It doesn't really do anything. It's literally not really there.

When we believe that the body IS something, that it has reality, or has a mind or will, or causes things, or is doing something on its own, or has its own power, this is actually a distortion of the body. It's an attempt to force the body to comply with made up delusional rules and to be something it cannot be. This actually attacks the body and makes it sick. The mind is not accepting that the body is nothing, so instead it's really DENYING what the body is (ie nothing), which is a rejection of it, thus an attack.

To get the body to be healthy, the body has to be recognized as absolutely nothing. This is really forgiveness. The recognition of what is true. If the body is given any credit it does not have, in an attempt to defend it or keep it alive or make it be something, this actually destroys it. When its nothingness is recognized this actually takes all attack away and the body is restored to health. Trying to make the body out to be a real body, or a something body, or a working body, or a living body etc, actually brings about death.

The body is not supposed to be loved, OR hated. You're not supposed to have any real relation to it at all, because it's not there. It's not supposed to be given ANY meaning, either positive or negative. You don't hear this much in ACIM circles or spiritual disciplines. The idea that the body is actually nothing, neutral in a sense, and not biased positively OR negatively.

Jesus refers to the body in the course as not being able to BE sick. That's because it is NOTHING. It isn't a something, so it can't have properties of any kind. It's like an empty image of a body. It's the lack of the presence of spirit, shall we say.

It's the absence of God like a shadow on a wall. Its nothingness means it of itself cannot really be sick or healthy. But the mind that believes the body is real MAKES the body appear to be in sickened forms. Believing in bodies attacks them because it's an attempt to make them be something they're not.

We might think that spirituality is about only being positive, or only denying the negative. But Jesus isn't saying the world or body are fundamentally negative. He's saying they are NOTHINGNESS, pretending to be something. And that's very different from being negative. Their nothingness has to be recognized which means ALL attributes, positive OR negative, have to be taken away. That's why the body cannot be really endowed with attributes of Christ OR the ego. It is nothing at all.

"Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its NOTHINGNESS is guarantee that it can NOT be sick. In your demand that it be MORE than this lies the idea of sickness."

"The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power IN ITSELF. As something, it CAN be perceived, and thought to feel and act, and hold you in its grasp as prisoner to itself. And it CAN fail to be what you demanded it to be."

"As something, is the body asked to be God's enemy, replacing what He is with littleness and limit and despair. It is HIS loss you celebrate when you behold the body as a thing you love, or look upon it as a thing you hate"

"His body's nothingness releases yours from sickness and from death."

"To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

"For holiness is POSITIVE, and the body is merely neutral. It is NOT sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE. And BOTH must be undone, for purposes of truth."

There is a very fine line between accepting this world and justifying it.

If I am having sickness, or problems, or negative ego thoughts, then something is wrong. It does not matter whether I am accepting these things or not, or whether I'm trying to be at peace in spite of them or not. If these things are happening, something is not right.

There is a significant group of people in ACIM circles who attempt to become "at peace with" everything that happens here. This includes being at peace with sickness, being at peace with death, being at peace with negative thoughts, being at peace with problems and limitations, etc.

There is something to be said for this because, on the one hand, if I resist or block or control or read-into or project onto or manipulate or become attached to something in the world, I am in the ego for sure. When events happen, if I resist them and don't welcome them, I will fight with them. That's not good. If I cannot allow someone the free will to choose whatever they want to experience, even if that means suffering and death, then I will not allow myself the same freedom of will either.

But... and this is a big but, that does not mean, that the goal of the course is to "be okay with" all of these things, to keep these problems, to maintain sickness, to promote peaceful death, or to continue having attack thoughts that we're "not bothered by".

Yes, I am supposed to let go of the world, let go of controlling it, let go of trying to stop people's choices, let go of not allowing etc. That's all good. But when that is equated with.... well, this means that I should not do anything about the world other than transcend it, then this becomes a problem.

Because now I am going to attempt to keep experiencing ego stuff while pretending that I am not. That's actually an act of denial. If I'm still having sickness in the body, something is wrong in my mind. If I am still dying, something is wrong in my mind. If I am still having problems and limitations, something is wrong in my mind. And if I am still having negative ego thoughts or body identified thoughts, there is still something wrong in my mind.

It is not our task to sort of ... get underneath our negative thoughts, or to .... go in back of our ego judgements.... etc. We are not supposed to be becoming "okay" with problems and sickness and death. In a sense we are... we are not meant to be upset by it, but we are not meant to make it real and we're also not meant to choose it. Choosing sickness is an attack. Choosing death is an attack.

So on the one hand, we're to become "at peace with" whatever happens, but at the same time, that peace MUST include not choosing to make bad stuff happen, otherwise we are intellectualizing the truth.

A mind which is in a state of love does not have attack thoughts. A mind in a state of love does not have a sick body. A mind in a state of love does not go through death. A mind in a state of love does not have problems and limitations. A mind in a state of love does not need to a find a way to be "okay with" intolerable bullshit. It may well BE "okay" with it in a sense, but at the same time, it does not choose it, manifest it, create it, maintain it, or make it a reality.

Exactly who is making the body sick when the mind is awake? Who is responsible for that? You are. And if you are, you are not awake.

Exactly who is making attack thoughts show up in the mind, which you are happily trying to transcend and allow to continue happening? Who is thinking them? You are. If you are having attack thoughts you have an ego.

Exactly who is making the body go through death? Who is bringing about the extreme victimhood conditions which are *required* in order for death to take place? You are. If you are dying, you have an ego.

We have to take total responsibility for everything we are experiencing and expressing and causing to happen, including the undoing of all sickness, death, suffering, and ego thoughts. Only the thoughts I think with God - loving thoughts - are real. All the rest is ego and it must go, otherwise I'm hiding in a corner and thinking hate while pretending to think love.

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression."

Note that there are TWO aspects to miracles. Most people seem to refer to miracles as getting into a certain state of mind, having shifted perception and ending up closer to the Holy Spirit. The mind becomes "miracle minded", aka right-minded.

But that is only the STATE of mind. That isn't what MIRACLES are.

Miracles are EXPRESSIONS FROM that state, which produces a DOING or PERFORMING of miracles. A WORKING of miracles.

You get into a state of miracle MINDEDNESS, so that you can be a miracle WORKER, who DOES/PERFORMS miracles.

"The former needs YOUR careful protection, because it is a state of miracle-READINESS. This is what the Bible means in the many references to "Hold yourself ready" and other similar injunctions."

"Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so you will ALWAYS be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for "listen, learn, and do." You must be

READY to listen

WILLING to learn

and ABLE to do"

When you are READY TO DO, you are then ABLE To do, and WILLING to do. And now you actually DO.

"Do his works."

This is where you EXPRESS a miracle, which is GIVEN to someone, which can energize them and give them LIFE, and raise them from death. This is where a miracle CAUSES a healing.

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

"Miracles are NOT incompetition, and the number you can do is LIMITLESS."

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

"Miracles are expressions of love." "Miracles supply a lack."

"The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of his Atonement."

Just so we're clear then, your have a mental state which can be either miracle-mindedness, or anti-miraculous (egoic etc). Blocks to love, and fear, prevent you being in a miracle-minded state. Once you are IN a miracle minded state, and given that mind must project and GIVE what it has, MIRACLES (plural) now EXPRESS FROM that state, and are gifts of life which you GIVE TO OTHERS.

"Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers." "Miracles are GIVEN by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less."

When people talk of shifts in perception they are mainly talking about PURIFICATION, and not miracles. And if they are talking about miracles, they are talking mainly about receiving healing or possibly receiving a miracle. But a miracle expresses FROM a loving state of mind, and you have to be IN that state of mind FIRST in order to PERFORM them.

"He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself here (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector) before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are."

You need the use of miracles for yourself to get YOUR mind into a state of miracle mindedness. You MIGHT call that perceptual shifts. But then once your mind is the right-way up (right minded), you are now able to GIVE what you have. "I can only give the miracles I have received." And now you can use miracle WORKING to PERFORM miracles for others, energizing them and resurrecting them.

So a miracle is not a shift in perception. That's just the RESULT of healing, when a miracle is APPLIED. Healing is an EFFECT of a miracle. When you have become healed, you can now be an instrument for healing and give healing to others, APPLYING what you have. This can in turn "shift their perception" as an EFFECT of their mind being healed.

"Those who are healed (miracle minded) become instruments of healing (can perform miracles for others)."

"It is the privilege of the forgiven (miracle minded) to forgive (undo the unforgiveness in others)."

"By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the levelconfusion of others."

"The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH. The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs."

We rely on our own abilities. We rely on ourselves to be able to figure things out. We rely on the ability to be able to understand why things happen. We basically have appointed ourselves as some kind of know-it-all guru who supposedly has the actual ability to find out the reasons and causes of everything.

This is a complete farce. The ego cannot figure out why things happen. All the ego does is make things worse. It adds to problems, it does not objectively diagnose them. It also presents situations in which we are seeking a lot but not finding.

And this is because, as soon as the ego thinks something is happening or has gone wrong, it ACCEPT THAT AS TRUTH, and that alone shuts the entire door on all possibility of actually doing anything constructive 'about' that problem at all. You can see this in almost all medical circles where the problem is accepted as real and then 'treatment' is nothing more than maintenance, and there are no real 'cures'.

The only thing that can come from believing that something really has gone wrong, is an endless - yet seemingly purposeful and well intentioned - tirade of exploration and explanation, attempting to justify, rationalize and explain 'why' ....under the artificial hope that IF you can figure out why, you will somehow access some kind of other SPECIAL ABILITY to then do something about it.

And so not only is our ego the appointed assessor and figures-outerer, it is also going to save us from this problem once it figures it out, supposedly, with its expertise and its own reliance on itself to get itself out of this mess (which it created by the way). Pretty unlikely, and pretty funny that it was the ego who created and affirmed the reality of the problem and is now supposedly going to save us from it.

And when we do this, which is pretty much all the time, we're basically on a wild goose chase hunting after ghosts and never really solving anything. All this does is enhances our reliance on the ego, our trust in the ego - our ego self - and prevents us from turning to Holy Spirit.

The situation with Holy Spirit is that if we were trusting Him instead of attempting to do ANYTHING about this problem on our own, which requires surrendering the ego (go figure), we would not ever get into the mode of trying to figure out the 'why' of what's happening. In fact, it would be like doing absolutely nothing about the problem, not even attempting to understand it or to describe it or explain it.

To the ego that seems ridiculous. It seems ridiculous to our own ego self to suggest we should just not even attempt to get into explaining, to not even begin to figure it out, and to not even try to understand what's going on. Because what we really need to do, and all we need to do, is completely turn to Holy Spirit in trust and surrender and ALLOW HIM to solve it for us. There are parts in ACIM where it tells us this, that we need to not only turn to Him and trust Him, but that He will also then turn around and DO IT FOR US, IF we will let Him.

Allowing Him to do healing and correction for us takes a development of trust. It means putting aside the ego. It means SWITCHING OFF the ego's use of the mind to attempt to control the situation or diagnose it, and to be quiet and receptive. It means allowing our mind to be put under the control of SPIRIT, to use as it wills, and to trust that it knows what it's doing. This is an entirely different mode of functioning than depending on our own ego self to solve everything.

IF we do trust Holy Spirit and open our mind and turn over management of our mind to Him, for Him to use, then He CAN work miracles through us to solve ALL problems instantly. This doesn't take any figuring out. It doesn't take use of the mind to figure it out. The mind's function is not really as a figure-it-outer, that's just how the EGO is using the mind for controlling situations. The mind can be put into more of a passive mode of sorts where it is under the expression of Spirit, and then it is much more powerful to be a conduit for change and to receive correction.

So we need to stop depending on ourselves, our own lowly little abilities and 'learning' that we're oh-so-proud of and special because of,, and this constant determination that we are *supposed* to solve problems on our own or to try to understand and gain some kind of know-how about the problem which allegedly will help us fix it. This *seems* to work sometimes, in magical ways, to change furniture and move it around, but it does not work to actually undo problems or to correct the mind that believes they are real. And indeed the ego is incapable of solving many problems whatsoever.

Let go. Let God work through you.

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.

Now, pause a moment, and watch out for an ego reaction of guilt. My intention is not to make anyone feel guilty. Nor is it Jesus' intention. But he is trying to educate us with deep honesty about what sickness is and is not so that we can be more easily freed from using it to hurt ourselves. We need to be willing to look at this, it's part of the course. We are adults here, right? We can handle it.

Jesus's statements simply tell us that all forms of sickness are part of an attempts to make our body sick, in order that we can hold it up as proof that our brother is a sinner, accusing him of having caused the effects/symptoms. We show him sickness, evidence of attack and sin, to imply that we have been affected against our will, thus able to scapegoat him and accuse him of sin. Scapegoating isn't just psychological, it is physical.

And furthermore, Jesus is clearly teaching that the body, as a symbol, CAN symbolize innocence and forgiveness, through its physical healing. A healed body teaches and demonstrates and proves that there has not been sin, it exonerates your brother, AND it helps to heal his mind. Your physical health, stemming from your psychological health, becomes your brother's health. When the body is sick, it accuses your brother "Brother, at your hand I die". This happens are psychological, physical, and metaphysical levels.

If you want to love yourself and your brother, the body MUST depict only a symbol of heath and wholeness. Otherwise it is serving the ego's purpose of making sin real. "The mind, being sane, heals the body."

*** Physical sickness is a symptom of an unholy relationship with your brothers! ***

Jesus demonstrated this principle through the resurrection. Here's what he says in passages from "The picture of crucifixion" and "The fear of healing." These are POTENT teachings not often accepted in ACIM circles.

"A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape."

"The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved."

"Is healing frightening? To many, yes. For accusation is a bar to love, and damaged bodies ARE accusers. They stand firmly in the way of trust and peace, proclaiming that the frail can HAVE no trust, and that the damaged HAVE no grounds for peace. Who has been injured BY his brother, and could love and trust him still? He HAS attacked, and will attack again. Protect him not, because your damaged body shows that you must be protected FROM him. To forgive may be an act of charity, but NOT his due. He may be PITIED for his guilt, but NOT exonerated. And if you forgive him his transgressions, you but ADD to all the guilt that he has really earned."

"The unhealed CANNOT pardon. For they are the witnesses that pardon is unfair. They would retain the CONSEQUENCES of the guilt they overlook. Yet no-one CAN forgive a sin which he believes is real. And what has consequences MUST be real, because what it has DONE is there to see."

"To witness sin and yet forgive it is a paradox which reason cannot see. For it maintains what has been done to you DESERVES no pardon. And, by GIVING it, you grant your brother mercy, but retain the proof he is not REALLY innocent. The sick remain accusers. They cannot forgive their brothers AND themselves as well. For no-one in whom true forgiveness reigns CAN suffer. He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes."

"Who forgives IS healed. And in his healing lies the PROOF that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing."

"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."

"What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt."

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.

Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. 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. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."

"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."

We do not want to LOOK AT the fact that there is a NEED for healing. We actually are in denial that something HAS gone wrong, and that healing is necessary. And instead we have covered it up with a belief that NOTHING is wrong, or little, and healing is NOT needed.

Jesus describes here for example that we are afraid to look at our inner altar to realize that it HAS been defiled, and that we DO need healing, because we're frightened of the idea that something has gone wrong. But by looking at this fact with the Holy Spirit and through atonement, you can see only the need for healing as a call for healing, and thus for the restoration of the altar.

"The reason why the real vision is obscured is because man cannot endure to see his own defiled altar. But since the altar has BEEN defiled, this fact becomes doubly dangerous unless it IS perceived. This perception is totally non-threatening because of the Atonement. The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what man has done to himself."

He talks elsewhere as well about how we do not want to ADMIT that we have BELIEVED that we are separate from God, and now find ourselves in a state which seems to embody and symbolize that separateness. That we DO believe we are NOT with God. And that we need to be willing to look at this horrifying truth in order to ALSO be willing to correct it.

"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay."

This runs contrary to what many people say and teach, that "the separation has not happened". This is false. THE separation is a term for the fall of man and the tiny mad idea, which is an actual thought we DID have and DID choose to believe in and tried to make real to ourselves. THAT happened, even if actual real separation is impossible. And now we find ourselves in a FALSE experience of a world in which we SEEM to be separate and believing it's real. THAT is happening. But it's not ultimate reality, in which real separation is impossible.

But we have to be willing to admit that this HAS occurred, that something HAS seemingly gone wrong, we HAVE mis-created an entire world, we HAVE identified with fake bodes, in order to also acknowledge that there IS a need for healing. People ARE calling out for love. Miracles ARE needed.

This is something that is coming to my awareness strongly at the moment, the great NEED that there is in the world, in EVERYONE, for healing and help. Only by admitting that this IS the situation we're in, can we be willing to BE helped, and to be OF help to others.

There is also a great blindness that many people have of not wanting to ADMIT that they are suffering. A great tolerance for pain. A great denial that anything is even wrong. That they are not happy. That they are sick and dying, or seeming to. This is partly because of the tremendous confusion and thought-system reversal which has interfered with our ability to RECOGNIZE what is actually happening - what situation we ARE in - what we HAVE done to ourselves, and the NEED we have for healing and correction.

In other words, no-one wants to admit that they DO believe they have tried to destroy themselves, others, and God, because looking at this would seem to imply guilt. But looking at it honestly without egoic reactions allows you to also see the call for Atonement, and the REASON why there is a great crusade to eradicate all lack of love - of God - everywhere.

For me, this recognition is starting to take the shape of feeling like I'm on a mission. The amount of atonement I have so far received is revealing a desire NOT to tolerate the "lack of love" (guilt, sickness, fear, death) in myself and others. To side only with God and his laws and truth. It's creating a compassion for the plight that ALL of God's separated children are finding themselves in, not just in ACIM circles but worldwide. The sheer EXTENT of the fall of man and the sheer extent of the world's insanity. ONLY by looking at this can you acknowledge just how much help IS needed, which then COMPELS you to be helpful.

"Only the sick NEED healing. The Soul does not need healing, but the mind DOES."

"Perception IS a separated state, and the perceiver DOES need healing."

"The Holy Spirit is the Christ mind that senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception. It came into being with the separation as a protection, and inspired the beginning of the Atonement at the same time. Before that, there was no need for healing and no-one was comfortless."

"It is only THIS that makes you willing to engage in endless "battles" with reality, in which you DENY the reality of the need for healing by making IT unreal."

"Having been restored to your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. You now share MY inability to tolerate the lack of love in yourself and in everyone else, and MUST join the GREAT CRUSADE to correct it. The slogan for this Crusade is "Listen, Learn, and DO."

If you did something wrong, if you sinned or committed some crime, damaged something or hurt someone, you won't be able to forgive yourself for it while you believe it actually happened.

Anything that you believe has REALITY, cannot be undone. Reality is a sense of what is ACTUAL, the facts, the irrefutable certain truth.

Reality cannot be questioned or denied. It is blatant and obvious and there is nothing beyond it. It's like the final judgement on something. Whatever is REAL, you will believe is so true it cannot be changed. Reality is rock solid. Reality is permanence.

This applies no matter what it is that you think is real, and no matter where you place reality, or what you categorize as real, and no matter whether in truth it's the real truth or a lie. If you think it has reality, you think it cannot be undone, cannot be reversed, and cannot be denied. You cannot ESCAPE from what you believe is real, and making it real to you is a choice to keep it.

So if you hurt, sin, attack, damage, destroy etc, if you give these things REALITY, you are locking them in. You're saying, they are actual, factual, unavoidably true. And in particular you will point to evidence, consequences, effects and proof, to demonstrate that it really did occur. And so long as this evidence and proof is also given "reality" it will be IRREFUTABLE that you really DID DO what you think you did.

With this belief in the reality of sin, especially backed up by physical real-seeming evidence, you WILL NOT be able to psychologically forgive yourself. It won't matter how much you work on it. It won't matter how you frame it. It won't matter how much you cathart or try to be nice to yourself or justify what you did or blame it on past-life karma or any other way to try to make it disappear. If it's real, you cannot undo it or let it go.

Whatever you decide is real for you, you are giving the power to dictate the truth. Just even the notion that you did something at all, if it is considered real, cannot be undone. You won't be able to let yourself off the hook, because in the back of your mind there'll be this nagging FACT, that you believe... that you REALLY DID IT. That you DID sin. Even if you justify it, that is like a way to run circles around it. Even if you try to explain it away, that's an attempt to pretend you don't believe you did it. If it's real, you did it, because only reality happens. And if you did it, you are responsible for it.

This means that anything you think you did, any sin or crime or attack, CANNOT be forgiven and let go, fully, UNTIL you are willing to question whether or not it was REAL. If it is considered permanently real, you're screwed. There is NO WAY to be exonerated from a sin if it was real. Not even if the other party says they forgive you. Not even if you receive punishment for the crime and "do the time" and suffer extensively to try to "atone" for what you did. Not even if you have punished yourself for decades over it, it's NEVER going to be enough to overcome REALITY.

The only SWITCH, the only variable, which has the power to set you free from all suffering and recognize your INNOCENCE, is the question of whether or not IT IS REAL. And the only way FOR you to be found innocent, truly, and completely forgiven, and able to truly let it go psychologically so that it doesn't keep holding on like a deep rooted belief, is to find what you did WAS UNREAL. Only if it is NOT real can it ever be let go. Because the mind cannot believe in what has no reality.

"Whatever you accept into your mind you make real to you."

You must question therefore the reality of ALL sin, all happenings, all crimes, all attacks, all suffering, all justification for suffering, and even the memory of what you think you did. You must question whether it even HAPPENED IN REALITY. Did it take place inside a real place, where only real things happen? If it did, you are STUCK with it forever. Did it take place in an UNREAL place, where only illusory things happen, and where dreams pretend to be real, and where there is temptation to believe something is possible that isn't? If so, there is hope that you can be FREE from it by recognizing the CONTEXT within which it occurred. And no-one would hold a DREAM against themselves.

If what you did took place IN A DREAM, and not in reality, then NOTHING about it was real. Nothing you did actually happened. Nothing had any consequences against anything real. Nothing real was hurt or threatened. Nothing guilt-inducing occurred. No-one real has been changed or hurt by your actions and choices. And you cannot have really sinned in any way. Only acts which happen IN DREAMS can be forgiven, and only illusions can be truly let go. Reality can never be forgiven or undone because it is permanent.

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. ***It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred***, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

So to forgive yourself for what you think you did, you absolutely **HAVE TO** come to the conclusion that it was NOT REAL, and did NOT take place in reality, and did not REALLY happen at all. Regardless even whether you remember it happening. And in complete defiance of even any evidence, proof, consequences or tangible reasons that claim "this is here because of what you did." All of this must be found UNREAL. Otherwise there is no way for your mind to psychologically let it go.

In your mind, whatever it decides has reality, it is deciding to HOLD ONTO AND ACCEPT. Whatever it decides is real, is takes to be TRUTH, and it will defend that truth endlessly. Whatever it thinks is real to it, whatever it accepts as factual reality, is anchors onto and gives validity to and empowers and reinforces and protects. There is no way for the mind to ever let go of what it believes is real, while it believes it is real. To make something real is to give it total authority over everything else. It's the final judgement and irrevocable decision as to whether something is valid or not. And what is real has immortality.

So to forgive yourself fully, to go to the ATONEMENT, to truly atone, which is to undo the unreal, you **MUST** - you have no other choice but to - decide that what seemed to happen WAS NOT REAL, did NOT take place in reality, HAS no real consequences, HAS NOT harmed anyone or anything real, and in truth DID NOT TAKE PLACE AT ALL. It has to be recognized as a DREAM, an illusion, whirling around in a fantasy of fiction, pretending to happen, seeming to occur, but a total lie and delusion. ALL sense of reality has to be stripped from it.

ONLY WHEN your mind has agreed that what you thought happened DID NOT HAPPEN AT ALL, which absolutely REQUIRES that you recognize it WAS NOT REAL AT ALL, will your mind give itself permission to LET IT GO. And only when it can fully let go of what is not real, can it FREE ITSELF from imprisonment, from condemnation and from suffering and righteous self punishment. Only when the mind recognizes the TRUTH that what you thought you did YOU DID NOT DO, because THERE IS NO SIN, and SIN IS IMPOSSIBLE IN REALITY, only then can it LOGICALLY conclude that you CANNOT be guilty.

"Only atonement can be said to cure."

This is where true healing occurs. This is where you are CURED FOREVER. This is where the ROOT of evil is ripped out of its bedding. This is where the whole entire "event" is completely expelled from the mind. And this is where you are set free from it in PERMANENT HEALING as you receive a miracle.

Only in true atonement, the recognition that there is no real sin, can you find yourself INNOCENT again. You can only ACCEPT your innocence, ie accept the truth of the atonement, when you can accept that YOU DID NOT SIN IN REALITY. Sin's unreality must be clear, in order to give it no credit or power over you. Otherwise you are simply going to hold onto it and attack yourself with it. You will finally rejoice as you give yourself PERMISSION to let it go, in the recognition that there is really NOTHING REAL to let go of.

You have not sinned. You can never sin. "There is no sin." "Nothing real can be threatened." And "Nothing unreal exists."

"Forgiveness recognizes what you think you brother did has not OCCURRED."

Read this carefully from ACIM.

"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial."

These are Jesus's words. They are correct. It does not say that impossible separation from God has been made possible. It does not say that we in fact DID separate from God. It says that something called "the separation" HAS happened. There is a major difference between THE separation, and the general impossible potential for actual separation.

There is a very popular myth in ACIM circles that we're supposed to just assert that "nothing happened." Jesus is saying this is NOT appropriate and is a misuse of denial. Did you ever notice that for example you actually are having SOME KIND of experience of a world, a world in which you have a body, you type posts on facebook, you respond to people and so on? Technically speaking if these "things" were UTTERLY impossible, in the strictest sense, there is no way that you would even be able to dream of them happening. You wouldn't be ABLE to sit there right now reading these words, whether they're real or not.

There is a view of many people that the separation - confused with separation in general - did NOT happen, and therefore the logical conclusion is that "there is no facebook". This is CLEARLY A DENIAL. It makes no sense at all. It does not explain how it is clearly obviously possible for there to be some kind of a facebook, some kind of a body, some kind of a physical life.

No-one who believes that "it never happened" has ever been able to satisfactorily explain HOW ITS POSSIBLE that we can be sitting here typing little text messages to each other. They don't have an explanation because they believe we're supposed to just sort of turn a blind eye to all this stuff, slap a label of "not real" on it, PRETEND ITS NOT THERE (denial), and carry on trying to assert its unreality.

Jesus is telling you that this is a MISUSE OF DENIAL. Because in fact, per his words, "THE SEPARATION HAS OCCURRED." This isn't a real separation, it is fictional. But a fictional separation HAS occurred. A belief in, a dream of, an illusion of, an impossible separation, HAS occurred in thought, in the mind. It HAS in fact produced a whole other "order of thought" in the mind.

"We have discussed the fall or Separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is PERFECTLY real in time, though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer."

Read it carefully. The separation is NOT symbolic. Jesus says it is an ORDER OF REALITY. And that while it "lasts" ie in time, it is PERFECTLY REAL. This is NOT something that most ACIM students are very happy about, do not want to admit to, and will run away from at high speed. It seems to fly in the face of what so many people are saying, that "it never happened". Well, if it could not have possibly happened in ANY WAY, you literally would not be reading these words right now. And you are. Whether its a dream or an hallucination it doesn't matter, you ARE reading.

In the separation we did in fact produce a second order of thought and gave it a sense of reality. "Whatever you accept into your mind becomes real to you." It doesn't mean it is ULTIMATELY real, or that it really has permanent existence. It is truly an illusion of a possibility. But Jesus is clear the mind is perfectly equipped to sleep and to dream. These are NATURAL CAPABILITIES.

In fact, God gave our minds free will. And part of that TOTAL FREEDOM, is that you can freely try to use your mind to deny its own freedom. Yes, you have that freedom. It doesn't mean that anything real or possible can necessarily come from it, and it hasn't, but you CAN TRY TO. And when you do try to, your mind DOES SEEM to go to sleep, entering a state in which it dreams. This is entirely WITHIN THE LAWS OF GOD.

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

This means God has given you the POTENTIAL, the freedom, to choose, per your own free will, whether to accept reality or not. You are CAPABLE of denying reality. This denial doesn't remove reality because denial is a pretense that you're doing something impossible. But while you are IN denial, your mind IS in a certain state. You ARE IN "the separation." This is why we DID produce a state of mind which Jesus refers to as "the separation". We DID have a mad idea, we DID fall asleep, we DID dream of spacetime, and we DID make bodies and facetime.

Denying any of this is not in line with the course. This isn't to say that these things we dream of are ultimately real, but they ARE real to the dreamer. They don't have permanence because they are denials of permanence, making them temporary, and reversible. But while they are HAPPENING, while the mind IS sleeping and dreaming, we ARE in fact CAUSING the mis-creation, the production, of states of mind, which entail a denial of reality.

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

In order to return TO ultimate reality, the denial has to be undone. But the denial is, itself, an actual state of mind. It's something you're holding in your thought. You are having a dream of being separate. "You are safe in God, dreaming of exile". It is not helpful to claim that you are NOT DREAMING. "you MUST change your mind and help others change theirs. It is pointless to refuse to tolerate change or changing because you believe that you can demonstrate by doing so that the Separation never occurred. The dreamer who doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming it is not really healing the level-split."

"To you the miracle CANNOT seem natural, because what you have done to hurt your minds, has made THEM so UNnatural that they do not remember what is natural to them."

"For you HAVE hurt yourself, and made your Self your enemy."

Jesus does not really ask that we "deny the dream is real" while STILL dreaming it. Because this is an false denial. The proper denial should END dreaming entirely. If you are still dreaming, then you are still giving reality to an order of thought.

"The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought"

This order of reality is being maintained by the mind and it HAS some reality while it is being maintained. That is why the world seems real. It is a kind of subjective reality but it's still a reality. Jesus asks us instead to ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THERE HAS BEEN A SUBJECTIVE SEPARATION - at least a state of denial and belief, a state of TRYING to oppose God - and that we must admit to this before we can heal it.

"However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay."

He doesn't say "just assert that it never happened." He doesn't say "just assert that separation is impossible." He says that you are supposed to ACCEPT THE ERROR TEMPORARILY, to acknowledge that your mind is in an unnatural state, so that you can change your mind into a more natural state. Eventually the unnatural state will diminish and be replaced by, or reveal, a more natural state. And by CHANGING YOUR MIND, which is always your freedom, you can revert it back to the service of spirit.

Remember that "The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial."

We HAVE chosen poorly, we HAVE used psychic mechanisms - mind power - thought and belief - to mis-create an illusory world. We did not create a NOTHING. We mis-created a distortion of reality. That HAS happened. But it can be undone. This far more accurately acknowledges your ACTUAL EXPERIENCE that you drive a car and eat food and go to the bathroom. There is SOME reality to this, some possibility to this, otherwise you literally could not even dream of it.

The dream is not nothing, it is a way of thinking that's out of alignment with God's will. That's why we NEED atonement. "Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is has been denied by him. It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth."

"It is obvious, then, that when you are afraid you have placed yourself in a position where you NEED Atonement BECAUSE you have DONE something loveless because you WILLED without love. This is precisely the situation for which the Atonement was offered. The need for the remedy inspired its CREATION."

So Jesus is really saying that we did in fact enter a state of mind in which the mind does in fact experience strange illusory worlds as if they are real. A state of insanity. And we have given reality to this and it HAS SOME reality. It is relatively real, but not absolutely real. And because of this entering into a freely-chosen state of denial, a legitimate mind-state that is POSSIBLE because you have the freedom to try to deny your freedom - we DID in fact experience a "separate from God" - the fall of man.

And now we find ourselves in a mental state that NEEDS correction. There is a legitimate NEED for atonement, and we NEED to change our mind by free will in order to return to the acceptance of God's reality as the only reality that truly makes sense. A movement out of a state of sleep and denial, into a state of awakening and acceptance.

That's why the Holy Spirit was created, to guide us out of a state that we are PERFECTLY FREE TO ENTER, but which does not resonate well with our true nature, and so brings experiences of suffering. The atonement legitimately offers correction for this and restores the mind to a more natural functioning. It's not enough to just say "oh it never happened." You HAVE used your freedom and your power to choose something unnatural, and you DO need to choose again.

It can be very therapeutic to just listen and be still and judge not while someone expresses themeslves. This is the essence of being forgiving.

"Forgiveness … is still, and quietly does nothing. … It merely looks, and waits, and judges not" - ACIM

When we all have egos, we're all so busy not listening. We're too busy broadcasting and transmitting illusions and stories to make ourselves special.

Even if you're in a conversation with someone and you're supposedly listening, you're probably still not FULLY listening because you're not in a state of forgiveness.

Instead you're starting to mentally engage with what was said, are starting to process it, are chewing on it, judging it, judging the person, thinking about what to say, having memories of your own personal story, resisting the person and hoping they will shut up soon, etc. All of these activities mean you are not being forgiving, but it also means you are not fully listening. You're not paying full attention. You are not being fully present because you're lost in your own ego.

So then when the person speaks, they sense this. They know in the mind/energetic level that they are not being heard. They know that there are limits and boundaries in place, which you put there, which are your attempts to make them stop and shut up. Especially if you start to offer advice or talk over them or try to stop their expression. Maybe their expression is very ego and it triggers you and you just want it to stop because you can't just be still.

The result of this is that the person does not feel permitted to fully express themselves. They don't feel that you are listening, that you recognize them deep down, that you really care unconditionally, or that you even want them to continue. They will take these cues, consciously or not, and it will stop them fully expressing.

We are all so used to walking around in a world where everyone is always broadcasting that we feel terribly constipated with ego energies, feelings and expressions, which are not being ALLOWED to fully express. Nobody is listening! And that's because everyone has egos and are not in a state of forgiveness. Forgiveness is a state of mind of stillness and listening and allowing and presence and non-judgement. That's the state that we're sorely lacking in this world.

This state is a state of "holding space". It means that you are so still and clear and non-judging and present that you simply allow and listen and permit everything. You do not resist, you do not get caught up in your own thoughts, you don't get lost in your own reactions, and you don't try to stop the person. If you do this for someone and you let them just express, you will notice something really interesting happens.

Not only will they express themselves and all their ego stories, feelings and thoughts, but they will seem to really go overboard, over the top with major ego expression. Given permission that it's okay to express fully, as proven by your forgiving willingness to listen and be present, it all just comes flooding out. The person doesn't even quite know why they are doing this. They can seem to become "very ego" while they do this. YOU MUST NOT try to stop that. It's good. They are venting. Maybe for the first time someone is finally fully listening to their heart's pain and they can therefore finally let it out and let it go all the way.

People are natural expressers. Even if it's ego shit coming out and totally bullshit, they still need to express it, and not being in a situation where it's safe and okay - unconditionally okay - to be as ego as they like, it just stays stuck inside.

Also when you are in a state of holding space and being fully present with the person, where you are actually giving your FULL ATTENTION while simultaneously backing totally off from expressing anything of your own, this creates a kind of "space". That is, your intense attention connects to the person where they are, and the fact that you are totally withholding your own expression creates "space" in between the two of you. It's a space that you're not flooding with your own expressions, because you are RECEIVING.

This space is held by the mind and can actually be an energetic presence. You form it with your EMPATHY. In True Empathy you are listening intently and sharing awareness and unconditional acceptance, WITHOUT ENTERING INTO the person's problem. This is TRUE empathy. Empathising without engaging or joining in or making real the illusions that flow out in any way. And that doesn't just mean be quiet on the outside, you must be totally present and attentive INSIDE your mind as well, otherwise you are distracted with ego and are not listening.

And because there is a kind of law that nature fills a vacuum, their ego is SUCKED OUT. It pours out to fill the space. Or to put it another way, your willingness to FULLY RECEIVE allows them to FULLY EXPRESS. The person may not even realize they are really digging deep and sharing all their deep dark secrets and even stating embarassing egoic "secrets" that they never told anyone. Onlookers might judge them and label them as evil! But you have to let it just flow out into the space. Just listen, fully. Give your full attention in silence.

After the person has "finished" expressing, having been heard deeply perhaps for the first time ever, and having aired tons of dirty laundry and guilt and everything in between, they will tell you... if you succeeded in this .... they'll tell you, they feel TREMENDOUSLY PEACEFUL. They got it out! They finally could let it all out and let it go instead of having it shoved halfway down their throat by everyone else who is too self-absorbed to ever give them permission to fully express.

I have done this before, by accident. I didn't know what I was doing, but I was doing it. I recall a person at an old job who started to brag. He was a natural bragger. But as he did, instead of wanting to shut him up as such, I just paid attention and let him get on with it. I held space, sort of accidentally. And he just kept going, and going, and going. He really really vented, and started even telling me about all these secret exploits and perversions that he'd been doing, just a great big giant ego brag. He didn't even know why he was expressing so much, he just kept going! An onlooker judged him, not understanding what was happening, telling him that he should stop talking because he was making a fool of himself. But it was a HEALING.

And then,..... he wound down, and he said, he couldn't believe how peaceful he felt. He was shocked at how calm he was. It was simple. Pay full attention and be fully present without your own mental noise.

Also, if a person is quite shy or sensitive, introverted or has difficulty or fear expressing themselves, this is like GOLD. If you are like this, you know that you are very much put off by the loud intensity of everyone else's expressions, and usually you will only express yourself to one individual in a secret corner when no-one else is looking. Only if there is near silence do you feel permitted to make sound, to speak, or to express yourself. You are really sensitive and everyone's just "regular" level of expression is experienced as like LOUD. Like, they're shouting all the time and don't really want to hear you at all. And especially if the person is domineering or controlling or takes over expressing for everyone, you can bet you will just shrivel up into a hole of loneliness.

That's why sensitive people become so quiet and shy. In their spectrum of expression, they are drowned out. Loud intense or even just regular people can "shut down" sensitive people and make them even shyer, because they're never really given an opportunity to BE HEARD. People won't shut the fuck up for long enough to let them express their soft gentle expressions!

If you say to a shy sensitive person, that you're going to be totally quiet and just listen and that they can go ahead and just talk and tell you anything... anything at all, just go ahead and I'll listen quietly.... that's like GOLD. If you will trust that as a sensitive person, you will then start to express yourself, and you'll keep going, and going, and you'll explore and uncover all kinds of things that you could never tell anyone. It's SO healing and cathartic. To be heard in this overly broadcasting ultra-loud ego-screaming world, it's absolutely treasure. It touches a person. It heals them. Sometimes as a sensitive person I wish the whole world would SHUT THE FUCK UP for long enough for me to express myself.

(I WILL BE HEARD! Thanks for letting me express that, lol)

This is also partly why my expressive energies have diverted themselves into the silent, unhurried expression through typing and writing.. ... people don't shut you up when you put it down on paper.Mostly. Until they start reading it, hah. Then it's "that's too long to read, shut up". .. ie, I can't read all that text... when will *I* be able to talk about myself! lolol

Anyway. Hold space for people. It is thoroughly deeply healing. We should have healing circles where we do nothing but let people express silently. This is partly how it's set up in Alcoholics Anonymous and AlAnon and other programs with a "no cross-talk" rule... although it should be extended to a "no mental chatter either" rule. No ego.

Be quiet. Be present. Listen. Let people be fully acknowledged. This is an expression of true forgiveness.

Remember, this is part of being truly forgiving. And having the opportunity to PRACTICE this is an opportunity to be forgiving. As Jesus said:

"Forgiveness … is still, and quietly does nothing. … It merely looks, and waits, and judges not" - ACIM

In the separation, you confused the true and the false. You assigned God's properties to the false world, BUT YOU ALSO assigned false properties to God. This turned God into an evil enemy to you in your perception of him. This was necessary in order to believe that the world you made was something you would want instead.

This means you actually framed God as opposite to his nature. As if God is evil, destructive, attacking, sinful, deadly, sick, suffering, weak, powerless, unreal, illusory, vengeful and special. While many people focus on how they are going to forgive the false world, which entails lifting truth from it, you ALSO have to forgive God and lift the FALSE from him.

You may not realize that you have assigned false properties to God. But you have in fact framed God as a special false God. You have tried to make out that God is evil and an enemy. The ego believes this. It wants nothing to do with God because IT believes and perceives God as "everything evil", while seeing itself as holy.

"No-one who hates but is afraid of love, and therefore MUST he be afraid of God."

"You are more afraid of God than of the ego, and love cannot enter where it is not welcome."

"And being deceived in yourself you ARE deceived in your Father, in Whom no deceit is possible."

This means you do in fact have within you various reasons to avoid God, to fear God, to not want God, and to hate God. Part of you wants God to be dead. You have to therefore actually forgive God of the projections and misperceptions that you have laid upon him, and recognize that he is not those things.

It is your attempt to AVOID looking at your "attack on God" blasphemy that compels you to focus on forgiving the WORLD instead. You do not want to look at this because you actually believe that your attack on God has made you GUILTY. And you do not want to revisit the idea of approaching God because you believe it means admitting to having sinned against him, and you think he's going to kill you for it.

"You do NOT see that EVERY sin and EVERY condemnation which you perceive and justify IS an attack upon your Father."

"Your brothers and your Father have become VERY fearful to you, and you would bargain with them for a few special relationships, in which you think you see some scraps of safety."

"For through guilt, you EXCLUDE your Father and your brothers FROM yourself."

"It is your Father Whom you would defend against."

If you think that God is evil you will not want to go home. If you think the world is NOT evil you will not want to go home. You've turned God into an enemy and do not trust him. That's why there is a whole process of "the development of trust". You have misplaced your trust in the ego world. You have to learn to trust God again.

"You CHOSE to forget your Father, but you did NOT will to do so."

To trust God you have to be willing to accept the possibility that God is not the scary monster that you think he is. That he is not going to hurt or attack or reject you. That he still loves you because he is still love. You have to take away from God the false accusations you've made that he is evil and vicious and not to be trusted. You have hurled abuse at God and have accused him of sin. This has to be undone.

You will only approach God, tentatively, if you can have a little willingness to be mistaken about him. And this requires that you trust and have faith that he isn't out to destroy you. You have to be wrong about God, because you have become mistaken about him and his nature. You cannot conceive of him without a body, or think of him as anything but selfish like your ego. This has to be reversed.

"And either the ego, which you made, IS your father, or its whole thought system will not stand."

"Your gods are nothing, because your Father did not create them." "You who have been unmerciful unto yourselves, do not remember your Father's love."

This aspect of forgiveness doesn't seem to be talked about very much in ACIM circles. A lot of time is spent talking about forgiving the world and its contents and the people that piss you off, but very little about looking at the fact that you rejected God, hate God, do not want God, and are trying to destroy him and his son. This picturing of God as an enemy has to be undone in order for you to feel safe to be intimate with God again.

You have to unlearn your rejection of God and learn to love him again. Perhaps the real reason that many people do NOT focus on forgiving God, or looking at how they have framed God as evil, is because it would suggest tremendous guilt and fear, to admit that you have tried to attack and kill off God himself. Fortunately God has not held any of this against you and dispels it entirely, and is his hands are held open in welcome to receive you as his most loved creation once again.

To want to go towards your brothers in Christ, to want to forgive anything, you have to be willing to forgive God. You have accused him and must correct this. The world was made as an attack on God. You can forgive the world but you also have to forgive the idea that you've attacked God. You have made God into a false God and have redefined what you think God is like. This has to be corrected. You have to learn to love God again, and you can start by admitting that you don't.

"You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it. For the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a Father who truly loved His Son. Therefore, you made of Him an UNloving father, demanding of Him what only such a father COULD give. And the peace of God's Son was shattered, for he no longer understood his Father. He feared what he had made, but still more did he fear his REAL Father, having attacked his glorious equality WITH Him."

"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival."

"The "attack on God" made His Son think he was fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression."

"Do not look to the god of sickness for healing, but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him."

"The god of the crucifixion demands that he crucify, and his worshippers obey."

"You MADE the god of sickness, and BY making him, you made yourself ABLE to hear him. But you did NOT create him, because he is NOT the Will of the Father. He is therefore not eternal, and will be UNmade for you, the instant you signify your willingness to accept ONLY the eternal."

"You were willing to accept even death to deny your Father."

"You have interpreted the separation as a means which you have made for BREAKING your communication with your Father."

"You can give up the god of sickness for your brothers; in fact, you would HAVE to do so, if you give him up for yourself. For if you see him anywhere, YOU are accepting him."

"GOD is not at war with the god of sickness which you made, but YOU are. He is the symbol of willing AGAINST God, and you are afraid of him BECAUSE he cannot be reconciled with God's will. If you ATTACK him, you will make him real to you. But if you refuse to worship him, in whatever form he may appear to you, and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made."

"Embodiment of fear, the host of sin, god of the guilty and the lord of all illusions and deceptions, does the thought of death seem mighty. For it seems to hold all living things within its withered hand; all hopes and wishes in its blighting grasp; all goals perceived but in its sightless eyes. The frail, the helpless and the sick bow down before its image, thinking it alone is real, inevitable, worthy of their trust. For it alone will surely come."

"There is either a god of fear or One of Love."

"Or will you make another idol to replace it? For the god of cruelty takes many forms."

"The ego is not a traitor to God to Whom treachery is impossible. But it IS a traitor TO YOU who believe you have been treacherous to your Father." "You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Father, left alone in terror in a fearful world made mad by sin and guilt, be happy now. That game is over."

"Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself." It was not His Will to be alone. And neither is it yours."

There are two thought systems, one is God’s system, the other is of the ego’s system. God’s thought system produces Creation/Heaven, the ego’s thought system produces hell/earth. Both systems run on impeccable logic based on a logical premise, and are systems of thought. They both start with a premise and follow through to a logical and natural conclusion. The conclusion of Heaven’s thought system is eternal life, the conclusion of the ego’s thought system is death. Both are arrived at through perfectly logical reasoning. As Jesus describes:

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit"

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and away from truth. Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end."

The two systems THINK differently. The ego’s system is entirely founded on separation and exclusion. Everything in the system obeys the premise of exclusivity. God’s system is totally opposite, and is founded on INCLUSION and sharing. Jesus tasks us to learn to "think like God", which does not merely mean to use EGO thinking to think about God, or to use exclusive logic at all when considering the nature of Heaven.

One of the biggest fundamental errors in ACIM circles is USING the ego’s thought system to THINK ABOUT the thought system of God. God’s system is SO unlike the ego’s, that doing so automatically produces two effects: a) what seems to make sense is nonsense, b) what seems like nonsense is actually true sense.

The ego always thinks in terms of separations and exclusions. And this maps directly onto objects in SPACE. You can say for example, if bananas are yellow, and this fruit is purple, it is not a banana. Or if my car is parked in the first space, it is not parked in the last space. Or if I have the whole pizza, you do not have any. Everything is put into a contained, confined box (body) and what is inside the box is considered separate from what is outside. What is outside is *excluded*, and there is no SHARING between the two regions.

This kind of thinking is based entirely in separation thought, a way of thinking that excludes, isolates, separates off, and "reasons" based on whether something is fully in or out of a box. You think about objcts in the world this way because the world ITSELF is the ego thought system, based on the same reasoning, the same logic, the same functioning and the same relationships of separation.

This WAY of thinking, exclusive logical reasoning, is EXTREMEY POOR at evaluating the nature of God’s thought system. When it looks at God’s system (everything in Heaven), it tries to put everything into nice tidy boxes. It separates things out. IT excludes. It has no regard for ANY form of sharing, oneness, Union, or anything that transcends boundaries.

It cannot SEE or comprehend how it makes SENSE, that something can be in more than one box at once, that the inside and outside of the box are joined, that something can be in more than one place at the same time, that two entities can have full access to share the same thing at the same time without compromise, or that two seemingly opposite statements can be NOT contradictory.

For example, when ACIM says something like "God has one son", the ego is delighted, because it gets to put God’s system into a nice confined box. When ACIM then says something like "We are creation, we, the sons of God", it now concludes either a) they can’t both be true, b) the statement about the one son is true and the statement about multiple sons is false, or c) God has many sons and not one son. These are the ONLY ways that can seem to "make sense" to ego thinking. NONE OF THEM ARE CORRECT.

The correct truth about God’s system,is that God has one Son AND many sons. The truth is also that each son has full unlimited access to share ALL of God, WITHOUT excluding anyone else from doing the same at the same time. The truth is also that as you give, you do not lose anything, and you keep what you had, and now BOTH of you have it. This sounds like absolute nonsense to the ego thinker. It does not conform to boxes. If there were pizza in heaven, you and I both would be able to eat the entire pizza. That sounds ABSURD to the ego. It is the way God’s system works!

His thought system is entirely run by INCLUSIVE logic. This is based entirely on sharing. Logically it means, we BOTH share things. Everything applies to me AND you. This is what the Golden Rule is based on. Equality. Whatever is true of me, is true of you. So if I have the whole of something, and I share it with you, we BOTH have the WHOLE of it. We share space. We overlap. We commune. We share . We are united. We are one. All things real COMPLETELY DEFY exclusive boxes. If you are thinking about Heaven, God, sonship, sons, creation etc WITH exclusivity in your logical reasoning, you HAVE TO come to a false conclusion.

For example, "I and my father are one". What does the EGO make of it? It thinks ok, it said me and my father , that’s two things, two boxes. So now we have two boxes. It then says "are one". So now..... there are two seemingly contradictory things happening (to the ego). Is it two boxes, or one box? And usually this is where an ego thinker wil THROW OUT the first half of the statement or forget it entirely, and home in on the second part., in an attempt to RESOLVE the contradiction. This is BULLSHIT. Total failure. Trying to MAKE it make sense, by butchering it.

The ONLY correct way to grasp what is said, is to literally think outside the box. You have to THINK differently. Use inclusivity. Inclusivity says, two things can SHARE. It says two things can JOIN. It says two things can be mutual in their likeness and nature. And it even says that two things can be TWO THINGS, while simultaneously SHARING EVERYTHING. And so here, being one with God does NOT end the TWO-ness. Two distinct things are SHARING with each other.

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

And so oneness, being one-with, are-one, DOES NOT mean "one box". In fact Jesus even says you can "be one with your self". It means BOX DEFYING sharing and singularity of NATURE, in which the two ARE STILL TWO, while ALSO being as if one. They are two AND one. Oneness to THE EGO means "one thing". Oneness to God means OF LIKE KIND. And here also SHARING does not mean "only has one" like a single identity, it means TWO THINGS are joined in their NATURE while still retaining their two-ness and INDIVIDUALITY! AND THIS IS NOT DUALITY. NOR IS IT NONDUALITY!

Similarly when Jesus says something hyper cryptic like "one brother is all brothers, one mind is all minds" or "healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad", IT DOES NOT mean that "the one box" is true, NOR does it mean the "two boxes" is true. It is not oneness (as in a count of one) OR duality. THEY ARE BOTH TRUE. There is simultaneously INDIVIDUALITY AND ONENESS. This is why you have a self AND are one. This is why you are one of many sons of God AND part of THE son of God. And this is also why the idea of many sons is NOT a separation idea. It is NOT an idea of "many boxes". It is more like the idea of many boxes which share the same space and overlap each other and share their contents.

The Kingdom of God, the sonship, creation, the relationship of souls, the nature of reality, the way God thinks, Heaven’s functioning, the Holy Spirit, extension, giving and receiving being one, the golden rule, sharing, communication, multiple minds, etc are all GROSSLY misunderstood, because anyone USING ego logic to think ABOUT them is blind, making no sense, using faulty tools, and coming to automatically false conclusions, putting stuff in boxes that is not in a box, and just creates confusion upon confusion.

You have to THINK LIKE GOD if you want to understand these things correctly. And the Holy Spirit’s thought system is based on this inclusive logic. And you are supposed to be learning HOW to think this way, as part of true perception. You have to let go of thought processes that follow the LAWS OF SEPARATION AND EXCLUSION. Otherwise you will think in terms of boxes and shutting everything out. You cannot INCLUDE your brother with that kind of thought process. And you cannot grasp oneness by locking it in a prison cell and falsely concluding "there is only one thing" or "its all one thing" or "there is only god" or "only one son". All of that is ego bullshit.

Creation is one and many. The "one" sonship has many perrmanent parts. You have brothers who are one with you. God has many children who are a united family. Not one or two. Many AND one. And that is natural.

"The whole power of God's Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. God would not have us be alone because He does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son and gave him the power to create with Him. Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself, and therefore as holy as He is. Through our creations we extend our Love, and thus increase the joy of the Holy Trinity."

In ACIM we're often talking about "the separation", or being separate. This is a way to describe a divide between two things. But another way is to refer to two "opposites". Heaven and hell, life and death, reality and illusions, etc. The separation was an act of opposition against God, producing an opposite state of mind.

When we're in a "separated state", we're in a state of opposition. This means we have an opponent, which we are totally un-like. And it also means we are at war. And because we are un-like our opposition, we do not "like" it. And this produces great tension.

When there seems to be opposition, there is tremendous temptation. The more extremely opposite two things are, the more they contradict each other and are in conflict. They can be in a state of extreme disagreement. In this disagreement, there is a maximal likelihood or temptation that conflict will arise, given how much the two seem to be at-odds with each other.

Tension arising from arguments, disagreements, conflicts, debates, righteousness, defensiveness, denial, protection of one's truth, opposition to or disbelief in the enemy's view, is all very likely to induce a form of war. There will be fighting and bickering and hatred and weapons being thrown and a taking of separate sides.

It's very difficult to "stay out of" such a conflict, when faced with extreme opposition. And the more they oppose you the higher the temptation is. If someone is digging in their heels and does not want a single shred of what you are offering, for example, there will be a stand-off, rejection, a communication breakdown, and a high chance of attack. They may want death, while you want life, but it won't stop them from trying to destroy you.

In this world, things which seem more alike or have something in common, seem to also experience an illusion of less conflict. I found this to be true when, for example, a person who was highly obnoxious and aggressive decided to walk a road with me one day. This person would take up a very opposing position of rebellion and anger, and this would produce a high likelihood of temptation and a flare-up of aggression. He was easily triggered due to his unhealed pain.

I decided on this occasion to pretend to be like him. So I sort of acted like him and agreed with him and spoke things he might speak, even though what I was agreeing to was not what I believed. And strangely this person started to see me as a friend or ally. I was actually doing this to try to protect myself at the time, but it showed me that it's really the distance or contrast between opposites that incites violent reactions, and so long as I did not "oppose" overtly, this person didn't target me at all.

There is similar temptation in ACIM circles, on any forum or discussion. When someone believes something opposite, particularly if it is wildly or deeply opposite, this produces a great temptation. Someone who is very patient, forgiving and calm, can perhaps resist the temptation. That takes some profound mastery. Someone who can't keep their cool in the face of intense conflict and contraryism, however, will likely lose it. How do you not be tempted by extreme evil? "One ring to rule them all"?

There is the most temptation or "tension" when something is completely opposite and contradictory. This is as if to say, someone is 180 degrees from you across the table and going head-to-head. There is also tension from misunderstanding, when someone is at 90 degrees, whereby the two do not look at anything from the same angle, like they are talking entirely different languages. They conflict more on a basis of not even understanding what each other is saying.

You'll perhaps notice that all the wars in the world are generally based on two parties very strongly disagreeing. They oppose each other. One tries to suppress the other to protect their own truth. They don't see it possible that they can live together in peace or accept each other's extremism. And just the mere existence of the other seems enough justification to destroy their heinous hedonism.

"Tension" is that sensation of very strong discordant energy between two opposites, and as each party has a stand-off and doesn't want anything to do with each other, it intensifies the tension. It's as though they rip apart from each other and pull on the fabric of existence in an effort to put as much distance between them as possible. The sense of resistance and rejection of each other heightens the tension, until breaking point.

The opposite of that tension is peace and harmony. But this can only exist either when the two opposites are able to be totally at peace with other without trying to disagree with each other, or when there are no opposites. It should also be obvious that you can't really hold a position that disagrees with someone else and be at peace. Like "let's agree to disagree" is really just a standoff, not an agreement. Either you have to be inclusive or you will be exclusive. And the only way to truly agree is that both believe exactly the same thing.

This all seems to be the same basic temptation presented over and over again in many forms in this world. Groups of people disagreeing with other groups. Nemesis and enemies going at it all over again. People getting heated because they think their beliefs are under attack. The sense of offense and hurt from other people seeming to be against your ideals. Everyone trying to correct and destroy everyone else that is different to them. Conflicts based on different bodies and genders and so on. The whole world is riddled with such temptations.

"Everything the body sees is a form of conflict." - ACIM

Sometimes when there is less contrast between two things they seem to get along. ACIM refers to them as allies, where the two are still in subjective egotism, but because their egotism "matches" they become in a way blind to each other. Neither of them "stands out" in opposition so they seem to be in harmony. But it is an illusion of harmony between two equally insane individuals. And if one of them defects, the claws come out and they scream betrayal.

Atoms and molecules conflict with each other, just by being different. Difference IS disagreement. Bodies conflict with each other just by being different. The first law of chaos is that the truth is different for everyone, and everywhere, and for everything. Every single particle of matter is different to, therefore in conflict with, every other. Everywhere you look, everything the body sees, mountains and forests and oceans and cities, it is all conflicting in its form. To be unalike is to be discordant and at war.

"The world was made as an attack on God."

"For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."

And so where there is conflict or difference of opposition, there is temptation, because there is extreme disagreement. Difference IS attack. And if you buy into the opposition or give it any power whatsoever, you set it up as an enemy in your mind. And then you will feel attacked by it, and will be attacking yourself, and will retaliate defensively, trying to preserve your sense of truth.

All special relationships demonstrate this. They're all founded on an illusion of peace, brought about by two conflicted individuals, who are at war with the world, finding an escape from the conflict seemingly with each other by having something in common. They hide from a mutual enemy together in the confines of an exclusive relationship prison.

"When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in."

So you've got a world of differences which tempts war, and two people who are at war with the world, who "take sides" together because they see an absence of war in each other, because they both are warring in the same way. They both hate the same stuff, they both exclude the same stuff, and so they are narrow and closed off in a similar way. And this produces an illusion of love. The same happens when siding with political parties or sports teams or segments of society or religions.

But this love is very volatile and unstable and riddled with conditions and contradictions. And if any of those conditions are not met, it quickly devolves into the special hate that it's based on. If one person even decides to be more unconditionally loving, the other conditional person may see this as proof of defection, and that the other is against them and unwilling to hate with them. And then it's bye bye relationship.

I think its probably true of most people that we tend to avoid conflict and try to create an illusion of peace in life. A safe house to live in. A way to avoid sickness. An avoidance of bad people. Trying to eat the right food. Staying away from known threats and dangers. All to try to pretend that the world is not a world of conflict, to make a nice comfortable corner in the desert where you can hang out with a false sense of security. Until shit comes knocking.

True peace can only come from a transcendence of opposition. But it has to also come from "taking sides with God". That doesn't mean being against anything because in God there is no opposition. God is all encompassing and love has no opposite. It is really only the opposition to God that believes in opposites. This is why the ego attacks and hates the Holy Spirit but the Holy Spirit completely ignores it. He doesn't attack the ego at all, He just shows you that it is invalid.

To take sides with God is to be vigilant for his truth and his Kingdom. It means to believe only what God believes, if God had beliefs. To know what God knows. To be under no laws but his. To recognize that opposition is truly fiction and there is only one real world, one reality, one truth. This light then shines and shines away the darkness of rebellion and of sin and war. And in the final recognition that there is no opposite to love, conflict disappears forever.

Quite often there are discussions in ACIM circles about whether this world is real or not. Whether the planet earth really exists, or is an illusion. Whether perception overlays on top of it or is just a misinterpretation of its objective reality. Whether the world is the forgiven world or the real world. Whether God created the physical or whether it's really not physical, and whether it will continue to exist after all atonement is done.

There seems to be just so much fundamental uncertainty among people as to whether this "thing" of a "planet" we call earth is actually part of God's creation, and whether it's going to live forever in some way.

For me I often come back to some very simple statements which I find practically impossible to deny. Such as that "God did not create the body". But you'll also get some people questioning what references to "the body" are, and going off on tangents about the body being real or "the body" referring to an interpretation in the mind, or some kind of perceptual psychological body, or whatever else.

Despite the fact ACIM refers to various aspects of the body that are very obvious such as the physical features, limbs, body parts, and their typical physical interactions with the environment. I think one think we can say is true, we've done a darn good job of just twisting and mangling the course's statements as a result of our confusion and uncertainty to the point where, sometimes, it's barely recognizable what it's even saying.

For me I take a fairly honest direct approach to what I'm reading. I think Jesus is super advanced in his mastery and knows exactly what he's saying. I think he is very careful about his word choices and their meanings and I also don't think he's ever expecting us to do major mental gymnastics in trying to understand what he's saying. "Like the Text for which this Workbook was written, the ideas which are used for these exercises are very simple, very clear, and totally unambiguous."

"You have begun to realize that this is a very practical course, because it means EXACTLY what it says."

That means that when he refers to such things as "the body" he's just very simply talking about the physical human body. And when he talks about "earth" he's referring to the physical planet earth. The earth which EVERYONE recognizes as a name for this physical planet. I don't see ANY reason to question that or to suspect that there's some kind of super-subtle esoteric "only for experts" meaning to those terms, where you have to study it for 50 years to finally grasp the nuance of that word is attached to.

A body is a body is a body. Earth is the planet earth. It's simple enough. And I think Jesus would've been a pretty terrible teacher if he were using such obvious terms in some kind of alternative, bizarrely indirect, nebulous way that only very few can ever grasp. It's a bit of slap in his face, to me, when people suggest that Jesus has somehow not been obvious or literal, or plain enough in his language, intending for most people to grasp it as easily as possible.

In light of that, for me personally, I come away from ACIM with a very strong impression that all things physical are fundamentally an illusion, the human physical body is an illusion - as in "the body is a dream" and "God did not create the body" etc, and that planet earth - the spatially separated spherical ball of rock and vegetation and creatures - is all totally an illusion. Not even that it's some counterpart to a higher more spiritual "version" of the planet or that it's some kind of stepped down denser version of some actual planet in heaven. But simply that it is NOTHING LIKE heaven in any way and is an artifact of separation and attack.

When you further look at other references in the course to very obvious well-known physical things, and look at what Jesus is saying about them, it becomes very clear that he really is referring to the physical world. Such as when he talks about children being born in pain, growth attended by suffering, being trapped in the human brain, growing old and dying, being buried in the ground, these are all such obvious references to the physical that anyone with half an ounce of sense has to recognize that's what he's talking about when he's referring to "the body". And in those references it is clear that he's saying "such things" are not like God or of God or anything to do with God. That God would be cruel to have created them.

But for some who knows what reason, some people who think of themselves as advanced experts on the course, seem to still persist in the belief that somehow Earth is heaven and human bodies are God's wonderful creations and all the little cute animals are part of the Kingdom and all we have to do is change how we look at it in order to recognize this. As if to say that true perception of this world is practically the same thing as what you would be aware of when you have KNOWLEDGE of this world. As if they're practically identical.

I see a lot in the course talking about forgiving this world, reflecting in this world, using this world for a purpose of eventually leaving it, and that this world will not last. I even see stuff about seeing it in such a heaven-like way that it seems to be almost part of heaven itself. But I still cannot get past the fact of how this world requires separation in order to show up at all. It is STILL an illusion of a world, like a shadow. It's an absence of a creation. The body is a residue of an idea of not being joined, and a wall that comes between things. I cannot see that a wall of separation can ever be thought of as truly part of heaven, or like God. God does not create limitations.

So for me, at some point earth is going to end. It's going to be forgiven and not condemned and light is going to be seen in it and then it's going to be shone away. It is not going to be able to withstand the light of God once we stop defending it from him. Such as in "eternity will shine away the world." And "the stars will disappear in light". And "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came." That's the extra step that some people don't seem to like the idea of, that even in its forgiven state this world is going to end. "The world will end in laughter because it is a place of sorrow." I don't think people realize that this still means the world WILL end, because it has a beginning.

Fundamentally it boils down to the fact that you cannot have "separated things", or space, or time, without separation ideas. These are ideas of a lack of love, an idea of sin. A gap or splitting off. These gaps and splits cannot exist when there is total healing. Healing would eradicate the gaps. And that means space will end and so will time. And that also means that now you cannot have physical matter with separate objects and distances and private locations and things being in one place and not another. The whole foundation for a three dimensional planet goes out the window. The body itself can no longer exist WITHOUT separation, it utterly depends on it.

There is also a fundamental fact that you can only forgive something that's an illusion. Some people seem to think if you forgive the world you are taking illusions away from it and seeing it as real. But that isn't forgiving the world, it's forgiving the illusions about the world. The forgiven WORLD, if it is earth, and if we are trying to forgive the earth, is only possible if the earth itself is an illusion. Only illusory worlds can be forgiven, and forgiveness is undoing. This is why anything you forgive MUST DISAPPEAR, because it's not really there. You can't therefore have a forgive world AND KEEP IT. Forgiveness eradicates it.

So either earth is going to remain unforgiven and kept, or forgiven and disappeared. Which means earth is fundamentally an illusion of a world. If we have false perceptions of it we are having illusions about an illusion - two layers of illusion. If we have true perceptions of it, we're having accurate perceptions of an illusion. Just because true perception sees earth for "what it is" doesn't mean "it is real". It is just what it is. It's an illusion of a world. A world that NEEDS separation in order to show up, that RELIES on space and time, that CANNOT EXIST without them. And once they end, it has to vanish. Because without sleep, there is no dream content. And "the body is a dream", and so is the entire environment in which it finds itself.

It's very very very obvious to me that ACIM is teaching us that there is NO EARTH, as in "there is no world." That it is literally an illusion of a world and not real. It's part of a "second order reality" or a second thought system which was invented temporarily in the minds of insane people. It doesn't have real existence, it only seems to. And the only reason to "save it" is to remove sin and accusation from it for the purpose of being able to finally recognize it as NOTHING, so that it can disappear. It still boggles my mind that anyone can come away from reading what ACIM says in such plain terms and still think that the earth is somehow a permanent reality.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there is a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There IS no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as if it were a person, to be seen and be believed."

"God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist. The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device FOR you. Again, as always, it re-interprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR separation into an argument AGAINST it."

When something is logical, you start with a premise, and then as the nature of this premise "extends", it produces logical conclusions. The conclusions that will come from this premise are really established in the premise itself. The limitations or scope of the premise determines what can come from it, and what comes from it is completely in accord with its starting point.

"Every system of thought must have a starting point. It begins with either a making or a creating, a difference we have already discussed. Their resemblance lies in their power as foundations. Their difference lies in what rests upon them. Both are cornerstones for systems of belief by which one lives."

When you use logic, and you arrive at a logical conclusion, what you're looking for is consistency, or the lack of contradiction within the logical system. If what you end up with seems to correlate to what you started with, and there was no obvious "nonsense" creeping in, then you can conclude that your logical conclusions are valid. You won't see any sign of contradiction so you'll consider the conclusion to be "correct". It will seem that the logic "makes sense".

What's happening is you're finding an internal consistency within the system, set up by the premise you started with. And each step you took in your reasoning did not violate the rules of the logic system. So whatever conclusions you ended up with seemed to make sense, based on what you started with. And this gives you a notion of things making sense, being valid, even being correct.

The problem is that the premise itself has absolutely everything to do with what you end up with. The conclusions that come from it, if you follow the logical steps carefully and impeccably, are really "automatic". If you start at a given starting point, you WILL end up at an ending point which is in harmony with the starting point. And you won't be able to come to a "false conclusion" if you reason it through carefully.

But if you start off on the wrong foot, if you begin with an assumption, of your premise is entirely wrong to begin with, what will happen? You'll still make logical steps, you'll still seek out internal consistency, you'll still look for that sense of "it all seems to fit together", and you'll still draw conclusions which seem to be in accord with the premise you started with. And you'll conclude "it makes sense" even. But the conclusions you come to, if you start off on the wrong foot, will be actually false. Even though they'll seem correct.

So you can be logical, and be wrong. If you start out wrong, you will only get something wrong at the other end. If you begin with a lie, you will end up with a lie, but it will be a logical lie which makes sense within the context of the whole system.

Thought systems work the same way, whatever the system is based on determines what can come from it, and only that can come from it and nothing else, unless you want to be contradictory. Yet if you start out with a system based on a lie, you will end up with lies. The lies will seem to make sense and even will seem "true" in that they seem to "add up" without contradicting the starting point, but they will still be false in the big picture. But if you believe them, you will be trapped and stuck, while believing you are free. And that is false perception.

This is the problem with the ego thought system. In the really big picture, the ego's system is a "small picture", and it is out of context, and it does not start with the whole truth. It is not beginning with something that is actually really true. It is starting out on the wrong foot, such as the belief that separation is true, or sin is real, or the impossible is possible, or death is life, or something real can be threatened etc.

When you start out with something ultimately false like that, you will produce an ENTIRE logical "system", where your reasoning will progress completely "logically" from the start to the end. And you will end up with conclusions which seem consistent. The conclusions will even seem to make total sense, IF the premise is true. But in the big picture, if it is recognized that the premise was false to begin with, then even though the conclusions are logically consistent, they are still false conclusions.

So the ego starts off on the wrong foot, on an assumption which is wrong. It starts with the belief that separation is possible, or sin is real, and then begins a progression of seemingly natural logical conclusions. If separation is real, then it must be true (consistent) that bodies are real. Then if bodes are real, it must be true that anything bodies experience is real. And if their experiences are real, then death is real. etc. That's a natural logical progress and completely impeccable logic. But the conclusion is insane because the whole "system of thought", the system of logic, began with a false premise.

When you start with a true premise, such as that God is infinite and permanent and immortal, there are once again logical progressions which come from this. If you follow the steps and start to draw conclusions based on that, and if you are careful to be consistent and not contradictory, you will end up with natural conclusions. And these conclusions will make sense, and seem valid, and they ALSO WILL BE TRUE. If you start with truth, you will end up with truth. And so whether or not the result is true or false, depends on whether the premise is true or false. And what you get out of the system as a natural logical conclusion or outcome, is set up in its starting point.

When the starting point is God, the natural logical outcome of God is the creation of the Kingdom. It's not that God randomly decides to create immortal beings, it's that the whole system just functions that way, truth goes in at the start, progressions of logical consistency occur, and you automatically get creation out the other end. And because you started with immortality, you end up with immortality. "God is but love, and therefore so am I." Such conclusions therefore are not only making sense, they are also TRUE.

"The Kingdom is the result of premises, just as this world is. You may have carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is total confusion about everything."

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth."

When you begin a thought process/system on a lie or illusion, you will end up with illusory lies which seem to make sense but are false. This means the total absence of REASON, which is the absence of sanity, because the whole system of thinking started out insane. When you start out the thought process/system with sanity and truth, you end up with a SANE conclusion. This is what ACIM refers to as REASON. The reasoning is LOGICAL, just as the ego's reasoning is logical, but it starts with sanity so ends with sane conclusions.

Just because something seems extremely logical, does not mean it is true. And this is a BIG problem for a lot of people studying ACIM. If for example you start out with a premise that e.g. God created the world, and you do not challenge this premise, the ENTIRE course will now be interpreted to try to "fit" it into that premise. And every conclusions drawn will not challenge that premise.

In order to uphold the premise that God created this world, a LOT of adjustments have to be made to the course's meanings, in order to produce consistency and a lack of contradiction. And this can lead to what seems like a consistent picture, but it is also completely wrong. Because it started out with a belief that is completely mistaken and unfounded, in light of God's nature.

A massive collection of CONSISTENT logical conclusions will be made based on it. And all of these conclusion together will form the appearance of what seems like a completely consistent internal coherence. It will STILL all seems to "fit together". A clear "picture" will form. There won't appear to be any contradictions. And any steps necessary to keep the premise valid will be made, regardless of the extent to which that means changing the meaning of the course.

Everything it says will be interpreted through that lens and filter. And the person will end up with a very elaborate, consistent, highly polished, internally supportive, self un-contradictory, and seemingly highly sensible set of conclusions. And it will all seem TRUE because it seems to make sense. And they will marvel at the seeming beauty of its logical harmony. BUT, the entire thing will be bullshit, because it all starts out with a false premise. And so the entire system of thought is completely mistaken. Yet it is regarded as truth because of its consistency.

You have to therefore be careful that your reasoning begins with something which is absolutely true. You need to understand God's nature first. And when you reason based on the truth, you will end up with truthful and valid and consistent answers, which are correct. You can't start with the world and try to reason backwards to find the truth. You have to start at the beginning of the system.

You have to have an awareness or grasp of what the absolute truth IS FIRST, before you can even proceed to think about anything. If you set off on the wrong foot, every conclusion you come to will be potentially false. But most of us will start out with false conclusions and assumptions and not question them, resulting in more false conclusions. Because we're starting out exploring all this with our egos, which has taken a whole bunch of assumptions as true, and this has not yet been questioned.

We have to find out first what the premise of our entire thinking is, whether we have started out on the wrong foot or not. And for that you have to ask yourself, what is the ultimate truth really like? What is God like? What is his nature? What IS the ultimate absolute premise? Where DID everything actually start, and what is the logical nature of that premise? Because from God, everything real proceeds as a logical system of thought, and it proceeds only according to His nature, and nothing can come from it which is unlike its starting point. So you have to be REALLY clear about God's nature before you can reason anything correctly.

When you can understand what God is like, you can start to draw truthful conclusions. And if you are careful, you can be GUARANTEED that these conclusions will be true. But if you do not understand God's premise, or you have difficulty being impeccable with your logic, then you will come to false conclusions because you'll be starting out with something false. And yet these conclusions will see true to you and make sense, even though they are mistakes or errors in reasoning. And you can end up with a whole lot of "it makes sense" even if you start out with lies.

This is happening A LOT in ACIM circles because many students are not yet in a position to grasp the nature of God's system, the premise of reality and the one truth. And so most of us are struggling to come to terms with what the conclusions are, yet alone being able to grasp where it all started or what it's all based on. And a lot of time is spent trying to uncover or learn about the premise.

If you return to the highest possible starting point, the pre-separation system, and you look at how God functions, and then you begin to reason out what CAME from that premise, and if you do so impeccably logically, you WILL come to true conclusions. But if you are mistaken about God, you will be mistaken in everything you conclude.

Those true conclusions will not only show you the things God COULD do, it will also show you what he COULD NOT do. What CAN come from Him, and what cannot. What He would will, and what he would not. And thus what you are, what your nature is, and what you are capable of in reality. When you do that, you'll see why the ego's system is entirely a FALSE premise, and EVERYTHING that comes from it will be false. And that includes the attempt to oppose God's premise, to overthrow the Kingdom, to make another world (including Earth), and why Earth CANNOT have come from God due to its nature being a complete contradiction of God's nature.

God does not make contradictions because He is logically consistent. For Him, heaven is the natural outcome of His premise. And Heaven is the ONLY outcome of His premise. Nothing else CAN come from it because it is rooted in truth. And because of His nature, Heaven HAD to be created. It's in God's nature to extend His logical premise to produce The Kingdom. Which is why it has always existed.

Earth, which is OPPOSITE to heaven in *EVERY* way, CANNOT COME FROM GOD. Its nature is opposite to His premise. It does not function like Him. It does not begin with the premise He begins with. And it cannot be a natural outcome of His thought system. If He were to create it, in addition to creating Heaven, that would mean two entirely different and opposing outcomes can result from a single premise. This is logically IMPOSSIBLE regardless of what the premise is. Each premise produces ONE conclusion in accord with it, not two different ones.

God could only create one or the other, and which one is set up in his beginning nature. Since Earth is opposite to Heaven, God could NOT have created it, otherwise He would have to have STARTED OUT with a split mind and be opposing himself. He would have to be fundamentally contradictory, as a premise, in order to PRODUCE two contradictory outputs. He could only Create ONE or the other, not both, and they cannot both exist or "be one" because of their contradictory natures. If Earth is real, heaven does not exist at all.

God is NOT contradictory, so He can ONLY produce ONE outcome. That outcome is HEAVEN, and Earth is therefore NOT OF GOD, and is not based on truth or reality. And since God is real, Earth therefore, logically, cannot be real. And since only what God creates CAN exist, Earth does not exist at all. And if God is permanent, Earth cannot be permanent. And if God exists, having Created ONLY heaven, Earth cannot exist at all. This is why "there is no world" and God did not create it.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates MUST be eternal AS HIMSELF" is a logical statement. Since Earth is NOT eternal, it must have come from a NON-ETERNAL premise, and since God is eternal, it cannot have come from HIS premise. And because HIS premise is true, it must have come from a FALSE premise. And therefore Earth is an illusion, and never will it be His one outcome.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there is to choose between, and nothing more than these."

As Jesus states here, the real and the unreal are all that you can choose between. Each of these is a "world", or a system of thought or order or thought. Reality is the higher order reality, an unreality is the lower order "reality" - the illusion of spacetime. These are the only two states that you can choose between. Two worlds, not three.

The "real world" described in A Course in Miracles, sometimes speaks in a manner which makes it sounds as if it is some kind of "in-between world", between heaven and earth. Not earth, not heaven, but something else. There are also references to it being a borderland of thought between the two. Kind of like the threshold of a doorway which is not really a place but a transition or meeting place, like a bridge.

But there are also other references to the real world which are framed more as if references to heaven itself. Such as "nothing there but shines and shines forever." And "This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all." And "Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT." These references are to me clearly references to heaven, yet use the term "real world".

I think in ACIM circles the attempt to grasp "what is the real world" has led to a lot of confusion especially due to the use of the term "real", and has led people to think it is a third world interposed between heaven and earth. I don't think this is really the case. I've been shown and told that the real world is the kingdom of God.

In terms of what Jesus has said about there being only TWO options, the "real world" becomes a far more appropriate term for HEAVEN. Because after all, Jesus is very careful and accurate in his choice of words, and heaven IS very appropriately "a real world". Not a pseudo-reality or an inbetween-almost-reality but actual reality. What else would you very appropriately call heaven but "a real world" - because it is actually completely real.

I see also references to christ vision looking beyond the physical unreal world to the light of heaven. I see references to us seeing christ - and christ is in heaven. I see references even to seeing God or having visions of God, who is not in this world. There are references to seeing your creations as well, which are in heaven. These all seem to further point to "the real world" being heaven.

Now, that said, it IS clear that there is a CONTEXT, and it also is the most frequent context, in which "the real world" term is referring to something seemingly "outside" of heaven. Particularly in terms of "For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight." And "The real world still is but a dream." Plus "And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love."

Now here's how I'm interpreting this. Let's simply and logically clearly say that heaven is the only real world. It is appropriately titled the real world. Let's also recognize that in spacetime we are using perception. Perception is once removed from knowledge. It is judgemental and interpretative rather than direct cognition or knowing. Perception is image-making. This "layer" of images overlays reality.

So now let's say that there is heaven AS a real world, and then there is a PERCEPTION OF heaven from "outside of it". This is a perception experienced by those who still have perception, who are looking in the direction of heaven, toward the light of God. They are literally peering INTO heaven from the outside. I think of this as "window shopping". They're outside heaven, in a body, having a perception or "vision" (true perception), but they're looking towards and upon reality.

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

This PERCEPTION OF reality is a dream still. It's like an image or a surface crust or layer of how heaven would appear TO perception. And let's not forget that "Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception CAN be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light." This to me implies that perception can reach to heaven and can see heaven.

So now what I'm saying is, the context where "the real world" is described as a borderland, a bridge, an image, a symbol, the face of christ, still a dream which can disappear, this is all talking about the PERCEPTUAL INTERPRETATION OF HEAVEN. It's not a direct experience of heaven or christ but it's how heaven and christ look when you use perception to look at them instead of direct knowing. It's still a little removed from heaven but it forms a kind of "image" or symbolic experience of it. This image is still a dream and that's why it comes to an end.

"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love"

"But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate."

So here Jesus seems to be confirming that "the real world" as used in its more common context, being removed from heaven, is SYMBOLIC - a symbolic version of the ACTUAL REAL HEAVEN. And symbols aren't something in themselves, they POINT TO the thing. They represent it, like a photograph. By using PERCEPTION to look upon the reality of the kingdom, you see it symbolically and no longer see the physical world. The "face of christ" then literally is like a surface appearance of christ, an outside "facade" ie a symbolic representation of the christ that is WITHIN heaven.

This to me is currently the only way to support the idea that there are ONLY two worlds. Not that there is a "real world" sandwiched in between them, or that this borderland has stuff in it. Because we're also told ""The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."

To me, the only way "the real world" can have contents that shine FOREVER, in contradiction to the fact that "even the real world will vanish from your sight", is that it's a reference to HEAVEN. Heaven's contents will shine forever. Heaven IS the real world. But the PERCEPTUAL VISION of heaven is what he refers to in the context of "the real world" that is a symbolic dream, which ends. First you see the kingdom as accurately as perception CAN, within its limits, and then you go INTO it.

"Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light. But no perception, however holy, will last FOREVER."

"Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for."

Note here that he's telling us that in the holy spirit's PERCEPTION, we will see the son of God. Where is the Son of God? He's in heaven. He IS heaven. He is the sonship. The Holy Spirit loves to look upon christ who is in heaven. His perception is a vision of christ, which later gives way to the direct cognitive knowledge of christ.

"And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ's love for what he looks upon."

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God."

This is why I've concluded that essentially the forgiven world is the ILLUSORY world of space and time and matter, which is looking AWAY from heaven towards form. It is earth, the world, which has been forgiven. And forgiveness forgives it BY OVERLOOKING IT, looking beyond it towards heaven. The real world is heaven, and it is the light which christ vision sees, which is initially seen using perception. When this perception is full and complete, as in seeing the face of christ or "christ as if seen from the outside", perception ends and you now enter into heaven.

ie "the real world" really is the kingdom of God. The perceptual interpretation of that real world is what is commonly thought to be "the real world". The real world is NOT a reinterpreted earth. That's the forgiven world. Because reality cannot be forgiven, only illusions can be overlooked. Christ vision which is true perception forgives the world by looking past it to the light of reality.

There are only two worlds. Reality and unreality. Perception is always within the realm of unreality, but can be adjusted to be more accurate and thus to perceive reality from the "outside". To interpret the kingdom. This is its view of the real world of heaven from within the perceptual landscape. When this perception is whole, the illusory forgiven world disappears entirely and is forgotten, and perception comes to an end.

So the commonly referenced "real world" (outside of heaven) is actually a perceptual interpretation OF the ACTUALLY REAL world of heaven. It's you looking at heaven through perceptual interpretation, with vision (true perception). It looks just like heaven because it is looking AT heaven. It is not a third world but is actually an experience of heaven's reality and contents through the heaven-aligned filter of true perception. Perception no longer distorts it and perceives it directly. This perceptual layer thus becomes irrelevant because it is not needed, and you then move into the direct experience without perception in the way, to SEE the SAME REAL WORLD of the kingdom, forever.

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream."

"Beyond this world there is a world I want."

"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."

"Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other."

"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him."

"The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true, and wholly YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it God created you as one with Him."

"As mediator between the two worlds, He (Holy Spirit) knows what you have need of, and WHICH WILL NOT HURT YOU."

"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains." "Heaven remains your only alternative to the strange world you made."

"The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture. As you look on THIS, you realize that IT IS NOT A PICTURE, but a reality. This is no figured REPRESENTATION of a thought-system, but the Thought Itself. What IT represents is THERE. The frame fades gently, and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation,"

"The (physical unreal) world stands like a block before Christ's face (perception's view of christ in heaven). But true perception (vision) looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil (of illusions), so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is (an illusion, nothing). And now it cannot fail to disappear (so it is recognized and vanishes), for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears (a vision of heaven), and in that instant is the world forgot (the forgiven unreal world) , with time (spacetime) forever ended as the world (forgiven) spins into nothingness from where it came."

"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

In terms of the truth, these are our only two options: either accept it as it is, or deny it. Denying it is an attempt to reject what the truth is, and to replace it with something else.

Jesus says denial is an act of 'positive creation' not just an attempt to negate the truth. By denying, we substitute the truth for something else, and invent or make some other illusion to take its place, to try to prove that something else is true. We actively erect barricades and something else to fixate on and believe in.

In the Atonement, we accept the truth as it is, as God has established it, without any desire or need to change it.

The opposite of Atonement or resurrection, is death, in which there is an attempt to reject all truth (life) and prove that something opposite is true (death).

Denial produced the physical universe. Denial implements all forms of sickness. Denial is death. Denial is also fear. "All forms of sickness even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening." Or to put it another way, when you do not want to accept the truth, you invent fear to try to explain "why" you cannot accept it. The fear is fake, just as death is fake. Death does not END real life, it DENIES IT and paints a picture which PRETENDS the immortal son of God has been killed. ("You have made a bargain you cannot keep.")

Denial was the attempt to reject the fact that you cannot sin, by trying to replace it with an attempt to prove that sin can and has been accomplished. Even in that attempt, it is a state of denial. It hasn't changed the truth. Denial has no power to actually alter what the truth is. But, being denial, denial is "in denial" of this fact, and so attempts to change the truth anyway, believing that it is possible. Such is denial.

Denial also represents unwillingness. When we attempted to deny God's will, or to deny that we are as God created us, we moved into unwillingness. This was an attempt to suppress our own will. We became unwilling rather than willing, or imprisoned rather than free. Death is a state of unwillingness, as are punishment, suffering, fear, guilt and sin. This is why it takes "a little willingness" in order to move towards acceptance of the Atonement (truth) because denial has to be undone.

Blocks to awareness are denial. Since the truth cannot be changed (it's established by God's will permanently), denial cannot actually change the truth into something else. And the only way to "believe in" something else being true, is to block out awareness of the fact that the truth is true. While you are still aware that only the truth is true, you cannot bring yourself to believe or be convinced by an alternative. So you have to "block awareness".

Denial does this by putting up an illusory psychological barrier, comprised of a "will to reject", which makes the truth go unconscious. Conscious awareness is cut off from accessing the truth, hidden behind this wall of denial, and so now all that you are consciously aware of is "whats left" that hasn't yet been denied. The stuff that has been denied now forms the unconscious mind, hidden from awareness and kept in the dark. Consciously, since you are no longer aware that it is present, or still true, or an unchangeable fact, and you cannot "find it" when you search around with your awareness, it SEEMS not to exist.

Many false conclusions are made based on this unawareness - based on incomplete information. For example if you are not aware that you yourself chose to believe in sin, you made the sin unconscious by implementing denial and inventing fake guilt to cover it up, you will now be unable/unwilling to see that you are the one who made you guilty. Instead you will now search elsewhere for a "cause" of the upset, and inevitably blame it on someone else, because that seems to make sense given that you are not aware of the hidden key fact of what you did to yourself. This is why Jesus said "Forgive them father for they know not what they do" - as soon as you go into denial, you do NOT KNOW what you are doing, because you don't have all the facts in awareness.

The secret of salvation lies in your willingness to remove the block to awareness, so that you can become able to SEE the chain of causality coming from yourself, the choices you made, and thereby realize that none of your conditions are caused by anyone else. Your mind is the sole cause of your experience. But this block to awareness, in order to remove it, MUST entail the willingness to remove denial. The layer of denial which literally blocks awareness - blocks the ability to SEE, must be undone. And that will only be undone through honesty and willingness.

Denial takes on many forms, and indeed all forms. It includes the belief that you are already innocent even if you have unconscious hidden hates, secret sins, unhealed wounds and layers of self-repression that you don't want to admit to. This can produce a state of "fake innocence" in which you don't SEE that you are the cause of something and so become justified in blaming it on someone else - scapegoating, accusing your brother of your own sin. It also then justifies anger, and this is why anger is never justified - to become angry is ALWAYS based on denial and unawareness of the facts. If you knew the facts, the truth, you would have NO reason to conclude that you should be upset.

Denial also accounts for this world - Earth - this universe. Jesus says in reference to it, "a world that denies itself cannot exist." The world denies itself, because it is made OF denial of God's Kingdom. All denial is self denial, and so this world is made of denial. That is why it is a BLOCK to awareness. "Nothing so blinding as sight of form." This is also why, when denial is lifted, and we are willing to see the whole truth, this world must disappear because, being made from denial AS a block, it is merely an illusion preventing us from seeing, and once you see PAST it and become AWARE that you are the cause/dreamer of it, you will stop USING IT to make God's Kingdom unconscious.

Another expression or use of denial is in the ego's motto of "seek and do not find". By denying that you already are perfect, you don't SEE the perfection in yourself so you think it is not there, and so are now empty, and are in need, and this need compels you to search for a solution to the emptiness somewhere ELSE, outside of yourself. This sets you on a "spiritual path" - ultimately the journey without distance. Here you will pursue FAKE SPIRITAULITY, fake peace, produce a spiritualized ego, spiritualize the world, spiritualize the body, and seem to side with one half of duality (ultra positive or ultra negative).

This also produces the PERSONA, which is a fake identity or fake mask which forms this idea of who you think you are, which is made of the denial of yourself. Even your physical body is a fake image, designed to make people believe that they are seeing YOU when they see IT, when in fact it is made to HIDE YOU. The body and persona then become filled with fakery, lies, self deception and dishonesty, resulting in a veneer of "looking spiritual" or "acting spiritual", decorated with spiritual clothing and performing fake rituals, which are all really designed to maintain the denial and block you from being AUTHENTICALLY YOURSELF.

The facade of innocence hides unconscious guilt, and makes a person seem holier than they really are. The main problem is the person themselves is unwilling to admit to why they are overcompensating for a deep belief in unholiness, by pretending to be holy and trying to convince everyone that they themselves are convinced of it. This "spiritual seeker" has to be undone just as much as any other denial, because it takes you away from yourself. You do not need to seek. You need to *acknowledge* what is already TRUE about you, and be grateful that God's creation has not changed.

Denial also plays out in the unwillingness to accept what is happening in your life. I spent many many years in denial that I was unhappy, afraid, angry, and it wasn't until my mid-20's when I started to admit that the way I was feeling was even those things. I did not recognize the mountain of upset in me AS fear or AS anger, and didn't even know that I was afraid and angry. Such was the denial. Denial obscures, making reality seem twisted and not what it is, so that you do not *recognize* it, and so remain in a state where you think it IS something ELSE. This failure to recognize the truth is what keeps us in the dark. Yet "illusions recognized must disappear". They can only be recognized by not being in denial.

Denial also produces various kinds of blindness. The unwillingness to see the truth. Even though people may be walking around in bodies talking and performing activities, they can be in various states of awareness ie various states of denial, thus various states of unconsciousness. Just because someone is working in a job and playing on the internet and chatting to their friends, does not mean they are aware or awake. Denial indeed is sleep. It is a suppression of awareness.

Since denial is unwillingness, it also produces justification for fear whenever the truth comes along to challenge the denial. If you are in denial and you are believing that the truth is not the truth, you've made it out to be evil, and have replaced it with a lie that you believe is your salvation. When the truth comes along, you see it as an attacker, a threat, and thus USE denial once again as the ego's only tool to reject, shut out, or put distance between, you and that truth. You bury your head in the sand to avoid it and to pretend it is not there. This induces all forms of sickness, because sickness is a defense against the truth. So yes, sickness is denial of life, as is death.

The funny thing about denial is that instead of being able to actually change the truth at all, you instead hide from the truth and block your awareness of it, reasoning that if you are not AWARE of it, it must not BE there. This is clearly denial because you are simply hiding your vision. Pretending that something is not there, does not make it go away. But in the ego, we become convinced by this delusion and think "out of sight, out of mind"... that if we can't SEE something, or cannot be AWARE of it, then it must not exist.

This way, we've told ourselves that we actually UNDID God, reversed creation, cancelled Heaven, and erased our true self. By believing that our denial of truth CAN change the truth (that darkness can hide the light), it's very easy to make the tiny shift from "I'm in denial of it" to "It's actually gone." Therefore we have come to believe, in ego denial, that we ACTUALLY HAVE changed the truth because our awareness does not show it to us and it seems not to exist any more. This way we came to believe that sin is real and has had real consequences. We think that we actually HAVE hurt God, produced a new truth, got away with murder, and destroyed ourself and our inheritance.

This belief then leads to the distorted perception that we stopped being innocent, CHANGED into a different state, our innocence went away, and now all that we're left with is guilt. And in that view it seems as though we have become unworthy, have transformed from sinless to sinful, or from innocent to guilty. The blocked awareness viewed from inside denial, makes it SEEM as if this is true. And so in denial, we automatically come to believe that our denying is actually WORKING, and is CAUSAL, and has power OVER the truth to change it. And so we think we have sinned, are really a sinner, deserve to be guilty, should be punished for it, and are worthy only of death. Denial produces the death wish.

From this side of denial, not seeing that our denial HAS NOT changed reality, we're quite convinced that we actually are guilty sinners who don't deserve love or forgiveness. And so we think we are working on or in or with this guilty "ego self", which has not only replaced our real self, but is the ONLY self left. In denial, we are not aware that our real self - our innocent self - still as God created it - is STILL THERE, still fully alive, still perfect, and has not changed whatsoever. That real self is right here with you now. That real self is already in heaven and never left, nor did it change anything in reality.

And so now we're in this strange position where we think we are only this evil self who can never go back to being holy, while all along our true self is perfectly undefiled and holy forever, existing in parallel to this false idea of ourselves. Your "higher self" therefore exists right NOW, even if your sense of identity is all caught up in denial and confusion and ego. This is why "enlightenment is but a recognition and no a change at all". It merely entails the willingness to be AWARE of what is ALREADY TRUE. And to reach that awareness, ALL layers of denial MUST be removed from the mind so that you CAN be aware of it.

To admit to being in denial, or even to admit to wanting to stay in denial - wanting to keep your denial - is still an admittance. It reveals a willingness to allow the truth to enter. Even if you say, "I admit I do not want to wake up", that is better than an unwillingness to even admit that. To admit, is to permit access. It means you are willing to let truth be said or expressed about whatever the situation is. And this truth then sets you free. Even if just a little bit. Even if you are just admitting to being in denial and that you don't want to do anything about it, admits more truth than to not even want to admit to that.

This therefore takes some willingness, and it takes honesty. It requires a willingness to be mistaken, without implying punishment. It requires you to get honest with yourself, to stop being in resistance or avoidance, and to LOOK AT what it is that you don't want to see. And looking at it with the truth, is looking at it with the Holy Spirit. He represents the state of mind in which there is no denial. Your willingness to dig out and offer up secret sins, hidden hates, grievances, and also ways that you don't want to admit or accept something, allows Him to shine away those lies and release you.

Now, in ACIM circles there are various forms of denial and blindspots and each person is different. I've seen the most denial circling around topics to do with the body not existing, and to do with the world not existing. These are two of the major sticking points because the ego denial has

built a fortress to protect belief in these two things, and believing you "are" a body or that there "is" a world are the two most fundamental "givens" in this world. The body is the hero of the dream, and the world is the dream itself. To question belief in either of these seriously pushes the ego buttons and seems to "threaten your establishments."

There is a lot of denial around these topics and a lot of refusal to accept them. Accepting that there is no world is one of the hardest things to do, because denial makes the world seem true, real, valuable and desirable. Denial that the world is a cruel place, for example, leads many to believe God created it. And with that kind of a conclusion, who would want to question God's reality? Yet we are still in denial until we are sure to have removed all denial. And we will be in denial that we are in denial, because we don't SEE that there is something unconscious to us that we believe does not even exist.

There are also good and bad forms of denial, or uses of denial. If denial is used to reject the real truth, that's not a good thing. If denial is used to reject lies, that IS a good thing. Or rather, if denial is used to reject the belief that denial is true, using the mind to ADMIT that the denial is there, or that it is FALSE, that is a worthy form of denial.

There are unworthy forms of denial, which usually entail either a direct 1st-hand rejection of what is real, OR a 2nd-hand rejection of the illusions that have arisen due to the first level of denial. For example it is denial to produce a body. The body was made to deny God and shut out sharing with the Sonship. This denial needs to be undone. But additionally, on a second level, while you are making a body, if you KEEP making it through denial, but then pretend in some way that it does not exist and try to "separate from" it, THAT is also an unworthy form of denial. Up to a point, "the body is merely a fact of human existence." But at some point, human existence (bodies) is also denial of Spirit. These denials are at different levels.

Jesus also tells us in ACIM that "the separation HAS happened." Many people DENY this, mainly due to confusion about "nothing happened" as the atonement principle. This is level confusion. We did have the tiny mad idea, and we did share it, and it did produce imaginary worlds of illusion. Jesus even says, that to deny this fact is an unworthy form of denial. But to "accept" that it has happened should only be done in order to quickly realize that atonement is the only meaningful "correction" for the separation, and that it should be done as soon as possible.

It is also possible to have denials on top of denials on top of denials. For example when you are in fear, you are pretending that you have good reason to be afraid of something outside you. But the fact is, the fear is a decoy to deny guilt. Fear is protecting you from guilt and deflecting attention away from it as the "reason" why you are afraid. Fear makes guilt unconscious and blocks the guilt. The only reason you are afraid is because you think you are guilty and want to punish yourself. But without awareness of that, in fear you'll look for causes of the fear externally. To undo fear you must remove the denial behind it, become MORE AWARE of what you denied, reveal the guilt, and fix the guilt. So you can see there are multiple layers of distortion surrounding the guilt, and even guilt itself is denial.

The ego only has one tool. "Deny what is." The one antidote is the atonement - "accept what is". But to accept what is, you have to first remove the denial, so that your awareness of "what is" increases. So this doesn't mean just accepting the world "as it is", because how you are perceiving it is NOT the fullness that's present. You are NOT seeing it for what's really there, and are not recognizing it as an illusion. Blocks have to be removed in your mind, so that you can SEE. By seeing accurately and fully, you have true perception, which shows you the truth about this world, that it is not real and doesn't exist. Without removal of denial you will try to accept it, but won't be able to recognize it or accept its unreality.

The ego used denial to hide God, by making sin. The ego used denial to hide and keep sin, by making fake guilt. The ego hid the guilt behind fake fear using more denial. The fear produces self punishment but by denying that you are doing so. And eventually death is denial even of punishment. At every step the ego is denying, denying, denying. Denying who you are, stripping away layers of what remains, until eventually there is nothing left to deny. In death there is TOTAL denial of the truth, and no-one who goes through death is in their right mind.

It all boils down to this simple dynamic. Either you accept the truth - God's truth as God established it, or you deny it. You have no other choice. And because denial does not change the truth, denial MUST be a lie, where you are PRETENDING that the truth is not true. So either you are pretending to be something you are not, or you are being your real authentic self - as created by God. It's your choice, whether to accept or deny. But no-one gets to define what the truth IS. Only God can do that. And being in denial DOES NOT redefine the truth, even though those in denial believe that this is precisely what they're achieving. This is the authority problem, which is nothing but denial and an unwillingness to be honest.

The freedom we have is one of accepting or rejecting, not establishing, but anyone in denial with an ego will be in the business of trying to establish what the truth IS, acting as a gatekeeper to have to "approve" or "disapprove" before anything is permitted into awareness. Only when we are willing to give up our attempt to be God, to make the truth, will we be willing to simply open up to ACCEPT and RECEIVE it. Accepting the atonement is like throwing up your hands and admitting, only the truth is true, and only God's will is possible, and only God's way will work. Nothing else works. The ego is a lie and death is failure. Nothing else is true. I might as well accept it and go with it. And this takes TOTAL SURRENDER.

Thankfully, the truth is on our side, and loves us and has created everything for us. A perfect home, the inheritance of eternity, immortality, absolute peace and total joy. Not too shabby an option to accept, when you realize you stand to gain everything and give up nothing by letting go of denial.

"No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."

"Heaven is a choice I must make."

"A dream of death is not left by death but by truth."

"The truth shall set you free."