The really big problem we have isn't so much to do with the characteristics of the ego. The big problem that we've confused who we are with it. Our sense of 'self' has become caught up in it. Our identity has been redefined by it. We actually believe that IT is who we are.

This is where we run into all manner of problems, and again, not even touching on the ego's death wish or all of its lies and deceptions, just the mere FACT of you having 'attached your self' to the ego presents major issues.

So just to clarify, there is YOU, and then there are two thought systems. There is the entire ego and its thought system, and then there is Holy Spirit and His thought system. YOU are either identified with and absorbed in one or the other. You, as the 'decision maker', float back and forth between them, but spend most of your time in ego land.

So who 'you' are, is really actually a combination of TWO things, your 'self', and either God or the ego. When you are identified with the ego, you THINK that you are 'one identity', but in fact you are two identities. You+ego. It's either that, or you+God. In God you actually can become ONE, but with the ego, you are always still separate and split and confused about who you really are, because you can't be fully one with the ego.

The problem now is, that you will try to become more spiritual. Now this alone leads to hellish problems. You will be holding on tight to the ego, while at the same time, attempting to become spiritual or to move in the direction of spirit. This is a major issue because your sense of identity is still very tied to the ego, so any efforts you make you 'stop being ego', will be experienced by the 'you' that is identified with the ego, as 'you attacking yourself'. The part of you tied to it will resist the truth, will not want to wake up, will retaliate and attempt to protect itself from the truth that the other part of you is exposing yourself to, and you will terrorize yourself!

What this also leads to is another major issue. Attempting to become spiritual WITHOUT dis-identifying from the ego, will cause you to attempt to bring the ego along WITH you in that transformation. You will try to make IT be more spiritual, because you think it is who you are. You'll attempt to transform the ego self, to pull the ego self into a new kind of thought system that it completely rejects and is incompatible with. It will resist strongly and it will not be able to stay there. So while you stay identified with the ego, you will constantly be pulled back into the ego after any endeavor to reach the light of truth. You will open up a little bit to truth, then the ego will act like a bungie cord, pulling you back down to its 'level' of consciousness.

So basically you have a major identity crisis. Who you think you are is so attached to the ego and its thoughts, that whenever you try to wake up, you think that you're being attacked. And really you are. If you are going to hold onto the ego while simultaneously trying to become more truthful/honest, you are going to SUFFER. You will spiritualize the ego. You will experience constant ego 'rebounds', which really is the ego-attached you pulling YOURSELF back to the ego that you trust, as if it is yourself. 'You', who think you are the ego, do NOT want to wake up, because the ego doesn't, and cannot.

This is basically the issue of what you are experiencing on 'level 1', which is the ego's level. Your identification WITH everything happening on level 1 ie ego thought system, attaches you to it. If you want to get OUT of the ego's thought system, and get to level 2 (Holy Spirit), it is going to be IMPOSSIBLE for you to make any lasting progress unless you are willing to LET GO OF THE EGO. Transforming the ego will not work because it cannot be turned into holiness. Leaping high in the air trying to grab the fruits of truth will only gravitate you crashing back to the ground again. The ego can't come with you to heaven.

So to really make progress here, you are going to have to realize, at some point, you have to stop all of your efforts to make your ego-identified self be spiritual. You, who YOU REALLY are, is already capable of 'being spiritual' IF you will attach to the Holy Spirit. You only need to let go of the ego's 'hand' and hold the Holy Spirit's 'hand', and hey-presto, you will SHARE the thought system of spirituality. You will enter into it. You will experience it. And your sharing of it will identify you with it and make it yours - not exclusively yours but still yours.

In essence you 'need do nothing' in order to qualify for entry to the 'spiritual universe'. YOU, who you really are, cannot change, because YOU are immortal spirit. You, as immortal spirit, have gotten lost in thinking you and the ego are the same self. That is all. You only need to be willing to SURRENDER the ego, let go of the ego, dis-identify from the ego, drop the ego, stop believing you are the ego, and remember who you really are (in Holy Spirit's mind), and you're done. All you're doing is getting divorced from the ego and marrying Holy Spirit, and along with that your whole sense of 'self' will change, away from the confusion of 'I am a separate ego' to 'I am shared immortal holy spirit'.

So really, YOU do not change at all. You just leave and surrender a mind that you thought was you, realizing YOU continue on without it and that you are NOT it, and enter into (return to) a mind based on God's mind where you have a whole different identity to associate with. This has little to do with who or what you 'are', and more to do with 'who you are with'. When you are with the ego, you think you're it. When you're with God, you tune into your real identity as His Creation.

You are free to leave the ego at any time. Nothing is keeping you in it but your decision to stay. There is another option and the ego is not your Self.

"You are not sick and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do." - ACIM

Who we are is an immortal being. Period. That's all that we are. Immortal and safe and eternal and invulnerable and incapable of being sick or suffering or dying whatsoever.

But we CONFUSE ourselves with things that do seem to suffer and die. We confuse ourselves with a body, with an imaginary world, and with all kinds of fictional things.

Even if it seems the body is sick, you are not the body. But you are producing a sick body which indicates you don't quite believe you are not a body.

See, the body only shows up at all if your mind believes it is "made of" an illusion. It therefore expresses its idea of "self" and it shows up. If the mind believes it is a separate ego thing, a body appears. The more it believes this, the more the body that shows up appears to be sick. When it really binds its idea of self to "body", a dead body shows up.

But even a dead body cannot show up at all without a mind to make a dead body show up. Even if the body is lying there on the ground "dead", there MUST be a mind which is putting that body there, still.

This is the distinction that you are NOT the body and are not that which dies.

But this does not mean that it's therefore okay for the body to die. If the body dies it proves that you must believe in death, because you will ONLY create in like kind according to your beliefs.

Those who believe in immortality only create that which is immortal. Those who believe in death create bodies which appear to die.

And having believed death is real, we will make bodies which appear to be dead as though real, because that's what we believe is truth. Believe it and you will create it.

There are some who believe that in the atonement sick bodies and healthy bodies are all the same illusion - which is true - and that therefor (this is level confusion), when you are in the world it does not matter if your body is sick or not.

It does matter.

The body cannot be sick without the mind being sick.

The body cannot seem to die unless the mind believes in death and victimhood.

A sick/broken/dead body is PROOF the mind has NOT been healed.

A slight belief that you are a body, manifests a slightly sick body.

A stronger belief that you are a body manifests a suffering body.

A really extreme belief that you are a body, produces a dead body.

See how the ego always produces the exact opposite of what it says it is going to do. Believing you are a body should surely produce an everlasting body, right? Wrong. It does the opposite.

Believe you are a body and you will NOT succeed in being a body, you'll produce a dead one.

ie it is literally impossible to be a body, for real.

If someone is being completely loving toward you, responding with unconditional love, then they can see who you really are.

If they fail to respond with love, this means they can't really see who you are. So what they're looking at isn't so much 'you' as it is how you might appear in a certain way, based on what the person is hallucinating.

So then every time someone doesn't treat you with love, they're not really treating YOU with unlove, they're treating a projected sinful guilty idea of a person with unlove.

The catch is that it usually looks like the person is making their unlove about YOU, and that they target it at you, even using your name, referring to you, pointing in your direction, getting in your face with it, but it's still not about you.

When you think it's about you, you have also joined with them in illusions and have taken it personally. You've failed to overlook the illusion that the person is actually attacking themselves, and that they're interacting with their own projected sinful self. It's easy to be mistaken about this and to think that they're doing it to you when they're really not.

So long as you are clear about who you are, that you are love, you will realize their call for love is clearly their own call and need for love, and love is the only response. But if you fail to see your own identity and confuse yourself with ego, then you will take their attack personally and will think it's about you.

You will make it be about you, even though it isn't. And as such you will hurt yourself with it. And then you will feel upset, not because they attacked you or because it was about you, but because you used it to attack yourself.

For many years I’ve had this strange knowing in the background, that the course is about immortality. But in our society, immortality is laughed upon as something utterly impossible and ridiculous.

I did not see hardly anyone else speaking of the immortality implied in the course. I thought maybe I was wrong about it and that it wasn’t about this. But over time the more I’ve studied it the more I see the ENTIRE course pointing towards our TOTAL invulnerability. Even "forgiveness" is only an aspect of the fact that no-one has even really done anything to you, because you are immortal!

This means immortality, as a spirit-identified person, is not only completely natural, it is the ONLY truth. Mortality is in fact NOT true at all. Yet the world believes everything is mortal, attackable, susceptible, vulnerable, hurtable, destructible. And this is because the world itself is all of these things, being unlike the nature of reality.

Regardless of the seeming profound lack of support for ideas of immortality among other ACIM students, I continually feel drawn to it like a moth to a flame, as a bright light which beckons with truth .. and something about it which is known. A beacon of truth in the midst of all darkness and confusion and the avalanch of opinions.

Becoming identified as a non-body spirit entity, and stopping believing that I am a body, is entirely an act of siding with immortality. Regarding myself as incapable of being attacked by anyone but myself, is an act of aligning with invulnerability. Realizing that the world has no power over me beyond what I give to it, is a restoration of my unlimited power and unopposed will.

Everything in ACIM is pointing towards heaven. Pointing towards reality. Pointing towards the fact that God’s truth and immortal nature are the ONLY truth, and everything else is utterly bullshit."You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do."

The entire world, all bodies, the entire ego thought system, all attack sickness and death, is a "confusing yourself" with things that are not immortal. Confusing who you ARE. Not knowing yourself as God knows you. Rejecting your true nature. Separation is rejection, and is the opposite of joining with yourself. And when you reject your immortal self you do not love yourself.

Love is immortality because it is endless. It is permanent and unconditonal and unlimited. It is what you are made of. You cannot die, ever. You cannot be hurt in any real way. You cannot be abused or persecuted or offended or attacked or damaged. No-one can do anything to your soul.

You alone are responsible for the confusion you have of believing that these things CAN affect you, which is an act of affecting yourself and blaming it someone else. All you need to learn is this one thing. You can never die. You are PERMANENT. You can never be changed. You can never malfunction. You cannot be sick. Nothing can ever be wrong with you. If you think there is something wrong with you, you MUST be mistaken.

God creates only that which is permanent. You are still as God created you. Not one single speck of the world has ever touched you. Not one single event has ever changed or defined you. Not a single second of a single day has done anything whatsoever to change God’s creative act of creating you perfect. And you WILL NEVER stop being PRECICELY as He wills that you be forever.

"There is a Light in you Which cannot die, Whose Presence is so holy that the world is sanctified because of you. All things that live bring gifts to you, and offer them in gratitude and gladness at your feet."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self-concepts to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like Itself."

"You sacrifice YOUR innocence with his, and die each time you see in him a sin deserving death. Yet every instant can you be reborn, and given life again. His holiness gives life to you, who CANNOT die because his sinlessness is known to God, and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not."

"You think that death is of the body. Yet it is but an idea, irrelevant to what is seen as physical. A thought is in the mind. It can be then applied as mind directs it. But its origin is where it must be changed, if change occurs. Ideas leave not their source. The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God."

"Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be."

"You have nailed YOURSELF to a cross and placed a crown of thorns upon your own head. Yet you CANNOT crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die. His Son HAS BEEN redeemed from his own crucifixion, and you cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal life. The dream of crucifixion still lies heavy on your eyes, but what you see in dreams is not reality. While you perceive the Son of God as crucified you are asleep. And as long as you believe that YOU can crucify him you are only having nightmares. You who are beginning to wake are still aware of dreams and have not yet forgotten them."

"Your will is His Life, which He has GIVEN to you. Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF. Yet God's Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

You are an immortal permanent being, changeless and the same forever. The goal of awakening is to KNOW THYSELF as this fixed, unchangeable, eternal spirit. A being that is utterly unaffected by anything no matter where it goes or what it does, certain of who and what it is forever.

The question then is, why do you have fear if you are such an unchangeable being? Nothing can attack you, nothing can hurt you, nothing can stop you from existing, nothing can make you dead. So why are you afraid all the time?

The main cause of fear is the idea of death, that you might stop existing and not live forever. It's something that has to undermine your sense of permanence and immortality, to make you mortal, in order for you to be threatenable. If you might not live forever, you might die, and now you are afraid.

But the real issue here isn't that you might die - because you can't. You are an immortal being that is always the same forever. The issue is that you BELIEVE you are something else. You don't recognize yourself as permanent. You think you've become something that can be attacked or threatened or in danger.

So really most of our fears stem from body-identification, false ideas about who and what you are, a failure to recognize your permanence, forgetting your invulnerability, having artificial values and specialness, separating yourself off from the whole of eternity and trying to be limited.

If you are in states of confusion about what you are, you are mistaken. And that mistakenness inspires fear in you. You make false conclusions and then you suffer, and you're doing it to yourself. If you could know yourself as you really are you could never have any reason to be afraid, knowing that you are eternal and live forever.

When your body is having problems, when the world is threatening, when stuff is going wrong, when the fires are raging, when you've lost things, when you're angry at someone etc, you're believing that you are not an immortal being. And that makes you start believing that these other things have power over you, causing you to be suffering and sick and unhappy. But this is a mistake. Every source of fear is a mistaken belief in a power outside of you that isn't really doing anything.

It wouldn't even matter to you if you were being in a body or not, or coming or going, seeming to exit the world or not, because you'd know it has no bearing whatsoever on who and what you are. It doesn't change you or affect you or make you dead. You just carry on being you, forever, guaranteed and protected by God.

So really all our suffering stems from the belief in death, which is a belief in mortality, which is a denial of being immortal. We need to remember our immortal nature in order to assert that we cannot be hurt, have never been hurt, and therefore all is forgiven.

"The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is KNOW THYSELF. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for himself and the power and glory he thinks he has lost." UrT8D6

"To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead." UrW139L3

"This is a course in how to KNOW yourself. You have TAUGHT what you are, but have NOT let what you are, teach YOU." UrT16D4

"It means that you are willing NOT to know yourself, IN ORDER to be sick." URT9K3

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today." UrW84L2

"Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be." W166L11

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do." UrT9K8

Nothing real can be threatened. It should not possible to threaten anything, anywhere. Yet here there is seemingly a world, which is filled with things which can seemingly be threatened. Somehow it has been arranged that there are objects which can collide, obstacles to hit, explosions to damage things, and all manner of weapons to attack with.

But how can there be one single ounce of attack if nothing real can be threatened? What can this world be made of that it can seem to be attackable? Surely it must be that the attack is not really attack, and nothing actually is hurt, and it's all just a big illusion made to look like such things are happening? How can any of it be a real attack if attack is not possible?

Jesus says in the course that there is no safety in the world. He also says bodies can clearly attack bodies. He also says problems were made to not be escaped. He also says you are immortal and cannot die but you can confuse yourself with things that do. He also says the world has no safety to offer, everything visible will perish, and everything you built has the mark of death upon it.

So what is this world, where there is no safety, riddled with problems, everything can be attacked, and the seeming impossibility of "attack ability" seems to be rampant?

If you look you'll notice that everything physical in this world seems to be attackable. Nothing is truly protected from anything. Anything can attack anything. The myth of safety on the level of form is everywhere, the desire to avoid physical attack, injury, harm, death, sickness etc. Yet none of these things should even be possible.

If reality cannot be attacked at all, and there is nothing else, if there appears to be something else that is attackable it cannot be real attack ability. It has to be some kind of deception, formed from the very same fabric as the rest of reality, in which strange shapes, appearances, images, concentrations of thoughts, temptations and so on, are made to look "as if" attack is possible.

So one person kicks another person in the leg. Has there been an attack? Not in reality, for sure. So whatever this is, it must be some kind of strange twisting of make-believe images, hallucinations, warped to make it "appear" that not only does something attackable seem to exist, but it has indeed attacked and been attacked. But no matter how it appears, it cannot be true that attack is real, has happened, or that anything is truly harmed.

Any sign of harm MUST be some kind of extraordinary smoke and mirrors deception. Any hint of damage to anything must be an illusion of death pretending to exist. We don't have anything to make the world from other than our thoughts. The same thoughts that we create eternal life with. The same mind. What do we make the world with except our mental processes?

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

"I can be attacked by nothing but my thoughts"

Therefore you use thought to attack thought, in the form of a giant thought in the shape of a planet. Or a body.

The laws of spacetime, the made-up physics, largely governs the "workings" of this illusory world, what makes it possible for it to seem as if materials can attack materials. It's all set up fundamentally to make it seem as if attack is possible. The world was made to try to prove sin is real. And it was made as an ATTEMPTED (and failed, impossible) attack on God. "It is the world you see that is impossible."

Real attack must be impossible. It simply cannot actually be attack. It must be a lie, a deception, an unreality. It cannot really be there. Nor can it have real consequences. Nor can it be irreversible in its effects. Nothing about it can be permanent. All attack is an illusion in a dream of death. The world is nothing but a disguise over the truth, and nothing about it is true at all.

When we are greatly distracted by, tempted by, and lost in the world, it is hard to recognize the secret of salvation.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF."

But the real key part of this isn't just that you are doing things to yourself, rather than it being others who do it. It's that it can ONLY BE YOU who can hurt yourself.

Jesus describes many times that you have hurt yourself. You have hurt your mind. You have attacked yourself.

"Because you had attacked yourself, and BELIEVED THAT THE ATTACK WAS EFFECTIVE, you behold yourself as weakened."

"Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will demonstrate that NOTHING HAPPENED. Therefore, by attacking, you have NOT DONE ANYTHING."

"By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe."

"You HAVE attacked him, and you MUST have attacked yourself first."

It is easy to place a lot of focus on other people. On forgiving the world. On healing the body. On world events and problems. It is easy to spend a great deal of time caught up in relationships and dramas. But all of these forms of suffering are really quite far down the line in terms of what came first, and where the real power is.

What comes first happens quickly and so close to home, that it is easy to miss. YOU .... attack yourself....... BEFORE. ... the entire world happens.

"Only the self-accused condemn."

You accuse yourself FIRST. You attack your invulnerability FIRST. You try to undermine your immortality FIRST. You position yourself as afraid FIRST. You make yourself a victim FIRST. You see yourself as lacking FIRST. You condemn yourself FIRST. You accuse yourself of sin FIRST. You do everything to yourself FIRST.

THEN ..... having attacked yourself, the whole thing starts to cascade into projection and blame and dissociation and denial and displacement and various other ways to "disown" responsibility for what you have done to yourself.

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you."

It then becomes possible to become confused as to WHO did this to you. You deny that you did it to you. You pretend that someone else did it to you. You shift the responsibility. You hide from your own self attack. You don't want to look at the fact that YOU are trying to self destruct. All self attack is an attempt to kill God's son - which is YOU - which is suicide. And eventually this results in suffering, sickness, and death, ALL OF WHICH are self inflicted.

"It means that you cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness." "YOU CAN BUT HURT YOURSELF. This has been oft repeated, but is difficult to grasp as yet."

"For you HAVE hurt yourself, and made your Self your enemy. And now you MUST believe you are not you, but something alien to yourself and "something else," a "something" to be feared instead of loved."

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

This doesn't have ANYTHING to do with anyone else, or the body, or the world, or spacetime. It's entirely to do with. ... do you love yourself or not? Do you accept and live in your IMMORTAL nature which is given by God, or do you DENY that you are immortal and TRY to make yourself mortal? The only ambition of trying not to be mortal, is that you try to destroy (kill) yourself. But since your immortal self cannot die, you confuse yourself with a body and kill it instead, as a representation of yourself dying.

"If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves"

"Yet you CANNOT crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die"

"What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

The attack upon YOURSELF, is all the only problem. You thinking that you attack others, is YOUR problem of being confused, and you are mistaken. You thinking that others attack you, is you being confused, and you are mistaken. NO ONE has ever attacked you against your will. You have never suffered against your will. You have never been sick against your will. You have never died against your will.

"Would you not rather live than choose to die?"

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

Salvation, and the secret of salvation, is simply that ANYTHING you experience other than immortality, YOU are doing to yourself. You are the SOLE cause of it. There are no external causes of suffering. There are no external causes of sickness or death. "There are no accidents in salvation." Nothing in the world can do ANYTHING to you against your will. No one can vioalte you or offend you or hurt you against your will. You CANNOT BE A VICTIM unless you deliberately decide to be one.

So this really has nothing at all to do with anyone else. It is entirely to do with .... are you going to forgive yourself, or not? Are you going to love yourself, or not? There is another subtle part to this though. Your soul and your mind are two different things. Your soul is your self, your identity in christ. But your mind is a medium that your soul uses for expression. Your soul does NOT need salvation because it is permanently immortal. It has never been attacked and never will. But your MIND is confused and HAS tried to hurt itself. It DOES need "healing" or correction.

This means that, even your own self attack, even your mind's efforts to destroy you, even your belief in sin and evil, even your death wish, in truth has NO EFFECT on your immortal soul. Nothing changes about the truth of you. Even your self induced suffering is not REAL suffering. Even your self inflicted pain is not real pain. And as you try to kill yourself off, you as the son of God is totally unaffected.

This means that EVEN IF you attack yourself, you are not REALLY attacking yourself. You have not REALLY ever done anything to yourself. "I am still as God created me."

Recognize first that ALL attack is SELF attack. This is not easy when you have slipped down the slipper slope into projection. It has to all come back to YOU being totally responsible for sin. BUT, you must not stop at being responsible for sin because it is not real. You need swift correction, so that you will recognize you HAVE NOT even sinned against yourself. You must admit that YOU are the ONLY cause of ALL your suffering, and decide to STOP HURTING YOURSELF. And then you can receive healing.

This simple truth, that YOU are the only one hurting yourself, and YOU can decide to love yourself instead. .. is the CORE of A Course in Miracles. Once you love yourself, or. .. seek first the Kingdom of God (which is you) .... your way will be made straight. Everythign else will fall into line naturally, including performing miracles, healing the body, and undoing the world.

"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."

"When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but YOU cannot. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW, for if you did, you could never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in ANY way, for that is not God's Will for His Son."

"It can be but myself I crucify."

All that I do I do unto myself.

If I attack, I suffer. But if I

forgive, salvation will be given me."

"As prayer is always for yourself, so is forgiveness given you. It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him."

"I repeat again that if you ATTACK error, you will hurt yourself."

"To see a body as anything EXCEPT a means of pure extension is to limit your mind and HURT YOURSELF."

"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."

"I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

"When he thinks that he is hurt in any way, it is because he has forgotten who he is, and that he is as You created him." "If ever I am sad or hurt or ill, I have forgotten what You think, and put my little, meaningless ideas in place of where Your Thoughts belong, and where They are. I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

"I will not hurt myself today."

"His thoughts can frighten him, but since these thoughts belong to him alone, he has the power to change them, and exchange each fear thought for a happy thought of love. He crucified himself. Yet God has planned that His beloved Son will be redeemed."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."

We may not realize it, but from birth onward most of us came to believe that we are our body. That literally, this physical object with arms and legs is our own self. There's my toes, there's my fingers, there's my face, there's "me". Parents talked about "you" this way. You talked about you this way, asking yourself, what am I?

And we look upon this strange thing in the mirror and cannot quite fathom what it is why or how we came to be this strangely shaped creature of extraordinary complexity, the likes of which we have no idea how it functions.

What we have to realize is that this is the false starting point, and this is the state of imprisonment. Believing we are a body is completely a mistake. A total error in perception. And in fact the body was made with and in order to produce false perception.

The body's eyes cannot see, the ears cannot hear, all its senses are back to front and it reports on illusions as if they're real. The body is a lie machine. And yet there we are starting out by believing every word it says, everything it does, everything it seems to tell us, even to the extent of believing it is our own self. And we are CLOSE to it that we think everything it experiences WE are experiencing directly.

So invested is this belief that we are a body, that we have taken something which is utterly not a body whatsoever and have tried to smush it together and bind it and join it and strap them together into one lump, to call it myself. We may not realize, there is a YOU, and then there is a BODY, and the two are not the same

In fact, the you that you really are is SO UNLIKE the body in every single way that if you were to catch sight of it you'd be astonished that you ever thought you could be a lump of flesh and bones. But since the body itself was made to block awareness of this, to act as a temptation device and a way to deceive ourselves, we're quite lost in it.

"The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself."

We did a VERY good job of deceiving ourselves. To such an extent that almost all conscious recognition of not being a body is blotted out by the body. And so as we attempt to become more spiritual or to reawaken, we're going to run up against a very basic fact.

The body is NOT who you are at all, but you heavily believe IT IS YOU. And on the basis of believing it is you, and backed up by everyone else believing their body is their self also, you have spent years upon years of reinforcing this "uniting" of self and body, regarding it as yourself, talking about it as if it's your self, worshipping it, cleaning it, feeding it, sexing it, using it in various ways, all under the seemingly clever guise that this is YOU doing this stuff, it's YOU looking in the mirror, and it's YOU that's gorgeous today.

When you look at society, look at the news, look at how people talk about bodies. Almost every reference to a person is ACTUALLY a reference to their body. "Joe did this"... well no, joe's body did. Joe is not a body. This is pretty serious, how far reaching this is. We've gone really really far into this distortion. Every single way that we confuse ourselves with "our own body" - and by the way you don't really HAVE a body as a spirit - is a mistaken false perception of ourselves. It's delusional. It's like saying you are your jeans and t-shirt and shoes.

We've become lost in our bodies. Tangled up in form. Confused about who and what we are. Deceived by appearances. Tempted to regard this object in the mirror as though it is our self and to then preen it and decorate it and worship it and feel bad about it all based on the belief that it is you. This is the big problem that needs correction. This is body identification - whereby the Son of God is trying to prove he is NOT a spirit, NOT a mind, and ONLY a body. It's the complete opposite of awakening.

So if we're on a spiritual path to God, then we're going to have realize, that any progress towards that goal will have to entail learning that YOU ARE NOT A BODY. In fact, you're not even remotely a body, nor do you really have one. You are immortal spirit. "You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do."

By confusing your IDENTITY with the human body and thinking of it as "my self", you are confused, and confusion is fear. And this is also level confusion. And it is also sickness. And it is a way to defend against the truth. And it's a choice to suffer. It's a form of self attack, and an attack on others, to regard yourself as physical.

To emphasize the qualities, characteristics, gender, sexual persuasion, desirable or undesirable features, shape, size, color, ethic origin, hairstyle, musculature, skinniness, sexiness, attractiveness, ugliness, or any other attribute of the body as being something that determines or says ANYTHING about YOU, is delusional. It is confusion about who and what you are.

But we are addicted to using the body like some kind of idol worship figure that we hold in very high regard (or low) as a statement of "what I am like". Yet nothing about the body applies to you at all. We can get lost in how proud we are to be a woman or a man or gay or straight or white or black or pretty much anything else. NONE of it is true of you! You are made of light. You are a spirit being. You have immortality. Your body is an entire LAYER of illusions covering over your real self. It's just a picture that you show to the world to pretend you are not yourself.

"The IDEA of separation PRODUCED the body, and remains connected TO it"

"The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards."

"The body is the idea of who you are not."

"For what you are cannot be seen nor pictured."

"Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA?"

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself."

"The ego regards the body as its home, and DOES try to satisfy itself through the body."

"The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of separation. And both are nothing more than attempts to LIMIT communication, and thereby TO MAKE IT IMPOSSIBLE."

"Only by assigning to the mind the properties OF THE BODY, does separation SEEM to be possible."

"A PERSON conceives of himself as separate, largely because he perceives OF himself as bounded by a body."

"The body IS separate, and therefore CANNOT be part of you."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"The man was an illusion, for he seemed to be a separate being, walking by himself, within a body that appeared to hold his self from Self, as all illusions do."

This means that all the ways that we believe and act as if we ARE the body, as though its prowess rubs off on us, as though we get credit or discredit for how the body looks, as though anything about it AT ALL says anything about you AT ALL, has to be undone. We have to be willing to let go of all the ways we have confused ourselves WITH it, so that we can come to the recognition that we are DISTINCT from it, and that it is NOT ourselves.

In a sense, we have to "separate out" what is REALLY YOU, your real self, and what is an illusion. "The body is a dream", so it is an illusion. IF you are confusing it with your sense of self, you are losing sight of your real self. Not being clear about WHAT you are - immortal spirit - you are unclear about what is real and what is an illusion. You cannot BE a body if you are to be real.

This means that your ENTIRE sense of identity - self - what you are - has to SHIFT away from the body, TOWARDS SPIRIT. To become spirit-identified. That is the goal. To let go of the body entirely. To be completely clear it is not you, and you do not need it, because it is not part of who and what you are. God did not create it, so it is not really part of your real self., and does not exist in reality or heaven.

The proper use of denial is to not BELIEVE that the body is real, and to therefore deny its existence, recognizing it is not yourself or anything real. The improper use of denial is to BELIEVE the body is real, while trying to deny it exists, which is actually a double denial. To believe bodies exists is a denial of your spirit. To then sacrifice the body is denial on top of denial. We have to carefully dismantle our belief that the body is real in the first place, shift our sense of identity back to its natural God-given state, and then accept the atonement truth that we are still THE SPIRIT that God created, NOT a body whatsoever.

Upon realizing you are spirit, clearly, and with no delusion about being a body, you may for a while be using the body. But now the body is merely a TOOL. Similar to how a carpenter would use a hammer to construct a chair, he would not for a moment become delusional and believe that he IS the hammer. It's just a device, an instrument, a piece of machinery. You can operate it and make it do stuff but at no time do you believe it is YOUR SELF.

And having recognized that your entire fulfillment comes from remembering who you ARE, you would no longer seek to use the body to GET anything, to "pleasure you", or to enter into illusions of joining at a physical level - knowing it is not possible, or necessary. "Minds need not bodies to communicate."

Full-on spirit-identification, christ-identification, son of God identification, sets you free from death, from the world, and from all bodies forever. You are not a body, you are free, because you are still as God created you. And those who know themselves are not confused about whether they are a walking flesh prison or not. Shifting to spirit means shifting away from EVERY sense of identity associated with the body form. Race, gender, sex, age, genetics, ancestry, shape, color, features, all of it.

You are only what God created. You are a shining star in heaven's womb. How could you be anything but God's divine creation.

We have many names for death. Headaches, cancer, diabetes, wounds, heartache, unhappiness, grief, lack, depression, insanity, all of it is really death. According to ACIM anything even slightly less than total immortality - eternal life - is a form of death.

"Death is a thought which takes on many forms, often unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you. All such thoughts are but reflections of the worshipping of death as savior and as giver of release."

We have categorized all these sicknesses as if to say there is an entire hierarchy of illusions, some more severe or more dangerous or more total. But they are all one thing, really. Fear of cancer is really fear of death. A cold is a small death. Being sad is death. Anything which moves us away from eternal life is attempted suicide. Any slight lack of absolute joy and worthiness is a sense of having died.

So it's not like, you've just got an issue with a certain kind of sickness, or an inherited specific problem, or a propensity to contract certain issues in certain situations. It's all really one thing. One illusion, all of it is death, and it has only one solution.

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?"

Each time we are unhappy we're moving into death. Each time we're afraid of sicknesss we're moving closer to death. Each time we hold a grievance we want some death. Each time there's a slight twinge of annoyance we're going into death mode.

When we are as God created us, willing to be only that, we are immortal. "You are immortal and you cannot die." And that immortality is accompanied by God's will, joy, love, eternal life, peace, happiness, constant perfection, holiness, creation, etc. These are our natural birthright, given by God. When we move in any way against these things or reject or deny them we are attempting death.

"All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual. "Rest in peace" is a blessing for the living, not the dead, because rest comes from waking, not from sleeping. Sleep is withdrawing; waking is JOINING."

Each time we move into unconsciousness in some way, into some kind of life-denying rejection of love and joining, a breakdown in our holy relationship, we are trying to bring about death by making ourselves UNAWARE of the truth. This unawareness, attempted unconsciousness, is attempted death and attempted murder. It's not in our best interests, although ultimately it's just a dream and not a reality. But dreams can be nightmares to those who don't want life.

A Course in Miracles is a course in life. A return to immortality. Resurrection from a state of death. We are literally coming back to life, coming home to eternity, and returning to immortality in God.

"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. 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."

"You are immortal and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do."

In A Course in Miracles, in the beginning, you are safe in God, happily co-creating with Him. Then along comes the tiny mad idea. The authority problem forms, level confusion begins, you go into the separation and the idea of real sin is given belief.

Believing that sin is possible, has reality, has occurred producing real effects, and is irreversible, is an unforgiving attitude. If you were to be forgiving you'd recognize that sin is impossible and there is no sin - that you remain innocent. But without forgiveness you immediately enter into the belief that sin is real.

At this point, you are already attacking yourself. You have condemned yourself by believing that you really sinned against God. You now have an unwillingness to forgive yourself. This sets up a chain reaction whereby, since you sinned, and you did it, you must be guilty of it. And since you are guilty, you deserve punishment.

This is all a judgement that you are placing on yourself. It has nothing to do with other people. Just the simple belief that you really sinned is enough to condemn yourself to death. Actually death is a completely logical conclusion if sin is real, and until the sin is undone, you will seek to destroy yourself for what you did.

So the mere act of believing sin is real is actually an attack upon yourself, a condemnation. And this automatically is going to lead to you believing that you should be punished. It will even make sense to you that you should be punished. You will agree that punishment is called for, because of your guilty nature.

If you believe in your guilt you're going to continue the process of self attack. You will allow yourself to be hurt, because you will agree with punishment as if it should be happening. You won't resist it or defend yourself against it. You'll welcome suffering and want retribution against yourself. And when you arrange for others to seem to play the part of victimizer, punisher or abuser, you are secretly wanting to be the victim because you think you deserve it.

But the more dangerous aspect here is, it isn't really others or the world or God that are going to enact this vengeance for you and upon you. It's you. Your own belief that you sinned and are guilty will compel you to believe you should be hurt. You are starting to hate yourself and find yourself unworthy of love. And you will start trying to hurt yourself. It will make sense to you that you should suffer and you will actively try to make it happen because it seems justified.

As this develops you are becoming more and more suicidal. What is suicide other than self attack, self punishment, and an attempt to destroy yourself? We should make clear here that the entire ego thought system is an attempt to destroy your identity. It's an attack on God's Son, on His immortality. It's an attempt to deny that you exist and destroy yourself. So the whole ego thought system is suicidal and self-defeating from the beginning.

This essentially is the cause of all death. Every single death, no matter the seeming circumstances or appearances of causes, is solely the result of the belief that sin is real. And all forms of sickness are symptoms of the fear of God's wrath, the desire to suffer, and an attempt to project your sin onto others in a futile effort to deny that you believe you did it.

"The wages of sin is death."

"No one dies wihtout their own consent"

"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

So anyone who believes they really sinned, is suicidal, and is choosing to die. They are consenting to punishment, because they believe they deserve it for what they did. Every single dead body in the history of the human race has been caused by the belief in sin. It's essentially a death wish, a wish for the death of yourself as consequence of your sinfulness.

If you consider the belief that you sinned against God, attacking Him against His will by usurping his power, playing God and having authority over Him, you will now believe that God is entirely justified in vengeance. In essence, you will believe that God wants you dead - that your death is God's will. And this will then lead to the belief that you cannot go home, you are not welcome in Heaven, sin cannot be undone, and there is no choice at all.

Based on this a death wish is formed, producing the sense of the inevitability of death. It's the belief that returning to Eternal Life is no longer an option, so the only thing you can do is suffer and die. This makes death the only path you can seemingly follow. And it's this belief that makes death seem inevitable. The driving force is your own belief that you really sinned, which is already a way to condemn yourself to death.

The good thing is, that in truth you did not really sin, God is unchanged and nothing has really happened. You have only dreamed of all this and there is no real sin at all. Nothing real can be threatened so the idea of sinning against something real is nonsense. This means that if you can recognize your sinlessness, which is accepting the Atonement truth, the belief in sin is uprooted at its core. There is no foundation for sin when innocence is recognized, and this is how the atonement cures you by proving sin doesn't exist.

"Only atonement can be said to cure."

The good thing then is, that if you are willing to forgive yourself and recognize you never sinned, you are not guilty, and you are still loved by God, this opens up to the door to option B. You can now CHOOSE whether or not to go towards death or towards eternal life. Death becomes OPTIONAL. You recognize you don't HAVE to be sick or die, and you actually can choose never to die again. To never commit suicide.

By acknowledging you are welcome to return back Home to God, because you are forgiven and have never sinned, Real Life is on the cards again and you can choose it. Which means you can choose not to die! You can choose to experience eternal life, and never have to die again. To never again torture yourself, make yourself unhappy, suffer or make yourself sick. That you deserve to live and not die, because there is no sin or death and you are free.

"There is no death, the Son of God is free."

"I am still as God created me."

"There is no sin."

The acceptance of the Atonement is the end of suicide because it is the end of death. It is the end of the sense of inevitability or "lack of another option". It's the reclaiming of the power to choose to accept the eternal life you already have. And it therefore signals the end of the need for sickness and death. Those who are innocent have not sinned, are not guilty, do not deserve to die, and thus death has no purpose.

The fact is then, that most of the people on this planet are suicidal. To varying degrees, we're all trying to die. And most believe death is inevitable because they have not forgiven the belief in sin entirely.

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

No-one deserves to die, and no-one needs to die. In truth no one CAN die, but we can confuse ourselves with things that seem to.

"You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do."

Given you cannot die and are permanently innocent, it is pointless to try to make death happen. This is why Jesus is asking you to "swear not to die, you holy Son of God." Only those who are committing suicide want death and thus choose it. Those who are awakening to truth, forgiving themselves and are preparing to go Home to God, MUST relinquish the attraction to and need for death. And this automatically melts away as the guilt and sin disappear. Without sin there is no death. And without death there is no world of sin.

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

If you have not sinned you are not guilty. If you are not guilty you do not need to be punished. If you do not need to be punished you have no basis for hurting yourself. If you stop hurting yourself you never have to suffer or die ever again. This is the secret of salvation.

This is a course in LIFE, in resurrection, and returning to your immortality. It is the end of all suicidal death and the restoration of eternal life. Death is a failure to forgive. And succeeding in forgiveness opens the gates of heaven.

If you are immortal, nothing can victimize you.

In order to see yourself as victimized, you have to pretend to be mortal.

To be mortal, you have to attack your own immortality.

Having attacked your immortality you will perceive yourself as vulnerable and weak.

In weakness you will believe that you are vulnerable to attack and have been attacked.

And having been attacked, and having denied that you set this up yourself, you will accuse someone else of doing it.

Then you will be lost in projection believing you are being affected by the world and the people in it.

But the secret of salvation simply reminds you that your own attack thoughts - death thoughts - are attacking your own invulnerability.

And therefore what you have done to position yourself as mortal, as a victim, is entirely your own doing from the inside out, and what appears to be done from the outside in is absolutely nothing.

You have simply tried to pretend you can die, and then you've blamed it on the world. You're even willing to make the body suffer and die if it means accusing everyone else of sin.

This is all a disguise and a game of death that you play to pretend you can be a weak helpless victim.

In truth you cannot be weak or helpless or a victim. You are immortal and permanent and unchangeable and have the power of God in you.

You can never be a victim unless you victimize yourself. And what God created can never be hurt.

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you."

"Turning the other cheek does NOT mean that you should submit to violence without protest. It means that you cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness. Show him that he CANNOT hurt you, and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself."

"Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in ANY way, for that is not God's Will for His Son."

"They were not created to enable you to HURT yourselves through them. They were created to CREATE with you."

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

"Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated, or in need of ANYTHING, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today."

"His holiness gives life to you, who CANNOT die because his sinlessness is known to God, and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not."

"Now do we live, for now we cannot die."

"Yet you CANNOT crucify God's Son, for the Will of God cannot die. His Son HAS BEEN redeemed from his own crucifixion, and you cannot assign to death whom God has given eternal life."

"What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF. Yet God's Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. "

Whether it be truth, or love, or the Holy Spirit, or Christ, the Holy instant, or your soul/one self, something that has come from God has to be the thing that corrects your mind. Your ego mind cannot correct itself. Light must enter from outside of it. You can't solve a problem from inside the problem.

Something of God has to help you. This is because LOVE is the active agent that CAUSES fear to disappear and GIVES life in order to UNDO death. Something that HAS life in it must give that life to that which lacks life. The lack cannot be supplied by that which is lacking. Those who have MORE, give to those who have less. Those who have and ARE love, give to those who lack love.

Your task is to RECEIVE an "off-the-shelf solution" from God, a solution that is GIVEN to you and done FOR you, such that all you need to is accept it and receive it, and then extend it to others. Love and life does not come from you, it comes through you. Correction does not come from you, it comes through you. Healing does not come from you, it comes through you.

"Truth will correct all errors in my mind. I am mistaken when I think I can Be hurt in any way. I am God's Son, Whose Self rests safely in the Mind of God."

"Never approach the holy instant AFTER you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is ITS function. Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function."

"referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency."

"Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven."

"The therapist does not heal; he LETS HEALING BE. HE can point to darkness, but he CANNOT bring light OF HIMSELF, for light is NOT of him."

"He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God."

"No needs will long be left unmet, if you leave them ALL to Him Whose FUNCTION is to meet them. This is His function, and NOT YOURS."

"Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing."

"I who am host to God AM worthy of Him. He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be. It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I DO NOT INTERFERE with His plan to RESTORE to me my own AWARENESS of my readiness, which is eternal. I need ADD nothing to His plan, But to RECEIVE it, I must be willing NOT to substitute my own IN PLACE of it."

"We thank you, Father, for Your guarantee of only happy outcomes in the end. Help us not interfere, and so delay the happy endings You have promised us for every problem that we can perceive; for every trial we think we still must meet."

"The Holy Spirit will not delay at all in answering your EVERY question what to do. He KNOWS. And He will TELL you, and then do it FOR you."

"Salvation comes from my One Self."

"The love of Christ will light YOUR faces, and shine from them into a darkened world that NEEDS the light"

"Today I let Christ's vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead."

"And God Himself shall wipe away all tears."

"The answer is GIVEN. Seek not to ANSWER it, but merely RECEIVE the answer AS it is given. In preparing for the holy instant, do NOT attempt to make yourself holy to be READY to receive it. That is but to confuse YOUR role with His. Atonement CANNOT come to those who think that THEY must FIRST atone, but only to those who offer it NOTHING MORE than simple willingness to make way for it."

"All this is GIVEN you, who would but SEE your brother sinless. All this is GIVEN, waiting on your desire but to RECEIVE it. Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him."

"The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is KNOW THYSELF. There is nothing else to learn. Everyone is looking for himself and the power and glory he thinks he has lost."

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

"You have forgotten Who you really are."

"But you might remember that the reason FOR the course is that you do NOT know who you are."

The separation from God was also the separation from yourself. You blocked your awareness of who you really are. Your real self became obscure to you, forgotten and buried beneath layers of denial, distortion, lies and darkness.

What remains now, which you might think of as who you are conscious of being, is a very narrow and limited view of yourself. This narrowness confines you and seems to define you as small and imprsioned in a body. As if you are body-sized instead of universe-sized.

You think that the scope of your conscious awareness is the total scope of your whole self. Whatever of yourself you are aware of, that seems to be all of you. But it isn't. There is more to you.

It's kind of like you've got a bad case of amnesia, you are not consciously in touch with your actual real nature, and are no longer centered in the wholeness of your real self. You think you've turned yourself into someone else. So now you have a false and confused sense of identity. Especially if you think you are a physical body, or the ego.

In the back of your mind, underneath layers of denial, behind clouds of guilt, beyond various forms of deception and illusion, there is the core of your being. Your soul. Your real identity in God. It's still there, waiting to be uncovered.

It is a perfect self. The original self that God created you to be. And it hasn't really changed at all. But it's been concreted over by various beliefs and lies and stories you've tried to teach to yourself.

Your challenge, or really all that you need to do, is uncover and get back in touch with your real self. To sort through the garbage pile and clear away the blockages so that you can have a fuller sense of seeing, able to be aware of who you really are. Of who you have really always been, but you just forgot for a while.

The whole of ACIM is geared towards you remembering WHO YOU ARE. It's goal is to know yourself again. To uncover your real identity as Christ. And to restore your awareness of your place in God. It is a path of "self-realization". Who are you? God knows who you are. And the Holy Spirit can remind you.

"Your goal is to find out who you are, having denied your identity by attacking creation and its Creator"

"To hold a grievance is to forget who you are."

"You have handled this wish TO KILL YOURSELF by NOT KNOWING WHO YOU ARE, and identifying with something ELSE."

"Your Father's Name reminds you who you are, even within a world which does not know; even though you have not remembered it."

"And thus, if you confuse your function with the function of Another, you MUST be confused about yourself and who you are."

"You will lose all your fear of teaching and relating in any form once you know who you are."

"But what you really are must be revealed to you."

"And no one CAN know his function unless he knows who he IS."

"No course whose purpose is to teach you what you really are could fail to emphasize there is no difference in what you are and what love is."

"Atonement remedies the strange idea that it is possible to doubt yourself and be unsure of what you really are."

"Your real worth IS your divine authorship, and your Soul is its acknowledgement."

"And if your reality is God's, when YOU attack, you are not remembering HIM."

"By deciding AGAINST your reality, you have made yourself vigilant AGAINST God and His Kingdom. And it is THIS vigilance that makes you afraid to remember Him."

"what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured"

"This IS your reality. Do not desecrate it or recoil from it. It is your real home, your real temple, and your real self."

Forgetting for a moment the bigger picture context, which the ego always ignores, it can seem like this world makes sense.

The body seems to be able to see the world. Becoming sick seems to be something unwanted and an attack on us. The body seems to have senses of the environment and tells us what's there. The world seems real and outside of us.

But when you reintroduce the big-picture context of what happened before this world as made, it puts everything into a completely different perspective. It give you something to contrast again, to compare, is this true, or is it an illusion?

Before this world, you had vision, the ability to see in the light. There were no obstacles. When you made the world and the body, you created a kind of bubble, populated it with objects, painted the interior walls to shut out sight of God, and then fixated on the forms.

You made a body which was designed specifically to not see God, to focus only on form, to obsess over appearances and to be completely distracted by images seeming real. You made this world and the body to BURY YOUR HEAD IN THE SAND and NOT SEE. The whole purpose of the world is to DENY GOD.

The body was given so-called sensory organs, allegedly permitting you to see and sense the world. It was given eyes to be able to seeming have sight.

But all of this is completely inside out. And the reason and purpose of it is completely backwards.

The body's sight is made to make you BLIND. It is made to PREVENT VISION, so that you will be fixated on appearances, illusions, distractions, so that you DO NOT see. The more that you gain sight of form and bodies, the more blind you become. You SEEM to be seeing "more", but you are seeing LESS.

Similarly, it seems as though sickness is something we don't want and is attacking us against our will. We seem to "not want it". But the Course tells us that in the big picture, we put sickness in place on purpose to DEFEND ourselves against life, We actually think we are defending our SELF because we have identified with a fake ego self, and that self seems vulnerable (because it is an illusion) and needs defenses. So we defend the body in order to try to SAVE OUR LIFE from the attack of truth, which attacks the body and MAKES IT SICK. So now, in the big picture context, sickness is self-attack and a WANTED attempt to die, in the name of preserving your life!

We came into the world not to experience something real, but to get away from reality. We gave our body sensory abilities so as to NOT to sense what exists, but to confuse and block the ability to sense. We created eyesight to SUBSTITUTE for being able to see. The body can't see shit.

In this world, vision is blindness, sickness is self defense, life is death, death is life, what seems it will save you destroys you, defenses are attacks, everything is backwards and inside out and upside down. Nothing is as it appears. Even "nature" is unnatural. Everything about the ego's laws are unnatural. What is "supernatural" is actually natural. Miracles are natural. When they are not happening, something has gone wrong. They are supposed to be happening ALL THE TIME.

To be free of this must entail the undoing and letting go of, dissolving of, disappearing of, all of these illusory forms and things that we MADE UP solely for the PURPOSE of avoiding God. We can repurpose them temporarily and learn from them and use them for awakening, but they are only useful teaching devices for as long as we NEED to be taught, or rather to unlearn. Then we will let them go. Who would want to keep a body which sees only an inversion of reality, blocks vision and defends against God? It is unnatural. It is not needed.

Something I'm finding quite clarifying, is recognizing that there are 3 levels in the course, not 2.

The first level "level 1" is the Kingdom, ultimate reality, God.

The second level is the separated state of MIND, not a physical state, a level of ego insanity within the tiny mad idea, a thought system of separation, but largely composed of beliefs and thoughts. This is where the ego lives, the egoic fragmented mind.

The third level is the physical world, spacetime, planet Earth, human bodies etc. This was projected out FROM the 2nd level by the ego. We did not want the fearful content of the separated mind so we denied it and projected it. This produces a SYMBOLIC world which symbolises the egoic thought system level 2 in every way. Level 3 became a way to "house" and "defend" the egoic content of level 2 and HIDE it.

When you then read the course and it talks about things to do with symbols and the body being a symbol of fear and a symbol of the ego and so on, it becomes easier to follow when you assign the mental egoic content to level 2, and the physical aspect to level 3. The fear, the guilt, the insanity, that's all on level 2.

Then it also becomes easier to say that, our attitude about level 3 physicality is largely driven by the level 2 ego mindset, but its on that level 2 that we can make corrections and healing, and this results in a higher perception of level 3 physicality.

The important thing I think is to decouple or separate out the physical from the ego. The physical is its own level of symbolism and separation. It symbolises the insanity of the ego mind. But we have to be careful not to BIND it to the ego in level 2 otherwise we start thinking that the physical is inherently sinful or death is bad or having other negative attitudes about physical things beyond their own nature, which is unforgiving.

But we then want to be able to see that same physical symbol through a higher quality of mind. If we detach all of the ego, sin, guilt, fear, etc from the physical level, it becomes easier to see the physical as more neutral and to then consider seeing it FROM a different level 2 mindset.

I think this also helps because we need to be realising that we need to dis-identify from everything on level 3. ie we've tried to take the mind from level 2 and merge it with level 3. We can step back fro level 3 physicality and not confuse the two levels of mind and body. Level 2 can become the 'right mind' rather than 'wrong minded', and then perception will shift from false to true.

To switch out the content of level 2 for the Holy Spirit's thought system, or to line it up with that at least, to symbolise heaven, we enter the state of forgiveness and then can perceive the physical level 3 as the forgiven world.

"The circle of fear lies just below the level the body sees (level 2, below level 3), and SEEMS to be the whole foundation on which the world is based (level 3 based on/symbolizing level 2). Here are all the illusions, all the twisted thoughts, all the insane attacks, the fury, vengeance, and betrayal that were made to keep the guilt in place (in level 2), so that the world (physical level 3) could RISE from it, and keep IT hidden (level 3 hides level 2 ego). Its SHADOW (from level 2) rises to the surface (level 3), enough to hold its most external manifestations (level 3) in darkness (level 2 projected onto level 3), and to bring despair and loneliness (level 2 ego content) to it (level 3 physical), and keep it joyless. But its INTENSITY is veiled by its heavy coverings (level 3 matter), and kept APART (separate levels) from what was made to keep it hidden (level 3 hides level 2)." UrT18J6

"The body (level 3 physical) cannot see this, for the body (level 3) AROSE from this (level 2) for its protection (to hide level 2), which must ALWAYS depend on keeping it NOT seen. The body's eyes (physical level 3) will NEVER look on it (level 2). Yet they will SEE what it (level 2 projecting onto level 3) dictates. The body (level 3) will remain guilt's (level 2's) messenger, and will act as it directs, as long as YOU believe that guilt is real. For the REALITY of guilt is the illusion (level 2 content) which seems to make it (level 3 matter) heavy and opaque (solid-seeming physical matter on level 3), impenetrable, and a REAL foundation for the ego's thought system (symbolic of level 2). Its (level 3's) thinness and transparency are not apparent, until you see the light BEHIND it (level 2 purified of ego). And then you see it as a fragile veil (level 3 is the veil), before the light."

We are addicted to the body. We talk about the body as if it is the same thing as the person. We talk about what they are wearing as if they are the body wearing it. We ask what they are looking at, as if because the body is looking so are they. We talk about what the body did, what the body ate, and how the body slept, as if it was the person doing these things, which we then celebrate the body doing. We cover the body in clothes and remark at how wonderful WE look. We think we are it, and this is a major confusion of identity.

There is a PROFOUND degree of body identification in this world. Take a look at the news. You can be pretty much guarantee that almost every single news report will feature people who are heavily in victim fear roles, heavily bodily identified, not overlooking the situation whatsoever, and quite unconscious, discussing what happened to bodies. And then you have the whole "he did this to me" "she did that to me" "they were doing this and that". Always pointing to bodies, because only bodies can sin. "Only if there were a body is sin possible." "Only the body makes the world seem real." Always mistaking bodies for people.

And then we look to a spouse or a child or a parent or a neighbor or coworker or some other stranger and we say, look, behold, there is a person. But all we point at is the body, using our own body to sense its presence, and seeing little else.

Bodies are not souls, they are not real, and God did not create them. Parts of our mind are using the body temporarily but any confusion about the mind BEING the body is level confusion, magic, sickness, authority problem, body identification, attack thinking, blindness, and evidence of blocks to awareness. But this is how the whole world is operating almost all the time.

It is SO habitual, so ingrained, and so accepted as normal, that you see it very subtly infused into every advertising, every conversation, every interaction of body folk. It's become totally habitual. Always with the "you", in reference to the body self. "They" in reference to groups of bodies. The whole word of the law is written based on what bodies do to bodies and whose body did what to whom. Copyright law doesn't even acknowledge discarnate entities as valid authors, such as in the case of Jesus and ACIM.

It is so heavily assumed that people are bodies in this world, due to massive widespread body identification, that it is literally everywhere. In all walks of life, in all forms of communication, people think they are human beings with arms and legs. This is a problem, because it is not true. And we have to actually deprogram ourselves of this belief. And as we do this, we're going to start becoming VERY aware of the fact that the whole world is going against the truth in this way. That 99%+ of the population relates at a body-to-body level and does not see beyond it.

You can see how the development of christ vision, the opening of the spiritual eye, the clarification of spirit identification, recognizing YOU ARE NOT A BODY, you are spirit, is an entirely different kind of way of relating to people. It totally steps back from the entire association between "you" and "your body". It denies the assumption that your brother is his physical form. "You're looking great today Paul". Well, no, Paul isn't flesh and bones and you are blinded by perception of form. If Paul's like, oh hell yes, I'm looking great today, then now we're into Paul being body identified and having level confusion. And if Paul decides to confuse himself with his body in order to confuse his brother with a body in order to have a body relationship, well now he has a cell mate and they're both in hell.

This is how profound the course is. We have to learn to dis-identify ourselves from the FLESH AND BONES body prison. We have to learn it is NOT OUR SELF. We are not made of bits of flesh and strange organs. It does not look like us. It is not a representation of our true nature. At best it symbolized health and wholeness but your soul absolutely does not have a penis or vagina, nor does it make shits, nor does it sip the cool-aid. "I am not a body I am free" should mean that totally literally. 100% NOT even REMOTELY the body. Not even a tiny bit the body. Such that the body is utterly UNLIKE you in every way. Just a random picture of a form. Because "The body cannot contain you who are life." and "What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."

When we show the body to our brother, identified with it, we are offering him hell and damnation, having damned ourselves to it. We give him what we have given ourselves. We can only offer him a body if we think we are a body. And this means we are offering him something valueless and meaningless. Which is a way to attack him and strip him of his divinity. Neither you nor your brother are physical. Your mind is non physical. Your soul is formless. UTTERLY FORMLESS. Abstract. Shapeless. Boundaryless. Unlimited by space or time.

When we make the body sick we use the body to accuse our brother of sin. This is an entire teaching to do with how the body symbolizes attack and communicates a message of proof of sin in order to find your brother unworthy. But it goes even further, not just including typical sickness, and even beyond sex. It goes as far as to say that EVERY way that you use the body determines the message it symbolized and if you have ANY KIND OF BODY IDENTIFICATION, this is an attack on your brother AND yourself.

If you show the body to your brother mistaken for yourself, you are communicating that he is not himself, and this is an attack. Just as body identification produces sickness, believing you are a body is denial of yourself and your brother. If you depict it to him with an attitude of "this is my self, look at me", you are trying to cause him to be confined to his body also. You cannot possibly see his true self if you cannot see yours. You cannot possibly appreciate his divine christ nature if you think you're not christ but a body. We need to rediscover our soul, our innate inner truth, God-given, if we are to RELATE in any kind of real, loving way to anyone.

If there is not a movement towards recognizing yourself as spirit, NOT a body, there is no awakening at all. That is the whole direction of the curriculum. Moving away from body identification, confused about who and what you are, towards clarity about the fact that you are not a body at all and never were. When "you" (body) look in a mirror you should not be believing that you're looking at yourself. Vanity is ego. When "you" (body) puts on the latest clothes that you fancy yourself in, you shouldn't be believing that this changes who or what you are at all, nor do these clothes define you. You could wear a sack of shit and be spirit identified knowing your true nature is absolutely golden and that the body has nothing to do with who you are.

Sex is only a small part of the body identification issue. It's a cornerstone and a reason to keep perpetuating the focus on bodies and the belief that people are physical forms. Confusing mind and body and believing the body can create, can cause, has power, can live, and is important. As Jesus says, "the body is hardly worth the least defense." "The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist." "God did not create the body."

So isn't it clear, that in order to exist, and to be created by God, you have to become very very clear that you are NOT a body in any way whatsoever, you don't need one, you don't want one, and you don't have one. Because "to be without abody is to be in your natural state.", which is a state of being solely spirit.

It is by identifying ONLY AS spirit (and not a gender or a sexual preference) that you free yourself FROM the body and become able to return home to God. You cannot be believing that ANYTHING "true" of the body is true of you. You are not male or female. You are not gay or straight or bi or anything else. You are spirit. You are immortal. You are made of light. You are divine. The body cannot possibly be anything but a fake artificial picture of a fake artificial self in a fake artificial dream pretending to be a someone. And the body cannot go to heaven with you. "Leave it behind, it cannot enter heaven."

But you, as spirit, can enter the spirit world. Your spirit is the only way through the gates of heaven, to reunite with God, the creator of your spirit, where "the only function of spirit is to extend God's being." There, your spirit has always dwelt with its maker, and has never really left. It is your spirit that is permanently recognized by God as holy and complete. "The soul never leaves the sight of God." "God's children are as equal as learners as they are as souls." Only your spirit self is the reality of you. Everything else is an illusion that you have become tangled up with, confused with, lost in, and believing is you. The body is not you. You are eternal.

"Look upon all the trinkets made to hang upon the body or cover it, or for its use. See all the useless things made for its eyes to see. Think on the many offerings made for its pleasure, and remember all these were made to make seem lovely what you hate. Would you employ this hated thing to draw your brother to you, and to attract his body's eyes? Learn you but offer him a crown of thorns, not recognizing it for what it is, and trying to justify your own interpretation of its value by his acceptance. Yet still the gift proclaims his worthlessness to you, as his acceptance and delight acknowledges the lack of value he places on himself.

Gifts are not made through bodies, if they be truly given and received. For bodies can neither offer nor accept; hold out or take. Only the mind can value, and only the mind decides on what it would receive and give. And every gift it offers depends on what it WANTS. It will adorn its chosen home most carefully, making it ready to receive the gifts it wants, by offering them to those who come unto its home, or those it would attract to it. And there they will exchange their gifts, offering and receiving what their minds judge to be worthy of them.

Each gift is an evaluation of the receiver and the GIVER. No-one but sees his chosen home an altar to himself. No-one but seeks to draw to it the worshippers of what he placed upon it, making it worthy of their devotion. And each has set a light upon his altar, that they may see what he has placed upon it, and take it for their own. Here is the value that you lay upon your brother, and on yourself. Here is your gift to BOTH; your judgment upon the Son of God for what he is. Forget not that it is your Savior to whom the gift is offered. Offer him thorns, and YOU are crucified. Offer him lilies, and it is YOURSELF you free."

"But you can confuse yourself with things that do."

The entire function of the Curriculum, is to return you to awareness of Heaven, your true home, where you remain with God in PERFECT IMMORTALITY.

Every single thing in the course is geared towards you unlearning death and rediscovering eternal life. This is why the curriculum ends in the RESURRECTION, and why leaving the world through death is not graduation.

IMMORTALITY is your "birthright". It is God-Given. Your inheritance. And it is absolutely constantly perfectly sustained by God's will FOREVER. Which means even as you dream of mortality, you are still immortal in God. And nothing you can ever do can ever change this.

If we were to recognize this, simply the fact that you can never stop being immortal should tell you that all efforts to BE mortal are futile. All efforts to die are futile. All efforts to be sick are futile. All choices for unhappiness are futile.

Only in acceptance of your ETERNAL NATURE can you recognize the absolute permanence of your immortal nature, which can be rejected only through denial, and not through changing the truth. This is what Atonement is really about. Recognizing you are IMMORTAL.

Every single part of A Course in Miracles is steering you towards an ownership of your IMMORTAL CHRIST NATURE. A reclaiming of your unlimited power. A restoration of the wholeness of your undivided will. A RESURRECTION, BACK to immortality, from illusory states of degradation and death. And this include all forms of healing and the reversal of physical sickness.

The entire point of realizing you are not a body is to realize that your IMMORTAL SOUL has no need for such nonsense. The body was an attempt to make something which CAN DIE, and its ultimate purpose through the ego is to prove that this is possible. To the ego, it is born TO die, and there is no way out.

The Holy Spirit's repurposing of the body is entirely geared towards rendering the body ultimately unnecessary, using it ONLY as a device to help you to UNLEARN your belief in death, and restore your sanity, so that you can LEAVE IT and return to simply being immortal spirit in Heaven.

Nothing short of your absolutely permanent immortality is appropriate as a goal. This is why the Song of Prayer states that the only goal you should have is to return to GOD. Because through returning to Him, you return to yourself, and simply CONTINUE being immortal.

IT IS ALL ABOUT IMMORTALITY.

IMMORTALITY IS AT THE CORE OF THE CURRICULUM.

IMMORTALITY IS WHAT YOU NEED TO "LEARN", or rather, RECOGNIZE, by unlearning that which claims otherwise.

Being immortal means you can never change. It means you can never be sick or die. It means you cannot be limited. It means you continue forever in total perfection. It means nothing can happen to you ever. It means you are not at the effect of anything but God. It means you cannot sin and your innocence is permanent.

You are a rock solid PERMANENT LIGHT shining in the skies of heaven. Shining FOREVER. Continuously. Constantly. Unfaltering. Unwavering. Absolutely immaculate. Perfect in every way.

And this can never change. God cannot change it. Jesus cannot change it. You cannot change it. No one has ever changed this fact. YOU ARE AN IMMORTAL BEING. And anything else that contradicts this immortality is NOT TRUE OF YOU, IS NOT REAL, DOES NOT EXIST, IS NOT PART OF YOU, AND IS NOT NEEDED.

You are permanent in God. Endless. Deathless. Changeless. Fearless. Incorruptible. Unattackable. Unassailable. Constant. Eternal. Immortal.

If you are affected in any way, it is not YOU who is affected, it is an illusion (body etc). And if it is affected in any way, you are trying to use it to prove you can be affected. You cannot be affected, you are immortal. So you're faking it, and it's pointless. You can't change the fact you are immortal, ever. Your permanence is guaranteed.

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

"He can see no evil; nothing in the world to fear, and no-one who is different from himself."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."

"I am not the victim of the world I see."

"It is but an effect that YOU have caused, and you would not BE cause of this effect."

"And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects. "

""My Self is ruler of the universe." - It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen."

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this."

"He MUST deny the world of pain, the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. "

"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER. ... Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it. ...This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

"You are immortal and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do."

"I am not afraid but all powerful."

The body is supposed to be used as a communication device. This is much misundestood. What it means is that the body is to be used in a way that reflects our function of extension in heaven. We (mind/soul) are a MEDIUM or "communication channel" of extension, through which God is hosted and extends. We are to pass on what we receive. And this produces a continuous outward expansion and increase of creation. This is also communication - the outward expression of love.

"Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating His Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will." That means, the body is supposed to, from a higher repurposing perspective, be used solely to extend and join and communicate, like a medium that you express THROUGH and BEYOND. Whereby you use it solely like a tool to give to others, placing no focus ON the body itself, or on the bodies of others. Because bodies become a LIMIT on communication if you make them real. They turn into brick walls.

The entire problem comes when you begin to focus ON the body, making it an idol, worshipping it, mistaking it for a THING in its own right, considering it an entity, dwelling on its form and function, and identifying with it as if it is your self. This converts the "channel" from being a channel, to being a roadblock in the channel. It turns the body into a blockage of separation instead of extension.

All of the minds attention is put ON the MEDIUM ITSELF, as if the medium itself is important. This separates the mind off because it now stops at the body's limits and does not go past it to join with other minds beyond their bodies. This increases the rift in the mind and induces all forms of sickness including death. It's a mis-use of the body - trying to use what's supposed to be a PIPE, as though it's a brick wall.

This is also why holy relationship is important because you're supposed to USE the body to relate BEYOND the body. It's only supposed to be used temporarily as a device for this purpose, and is not supposed to be used to exalt itself or to act as a prison or barrier. When you become body focused, you literally "lose sight" of your brother and yourself. It means we're turning a device for learning into the FOCUS of learning, as if trying to make the body BE something in its own right, which it isn't. The body is used for communication when the body ITSELF becomes NOTHING and invisible in the equasion.

"Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not IN it. If the mind believes the body is its GOAL, it WILL distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot BUT foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else."

"To confuse a learning device with a curriculum GOAL is a fundamental confusion. Learning can hardly be meaningfully arrested at its own aids, and hope to understand them OR its real purpose. Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY."

"The Holy Spirit's purpose lies safe in your RELATIONSHIP, and NOT your bodies. You have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the BODY cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set HIS temple there."

"You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit's temple, and it will NEVER be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love's CONDEMNATION. For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept APART from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return."

"The Holy Spirit's temple is NOT a body, but a RELATIONSHIP. The body is an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spot of senseless mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet hiding nothing. Here, the unholy relationship escapes reality, and seeks for crumbs to keep itself alive. Here it would drag its brothers, holding them here in its idolatry. Here it is "safe," for here love CANNOT enter. The Holy Spirit does not build His temples where love can never be. Would He Who SEES the face of Christ choose as His home the only place in all the universe where it can NOT be seen?"

Let's take a look at these statements about overcoming death.

1) "When you learn to make ME manifest, you will never see death. For you will have looked upon the deathless IN yourself, and you will see only the eternal, as you look out upon a world that cannot die."

2) "The body cannot live nor die, because it cannot contain you who are life. If we share the same mind, you can overcome death because I did."

3) "The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use if for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all."

These statements make sense when seen from the perspective of True Perception. Bear with me while I think out loud...I'm still fleshing this out....

I will use an analogy to describe what the illusion of a world is. Imagine that the entire world is all one color. It's made of all one single material. It is mostly transparent. Let's say absolutely everything is made of glass. All the trees, bodies, animals, clouds, oceans, mountains, everything is made from this same material and it all looks the same.

Other than certain shapes which are formed by this worldwide material, there is absolutely nothing different about any part of it. It's all made of the same stuff. Also within this world, any illusions of one object causing another are completely overlooked and ignored.

In no way and under no conditions can any part of this world do anything TO any other part. ALL of it is just an effect, inert, lifeless, void of will. It is just a static image. It does nothing at all. There is nothing attacking anything else, because you recognize that all parts are coming from the same material, made by the same person, seen in the same way, and nothing can really do anything to anything else. There is no cause within that image of a world itself, the cause of it is outside of it. It is being PROJECTED within your mind and you are its sole cause. A frozen dream.

This is basically what you will see the world AS when you attain full True Perception. When you then look from this perspective, you will see that ALL illusions within the world are equal. In this way, THERE IS NO DEATH. Ie, this image cannot live, this image cannot die, it just remains being an image. This image cannot contain you in any way, who are life, because what is LIFE has nothing to do with forms or bodies or images. Images of bodies being in one state or another are all the same.

That said, as Jesus explains, when the mind is not using the body for sin, which means, attempting to confuse levels and reverse cause and effect and to make out that some part of this IMAGE of a world is able to attack another, then the IMAGE of that body will change to represent sickness and death. It will be seen as containing weakness, and thus it will seem to weaken, become sick, and die.

When it is not being used for purposes of *false perception*, it will not be distorted or unnaturally forced to be SICK. It will just be seen as perfectly neutral and free of attack. And because it is free of attack, it cannot be attacked. Or rather, in recognizing attack is not REAL, symptoms of attack will not show up in the image. Thus the body image will show up as having "natural health".

Jesus talked about how when he recognized his body for what it is, it could not disintegrate. It was not alive because illusions are not life. It could not die because there was no attack projected onto it. He therefore simply saw the end of its usefulness, laid it down and MADE IT DISAPPEAR, because he saw it was nothing but an illusion/image which was *not really there*. The image of the body, while showing up as part of the dream world, was essentially incapable of sickness, aging, change, or death, even within time and space.

I feel I don't quite have this whole picture yet, but it's a work in progress. Feel free to correct or add to this if you see fit. I'm gradually forming a clearer picture of how this all fits together.

If you dream that an animal is attacking you, you can hardly blame the animal for attacking you. If you believe it is not you that's making the animal attack you, then you might believe the animal itself its attacking you with a mind or motivation of its own. And then you will be scared it and believe you are able to suffer from the attack. But if you remember that the entire performance is coming from your mind as the dreamer of the dream, then recognize not only that it's really you attacking yourself, but also that you can't be hurt by a mere dream.

This places you outside the dream as the dreamer of the dream, and then you do not confuse the dream for something happening to you from some other source. If you will simply recognize what you are doing, you can no longer be lost in the dream or at the effect of it. You'd have absolutely reaction to it at all if you remembered you were the one making it happen. It would be foolish then blame the dream for doing anything, knowing that you're the one doing it. And then you can simply stop dreaming and be free of it.

What if the world - a world of dreams - is only doing what you are dreaming that it does? And what if you are the mind making the world turn and the animals move and the things happen? And what if anything that happens or seems to happen to you, is the result of you putting it there to do it? And what if you merely need to be aware of dreaming in order to recognize this is your dream of self attack? And by remembering you are the dreamer you can no longer blame the world for causing anything, knowing that you are the cause of everything.

And then the world has no power over you, because you are making the world according to your will. It can have no affect on you or upset you or disturb you in any way or bring oppression or make you sick or dead or anything at all. Because being the dreamer of the dream you are its sole cause and are beyond what the dream is. You are no longer confused with what the dream is, or thinking you are a figure in the dream as a dream body, or believing that you can be hurt by something that is merely an effect of your dreaming. When you decide to stop dreaming of being hurt you will simply awaken and dream no more.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes.

The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth. For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."

Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is like the rest. He sees NO differences where none exist, and He will teach you how each one is CAUSED. None has a DIFFERENT cause from all the rest, and ALL of them are easily undone by but a SINGLE lesson truly learned. Salvation is a secret you have kept but from yourself. The universe proclaims it so. But, to its witnesses, you pay no heed at all. For they attest the thing you do not WANT to know. They seem to keep it secret FROM you. Yet you need but learn you choose but NOT to listen, NOT to see.

How differently will you perceive the world, when this is recognized! When you forgive the world YOUR guilt, YOU will be free of it. Its innocence does NOT demand your guilt, nor does your guiltlessness rest on ITS sins. This is the obvious, a secret kept from no-one but yourself. And it is this that has maintained you SEPARATE from the world, and kept your brother SEPARATE from you. Now need you but to learn that BOTH of you are innocent OR guilty. The one thing that is impossible is that you be UNLIKE each other; that they BOTH be true. This is the only secret yet to learn. And it will be NO secret you are healed."

You are an immortal being but you keep trying to prove you're not.

In sickness we attempt to prove we can be hurt.

In fear we attempt to prove we can have reason to be concerned.

In suffering we attempt to prove something can happen to us.

In death we attempt to prove we are not immortal at all.

In sin we attempt to prove we are not innocent.

In guilt we attempt to prove we are capable of malfunctioning.

In all our "human" ways, our egoic ways, we simply keep trying to prove and demonstrate that "it is true" that we're not immortal.

That is what this whole world is about. That is why we made it. It is a dream of MORTALITY. A dream of death. A world where the immortal beings come to pretend to suffer a while, wither and die, to prove they are not immortal. To destroy God's immortal Son.

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

"You look for permanence in the impermanent, for love where there is none, for safety in the midst of danger; immortality within the darkness of the dream of death."

"For even though it was a dream of death, you need not let it stand for this to you."

"And I behold the world that Christ would have me see, aware it ends the bitter dream of death; aware it is my Father's Call to me."

"My brother, child of our Father, this is a dream of death. "

We made this world in an attempt to prove there IS no eternal life. That we CAN be hurt, attacked, threatened, even destroyed. This whole place is one big lie. It's a huge cover up. Immortal beings attempting to die. Invulnerable beings attempting to be victims. Eternal beings suggesting their continuation is threatened.

All we need to do is own up to who and what we really are.

"I am not a body I am free, for I am still as God created me."

"You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do."

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

"For you will remember His guiltless Son, who did not die because he is immortal."

"What is immortal cannot BE attacked; what is but temporal HAS no effect. "

"For separate fragments must decay and die, but wholeness is immortal. It remains forever and forever like its Creator, being one with Him."

"But it can unite only with what ALREADY is at peace in you, immortal as itself."

"its likeness shines with its immortal Love."

"The graciousness of God will take them gently in, and cover all their sense of pain and loss, with the immortal assurance of their Father's Love."

"You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now.""But the guarantee of your continuity is God's, not the ego's. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you what immortality IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless.""In immortality you live forever. Would you not return your mind to this?"

"Are you a Spirit, deathless, and without the promise of corruption and the stain of sin upon you? "

"No trace of anything in time can long remain in minds that serve the timeless."

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH VERSION OF THE COURSE YOU USE

THEY ARE ALL THE SAME! THE COURSE IS NOT A BOOK.

A Course in Miracles is a metaphysical course. It is also holographic.

If you were to "get" a single sentence Jesus has spoken in its fullest meaning and accept it, you could wake up. It does not require you to study specific words or versions. It does not require you to do the entire workbook.

I know this may sound controversial. At some point you are supposed to even leave the course behind and go to God with empty hands. The course is a stepping stone, a guide. It is not an experience of the truth.

The course is holographic in that the whole truth can be found in each part. Holograms make no sense to the ego because it has attempted to demonstrate through physical objects, that what is true of one thing is not true of another. It sees only separate problems defined by their FORM, the solution to which fixes on isolated problem and not any others - a learning which cannot be generalized.

Physical objects are the mind's way of projecting an image in which it seems like God does not exist anywhere, by making it appear that there is nothing the same anywhere. God is the same everywhere, he is the All in All. And he is fully present in all parts. The ego does not understand this because it will ask, how can All of God be in one part, and All of God be in another part? But God can, because God is omnipresent.

Similarly with the Course book(s), Jesus has expressed WHOLE TRUTH, using various words, many times over. The reason the Course repeats so much is because the SAME CONTENT is expressed in many different ways. So as you read it, it builds upon itself, because really, what you are learning is a "core truth" which is very, very simple and deep and profound yet which is expressed over and over again.

It is almost like a fishing net, which has been cast outward in many seemingly different "forms", talking on what seem to be many separate topics, in great detail, so that the MANY VARIED EGOS in various states and conditions can start with where they are AT, taking the course to be a specific form, and then WORKING THEIR WAY TO THE SOURCE, by realizing that each part IS NOT SEPARATE from the rest, and that there is a common thread, a very abstract yet wholly simple truth, hiding behind every single word. One Truth. One Answer.

Jesus in fact expressed the entire Course from a single state of mind, from love. In ego terms, that should mean that He only needs one expression, one WORD, which would be sufficient for you to awaken. As Jesus explained, even the term "God is" is sufficient. It contains the WHOLE TRUTH. The Complete truth. There is nothing missing in that.

Similarly for example, "nothing real can be threatened", contains the whole truth. Every aspect of that truth is reflected in it. If you could just GET that one thing, and get it really deeply and fully and really grasp the totality of it, the absoluteness of it, then you would be done waking up. So do you really need thousands of pages of text? Do you really need 365 workbook lessons?

Jesus didn't write a linear book. He didn't take the route that most authors take where they write things in a sequence along a timeline, with separated out content, and where each piece of content is tied to a particular form, and therefore to digest the "full story" you have to read the entire book, every word. Jesus's book is totally different to that.

Even though it seems to speak on many many different ILLUSIONS of topics, such as ego, mind, death, sickness, healing, miracles, heaven, worlds, separation, holy instants, brothers, etc... He is expressing ALL of it from ONE truth, one perspective (sitting in Heaven sipping tea), and that ENTIRE truth is contained in each part. You could get by with a single page of the text and wake up from it.

This is why the course is so DEEP. It has nothing to do with the HORIZONTAL digestion of the Course, how many words there are, how many words you read or practice, how much you memorize, which parts you quote in isolation, or which version seems more or less original. The course does not proceed in the horizontal. It is NOT attempting to get you to make "horizontal progress"!

It does not care how much time it takes or how many lessons you've done or which version's material was left in or out. That is not the DIRECTION in which your mind needs to progress in order for you to wake up! Your mind does not need to take on board 10,000 words. Your mind needs to TRANSCEND THE WORDS. To generalize the learning.

To transform what APPEARS to be thousands of words and to consolidate and reduce them down, boil them down, to a VERY, VERY SIMPLE core truth. You do that by going INTO the course, not moving through the material sideways or in a linear fashion!

The metaphysics of the course is DEEPER than the words, the meaning of the words is DEEPER than the words. There is an ABSTRACT TRUTH being presented here, a truth which *SPANS* the entire book, and is THE SAME EVERYWHERE. Page 1. Page 100. Page 1000. It's all the SAME CONTENT!

You are supposed to be GENERALIZING the learning. What that means is, you see SIMILARITIES in many different seeming parts of the book. Over here in chapter 1 Jesus talks about a miracle in this way, over there in chapter 12 Jesus talks about a miracle in that way. They correlate and are BOTH fragments of the same truth expressing. A piece of the hologram.

BOTH of them point to the same thing. If you are understanding the meaning of what's being said, your mind will develop a CONNECTION between the parts, and will therefore move towards a MORE ABSTRACT TRUTH than either of the parts suggest in their form. Your mind will start to build a "picture" or an overall concept or piece of the metaphysics, based not on a single quote or piece of form in isolation or certain versions, but based on the UNITY between them which transcends the forms of the words.

Just as the Course says you could gain vision from looking at a table in the correct way, so too you can gain vision from looking at a single sentence in the course in the right way. This is why a statement like "there is no sin" gives you a sigh of relief. It is HEALING, not because of what the words say or which words are used. It is healing because it is ABSOLUTE TRUTH expressed in one of many forms, reminding you that something FAR DEEPER than the form is real.

It does not matter which version of the form of the course you use or work with. It does not matter who edited in or out anything it says. It does not matter who influenced it or which forms are more original or less edited or which predate others. It is irrelevant. The course is RESILIANT and RESISTANT TO EDITING, because you cannot EDIT OUT the holographic truth.

A feature of holograms is that THE WHOLE TRUTH is present in every part. If you remove some of the parts, it DOES NOT DIMINISH the whole truth. Every OTHER part that remains, still has the WHOLE TRUTH in it. If you know anything about holograms such as those little 2D ones used on credit cards - when you move your vantage point you see a DIFFERENT SIDE of a 3D OBJECT... because every little particle of the holographic image CONTAINS THE ENTIRE OBJECT, making it possible to see multiple different perspectives at the same time. Try it yourself. To the ego, this should be impossible.

The course is the same way. If you take out AN ENTIRE CHUNK of it, just chop out 90% of the chapters in the text, YOU WILL NOT be removing even 1% of the CONTENT of the course that remains. The WHOLE TRUTH can still be found in the remaining content. You could even pare it down to just 2 words, like God Is, and THAT STILL contains the ENTIRE COURSE. So to think that someone's editing, even aggressive editing, has POWER OVER THE TRUTH, to strip out and steal away and leave out ANYTHING MEANINGFUL, is absolute bullshit ego drama. The truth is INVULNERABLE!

Taking out or changing some words WILL NOT, and SHOULD NOT (for anyone discerning) confuse or distract anyone from the truth. Believing otherwise means you are obsessed WITH FORM and are TOTALLY MISSING the content, which means you're NOT EVEN GETTING THE COURSE from the parts that you DO have access to! The Course contains such a STRENGTH and CLARITY of truth, do you really think that changing a bunch of words can corrupt it beyond all recognition, beyond all usefulness? You cannot remove the ALL from every part without changing EVERY SINGLE WORD. And then you might as well read the phone book. And even the phone book can be used to wake up.

The truth is not a form. It is not a version of some words. The metaphysics is essentially THE SAME in every single version ever released. If you think the differences are important, then you are not transcending the form and are not seeing the metaphysical foundation. WHOLE TRUTH cannot be edited out!

The metaphysics are based on extremely absolute logical progression, which is absolutely black and white with absolutely no wiggle room or room for confusion or misunderstanding.

The metaphysics explains the entire separation and every facet of the ego's working, as a logical progression, because all thought systems are logically consistent throughout. Once you can see the logical CLARITY, which is why Jesus uses extremely black and white terms as much as possible, you will GET the metaphysics and be able to see it and USE it, to clarify the MEANING of the words. The words do not provide meaning! The meaning provides the words! Content over form.

It is not necessary for anyone to read the entire text. It is not necessary for anyone to do the entire workbook. It is not necessary to read the manual for teachers, or absorb every word of every pamphlet, or listen to every single publication by well-known teachers. All you need is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit IS THE ANSWER TO THE SEPARATION.

The Course is only meant to put you in touch with Him and to recognize Him as your teacher and healer and helper, and to learn to allow Him to HELP YOU WAKE UP. Being in touch with Him and relying on and developing TRUST in Him, is MORE IMPORTANT than any words in any version of the Course anywhere. He is the ONE who Jesus appointed to help us. He is the ONE who will awaken us. He is the ONE who heals us. He is the ONE who KNOWS EVERYTHING and who can tell us anything we need to know, and direct us very specifically.

"I don't need to know what to say or what to do knowing He goes there with me. I will heal as I let Him teach me to heal" etc...

It is THE EGO that wants to hang onto every word and quotation of the course, to take parts of it in ISOLATION and dwell on the FORM, in order to SEPARATE the course out into multiple separate problems, to confuse and obscure the message and the meaning.

It does not matter WHAT WORDS Jesus wrote. It does not matter what they mean in English language. It does not matter that you try to "let the words" tell you the truth without you interpreting. That STILL won't get you to be awake. You have to go beyond the words. They are just symbols, pointing you to the truth.

For some people, reading the entire text is helpful. Maybe many times. For some people, doing every single workbook lesson is helpful, maybe even many times. But NOT EVERYONE needs that. What is NEEDED, what is required, is to learn your personal curriculum which you will experience in your regular daily life, learn your lessons, apply the course principles and demonstrate the truth. Be a living example of the teaching, not someone who bashes others over the head with a book. There are already enough bible bashers in the world.

Sometimes people "get" the meaning of the course much quicker than others. It totally depends on the person. Sometimes there has been enough gained from the course writing itself that you no longer "need" to go do lessons or read the words. The core truth is generalized and the abstract nature opened up to. You get in touch with the Holy Spirit who is God's APPOINTED TEACHER, and you listen to Him and allow Him to TEACH YOU DIRECTLY. To help you to forgive and heal. To help you to APPLY it, and to RECEIVE HEALING.

What's right for one person may not be right for you. You have no idea. One person may need years and years of pouring over the urtext. Another may need just one reading of a FIP version. Someone else might need constant references to a sparkly or original or whatever edition. It doesn't matter. OUR CURRICULUMS ARE DIFFERENT, so there is NO ONE RIGHT BOOK to recommend for everyone to use, or which everyone should be using. And NONE of the books contain the experience of the truth.

All who are to meet will meet. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. There are no accidents in salvation. We are all on seemingly different paths, all leading to God. And no-one will be left behind. But don't fall into the trap of turning the course into FORM or having IDOL WORSHIP of it, or hero-worship of the people who we've made SPECIAL for having worked on certain versions. Much appreciation to them for their SERVICE, but they are NOT IMPORTANT. All that's important is that YOU become WILLING to accept the atonement yourself.

This is a central teaching in ACIM. The mind projects the body. The mind is *always* responsible for the body's condition. What the mind uses the body FOR (love, or attack) determines the condition the body will show up in, and if the mind CHANGES, the body corresponds to the change instantly whether that means "becoming sick" or "healing". The body has no life, or mind, or will of its own, and cannot become sick or healthy by any cause other than the mind.

The mind is the only thing which can be sick by believing it is a body. And when the mind is sick, it will project a sick body and attack it. A mind riddled with ego will try to kill the body. And a mind which is sane and healed will automatically heal the body. It is impossible for a sane mind to produce or maintain a sick body, and it is impossible for a sick mind to produce or maintain a healthy body.

Healthy mind, healthy body. Sick mind, sick body. It is that simple. TOTALLY sane mind, NO BODY. This is why Jesus emphasizes that the MIND is what needs healing directly and IT will take care of healing the body or projecting a healed body image.

In this teaching, bodies *themselves* do not become sick or well through ANY OTHER CAUSE besides the mind. And therefore "the problem" is the mind, not the body. Fix the mind, and the body MUST return to health through a miracle.

"That the mind can heal the body but the body cannot heal the mind proves the mind must be stronger than the body. EVERY MIRACLE DEMONSTRATES THIS."

Please note: Just because "only the mind can be sick" does NOT MEAN that the body can STAY SICK while the mind is healed!!!! The body's condition is directly COMING FROM the mind's condition at all times.!!!

Here's some quotes.

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use if for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die."

"Do not ask Spirit to heal the body. Ask rather that Spirit teach you the right perception of the body."

"The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition."

"Sickness is of the mind, and has nothing to do with the body."

"A broken body is proof the mind has not been healed."

"A guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body."

"The body is not cured. It is merely recognized as what it is."

"Miracles transcend the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from the bodily level. That is why they heal. "

"They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm spirit-identification. "

"Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle. "

"All that I do, I do unto myself. If I attack, I suffer. But if I forgive, salvation will be given me. "

"Like any communication medium, the body receives and sends the messages that it is given. It has no feeling for them. All of the feeling with which they are invested is given by the sender and the receiver. "

"It is essential to remember that only the mind can create, and that correction begins at the thought level. Spirit is already perfect and therefore does not require correction. The body does not exist except as a learning device for the mind. "

"Health is the result of relinquishing all attempts to use the body lovelessly."

"Temptation has one lesson it would teach in all its forms wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die"

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

"Now are you freed from this much of the dream; the world is neutral, and the bodies which still seem to move about as separate things NEED NOT BE FEARED. And so they are NOT SICK. "

"The body needs NO healing. But the mind that thinks it IS a body is sick indeed! And it is here that Christ sets forth the remedy. His PURPOSE folds the body in His light, and fills it with the holiness that shines from HIM. And nothing that the body says or does but makes HIM manifest. To those who know Him not it carries Him, in gentleness and love, to heal their minds. Such is the mission that your brother has for YOU. And such it MUST be that YOUR mission is for HIM."

"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it FOR."

"Truth is the ABSENCE of illusion; illusion the ABSENCE of truth. Both cannot BE together, nor perceived in the SAME PLACE. To dedicate yourself to BOTH, is to set up a goal forever impossible to attain. For PART of it is sought through the body, THOUGHT OF as a means for seeking out reality through ATTACK. While the OTHER part would HEAL, and therefore calls upon the mind, and NOT the body. The INEVITABLE compromise is the belief that the BODY must be healed, and NOT the mind."

"Grace is not given to a BODY, but to a MIND. And the mind that RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT was healed."

Does forgiveness look upon something which is love, and love it? Or does forgiveness look upon something which is NOT love, and love it?

Does it look upon the world in a loving way in the belief that the world IS love, and that you are being forgiving by treating it correctly?

Or does it look upon the world in a loving way, in the belief that the world was NOT made with love, and therefore needs to BE forgiven due to its unloving nature?

We are told that only illusions can be forgiven, and that what you forgive will disappear. This means the TARGET of the forgiveness disappears. The illusion IS the target.

"Forgiveness is the end of specialness. Only illusions can BE forgiven, and then they disappear."

If our relationship to the world is that we are going to be "forgiving toward it", then we are not really understanding A Course in Miracle's definition of forgiveness. It is not the same as "loving something real."

We think in ego terms that if we are being "more forgiving" toward a person we are being more loving towards them. Because the ego can only think in terms of enemies or allies.

But you don't really forgive the loving nature of the enemy, you forgive the illusions of them sinning. The TARGET of the forgiveness is that which is sin.

You can only forgive sin. You cannot forgive love. If you confuse forgiving something with loving something, you have performed a distorting twist to what forgiveness is FOR.

Forgiveness doesn't mean "love everything." It means UNDO ERROR. Just as it is the same thing as atonement - the undoing of error.

Thus forgiveness is FOR the UNDOING of whatever is not real or true. It is NOT for facing that which is real and created by God and worshipping it.

We are not tasked with "forgiving God" in order to love God, as though being forgiving toward God means loving him. Nor are we tasked with forgiving the world in the sense of having a special-love relationship with the world.

We're meant to use forgiveness by targetting it AT ERRORS, at things which are mistakes or illusions, causing them to disappear. It is not used to target REAL things. We cannot make real things disappear.

In this sense we do not use forgiveness to "forgive the world." And the world becoming forgiven does not mean that we regard it as reality or as God's creation. It means it is recognised as an error or illusion and is undone.

To forgive is to take away distortions from what you are looking at. But this is kind of the anti-thesis of love in a way. The forgiving isn't a DOING of loving a thing, it's an UNDOING of what it is not.

When you undo what it is not, you reveal what it actually is. And this means that forgiveness reveals the truth about something. But this truth COULD BE that the thing is not reality, that in and of itself it is not a creation of God. Forgiveness can show you that the world is not real.

When we start confusing forgiveness with "looking at love itself", rather than "looking lovingly at whatever is there"... we are caught in the ego's distortion. Forgiveness is for the cancellation of the separation and the undoing of the planet, not for its worship.

Forgiveness is recognition. A recognition of what something is and is not. It shows you the truth about something. But it doesn't define the nature of WHAT is looked at. It doesn't MAKE something true. Forgiving perception does not CAUSE truth to happen.

Recognizing that the world is not God's created reality and is nothing, is a vital aspect of forgiving it. Because in recognizing it is nothing, it can disappear. This is why anything you forgive must disappear. You cannot forgive the world AND keep it. Forgiving it IS ITS UNDOING.

"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?" UrU5A5

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

"You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you."

"Swear not to die, thou holy Son of God! You make a bargain that you cannot keep. The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that MUST be One."

Ok. It's time to get honest and stop pretending to be dead!

You are an immortal being, created by God to live forever. You cannot change or be changed, and nothing can EVER happen to you. This is a FACT.

This means you cannot be hurt, damaged, attacked, broken, malfunctioning, decay, degrade, have a dis-ease, be sick, suffer, transform, change, be modified, grow old, or in any way be altered. You are PERMANENT AND ABSOLUTE This is a FACT.

Therefore you must still be exactly the same ORIGINAL SELF that God created, exactly as you were when he created you, and you must not have changed WHATSOEVER. You are STILL as God created you, immortal and unchanged and invulnerable. You have never turned into anything else. This is a FACT.

So what the fuck is this "sickness"? Anything which seems to be so-called "sick" CANNOT BE TRUE. It cannot even exist. How can it be true that you are immortal, and at the same time have it be true that you are a suffering dying self? How can they both be true of you? How can you die if you are immortal? How can you ever be sick? The sickness cannot be true and must be an illusion and a deception. This is a FACT.

"There can be no order of difficulty in healing merely because all sickness is illusion."

"So healing, never needed by the truth, must demonstrate that sickness is not real."

Jesus is stating in ACIM that you are an immortal eternal being with eternal life, endless and unassailable, PRETENDING THAT YOU CAN DIE. You are playing a game of pretending that you are mortal in a suffering body, to cover up who and what you are. To hide the TRUTH! YOU ARE FAKING YOUR DEATH. You are literally using the body as a DISGUISE to make it look like you are dying when you're not. All the while underneath you are totally powerful and perfect still.

"Did God create the mortal and corruptible? What use has God's beloved Son for what must die?"

You use the body as a decoy, to cover up who you are and hide your true nature as the Perfect Christ. You attack the body with your mind and make it show up as suffering, as a victim. And then you use this to accuse others and the world of causing you to suffer against your will, hiding the fact you put it there on purpose. You are literally trying to fake your own death and to make it look like someone else made it happen. So that it can seem that "you died" for reasons beyond your control.

"All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the FEAR OF AWAKENING. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual."

"The sick remain accusers."

"A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed."

"For vengeance is not part of love, and fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain."

So when you are sick, you are lying. When you are sick, you are deceiving yourself and others. It means you are insane and do not know who you are, so you're trying to be something you're not. When you are sick, you are pretending that you are fallible, weak, vulnerable, capable of suffering, diminished, threatenable, hurt, broken, having lost your peace, unfairly treated, victimized, abused and destroyed by anyone or anything EXCEPT yourself. It is a form of irresponsibility, in which you try to claim that death HAPPENS TO YOU AGAINST YOUR WILL.

YOU CHOOSE to make yourself and your body seem to be sick. So that you can DENY that you are NOT SICK. The sickness is a deception and a lie, and cannot be true. Therefore it MUST be an illusion - something appearing to be something it is not. It cannot BE a real sickness, it must be fake. Because you cannot really BE sick ever. The sickness is your attempt to DENY that you are immortal. Death is you being IN DENIAL that you STILL have eternal life. This is a FACT.

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

"Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make"

"For sickness is an election; a decision. It is the choice of weakness"

"If sickness is but a faulty problem-solving approach, it is a decision. And if it is a decision, it is the mind and not the body that makes it."

"Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that POWER CAN BE TAKEN FROM YOU."

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent."

What are you doing? Why are you going into states of sickness and suffering? Why are you holding up the body as an attacked picture of crucifixion, trying to demonstrate first of all that you "are" the body, and that secondly you have been attacked? Why are you using the body as a picture held up to your brother to accuse THEM of causing it? Or to accuse the world of causing it? When all along YOUR OWN MIND puts the effects into the body and then shifts the blame to someone else?

"The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions which are responsible for the body's condition."

You are FAKING BEING SICK. You are faking that you can even be CAPABLE of suffering. That you can even CHANGE or be changed. You are not even changeable. You are so permanent and endless and will live forever, such that you couldn't even really be sick if you wanted to. It cannot be "who you are" that is sick. Even if your mind becomes sick and takes it out on the body, pretending it is a body, and that the body is dying, your soul is STILL not sick.

"But the mind that thinks it IS a body is sick indeed!"

"If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

"Sickness is anger taken out upon the body, so that IT will suffer pain."

"Thus is the body healed by miracles BECAUSE they show the mind MADE sickness, and employed the body to be victim, or EFFECT, of what it made."

YOU CAN NEVER BE SICK. YOU CAN NEVER DIE. YOU ARE NOT A BODY. YOU ARE IMMORTAL.

So what's with this fake game of "poor-me I'm dying"? Why are you playing this game and putting on this fake show? Who are you trying to convince? Why are you making yourself out to be a punished victim, weakened and tormented, disabled and disfigured, diseased and decayed, ripe for the picking and ready to die? Who are you trying to FOOL? Why are you so convinced not only that you ARE a body, but that you deserve to be sentenced to death?

You cannot be guilty because the fact is that you cannot even sin. Sin is the idea that something REAL can be attacked. But "nothing real can be threatened". Reality is NOT attackable. Reality is PERMANENT AND CHANGELESS. "Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all."

"Reality is changeless. It is this that MAKES it real, and KEEPS it separate from all appearances. It MUST transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change."

Nothing real can ever change. YOU are real and can never change. GOD is real and can never change. Your brothers are real and can never change. Nothing real EVER changes because it is ABSOLUTELY FIXED. So you cannot sin against or attack or destroy anything real. That means you cannot be sinned against, nor can you sin, or become sinful. You cannot stop being innocent because "my sinlessness is guaranteed by God." You are PERMANENTLY INNOCENT.

So the idea that you have become evil, have attacked God, are unworthy of love, have committed a crime, cannot be forgiven, deserve to be punished, should suffer, are guilty, should be destroyed etc, is completely unfounded. It's all based on a lie that you even CAN DO these things. You can't. You can never attack or hurt or damage anything real. And anything which SEEMS like it can be attacked or hurt or damaged CANNOT BE REAL.

Bodies show up with their seeming "proof of sin", with their images blasted in your face, with their testimony to your senses, showing you pictures of destruction and crucifixion, to try to tempt you to believe that this is a FACT. That sickness is TRUE. That it's HAPPENING NOW. But this cannot be true at the same time as you being immortal. You cannot be immortal and mortal at the same time. How can the sickness be real? How can the body even be real? How can a person ever actually BE anything less than perfect?

Either you are immortal and you cannot die, or you have NEVER been immortal and you are ALWAYS dead. You either have eternal life and are permanent and absolute, or you are merely some relative dream fiction temporary body story that begins and ends, which is not life and is a dream of death.

"Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible."

YOU CANNOT DIE. So why are you pretending that you ARE?

This is the whole issue of the separation from God. Immortal endless beings trying to force themselves to be mortal. Trying to DENY that they are STILL immortal. Pretending they have brought an end to the immortality and that life has been stopped. That you have CHANGED what God created to last forever, and have thus overthrown his will. That you are more powerful than God and have been able to destroy the indestructible.

Let's stop today playing this game of death, playing at dying, playing at suffering and being sick, playing at being guilty and unworthy, playing small and little and weak and helpless, playing at being victimized and paralyzed and struck down and attacked and helpless. We are POWERFUL BEINGS. We can NEVER DIE. When will the game of dying end? When will we bring an end to the illusion of death and proclaim that THERE IS ONLY ETERNAL LIFE?

"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely."

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you."

"These are specifically first that the body is for attack, and also that you ARE a body. Without this, sickness is completely inconceivable. Sickness is a way of demonstrating that YOU CAN BE HURT. It is a witness to your frailty, your vulnerability, and your extreme need to depend on external guidance."

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

"Do not look to the god of sickness for healing, but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him, you will KNOW that He has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in His acknowledgment OF you lies your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

"These testimonies which the senses bring have but one purpose; to justify attack and thus keep unforgiveness unrecognized for what it is. Seen undisguised it is intolerable. Without protection it could not endure. Here is all sickness cherished, but without the recognition that this is so. For when an unforgiveness is not recognized, the form it takes seems to be something else. And now it is the "something else" that seems to terrify. But it is not the "something else" that can be healed. It is not sick, and needs no remedy. To concentrate your healing efforts here is but futility. Who can cure what cannot be sick and make it well?"

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self-concepts to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like Itself." "I will awaken from the dream that I

Am mortal, fallible, and full of sin,

And know I am the perfect Son of God."

"The body can be healed as an effect of true forgiveness. Only that can give remembrance of immortality, which is the gift of holiness and love. "

"You are God's Son. In immortality you live forever. Would you not return your mind to this?"

"Yet what is it except a game you play in which identity can be denied? You are as God created you. All else but this one thing is folly to believe. In this one thought is everything set free. In this one truth are all illusions gone. In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality."

"The body does not change. It represents the larger dream that change is POSSIBLE. To change is to attain a state unlike the one in which you found yourself before. There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not."

"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."

"In your brother is the light of God's eternal promise of YOUR immortality." "Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF. Yet God's Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM."

"The miracle of creation has never ceased, having the holy stamp of immortality upon it."

"Immortality is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL."

A Course in Miracles is a teaching us to leave a dream of mortality, and return to a state of immortality. Everything in the course points to this. You are not merely substituting one limited illusion for another. You are literally substituting DEATH for ETERNAL LIFE. That is why the curriculum culminates in RESURRECTION.

Resurrection is the return to ETERNAL life. The atonement is your acceptance of the fact, that you already have eternal life, eternal life is the only thing true of you, and you have always been immortal. Immortality is your natural state of being. God created you to live FOREVER, without ever suffering, being sick, afraid, dead, or unhappy.

Every single part of ACIM is geared towards you disassociating from illusions of death, vulnerability, victimhood, being affected, being hurt, sickness and all forms of suffering, and re-associating yourself with your IMMORTAL SPIRIT.

As the Course states.

1) You are immortal and you cannot die.

2) You already have eternal life, given by God, and it is permanent.

3) You cannot change your immortality.

4) You are always immortal but when you deny your immortality, you PRETEND to be mortal. You dream of being attackable, suffering and dying, but this has NO EFFECT on your immortality.

5) Those who are sane would never use the dream body to demonstrate SYMBOLS of attack, suffering, sickness or death. To do so is a mixed teaching combining PROOF of belief in attack, with an attempt to teach otherwise. The teaching is only PURE when you are demonstrating the immortality of the body, at least as a SYMBOL of immortality. The body can become a symbol of eternal life, a breath of fresh air to those grown sick of the fetid stench of death.

Life is eternal life. There is no life that is not eternal. This is why there is no life outside of heaven, and life "in the dream world" is an illusion of life.

The entire course is trying to get you to own up to being immortal, invulnerable, completely beyond all forms of attack. You are absolutely permanent. And any time that you ACT as if you are not, as if you have been hurt, affected, caused, damaged, made to suffer against your will, you are LYING, you are in denial, and you are PRETENDING that you are not immortal.

You can see this truth throughout all of ACIM's teachings. e.g.

Deny anything not of God the power to affect you (you cannot BE affected, you are immortal)

Nothing in the world can bring oppression or make you ill or sad or weak or afraid (you cannot be ill or weak or afraid or upset because you are immortal)

There is no cause in the world, it is just an effect (the world cannot cause you in any way because you are unchangeable)

You are not a victim of the world you see (you are incapable of being a victim because you are immortal)

Your attack thoughts are attacking your *invulnerability* (your invulnerability cannot BE attacked because you are immortal, but you can pretend it can)

You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself (because you are immortal, and even your hurt of yourself is fake)

You are immortal and cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do (simply, you are immortal)

My self is ruler of the universe. Nothing comes to me unbidden by myself (because you are immortal)

It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. (because you are fucking immortal)

It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. (because nothing can CAUSE YOU, because you are NOT AN EFFECT of anything but God, and you are immortal)

If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this. (because the mind has immortality)

He MUST deny the world of pain, the instant he perceives the arms of love around him. (deny the world because it is an attempt to prove you are not immortal, and its a lie)

This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. (you must deny all illusions of death, because you are immortal)

Teachers of God choose to look upon dreams a while... they are not deceived by what they see. (because they are immortal and know "death is the CENTRAL ILLUSION from which is all dreams stem" and you cannot die, because you are immortal)

I am not weak but strong. I am not afraid but all powerful. (because you are immortal, nothing has power over you)

YOU ARE IMMORTAL AND YOU CANNOT DIE. And any attempt you are making to PROVE otherwise, is futile and pointless and a form of self deception. When you stop deceiving yourself and others with this denial, you will stop trying to kill yourself, will stop making the body sick or dead, and will OVERCOME DEATH FOREVER.

Immortality is the only truth about you. Ask yourself, why am I trying to prove I am not immortal? Why am I accusing someone of being ABLE to hurt me? Why am I BELIEVING that I have BEEN hurt? Nothing can affect you. It is your own mis-belief that it CAN, that affects you. You hurt yourself, and nothing in the world can cause you suffering of any kind.

Owning up to your immortality is the key to the atonement, the resurrection and the life. THIS is A Course in Miracles. This is the way home to God. Accept your immortality, live by your immortality, demonstrate your immortality, and deny everything else any reality.

Nothing real can be threatened, and YOU ARE REAL. So YOU CANNOT BE THREATENED. Because you are immortal!

So any attempt you make to act as if you are not immortal, to believe someone affected you, something happened to you, something went against your will, you're victimized, you're suffering, etc... it all you PRETENDING TO SUFFER by pretending you are the body, making *IT* suffer, to try to prove that "you" are suffering. Your immortal is unaffected by suffering, sickness and death.

There is no REAL death. The son of God is FREE. But the Son of God can PRETEND to die, by using ILLUSIONS of things that seem to die, to try to prove he is NOT the son of God and not immortal. It's a lie. Do not believe it. Own your immortality and use it to contrast what you are doing that betrays your immortality. Compare your immortality to your victimhood. Can you REALLY have been affected if you have immortality? Can you be justified in TRYING to prove you can suffer?

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt". "A damaged body is proof the mind has not been healed." ie if the mind believes it is NOT immortal, it uses the body to TRY to prove that "it" is attackable and vulnerable. And this is always a self deception. You hurt yourself on purpose to try to prove you are not yourself. That has to end in order to accept the atonement and live the resurrection. Your return to ETERNAL LIFE is the goal fo this course.

"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven."

Here Jesus again outlines the simplicity of "forgiveness". He says that if you will overlook error - which means the entire illusory unreal dream world - then you will KEEP IT UNREAL. If you keep it unreal, you do not even enter INTO a state where you become confused about what it is, nor do you give reality to its content. If you do not MAKE it real, you won't have to "atone" to fix this error.

You must not turn the world's forms into realities, you must not give strength to its attacks, you must not give power to its lies, and you must not give truth to its sufferings. You overlook it and effectively ignore it and look beyond it to the face of Christ. To the light of truth where it really is.

If you KEEP THE WORLD UNREAL, then you do not go INTO false judgements or evaluations of what the world is. You simply recognize it as an illusion. An illusion, totally DEVOID of any sense of reality, seriousness, weight, validity, or truth, is no more powerful or threatening or causal than a thin veil of nothingness. But if you fail to stay IN THE STATE of forgiveness, you enter into judgement.

"He who would not forgive must judge, to justify his failure to forgive."

If you FAIL to stay forgiving, you go INTO the state of GIVING REALITY to the unreal world. You go into attack, into confusion, you confuse reality with unreality, you GIVE reality to the illusory world, and now the world SEEMS real.

All the things which happen in it which are utterly strange and unnatural, now APPEAR to be VERY REAL to you. And this makes them threatening and upsetting, dangerous and powerful, able to hurt you and destroy your peace. But it is only the sense of REALITY that gives it this apparent power.

Having MADE the world real, you will now believe that there ARE actually real problems, real attacks, real dangers, real impossible situations, real threats, real murders, real deaths and real sickness. And now you will be in suffering and hell having a nightmare because now a dream of death will have become REAL to you, threatening you at every turn and promising to destroy you. You cannot ESCAPE from this while you believe it is real.

So if you make the world real you will believe you now have to DO SOMETHING in order to fix the problem. But having bound reality to illusions, you will now think the source of the problem is the "real things" you see, and so to solve the problem you have to do something about those things. But this won't really work.

The only way to move back OUT of unforgiveness into forgiveness, is to TAKE BACK THE REALITY that you yourself gave TO the illusory world, SEPARATE THE WORLD FROM REALITY, give reality back to God, and recognize the false world is unreal again. Get your mind back into the "world is not real at all" mode, which overlooks it and doesn't GIVE it any power.

"If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God."

To "take back" the projections of REALITY that you gave to the unreal world, is to take back the POWER that you mis-placed and gave away to EMpower illusions against you. Dis-empowering illusions gives back power to God, and to your shared self. When the world has no power of its own, which it doesn't, the ego and the world and the body have NO POWER OVER YOU. This is a return to the STATE of forgiveness.

Ideally we should aim for a state in which we do not LEAVE forgiveness, or step OUT OF a state of power, so that we do not MAKE ERRORS. If we do not make errors, ie do not give reality to errors, then we will not have to do a purification or correction process to undo what we have done. But if we DO slip and fall into judgement, then a miracle is needed to RESTORE us to the state of forgiveness.

"Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made."

"And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."

Forgiveness then is simply the recognition that only God's reality is real, only his truth is true, nothing in the world you made has any truth or reality, and therefore your entire attention is fixed upon The Kingdom.

It may seem that you have fallen from grace, have become corrupted, damaged and broken. It may seem you have become hurt or have hurt yourself, and now need healing. It may seem something is wrong with you, you have sinned and are guilty. It may seem you have reasons to be afraid.

In seeking healing, you might then look to try to change yourself, as though trying to turn yourself into a more spiritual person. You might strive to be more loving, or to grow and evolve.

But let's first remember an important fact. God created you perfect already. There is nothing you can do to add to or remove anything from your holy self. Your soul is divine and perfect and immortal and permanent. It never changes and needs no healing of any kind. That is who and what you are.

So with that fact in mind, it is no longer a matter of discovering how you "really were hurt" or "what sin you committed" that you're trying to undo. It can't be true that you WERE hurt or DID sin, if God created you permanently perfect.

So if you are permanently perfect, even entering into states of harm, suffering, unconsciousness, sickness or unhappiness, cannot actually CHANGE or UNDO your permanent perfection. These must be forms of denial, a disguise, a deception, something untrue. They can't even be real sicknesses or real sins or real unhappiness.

The question then is, if your self is perfect and permanently can never change or be changed, and has not stopped being innocent and holy and immortal, what is it that is keeping you from happiness, wholeness, health and holiness?

It can only be that you are blocking AWARENESS of a PRE-EXISTING condition of perception. It can only be that for some reason you are in denial about being immortal, are trying to be something else, are trying to make something untrue true or believe something is real that isn't.

Somehow behind your "problem", or your state of "needing healing", there is already a fully healed self. So what then is healing? It's really more to do with questioning the damage, or seeing through the illusion of not being perfect already, than trying to transform a "real problem".

And ultimately that means, as per atonement, which is forgiveness, and the ONLY means of salvation, ACCEPTANCE OF THE TRUTH ABOUT YOU is actually the key to awakening. We are to WAKE UP TO the fact that we are ALREADY OK.

This also ties into the secret of salvation, that if you would just stop TRYING to make true something that isn't, TRYING to prove you can be hurt, TRYING to die, you would simply bounce back to your perfect immortal self and be aware of living forever as an invulnerable eternal being.

We are to become AWARE OF our healed holy nature. We are to RE-ACCESS our immortality. It has been blocked, covered up, hidden, and seemingly lost track of, behind walls of denial and deception. And even things which seem like real problems or real damage, cannot be that. They must have a different purpose, to HIDE the truth that you are NOT damaged, NOT broken, and NOT sick.

"You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do."

Forgiveness, if thought of as a practically applied atonement principle, is the act of moving towards AWARENESS OF your pre-existing, already-established, unassailed inner perfection. IT is already THERE, waiting for you to acknowledge it and live from it. It doesn't need you to invent it or define it, only to accept it and allow it and be grateful that God created you flawlessly.

What is this movement "toward" the atonement? It is a waking up. It is a removal of blocks. It is an uncovering of truth. It is a willingness to accept God's reality rather than your own made-up illusions. It's a RECOGNITION of what is actually TRUE about you, versus the confusion of what SEEMS to be true but isn't.

It's a vertical movement, upwards towards the light in which you can SEE, away from the darkness in which you are confused about what is true. It's the way out of hell, into heaven. It's your rising, or resurrection, away from the state of death (unconsciousness) towards life (awareness of eternity).

Either you forgive and move upwards in awareness and freedom from darkness, or you move downwards into unforgiveness and grievance and suffering. Forgiveness is therefore the ONLY WAY out of hell, but IS a guaranteed way out of hell, and the only way that WORKS.

To forgive is to let go of what is not true and accept what is. To forgive is to relinquish false beliefs and embrace reality.

To forgive is to return to the love of God and let go of fear.

To forgive is to let go of who you thought you were, and resume being your real self.

The goal of the course is to "Know thyself." To simply BE still the same perfection that God created you to be. You are this ALREADY, you just don't want to accept it or own up to it yet. You have not yet "come out as Christ", preferring to play with littleness. You are God's perfect creation and always will be. Your real self is waiting for you.

There’s quite a lot in the course about the Holy Spirit having a function. A role which he is supposed to fill, where he does something that you do NOT do.

I think this becomes largely ignored by most people doing the course, and I KNOW that I definitely have not fully respected the importance of allowing him to play his part. I think we’re not realizing just how much we’re supposed to depend on Him to help us and do things for us.

I think most people are doing the course on their own, without him, not turning to him, not listening, not hearing his voice, not working with him. Especially not surrendering the ego position of being the one who “does it all alone.”

Instead there’s a lot of discussion about each of us doing forgiveness work and making decisions and fixing our lives and so on, but very little about surrendering to Him and having him do everything for us. Yet alone having him heal us, or heal others through us. HE is the one who performs miracles through us.

“What he enables you to do is clearly not of this world.”

It seems a lot of folks think ACIM is a self study where you just read the book and do some lessons and chat about it with others. But I think there’s a tremendous amount of unawareness of the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to be our ONLY teacher, our ONLY therapist, and is “the idea of healing”, GIVEN to us by God as HIS solution to the separation. We should heed this.

He is supposed to fill the function of healing us. We’re not supposed to be “doing it ourselves”. Healing has to be RECEIVED. There’s actually a position we’re meant to be in where we have a little willingness, and he does all the rest. Where we let him heal us, literally. We’re not supposed to be doing all the work by ourselves.

In effect, we are more or less to “channel” the Holy Spirit and allow him to be the one to do everything for us and for others, through us. The Holy Spirit has a much larger function, and a far greater power than your own. He is here to help and it’s our function to LET HIM be the one we turn to for help. To BE helped, instead of self-reliant.

We need to have more humility, open up to the Holy Spirit, allow and receive His help, and allow him to operate through us and for us. This is all part of letting yourself be loved, and allowing love to radiate to others. The Holy Spirit’s function is forgiveness, your function is to share it with him.

“No needs will long be left unmet, if you leave them ALL to Him Whose FUNCTION is to meet them. This is His function, and NOT YOURS.”

“The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE.”

“Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God.”

“ANY attempt you make to correct a brother, means that you believe correction by YOU is possible, and this can ONLY be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything, BECAUSE GOD CREATED EVERYTHING. Do not undertake HIS function, or you will forget YOURS.”

“He knows the need; the question and the answer. He will say exactly what to do in words that you can understand and you can also use. Do not confuse His function with your own. He is the Answer; you the one who hears.”

“Never approach the holy instant AFTER you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is ITS function. Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven.”

“Be very still, and hear God's Voice in him, and let It tell you what his function is.“

“The Holy Spirit never refuses an invitation to enter and abide with you. He will give you endless opportunities to open the door to your salvation, for such is His function. He will also tell you exactly what your function is in every circumstance and at all times.”

“The preparation for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives it. RELEASE yourselves to Him Whose function IS release. Do NOT assume His function FOR Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how LITTLE is your part, and how great is HIS.”

“The curriculum is highly individualized. And all aspects are under the Holy Spirit's particular care and guidance. Ask and He will answer. The responsibility is His, and He alone is fit to assume it. To do so is His function. To refer the questions to Him is yours. Would you want to be responsible for decisions about which you understand so little? Be glad you have a Teacher Who cannot make a mistake. His answers are always right. Would you say that of yours?”

“By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what we meant when we once said that miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS.”

"Death is the symbol of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds it from awareness like a shield held up to obscure the sun."

"It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms"

"All forms of sickness even unto death are physical expressions of the fear of awakening."

"One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin NOR its result."

"The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they LIVE. They are not FOLLOWING it; they are OPPOSING it."

"And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body THEY dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, OFFERED to sin to feed upon, and keep ITSELF alive. A thing condemned, damned by its maker, and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself."

"You who believe you can condemn the Son of God to this ARE arrogant."

"The arrogance of sin, the pride of guilt, the sepulchre of separation, all are part of your unrecognized dedication to death. The glitter of guilt you laid upon the body would KILL it. For what the ego loves, it kills for its obedience."

"Death, were it true, would be the final and complete disruption of communication, which IS the ego's goal."

"Those who fear death see not how often and how loudly they CALL to it, and bid it come to SAVE them from communication. "

"For death is seen as SAFETY, the great dark savior from the light of truth, the answer to the Answer, the silencer of the Voice that speaks for God."

"Yet the retreat to death is NOT the end of conflict. Only God's Answer is its end."

"My brothers, children of our Father, this is a DREAM of death."

"In its exaltation (the body), you COMMANDED it to die, for only death COULD conquer life. And what but insanity could look upon the defeat of God, and think it REAL? "

"Let me not see it as a sign of sin and death, nor use it for destruction."

"What seems to be FEAR of death, is really its ATTRACTION."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this IS blasphemy"

"Death is the thought that you are separate from your Creator."

"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."

"No-one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No-one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No-one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. No one dies without their own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose."

"Would you not rather live than choose to die? Living is joy, but death can only weep. You see in death escape from what you made. But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end. "

"Death is a thought which takes on many forms, often unrecognized. It may appear as sadness, fear, anxiety or doubt; as anger, faithlessness and lack of trust; concern for bodies, envy, and all forms in which the wish to be as you are not may come to tempt you."

"Here is the Will of Father and of Son defeated finally, and laid to rest beneath the headstone death has placed upon the body of the holy Son of God."

"Unholy in defeat, he has become what death would have him be. His epitaph, which death itself has written, gives no name to him, for he has passed to dust. It says but this: "Here lies a witness God is dead." And this it writes again and still again, while all the while its worshippers agree, and kneeling down with foreheads to the ground, they whisper fearfully that it is so."

"The idea of the death of God is so preposterous that even the insane have difficulty in believing it. For it implies that God was once alive and somehow perished, killed, apparently, by those who did not want him to survive. Their stronger will could triumph over His, and so eternal life gave way to death. And with the Father died the Son as well."

"There is no death, for death is not Your Will."

"But if he chooses death himself, his weakness is his strength."

"For death is not of the real world, in which everything is eternal."

"How can some forms of murder NOT mean death? Can an attack in ANY form be love? What FORM of condemnation is a blessing?"

"Men are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not know what it means. They do not realize that, to deny God, is to deny their own identity, and in this sense, the wages of sin IS death. The sense is very literal; - denial of Life perceives its opposite, as ALL forms of denial replace what IS, with what is NOT."

"Sickness and death entered the mind of God's Son against His Will."

"If the intent is death, what matter the form it takes? Is death in any form, however lovely and charitable it may seem to be, a blessing and a sign the Voice for God speaks through you to your brother?"

"Here stands the body, torn between the natural desire to communicate, and the unnatural intent to murder and to die. "

"For the wages of sin is death, and how can the immortal die?"

"Death is a human affirmation of a belief in fate."

"You but choose whether to go TOWARDS Heaven, or away to nowhere."

"Death cannot be escape"

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

I kind of feel like, all this time doing the course I've been generally "pulling away" from the world. Seeing the world as out there and sort of trying to detach from it and rise above it. Or rather, to withdraw from it and get away from it.

But I'm getting this intuition that, maybe this is backwards. That the darkness and confusion and illusions and ego stuff isn't "out there in the world", but rather than I am IN that stuff within myself.

The result being that I need to get OUT of myself and "embrace reality", ie attune to the reality of the world - the real world - through forgiveness and awakening. To experience "loving the world", as that vital stepping stone towards ascension to heaven.

Not that this means like, regarding spacetime as God's creation or as ultimate reality but... I'm wondering if my whole approach has been fundamentally wrong this whole time, due to the projection of judgments onto the world and associating them with it, and then trying to get away from those projections.

If I stop judging the world, then it's obviously not the world that's "in the wrong", it's my mind. There could be a "lovable real world" "out there" that I'm not seeing because I keep trying to "separate from it", because I'm lost internally in the ego darkness and judgments and stuff.

The course is clearly pointing toward finding a way to see what the world is in the present moment, without condemnation, without my ego judgments, without guilt projection, and with the Holy Spirit's holiness and eyes of Christ. To look upon that "out there" I obviously can't be trying to "remove myself from it".

Perhaps the defensive posture of "get away from the world" has been a backwards ego decoy this whole time, laden with projected judgments designed to justify not engaging with it or opening up to it. Because who would want to become in some way "closer to" something "judged" to be evil and cruel.

Maybe my judgements of it have been unfair and unwarranted and incorrect, and maybe the forgiven world is there to be seen when I'm not projecting internal confusions onto it. Maybe there is a way to love the world, for what it is - not to give it reality or permanence or confuse it with heaven but, at least to look at it with a greater embrace of "what it is" without all the projections of "what it is not" that I keep putting onto it.

The world has been my favourite scapegoat for many years, presumably my whole life. Maybe the world isn't really the problem. Maybe the problem is in my mind. And maybe I've been lost in an internal "dream" of reality distortion and denial of the truth.

It seems we're meant to learn to see "with accurate perception", the world "as it is". To recognize it, to see past the differences and contrasts. To see an underlying "reflection of heaven" in it. Actually seemingly "out there". Such that we experience the world from a whole-minded forgiven vantage point of openness and welcome and sharing rather than attack and rejection.

Perhaps ultimately we give the world we made a big hug and then watch as it dissolves away.

"Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so. "

"From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home."

"Father, Christ's vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world! Yet how much more will I perceive in it than sight can give. The world forgiven signifies Your Son acknowledges his Father, lets his dreams be brought to truth, and waits expectantly the one remaining instant more of time, which ends forever as Your memory returns to him."

"The teachers of God have trust in the world, because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a Power which is in them but not of them. It is this Power that keeps all things safe. It is through this Power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world."

"Can the world seem bright and clear and safe and welcoming, with all my past mistakes oppressing it, and showing me distorted forms of pain? Yet in the present love is obvious, and its effects apparent. All the world shines in reflection of its holy light, and I perceive a world forgiven at last."

"Can the world seem bright and clear and safe and welcoming, with all my past mistakes oppressing it, and showing me distorted forms of pain? Yet in the present love is obvious, and its effects apparent. All the world shines in reflection of its holy light, and I perceive a world forgiven at last."

"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."

Focusing on this simple formula some more...

"If he senses even the faintest hint of irritation in himself as he responds to anyone, let him instantly realize that he has made an interpretation which is not true. Then let him turn within to his Eternal Guide, and let Him Judge what the response should be."

1) Jesus seems to be saying that we should watch ourselves for any signs of upset, irritation, annoyance, anger, grief, unhappiness, etc any of the ego emotions or reactions, any kind of un-peace or lack of happiness and love.

2) This means having a very high standard for what we should normally strive for - totally peaceful, happy, joyful, loving, strong, certain, all the time. Free from suffering, free from sickness, free from death. That if we are not totally immortal and powerful and whole right now, we notice something must have gone wrong.

3) Jesus is then suggesting that this entirely boils down to an INTERPRETATION. What he's really talking about here is perception and meaning. Perception is an INTERPRETATION of what's there. A translation. We give everything all the meaning it has by INTERPRETING it. We interpret it one way ie with ego, we move into hell and false perceptions and insanity/sin. We interpret it another way with Holy Spirit and we move into the real world and true perception ie forgiveness.

4) He then goes on to say that instead of trying to sort of fix this yourself, once you recognize that you "must have made a wrong decision because you're not at peace", you now turn to the Holy Spirit and "he will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I let him. I choose to let him....". So now we're asking okay Holy Spirit, please SHOW ME how YOU see this and help me to see this through your eyes/eyes of Christ.

5) So now you open to receive his healing and to join with him, to merge with his mind, to be open to his awareness and his light, allowing him to correct and heal you. This means being willing to receive correction ie to be given healing, to be shown a different approach or interpretation of the world and the body and everything. To adopt HIS approach to it, as your own, as part of you resuming the will of God.

Essentially this means that while we have perception and a body, we are spending ALL our time INTERPRETING, and thus translating, and thus GIVING everything whatever meaning we want it to have. And that means we need to change HOW we have interpreted something, if we're finding that the intepretation is producing some kind of dis-ease or suffering in any way.

We MUST have interpreted it negatively with the ego if it led to a negative reaction, so now we become willing to reinterpret it a different way with the Holy Spirit, so that we can see it from a more forgiving and HAPPY vantage point. And we just keep doing this over and over and over until all our interpretations are THE SAME ONE INTERPRETATION of the Holy Spirit, which does not fluctuate or waver or change with conditions. An interpretation which reflects unconditional constant love and peace.

"You but mistake interpretation for the truth. And you are wrong. But a mistake is not a sin, nor has reality been taken from its throne by your mistakes. God reigns forever, and His laws alone prevail upon you and upon the world. His Love remains the only thing there is. Fear is illusion, for you are like Him."

"Would God have left the meaning of the world to YOUR interpretation? If He had, it HAS no meaning. For it cannot be that meaning changes constantly, and yet is true."

"A common purpose is the ONLY means whereby perception can be stabilized, and ONE interpretation given to the world and all experiences here. In this shared purpose is one meaning shared by everyone and everything you see. You do not have to judge, for you have learned one meaning has been GIVEN everything, and you are GLAD to see it everywhere."

"It is but your INTERPRETATIONS which are lacking in stability. And they are NOT in line with what you really are."

"Correction of a lasting nature, - and only this is true correction, - cannot be made until the teacher of God has ceased to confuse interpretation with fact, or illusion with truth."

"Your interpretations of your brother's need is your interpretation of YOURS."

"By applying the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that HIS criteria are equally applicable to YOU."

"Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no-one can be angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appear as facts."

"If anger comes from an interpretation and not a fact, it is never justified. Once this is even dimly grasped, the Way is open. Now it is possible to take the next step. The interpretation can be changed at last."

"Now is escape impossible until you see you have responded to your own interpretation, which you have projected on an outside world. Let this grim sword be taken from you now. There is no death."

"Yet you cannot BE aware without interpretation, and what you perceive IS your interpretation."

"The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function."

"Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your will to attack. Health is the natural state of anything whose interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, who perceives no attack on anything."

"What you do not understand is that the two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first."

"Every interpretation you would lay upon a brother is senseless. Let the Holy Spirit SHOW HIM TO YOU, and teach you both his love and NEED for love."

"Joining with Him in seeing, is the way in which you learn to share with Him the interpretation of perception that leads to knowledge."

"The Holy Spirit's interpretation of fear DOES dispel it, for the AWARENESS of truth cannot BE denied."

"Knowing is not open to interpretation, because its meaning is its own. It is possible to interpret meaning, but this is always open to error because it involves the perception of meaning."

"There is no world. This is the central lesson the course would attempt to teach."

You may not realize what this implies. But consider this.

It means that this entire world, planet Earth, its surrounding environment, the sun, all the stars and galaxies, which you made, you are dreaming of. And that means none of them really exist.

It means the entire history of the human civilization is fiction. It means there is no planet. It means your body is an illusion. It means that everything you think exists in the world is absolutely and literally nothingness.

Essentially, there is not really a dream. And everything that seems to be in the dream is not really anything at all. There is NOTHING HAPPENING. There is NOTHING HERE.

This is the proper use of denial. The recognition that what is false is false, what is true is true. What is illusion is not real. And death itself is something you made up.

"You made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."

The trees are not really there. The cars are not really there. The houses are not really there. The planet is not really there. It's all a huge giant dream. Dreams do not carry over when you wake up from them, because they depend entirely on you being unconscious. Dreams require you to be asleep, ie in denial of reality, so that you can imagine something UNLIKE reality. Whatever you make up in the dream simply stops being MADE when you wake up from dreaming. It switches off.

This is why this is such a huge, immensely radical and totally amazing lesson to learn. It means you cannot be fully awake while maintaining a dream body. "The body is a dream". "The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist." This is literally factually true. The body IS NOTHING. There is no real body. There is no world here.

That's how much of an illusion this world is. And this is why it's such a challenge to come to really believe and recognize this truth, as the culmination of the entire curriculum. It means you have to learn not to be deceived by ANYTHING you see or sense. It means you have to realize all your body senses were made to NOT KNOW reality. It means you have to realize everything you THINK exists, is happening, or has ever happened in this world, IS ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

Nothing but an illusion. Nothing but a dream. A fantasy fairytale imagined universe in which NOTHING REALLY HAPPENS.

No-one is ever really sick. There is no real death. You made it up. You are an immortal spirit being who God has established as permanently real and perfect forever, who cannot change nor can you change what you are. You are temporarily in denial, wanting to believe that this isn't true, and in your denial you are trying to block awareness of the truth by dreaming of a UNIVERSE in which all manner of other stuff seems true and real. And none of it is.

Literally, ONLY the Kingdom of God is real. This world you made is NOT real, whatsoever. ONLY God's world is real. The world you made is total fiction, illusion, unreality, nothing. Literally NOTHING. Made of nothingness.

"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."

That means you're here sitting there reading this crap thinking this is all real and happening, that even this message is happening, and it is not really happening.

"The world you made is an illusion of a world, God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as himself."

Nothing in this world is eternal. Nothing. It is all temporary, fleeting, transitioning, changing, illusory. That's WHY it's an illusion. Miracles demonstrate that illusions ARE illusions because they CAN be changed. Anything that changes is not real. Nothing real can be threatened or changed. Anything that ever seemed to change or be affected or hurt was not real. Nothing real can be attacked ever. You are reality. You are the Son of God. You are immortal. You cannot be hurt. Pretending that you can is futile nonsense.

You cannot even die. You can confuse yourself with things that do. You can pretend to go through it. But it has NO EFFECT on who you really are. It does not even touch your spirit at all. It is totally immaterial, inconsequential. You made up death in your denial of the fact that you are immortal and have eternal life. You are PRETENDING you can suffer.

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

You cannot be hurt. But you keep trying to prove it. You cannot die, but you keep trying to prove it. You cannot be attacked in any way, but you keep believing you can and have. This is confusion. You are mistaken. All beliefs in space and time are a mistake. There is no world here. Only God's Kingdom exists. Only the HOLY TRINITY is real.

There is no world. Sums up the entire truth about this realm. All of it is NOTHING. It's not even really here. It's all fiction. Do not believe it. The world is a lie. This isn't being negative about the world. It's factual. The world is not negative or positive. It is NOTHING. The body is not negative or positive. IT IS NOTHING.

"You cannot endow the body with attributes of Christ. Holiness is positive while the body is merely natural." (paraphrase). And when you think of the body and the world being NEUTRAL, you should NOT be thinking of them as being as SOMETHING. THEY ARE NOTHING. Neutrality means it has NO ATTRIBUTES AT ALL. The neutral world is NOT a world. The neutral body is NOT a body. You can't use neutrality to KEEP what does not exist.

We're hanging out on a fake planet interacting with imaginary characters played by sleeping brothers, pretending that things are happening, that we have important stuff to do, that there are places to go and things to see and do, important experiences to be had, magnificent illusions to sense, worlds to explore and accomplishments to be made. THERE IS NOTHING HERE. This is why ultimately "I need do nothing" - an atonement-level thought, in recognition of the fact that there is literally NO WORLD and NO SEPARATION and NO ILLUSIONS and therefore nothing has happened and there's nothing to do about it.

It's kind of like, you live in Heaven, but you're temporarily on a vacation to a fake imaginary planet Earth, and you're hanging out there for a LONG time, and kind of forgot to go back home. But some day you will go back home and leave this world, and never come back.

If you believe you are part of a dream, made of dream stuff, you can be attacked. If you recognize yourself as the dreamer of the dream, outside the dream like the container in which the dream is taking place - the mind - then you cannot be attacked.

"If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgement or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."

The dream of death, space and time, the world of sin, is all taking place in thought. If you identify WITH this thought, you shift your sense of "who and what I am" away from "that which thinks" to "the thought itself". Away from mind to the dream.

To do this requires that you deny what you are. To deny your soul. Doing this invents perception, and doing it a lot pushes you towards false perception. Here, you believe that since you are a dream, or part of a dream, or made of dream-stuff, the dream ITSELF must be your creator.

This now begins the process of believing that you are at the effect of the world. If you are identified with or as something IN the dream, then you are now vulnerable to anything that seems to take place in the dream. And anything that happens to dream stuff, you will believe is happening to you.

"You are immortal and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do."

By confusing your SELF, with dream figures, ie by believing you are a body, and by extension actually believing that you ARE THIS WORLD ("The world is perception"), you position yourself at the EFFECT of the dream, and introduce all manner of suffering into your experience.

If your identity is something OUTSIDE OF space and time, something BEYOND the body, something more encompassing than the dream world itself... if you are the MIND that is dreaming it, or even better, the soul that is using the mind to dream it, then you are FAR BEYOND the reaches of the dream itself.

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile"

"The Kingdom of God is perfectly protected. Nothing can prevail against it."

"Nothing can prevail against a son of God who commends his spirit into the hands of God."

"For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream."

Believing that you ARE a part of the dream, lands you directly onto the battlefield. The dream is the battlefield. If you are a body, and "the body is a dream", then you will believe that you are fundamentally unsafe, because the body is exposed and susceptible and attackable and limited, in the midst of a harsh and hostile world full of danger.

"Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering and intense fear of loss. The separated ones have invented many "cures" for what they believe to be "the ills of the world." But the one thing they do not do is to question the reality of the problem. Yet its effects cannot be cured because it is not real."

Anyone believing they are a body cannot truly feel safe. They must live in fear. To believe you ARE a body requires that you believe you ARE the dream. And to believe you ARE the dream requires you to believe you are at the EFFECT of the dream or dreamer. That you are defined by it. And that means the dream is the cause of you. And being able to cause you with an alien will is an instant threat to your peace.

It can never be, that you can say, "Look at me, I'm a man, I am fearless". And it can never be, that you can say, "Look at me, I am a fierce and powerful woman". By identifying AS a body or a gender identity, or the attributes of the flesh, or the size and shape of its form, or its abilities, you are literally positioning yourself as a target for attack. And this belief in attack is inherent to seeing yourself AS a portion of a dream, and it is your own mind that is doing the attacking because it believes in being affected.

You cannot be "an invulnerable man" or "a bullet-proof woman". But you can be an immortal spirit, a soul, a child of God, who temporarily utilizes the dream body for a higher purpose, and therefore infuses it with life and protection. But this is a miraculous supernatural act, in which a power NOT OF THIS WORLD, from outside the dream (holy spirit), is used to OVERRIDE the physical laws of the dream.

It all hinges around the simple question of identity. Who or what are you? What are you identified WITH and AS? What is your NATURE? Are you made of illusions? Are you a reality? Are you something in space and time? Are you eternal and timeless? And this really boils down to the question or, where did you GET your identity from? Where did your TRUEST NATURE come from?

The answer to that comes down to, who is your father? Or who created you? What is your source? How did you come to exist? Because in that question lies all the facts about THEIR nature, and WHAT they could do in your creation, and WHAT you INHERITED from them. And if the ego is your daddy, then you are a mortal temporary limited fictional character in a spacetime of hell. But if God is your daddy, then you are immortal and permanent and can never be affected by dreams.

"The ego IS therefore a confusion in identification, which never had a consistent model, and never developed consistently. It is the distorted product of the misapplication of the laws of God by distorted minds, which are misusing their own power."

"We said before that YOU are the will of God. His will is not an idle wish, and your identification with His Will is not optional because it is what you are."

"All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego. Do not put your faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you."

"In his complete identification with the Christ, the perfect Son of God, His one creation and His happiness, forever like Himself and One with Him, Jesus became what all of you must be."

"Now are we one in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us."

"The Son of God is my identity."

"Then I lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my Self."

"The step I take today, my Father, is my sure release from idle dreams of sin. Your altar stands serene and undefiled. It is the holy altar to my Self, and there I find my true Identity."

"You I choose, and my Identity along with You. Your Son would be Himself, and know You as his Father and Creator and his Love."

"Long ago we said this course will teach you what you are, restoring to you your identity. And we have already learned that this identity is shared."

"The idea for today presents a very different view of yourself. By establishing your Source it establishes your Identity, and it describes you as you must really be in truth."

"His brothers share his name, and thus are they united in a bond to which they turn for their identity."

"They do not realize that, to deny God, is to deny their own identity, and in this sense, the wages of sin IS death."

"Choose once again what you would have him be, remembering that every choice you make establishes your own identity as you will see it, and believe it IS."

"But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs of your Identity, which God alone established in reality."

"I am not an illusion but a reality."

Beware the ego. You bring it with you into the Course, and it will do everything it can to delude you, confuse you, distract you, blind you, and make you use the Course as a weapon.

One of the main ways that it does this is by engaging the intellect. Whatever you are experiencing right now, that is your most real-seeming experience and represents your current truth/beliefs. In order to really change that experience you have to undo some ego, which will shift you to experiencing something else.

The ego doesn't like that. The ego wants to keep the ego and increase itself. A major way it does this is through shifting into concepts. In essence, attempting to take on board "truth" which is too far outside the envelope of what you actually are experiencing, it shifts awareness into the intellect. You can "conceive" of the thing being talked about, but you cannot experience it.

The intellect is the ego's attempt to bridge the gap between where you are most authentically at, and where it pretends it wants to be. It is a tool for dissection and analysis and trying to find answers in illusions. It's a mechanism for judging, it experiences reactions, and tries to make realities. It's part of the dreaming mind.

What happens unfortunately is that the intellect becomes strongly engaged by studying the Course. There are so many concepts, theories and ideas in the Course. There are so many quotes which say or thing or another. A student will amass an internal library of all these things, and then the ego will use them as weapons and justifications.

What happens is, because the intellect takes you away from the present experience and into fantasy, the intellect becomes a way for the ego to avoid the present. The intellect loves to be a quotation machine, it loves to get hung up on the form of words, it loves to fixate on what is specifically in or not in the course, and it loves to be the ultimate judge or the authority or thing which figures out and decides what is true or not.

What I've seen is, some Course students become so lost in the form of the Course's words, the theology, the quotes, the concepts, that their intellect goes into overdrive. When you try to hold a normal conversation with these people, there is practically nothing you can say which won't be picked apart. You can't speak to these people with normal words because if there is any overlap with course words or if the course seems to have a redefinition of a term, they will see the use of the word as an error.

What then happens is they will have a reaction to a perceived error, will use the course to back up "why" its an error, and then the conversation will shift away from presence and into the course concepts where they'll assert all the reasons/quotes as to why what you said was wrong. You don't even really know what it was you said, being normal, that was so erroneous, and then you end up being bombarded with all this "correction" that you didn't even need.

Another favorite ego tool is to jump around in the levels. This is a classic move. Basically you're talking about something within a given context. Maybe you're discussing the ego or the world or something. You say something. Their ego intellect kicks in and sees a opportunity to be right, or basically pulls up a quote or course concept which they believe has truth to it, and they then use it as a weapon. They'll jump out of the `level` or context you're discussing on, and jump into some super-high conceptual level of the course. This "trumps" whatever you said, and seems to render you in error, or less true, and therefore you're wrong.

For example, you could be talking about forgiveness or how to apply it to something, and you say something, they get triggered, and then they suddenly come out with something like "that doesn't exist" or "nothing happened" or something... something at a higher level, which basically ultimately is true, BUT, it's being used as a way to discredit and overly dismiss whatever you said that wasn't even a point of contention. The person positions themselves with weapons of truth, concepts, in order to have the best most high trump-cards possible, so that no matter what you try to discuss with them, they will constantly undermine you. There is no way to hold a normal conversation with such people.

I think we all do this to some extent. But Course students especially are prone to this. It is so easy to get hung up on what the Course said on some matter and to then use it as a way to be subtly right, to use it against other people, to make people wrong etc.

I recently was in a group of people discussing ACIM stuff. I was shocked. I couldn't believe how much of this intellectual prostrating was going on. It seemed practically impossible to say anything without some person jumping all over it and pulling it apart, with a sort of "I've got a better truth" attitude. Even saying things which were absolutely nothing to do with the course whatsoever, which suddenly were turned around and explained to be false or in error because of something it contained. It turns into an addiction to correcting people.

The intellect can be used by the ego to really firmly latch onto the concepts as though they are the truth. They are held onto like precious jewels. And then they are used as weapons. The concepts are not the truth itself. Truth is an experience. Getting lost in debating the Course is very easy to do. It's possible to amass a considerable body of conviction about what the Course is saying or meaning and to then be so rigid and fixed in that that you can no longer talk to people normally or allow them their mistakes.

One person I was talking to was so distracted by intellectual positions that it was almost like talking to no-one. I would say one thing, they would do an instant bypass, find some other quotation or concept to go against it, and throw it back at me. I also wrote a few posts which were clear and obviously correct. But what happens is, people will then read it, sort of quietly refuse it, find one word you said which was slightly "not pure course-correct lingo", and then go in a diatribe about how you were wrong, completely glossing over and ignoring what you actually said or whether it was true.

This is what the ego does. It creates diversions. Distractions. Cover-ups. It makes noise about something, anything, other than what is immediately present. It pulls you away from the here and now. It takes you out of conversations and into wars. It uses its prowess to launch counter-attacks to perceived attacks, which it itself put out there with its mis-perceptions and judgements, and then reacted to.

You have to beware of the ego doing this. It will try to use the Course to point out the ways that people are wrong and then react to this perception by trying to correct them, when in fact it is your own mind which is at fault. It's just another way the ego projects responsibility and blame.

If you are not being absolutely immortal, then you are trying to be a victim. Victims are not just those who seem to be overtly attacked by another. Victims are those who believe they can be CHANGED AT ALL BY ANYTHING.

There is a wide range of victimhood, or what you might call "victim consciousness", from mild to extreme. But everyone's doing it. We're all trying to make out that we're something that can be affected. That we can be hurt or suffer, made to feel something, caused against our will, converted and transformed and modified by the world.

The bizarre but factual truth is that the world does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to you. It is not the cause of you, God is. There is not a single speck of anything in the whole of spacetime that has ANY ability to change what you really are at all. You are changeless and eternal and you do not have the ability to change.

"The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did. Nor does he do anything to the world, because he was mistaken about what it was. Herein is the release from guilt and sickness both, for they are one. Yet to accept this release, the insignificance of the body must be an acceptable idea." UrM6C3

We all entered into a grand charade of pretending we can die. Pretending we can be mortal, that we can suffer, that stuff can happen to us, that we can be affected and changed. Even that we can change ourselves against God's will. None of this is true.

"You see yourself as a ridiculous parody on God's creation, weak, vicious, ugly and sinful, miserable and beset with pain. Such is your version of your self; a self divided into many warring parts, separated from God, and tenuously held together by its erratic and capricious maker, to which you pray." UrW95L2

"You see yourself as vulnerable, frail, and easily destroyed. And at the mercy of countless attackers more powerful than you." UrT22G11 You cannot change what is permanently changeless, but you can BELIEVE you can. This belief is a mistake and a lie. Everyone who believes they can be victimised, attacked, hurt, damaged, destroyed, is lying. Anyone who feels they are suffering or weak or threatened or afraid are lying. Anyone who claims that someone did something to them is lying.

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you." UrW191L9

This can be a harsh truth especially when it seems so real and convincing, especially when some other body comes along and performs a physical abuse or harm upon your body or feelings. Especially when it seems to blatantly obvious that someone "not myself" is wholly responsible for "causing changes in me."

And we've all been through shit. We've all experienced what we call suffering. We've all had pains and hurts, sicknesses. We've all died many times over. We've all gone through every form of misery possible and every form of unhappiness and every kind of horrendous nightmare. And even in spite all of it, NOT ONE SINGLE BIT OF IT IS TRUE.

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do." UrT9K8

We CANNOT be victimised or attacked or hurt or damaged or threatened or changed at all. God who is immortal maintains us forever in his mind by his infinite immortal will to be immortal beings forever. We are absolutely incapable of change or of being change or of changing anything. There is NO CHANGE in reality.

"Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in ANY way, for that is not God's Will for His Son. Pain is not of Him, for He knows no attack, and His peace surrounds you silently." UrT10D1

We must remind ourselves frequently when tempted to believe we have BEEN changed, or CAN change, that we HAVE NOT done this. IF we believe we have done this, we will believe we have sinned and are guilty, deserving more fake punishment. We cannot BE punished. We cannot become guilt, or turn into evil, or transform into the anti-christ.

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. " UrW152L1

Beyond all lies and all deception and all fake suffering and all pain and sickness and all death, beyond space and time, we are all absolutely infinite beings that are so absolute and so always the same forever that we have not even BEGUN to change into anything else.

"There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are." UrW190L5

All that's happened is we have gone into DENIAL about our permanent reality, our permanent perfection, our permanent Christhood. And have PRETENDED to be something that changes. We have damaged the body, damaged the emotions, damaged the thinking, but we have not damaged the soul. What we are can never be changed.

"The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that MUST be One." UrT29G1

All that's required then in awakening to the truth is to ACCEPT THE TRUTH, that nothing has EVER happened to us, nothing CAN happen to us, and there is not even a world that could be accused of doing such in the first place. Attack does not exist. There is no pain or suffering or sickness or death. We are the sons of God and we are free from suffering forever.

"There is no death, and we renounce it now in every form, for their salvation and our own as well. God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it is given us to look past death and see the life beyond." UrW163L8

"There is no death. The Son of God is free. And in His freedom is the end of fear. UrM29A4

Everything in the physical world is temporary. It comes, it lingers a while, and then it goes. This applies to absolutely everything. Bodies, worlds, animals, foods, cars, birds, insects, bicycles, trees, you name it. It seems to begin, it seems to remain as if promising to be there always, but then it leaves. Always, always, always it leaves.

However, the things of God are not temporary, they are permanent and eternal. They do not come and go, or last only a little while, or even a long while. They are forever. They have no beginning and no end. They are endless and immortal, incapable of fading away or decaying, of becoming sick or dissolving into death. Because what God has created cannot BE put asunder.

When you assign the properties of God's creations to the things of this world, you will have psychological sickness, because they will fail to be permanent. This includes valuing the things of this world as if they can be kept, being attached to the things of this world as if they are worth having, wanting the things of this world to never end, trying to keep bodies going for as long as possible, resisting change, not letting go of what inevitably must pass, and even attempting to stop death from happening.

Trying to make this world eternal is a mistake. Trying to give it reality and life, will and power, mind and value, is all a mistake. Every time you think of the things of this world as though they should last forever, believing they will not end, wishing they would always be there, or wanting them to never die, you are confusing immortality and mortality. Believing this world is your permanent home will tear you apart, because this world will tear apart.

Believing the things of the world must last forever, you will suffer psychologically. The things of this world WILL end, and the whole world will end, and everything you ever wanted to keep here will be destroyed. Even the things you spend a lifetime building. All the world's roads lead to death and destruction. It will leave, and it will take away, and all things physically will die. So when you're busy wanting them not to, you will be torn apart and experience loss and grief. The things you think you value will be destroyed, the bodies you think should live indefinitely will be mangled, and every treasure will be crushed.

You will suffer if you believe this world is anything BUT temporary, or anything but death. Trying to have it be permanent is to confuse it for heaven. It is not of God, it is not his kingdom, and it is not his will. Nor is it like him, having been made to be opposite to his kingdom in every way. All forms of attachment, resistance, ownership, specialness, valuing, believing real, trying to sustain, not wanting it to end, will make you suffer. Because it will end anyway and everything you thought you loved will be ripped away, leaving you empty and bereft, while you play with death.

The only way to alleviate this suffering is to cease the confusion of levels between heaven and earth. To stop trying to make this world last indefinitely. To stop trying to keep people in bodies. To stop valuing things that will die, and to stop resisting their going. You have to let the whole world go, because it is going to go whether you like it or not.

The only way to find salvation from a world that was dying before it was born, is to transcend the world and rise above it. To detach from it and recognize it as temporary and old and destined to die. The kingdom of God offers you everything that this world cannot give, and just as this world has disappointed you since time began, heaven has delighted you and will do so without end. Only the creations of God can satisfy you and bring lasting happiness.

Bodily relationships will come and go. You'll think they'll last forever and then they will end and you will be upset because you wanted it to last. All your collections and objects and toys will be destroyed. Everything you eat will turn to shit, if you manage to eat it before it rots. All places through all seasons will destroy everything they contain. Even entire solar systems and galaxies will be swallowed up and exploded apart.

Nothing in this world will last forever. The sooner this can be accepted and sink deeply within, such that you become willing to release it and let it all go, the sooner you will find happiness and peace.

"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust, even as you made it."

"The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."

"You who feel threatened by this changing world, its twists of fortune and its bitter jests, its brief relationships and all the "gifts" it merely lends to take away again, attend this lesson well. The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus."

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to GAIN that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."

Reality, truth, power, will and causation always go together. Wherever you assign reality, you are also assigning all the other complementary properties.

God in his grace, is real and true and has unlimited will and power and causation. If God, as the premise or starting point of "what exists" is in general GOOD, then thankfully that implies that goodness is happening, is real, is true, etc.

Fear enters only when you believe that something OTHER THAN GOD has the properties of God. The opposite of God's creation is the world we made, which includes planet Earth. Earth is an illusion of a world, based on a premise of sin, attack, separation and death. All the "bad" stuff.

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

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son."

So if you assign truth and reality and power and will to the BAD stuff, you are literally setting yourself up for a nightmare. You're asserting, sin is real, death is true, the world is causing me, and physicality has power over my mind.

Under those terms, you HAVE to feel a sense of anxiety. Suddenly a separate world has a mind of its own. Suddenly physical maladies, problem and diseases torment you with their proof of suffering. Death and attack become real. And murder seems to be the law. If you escape it, you are lucky, because its inevitability is built into the entire premise of this reality.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen , for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality."

So if the world is real for you, if you believe in sin, if you believe what your body tells you, if you believe your eyes, your senses, and beleive that "bad stuff is really happening", you cannot help but feel threatened. If the world is believed to cause you, you ARE at its effect, and MUST be defined by something evil against your will. And no-one can but justify being afraid under those conditions.

The ego would tell you that the way OUT of this fear reaction, is to either hide, or avoid, or pretend to be strong, or attack it, or be heroic, or go into denial, or any number of other ego strategies. None of these really work. They don't move the belief in the reason to be afraid.

In order to overcome the foundation for fear, you have to overcome the BELIEF that the world is God. That sin is real. That death is possible. That anything real can suffer, or that suffering has any truth to it. If you can maintain that outlook at all times, you cannot BELIEVE IN being affected, and cannot justify fear. There is NO BASIS for fear if the world of sin and attack is not even real. Then only love and forgiveness and invulnerability can be justified.

This is the challenge. If you are not on your game, if you are buying into fear, if you are believing in hell, if you think you are a body, or if you believe physical evidence is real, it does not take much to happen to initiate fear. Especially if what happen is ranked "high" in terms of sevirity or importance. It doesn't take much at all.

Someone falls over, someone hurts themselves, someone develops a diagnosis, a house is attacked, a piece of equipment breaks, the car stops working, money goes missing, a letter arrives in the mail, whatever it is, something physical proves something has gone wrong. And now, UNLESS you resist temptation to buy into it, you will be afraid. If it has power over you to cause you, proving you have no power to stop it, it HAS to instill fear in you.

"I am upset because I see something that is not there."

The key then is not being tempted by, falling for, being deceived by, buying into, believing in, the world. You might still see it for a while. The body might still be hurling images of hell at you. You might still see sick bodies and death and murder. BUT, if you do not BELIEVE in it, if you do not CONFUSE it for God's attributes, if you do not assign reality or truth to it, you cannot be deceived by it. And it can do nothing to upset you.

If the world HAS no power, HAS no will, HAS no mind, HAS no causation, HAS no authority or ability to define or change you, then you CANNOT BE afraid. There is no justification for fear if what is real is a loving God. If God is real, there can only be justificaiton for rejoicing.

"You would not be affected by a dream that you knew you were dreaming. Let them be a hateful and as vicious as they may. They can have no affect on you unless you fail to recognize it is your dream."

When something goes wrong, anything at all, you are tempted to believe evil has triumphed over God. When someone falls sick for any reason at all, you are tempted to believe that God's Son is a mortal body that can be attacked. When something is suffering and writhing in pain, you are tempted to believe that pain is God's reality. And when you see murder and death, you are tempted to believe you can destroy God and His creation. This CANNOT BE TRUE because God is immortal.

So now you're going to be in a situation where you HAVE to decide. Is it true that this world is real and something HAS really gone wrong, OR is it true that only heaven is real and NOTHING CAN go wrong? You have to choose a side. God or the ego. Good or evil. Eternal life or the illusion of death. Happiness or suffering. Health or sickness. Light or dark. Life or death.

Are you going to ACCEPT INTO YOUR MIND, the world's temptation of sin being true, or are you going to positively use denial to REJECT it and ignore it? The proper use of denial entails you DENYING THE WORLD YOU SEE, because "sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision." You MUST deny anything not of God any power to hurt you or anyone, otherwise you are AGREEING that it has power to hurt you and others, which causes YOU to hurt yourself.

Believe only that God's truth is true and nothing else is true, at all times, in all situations, and you will be invulnerable to the world. And then it cannot cause you at all, yet alone make you afraid.

False perception means you are looking at something in such a way that you do not recognize what it is.

If the thing you're looking at is false, your mind will think it's true.

If the thing you're looking at is true, your mind will think it's false.

Although it's called false perception, this can be misleading because it makes it sound like it only focuses on falseness. But being a "false" perception, it's really a state of mind that INVERTS EVERYTHING.

What is true is swapped with what is false. What is false is swapped with what is true. That's all part of "perceiving falsely." Perhaps it would be better to call it inaccurate perception or mistaken perception.

If the world itself were a reality, an inaccurate perception would make it seem unreal. An inaccurate perception would distort whatever the world is, and show it to you as it is not.

If the world itself were NOT reality, an inaccurate perception would make it seem real. An inaccurate perception would distort whatever the world is, and show it to you as it is not.

So being in false mistaken perception doesn't inherently tell you whether the world itself is real or not. It only tells you whether you are in a state of mis-perceiving or not. Whether your mind is distorting or not, inaccurate or not, or deceived or not.

However, Jesus does refer to false perception in contrast to true perception. Perception is "true", or correct and accurate, when it is lining up more closely with facts and isn't introducing mistakes. A truer perception becomes somewhat transparent and stops interfering with what's being perceived. It kind of gets out of the way and reveals something "as it is", rather than interpreted incorrectly.

Nevertheless, even a true perception does not tell you whether the thing you're looking at is true or false, real or unreal. In and of itself perception does not determine this. All a true perception does is it stops distorting vision and takes a direct undistorting look. Whatever is there, no matter whether it is real or unreal, will be seen more for "what it actually is."

But what something "actually is" does NOT inherently tells us whether the thing actually is true, or actually is false, in its own right. Seeing a world truly does not mean that you automatically are looking at a true world. You can see a false world truly as well. You can see a word of fiction truly, just as you can see a work of non-fiction truly. You can see a fake world just as accurately as you can see a real world.

So at no time does perception actually tell us in any way, WHETHER or not the world is INHERENTLY real. It does not tell us if the world is genuine. It doesn't tell us if it is God's creation. And it doesn't tell us whether the thing perceived is really there.

Part of this comes from the fact that "projection makes perception". This means that you in fact have to PROJECT something out first, in order to perceive it. And you can only perceive WHAT you project. And you perceive it because you believe in it, and WANT it to be there. You look within at what is inside of you, and you project it out, and perceive its projection, which REFLECTS back to you like a feedback loop and you perceive it. This is why Jesus says:

"Perception is a RESULT, not a cause."

Perception does not cause anything, it does not define whether what you perceive is real, it does not give us any facts, and it does not prove whether the world is real or unreal. All it shows us is WHAT WE ARE GIVING, and what we therefore are CHOOSING TO SEE. And we see whatever we WANT or wish to see, projected out, because WE PUT IT THERE to see.

The question then becomes, do you actually ever perceive "an objective world", in its own right, in its own nature, or do you ONLY perceive what you project ONTO it? And how is it that you can project something onto it in the first place?

If the world were, let's say, completely real and God created, it should not be possible to project ANYTHING onto it at all. It should not be possible to modify it, define it, shape it, interpret it, or in any way have anything to do with "what is there." God by his will has put a world there and it would then be our job to accept it as it is and know it and be one with it. It would not be possible to "project perception".

That it IS possible to project perception onto "this world", the world we recognize as Earth etc, tells you that this world cannot have any INHERENT MEANING of its own. It has to be able to reflect what you project, and it can only reflect it because it is neutral. It is neutral only because it is nothing, and being nothing it has no inherent truth of its own. How could you project false things onto it, OR true things onto it, if it had ITS OWN truth? Its own truth would fight with and block anything you tried to give it.

Perception therefore really hints at us to realize that "there is no world apart from what you wish." There is no world apart from what you give to the world. There is no objective world out there. What we're projecting onto is an emptiness and an illusion, not a reality. What we're perceiving things IN is a mirror. We only see what we put there, otherwise there would be nothing TO see.

Note that perception is feedback, and it is a feedback from what was projected out.. True perception is less distorting that false perception, and could potentially become more transparent, to where it could "see past" what is projected to the underlying inherent nature of the world. To see it for what is actually there. But if there isn't something real actually there, true perception should also reveal that the world is unreal.

We need to realize that true perception does not mean that you see "the truth" as if it is the objective truth. It means that you are seeing in a "true way", such that WHATEVER you see won't be distorted. You are projecting an idea of love which makes the least amount of distortion or misinterpretation.

Seeing truly is only accurate vision, which DOES NOT IN ANY WAY indicate whether WHAT you look upon with it is, in and of itself, actually true or false. True perception can just as easily look upon a FALSE WORLD, and recognize "the truth that" it is a false world. True perception is not "blindness" to what is false, and we must not confuse WHAT is seen with HOW it is seen. You can look truthfully upon and lie and recognize it is a lie, just as much as you can look truthfully upon something that is inherently true in and of itself. True perception DOES NOT tell us whether the world is really there or not!

You can see that perception really has absolutely nothing to do with establishing whether or not this world exists, whether God created it, whether what you see is true and real, or what the inherent nature of the world is. Even if you see love in it, even if you see reality in it, even if you see God reflected in it, it STILL does not prove that the world is objectively real. Beyond what you GIVE to the world, or what you MAKE OF it, you have literally NO IDEA whether the world is really there or not.

True perception can potentially show you "what is there", but it doesn't of itself tell you what "it is." True perception is just as capable of showing you that THE WORLD IS FALSE.

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that."

"The world can give you ONLY what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection, it HAS no meaning apart from what you found in it, and placed your faith in."

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

"What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality?"

There is only one choice in the world. Not a million choices. Not a million scenarios. Not a million conditions to judge and evaluate and decide upon. There is only one choice. You are always choosing either life or death.

Life here means eternal life, immortality, invulnerability, perfect health, wholeness, happiness, love, peace, joy, etc. The attributes of God and His Kingdom of creation.

Death here means the cessation of eternity, an attack on God, a rejection of health and wholeness, a desire for destruction and death, and an attempt to make God non-existent.

The physical world itself is set up such that everything in it tends to lead towards death. It is not in support of God because it was made as an attack on him. This is why everything in it seems to make death inevitable.

But just because the world says all things must die, it doesn't mean you don't have a choice. It doesn't mean you have to go along with it and just give up and drop dead. Nor does it mean you have to find a way to try to accept death and cozy up to it.

What many in the world do not know is that there IS an alternative to death and dying and destruction and degradation. To embrace it requires a recognition of two things.

1) The world is ONLY offering death and there is no hope of life. 2) There is ANOTHER world which is offering only life and no hope of death.

Only if you can recognize that there IS AN ALTERNATIVE to the world's ways, do you even have a real choice. If there is no better world, no God, no eternal life, no miracles, no healing, no resurrection, then you really DON'T have a choice. You are set on a rollercoaster ride to hell and death and will not get off it until you're worm food.

We might think there are choices be made along the way, electing for different states of dying, different kinds of sicknesses, different unhappinesses, trying to trade-off one thing for another to come out on top. But the world has news for you - it is not ever going to let you come out on top in the long run.

So you have no real choice at all, because death is looming and you have no way to stop it. Or do you? Only IF there is another option do you actually have any real choice in life at all. Otherwise you're destined to die. And you cannot be at peace with such a fate because it is utterly insane.

Only if there is another world, another way, another option, and only if you have some kind of power of decision to choose it and make it be your experience, is there any REAL HOPE at all. There is REAL HOPE if you can in fact CHOOSE not to suffer, be sick, or die. And there is REAL HOPE if you have in your mind the POWER to actually make that choice, to choose away from death, and actually CAUSE life and REVERSE death.

Only if you can surmount death and overcome the world, can you be free from the descent into hell. Only if you can resurrect and raise the dead and reverse sickness and perform miracles, can you head in the direction of God who is life. Only if you can demonstrate harmlessness and invulnerability can you prove your commitment to immortality.

The world does not think immortality is possible. It is seen as a silly idea thought by crazy people. It is seen as having had almost zero examples and certainly does not appear to be commonplace. It seems like no-one gets out of here alive. And everyone has just decided to try and accept this fate and "live with it". To then adjust to it and try to "make the most" of the little lot of life we have, begging death for scraps of time and asking for little gifts of nothingness before we're extinguished.

Unless you are open to God and open to immortality and open to resurrection and miracles and healing, you are NOT open to life. You are committed to dying. And that is the only reason it will happen. You are CHOOSING it by not choosing away from it. And you are free to make this choice. If you do not choose God, you are choosing destruction. If you do not choose resurrection and healing, you are choosing to die.

This is your responsibility because you actually have a power in you to decide what you want. You do not HAVE to die or go through sickness or suffering. You CAN in fact elect not to have any of these things happen, and make it so. This is not a fantasy. Your mind is just as capable of causing life as it is of causing death. But to choose eternal life IS going to require you to fly in the face of the entire world, all its supporters, all its believers, and all of its pathways.

Only with help from beyond the world can you be liberated from the world. Only with the Holy Spirit can you find a solution, an answer, a way, which breaks all the laws of physics and violates all the seeming laws of reality. Only with his power can you recover and heal and resurrect even in the face of what the world would say is an impossible irreversible situation.

You have to choose towards God and towards life, away from death and way from destruction, if you want to live. If you want to escape from death and from sickness and hell, you have to choose life. This is really a no-brainer. If you are choosing life you will have life, if you are choosing death you will have death. You are free to choose.

"You who fear salvation are WILLING death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception are irreconcilable."

"Either you give each other life or death; either you are each other's Savior or his judge, offering him sanctuary or condemnation."

"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. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die."

"Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible."

"The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God."

"Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be."

"Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF. Yet God's Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

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

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

In A Course in Miracles, forgiveness is a movement away from believing that illusions are true and real, towards recognizing that they are in fact not true or real. This becomes clear when your awareness increases sufficiently to reveal a larger truth, which shows you the ways in which the "smaller truth", i.e. illusory lies, are in fact limited and untrue.

Forgiveness, as a process, is also a movement from unawareness, in which you don't see clearly or fully, to a state of expanded awareness where you see more of the whole picture and with greater accuracy. As you go through this, what seemed to be true of your illusions starts to be recognized as being not as true as the larger truth.

It's a matter of becoming clear about what REALLY is true, and what is actually false. Getting truth and illusions confused is the ENTIRE content of the ego, and the entire content of the separation from God - which is you trying to make illusions become reality.

As you become more aware of what the truth really is, and less convinced about what the truth is not, your discernment of true vs false becomes clearer. You learn to recognize the truth for what it is (not the illusion you thought it was), and recognize the illusion for what it is (not the reality you thought it was).

Through forgiveness you will eventually reach a truly, fully "forgiving" state of awareness, which recognizes ALL of the truth, which is that nothing has really happened, there is only innocence, and therefore there is nothing to forgive.

Now, there are a couple of pieces of the puzzles of performing miracles which I did not really get, but which certain Christian practitioners tried to describe. They would say that you have to a) believe in Jesus ("be a believer"), and b) have "faith". Since their belief in Jesus was heavily wrapped in Christian theology, I had trouble discerning exactly WHAT it was about Jesus that I was supposed to believe - such as that He died for our sins and such, which is not an ACIM teaching. I also have never really 'got' what faith means, because it was never explained in a clear context.

But I've become clearer on this now.

The only way that "believing in Jesus" and "having faith" become meaningful, is when you can discern that the ENTIRE WORLD IS AN ILLUSION. It is necessary to have a really strong clear distinction between what is TRUE, and what is FALSE. So as you go about your life believing in the world, (even if you're trying to learn not to believe in it you probably still do), while you're in this sort of in-between phase of "some of the truth is true, but some of it I don't get", you will also be similarly confused about what it means to believe in Jesus, and what faith is.

If parts of the world are real to you, in spite of what you might claim otherwise, this HAS to mean that you in part also believe that God is not entirely real. It also means that you have 'faith in' the ego, and faith in sickness and death.

Now, this isn't something that people want to admit but, the simple fact is, either you believe that God is real, fully, or in some way you don't believe it. And that displaced belief will be put into a conviction that the ego is real - that it is truth, and that everything it claims is true. That will go on to mean that when shit happens in the world and it seems real, part of you will be trying to look to God for a way out of it, but part of you will be attached to believing in it. And so you are now torn, or your faith is divided. And Jesus says faith cannot serve two masters.

So what needs to happen is, through proper forgiveness, we need to become REALLY CLEAR about the distinction between reality, and illusions. We can' have this mishmash of partial reality and partial illusion. It will confuse us and rob truth of meaning.

To be able to believe in Jesus, means that you believe Jesus is 100% reality, He is 100% love, He is 100% truth, 100% immortal, 100% innocent, 100% at peace etc. He shares this truth with God 100%.

IF that is true, if that's your definition of truth, then it HAS to mean, that anything not of God is not truth. So now you need to be very clear, WHAT is not of God? Because if you go on believing God created the world, and yet the world seems to be the place where things fuck up big time, then... well, now you are super confused. And of course you are confused because it makes no sense that God would create a world with sickness in it, because that means God creates sickness. So now if you were to follow that truth, and you were trying to find some healing or peace from experiencing sickness, how the heck would you have any kind of power to turn to if that power believes in sickness? You'd be hopeless.

So... to believe in Jesus means to believe in God, that God is the one and only truth, and only things which are completely in accord with unconditional love are of God. Nothing else. Absolutely nothing else at all can be permitted to take up the label of "real" or "true".

So then you have to ask yourself, did God create the world? No. He did not. So that means the world is not real. And that's mind-blowing, if you really take in deeply. It completely undermines your entire view of reality - or rather, your mistaken view in which you think illusions are reality. Because all this time you've been thinking you're living in a 'real' world and now you find out, it's a tricking illusion pretending to be real!

But this is how you can then have faith. You can have faith because, now that you believe in God's truth, and you know that God's truth is the only truth, and that this world is NOT a part of God's truth, that means whenever any shit happens in the world, you can BYPASS it, OVERLOOK it (forgiveness), and HOLD STRONG to the truth as God would have it be. That means, NO MATTER WHAT is in front of your face, no matter what happens, no matter how serious it seems, no matter how final - even death, YOU DO NOT BELIEVE IN IT, because believing in it would have to mean - you really do not believe in God all the way.

But if you DO believe in God, then.... no matter what happens, no matter how serious, you do NOT pay it attention, you do NOT believe in it, and you instead express and extend GOD'S REALITY in place of it. You cancel it out. You overwrite it. You clarify that the problem is NOT real, is NOT the truth, and you replace it with love. This shows the nothingness of the illusion, puts everything in its correct order, and corrects all confusion. It also produces miracles.

So you have faith by believing that God's truth is true, and that this is shared by Jesus.... and you have faith by holding true to that fact regardless of how the world seems to be. The only question of your faith wavering is when you believe the illusion enough that your belief in God's power wavers, and that means you've temporarily forgotten that God's truth is true. You've believed in the ego again. So you lose faith when that happens.

This kind of faith in God is not blind faith or just 'hope'... it is CERTAINTY, it is KNOWING, it is TRUTH, and it is CORRECTION.

Holy Spirit interjected while writing that the word "trust" is really what faith means. Trusting God. Trusting the real truth. Trusting that BECAUSE of what the truth is, that "this problem" is not insurmountable or irreversible. It is that knowing of the truth, that trust in the truth, which powers miracles.

So forgiveness leads you to miracle mindedness, a clarity about what is true and what is false gives you miracle mindedness, and a certainty about the truth being true (and that therefore the world is not real) gives you the foundation for faith. Your trust/faith in God's Way gives you miracle-working capabilities.

To get there you're going to have to question the validity of every way that you're trying to find truth in the world, because it means that you're looking for truth in an illusion. It means you're not clear yet about what is true and what is false. The world is false - head's up!. Entirely false. It is entirely an illusion that doesn't really exist or mean anything at all. Every time you 'seek' for truth in it, you will not find it, because it is not there. You need to learn to stop trying to do that and instead believe in God.

The miracles will flow from there.

"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning." UrW132L4

Some people regard this world as something negative, some as something positive. But the course regards it as NOT SOMETHING AT ALL. It acknowledges that the world is NOTHING, and the body is NOTHING.

It also acknowledges that when we think that it is SOMETHING, we will give it attributes and meaning that it does NOT have, and believe that it does have them inherently. This means we are deceived, because we are PROJECTING things onto a nothingness and seeing the projection AS IF it is there.

It's important to understand what NOTHINGNESS means. It does not mean negative, or positive. It does not mean meaningful, or meaningless as in the sense of it being a something that is depressing. It is not good or evil. It is not holy or corrupt. It is not really anything. It has NO ATTRIBUTES, no labels, no categories, no types, nothing. Like a void.

"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct." UrW132L2

The world, the physical world, matter, spacetime, all flesh and bones bodies, the whole system, is NOTHINGNESS, pretending to be something. It's only seeming to be something because we keep projecting stuff onto it.

"What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something." UrU3A2

It is also true then that a "nothing world" acts like a mirror. A mirror is something which has NO ATTRIBUTES of its own. It has no inherent image, no inherent meaning, no inherent anything. It just REFLECTS, indirectly, seeming images and forms and meanings PROJECTED ONTO it from something once removed from it. In other words, what it seen in the mirror is not first hand reality, it is second-hand.

And then that projecting thing sees the REFLECTION of what was projected in the mirror, as feedback in consciousness, and thinks it is THERE. As if it is "in the mirror", part of the mirror. But confusing what is seen in a mirror for the THING that is reflected there, is a mistake.

"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego." UrE14E5

"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth." UrT18B3

Earth - spacetime, physical matter, bodies etc. ... can REFLECT, because these things are NOTHING IN THEMSELVES. They can reflect whatever you put ONTO them. You can project hellish ideas of sin and guilt onto them, and will then see that IN the mirror, as though part of the mirror. You can project heavenly ideas of love and peace onto them, and you will see that reflected in the mirror also, as though part of the mirror.

But when we confuse what is REFLECTED with the fact that we require a MIRROR in order to have a reflection, and the reflected thing is confused for BEING the mirror, we are lost in the mirror of perception. And now we think that the world IS this, or IS that. That if we project sin onto it is IS sinful. And if we project love onto it it IS love. And if we give it reality it IS real. This is a mistake. This is someone not recognising that they are looking in a mirror, and NOT at an objective reality. Whatever they PUT there to see, they see, and there is nothing else to see. If they walk away, the world is gone.

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that." UrT21A1

"The world can give you ONLY what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection, it HAS no meaning apart from what you found in it, and placed your faith in." UrT13C3

"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it." UrT11H10

"Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward." UrW304L1

So what we have to realize is, whether you're seeming to work with an evil hateful dangerous nasty world, or you're seeming to work with what seem like a benevolent lovely forgiven world, you are working with a REFLECTION IN A MIRROR, not an ACTUAL FACT.

The truth is, that there is no world there. There is ONLY your projection. You are seeing what you put there to see. That is hardly objective. In fact it is completely subjective, and the world has NO objective reality or truth of its own.

This means that in order to awaken from it, we have to learn to project "happier things" onto the mirror, so that it seems to reflect a "happier dream" to us, and we can seem to pull out of it aspects which seem to REFLECT heaven's nature. So that we'll be more prepared psychologically to move on to a realm of heaven where what we experience is NOT a reflection but an ACTUAL reality.

"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is not a reflection, but rather the ACTUAL CONDITION of what was but reflected TO them here." UrT14E8

So fundamentally, planet earth, every particle of matter, all energies, all of space and time, the whole galaxy and 'universe', is all part of a MIRROR. It is a mirror because it is NOTHING REAL and is a meaningless world. We PROJECT ONTO this world what we want to see IN it, and see it reflected. This is ONLY possible because the world HAS NOTHING OF ITS OWN, because it is nothing at all and doesn't really exist.

Recognising that the mirror reflects only what you put there to see, leads to the recognition that the world IS a mirror, and IS NOT a thing in its own right. That there is no world there other than your wishes projected outward from within. You are having a dream, making up a subjective "reality", hallucinating what you want to see, and are inventing meanings for a world that isn't there.

The ultimate teaching therefore is that THERE IS NO WORLD. Not that the world is transformed, or kept, or ascended, or turned into heaven, or made to be ANYTHING. IT cannot BE anything because it is a NOTHING. Mirrors don't have identities. Mirrors don't have their own nature. Mirrors have no substance of their own, no attributes, nothing. You thought you saw a world in a mirror for a while, and were deceived. It is not there. Only heaven exists.

"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly." UrW132L4

"To see a SINLESS body is impossible. 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." UrT20H4

"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. And you WILL hate it for its littleness, unmindful that the failure does not lie in that it is not MORE than it should be, but ONLY in YOUR failure to perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee." UrT29C9

"The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be." UrM15A2

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came." UrU5A4

ACIM reiterates many times that WE ALONE ARE THE CAUSE of our own suffering. We are not ever at the effect of the world. We are the cause of the world, the dream, and everything we feel and think and experience. Nothing happens without our consent, and we cannot even be hurt unless we ourselves hurt ourselves.

When you take this to the extreme, it means that YOU ALONE are responsible for EVERYTHING you experience, and NO ONE ELSE has anything to do with it whatsoever. There are no causes in the world, your brothers NEVER cause you (God is the cause of you), and you cannot suffer unless you choose to.

You can't even die unless you choose to. NOTHING can happen without your decision. And Jesus is completely literal about this. If you do not CHOOSE to suffer, suffering CANNOT happen to you. Sickness cannot happen, nor can death. You have automatic innate power over death and suffering at all times, and ONLY YOU can bring them upon yourself.

"If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it."

This puts 100% of the responsibility on your shoulders. Which means that if you are ever tempted to believe that something is happening for a reason OTHER than your own contribution, you are in a state of being mistaken, and now you need correction. Because it is ONLY your contribution that is causing everything.

This sounds easy enough. You just need to realize and recognize that every time you are unhappy, upset, suffering, in pain, sick, angry etc, it is because you are making it happen. If you would just stop hurting yourself you'd be totally invulnerable and healthy and happy all the time. No joke.

What becomes seemingly difficult is the many ways that we might not recognize what we're doing, or that we're even doing anything at all. We can become so used to blame, and reaction, and emotional triggers, and powerlessness, and believing other people actually do stuff, and that it seems impossible we can be responsible for everything.

In fact it runs very deeply. Every single thought you have, every attitude, every belief, are all part of the confusion that "its not me doing it" and "they are doing it to me." In every way, it is really you, who are an immortal being who can never even be changed at all, becoming confused and believing that something outside of you is changing you against your will. This can NEVER be true.

Every time that we lose sight of being THE CAUSE, we fall into temptation. We deny the truth and project causality outside of us. And this is the same as projecting sin. Then we find others or the world to be the cause of us. And this is a defense against the healing God placed in our minds. It's a way to avoid being healed by displacing the problem and its source outside of ourselves.

We talk about teaching others, and helping others, and having relationships, and performing miracles and so on, but the foundation of all this is simply YOU BEING YOU. Are you attacking yourself, or aren't you? If you aren't, you are not under attack. If you are, you are your ONLY worst enemy. This is all due to the suicidal self-destructiveness which comes from believing you are sinful. Are you trying to destroy yourself and others, or are you extending creation?

If you were to temporarily remove the entire planet, and all the people on it, and leave just you floating in space by yourself, whatever is going on in your experience is SOLELY caused by you. There is nothing else to cause it. This really tells you that ALL your forgiveness work is ENTIRELY an inside job. IT has nothing to do with others. It's you versus yourself. Is you trying to master yourself. It's your mind playing tricks on itself. It's you alone affecting yourself insanely.

Weaning off of all the reasons, excuses, explanations, justifications, beliefs, projections, and all other forms of displacement of responsibility, is not easy. We have a lot of habits formed, a lot of assumptions made, and a lot of belief in being vulnerable. We position ourselves as victims on a minute-by-minute basis. We might think it's not even POSSIBLE to question whether these things are happening to us. That things can seem so extreme and lopsided that it seems impossible we can be the one causing it.

But even those things which seem convincing, tempting us, secretly our dissociated choice, we have to dig out ALL of them, to question every single mental activity which is leading you away from your invulnerability. Even the notion that if you are being responsible, other people can still do stuff to you, cannot be true. Even the notion that even if you're doing your best, you will still die, cannot be true. Even death itself CANNOT have power over you if you decide NOT to die. "You are immortal and you cannot die."

The aim here is that you become "strong in the truth". That you stand in your own light. That you know yourself and be true to yourself. That you be so certain of what you ARE, that you don't for a second displace yourself, make a bodily identity, project cause outside of yourself, or believe any temptation that you are threatened by the world. This is how you be the light of the world, by going WITHIN to the light that is in you, so that it can extend.

Ultimately it boils down to one simple thing. You are the one who is making your life hell. It's not anyone else, and its not the world. It's not your neighbors, not your boss, your politicians, your celebrities. It's not certain races or countries or the weather or food or where you live. It's not external activities or events or space or time. It's just YOU. You are the one who is doing it to yourself. Holy fuck!

Salvation has been placed IN YOUR MIND by God because he knows that the PROBLEM is in your mind. And so the solution is in your mind. Your mind is what needs to be corrected, and that is all. This will take care of everything else. You are the one who is against you. You are the one who keeps giving YOUR power away to others. You are the one who keeps losing yourself and confusing yourself with things which are not you. And you are the one who can use the power of your decision to get out of it.

"You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do.""It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace in any way.""It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen."

"Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in ANY way"

"Who could be hurt in such a war, unless he hurts himself?"

"Nothing can hurt you, unless you give it the power to do so."

"If you will listen to His voice, you will know that you cannot either hurt or be hurt"

"You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness."

"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

"It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident."

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true."

"Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS" UrT11J13

Let's look at the really big picture.

You are an immortal being with eternal life that lives in God forever. You cannot change or be changed. You are permanent and fixed. You cannot be altered, you cannot suffer, you cannot be affected, you cannot be hurt or damaged, you cannot be sick or die. Nothing can ever happen to you or disturb your peace. You are real, and nothing real can be threatened.

The so-called separation from God was an attempt to BE MORTAL. To invent death. It is a belief in EVERY single form imaginable of something OPPOSITE to your immortal nature. An insinuation, a lie, and a denial, that you can in fact "be changed", that you can be affected, victimised, hurt, damaged, broken, or even made to be sick, or even destroyed completely by death.

The entire world of space and time and everything in it was entry into a "dream of death", in which every single aspect is part of the attempt to believe that you are NOT immortal.

Even the slightest hint of fear is evidence of believing that you might not live forever. The slightest twinge of sickness is an attempt to PROVE that you can be hurt. The merest disturbance to your total peace signals a sense that somehow, in some way, your eternal extension and permanence MIGHT be in question.

And so as we entered into the separation, the tiny mad idea, we thought to ourselves that MAYBE we might not last forever. Maybe we could be changed, maybe we could alter ourselves even, maybe we could be changed by something other than ourselves. And maybe this would bring into question who and what we are, questioning even our permanence and eternal life.

This gave rise of course to fear, because the merest hint of a belief that you might not live forever induces a sense of threat to your existence, which frightens you. So we entered the "detour into fear", the "dream of death", an attempt to play a game of mortality.

We made this world, came to this world, to question our very NATURE. To draw into doubt what we are, and whether we can be what we are. We undermined ourselves. We attacked our own invulnerability. We tried to make ourselves into something that COULD be attacked, could be hurt, could suffer in some way.

So now when you look at the world and you look at ALL the massive number of forms of suffering, all fears, all victimhood, all sense of threat and danger, all sicknesses and mental illnesses, all death and destruction, every problem, all conflicts and competitions, all war and disagreement, every single nuance of body identification and believing you might be affected by something, is ALL merely a symptom of "trying to die". Trying to NOT BE IMMORTAL.

The solution to all this madness - the acceptance of the atonement - requires us to RELINQUISH DEATH in all its many forms. It requires us to ACCEPT once again that we are PURELY AND ONLY immortal beings with eternal life. It requires us to completely reject EVERY single little speck of a belief that says anything to the contrary.

All victimhood, all fears, all attack, all guilts and sins, all sense of suffering, all sense of threat and danger, all bodily identification, all belief in separations and conflicts, even the belief in change, all of it has to be questioned and let go. So that ALL that remains of you, all that you ARE, is your PURE immortal eternal self - the Christ - the soul, which resides in heaven with God PERMANENTLY safe and permanently alive.

You are life itself. You are eternal life. You are immortality. You are extension. You are the openness to never-ending. And because you know deep in your being that you are absolutely BEYOND all possible threats to your eternal nature, you are in a state of absolute peace and happiness. Not a single hint of threat, no danger, no concerns, no problems, no doubts, no suffering, no possibility of changing, not even the slightest hint of death in any form whatsoever.

You continue on. You are the immortal son of God. You have lived forever and you will always live forever. This is the central CORE TRUTH that the course is leading us to. Wake up to KNOW THYSELF AS YOU ARE IN GOD. The perfect pure immortal eternal being that is utterly beyond every form of death and every form of suffering forever, in total peace and absolute certainty. There is no death, the Son of God is free.

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die." URT29I

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you." UrW191L9

"Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination." UrT20I7

"The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that MUST be One." UrT29G1

"Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are." UrW139L6

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do." UrT9K8

"The graciousness of God will take them gently in, and cover all their sense of pain and loss, with the immortal assurance of their Father's Love." UrT14E4

"You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now." UrT11J12

"What is immortal cannot BE attacked; what is but temporal HAS no effect." UrT25H5

"My brothers, children of our Father, this is a DREAM of death. " UrT19J7

"And we will sleep no more and dream of death. " UrW191L10

"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." UrU5A7

You are not of this world. This world isn't the only world.

You are of another world, the Kingdom of God, in which you have immortality - eternal life as given by God Himself.

This world is an illusory world. It's kind of like a layer on top of reality. A pretend world, a picture, of a form and nature opposite to reality.

The things in the illusory world can appear to change, shift, grow, die, etc. But it really has no effect at all on the deeper underlying world of God. God's Kingdom is completely permanently unassailable and impenetrable and perfect forever. It is "the living world of light."

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world. But the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here, BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT."

"Let your Guide teach you their unsubstantial nature as He leads you past them, for beneath them is a world of light whereon they cast no shadows."

What you are, as an immortal spirit, is firmly anchored in Heaven. Nothing can attack you or change you in any way.

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

For you as an immortal being, death is not possible. It's not an option. You cannot choose it to happen to your spirit. Your spirit is invulnerable.

So what is it that can ever die, or seem to die? It can't be you. A body is an illusion, part of the illusory dream world of death. Everything in the dream world is made of illusions and all illusions are the idea of the opposite of reality. Since reality is life, all illusions are the idea of death.

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem."

So we know that every illusion, whether it appears to show up as a healthy body, or a sick body, or a dead body, or no body, or even just an environment, or a planet, is still essentially made of the idea of death. Even Earth is the idea of an opposite to God's Kingdom.

"Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way."

So from the outset, since what you are cannot die whatsoever, the things that can seem to die cannot even be who or what you are. You are spirit, not a body. You exist on an entire other level.

So really you do not need a body, it adds nothing to you, it doesn't improve you, it doesn't allow you to do things that you couldn't do already, and it only essentially was designed as a limit. It can be used in different ways, by an immortal spirit, but the body is not ever what you are.

As spirit, and being on a higher level, you have power over everything on the lower level of the illusory world. All of the world's laws are secondary and once-removed. This world is not primary reality, or the starting point of anything. It is not a cause but an effect of a higher mind's dreaming.

So this means, you on the level of Christ, have power over, total power over, everything in the world. That includes the body, it includes all states of sickness and death, it includes matter and energy, it includes all of the so-called laws of physics and biology, and in effect you have power over everything in this universe.

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are."

""My Self is ruler of the universe." ... It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. "

Since you have power over everything in the universe, "there is nothing my holiness cannot do", "what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world.", you get to dictate what happens to the body. You, from a higher more vertically causal level, get to choose how to USE any aspect of this secondary world.

You can choose to use the body to attack through, which is a toxic idea which affects the body and attacks it. This produces sickness and death of the body on this level. The body then conveys the idea that being dead is the only truth.

You can choose to use the body to heal through, which is a healing idea which affects the body and heals it. This produces a picture of a healed body, an illusion of a healthy body, which then demonstrates the thought/belief that being alive is the only truth.

So your mind gets to decide whether or not the body dies. And this depends entirely on what you use the body FOR. If you use it for attack it will be attacked. If you use it to heal it becomes healed. And in its healed condition, sustained by the mind, sickness death cannot "happen" to the body against your will and your power.

"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."

"No one dies without their own consent"

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

"The mind being sane heals the body."

"Now is the body healed by miracles."

So in effect, you could choose to use the body for healing and to symbolize eternal life, resulting in it being healed. By the power of your mind, the body is not allowed to be in a state of sickness, yet alone physical death.

The body can be sustained indefinitely, at least in time. It can't be eternal because the mind has to constantly maintain it and it is not natural to constantly project bodies. It could stick around for a million years if the mind so chose. Aging can be reversed and halted. But eventually once the purpose of healing is fulfilled in the help of others, there is no longer a need for a body to use to reach those who dream of death. Its purpose of healing is part of the atonement plan.

"Illusions recognized must disappear"

"Eternity will shine away the world."

"A forgiven world cannot last."

"The body cannot remain without illusions."

When the entire idea of death, which the world and body is founded on, is recognized, it must disappear. When it is no longer useful for the atonement plan, and all souls have returned home, there is nothing more to keep the world intact. Nor is there any need or will to maintain it.

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

You don't have to automatically go towards physical death. Death is a choice made by an immortal being pretending it can die. You cannot die. "Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt." "Swear not to die, you holy son of God. You've made a bargain that you cannot keep."

"You are immortal and you cannot die. But you can confuse yourself with things that do."

There is no point choosing to make death happen when you acknowledge that you already have eternal life. What sense would it make? It would be not only futile but a completely pointless waste of time. If you knew you could NEVER die, would you CHOOSE to attempt to make death happen? That's what we do when we cause sickness and death. And if we were to never do that, would sickness or death happen?

No. Because there are no other causes of it. The only cause of death is your mind's power to choose to attack through the body. If you don't do that, the body cannot physically die or become sick.

"Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions responsible for the condition of the body"

"hTe 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."

While in Heaven, before the fall of man, everything that existed was of God. And it still is. Creation is the presence of something real. It exists. It has substance. It lives.

At this point, all things which DO NOT exist, simply did not exist at all. They were not anywhere. They had no substance, no reality, no life. They did not happen. They simply weren't anywhere. Nothingness was nothing. And nowhere was nowhere.

Non-existence simply does not exist. It is not somewhere you can go and exist. It is not a realm or a dimension. It has no presence or location. It is simply, logically, absolutely nowhere at all, is nothing, does nothing, and cannot be.

In the separation, the tiny mad idea suggested that in ADDITION to Heaven, the nothingness actually was SOMETHING. And that Heaven, God and His Son did not exist. It was a complete reversal of the truth.

This was a completely ridiculous idea and we should have laughed at its nonsense. Nothingness cannot possibly exist. It can't BE something. It has no presence. But we believed it could.

This was our mistake. It was a mistake because it is patently impossible and illogical and nonsense. Nothing cannot exist. Which is a similar thing as saying, only what CAN exist DOES. And that is only of God's creation. Anything other than God's creation simply isn't anywhere. There isn't anything else. But we believed there was.

By forming this belief in nothingness being SOMETHINGNESS, we basically were becoming confused. Confusing levels. Confusing the truth with what is false. Confusing possibility with impossibility. Confusing reality with unreality. We wanted to GIVE nothingness all the attributes of God's creation so that we could BELIEVE that it was in fact SOMETHING POSSIBLE, and something that has existence.

This of course was an insane notion and totally wishful thinking, because it still remains impossible. And even in believing that it IS possible this does not cause it to be possible. Nothing can never be something. Non existence cannot suddenly come into existing. Even the idea that non-existence could exist is to confuse existence and non-existence to the point or ludicrous nonsense.... how can non-existence STILL BE non-existent at the same time as claiming it exists? But this is what we insisted was true.

In attempting to MAKE non-existent things EXIST, we dreamed, imagined, wished for, wanted, and tried to MAKE HAPPEN, "a world" on the basis of non-existence. A world where everything opposite to God's creation is manifest. A world where life does not exist. Where love is blotted out by fear. Where death has come to replace life, and time to replace eternity. Where space opposes omnipresence and where evil substitutes for the good.

Even in doing this, in our imagination, essentially, we still were not ACTUALLY doing this, because it is patently impossible to make non-existent things have reality. But we still BELIEVED that we could, that we did, that we have, and that we continue to do so. And so we hallucinated a fictional world which IS NOT THERE, and CANNOT EXIST, as if it were existing.

And so here we are, on planet Earth, jewel of the solar system, a completely make-believe, false, unreal, non-existent world, which in our minds we BELIEVE IN, and want to exist, and try to make happen. Which nevertheless, at no time ACTUALLY exists, and is nothing but imagined - images in the mind, attempting to DREAM OF what it MIGHT be like IF non-existence could exist.

So we haven't even really made non-existence exist. Non-existence CANNOT be made to exist. But we have BELIEVED that it is possible, which is an insane and completely mistaken belief. And we persist stubbornly to DENY the facts, and AVOID the truth, and HIDE FROM reality, in an effort to keep the truth in the dark so that you won't ADMIT that a non-existent world isn't here. And meanwhile we dream of space and time and happenings and sickness and death as if they are possible.

"it (mind) 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."

What ultimately happens when we reach atonement, which is the total willingness to admit to the truth and come to our senses, a return to SANITY, and a correct recognition of the facts, is that we come to RECOGNIZE that non-existent things DO NOT EXIST. What we thought existed, or what we thought happened, IS NOT THERE. This literally culminates in the awareness and accurate perception that THERE IS NO WORLD.

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

Quite literally, the world, which is based on the idea of nothingness, IS NOTHING. It cannot be. It is not. It does not. It cannot. It doesn't. It hasn't. It isn't. It won't. The world is merely a fictional fairytale fantasy, trying to believe that impossible things are possible, and trying to PROVE it through fictional stories and images and deceptions, smoke and mirrors, illusions and lies. The world is nothing but confusion.

There quite literally is no world here. Only the Kingdom of God exists. The world is nothingness. The body is nothingness. And true perception recognizes that the world is nothing. This is why christ vision cannot SEE the world, because it MUST VANISH when recognized as NOT EXISTING. The body is not alive or dead. It is not even THERE.

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was. And that is what "rolling the stone away" means. The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body’s nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

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

"At no time does the body exist."

"There is no world."

"There is no world apart from what you wish."

"He does not realize that he MAKES this world, for there IS no world outside him."

"Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so."

"Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions."

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again."

"But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now."

Recognizing there is no world, is like FORGETTING the world. Paying no attention to it. Becoming unable to SEE it. Erasing it from memory. Like it was nothing. Like it never happened. Like not one single thing occurred. And then ONLY the Kingdom of God is accepted as real, existing, present, possible, and happening. And upon accepting that ONLY the truth is true and nothing ELSE is true, you awaken to the recognition of the real truth in God.

"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."

"The world you see must be denied."

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

A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. 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 stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish."

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

The "one mind" or "one mindedness" is the mind of the soul in total union with all of creation.

The "right mind" or "right mindedness" is the same as miracle mindedness, the Holy Spirit's mind of atonement, a state of true perception, and the end of the dream.

The "wrong mind" or "wrong mindedness" is the same as false perception or various states of denial within perception.

HOWEVER, at times Jesus has referred to you having a right mind BEFORE the separation. e.g. "You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor." This suggests you and others (souls in heaven) had "right minds" prior to the separation idea. If being right-minded is being sane, it means you were sane before the separation, and right-mindedness as in atonement is a reflection of that.

It seems the right mind "ends" when one mindedness takes over but you cannot become LESS right-minded when this happens, so one-mindedness includes right mindedness.

"The term "salvation" does NOT apply to the Soul, which is not in danger and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is nothing more that "right-mindedness" which is NOT the one-mindedness of the Soul, but which must be accomplished before one-mindedness can be restored. Right-mindedness dictates the next step automatically, because right perception is uniformly without attack, so that wrong-mindedness is obliterated. The ego cannot survive without judgment, and is laid aside accordingly. The mind then has only ONE direction in which it can move."

"The Holy Spirit is nothing more than your own right mind. He was also mine. The Bible says, "May the mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus," and uses this as a BLESSING. It is the blessing of miracle-mindedness. It asks that you may think as I thought, joining with me in Christ-thinking."

"A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at ALL levels. Illness, which is really "not Right Mindedness", is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the misbelief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another."

"We said in a previous section that the miracle is an expression of miracle-Mindedness. Miracle-Mindedness merely means Right-Mindedness in the sense that we are now using it. Right-Mindedness neither exalts nor depreciates the mind of the miracle worker nor of the miracle receiver. However, as a creative act, the miracle need not await the Right-Mindedness of the receiver. In fact, its purpose is to restore him TO his Right Mind. But it is essential that the miracle worker be in his Right Mind, or he will be unable to reestablish Right-Mindedness in someone else. "

"In this sense, when their behavior is unstable, they are obviously disagreeing with God's idea of the Creation. This is a fundamental right of man, although not one he would care to exercise if he were in his Right Mind."

"Biblical quotation relates to the healing of a devil-possessed man, in which the sufferer was subsequently found healed, in his right mind, and sitting at feet of Jesus."

"He is invariable as the peace in which you dwell, and of which the Holy Spirit, that which is nothing more than your right Mind, reminds you."

"The ego, which is not real, attempts to persuade the mind, which IS real, that it IS its own learning device, and that the learning device is more real than IT is. No-one in his right mind could POSSIBLY believe this, and no-one in his right mind DOES believe it. "

"Innocent (or true) perception means that you NEVER misperceive, and ALWAYS see truly. More simply, this means that you never see what does not exist in reality. Whenever you lack confidence in what someone else will do, you are attesting to your belief that he is not in his Right Mind. This is hardly a miracle-based frame of reference. It also has the disastrous effect of denying (incorrect use) the essentially creative power of the miracle. The miracle perceives everything AS IT IS. If nothing but the truth exists (and this is really redundant in statement, because what is not true CANNOT exist) Right-Minded seeing cannot see ANYTHING BUT perfection. We have said many times that ONLY what God creates, or what man creates with the same will, has any real existence. This, then, is all that the innocent can see. They do not suffer from the delusions of the Separated ones."

"The world, in its original connotation, included both the proper creation of man by God, AND the proper creation by man in his Right Mind. The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given. Nothing in either of these statements implies any sort of level involvement, or, in fact, anything except one continuous line of creation, in which all aspects are of the same order. "

"Only One-Mindedness is without confusion. A separate, or divided, mind MUST be confused. A divided mind is uncertain by definition. It HAS to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself. "

"The Holy Spirit is the mind of the Atonement. It represents a state of mind that comes close enough to one-mindedness that transfer is at last possible. As you well know, transfer depends on common elements in the old learning and the new situation to which it is transferred. Perception is not knowledge, but it can be TRANSFERRED to knowledge, or CROSS OVER into it. It might even be more helpful here to use the literal meaning "carried over," for the last step is taken by God. "

"Punishment as a concept is in total opposition to Right-Mindedness. The aim of the Final Judgment is to RESTORE Right-Mindedness TO man. "

"This is what his own Right-Mindedness cannot but dictate. The purpose of time is solely to "give him time" to achieve this judgment. It is his own perfect judgment of his own creation. When everything that he retains is lovable, there is no reason for any fear to remain in him. This IS his part in the Atonement. "

"NEVER confuse right-with wrong-mindedness. Responding to ANY form of miscreation with anything EXCEPT a DESIRE TO HEAL (or a miracle) is an expression of this confusion. "

"Only Right-Mindedness CAN create in a way that has any real effect."

"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it. "

"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. "

"You are immortal and you cannot die" - ACIM

Let’s take a moment to put everything in its proper perspective and remember THE TRUTH.

YOU are immortal. God created you with eternal life. You can NEVER DIE. You can never be sick, you can never suffer, you can never be anything other than God created. HE decided what you are, you did not. You cannot change what you are. You are permanently fixed as God’s PERFECT creation. There can NEVER be anything wrong with you. You can never stop existing. There is NO END to your life.

Now. Take a look at the things that you are CLAIMING are true. Look at your stories. Look at your suffering. Look at your sicknesses and pains. Look at your dying.

HOW CAN ANY OF THIS BE TRUE?

Given that you ARE immortal, what MUST it mean, if you SEEM to be experiencing sickness? It must mean that YOU are LYING. It must mean that you are deceived, you are mistaken, and you are not being truthful or honest. It means you are in denial and are pretending to be something you are not.

Given you are immortal, you simply cannot ever be sick. So what IS this performance of sickness? Why are you making it? Why are you claiming that you have it? Why are you believing it is real? Why are you fearing it? Why do you think it’s really there? IT CANNOT BE THERE BECAUSE YOU ARE IMMORTAL.

So this whole story, all the symptoms, all the supposed proof of sickness, MUST BE A LIE. There is no sickness in God and there is none in you. You are an immortal fucking being. It is IMPOSSIBLE for you to be damaged, hurt, suffer, die, be sick, malfunction, break, distort, mutate, or in any way change from the way God created you. What you are is HIS PERFECT WILL to be PERFECT FOREVER.

So what is all this other BULL SHIT? What’s with this HORSE SHIT story about sickness being true, you suffering, you being powerless, you being a victim, you having no say in it, you being half dead, and you being under attack? IT CANNOT BE TRUE OF YOU. You are immortal and you cannot BE attacked. You cannot BE threatened. You cannot BE changed into a sickened state. It is IMPOSSIBLE for you to be even SLIGHTLY sick. So what is this massive lie that’s going on?

The sickness has to be false. It has to be unreal. It has to be untrue. It has to be made up. It has to be fiction. It CANNOT EXIST. It can have NO REALITY. It is literally NOT THERE. It cannot BE HAPPENING. In order for it to be valid or have any truth to it whatsoever, is has to be true that you are NOT immortal but mortal, and that God did not create you, and you are some temporary unreal illusion which is blown away in the wind. YOU ARE NOT THAT.

YOU ARE PERMANENT LIFE!!! YOU CAN NEVER DIE!!!!

All you have to do is own up to that and stop pretending that you can suffer. Accepting it is instead of fighting against it is the atonement.

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

Why would immortal beings attempt to PROVE that they can Be HURT, when it is patently IMPOSSIBLE for them to be hurt?

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself"

WHY would you hurt yourself? Even when you hurt yourself you are not hurting yourself. Your real self CANNOT BE HURT. Why even ATTEMPT it?

"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."

Even if you choose to die you CANNOT DIE. Death is DENIAL of life. It’s pretend. It’s an attempt to pretend that you are not immortal. Death has NO EFFECT on you. It has NO POWER over you. It can DO NOTHING. Death is not a cause. It is an illusion. There is no death whatsoever.

DEATH IS A FUCKING LIE!!!!!!! IT DOES NOT EXIST AND IT HAS NO EFFECT ON ANYTHING REAL.

You are real, not an illusion. You cannot be threatened and death cannot even touch you. Sickness cannot even HAPPEN to you. You are permanently innocent, permanently whole, permanently perfect, permanently holy, permanently powerful, permanently safe, and permanently alive. You can never change that. You have no power over God’s will that you be this way. And God has never changed his mind about you.

YOU MUST STILL BE PERFECT. YOU MUST STILL BE IMMORTAL. RIGHT NOW THIS SECOND!!

So what is with this other shit? These stories and attempts at victimhood and little symptoms that you use to try to prove you are suffering? YOU ARE IMMORTAL, YOU CANNOT SUFFER! When you try to suffer you pretend to be something you are NOT. And even as you pretend to be something you are NOT, you are NOT THAT.

And what you make suffer IS NOT YOU, it’s a fictional body. It’s not even you that is seeming to be sick. It’s like attacking something that is not even YOUR SELF pretending that it IS your self so you can pretend that your self can be attacked. And yet while you attack the body to put on a SHOW that YOU are being mistreated and harmed, YOUR SELF remains IMMORTAL AND UNCHANGED. And so the entire thing is dishonest, inauthentic, a massive lie, a deception, untrue, false, and totally fictional.

Are you done playing dead? Are you done being sick? Are you done trying to prove that you are guilty and deserve to die? You can’t even REALLY be guilty. You can’t even commit a sin. YOU ARE PERMANENTLY INNOCENT. You can never change that. You can never revoke it. You can have no effect on it. You cannot make yourself evil.

You are PERMANENTLY GOOD. And God LOVES YOU FOREVER. This is the truth. These are the facts. This is what you have to accept. Everything else has to go. Let go of the need to suffer. It is not having any effect on who you really are anyway, it is FUTILE AND POINTLESS. And it just makes you believe you are something that CAN suffer, and so makes you confused about WHAT you are.

You are immortal spirit and you cannot die.

"You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do."

Nothing you can do can EVER HAVE ANY EFFECT on your Holy Self. Ever. It is ABSOLUTE. Give up trying to make yourself dead. You cannot accomplish it. God gave you eternal life and it cannot be revoked. It IS POINTLESS and a waste of time to cause yourself to suffer. And all your suffering IS caused by you. And yet it is NOT real suffering, and you HAVE NEVER REALLY SUFFERED. Because you can’t, because you are immortal and can never be attacked.

"Swear not to die you holy son of God. You have made a bargain that you cannot keep."

"There is no death. The Son of God is free."

If someone tries to attack you, they have a problem. They are not sane. They are attacking themselves, but they're doing it in such a way that they think they are attacking someone else. Whatever they accuse you of, they are accusing themselves of.

Anyone who attacks is not in their right mind. No one in their right mind would attack, because they'd recognize that part of themself is in the other, and to attack them is to attack themselves. This is the law of God, the Golden Rule. Also the right minded are not split minded, and do not act against themselves or other.

If someone is attacking you, or it seems like they are, they are not really attacking who you are, they are attacking an image in their mind of what they think you are. And this image is really an image of what they think they are.

They target your body because they are being unforgiving toward themselves, and in this unforgiveness they can't help but focus on the form of objects. This mean they are not really seeing you, your spirit, or your real identity. The target of their attack is themselves, driven by guilt.

It can look like the attack is upon you, because in their dissociated state they separate off the part of their mind that attacks itself and see it as "outside themselves". They attack "it", to try to maintain the split minded state. And in dissociating from it, they tend to associate it with someone other than themselves. And that may seem to be you.

Even if they call your name, even if they speak of you and what you've done to them, even if they hurl abuse at "you", it is really nothing to do with you. Not even remotely.

"You but accuse your brother of your own sins."

"It can be but myself I crucify."

"I can be attacked by nothing but my thoughts."

So in no way has this attack got anything to do with you at all. It might seem to play out that way, or it might even seem that they physically attack your body as if that really is an attack upon you, but it is still themselves they are trying to attack.

"Let them be as vicious and hateful as they may. They could have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is your dream."When you yourself are not in your right mind, you will attack yourself. You'll accuse yourself of sin and judge yourself harshly. This means you believe it's true that you are guilty.

When this is happening, and if it is happening at the same time as another insane person fighting with their own shadows, you will fail to recognize that their attack is entirely a self attack. You will fail to realize they are calling out for love, and you will think that their hallucinated "attack on you", which is really on themselves, is actually about you.

Since what they accuse you of taps into what you have accused yourself of, you won't be able to discern between the two. This will create a kind of blind-spot in your mind. A block to awareness. And because of the block, you will be deceived. And being deceived you'll "read into" what they're doing, failing to see all of what they are doing to themselves. And due to this lack of recognition, you'll think that some of what they are doing, they are doing to you, and that it's really about you.

Because of your own self attack, you see yourself as vulnerable and affect-able. And you'll see yourself as being able to be accessed by the cause-effect relationships that seem to play out physically. And you will have confused yourself with your body, and now it may seem that because it can be attacked, you can be attacked. And so you're going to take their attempted attack personally as a threat to your identity and existence.

That means you're failing to remember it's your dream, and have entered into dreaming, or a state of greater unconsciousness. And in this state you'll think that someone else "is attacking you" and is "having an effect on you". It's really you having an effect on you, but you confuse it for them being the cause. So you blame them for it.

It can seem as if, what they do triggers pain in you. And its really your own pain that you put there, being raised to awareness. Because it resonates with what they are expressing and agrees with it. And then you'll think they caused the pain in you because it arose when they attacked, but its really your own self inflicted wound that is unhealed, resurfacing in resonance with their insane behavior.

You then are in the position of having to apply forgiveness processes to sort out "what is yours" and "what is theirs". And ultimately this has to lead to the undoing of the self attack, otherwise you won't be able to recognize that the other person was not the cause of your upset. And their innocence can only be recognized if you can see how they are solely attacking themselves.

The blinds spots and blocks to awareness in your own mind have to be removed, otherwise you cannot see the full picture. And without the full picture you can't tell whether what someone is doing is really about you or not. You can't tell your sin apart from theirs. You have to find your own innocence in order to recognize the innocence of others.

Once you do, what seemed like a call for attack, or seemed like an obvious selfish attack upon you, is now recognized as a call for love. It's calling for love because the person is solely interacting with themselves, within their mind, in a private world. And they are attacking themselves, believing it is not coming from them. And they seem to falsely accuse you of it, which you must not buy into, for your sake and theirs.

In recognizing the secret of salvation that people can only attack themselves, and no one ever really attacks anyone else, you take responsibility for your own choices and give them back responsibility for theirs.

Everything they are experiencing they are doing to themselves. Everything you are experiencing you are doing to yourself. And never the two shall meet. People are asking for love, in an attacking way, because they are denying their own love. The only thing that can truly be shared or communicated between you, is love.

Love is joining in peace and recognition. It facilitates sharing and communication and transfer. Without love, the breakdown of communication and separation of mind and relationship ensures that all attack is self contained. Just as trying to will against God disables all will and is an attempt to will nothing, trying to attack places you in a prison in your mind and stops any transfer to others. Attack is always separation between others and self. This happens because God does not will that attack between beings be possible.

No-one is ever affected by anyone else. No-one else is the cause of you. You have not caused anyone else, other than your own creations. And God is the only cause of you and your equal siblings. There has never been an attack on you, by anyone but yourself. And anyone who believes otherwise is not in their right mind.

Immortality stems from being absolute. Everything about God is absolute. Absolutely existing, absolutely forever. There is no sense of endings, interruptions, or even changes. Something that lasts forever. Always there, always the same, always permanent.

That‘s what your real self is like. It just keeps on being the same. Forever without end. Always you. Always completely endless, ongoing, eternal. You have eternal life. You were created by God who has eternal life to be like God. You will live forever and will always be perfect.

Because of your changeless nature, there are no kinds of changes that can happen to you. You can’t even begin to have anything change you, not through external causes or even by yourself. You have no power to change what you are, because God absolutely defines what you are. You are solely what he wills you to be forever.

Your permanence gives you immortality, which is the absolute inability to become something other than what you absolutely always are. This means there can never be even the slightest hint of a change in you.

There can be no suggestion that you might end someday, or stop existing, or somehow be affected in some way. There is no point at which you might have something happen which changes you, such that you might no longer be absolute, or that your permanence might turn into something temporary.

In this absolute state you are absolutely totally at peace, because you know that absolutely nothing can happen to you. You are so fixed, so certain, so completely created, so whole and defined, so sustained by God forever, that not a single thing on any level in any way can alter you even slightly. And because you know this, you have permanent peace.

There is no attack in you. There is no malfunction, no distortion, no fluctuation. There is no contradiction or split mindedness. There is no uncertainty, no fear, no sense of being wrong somehow. There is no sin, no guilt, no reason to be punished, and nothing to do the punishing.

Your absoluteness makes it impossible for you to ever end. You can’t even be slightly changed. Nothing can happen to affect you in any way whatsoever. There are no forces or powers that can do anything to even mildly hint at influencing you, distracting you, making you be one way or another, diverting you, causing you, or doing anything at all to you. You are absolutely invulnerable.

Because of this permanence, and the total inability to change at all - the opposite of a shapeshifter - you can never become anything. You can’t lose anything, you can’t gain anything. You can’t degrade or transform or shift or adjust.

You can’t become sick or fall ill, or develop a disease, or become corrupted or broken. You can’t even have the slightest dent or bruise or sense of harm or hurt in any way. Pain is utterly non-existent for you. And because of this you can never die. You will exist forever and ever and ever endlessly extending life. You are life itself, pure life, pure immortal livingness.

You are so bullet-proof that absolutely nothing can even remotely begin to modify what you are. The infinite unlimited power of God sustains you in his mind permanently forever as an absolutely perfect thought and idea. You are so devoid of malfunction and breakage and deformity and disruption that you are utterly beautiful and spotless and immaculate in every way. You are cleaner than the cleanest clean, forever.

The things of the physical world, are formed from ideas of separation and difference, ideas of attack and competition, of opposition and defenses, of a sense that somehow something can be changed. The world is made of ideas of vulnerability and susceptibility, of danger and threat, of things happening to you against your will to change you and define you. A world of change and transformation, of instability and uncertainty, of hurt and suffering and death.

But the world cannot even reach you or touch you or have any influence on what you are whatsoever. You are not physical, and no physical thing, no force, no energy, no atom, nothing of this entire universe can even begin to approach you. You are transcendental and everlasting and never-ending. Utterly safe, utterly beyond threat, utterly incapable of being attacked, utterly transcendent of all danger and powers and causations.

The separation from God is merely an attempt by you, as an utterly immortal being, an eternal being with eternal life, to formulate a massive lie and to pretend that you are something which is NOT immortal. Something mortal, something that can be changed, something that can be affected by the world and the people in it, something that can suffer and be weakened, something breakable and destructible. Something that can be sick and die and cease to exist.

All this world is, is a mad idea in the mind of trying to die. It’s a realm of suicide in which immortal beings are in denial, pretending that they are something they are not, identifying with forms and objects and bodies and worldly things and thoughts and emotions, to try to label themselves as something other than an immortal spirit. Because these things can be attacked and hurt, they can suffer and can be destroyed, and so you pretend to be them so that you can pretend to be destructible as well. You are trying to stop existing.

But you are immortal and eternal, and you will never stop existing. You will last forever, longer than the world, longer than time and space, endlessly continuing to always be what God created you to be, with no escape and no way to change the fact of what you are.

You are an immortal soul. You will never ever ever ever ever end. You can’t even begin to die or be really sick. You can’t even have real suffering, or real death. All you can do is pretend and make-believe and fake it and lie In a state of denial - a state of dreaming and wishing. You can’t in any way be a victim of anything, at the effect of anything, hurt or attacked or damaged by anything. It is absolutely impossible for you to be threatened or hurt or changed in any way.

There is nothing in the world that can oppress you, hurt you, attack you, threaten you, change you, define you, make you feel anything, or cause you to be something other than perfect. There is no power in all this universe that can have power over you, to cause you in any way at all. You are beyond this world. You are not even a part of space time. You are not a body.

You are free. Free from suffering, free from attack, free from threats and dangers, free from death. You have eternal life already. Nothing in the world is doing anything to you. No-one has ever hurt you. You are not hurtable. You are not vulnerable. You are not weak but strong. You are not doubtful but certain. You are not afraid but all powerful. You remain exactly as God created you.

You are immortal. You are eternal. You are always and forever.

“But the guarantee of your continuity is God's, not the ego's. And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless.” UrT11J13

“The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that MUST be One.” UrT29G1

“I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today.” UrW84L2

“Your will is His Life, which He has GIVEN to you. Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF. Yet God's Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM.” UrT10B11

“You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do.” UrT9K8

“Have faith in nothing but the spirit and the guidance God gives you. He could not have created the body because it is a limit. He must have created the spirit because it is immortal.” Ur Special messages 19 “You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now.” UrT11J12

“What is immortal cannot BE attacked; what is but temporal HAS no effect.” UrT24H5

The "secret of salvation" is simply the recognition that, if you are suffering in any way, you must have done it to yourself. No-one else could have done it to you, because you are immortal and invulnerable.

Paired with this realization is the recognition that, therefore, the world and its inhabitants cannot have been the cause of anything you are experiencing. So if you are upset, you must've done it yourself. But let's go even deeper with this. The real truth behind the secret of salvation, is that you are a permanently immortal being that can never change. You have been created to last forever and to never waver or be different. It is impossible for anything to happen to you in truth, whether seemingly caused by another person or the world or even yourself.

If you are truly immortal, no-one and nothing can affect you. There are no causes that can have power over you. There are no forces or wills that can oppose you or act upon you. There is nothing anywhere that can change you even slightly. Nothing can redefine you or manipulate you or force you into a different state. Nothing can upset you or disturb you or make you sick or dead.

The secret of salvation suggests that if you are seeming to suffer in any way, it can't be that anyone or anything ELSE other than yourself is to blame. YOU must have done this to yourself. But it is also true that in reality, even you do not really have the power to destroy yourself in any way. You cannot change what God created you to be. But you can BELIEVE that you have.

So if you are suffering, you must have entered into a mistaken BELIEF, that you have stopped being as God created you, you have forgotten who you really are, you have lost touch with your immortality, and are now suggesting that you are MORTAL. And in this mindset of mortality, you are now having FANTASIES about causes of distorted mental states in which you seem to suffer. You inflict suffering upon yourself and your body while pretending it is caused by something else.

The purpose of the secret of salvation therefore isn't just to point out that all suffering is self inflicted, but to point you BEYOND the suffering to the fact that you are an immortal being. The ultimate "secret" behind the secret of salvation, is that you HAVE NOT changed, you ARE NOT suffering, you ARE NOT sick, and you CANNOT die.

Any states in which you seem to suffer must be an illusion. Any forms of sickness must be a fantasy in the mind. Any bodily ailments or states must be fictional. Any unhappiness or disturbed peace or stress or nightmares must be of your own making. But even these, even all forms of suffering and destruction cannot ACTUALLY affect who you really are. They must be dreams and fantasies of mortality and of impossibilities.

What God has put together, no man can put asunder. In other words, since God has GIVEN you eternal life in your creation, you are endlessly perfect and cannot be "put asunder" ie destroyed. Not even you can destroy yourself, although you can believe that you are by CONFUSING yourself with something that is NOT yourself and trying make it look destroyed.

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

Recognize clearly that this says you ARE NOT sick. If you seem to be sick, the sickness cannot be true, and it cannot exist. It only appears to exist because you believe in it and are maintaining it with your mind, doing it to "yourself". And your identification with the body makes it appear to be YOU who is sick. But you are immortal and can NEVER be sick. Even underneath the sickness you are unharmed.

So we are to not only recognize "you are doing it to yourself", we are to STOP doing it to ourselves and move into KNOWING ourselves. Moving out of "I am mortal and I can suffer" into "I am immortal and I cannot suffer." Our whole problem is that we keep trying to be mortal, we keep trying to die, we keep trying to be sick, we keep trying to attack ourselves and play at being victims.

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you."

Jesus is literally saying that we as immortal beings are playing a game of death. Pretending to die, pretending to suffer, to be weak, to be unhappy, to be lost and attacked, to be hurt, to be temporary and destructible, to be offended and upset, to be vulnerable and threatenable, and to be anything less than permanently invulnerable. We are pretending to be mortal beings. And all of our blame of people and the world is just a cover-up for our suicidal ambitions.

We must choose eternal life again in order to stop pretending to be something that can suffer and die. To fully live is to live without suffering, sickness, fear or death. To live completely is to life forever. And to do this we must reclaim our immortality and stop pretending to be mortals.

"Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are."

"Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die."

This is our only issue. We are immortal beings pretending to be mortal. We need to identify clearly the many forms that "mortality" takes. The belief in death is also "I am upset by that person", and "they did this to me", and "I am sick", and "i am unhappy", and "there is reason to be afraid", and "my body is damaged", and "I cannot forgive them", and so on. Everything in the world is a form of death and the belief in death. And we need to learn to stop playing these games, stop participating in these activities, stop believing in these roles, and stop using them to try to prove that we are destructible.

If you want to not die, to never suffer pain, to never be sick, to never be unhappy, to never have your peace disturbed, to never be afraid or threatened, to never lose or grieve or feel guilty, then you need to enter into FORGIVENESS, which is the acknowledgement that you are still as God created you, there is no sin, there is no attack, nothing real can be threatened, and you are still eternal.

"What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

All this forgiveness offers you, and more. It sparkles in your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more."

Quite a lot of quotes here about LETTING the Holy Spirit do stuff for you and through you…

“I will step back and let Him lead the way.”

“Then let him turn within to his Eternal Guide, and let Him Judge what the response should be. So is he healed, and in his healing is his pupil healed with him.”

“Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven.”

“Let Him fulfill the function that He GAVE to your relationship by ACCEPTING it FOR you.”

“When you feel the holiness of your relationship is threatened by ANYTHING, stop instantly and offer the Holy Spirit your willingness, IN SPITE of fear, to let Him exchange this instant for the holy one which YOU would rather have. He will NEVER fail in this.”

“I rest in God today, and let Him work

In me and through me, while I rest in Him

In quiet and in perfect certainty.”

“Trust all things to Him. Let Him reveal all things to you, and be you undismayed because you are His Son.”

“The unredeemed cannot redeem. Yet they HAVE a Redeemer. Attempt to teach Him not. YOU are the learner; HE the Teacher. Do not confuse your role with His, for this will NEVER bring peace to anyone. Offer your empathy to Him, for it is HIS perception and His STRENGTH that you would share. And let Him offer you HIS strength and HIS perception, to be shared THROUGH you.”

“He gives the miracles my dreams would hide from my awareness. Let Him judge today. I do not know my will, but He is sure it is Your own. And He will speak for me, and call Your miracle to come to me."

“The Holy Spirit will teach me this, if I will let Him. And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already.”

“Let Him be Judge of what you are, for He has certainty in which there is no doubt because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its Face.”

“Let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this world. His lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth.”

“Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back to you as clean ideas which do not contradict the Will of God.”

“Follow His light and see the world as He beholds it. Hear His Voice alone in all that speaks to you. And let Him give you peace and certainty, which you have thrown away, but Heaven has preserved for you in Him.”

“The CAPACITY to empathize is VERY useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way. His way is very different. He does NOT understand suffering, and would have you teach IT IS NOT UNDERSTANDABLE. When He relates through you, He does NOT relate through the ego to another ego. He does NOT join in pain, knowing that HEALING pain is NOT accomplished by delusional attempts to ENTER INTO IT, and lighten it by SHARING the delusion.”

“The Holy Spirit asks only this little help of you. Whenever your thoughts wander to a special relationship which still ATTRACTS you, enter with Him into a holy instant, and there, LET HIM RELEASE YOU. He needs only your willingness to SHARE His perspective, to give it to you completely.”

“Call upon Him, for Heaven is at His call. And LET Him call on Heaven FOR you.”

“God's Voice alone can tell you how to heal. Listen, and you will never fail to bring His kindly remedy to those He sends to you, to let Him heal them, and to bless all those who serve with Him in healing's name. The body's healing will occur because its cause has gone. And now without a cause, it cannot come again in different form. Nor will death any more be feared because it has been understood. There is no fear in one who has been truly healed, for love has entered now where idols used to stand, and fear has given way at last to God.”

“The teacher of God must, however, learn to use words in a new way. Gradually, he learns how to let his words be chosen for him by ceasing to decide for himself what he will say. This process is merely a special case of the Workbook lesson "I will step back and let Him lead the way." The teacher of God accepts the words which are offered him and gives as he receives. He does not control the direction of his speaking. He listens and hears and speaks.”

“And now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful followers, with Him as Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real. Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good. Let Him prepare you further. He has earned your trust by speaking daily to you of your Father and your brother and your Self. He will continue; now you walk with Him as certain as is He of where you go; as sure as He of how you should proceed, as confident as He is of the goal, and of your safe arrival in the end.”

“I place you in His charge, and let Him teach you what to do and say and think each time you turn to Him. He will not fail to be available to you each time you call to Him to help you.”

“They will not hear another voice but yours, because you gave your voice to God and now you rest in Him, and let Him speak through you.”

“I do NOT feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me.”

“It is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in HIM. He recognizes it, because he has been taught his NEED for it, but knows not where to look to FIND it. Let him, then, see it in YOU, and share it WITH you.”

“Then turn to Him who shares your function with you, and let Him teach you what you need to learn to lay all fear aside, and know your Self as Love Which has no opposite in you.”

“He is the strong protector of your innocence, which sets you free. And it is HIS decision to undo EVERYTHING that would obscure your innocence from your unclouded mind. Let Him, therefore, be the only guide that you would follow to Salvation. He knows the way, and leads you gladly on it. WITH Him, you will not fail to learn what God wills FOR you IS your will. ”

“The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference FOR you, allowing Him to demonstrate which MUST be true.”

“The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE.”

“But the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on BEHALF of waking, if you will let Him.”

“Your creations are protected FOR you because the Holy Spirit, Who is in your minds, knows of them, and can bring them INTO your awareness whenever you will let Him.”

“The Holy Spirit knows NO-ONE IS SPECIAL. But He also perceives that you have MADE special relationships, which He would purify, and NOT let YOU destroy. However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE them into holiness, by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM.”

“For here is both his pain AND his healing, for the Holy Spirit's vision is merciful, and His remedy is quick. Do not HIDE suffering from His sight, but bring it gladly TO Him. Lay before His eternal sanity ALL your hurt, and LET Him heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from His Light, and search your minds carefully for any thoughts which you may fear to uncover. For He will heal every little thought that you have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God.”

“Leave, then, what seems to you to be impossible, to Him Who knows it MUST be possible, because it is the Will of God. And let Him, Whose teaching is ONLY of God, teach you the ONLY meaning of relationships. For God Himself created the only relationship that HAS meaning, and that is His relationship with YOU.”

“Thank God that He is there, and works through you. And all His works are yours. He offers YOU a miracle, with every one you LET Him do through you.”

“But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He will restore what you have thrown away.”

"This is a course in cause, not effect."

"The power to work miracles belongs to you."

In order to awaken spiritually, we have to take total responsibility for everything we experience. This is based on the core truth that we are immortal beings, and being immortal means nothing outside of you is responsible or capable of causing you. You have total freedom and you hold the reins of destiny. You are only ever an effect of God, and nothing else.

This means that we cannot be attacked, hurt, destroyed, made sick, upset, suffer, be killed off, or altered in any way. Literally there is nothing in the entire universe which can do anything to us whatsoever.

"He looks on what he chooses to see. No more and no less. The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did. Nor does he do anything to the world."

Because of this, we have to learn to regard the whole world as being not responsible for anything we are experiencing. The world cannot have hurt us, it cannot have attacked, it cannot be guilty or sinful, and it certainly cannot end our eternal life.

In any way that we find ourselves believing that something in the world is responsible for how we feel, what we experience, what happens, or any notion of victimhood, we are lost in a state of irresponsibility. This means we are disowning our divine responsibility to be immortal and are pretending that it's someone else's job to own the power.

Being irresponsible means giving your power away to someone or something else other than yourself, so that you can play the role of being powerless, which means portraying yourself as a victim. The victim role includes all forms of belief in being attacked, hurt, damaged, made to be sick or dead, any upset, any emotional reaction, and any belief in being unworthy of absolute permanence.

Jesus is telling us that our true nature is to be a completely powerful, causal, purely creative being, who exercises the will and power of God to extend and create life. There is no room in this role for the slightest measure of powerlessness or victimhood. It is entirely a position of OUTPUT, of radiance shining outward, of extension without holding back. This outward expression is so strong, it is the strength of the spirit and it makes you utterly invulnerable. It shines outward with such power that nothing can enter to harm you.

"NOTHING can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the hands of His Father."

In victimhood, or false perception, we reverse the cause and effect and believe we are at the effect of something external, that we are taking INPUT from the world. This is entirely backwards and false. It is a delusion to believe it, and it is nothing more than a state of insanity and irresponsibility. It means you are not owning your power, and instead are giving it away to the world to try to make yourself a victim. If the world can do anything to you at all, you can be destroyed against God's will, which is impossible.

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

Our true functioning is deliberate and powerful. You look out from a state of innocence and holiness, making absolutely no attack (sin) against the world, knowing that it is nothing but your dream, coming from your mind, and is exactly how you want it. Nothing happens without you choosing it to happen, nothing happens against your will, and everything you decide is completely intentional with guaranteed effects. You are the dreamer of the dream, and you cannot hold it accountable for what you have caused it to do.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences."

"It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

"My self is ruler of the universe." This is not a grandiose ego claim or a fantasy. You have power over the whole world, capable of surmounting, reversing and undoing death, of breaking all the laws of physics and defying its whole reality.

"What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it."

Consider for a moment the idea that the world is not responsible for anything you feel. It has done nothing to you. You are not frightened by spiders down the side of the furniture. You are not upset about elections. You are not grieving the loss of an external body. You are not damaged by food or weather. You are not upset about groups of judgemental people. Nothing whatsoever in the world has any power or causation over you whatsoever.

You cannot be hurt by anything in the world because you are not in the world. You are in heaven in God as immortal spirit. You are not a body. The world is your dream which you are putting there on purpose, and it does not exist without your wanting it. You are not upset for any reason that you think. No-one in the world has ever done anything to cause anything you are feeling or experiencing. Your upsets have nothing to do with anyone and solely to do with what you are doing to yourself. This is the secret of salvation.

"Only the self-accused condemn."

"It can be but myself that I crucify."

"I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today."

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are."

As soon as you begin to believe the world is the cause of you in any way, you are being a victim. You are disowning your power of decision and causation, are projecting it out and accusing something else of causing you. This requires a blocking of access to your power, which makes you feel powerless and weak and afraid as the world looms over you. But it is your own power looming over itself. You have to take back that power.

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt."

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

"If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering."

"If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it."

"If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God." "I am in danger nowhere in the world."

Ultimately our aim of reaching true perception and moving beyond the world entails a complete ownership of who and what we are, a complete identification as Christ, a total relinquishment of every form of victimhood, a total letting go of all attempts to suffer. This includes letting go of all notions of being upset by the world, attacked, threatened, in danger, made to be sick or unhappy, or made to die. This includes ceasing to believe in death and dying and destruction and murder.

The world is not responsible for ANYTHING you are experiencing. No-one is guilty. Nothing is to blame. You're doing this all to yourself and you can stop whenever you like. Whatever you're experiencing you have chosen and you want. Your prayers are constantly being answered and you are always receiving what your giving is asking for. You can end this game of death and victimhood at any time and go home to God. "This is the ONLY thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the COMPLETE escape from sin, ALL to be given you. Say ONLY this, but MEAN it with NO reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:

"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear."

"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love. Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to share the resurrection of God's Son. And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you."

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you."

If you do not choose to die you will never die, and if you do choose to die it will be fake. There is no death, the son of God is free.

"Swear not to die, thou holy Son of God! You make a bargain that you cannot keep. The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that MUST be One."

It may not be obvious, but A Course In Miracles is basically trying to get you out of a state of mortality, into a state of immortality. Think about all the ways that it does this.

That you are not at the effect of the world.

That nothing in the world causes you or brings oppression or makes you sick or afraid.

That you have the power to dominate everything you see.

That your body has no power over the mind and mind is stronger than the body.

That in the rusurrecetion you overcome death entirely.

That all forms of suffering are forms of mortality/death.

That you are to dis-identify from being an illusion such as believing in the body or the world.

The fact you are at home in God, immortal and permanent, merely having a dream of death.

The teaching that your attack thoughts attack your invulnerability, that you can be attacked by nothing but your thoughts, and that without attack thoughts you are invulnerable.

The secret of salvation, that you realize you are doing everything to yourself, have made a wrong decision which caused you to not be at peace, and now you want to choose immortality again.

The application of forgiveness which is the same thing as atonement and true perception and salvation and resurrection, nothing short of overcoming death and becoming absolutely transcendent of all suffering.

"Swear not to die, you holy Son of God", clearly indicates that you as an immortal child of God should never be choosing death, which means never choosing mortality. Which means claiming your immortality.

"Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt", the entire teaching about what you use the body for, that death is a choice and you cannot die unless you choose to, and the use of the body to demonstrate your brother’s innocence or sinfulness, is all geared towards you acting like an immortal being not a suffering sinner.

Every single aspect of the Course is geared not merely towards you becoming peaceful and dying, or happier but sick, but in fact is aimed at taking you totally beyond all forms of suffering, death, sickness, unhappiness and vulnerability of every kind. To never again be affected by anything. Nothing short of immortality. Never again to suffer, never again to die.

This is the central core of the course. "There is no death, the Son of God is...." IMMORTAL!

Every lesson, every quote, every paragraph, is all speaking to the vast collage of illusions we have invented to try to PRETEND to be mortal in a dream of death. To pretend it is possible to die. To make-believe things that seem to crumble, decay, erode and end. An entire fiction of a world that seems to come and go, having beginnings and endings which clearly are not eternal.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it, for what He creates MUST BE ETERNAL as himself."

It’s not merely a matter of whether the world is real, it obviously cannot be because nothing in it has immortality. It is a dream of death, and there really is no world.

This is all over the course. Immortality, invulnerability, not being affected, permanence, peace that lasts forever, God’s creations and minds carrying on uninterrupted forever, nothing being able to attack or sin against God/reality, nothing real being affected, the Son of God being beyond death, it all points to IMMORTALITY being your totally natural state of being.

"You cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do."

This is also why "the body cannot contain you who are life". It’s also why "God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there." This is why God’s Kingdom is an IMMORTAL LIVING FOREVER WORLD OF LIGHT.

Any time we entertain ideas of suffering, sickness, death, fear, being affected, caused, threatened, anything that suggests or even hints at us not being invulnerable and immortal, we are "playing dead". Any time we take illusions of attack, vulnerability, suffering, or any kind of non-immortal activity seriously, we are believing we are NOT immortal. And we believe this about others too when we fear for their life. That condemns us both to death, or at least tries to. No-one can really die!

Because your are immortal, you ARE still as God created you. God did not create you capable of death. Or sin. Or attack. OR murder. You cannot do any of these things in reality. So you DREAM of being in a world where all FALSE things are possible, where IMPOSSBILITIES seem possible, where everything is subject to attack and impermanence, and where death seems to strike at every thing that moves. An entire fantasy world that runs against every law of God and opposes His Will, trying to prove His children can die.

"The laws of this world go against your nature." This world goes against your IMMORTALITY.Your natural condition is to live utterly free of all attack, impervious to all suffering, incapable of death, incapable of unhappiness, and absolutely permanent in all your ways. Absolutely incapable of being attacked ever! You are not RELATIVE to life, you are ABSOLUTELY ALIVE. Forever. Nothing can affect you against your will unless YOU WILL TO BE AFFECTED. And then you are FAKING IT, because your immortality CANNOT be affected. All sickness, suffering and death is FAKE. A huge lie.

You are as permanent as God. Any attempt to believe, perceive, suggest, portray, act, think, or live otherwise, is a denial of your immortality. It’s an attempt to make believe that you are not immortal and that you can suffer. And every single form of non-immortality or vulnerability is a self-chosen, self-inflicted attack and an attempt to prove you are not immortal. And because all such attempts to change your unchangeability can never work, they are absolutely futile make-believe.

Death is futile. It has no causal effect whatsoever upon the Son of God. It does not work. Everything you are doing to make yourself suffer is a waste of time. It has no effect on your immortal spirit. And you are only your immortal spirit. Every single way that you pretend to be afraid, sick, suffering and dead, is absolutely 100% chosen by you as part of your attempt to ACT AS IF YOU CAN DIE. It’s an attempt to prove death is real and happening to you. How can death happen to someone who is IMORTAL? How can an immortal being be SICK or suffer or even unhappy in any way, thinking that something can disturb its permanent peace?

Potent questions to ask oneself:

1) Am I using this to pretend to not be immortal?

2) Why am I trying to prove I am not immortal?

3) Why am I believing that my immortality can be affected by this?

4) Does this have any power whatsoever to change what God created?

5) Why am I lying by pretending I can suffer?

6) Why am I denying that I cannot be affected by anything?

You are an immortal being, temporarily hanging out in a dream world where everything is an illusion of mortality. A world of death is obviously not the natural environment for a being of eternal life.

Yet the body can become a sign of life to those grown tired of the fetid stench of death. It can become a symbol of immortality, representing eternal life. Through its loveliness and health it can teach by demonstration with a power greater than a thousand tongues that there has been no attack, no vulnerability, no damage, no mark of sin, no evidence or proof of viciousness and no sign of evil effects. It can represent wholeness and healing and innocence and invulnerability, and thus teach this to everyone.

To awaken fully is nothing short of waking up to immortality, to eternal life in Heaven, the end of all sickness and death, the cancellation of sin and guilt, and a return to unlimited permanence. It requires the end of the body, which is nothing. "Indeed, you cannot remain in this world, with this knowledge."

NOTHING REAL CAN BE THREATENED, because it is immortal! YOU are real. You cannot be threatened! You are totally permanently alive. Forever and ever. Why do you believe you can or have been affected by anything or anyone ever? You have done nothing but attack your own inherent invulnerability, trying to pretend you can suffer. Isn’t it time to own up to being immortal?

When you are confused by believing the ego's world, you assign to illusions all the properties of reality. You take the properties of God away from God and from your real self, and give them to the non-existent world.

This is how you give your power away and empower sickness. You assign the permanence of heaven to make sickness seem permanent. You give God's irreversibility to sickness to make it irreversible sin. You try to make it last by trying to give it immortality. You impart truth to it to try to have it be the truth. You make it valid, and believe it is whole, and see it as natural and real.

Then having assigned all the properties of God, heaven and reality to an illusion, you are now faced with the natural relationship to these things. What is real cannot be changed, thus it seems sickness cannot be changed. What is permanent is always there, so sickness becomes irreversible to you. Eternal life is assigned to the sickness meaning it will last forever.

You give all power to the sickness and strip it from God and from yourself, leaving you in a state of powerlessness and weakness. You now see that sickness has become your God. The God of sickness. And it looms over you with strength and resistance and threat. And as you look upon sickness made real, you are looking the God of sickness in the face, and he is insurmountable.

"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. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them."

"The rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression MEANS that you have foresworn God."

You now actually worship sickness and death because you have assigned all the properties of God to an illusory world. Which means you actually believe the world IS God. If God is its creator, it is reality, and God is the world. And now sickness can never be changed because it is against God's will. And death is his doing. And you have no power over it.

In this perspective, you cannot but help but be AFRAID OF the power of sickness. It looms over you. It seems real. You cannot surmount it. You cannot even dare approach it for the belief that if you try to heal it you will fail. You see yourself as weak and powerless before it. It torments you and you suffer at its whim. And as it turns for the worst you have no freedom and no choice but to suffer more intensely. There seems to be nothing you can do.

In this perspective or way of perceiving, this belief system, you cannot but see yourself as powerless and incapable of miracles. You cannot possibly heal a real illusion. You cannot forgive it because it has reality and permanence and irreversibility. What you need is an entire change of perspective, a totally different way of regarding the world, and this fundamental pivotal change MUST take place in the PREMISE of the entire system.

If you do not uproot the whole system by recognizing that the world DOES NOT have the properties of God or reality, your efforts will continue to be undermined. You have to realize that God IS NOT the world, DID NOT create it, and therefore NOTHING in it has the properties of heaven. This means recognizing that the world IS an illusion, it is nothing, is does not exist, there is no sickness, every single illusion is ONE THING - a fake dream, a fiction, and to not BELIEVE or BUY INTO a single piece of it on any basis.

What you need is to change the premise of the whole thing. The whole world has to be considered to NOT have ANY of the properties of God. It cannot be thought to be really happening, it cannot be believed to be irreversible, it cannot be assigned power, it cannot be given credit, it cannot be seen as true, and it must not be regarded as alive. It is a dream of death.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it."

"Death the central dream from which all illusions stem."

"There is no world."

Changing your mind about the world means recognizing IT IS NOT OF GOD. And you must "deny anything not of God any power to affect you". "This is a powerful protective device."

Simply, by reassigning ALL POWER TO GOD, all life to God, all truth to God, all reality to God, all permanence to God, all irreversibility to God, all healing to God, and all existence to God, taking it AWAY from the world of sickness, you strip the world of what you THOUGHT was a big looming powerful enemy. Sickness stops looking like a threat. Sickness stops having a sense of unmoveability. It stops seeming serious. It stops having reality or truth. It stops being a nightmare. And it stops looking like it even exists. And what does not even exist cannot be DIFFICULT to heal.

When it is recognized as NOTHING, your relationship to sickness is vastly different. Instead of being confronted with an immensely powerful enemy which you cannot influence, you instead see YOURSELF as immensely powerful and FULLY able to influence sickness. And IT is now recognized as weak and frail and powerless to resist you. Because you now have the power of God in you because you have GIVEN all power back to God. And thus you have gained it. And it has been TAKEN AWAY from sickness.

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

Give to God what is God's, and everything will be made right. Only God can heal the sickness because only God IS eternal life. And only God HAS power. And God IS real. And only God's laws apply. And only His truth is the truth. And HE has immortality and permanence. And you with Him as His extension. And NOW you are miraculous because you are now in a dominant relationship to the world. You have power OVER the world and over the body rather than the other way around, BECAUSE IT IS NOTHING AND NOT REAL AND DOES NOT EXIST.

Only in this perspective is it possible to escape the hierarchy of illusions or the illusion of difficulty. Sickness only SEEMS difficult to heal or change or affect BECAUSE you inappropriately assign it GOD'S PROPERTIES. And you have no power over God. You are confused about it. You think it IS reality. You think it IS ALIVE. You think it has power. It does not. If it HAS NO power, then it does not present ANY challenge, it can EASILY be influenced, it is EFFORTLESS to change it, and IT DOES NOT RESIST AT ALL. Therefore you who are all powerful WITH God in you can overthrow it, manipulate it, change it and demonstrate healing.

"There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is ***you who have the power to dominate all things you see*** by merely recognizing what you are."

"Do not look to the god of sickness for healing, but only to the God of love, for healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him (that all of his properties BELONG to him), you will KNOW that He has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in His acknowledgment OF you lies your Being. You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."

Make sickness be FALSE, UNTRUE, UNREAL, NON-EXISTENT, IMPOSSIBLE, UNNATURAL, FINITE, LIMITED, NOTHINGNESS, ILLUSION, POWERLESS, NOT THERE, CAUSELESS, NOWHERE.

Only in this view is there no grounds for you to believe or perceive that it can resist your will. And now the power of God which you have correctly given back to God, operates through you, to have power OVER sickness and death and the world. You can then overcome the world, raise the dead, and perform miracles. Because there is NO DIFFICULTY, NO hierarchy, and NO effort needed to do so. Because the Holy Spirit heals through you with the Power of God.

There is no difficulty in miracles once all power is given back to God, because the world is recognized as HAVING no power to resist His will. What is nothing cannot be hard to overcome, and as a miracle worker you don't have to do HARD things. In fact, miracle working should be easy and effortless. Even literally that you do practically nothing while the Holy Spirit does everything.

All sense of loss arises from believing that a changing world is real. If it is real, and if something goes away, a part of reality has been lost. If it is real, there has been a real separation. And if that's true, you absolutely must be in a state of deprivation. Time itself induces loss every second, and time is death.

"The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."

Something that you thought was real and valuable has been taken away. A part of reality or God itself has been destroyed and kept apart. The mind reasons that, because it's real and because it's not there, there is an absence, and a part of yourself has been ripped away.

The feelings of grief then rise up to correspond to that belief that something real is lost. The mind invents them to make sense of the situation. Then people in the world who believe in bodies will tell you that it's completely normal and natural to grieve. It does make perfect logical sense, given the premise that this world is real and loss has happened, but it is not natural at all.

In God's immortal reality nothing real can ever be lost, suffer attack, be ripped away or destroyed, forgotten about or separated from. No-one can suffer or be sick or die. Everyone is a part of everyone forever, by God's will. Impermanence of any kind is impossible, and nothing real can be threatened.

"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today."

What it then boils down to is, that if you to any degree believe this world or bodies is reality, you will be constantly in varying degrees of loss. If anything at all so much as moves an inch, it implies a separation. If something bigger and more important seems to go away, you will miss it. If a body person dies off and stops being around, you'll notice it intensely. And then there will be the logical conclusion of a loss of something real - a real loss and a real grief.

The problem we have is that we're still working on waking up to God's truth and we still believe in bodies. We still confuse people for their physical bodies and still regard this world as reality. And that sets us up for the consequences of our wrong decision. It means that we're primed to experience losses before they even happen. We've set ourselves up for a fall, by choosing to believe that something temporary can be depended upon forever.

It's our attachment to bodies, our valuing of bodies, and our confusion of bodies with souls/minds, that lays the foundation for devastation and despair and grief. If and when they do go away, which everything in the world of form does eventually, its cruelty will induce all manner of egoic reactions.

"They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."

An important dynamic that I've experienced is the belief that the person dying is causing you to be upset. If they have gone way, they have attacked you and caused you to grieve. How dare they die. And how dare they stop being there. This will produce anger and resentment. And of course this means you will scapegoat the dead person and project guilt onto them to blame them for causing a loss, which will have nothing to do with them at all and everything to do with you trying to get rid of your own guilt.

Then even further, underneath the anger will be a sense of hurt, as though you have been hurt by the death. And of course that boils down to a belief that the death of anything can infect you and cause you to die along with it. And so now the person who has left the body has returned to life in heaven, and you are left behind in a state of death and suffering, and you are the one who is dead.

"The black-draped "sinners," the ego's mournful chorus, plodding so heavily AWAY from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death."

Death isn't real and doesn't really exist. It doesn't do anything to anything real and nothing real can ever die. But if you believe in a world that dies all the time, you can be sure you'll be upset before long. This is why the world is a constant disappointment, because you expect it to last forever. You'll be torn between efforts to wake up and acknowledge God's truth, and the continued belief that death is real which constantly pulls you back into hell like an anchor.

To try to forgive death really means forgiving the entire world of space and time and everything in it. To focus on the reality that a person has not really died, still lives on, and is still a part of me in communication and sharing is of course helpful. But at the same time, the other part of me which is ego aligned and trusts death, is continually pulled into the consequences of that belief. And that means the constant nagging reminder of "yes she really is dead isn't she!"

Feelings of grief, loss, absence, deprivation, anger, etc arise. The seeming "fact" that a person has died slaps you in the face, telling you that you have "suffered" a serious loss. As if the serious loss has happened to you against your will. You might be in grief and feeling like a victim, but at the same time it's true that nothing has really happened. And how can you have been caused to grieve against you will?

But this focus on truth can cause a hurdle to the grieving, because while you try to align yourself with God's truth of immortality, the rest of you is pulled horribly into a dark place of sadness and hopelessness and loss. You can't properly deal with the loss, in a typically dysfunctional way at best, because trying to be holy and perfect all the time makes it seem like a guilty sin to give it any time and attention. And yet it calls to you constantly to deal with it.

At some point then, if you're going to persist in believing in the world, you have left yourself with little choice but to go through a grieving process. If you are not yet ready to completely eradicate all belief in death and thus spacetime ("without the idea of death there is no world"), you're probably going to have to settle at least in part for second-best, failure, impossible struggle, and forced grief that seems pointless. If the world is real and the body is real and the body is lost, your ego is going to suffer about it.

So then at some point you have to turn to the grief and just go through it and feel the horrible shit, acknowledge it and be terribly upset. And this is the part that people call natural, but it is far from it. It's like being stuck in a state that you're not supposed to be in and having to deal with it in a totally conflicted way. And even when you egoically have a total spaz about it, which seems to make it go away for a while, it still doesn't solve it completely.

You can't possibly find peace and acceptance about the situation if the situation is real. There is no atonement there, so there is no cure. Grief will keep regurgitating and producing more upset emotions. There is no freedom while the world is still a reality. So then you're in a situation where you can't find peace and are forced face-to-face with a horrible loss, and all you can do is cry and feel unhappy and be a victim.

People will tell you that you then must allow yourself to grieve - embrace the victimhood, as though this is healthy, and perhaps it is at least better than bottling it up or going into less healthy forms of handling it. You are just going to have to feel it, grieve, and go through the loss. And that does indeed totally suck because it's not really a sane solution. And that means turning away from the constant barrage of God-truths and forgiveness statements and just letting yourself feel the horror for a while. Sometimes you just have to do something even if it's bullshit.

So then you cry, and you cry again, and you do some more and you have a huge catharsis. And somehow this is what the world calls healing. And supposedly you adjust and adapt, as though that's some kind of transformation or coming to terms with it, but that really isn't an awakening either.

It's more like a putting up with and a tolerating and a gradually undoing of the special relationship dynamics, attachments and so on. It's more like learning to let the person be ripped away and trying to just tolerate the pain of that until it stops hurting so much. And until the separation is truly undone it will keep coming back and haunting you for years to come.

It then seems like you pretty much have to grieve and be miserable and mourn and all that, which is a total course failure given that it means you're now part of the "black draped mourners" who are in the funeral procession and not doing God's will, per ACIM's teaching. But since you are where you are with this whole thing, and are not ready to totally surrender into atonement, you just have to go through the bumpy road rollercoaster of despair until it eases up somehow. Hopefully you can use all this as an opportunity to forgive and let go of the belief in death and the world.

"One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin NOR its result. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they LIVE. They are not FOLLOWING it; they are OPPOSING it. And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body THEY dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, OFFERED to sin to feed upon, and keep ITSELF alive. A thing condemned, damned by its maker, and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself."

I'd like to say I personally am beyond all this but I'm definitely not. Last week was horrendous, entering into states of victimhood and terrible strong emotions and crying and being bedridden for several days trying to avoid vertigo and sinus stress. The body wasn't too happy about the grieving process either - feel the feelings and it becomes stressed out - don't feel the feelings and it develops physical symptoms instead. It's a lose-lose situation until you somehow just get through it. And it keeps coming.

Moral of the story is, if you're not enlightened it's going to suck. And that's your fault because you chose it, and you're not ready to stop choosing it, so get ready to suck. And then hopefully after some severe sucking you can free yourself from death's nipple and actually find some sense of happiness again.

You'll have to just deal with an impossible situation as best you can until it sucks less. And meanwhile do your forgiveness shit and hopefully someday you'll find true salvation about it all. You can't avoid the inevitable production of grief feelings if you believe there has really been a loss, and until you can face the fact that you do believe there's been a loss and feel through it, you'll just be in denial.

At least something we have to look forward to is the day when we remember to laugh at all this and realize that none of it was ever true anyway.

First we must acknowledge, there is miraculous stuff going on in Heaven, which has nothing to do with perception or the realm of illusions. e.g.

"Miracles are a universal blessing from God"

"God's miracles are as total as His Thought, because they ARE His thoughts. God shines in them all with perfect light."

"You are a miracle" (in heaven)

"The miraculous power of the soul"

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world." - "The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"Miracles do not obey the laws of this world."

There is clearly something automatically miraculous about all things divine. We're also told that "miracles are natural", and what is natural SHOULD be something inherent to reality and the Kingdom, not something that is later considered unnatural or that ends.

So miraculousness, is actually a quality of reality, a quality of God, not necessarily something to do with perception at all. The soul also has a miraculous power which has absolutely nothing to do with the realm of perception. The Holy Spirit also, who really lives in Heaven, is miraculous.

We also must consider a simple idea, that Jesus is just as if not more miraculous and unlimited in his supernatural power NOW, as he ever was on Earth. It would be kind of silly to suggest that he "shifted perception using miracles" and then STOPPED being miraculous.

This is one of the key reasons why miracles cannot BE shifts in perception. There is only so much perception to shift. Once perception shifts to true perception, this would suggest there is no longer any use for miracles. Yet the course describes true perception also as "miracle mindedness". Why would we attain miracle mindedness, which is supposed to be a close reflection of reality, and then switch off all miraculous ability as we go to heaven? That does not really add up.

Rather, the picture forming here is that miraculousness is actually a miraculous nature, founded in God, the true nature of all things in the Kingdom, the nature of the soul and creation (creating life out of your own being is miraculous - "miracles are a spark of life").

And let's not forget the course tells us YOU are one of God's miracles, meaning God is a miracle worker. And God does not have perception. So we really can't continue with this idea that a miracle is a shift in perception, or even in fact ANYTHING to do with perception as such. As least, we must not EQUATE miracles with perceptual shifts or think of them as synonyms.

There is also the fact that "miracles cannot be performed in a spirit of doubt and fear". And that "miracles are expressions of love", and "all expressions of love are maximal". What does this suggest? Simply that even if you are working on your forgiveness and healing, shifting perception, changing beliefs, you likely still have way too much fear and doubt to be MAXIMALLY loving. To have NO fear. Which is a requirement for performing a miracle.

So "beginners" to the course, even intermediate and advanced students, may still not be loving ENOUGH to perform miracles. This is why the course says

"Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

We have to actually do quite a LOT of work to remove blocks and ego from the mind BEFORE we can even get close to the state of miracle mindedness, or maximal love, to be able to BE a miracle worker. While the ego would love to label just about anyone a miracle worker, as a kind of spiritualized ego, the fact is you are not a miracle worker until MUCH LATER in the course's progress. Which means again, any shifts in perception you have, ARE NOT miracles.

As we remove blocks to love, we remove blocks to the NATURAL NATURE of our being - our miraculousness. We re-access and become able again to wield without fear, the ABILITY of our mind to perform miracles. It requires love, as a main ingredient.

Miracles also express FROM a loving state of mind. If you do not have a loving state of mind ALREADY, you will not be able to perform a miracle. If your mind gets INTO a loving state, THAT itself is not a miracle. The shift from where you are, to where you are trying to be, is not miraculous. The place you END UP AT is miraculous.

Now, let's also be clear that miracles CAN CAUSE a shift in perception. For example:

"Miracles unite you with your brother"

"Miracles raise the level of communication"

"Miracles make minds one in God"

So they are ways to heal your psychological interconnectedness with others. But the change that occurs, the effects, the shifts, they are not causal. They are the results of the miracles happening. If perception shifts, that's an effect, not a cause. Let's also throw in this point.

If you are advanced and have done a lot of purification and are now close to miracle mindedness, you do not NEED shifts in perception for yourself. You don't have stuff left TO shift. Does this mean you are now done performing miracles? Absolutely not. You are supposed to be returning TO being MIRACULOUS ALL THE TIME.

Remember, "miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong."

and "Miracles should be happening all the time"

So a person awakening, a person being more loving, a person close to true perception, SHOULD BE miraculous all the time. AND performing miracles frequently.

"Every day should be devoted to miracles."

Let's also make a distinction here.

1) Miraculousness is the true nature of divine mind. Everything in heaven is miraculous forever. Jesus is still miraculous. Holy Spirit is miraculous. Your soul is miraculous. Angels are miraculous. Being miraculous never switches off. But you can deny it with the ego.

2) "The Miracle", is a synonym for the STATE of atonement, true perception, salvation, miracle mindedness, right mindedness etc. It could also be considered a synonym for the Holy Spirit and Christ Vision. This is a STATE OF MIND, a "place" in awareness that you reach. This state of miraculous, but it is not the same thing as miracles. It's where miracles COME FROM.

3) Miracles, individual miracles, plural, are many in number. They are performed typically FROM the state of miracle mindedness. From the top down, not the bottom up. This is why "I can only give the miracles I HAVE RECEIVED" and also why "Miracles FALL like drops of healing rain". The come DOWN from a higher state of mind and resurrect. "All around the signs of life spring up"

All individual miracles are one, but they literally are numerous and individually performed. They operate to LIFT UP the mind from states of false perception, TOWARDS true perception. That is, being performed FROM a higher level, they have power OVER all that is below, including perception, form, bodies, and worlds. They can raise the dead, physically and psychologically. They can heal the sick on any level. And they can restore sanity and induce revelation.

When performed, they elevate your own mind to a higher level if necessary. But if you are already high, they are given to those who have less, merely reinforcing what you already have. This is why

"Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less."

"A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another."

Note that being a service it does not mean that you are the main beneficiary. But you also are not excluded because you give as you receive. It's just that we need to realize, miracles are GIVEN TO OTHERS.

So here is a key fact. Miracles are NOT JUST ABOUT YOU. They are not something that just has an influence on your own perception or mind or body. They literally are capable of DOING SOMETHING TO OTHERS. This is why they are capable of raising the dead and healing the sick, OTHER than yourself.

So this naive idea that "miracles are what happens when I shift my own perception", has to be thrown out. It is woefully inaccurate and limited and not at all what the course actually says about miracles. It's something some people made up a long time ago when misinterpreting the course.

The time will come when miracles are not needed, but only when everyone has atoned. This does not MEAN the end of miraculousness. Miracles resurrect the dead in every way by GIVING life.

"Miracles are a spark of life"

"Miracles mean life and God is the giver of life"

When everyone is resurrected, God isn't going to stop giving life, nor are you going to stop being miraculous. Do you think Jesus today is incapable of performing a miracle? Quite the opposite. And he doesn't even HAVE perception!

So miracles can lift the mind up, "shifting perception", but that depends entirely on whether there is anything TO shift. The shift is an effect, while there is something to affect. If you confuse the shift with the miracle, you throw out miracles as soon as you are done with shifting.

It is also necessary as part of the atonement that you perform miracles FOR OTHERS, rather than just selfishly focusing on the shifting of your own perceptions. There is no point becoming miracle minded if you are not going to USE your miraculous nature to perform miracles. Miracles express through you, extending to others, as part of your nature loving of other people.

"Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind." (and they do NOT arise from a mind that is steeped in ego problems that's trying to shift some perception).

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

"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."

"Only the last is involuntary, because it is the APPLICATION of miracles which must be Christ-controlled. But the other two, which are the voluntary aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you."

Note that just because miracle APPLICATION is christ controlled, and "involuntary", does NOT MEAN that miracles DO NOT get performed through you or that you do nothing. You work with Christ and the Holy Spirit and THEY make the miracles happen through you. You area team. You have the power of God in you.

So no, miracles are not shifts in perception. They are a form of healing and demonstration of God's power. Miracles CAUSE stuff to happen, and not just to YOU! Miracles have the power of God in them. They are able to give life and supply a lack. They can heal the bodies of others. They can heal minds. They can even cause inanimate objects to do things they "shouldn't" be able to do, by breaking the laws of the world. e.g. Jesus turning water into wine, turning a tree branch into a snake, walking on water etc.

Shifting perception is indeed part of purification, but it is not to be associated with a miracle. You can shift your perception quite a lot without miracles being involved. You might not even perform a single miracle after many years of course practice. It require a lot of mind healing to be able to DO them. To express FROM a healed state.

And let us also remember, miracles actually occur as a result of IMPULSES. The impulse is like a little spark of living energy which arises in the mind. "Miracles are energizers". They actually are like little expressed mini creations which transfer FROM you TO another and have effects on them. They go out and do something. It's like a pulse of life force. Inspired by Christ. Passing through you onto others.

So if you want to be a miracle DOER, a WORKER, you need to first approach miracle minded states, and THEN you can perform miracles. This is why actual miracles are quite rare among ACIM folks at present, we're simply not far enough along in our purification to perform them. Jesus has set a high standard for us to live up to but it's exciting to continue to move towards our natural birthright of being a miracle worker, in this world and beyond.

JUST BECAUSE YOU ARE AWAKE, DOES NOT MEAN OTHER PEOPLE WANT TO SHARE IT WITH YOU

JUST BECAUSE YOU PERCEIVE CORRECTLY, DOES NOT MEAN OTHER PEOPLE STOP PERCEIVING INCORRECTLY

Moving into the LIGHT, does not necessarily bring others with you, until they are WILLING to join you.

God is 100% awake right now. There is no sickness or death or suffering in God. It is "true" that these things do not exist, that separation is impossible, and no-one can die.

HOWEVER

It SEEMS. ... in an illusory way.... that we can SEEM to separate from God, to go off into a nightmare, have a bad dream, IMAGINE it is really happening, confuse it with reality temporarily, and SEEM to suffer and die.

Any such suffering, sickness or dying, is not real, and every single person who has sickness or suffering is not REALLY suffering. They are just having a bad dream.

But let's look at this with some compassion. Those "people", even if those people are not really individuals, no matter who or what they are, even if they are split of bits of the Son's mind, there is still some kind of ILLUSORY EXPERIENCE of terrible things happening.

A nightmare. A bad dream. Stuff that seems horrible, but in truth, is not happening. Yet still SEEMS to be happening to those "to whom" it seems to be happening.

And while these people are having these FALSE EXPERIENCES, God is already 100% awake, 100% healed and whole, 100% knowing that sickness and death are not possible.

WHY DOES GOD NOT UNDO THOSE NIGHTMARES IMMEDIATELY?

WHY DOESN'T GOD's INFINITE POWER AND IMMORTALITY stop people from killing themselves in the dream?

WHY DOESN'T THE FACT THAT GOD's MIND IS TOTALLY AWAKE, "cause" all "people" to NOT BE ABLE To create dreams of suffering?

Putting aside the illusion of linear time for a moment, God does not do that ONLY because those people having the nightmares keep REFUSING TO RECEIVE THE HELP. They use ILLUSIONS of denial, to pretend that they do not want the help, and that they need to suffer.

Even though God is offering 100% eternal life right now, immortal spirit is attempting to PRETEND to be stuck in a mortal body, confused with what can be sick and suffer and die.

And while we're in this illusion, having this nightmare, I think most people would AGREE that these "nightmares" can seem pretty dam real TO the person who is having them. Like if someone was mentally ill, having a terrible distorted vision of a horrible monster trying to eat them, freaking out and running around screaming because they THINK they're being attacked, even if they are NOT.... what is the loving response?

The loving response is TO LOVE.... always... the same.... unconditional love OFFERED at all times, but not being FORCED onto the person. Why not? Why doesn't God just wake us up out of the nightmare right now "against our will". Because we have FREE WILL, or at least love does not do that because it sees no NEED to do that, because it knows nothing real is happening.

Since God is 100% aware right now, and we, here, in this forum, for the most part, ARE NOT 100% AWARE RIGHT NOW, what that means is..... even though it's ultimately not true that we are unaware, it SEEMS like we are. We are having a false nightmare, a dream, a fantasy experience. Which SEEMS real to us.

And some of us here are experiencing what we think is real suffering. Maybe someone had a stroke, or has terrible pains, or anxiety about food, or had a heart attack, or their kidneys aren't working, or they have some "rare disease". Or maybe someone close to them is sick and it keeps them up at night worrying.

These are all false experiences, unreal nightmares, BUT the person having them DOES NOT KNOW THAT at this point. The illusion is so convincing, that we seem to have this twisted sense of "reality"... where we perceive and think these things are "really happening". And that produces ALL of the suffering, fear, and torment in this fictional world.

And none of it is real. And no-one is really sick. And there is no suffering. BUT.. .. that's not what people are SEEMING to experience.

What would love do about this? How would love respond to someone with mental illness, who hallucinates problems, who psychosomatically puts sickness into their body and writhes in torment over the pain they feel? What would love's response be?

TO LOVE THEM. TO OFFER A MIRACLE OF HEALING.

They might not accept the healing. Just as we seem to sleep "against God's will"... something which is really IMPOSSIBLE, yet which we are PRETENDING is possible....the person might refuse to JOIN YOU in being 100% awake. They might keep pretending that denial is real and possible and can block love. They might still manifesting artificial make-believe terrible sickness. They might PERCEIVE differently than you perceive.

Just because you go into true perception, or even go beyond perception to TOTAL AWARENESS of everything real, does NOT MEAN that other people automatically go there as well.

This is why Jesus was able to walk around the earth in a MORE HEALED state than other people, and OFFER THEM healing. He was still able to PERCEIVE that these "people" - whatever they are - parts of his mind or whatever - these people were having nightmares. Some split-off part of mind was still twisting "reality" and SEEMING to experience a terrible state of suffering. And to that piece of mind, that person, that suffering seemed VERY REAL and horrible.

Even though love knows that suffering is NOT REALLY THERE and has no real consequence and minds cannot be sick etc.... that none of this even happened.... IT IS STILL LOVING to offer miracles of healing to those "parts" which seem to be in need. This is part of the atonement process. The plan of salvation. That we are BRING LOVE to ALL PARTS OF MIND.

As Jesus says, he offers us salvation and love right now, but if we are not ready to receive it, HE WILL WAIT.

In time, people CAN REFUSE LOVE. Or at least seem to. They can produce forms of sickness in the body EVEN THOUGH God does not contain any real sickness. They can make illusions of being sick, and have horrible nightmares about those sicknesses being real. It is LOVING to alleviate that suffering IF THEY ARE WILLING to RECEIVE IT, through your offering of a miracle.

Just because there is total awareness or total perception, and even if that shows you there is NO DEATH and sickness is an IMPOSSIBLE ILLUSION, in time.. there is STILL a "need" for healing. That's why the Holy Spirit is here. His function here is healing, and we are supposed to share that with him, to OFFER HEALING to everyone who still seems to suffer from self-made nightmares. It is the loving thing to do, to offer a miracle, EVEN IF it is refused, and in spite of the fact that people can CHOOSE NOT TO PERCEIVE AS YOU DO.

Additionally, just because your perception is true and whole and healed, it does not STOP you from seeing what these "other people" or "split off bits of mind" - from the one whole son - are doing to themselves. It's possible to have COMPASSION for them, to recognize they are MISTAKEN and to not believe their sickness is REAL... yet to STILL OFFER HEALING of *THEIR BELIEF* that sickness is justified. And if they continue to spend time refusing to learn the curriculum, which is their free will right, they may well refuse to undo that illusion of sickness and will STILL EXPERIENCE SUFFERING, even if God can never suffer.

So yes, there IS no real sickness. Yes, there ARE no separate people. Yes, there are not even any bodies TO heal. Yes, no-one really needs real healing because healing is an illusion. BUT WHILE WE ARE HERE.... inside this dream illusion, where people DO choose to make illusions of attack and sickness, IT IS our role to offer and bring healing through love, to perform miracles, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, and to HELP "those" who seem to suffer. And they will thank you, because what they were experiencing before, even if it was an illusion, was WORSE to them than what they are experiencing now. How is that not KIND?

This is our function here. To offer love and truth to those who THINK they are really sick and suffering. To undo that suffering if they will ALLOW. To recognize they cannot be sick or suffer or die FOR THEM while they refuse to see it FOR THEMSELVES. Just because you wake up, does NOT mean "their sickness" disappears from THEIR EXPERIENCE. Otherwise, because God is awake NOW, it would be impossible for anyone to experience sickness. And truly they can't because sickness MUST therefore be AN ILLUSION, but people are still TEMPORARILY INSANE believing otherwise.

No-one needs saving, yet they do. In this dream, they do. There is healing to be performed. There are miracles to work. There are people who, if you walked up to them and asked, "would you like me to take away this cancerous growth", would say, "sure"... and you extend God's love in prayer and IT DISAPPEARS, and they are totally over the moon because they were suffering for years and thought they are going to have the NIGHTMARE of dying.

It's all mental illness, but love STILL HEALS IT. There is no real need to heal it, BUT LOVE DOES ANYWAY. Love just loves. While we dream, God wants us to awaken. While we refuse God's will, or try to, pretend to, God wills that we be happy and accept his will.

YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SUFFER, even if it is just a made-up dream of made-up suffering. You don't even NEED TO HAVE a nightmare dream. You can have a HAPPIER DREAM. A dream which is gentler and softer and precedes awakening in a smooth and non-jarring way. You do not need to be sick, or tolerate it, or try to transcend it in order to deny it. IT CAN BE REMOVED. No-one has to have dreams of death and suffering and sickness and pain, EVEN IF it is just a dream. This is not God's will.

It is God's will for you to EXPERIENCE PERMANENT HEALTH AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, to no longer have that broken leg, or that missing arm, or that defective lung, or that cancer, or any of it. A broken body proves the mind is not healed, so these breaks MUST BE HEALED if the mind is to be healed. We do not need to find ways to "be at peace with it". We need to UNDO IT, in form, in the body, to prove and demonstrate the truth that we cannot be hurt against our will. No-one needs to be having a dream of limitations.

The world, meaning the larger physical universe and everything in it, is fiction. It's a dream, coming from a dreaming mind. The mind is dreaming of states of being in which there is degradation, decay, change, entropy, uncertainty and death. This shows up as what we call the universe. It's an image, an illusion, picturing what God's creation (His Son) would be like if it were NOT what it is like. It's the idea of the opposite of Heaven (reality), and is hell (illusion).

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

"He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God."

As a dream, it's not real. It's actually entirely nothing. Nothing whatsoever. It's merely an illusion of something. It's not there. At most, it is completely neutral, in that it causes nothing and has no effect on anything real. It is nothing but a thin "veil" of illusions, covering up reality. It has no mind, no will, no self, no soul, no power, no causality, no identity. It is not life and nothing in it lives forever. It has no real properties at all. Made of darkness, it is the illusion of the absence of light. When light comes, it disappears.

"Eternity will shine away the world."

"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."

"It is at best an illusion of life, at worst, death."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."

You are the dreamer of the dream. The cause of the manifestation of the illusory universe. It is in your mind and coming from you. You put into place everything that happens and everything the world contains. This is "the world you made".

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways"

"For, if you think the world you made has power to make you what it wills, you ARE confusing Son and Father; effect and Source."

"My self is ruler of the universe."

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

"Both heaven and earth are in your mind."

Now. You as a dreamer, the cause of the dream world, have within your power the ability to choose whether to believe God's true reality is the one reality, or whether to put belief into the world you made. The only way to believe that the world you made has any truth or reality to it at all, is to believe God's world is lacking in truth and reality. This requires you to confuse what is really true, with what is false.

The false world you made (which includes planet Earth), by believing it exists at all, seems to take on properties of its own, as if it exists, as if it causes, as if it is happening, as if time and space actually occur. Through a reversal of cause and effect, believing that the effect of you is the cause of you, that your dream world is dreaming you, this forces your mind to "perceive" itself as being "caused by" the universe. This level confusion takes you out from "above" (or prior to) the world and places you seemingly "within it" (below it).

This is the foundation for incarnation into or the making of a body, which pictures you as if you have been "made by" the world, at the effect of it, and anchored in space and time like a prisoner. The body depicts the idea that the world is causing you, rather than that you cause the world. And now you seem to perceive in, through, and with the body.

Without this reversal of causality, there is no body. This also means everything the body "perceives" is false, perceived in a false way, confusing a false world with truth, and therefore perceiving it as if it is really there. This is what the senses were made to report (lies). They were made to look upon illusions of forms ("the forms of error"), and NOT see past them, taking them to be real objects and things.

"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."

"Even in its most spiritualized form perception involves the body."

"Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception"

"Perception is a witness but to this, and never to reality."

"Its eyes perceive it not; its senses remain quite unaware of it"

"The body's eyes will NEVER look on it." (reality)

"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."

The perceptual function of the body, through the body's eyes and senses, reports illusions to the mind as if to suggest these illusions are really there to perceive. The body relays images of a *false world* to the mind. These are neutral images with no real meaning. Snapshots of a fake world. Pictures of nothingness seeming to be something. It is then entirely up to the mind to determine what to make of these messages.

The body always and only perceives what is false. It can ONLY look upon false things. Everything it sees MUST be false (the world is false). It is literally incapable of perceiving reality or truth of any kind. It's vision is locked into hell, for as long as it seems to exist. It cannot see light, reality, heaven, or God. It was designed not to AND it never will, regardless of your state of mind. The body sees only sin. The world is made of the idea of sin and death. Every form, object, body, planet, galaxy, is made of the idea of separation, sin and death, being a dream of death. Physical objects are sin - illusions of separations seeming to happen.

"The world of bodies is the world of sin."

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

"These eyes made not to see, will never see."

"endless list of forms of nothingness that you endow with magical powers."

"For sin arose from it, out of nothingness"

"Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is held back by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived."

So there's the body, showing you pictures of sin and hell, constantly. That's all it can do. Anything it "sees" is a result of vision being blocked by illusions, unable to overlook (forgive) anything. Unable to see through the block of solid physical sin (matter). Repulsed by it. Imprisoned by it.

The mind however, is the only thing that sees. "only mind can see". The mind "looks upon" the images of hell that the body relays to it through the senses. The mind is the location of the belief system. The mind is where any kind of distortion of reality is happening, and it's where you assign meaning or value or "reality" to illusions. Depending on what the mind accepts as true and real, determines how it will interpret the images of a fake world. It will either believe they are real, or will believe they are not real. But so long as the body persists, it WILL continue seeing the false world.

When the mind wants to believe (value) illusory things as real, it misinterprets what the body is showing it. It is confused. It confuses unreal things for real things. The mind, therefore, has a false perception ABOUT, the images being sent to it by the body's eyes. Since the body is showing you images of the FALSE WORLD, and the mind is believing these illusions are real, the mind is now having "false perceptions about" a FALSE world. The body only shows the mind images of "hell is real". If the mind agrees with the images and is convinced these images are indeed real hell, the mind too has false perception.

Believing the body's eyes is false perception. The body is always seeing falsely, but the mind can choose whether to be confused about what it's being shown (taking it as real), or to recognize that these images are false. Images of a false world, a fake world, an untrue world, a world that is not real, or happening, a world where the sin it is made of is recognized as not real. Not true. The mind decides what meaning to give to what the body is seeing.

"Nothing I see means anything."

"I have given what I see all the meaning it has for me"

"Therefore ... will to change your mind ABOUT the world. Perception is a RESULT, and not a cause."

Note that just because you change your mind ABOUT what the body is showing you, DOES NOT MEAN that the world is inherently real or true. It does not mean the world is REAL behind your misperceptions of it. It does not mean the world is suddenly the Kingdom of God if you would just stop projecting stuff onto it. The world is NOT REAL, IN ADDITION TO, your false perceptions "about it". You have false peceptions ABOUT a false world, which makes that false world SEEM like a real world. Therefore believing the world (which is an illusion of a world) is real, or created by God, IS FALSE PERCEPTION.

A mind that believes the world is real, is having false perception. This is a false perception about a false world. The world is false, because you invented it to oppose God's truth. It is the OPPOSITE of truth. Perceiving a false world falsely, you regard it as a true world or a real world, you take it seriously, you think you live in it, and that you are at the effect of it. A true (corrected, healed) perception of a false world, reveals to you that the world IS in fact false. This is *recognition*. It is a recognition and a correct identification that this world IS in fact illusory, false, unreal, untrue, not happening, not real sin, not causing anything, not existing.

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and ***the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before***. But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal."

"Illusions recognized must disappear."

"Earth, heaven's OPPOSITE in every way."

"Enlightenment is but a recognition"

Just prior to total awakening from the dream, having sorted out what is really true and really false, having come to recognize illusions as illusions, not being confused about what is real, the mind is very much healed and still uses the body temporarily as a teaching device. It is used by the Holy Spirit to communicate healing and to symbolize immortality. This is the state of being "a teacher of God."

A teacher of God is still in the world, still dreaming, still causing the body as a result of slight cause-effect reversal, but almost awake ("those who perceive still need healing." The teacher of God still looks using the body's eyes, upon a fake world, where nothing is real. And it still remains in a world that continues to function according to ego laws, space and time, change and death, war and conflict, sickness and suffering. The world is still a picture of crucifixion. But the development of true perception is the development of the "spiritual eye" which overlooks these illusions and does not believe them. It looks PAST them, through them, beyond them, to the truth of reality, ignoring the illusory world and not believing in it.

"To forgive is to overlook."

"Oneness and sickness cannot coexist. God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?"

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. ***They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see.*** They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is ***no more real*** than to regard it as healthy and beautiful."

In this state, the mind is becoming aware it is making the world. It is the dreamer of the dream. It is causing the world. It has power over it. Miracle mindedness allows for the breaking of all laws. There is nothing you cannot do. The mind here is still perceiving, and the body is still showing it pictures of hell (bodies sick and damaged, people unhappy, death and decay etc), but having *recognized* the truth (God's) it now sees things in their proper perspective.

It's a recognition that a false world IS false, illusions ARE illusions, sickness is NOT REAL, and everything you're seeing in the dream IS nothing but a dream. If you see sick bodies, you do not BELIEVE they are really sick, even though they still APPEAR as illusions of sickness you can perceive. The body can still show you broken legs. You just RECOGNIZE that they are not REALLY broken legs. They are false images, and you are not deceived by it.

The distinction is simple. Failing to recognize that a false illusory world is exactly that, confuses the mind and makes the world seem real. Recognizing it for what it is, overlooking it, not buying into it, or believing in it, reveals its FALSE nature, BECAUSE you know what is true. What you used to believe was true, real, valuable, causing you, now clearly appears to be interpreted as doing nothing, having no reality, causing nothing and producing no real effects. The illusory world is recognized as not *really* sinning. It's sin is fake. It's sicknesses are not true of anyone. And death can be abolished at will.

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem."

"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

"Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth."

"You are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No other cause it has, nor ever will. Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself."

In this state of mind the world becomes "the forgiven world." It is forgiven because you are seeing truly. True perception is ACCURATE perception. To accurately see the world you made reveals its "true nature" or "the reality of it". The reality of the world is that it is NOT real. "The real world" is Heaven. Seeing a false world truly, recognizes this world is nothing. False things are seen, but not believed.

Realize that this is a state of continuing to perceive the world and all its ills. It cannot help but be a dream of death. Being in true perception does not in any way change the laws of physics, unless you perform a miracle. The world still spins regardless of how you look at it. Blood falls to the ground regardless of how you look at it. How you look at it is NOT a cause, it is a RESULT. Perception does not cause anything. Perception is *feedback*. It shows you what YOU MADE. It shows you the dream that you're causing.

So you are still seeing the hell you made through the body's eyes, BUT you are no longer believing it is real or confusing it for reality. False perception is a failure to *recognize* an illusion when you see one, and the world is made of illusions. And illusions are not "only" your perceptions "about" the world. The world and the body are both illusions in their own right. You will still look upon them or with them but without the confusion that they are reality.

"The body is a dream."

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

"God did not create the body."

"The world you see is an illusion".

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

It's important to realize then that when your mind is almost 100% healed, you will still see a world of death. You will still see bodies being sick. You will still see (illusions of) war and suffering. The body keeps showing it to you per the ego's laws of physics. Just because you see this stuff, it DOES NOT MEAN that you are sick or believing in sickness. Just because you see someone suffering, it does not mean you are making them suffer. Just because you see your neighbor with a broken leg, it does not mean you are believing in broken legs. The key is whether you BELIEVE IT IS REAL. Whether you confuse it for truth. NOT "whether or not I see it."

Having truer perception DOES NOT MEAN "I will no longer see bad stuff." It does not mean "I will not be able to see sickness, otherwise it means I am still sick." It does not mean you cease being able to perceive death. It ONLY means you REINTERPRET what you see. You change what it MEANS to you. You change how you evaluate or judge it. You change whether you BELIEVE it is true or false, real or unreal. That has nothing to do with "whether I see it" UNTIL you attain 100% Christ Vision and the world disappears.

"The Holy Spirit is the great re-interpreter of the world."

You will continue to see this world until you ascend to Heaven. That's a fact. You being near enlightened will not change the way that the sun rises or the fact that oceans still are polluted or that death seems to happen. What changes is who you see it WITH and whether or not you *recognize* it for what it actually is. You either recognize a broken body is an illusion of a fictional broken body, pretending to be sick but being actually nothing but a fake image which you can easily change, OR you fail to recognize it and take it to be real, seeing a "real need", regarding it as "sin really happened", taking it seriously and reacting with fear. If you make the sickness real to you by believing in it, you are failing to recognize illusions and are now in need of healing yourself.

True perception, aligned with the Holy Spirit, aka Christ Vision, aka Spiritual Eye, is a clear and direct and un-distorting accurate way of seeing, which recognizes TWO things. Not just what is true, but also what is false. You must learn to recognize the false stuff AS false, and you do that by learning what is really true. In light of what is true, in the big picture, discerning, clearly recognizing, illusions are recognized as false and reality is recognized as true. BOTH occur simultaneously. You don't get to ONLY see "the truth" or "Reality" UNTIL you ascend to Heaven. Until then, you see both.

The false is seen for a while, but as false. The truth is also seen, becoming increasingly obvious as true. There are two perceptions happening at once. Body eyes and spiritual eyes. What is true (Heaven) becomes able to be seen BEYOND the thin veil of the false illusory world. The world becomes thin. Transparent. Illusions are overlooked. Bodies are not believed in. Fake causes are laughed at. Miracles demonstrate you are under no laws but God's, and break all the illusory laws of this world, including space, time, gravity, atomic forces, size, weight, distance, etc. These are all fiction.

The world seems to become forgiven, in that you no longer ADD attack to what it is. The world, when seen with forgiving eyes, isn't a REAL world, but is a NOT BELIEVED world. NOT believing that the world is real, or sinning, or attacking, or guilty, or anything at all, can make the illusory world seem lovely. It can seem lovelier than a world onto which you overlaid your projections of sinful belief. BUT, it is not lovely due to being real. It is lovely because it has no sin projected onto it. It becomes seemingly "innocent", BUT IT IS NOT REAL INNOCENCE. It becomes seemingly "holy", BUT IT IS NOT HOLINESS. It is NOTHING. It is seen merely as a thin veil, a picture of illusions of attack, which isn't really attack, and so sparkles with light as if clean and new and free from accusation. BUT IT IS STILL UNREAL. A forgive, yet STILL STRANGE world made of illusions.

"To see a sinless body is impossible. 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."

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

Then the veil parts. Christ is seen. The world is forgotten. The illusory world DISAPPEARS. The body vanishes. Death is snuffed out. There is no world. No perception. The mind awakens in Heaven's reality and continues Creating with God, where it left off, as if nothing ever happened. Because it was just a dream. And now it is gone. And everything made of dreams has disappeared. Now you are Home. Now you are awake in God.

"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."

"Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists."

"You, then, have two conflicting evaluations of yourself in your minds, and they CANNOT BOTH BE TRUE. You do not yet realize how COMPLETELY different these evaluations are, because you do not understand how lofty the Holy Spirit's perception of you really is."

It is vital to have a firm grip of what the truth is, in order to be able to make a clear comparison with what is false. The light of heaven, the immortal soul, the truth of the laws of God, the nature of reality, must be very clearly discerned. In light of this truth, all things which are not of God become very obvious. But you have to see IN AND FROM the light of truth in order to tell what everything is.

You cannot have clarity or see clearly without being able to clearly discern what things are. You cannot clearly discern whether you are a body or not unless you can get a clear view of who and what you really are. In light of that, with everything seen in its proper place, you can then clearly see that the body is totally opposite to what you are. Now it is recognized as not the same, and clearly not your self.

In order to find recognition, which is enlightenment, you must use contrast. It needs to become extremely clear to you the difference between reality and unreality, truth and illusions, spirit and form, immortality and mortality, innocence and guilt, health and suffering, eternal life and death. You can't find clarity if you cannot recognize what things are and why they are not the same.

In the ego states of confusion, there is a great loss of clarity and a total lack of recognition. All of its reasoning leads to total confusion about everything, in which it cannot tell what is true or false, it does not know whether something is real or not, it does not recognize who or what you really are, or are not, and it is incapable of telling anything apart. It is so out of touch with what is actually real, distinct from what is not, that it has lost touch with reality and is insane.

You need an anchor. You need something very very dependable and firm and unchanging. You need a fixed perspective. You need a light which does not waver and does not lie. You need even a conceptual or theoretical foundation of what the truth is like, what is of God and what isn't, what reality's nature is, what is true of you, and who you really are. Even if at least in theory you can build up a picture of the qualities and aspects of what is true of you, you can hold onto that and then use it to compare.

Comparison then becomes a very valuable tool when used AGAINST the ego. The ego would use it make all things part of the same soup, within which it uses comparison to produce inequality and specialness, to upset the balance and to produce war. This is a horizontal use of comparison. When you use comparison vertically to compare between reality and illusions, or heaven and earth, or spirit and bodies, or eternal immortality vs sickness and death, it becomes fare more constructive.

I found a great deal of clarification by simply focusing on heaven and investigating the qualities of reality. Building in my mind a description of God and or creation, or the holographic principles of a shared existence, looking at cause-effect relationships in truth and the nature of an immortal life. This really helped me to greatly "compare" this clear picture of the light, with the darkness, in order to be able to tell which is which. And this is what we have to do. This is what the "sorting out" is all about.

For me lately the fleshing out of "what is true" has for me been converging ever more upon "who am I". Recognizing that I need to learn to know myself, to acknowledge my original self as God created me, to recognize my immortality and permanence, my invulnerability and unchangeability. A sense of self which is rock-solid fixed and unalterable, an IDENTITY that I can not only latch onto but identify WITH, and recognize it as the truth about me.

This also provides for me now a basis for recognizing the truth about others. By accessing the christ in me and opening to the holy spirit, learning of my immortal nature behind everything, which is non-physical, I can also think similarly of my brothers. I can now compare and contrast and see that, in comparison to who people are in the light of God, the body and its form cannot be who they are. Sickness cannot be true of their immortal nature. Death cannot be happening to them.

This also reveals that all physical form is a lie, the whole world is nothing but an illusory appearance, something appearing to be something it's not. Something appearing to show something as if it's true, which cannot be true. And the reason I can discern it cannot be true is because I have an increasingly clear grasp of what the truth MUST BE. By very strongly and intensely focusing on God's truth about me and others, I can REJECT and properly deny the illusory lies of apparent matter when I am presented with it. I NEED the clear handle on the light in order to recognize the darkness for what it is.

As the course says, the Holy Spirit also uses contrasts, and that you need contrast in order to correctly discern anything. You need to be able to COMPARE God's truth to the world's truth and recognize just how OPPOSITE they are, how they are totally unlike, and how they are INCOMPATIBLE. And it is in the light of bringing these two opposites into awareness that your mind becomes able to see. ... that it must reject one of them, THEY CANNOT BOTH BE TRUE. When placed side by side and compared and are seen to be opposites, you CANNOT confuse them OR accept both of them. Only one can be true.

It is the totally clear CATEGORIZATION of all things true into the "true" box, and all things false into the "false" or unreal box, that gives you the recognition of enlightenment. The GOAL here then is to sort out what is true and what is false, what is of God and what is not, what is God's law and what isn't, what is real and what is unreal, what is immortal and what is mortal. Everything that gets in the way of this or makes it seem like the two are unclear and not different, is CONFUSION. And to become SANE again is nothing more or less than undoing your confusion about which is which.

We are to completely separate out the true from the false, so that ONLY THE TRUTH IS TRUE, and NOTHING ELSE IS TRUE. And that is a matter of comparing and contrasting until it becomes COMPLETELY black and white. Clearly discerning what is and what is not, is what this ENTIRE course is about. Increasing the CONTRAST between the two so that you can make a CLEAR choice and RECOGNIZE that reality is real, and unreality is not. Only in that intensely black-and-white contrast can you be CERTAIN, and therefore free from fear.

"You have need of contrast only here. Contrast and differences are necessary teaching aids, for by them you learn what to avoid, and what to seek."

"You can only GO BEYOND it, and look back from a point where SANITY exists, and SEE THE CONTRAST. Only BY this contrast, can insanity be judged as insane."

"They ARE together, and when they are SEEN together, ALL attempts to KEEP both truth AND illusion in the mind, where both MUST be, are recognized as DEDICATION TO ILLUSION. And GIVEN UP when BROUGHT to truth, and seen as totally UNRECONCILABLE with truth, in ANY aspect, or in any WAY."

"The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference FOR you, allowing Him to demonstrate which MUST be true."

"For you will NEED no contrast to help you realize that THIS IS WHAT YOU WANT, and ONLY this."

"ou who are steadfastly devoted to misery, MUST first recognize that you ARE miserable and NOT happy. The Holy Spirit cannot teach WITHOUT this contrast, for you believe that misery IS happiness."

"The contrast between what is true, and what is not, is PERFECTLY apparent, yet you do NOT see it."

"And changing concepts IS salvation's task. For it must deal in contrasts, not in truth, which has no opposite and cannot change."

"In contrast, the Soul reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true, and does not respond at all to anything else."

"Nothing can show the contrast better than the experience of both a holy and an unholy relationship."

"The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture."

"If sin is real then happiness must be illusion, for they cannot both be true."

"Now need you but to learn that BOTH of you are innocent OR guilty. The one thing that is impossible is that you be UNLIKE each other; that they BOTH be true."

"What you can decide BETWEEN is fixed, because there are no alternatives, EXCEPT truth and illusion. And there is no overlap between them, because they are opposites which CANNOT be reconciled, and CANNOT both be true. You are guilty OR guiltless, bound OR free, happy OR unhappy."

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal. This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world."

"Let us try today to realize that only the truth is true."

"He made a clean distinction, still obscure to us, between the false and true."

"The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing ELSE. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM."

"There are only two thought systems, and you demonstrate that you believe one or the other is true all the time."

"They are all true OR all false. It is absolutely essential that you understand completely that behavior is erratic until a firm commitment to one or the other is made."

"That is why I always choose between truth and illusion; between what is there and what is not. The light has come. I can but choose the light, for it has no alternative. It has replaced the darkness, and the dark is gone."

"What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality?"

"Now MUST you choose between yourself and this ILLUSION of yourself. NOT both, but ONE."

"The real and the unreal are all there is to choose between, and nothing more than these."

"And so again we make the only choice that ever can be made; we choose between illusions and the truth, or pain and joy, or hell and Heaven."

"This is the world of opposites. And you must choose between them every instant while this world retains reality for you."

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

"You ALWAYS choose between YOUR weakness and the strength of Christ in you."

"Remember that you ALWAYS choose between truth and illusion, between the REAL Atonement that would heal, and the ego's "atonement," that would destroy."

"Consider what temptation is, and see the real alternatives you choose between. There ARE but two. Be not deceived by what appears as many choices. There is hell or Heaven. And of these you choose but ONE."

"Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world."

There is a huge rift in the ACIM community.

It mainly hinges around a single assumption. Some people make this assumption and some do not.

Those who make it are very consistent in the consequences of that assumption, because it leads to massive level confusion. There is an entirely different interpretation of the meaning of almost everything the Course means, which arises based on that one assumption.

The assumption is this:

Everything about the course applies to "my identity" as I see it right now. It ALL applies to ME.

This is a MISTAKE!

And this happens because .... every course student has a EGO, which is a false sense of identity or self, which perceives that everything is about IT. It is an ego-centric interpretation of the course.

Here is a fact which you can deny or accept:

Sometimes the Course is speaking to and about an "individual son" as part of the "sonship." "A son", "A brother", "my brothers", "God’s children", etc of which there are many. And sometimes, the course is speaking about The One Son of God - "The son", "God’s son" etc.

These are two very different LEVELS OF IDENTITY. The scope of these levels is vastly different. What applies to one individual may not apply to another individual. What applies to the one son, does not apply to an individual son in isolation. The mind of the One Son is HUGE, it is the mind of Christ. The mind of an INDIVIDUAL SON, has its own individual free will choice and its own ability to independently deny God.

Confusing or combining these two levels, which is a confusion of identity, will lead to massive level confusion and false conclusions.

When YOU, as an "individual son", think that everything the course says about the One Son applies to YOU, you are making a massive level confused mistake! It does NOT apply to you! When you, as an individual son, believe that every teaching in the course is ABOUT YOU, as you see yourself as an individual right now, you WILL come to false conclusions. And these conclusions are radically warped in comparison to what they would be if you saw all the levels in their appropriate placement.

Some parts of ACIM are talking about an individual son, and some parts are talking about the One Son, which is a vast difference. Knowing WHEN Jesus is talking about WHICH LEVEL, is very important, otherwise you will just lump them all together and .... come to some very distorted conclusions.

To understand and accept this DOES REQUIRE that you believe that there ARE multiple sons. Some people refer to multiple souls as mentionedin earlier versions. Or the sonship, which even in edited versions talks about multiple sons. The sonship IS supposed to be a term that refers to MULTIPLE INDIVIDUALS. The sonship is NOT the One Son of God. The sonship IS NOT CHRIST.

If you confuse certain intentions of "which level of identity" Jesus is talking to or about, it will produce huge differences in what you think he means. If he says something which only applies to the One Son, and you think it applies to YOU as an individual, you will become mistaken.

This is what is happening throughout the course community. A kind of rift or difference of opinion, between those who take the course as "all one level talking about me as the only son" versus "multiple levels talking sometimes about me as an individual and sometimes as a shared single identity."

Those who believe the course always is talking at one level, who fail to see the levels or discern when Jesus refers to which identity, WILL come to the following FALSE CONCLUSIONS:

1) "I dreamed everything in the world, it’s all in my mind, therefore if I heal my mind, it will heal everyone else, because they are all part of me." —�- NO. This is only true of the One Son! It is not true of individuals. You as an individual are NOT responsible for what other individuals are experiencing!

2) "I dreamed the world myself"—�- NO. The One Son dreamed the world and you are INSIDE HIS DREAM. You are having an ADDITIONAL LAYER OF DREAMING within his dream.

3) "When the course talks about perception, he is talking about my pecteption." —� NO not always. E.g. When he says "the world IS perception", he literally means, planet earth is part of the perception of the ONE SON. It showing up is the One Son’s dreaming. You, as an individual, have your own INDIVIDUAL PERCEPTION *OF* the Son of God’s perception of a world. There are two levels here.

4) "I need only change my mind about the world to be at peace". —� NO. When you heal your individual perception OF the One Son’s perception, you will wake up IN the dream, but not FROM it. Many gurus have done this. Doing this will still result in death.

5) "If I change my perception, I will be able to transcend sickness." —� NO. If you change your perception of something which you think has been put there by someone else, in order to deal with it, IT will still stick around, proving that the One Son’s mind has not been healed.

6) "God created the world" —� NO. A person WILL come to this conclusion if they do not believe that there is a sonship of many individuals. This is because, somehow, they have to account for what the world IS or how it got there beyond their personal perception. Since they don’t believe there is a separate LEVEL of identity of the One Son, and they think they ARE the one Son at this level of individuality, they MUST conclude that the only identity LEFT who might be responsible for making the world is God! They do not see, that the One Son made the world, NOT their individual self.

7) "If you heal your perception you cannot perceive sickness in another." —� NO. This level confusion comes from believing that you, as an individual, are the one son. This means that everything you see in the world is "part of you". That then means that if sickness is showing up, like a person has cancer or some disease, it must be "part of your mind". And this leads to the conclusion - if I change my mind about this sin I’m seeing, that person will get healed. NO—�- it does not work. That other person is NOT part of your mind. You are an individual, they are an individual, and you both have free will. Believing that you are the one son of God at this level makes you delusional that a) you are responsible for other people’s sickness, b) they are sick because of you, c) if you withdraw your projection they won’t be sick. NOT TRUE. You are having an INDIVIDUAL FALSE PERCEPTION. And so are they. You are not the one son of God at this level. Other people are NOT part of your individual mind. They are part of the One Son’s mind, and that’s NOT your identity right now, not even if you reach true perception.

8) "What I project onto others affects them or is in them, so I need to take back those projections so they will be healed" —� NO. Your projections within the scope of your own individual mind, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR MIND. It only seems that these things are outside of you in another person. You have a belief in sin - an independent belief. Not the one son’s belief. This independent belief splits your independent mind. Your mind then has one area which seems innocent and one area which seems sinful. You will shift your identity to associate with the innocent part, and disassociate from the sinful part. This is internal denial. Your mind is at war with ITSELF. Your identification with the innocent part makes it seem like the sinful part is OUTSIDE of IT, but it is still within YOUR individual mind. You will hallucinate that because it seems "outside me", it is IN or belongs to or is doing something to other people. IT IS NOT. All attack is SELF attack. You NEVER attack others. Your projection DOES NOT leave your mind and go onto them. They HAVE NOT been affected by your projection! And when you take your projection back, it will NOT CHANGE ANYTING in terms of what the other person is experiencing. This is because both of you are individuals. Interpreting this whole part of the course based on the assumption it’s referring to "you" as "the one son" is a huge error.

9) "If I stop identifying with the body I will be free"�— NO. This is part of the belief that the body is there on its own, which is part of the belief that either God or the Son of God made it, and that if you just detach from it you will be free. The body is showing up because YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL are projecting it. What YOU, as an individual, use the body for, it will become to you, individually. Use it for attack it becomes sick, use it for love it is healed. This is about you as an individual son, not as the one son. You can’t disidentify from something that YOU are responsible for putting there. This includes all sickness in your body. YOU, as an individual son, made sickness and death, and therefore can abolish both.

10) "If I stop projecting sickness I will not see my brother as sick" —� NO. This is the erroneous assumption that everything "out there" is "in you". Therefore that you are the one son, not an individual son. This makes you believe if you correct your false perception of sickness, you will never again be able to SEE that someone is sick. You will think of people as just parts of your own mind, that their sickness is your own, and that therefore YOU need healing. THIS IS FALSE. You can get your individual self to a healed state and be whole as an individual, free of sickness, while other individuals continue to be sick. You will not be blind to their choice to be sick. Because at this LEVEL, they are OUTSIDE OF YOU. They are inside the One Son, yes. But you are NOT the one son at this point. Healing your perception heals YOUR perception, not anyone else’s. Accepting the atonement accepts it for you, it doesn’t force anyone else to accept it. Other people WILL NOT suddenly become cured when you see correctly. True Perception is INDIVIDUAL. You will still see the illusion of sickness other people are projecting, you just won’t believe it is real. People can stay sick in spite of you!

11) "I can be at peace with death" —� NO. You cannot. This suggests death happens regardless of you choosing the truth. Which suggests God is doing it to you. This is not true at ANY LEVEL of identity. If you are going to die, as an individual, it is because you, as an individual, have a belief in death. And it will not affect anyone else.

�—�—�—�

There are other examples but I’m out of oomph right now. We need to be careful to read the course, maybe even re-read it, knowing that there are TWO levels of identity. And we need to discern, when is the course talking about me as an individual, and when is it talking about the entire One Son. At times it talks about perception and seeing in terms of The One Son’s perception, not yours! And we have to recognize, while we’re in bodies, if we’ve awoken to the maximum limits of our individual mind, our individual identity in its most natural whole state, that mind is STILL MUCH SMALLER than the mind of the one son.

The mind of the one son can experience THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE at once. Recognizes that absolutely all individuals are part of itself. Knows that IT dreamed the entire universe. Knows that it has the power to create planets. That One Son’s mind is huge. To awake to THAT mind requires a TRANSCENDENCE OF INDIVIDUALITY where a single son in the sonship unites with God. Just like Jesus did. That happens AFTER you wake up individually in the dream! Becoming the Christ, is another whole level of awakening FROM the dream, that takes place after you as an individual wake up IN the dream. Becoming healed as an individual IS NOT the same thing as becoming Christ! You have to transcend the entire sonship to do that!

For me, the Course makes so much more sense, is much easier to understand, is clearer, more consistent, less confusing, and gives you much more relief of responsibility and guilt if you can recognize that there is MORE THAN ONE LEVEL in what Jesus is presenting. We need to learn the individual level first, then the second level later. That there are two levels in the awakening is clear, evidenced by some individuals who have woken up IN the dream, believe they are done, only to find they are NOT done. They still die. And they still do not perform miracles. Because they did not transcend the sonship yet to return the mind to Christ.

It’s a simple concept that there are two levels of identity. But failing to recognize which identity you have right now, and which identity Jesus is speaking about or when, WILL lead to huge level confusion. And many many false conclusions have come from this.

God and his Kingdom of Heaven are the truth. God's laws are the only laws. Anything which is true is true of God and his creation. There is no other truth because God's truth is absolute and all-encompassing.

In the "separation from God", we tried to make an opposite to this. We wanted to oppose the truth. The opposite of what is true, is clearly what is false. It must be false if it does not share any of the properties of what is true, and claims the exact opposite.

And so we actually made up a world, a fiction or fantasy world, which depicts things AS IF they are true, but which are inherently false. Since what is true is also what is real, and alive, the world that we tried to invent is both unreal and unalive.

It is also true that God and his truth are the only meaning. God is fully meaningful because he is fully truthful. That means he is honest, and accepts only the truth as true. He does not confuse what is true with what is false.

This also means that the world we made is meaningless, because we wanted to oppose meaningfulness. And so we made a meaningless, unreal, false, untrue, artificial world. A world which isn't really what it seems to be.

Another word for what is false, is a lie. Or we can also call it a deception. All illusory unreal things deceive because they cannot be true, but attempt to assert that they are. This effort to be something they are not, is what we call temptation. It is the temptation to believe that what is false is true, what is unreal is real, and what is impossible is possible.

This is why the world depicts a great many things which seem like they are possible, are happening, are true, are real, as if the world is even alive and existing. This cannot BE true, because the world opposes all of these things. It opposes possibility, truth, reality, and existence.

What this basically boils down to is that the world is a fiction and everything in it is impossible. It is a lie. A huge gigantic universe-sized lie. Absolutely everything in it is not true. Not one single thing that seems to be happening is happening. Not one single thing that seems possible is possible. Not one thing which seems to prove evidence that it HAS happened, has happened at all.

So now you have a world which is fundamentally a mistake. We were mistaken when we made it, because we believed the impossible was possible - in the tiny mad idea. We made it "by mistake" in the sense that we thought it could be achievable, even though it wasn't. And so all we really did was wish and dream for a world that cannot ever exist.

Ultimately then, heaven is in a state of perfection, reality and truth, wherein everything there is happening and does exist and is alive. Everything there is completely natural and permanent. There is nothing wrong with it, nothing ever goes wrong with it, and it cannot be affected or attacked by anything.

In that truth, which is the only truth, everyone is permanently safe. No one is ever really sick. No one ever dies. There is no suffering of any kind. No-one has any real unhappiness. There is no attack or war or grounds for murder. Everything is permanently perfect and everyone knows it.

So then what we have in front of our physical false faces, is a depiction of a lie, an idea of something utterly impossible, which isn't really there and isn't really happening. All the things you see in the news. All the wars and conflicts, arguments and attacks, people with sicknesses and pain, murder and deaths, and all the claims of "the proof of sin" that say "it really has happened" are entirely lies.

So yes that means that even if there seems to be a dead body laying on the ground PROVING that a murder did happen, and there is police evidence, this is STILL not true. There is not really a dead body anywhere, or even a ground. And so the world is riddled with what we call the "proof" that sin is happening all the time. The seemingly undeniable in-your-face look-at-it-and-don't-deny-it lies which are held up as victory over God and over reality.

NONE OF THIS IS REAL. IT IS ALL A LIE.

The weird thing then is that we have a reality of the Kingdom of God which is perfectly happy and joyous and filled with love and peace and celebration, in which everyone is utterly perfect and harmonious. And then we have "over there" this "picture of crucifixion" which depicts all manner of horrible nightmares and upsetting events transpiring. And only one of these can be true.

Either God's reality is true and there is no nightmare of any kind, or the world is real. Either there are only God's permanent laws, or the laws of physics are true. Either we are immortal unlimited beings or death is real. Either sickness is utterly impossible or sickness is completely happening all over the place.

This is the choice we are making all the time, between heaven or hell. It is the only choice there is. Are we going to be CONVINCED by this LIE OF A WORLD, or are we going to be convinced of the truth of heaven's reality? Is God correct, or is the ego? Is eternal life the only possibility, or is mortality and suffering and death the ultimate truth? You have to pick a side because they can't both be true.

If the world is indeed a lie, then NOTHING IN IT IS TRUE. And learning this fact and accepting it is the recognition of enlightenment. It means being faced with an illusion and SEEING THROUGH it. "To forgive is to overlook." And the world that you forgive has to disappear. "Illusions recognized must disappear." "A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies, but forgiveness looks past bodies."

Heaven asserts, nothing has ever gone wrong, and everything is still perfect. Everything real is still perfectly immortal and unharmed and undefiled and there is absolutely nothing to be upset about. The Earth asserts, everything has gone wrong, it's all falling apart and going to hell, everything dies and there is no escape. Which are you going to listen to? The ego represents the shrieking voice of hell and evil, while the Holy Spirit represents the Voice that speaks For God - in favor of God.

Only one truth can be true. Are you going to trust, have faith in, believe, side with, and adopt God's truth as the only truth, or are you going to allow a completely fictional false world to masquerade as reality?

All miracle workers must recognize the world IS FALSE, and everything in it IS UNREAL. That sick bodies are faking it. That dead bodies are not really dead. That there is nothing they cannot do because they rest on the unlimited laws of God. They dispel and disbelieve any claims by anyone that there is anything wrong with them, disregard all symptoms as lies, and refuse to acknowlege the lie that death can happen. And through this strength of conviction their miracles come forth and resurrect the sleeping and the dead.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source."

"You looked upon the unreal and found despair. But by SEEKING the unreal, what else COULD you find? The UNreal world IS a thing of despair, for it can never be."

"But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change." "This is the great deception of the world, and you the great deceiver of yourself."

"Judging truth as something they do NOT want, they perceive deception and block knowledge."

"But to give illusions to Truth is to enable truth to teach that the ILLUSIONS are unreal, and thus enable you to ESCAPE from them."

"to overlook the truth in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true."

"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you."

"Fear is deception. It attests that you have seen yourself as you could never be, and therefore look upon a world which is impossible."

"the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."

"We try to hide from Him, and suffer from deception."

"Except for God's teachers there would be no hope of salvation, for the world of sin would be forever real. The self-deceiving must deceive, for they must teach deception. And what else is hell?"

"Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form?"

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal?" "Let not the dream take hold to close your eyes. It is not strange that dreams can make a world that is unreal. The WISH to make it IS incredible."

"Each thing you look upon you saw but for an instant, long ago, before its unreality gave way to truth."

"Let not the world deceive you. It was made to be deception. Yet its snares can be so easily escaped a little child can walk through safely, and without a care that would arrest its progress."

"this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self deception. And like all the rest its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself."

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

"The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the world YOU made, and which you SEE."

"Leave ALL deception behind, and reach beyond all attempts of the ego to hold you back."

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

"You are no more a slave to time than to the world you made."

"You made the body in attempting to deceive yourself."

"It IS essential it be understood what they are FOR, because it is their PURPOSE to make meaningless, and to ATTACK the truth. Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they govern nothing, and need NOT be broken; merely looked upon and gone beyond."

"If the center of the thought system is TRUE, only truth extends outward from it. But if a lie is at its center, only DECEPTION proceeds from it."

"The mind can make the belief in Separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the devil. It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood. Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at your lives and see what the devil has made. But KNOW that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation IS a lie."

"Side with me CONSISTENTLY against this deception, as we have sided against it briefly already."

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception."

"Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear."

"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within YOU, there is a force which NO illusions can resist."

"The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given." "You have need to use the symbols of the world a while. But be you not deceived by them as well."

"Now it becomes your task to let the illusion be carried to the truth. Be steadfast but in this; be not deceived by the "reality" of any changing form."

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see."

"For the mind which understands that sickness can be nothing but a dream is not deceived by forms the dream may take." "Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place, made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deception UNdone."

"Leave it behind. Do not listen to it, and do not preserve it. Listen only to God, who is as incapable of deception as are the Souls he created. As teachers and therapists, release yourselves and release others. Do not present a false and unworthy picture of yourselves TO others, or accept such a picture OF them yourselves."

"Illusions serve the purpose they were MADE to serve. And FROM their purpose, they derive whatever meaning that they seem to have. God gave to ALL illusions that were made ANOTHER purpose that would justify a miracle, WHATEVER form they took. In every miracle ALL healing lies, for God gave Answer to them all as one. And what is one to Him must BE the same. If you believe what is the same is different, you but deceive yourself. What God calls one will be forever one, NOT separate. His Kingdom IS united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be."

"Be not deceived by what appears as many choices. There is hell or Heaven. And of these you choose but ONE."

The body does not really do a whole lot. It is an instrument. It cannot really live without you as a host. It doesn't really have a mind of its own, or a will, or power, or causality. It cannot really create anything or make anything happen. It's a medium, a tool, a device, which is to be used. You can pick it up and put it down. Without you it would do nothing.

"A body cannot stay without illusions"

"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK."

"the body CANNOT be used for purposes of union"

"The body cannot KNOW. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you."

"Yet a body CANNOT be guilty, for it can do nothing of itself. You who think you hate your bodies, deceive yourselves."

"The body cannot create, and the belief that it CAN, a fundamental error responsible for most of the fallacies already referred to, produces all physical symptoms." "the body cannot be healed by itself."

The eyes are neutral. As you look around the room the body just reports what's there. It is like you have a video feed coming into you through your face. The eyes just pick up the light signals and pass them on. The eyes themselves are not aware of what they are looking at. They don't judge or decide anything about what they detect, and they don't even "see" what they are picking up because they have no awareness - making them blind. They just faithfully report on what's outside. They are sensors, like a detector, or a scanner.

As you look at different things, or rather, use the body's sensors to detect what is supposedly out there, there is no judgement, there is no meaning, there is no partitioning, there is no accusation, there is only a completely neutral feed of images being transferred. Your eyes are like a camera. They just bring in the data, they don't have any opinion about it at all. It isn't until the mind looks at the data that we start to enter into deciding what something means, our attitude about it and our relationship to it.

It's the mind that "looks at" what the body "looks at". There are therefore two steps in seeing the world. The body sees it first and passes on what it sees. Then the mind looks at the "printout" of what the body has seen. The mind isn't actually looking directly at the world out there. It's looking at the recorded images which have come in through the video stream, through the pipeline of the optic nerves, and which have travelled to the place in the brain where the mind is "attached". And as though on a kind of internal screen, the mind is now looking at the screen on which these images are reconstructed.

This all happens quite effortlessly so it is very easy to be deceived. The body is so non-interfering with sight, unless perhaps the eyeballs or vision apparatus is damaged, that you easily forget that the eyes are even there. This sets up a kind of deception, in which it's very easy to just think that you are looking directly and personally at the physical world. But you in fact are not. You are looking at images which are sent in to you via external sensors on the body's surface, and you are sitting there in the mind, beyond the brain, reading the transmitted images. But you think hey, I am looking at the actual world. No, you're looking at images once removed.

The same happens with sound. The ears do not discriminate as to what they hear. They just hear everything they can. They are like microphones. They pick up and sense the sound vibrations and translate it into a signal, which is sent to the brain, and then it is reconstructed into "sound". And then, the mind listens to the reconstruction, and thinks that it now hears the world. It's almost like the body is a long distance telephone, and it's picking up audio from a world far away, sending the sound along a wire, and now you're at the other end listening in. You're not really out there, in the environment where the sound is picked up, you are removed from it.

All the other body senses have the same properties. They just detect changes and differences and report them to you. You then get to interpret or give meaning to them. Upon receiving the signals your mind could have decided that all the things experienced are absolutely real. That they really exist. As though, because your body sees a car, that there really is a car there. Or because your hands touch the car, that there really is a car there. Or that because you hear the car, the car really must exist. But it's not the body that decides this, nor the brain. It's your mind, on the receiving end of transmissions. It is the mind that decided what it is FOR, or how it USES it.

It is optional, whether you believe in what the body is telling you. It is just a sensory device. In fact, Jesus says in ACIM that the body is not really there to know anything, it is only there to sense. "To sense is not to know." Which means that sensing the world or using physical perception to look at it, is not an act of knowing. It doesn't mean that you know the thing is really out there. It means that your sensors are detecting something and telling you something. And they might be lying.

The problem is, is that the body can lie. Because here you have a physical instrument for detecting things, which can report back that something exists, within the same realm that the body itself inhabits. Which means that the body can also sense itself, can look at and hear and smell and touch itself, and can report back that the body "is really there". But this cannot in any way be reliable. The body is now justifying its own existence and trying to prove itself.

The body can easily lie to you. To rely on an instrument to tell you what really exists, given that the very same instrument is reporting upon its own existence, completely invalidates everything it tells you. It is no longer impartial or neutral, if it is telling you that its own existence has been detected by its own sensors. It is completely biased, then, because it is ALWAYS telling you that physicality is true and real, even if it is not. It is ALWAYS reporting that things exist even if they don't. And if it is going to tell you to trust it when it tells you that its own existence is real, based on its own senses, this is heavily tainted information.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"Yet a body cannot evaluate. By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its identity and losing sight of what it really is."

What it comes down to is that your mind is sensing a world using an instrument, whereby the signals you receive and are aware of are once removed from the thing you are sensing. But if you buy into them and forget you are using an instrument, you will act as if it is YOU who is doing the sensing, and thus confuse yourself with the body. This is body identification. It's the failure to recognize that the body is a device for sensing, and is not your self. Since the senses themselves seem "transparent" and have no opinion, and since they report what's there all the time, it's easy to forget that you are even using sensory equipment, and instead believe that you ARE the senses. That the body is YOU who is picking up on the world, and YOU who sees it and hears it. It seems so effortless that you forget you even are using senses, which is extremely deceptive.

The mind is not required to believe anything that the body tells it. When it receives neutral images of a world, it can decide what to do with that image. It can dissect it, it can give meaning to it, it can believe in it, it can choose to react to it, it can remain detached from it, it can judge and condemn and attack it, it can love it, it can ignore it, whatever. But we have to realize that since the senses themselves are effectively neutral, it is US who is giving everything we sense all the meaning that it has. It is US who decides whether you believe what we see, whether it is real, and what truth it holds.

"You have given everything all the meaning it has for you." "The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."

"This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. And of these two but one is real. Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place, for differences cannot exist within it, so too are illusions without distinctions."

So the mind is receiving signals from the outside world, through the body sensors, and gets to decide what to make of them. What meaning they have. All such images are illusions because the world itself is an illusion, and all sensory inputs are actually false, because the world they are reporting on isn't real. The eyes are in fact unable to really see actual reality. They are strapped into a virtual reality headset and are blinded to see only the inside of a tiny box. The body is in fact an interpreter, a translator, and it is fixated on an illusory world which isn't reality in order NOT to see reality. And so everything that it faithfully and neutrally reports, is a lie. What it sees is not really there to see, what it hears makes no real sound. And the sensations it sends to your mind for evaluation are all false.

"These eyes made not to see will never see."

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

It is up to your mind to decide what to make of the signals it is receiving through the body. It is up to your mind to recognize the body cannot really see or hear reality. It is up to your mind to discern that everything the body tells you is happening, is not really happening. It is up to your mind to withdraw all of its dark and twisted and confused meanings, which it projects onto the body's signals, and to instead categorize all body signals as FALSE. It is up to your mind to overlook and not see what the body is telling you is there. And it is up to your mind to recognize the world is nothing but an unreal dream, something to overlook through forgiveness and NOT see, and that BEYOND it is heaven.

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely. Now mistakes become quite possible, for certainty has gone."

"Let not your eyes behold a dream; your ears bear witness to illusion. They were made to look upon a world that is not there; to hear the voices that can make no sounds. Yet are there other sounds and other sights which can be seen and heard and UNDERSTOOD. For eyes and ears are senses without sense, and what they see and hear they but report. It is not THEY that hear and see, but YOU, who PUT TOGETHER every jagged piece, each senseless scrap and shred of evidence, and MAKE a witness to the world you want."

"Let not our sight be blasphemous today, nor let our ears attend to lying tongues."

"Anger but screeches, "Guilt is real!" Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God's Word. The body's eyes now "see"; its ears alone are thought to hear. Its little space and tiny breath become the measure of reality. And truth becomes diminutive and meaningless."

"Rejoice you HAVE no eyes with which to see; no ears to listen, and no hands to hold nor feet to guide. Be glad that ONLY Christ can lend you His, while you have need of them."

"How can you judge? Your judgment rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality and close upon the truth."

"The body cannot see this, for the body AROSE from this for its protection, which must ALWAYS depend on keeping it NOT seen. The body's eyes will NEVER look on it. Yet they will SEE what it dictates. The body will remain guilt's messenger, and will act as it directs, as long as YOU believe that guilt is real. For the REALITY of guilt is the illusion which seems to make it heavy and opaque, impenetrable, and a REAL foundation for the ego's thought system. Its thinness and transparency are not apparent, until you see the light BEHIND it. And then you see it as a fragile veil, before the light."

"He will not tell you that your brother should be judged by what your eyes behold in him, nor what his body's mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers' touch reports of him. He passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God's Son."

"You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body's eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it, even though you learned a long while since your senses do deceive. That you believe them to the last detail which they report is even stranger when you pause to recollect how frequently they have been faulty witnesses indeed! Why would you trust them so implicitly? Why but because of underlying doubt which you would hide with show of certainty?"

"These testimonies which the senses bring have but one purpose; to justify attack and thus keep unforgiveness unrecognized for what it is."

"Everything these messages relay to you is quite external. There are NO messages that speak of what lies underneath, for it is NOT the body that could speak of this. Its eyes perceive it not, its senses remain quite UNAWARE of it, its tongue can not relay ITS messages."

"You strain your ears to hear ITS soundless voice, and yet the Call of God Himself is soundless to you."

"This body, purposeless within itself, holds all your memories and all your hopes. You use its eyes to see, its ears to hear, and let it TELL you what it is it feels. IT DOES NOT KNOW. It tells you but the NAMES you gave it to use, when YOU call forth the witnesses to its reality."

"You who would make a sacrifice of life, and make your eyes and ears bear witness to the death of God and of His holy Son, think not that you have power to make of them what God willed not they be."

"Here is an image that you WANT to be yourself. It is the means to make your wish come true. It GIVES the eyes with which you look on it, the hands that feel it, and the ears with which you listened to the sounds it makes. IT PROVES ITS OWN REALITY TO YOU. Thus is the body made a THEORY of yourself, with NO provisions made for evidence BEYOND itself, and NO escape within its sight. Its course is sure, when seen through its own eyes. It grows and withers, flourishes and dies. And you cannot conceive of you APART from it."

"The mind without the body cannot make mistakes. It cannot think that it will die, nor be the prey of merciless attack. Anger becomes impossible, and where is terror then? What fears could still assail those who have lost the source of all attack; the core of anguish and the seat of fear? Only forgiveness can relieve the mind of thinking that the body is its home. Only forgiveness can restore the peace that God intended for His holy Son. Only forgiveness can persuade the Son to look again upon his holiness."

"A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. If you are physical your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. If you are Spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality."

Cause produces effects. This is God's permanent law, without exception. It applies everywhere always. There is a secret to performing miracles based on this, resulting in the undoing of effects. This is directly tied into the Atonement and The Miracle.

"the word "atone" really means "undo." (remove illusory effects)

"The miracle does nothing. All it does is to undo (removes effects). And thus it cancels out (by not causing) the interference (effects) to what has been done (caused in reality). It does not add, but merely takes away (removes effects)."

I have experienced several times the instant vanishing of symptoms when causation was removed. This takes place at the level of the mind and the mind's belief in causes. As I stripped away belief in who or what caused this, the entire symptom literally disappeared in a split second.

Nothing happens without causation. Effects can only appear when there is a cause. This includes the **belief** in there being a cause, even if the cause is made up in dreaming. When the cause stops causing, or is undone, the effects immediately disappear. Causation is like a broadcast, emitting consequences, effects, symptoms and results. Effects come from it.

Just as God is first cause, He MUST create effects. His effects are His Kingdom of Creation, including the Sonship. Because God is permanently causal, and true cause means creation, His creations have eternal life and always exist. True causality creates permanent, living beings. You did not cause God (which would be sin, authority problem, level confusion), God caused you.

"I am forever an effect of God."

There is also what we call "making", which is also a form of causality. It causes destructive illusions instead of creative reality. It is a made-up BELIEF in a cause, as an attempted cause, in the mind. It's a made-up cause that we believe is real, and which in turn produces made-up effects which we believe are real. Just because it is made-up doesn't mean it does not DO something.

A **belief** in a cause isn't a real cause, or of God. So what it produces is not a real effect, but is an effect nonetheless. Artificial causes produce artificial effects. But they DO produce these effects, which includes symptoms of sickness in the body, and ultimately the body itself.

"The body cannot remain without illusions (illusory causes)."

When the mind believes there is a cause, it MUST include the belief that there are effects. The mind thus believes in BOTH. They are made together, and are undone together. Effects cannot remain without a cause of some kind. When you switch off the broadcast projector, there is no more making of images. Both the broadcaster and the broadcast disappear.

It would be easy for us to switch on and off causes and effects at will. This always takes place in our minds. The problem is that we keep disassociating from the part of our mind that is causing or believing in causes, and project the ownership of the causation onto external things - anything other than our own mind.

So if we think a person is causing us to be upset, we're in false perception. We see cause as separate from and outside of our own mind. Yet this BELIEF in cause, is INSIDE our mind because "ideas leave not their source."

We are confused in thinking that someone else is causing our upset. But the IDEA of "someone is causing me to be upset" is our own mind's idea, which projects, resulting in a false perception. And this idea IS STILL CAUSAL. By believing, "I am being caused", we literally are CAUSING ourselves, and our mind DOES produce effects within us, from it. And this is actually part of the belief that we are creating ourselves, the result of a split mind.

It is not possible to believe in a cause, WITHOUT the belief itself having an effect. Even if the visualized cause seems to be mapped onto some other person, it is STILL a "belief in cause" in our mind, and this gives it power. If our mind is generating, picturing, imagining, "there is a cause", it WILL and MUST also picture, generate and imagine an effect to correspond to it. And usually the severity of the effect lines up with where the cause falls in the hierarchy of illusions.

This now means that as we picture ourselves as being caused, we WILL also picture ourselves as being affected. This believing in and use of causality, no matter how it is dressed up in appearances about others, will result in OUR MIND producing EFFECTS in ourselves. These will show up as symptoms in mind and body, as emotional reactions, fearful thought responses, justified anger, and other effects.

As the secret of salvation tells us, it does not matter how it appears that someone is a victimizer, or who is doing what. When your mind "sees itself" as being victimized, that way of seeing itself ALONE victimizes you. And you cannot see yourself as being victimized WITHOUT seeing yourself ALSO as a victim.

Funny that - as you believe in victimization it sets up a causal belief in your mind which causes you to MAKE YOURSELF a victim. Your mind then generates the effects and symptoms of having been affected. It pictures itself in the roles of victim AND victimizer.

Now, here's the key. Based on this law, that even your BELIEF in a cause IS CAUSAL, and has illusory believed-in effects, removing this belief in a cause MUST remove the effects. This even includes the physical symptoms of sickness which YOUR MIND put into your body, as a result of YOUR MIND visualizing itself as at the effect of its own causal beliefs.

If my belief is that a person is upsetting me, three things are happening. 1) I am "projecting" causality onto the person falsely, resulting in a false perception that "they" are causing me. 2) MY belief in being caused is causing me, 3) I am inventing the upsetting effects because of this belief, BY this belief. If I clear up the confusion about WHO is causing who, and then STOP causing through this belief, the effects MUST go.

If my mind is thinking, "I am upset because of them", and I"m feeling the upset, my mind MUST be seeing a line of causality starting with "them" and coming into me and impacting upon me, producing upset. This is what my mind is picturing. This is HOW I am making the effects. If I tell myself, "they are not causing me to be upset", I am taking a step towards undoing the cause.

I'm almost saying, "since they are not causing this upset, I am not upset." or "everything that came from them, has not come". They then become your savior because now you are using them to explain why you are NOT affected negatively, or as a way to say "I am healed because of you". Or as the course puts it, "Brother, at your hand I live." This requires the removal of all symptoms of attack in the body and mind, accomplished by removing fake causality or accusing your brother of causing (sinning against) you.

Sometimes, if the causing seems fairly clear-cut and well defined as to who I think did what, and I remind myself I am NOT caused by the person, it can be enough to undo my mind's belief in the cause, and thus stop causing my own upset. Symptoms of upset vanish instantly. Even physical symptoms, because *I* was producing them.

Other times, I've found I've built up a collection of beliefs in causes, which have to be dismantled more methodically, piece by piece. I have to remove all belief that anyone or anything else is causing my issue. I must not believe that I am at the effect of anyone else's mind or any "causes" that I THINK are in the world. My BELIEF in them being causes does not make them causes. This is confusion/projection/disassociation.

MY BELIEF in being caused is what causes me to suffer. When something is seen as having NO causes left, and being the cause of nothing, it disappears.

I have to also remove all belief that I am causing any issue in others, because this too ties me to guilt. For example if I have an argument, it is not enough to undo the belief that I am being upset by them. I will likely believe I upset them also, and this too is fake causality. Anything THEY are experiencing, THEIR mind has chosen to cause. I must be accepting of this by dismantling my belief that I caused them, which in turn will heal them and set them free from imprisonment.

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself."

Once this is clarified, that no-one caused my effects but myself, and that cause is in my mind because I believed I was caused, I must now recognize that my own choice to believe I am being negatively caused DID produce my own symptoms. I am responsible for it. This is the secret of salvation. But we can't stop there. WE must STOP causing our own suffering.

This requires us to stop believing that even WE have caused our suffering. Seeing that we did it to ourselves, and recognizing our own mind is causing itself, may be enough to collapse it. Recognizing the futility of hurting ourselves, we will drop the desire to continue. Seeing that we are causing our own suffering, we cannot escape the causation or blame it on anyone, have to admit the truth, and admitting the truth presents us with a fact - we did this, and we no longer choose to.

We might have to work on undoing the belief that we are caused, as well as being willing to no longer suffer the role of victim. Without a cause that we believe in, we cannot believe in being affected. In recognizing we were the victimizer of ourselves, we can stop being the victim. No-one has ever been victimized by another person.

Remember that you have no neutral thoughts. All thought creates form on some level. All thought is causal. You cannot neutrally casually think about stuff without producing effects. Imagining fearful things happening to you, IS actually you DOING them to yourself. Dreaming about scenarios isn't a freebie thought. We deliberately DO, or DO NOT. We cause, or do not cause. And only what we cause happens.

""My Self is ruler of the universe." It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens (effects) is what I desire (cause). What does not occur (effects) is what I do not want (cause) to happen. This must I accept."

"I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

"My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."

Stripping away all sense of "the cause of this", MUST undo the effects. When you cease attacking yourself with thoughts of being attacked, you will not be attacked or attackable.

Without a cause, there can be no effects. Without belief in separation, there can be no sickness. Without seeing yourself as a victim you cannot be victimized. Without victimizing yourself you cannot be hurt. Without belief you are sinful (caused bad stuff) you cannot be guilty, and without guilt you cannot frighten or threaten yourself. Without a cause, your sickness must vanish. And without a cause, the dead must rise.

All illusions have no REAL cause. The causes are made up beliefs, which DO cause illusory effects, and without maintaining these beliefs the effects cannot stay. Anything not of God or made without love has no real cause. We MADE sickness and death by believing they have been caused and are the cause of us (the God of sickness and death), and can abolish it by believing they have NOT been caused.

To recognize something has NOT been caused, is to recognize it CANNOT have happened. Without a cause, the effects must go. What has not been caused cannot exist. And since illusory effects and symptoms DEPEND on the mind believing in them, without believing in them they MUST vanish. Which undoes physical suffering, sickness and death

This is forgiveness and atonement. The recognition that separation has not been caused and sin has not caused effects because there is no sin. The lack of belief in sin as "causing evil" erases death. The knowing that there is no death. Withdrawing causes of illusions will undo them all.

"Illusions recognized (I caused this myself, it did not cause me) must disappear."

This literally is tied into the atonement. If to atone is to undo, then by cancelling the fake causes that we were using to make things "be done", and if miracles undo and take away the effects by recognizing they have not been caused, then to accept the atonement is to accept that there are NO CAUSES other than God. We HAVE NOT CAUSED separation, there is no cause of death (sin), illusions DO NOT exist, and we are no longer manufacturing fake effects.

This will ultimately UNDO the world because the world is nothing but an EFFECT of a belief - the spacetime belief.

Shifting away from made-up causes, and aligning ourselves with God's Will, which is truly causal and creative, we become miracle workers. Operating from vertical causation, not mis-creation. Our causing now becomes love-based, constructive, creative, healing and miraculous. No longer against ourselves, no longer affected by the world, we regain invulnerability and power. We can now give life and cause resurrection.

We become a cause that does not cause itself. We become free from effects of our own making, or the illusion of effects made by others. Our will is now undivided and single-minded. Nothing can oppose us as ruler of the universe. We are free to carry out the will of God. To cause with IMMEDIATE effects. And to be truly helpful to others through causal miracles.

"This is a course in cause and not effect."

"miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""

"Without a cause there can be no effects, and yet, without effects, there is no CAUSE."

"Who can predict effects without a cause? And who could fear effects UNLESS he thought they had BEEN caused, and judged disastrous NOW?"

"Who can perceive effect WITHOUT a cause? What can the causeless BE but nothingness."

"And this DENIES the fact that ALL are senseless; EQUALLY without a cause or consequence, and CANNOT have effects of ANY kind."

"In its passing went its consequences, left without a cause."

"And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything."

"Nothing can have effects without a cause, and to confuse the two is merely to fail to understand them both."

"Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness."

"It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to effect you in any way."

"Fear cannot be real without a cause, and GOD is the only Cause."

"The healing of effect WITHOUT the cause can merely shift effects to other forms."

"A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief."

"And therefore all your sins have been forgiven because they carried no effects at all."

"There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression."

"And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects."

"What is projected OUT, and seems to be EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has NOT left its source."

"Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move (cause) mountains. It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it. People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert (cause) real control (effects) because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

"And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place?"

"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to demonstrate they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the proof that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."

In A Course in Miracles, the truth is completely consistent. It represents a thought system of Oneness, in which everything correlates perfectly. There is no contradiction in Oneness or in the Truth.

Everything about the thought system of the Holy Spirit, of God, is completely LOGICALLY consistent. It is also true, that the thought system of the ego is completely logically consistent. The only difference is that the ego’s system is based on a fallacy, a premise which is not true - the idea that separation is real and possible with real effects.

Because the truth is 100% consistent, it is not necessary to guess, wonder, be confused, misunderstand, interpret, warp, figure out, avoid, speculate, or otherwise be less than certain about what the Course is teaching. This means the Course CAN be learned and understood with 100% consistency, 0% guesswork, and 100% certainty.

The Course itself is written in very exacting LOGICAL terms. Jesus contrasts what is true, versus what is false. This is very deliberate. Our main problem is we have CONFUSED what is true and what is false. We’ve mixed them up and switched them around. In our confusion, we NEED clarification as to what is actually true, and what is actually false. This is achieved by contrasting, in very black and white, clear, irrefutably LOGICAL terms, the difference between them.

e.g. "This is only this, and this is not that, therefore that is not this." This is logic.

e.g. "This is all that exists. That is the opposite of this. That does not exist." This is logic.

e.g. "Only heaven exists. Earth is opposite to heaven in every way. Therefore, Earth does not exist." (There is no world). This is logic.

e.g. "The opposite to love is fear. Yet love has no opposite. Therefore fear must produce a state which DOES NOT EXIST". This is logic.

Logical FACTS cannot be denied. They must be accepted if you want the truth, even if it means letting go of stuff you long held to be true, given that it is NOT consistent.

Jesus very specifically, and intentionally, uses extremely intensely black and white language where it is appropriate. He does not blur boundaries. He does not umm and ahh about what things mean. He is very intense in His absoluteness, certainty, clarity and consistency.

He very deliberately uses language which intensely draws lines between what is true, and what is false, so that we are left with as little confusion as possible. This *contrast* clarifies the DIFFERENCE between what is true and what is false in no uncertain terms. Jesus is deliberately extreme. This lends the Course much of its black and white, all or nothing, life or death "intensity". I have a hunch this is why many people experience *overwhelm* when reading the course, because it stretches the mind to extremes so much, and seems very "intense" because of the extreme contrast.

This is what we NEED, because our only perceptual problem is that we do not RECOGNIZE what is true, versus what is false. We do not recognize God (truth), because we think that when we see an illusion (lies) they are in fact true. This is because we’ve attempted to turn God into an illusion. We then believe illusions are God (ie real). This LACK of discernment between what is actually true and false, is the sole basis for our confusion and unconsciousness.

Just by the mere act of even exposing yourself to the "book" itself, reading its extremely LOGICAL words, its black and white CLARITY, you will experience CORRECTION. Simply from reading it, even if you don’t "get it" or do anything else with it. Simply reading for example something absolute like "there is no sin", is capable of inducing RELIEF. It is healing.

I can’t begin to tell you the number of times just merely reading phrases like this has melted me. The very FORM of the language itself is designed TO HEAL, by bringing CLARITY to what is true, and what is false, which corrects our false perception, undoes our confusion, and alleviates fear.

The very SPECIFIC, deliberate, intentional LOGICALITY of the Course is very important. Not only is it healing due to its ability to bring clarity, it also means that if you understand the logic *correctly*, it is completely CONSISTENT throughout the truth. Everything Jesus says about truth MUST be consistent with everything else He says. IT MUST.

If something does not seem to fit or correlate, it’s because there is some LACK OF AWARENESS of the LOGIC that is being expressed. This often is due to level confusion and false conclusions.

To put it simply, the Course contains a metaphysics which is a system of TOTALLY LOGICAL thinking, which transcends all words, and which is a "structure" so completely logical that IF you grasp even part of it correctly, you can RELY ON the part you learned and form ADDITIONAL CONCLUSIONS based on it, which are absolutely consistent with what Jesus is teaching. This, however, ONLY works IF you are perfectly grasping the LOGIC, otherwise you will make errors, which will produce FALSE conclusions and confusion.

This means, if you learn the METAPHYSICS, the "core" structure of reality and the ego, everything will "fit together" and be consistent. It will also build upon itself as you gain more clarity. You will be able to REFER TO that which you already learned which is 100% true, using it as a REFERENCE, to compare and contrast..... is this new information *perfectly consistent* with what you already know to be perfect truth, or not? In black and white terms, if it IS, it is true. If it is NOT, it is not true.

A grasp of the metaphysical LOGIC provides you with a tremendously powerful tool, because you can build upon what you already know is 100% true. This makes your grasp of truth STRONGER with every step. And this in turn makes the truth CLEARER. One seed of perfect clarity is all you need to be able to DEDUCE whether everything else is *completely consistent*, logically, or not.

This is your automatic barometer or "bullshit meter", for determining whether what people or the Course say is true or false. This means you do not need to "figure out" what is true. You ONLY need to come to CLARITY enough to see and understand LOGIC, so that you can let the truth itself tell you whether something is consistent with it or not.

Without something to refer to which is 100% absolutely true, we do not have anything TRUE to compare things to. There is no context or perspective into which to put things. That puts us in the dark. We will then be UNCERTAIN, lost, confused, unsure what the truth is or is not, and will then enter into tremendous debates trying to figure it out. And most of that time will be spent in either speculation, or make-believe, or wishful thinking, or ego-based conclusions, which are NOT CONSISTENT.

This is because WE are trying to author the truth, instead of ALLOWING the truth’s OWN built-in consistency inform us as to whether something is true, or something is false.

Since the full picture of "every topic ever talked about" is quite large and complex, it can take some time to logically compare and contrast what the course is saying in terms of its WORDS, versus making sure that the MEANING is completely CONSISTENT without contradiction when we keep everything ELSE the course says in mind.

We should realize that the whole truth is in every part of the course, but in FORM, often it SEEMS like taking one part of the course in isolation "means" something which it CANNOT MEAN, IF what the truth says elsewhere is true. If there is not a logical consistency, and if anything does not FIT PERFECTLY into the overall picture, into the thought system, SOMETHING IS IN ERROR.

What we need to learn about the Course, is that the metaphysics are ONCE removed from the truth. The words in the course are TWICE removed. Transcending the words is the only way to learn what IT MEANS. Or in other words, the logical FACTS of the Holy Spirit’s thought system have absolutely no wiggle room for interpretation or denial. Only the truth is true.

It is our job only to DISCERN CORRECTLY what is true, and what is false. This can ONLY be accomplished by a full appreciation of the METAPHYSICS, not the words. The words should only be there to reveal pieces of the truth and to point to aspects of the LOGICAL CONSISTENCY. If what we are reading is confusing or does not 100% comply with the rest of the truth, we are in error.

One of the biggest struggles with learning the Course’s metaphysical foundation, is when we THINK that our grasp of the Course’s statements IS logically consistent. If we are actually 100% onto the truth, which is possible, then good for us. If we are "off", but believe we are "on", THIS ITSELF is due to a CONFUSION about what is true, and what is false.

Anyone with an ego WILL BELIEVE that they already know what is TRUE. This is of course a trap. The ego is no different to God this way, in that both stand by whatever is true. The only difference is the ego believes something is true which actually is FALSE. It will defend it just as vehemently as God would, believing that to do so is to protect "self" and continue logical consistency. The problem is since the ego is blind to truth, and therefore limited and incapable of seeing the WHOLE truth, it comes to false conclusions based on its LIMITED awareness of information.

When the ego is believing it knows what is true in the course, defending it "to death", its blindness MUST make it mistaken. It will believe it knows or gets the course. But the ONLY way to grasp what the Course REALLY MEANS, is to have a PERFECT GRASP of the LOGICAL CONSISTENCY of the METAPHYSICS. Otherwise if you have DIFFICULTY with PERFECT LOGIC, you will come to false conclusions. Everything else is storytelling, fiction, interpretation, ego opinion and guesswork. And a whole lot of confusion.

The question then is, whethere YOU are truly being LOGICALLY CONSISTENT in every way possible on every Course topic. If there are "holes" in the logic alone, this is the only criteria for being in error. Not because of someone’s experience or authority or way of writing or years spent doing the course or how many workbook lessons or how proficient with miracles or how old you are or how publicly recognized.

The ONLY barometer for whether you are grasping the Course CORRECTLY, is that you can SEE a highly UNIFIED picture, in which all pieces fit perfectly, with NO CONTRADICTIONS, and an ability to DISCERN even the subtlest of nuances. Fortunately, the metaphysics TELLS YOU what somethig MUST MEAN, based on what is LOGICAL. You can rely on it, depend on it, and refer to it.

And you are supposed to. THE TRUTH IS YOUR GUIDING LIGHT. IT tells YOU what is true. The metaphysical logic TELLS YOU whether a given course quote means one thing or another. Not the ego’s ability to figure it out. Not a person’s prowess or personality. Only the truth is true.

There IS only one true metaphysics. There IS only one truth. Jesus HAS given a PERFECTLY LOGICALLY CONSISTENT COURSE. If we do not SEE the logical consistency, it’s because of our ego. Use that as a MIRROR therefore to show you where you MUST be in denial, with a willingness to be MISTAKEN, so that if the Course says something is TRUE, and it is consistent, you must ACCEPT IT. That means dropping your ego’s personal opinion.

We do not get to decide what the truth is. God established the truth. The metaphysics of the course reflects the truth. The WORDS of the Course are BASED ON the metaphysics. Grasp the metaphysics and none of the words will confuse you!

For example.

Fear is the opposite of love. Yet love has no opposite. An opposite to love must produce a state which does not exist.

This is LOGICAL. Similarly, Heaven has no opposite, "earth is opposite to heaven in every way", therefore IT IS PERFECT LOGIC to say that "earth does not exist." The logic itself tells you this must be true.

For example.

What is not love is murder. Anything which is not 100% perfect love, is murder. Even slight disagreements or even "agreeing to disagree", which is an illusion of peace, IS MURDER. You can deduce WHY this makes sense, if you look at the logic, and why this is *black and white*.

In the thought system of Oneness, what applies to you applies equally to everyone. There is nothing true about you which is not true about everyone. Everyone shares the truth (God). In truth, logically, you cannot attack your brother WITHOUT directly attacking yourself. DIRECTLY. Because what is true of them, INSTANTLY and ALWAYS is true of you. If they are hurt, you MUST be hurt. If you "cause" them to change, YOU must experience the effects.

...WHICH MEANS LOGICALLY.... if there is a thought system in which something applies to an other which does NOT apply to you, a separation has been introduced. This separation MUST logically come between you and your brother. It then means, what applies to you, SEEMS not to apply to them. SO.... if you were to attack your brother, it would SEEM, you can "cause them" to experience effects, which YOU do not experience! This is 100% logical.

This therefore means, in the ego thought system, you can seem to attack/cause your brother and ESCAPE ALL CONSEQUENCES (effects). This LITERALLY MEANS, logically, you can "get away with attacking", ie, escape the attack, ie you can attack without being affected. With no repercussions. This is PRECICELY the meaning of "getting away with murder."

And this is why, if there is any SHRED of belief that what appleis to someone else does not apply to you, because you are not ONE, that you are not perfectly equal in every way, you ARE being MURDEROUS! Hence, logically, what is "not love", MUST be murder, even if it seems to be a tiny degree of difference. Every argument on this forum is murderous!

Every difference of opinion is murderous! People being in separate bodies is murderous! This also means, the logical truth of the Course REDEFINES the meaning of "murder", by clearly demonstrating FOR US what murder MUST BE. Murder is not ONLY one person stabbing another to death. It is ALL degrees of attack.

It is also easy to logically conclude, that even though in a thought system of "cause being separate from its effect" (Father separate from Son), even if it SEEMS like you can get away with murder, YOU DO NOT. Because it is TRUE, that the thought system of Oneness ALWAYS APPLIES. Oneness has no oppposite, so its thought system has no true opposite. Which means, logically, even if you think you CAN get away with being murderous, YOU DO NOT escape the effects of what you cause! Therefore, you ARE attacking yourself when you attack your brother, and your body WILL suffer and be sick if you use it to attack others. Not my opinion. Perfect metaphysical logic.

All of this is LOGICALLY DEDUCED. It is a perfectly logically consistent conclusion. THIS MUST BE what the course says is true. This is METAPHYSICS. There is NO opinion here. This is not my personal viewpoint. If you see ANY logical fallacy, by all means let us know so that we can find a TRUER and MORE CONSISTENT truth.

It is possible to use simple logic to understand EVERYTHING that Jesus is telling us in the Course, in terms of what the Course MEANS. This DOES include the correct recognition of what ANY kind of terms mean, including often hotly contested CONCEPTS such as "worlds" or whether God could have created the Earth or what the Earth even IS. It SHOULD tell is EXACTLY whether there can be multiple sons and what perception IS. LOGIC can even tell you what death must be, and explain WHY the separation‘s "end result" was the manifestation of FORM as a "physical universe" with illusory planets and bodies. This is concludeable by LOGIC ALONE with zero opinion. The ONLY correct meaning of what these things really are, MUST BE LOGICALLY CONSITENT. Otherwise it is conjecture, aka ego bullshit.

The same is true for all Course theology, all creation stories, determining whether there are multiple sons or God, how the entire ego thought system functions, what is heaven, what is not, and everything in between. The only question is, WHAT IS LOGICALLY TRUE AND CONSISTENT?! The Course’s TRUTH is absolutely 100% consistent.

If we are not seeing HOW it is consistent and something seems not to fit, it comes down to our ego - our own ability or lack of to LOGICALLY RECOGNIZE what is true, vs what is false. If we have difficulty with logic, or dealing with black and white statements, we WILL have difficulty understanding the course, and MUST come to false conclusions. That too is part of the logic.

It is also true, that the Course CAN be learned, the Truth is NOT obscure, the Truth is NOT mysterious, it IS possible to understand what Jesus means on ALL topics, and there should be NO confusion or disagreement about what Jesus is teaching. The only conflict comes from different ego’s attempting to have their truth be the one truth. Only the truth is true. We can ONLY ACCEPT IT, together, in agreement. We cannot MAKE IT.

Learn the metaphysics, and you will see what the Course is really saying, meaning, intending, and what is TRUE. This will transcend ALL words, all people’s opinions, even your own. If all you want is to let the truth TELL YOU what is true, you will learn the Course. To learn it REQUIRES that you put aside all of your own ego, otherwise you will misunderstand it.

"The Course" is not in the book. It exists as metaphysical states of mind whose relationships and interconnections are 100% logically defined. Everything about the ego can be described with perfect logic. Even creation is logical. Jesus is nothing if not EXTREMELY LOGICAL, because only that kind fo black and white clarity will show you what is TRUE, and what is FALSE.

IF we were to only ever talk of *metaphysics*, there would be no ROOM for opinion and no room for the ego. Then there will be peace.

The metaphysics of ACIM is not something that someone made up, it is not an interpretation, it is not subject to someone's opinion, and there is no room for questioning it. It is not one of many possible definitions of the truth. It is THE truth. Either you understand it as it is and accept it as logically true, or you are in denial and confusion.

Metaphysics are FACTS. The thought system of the Holy Spirit is completely logically consistent, as is the thought system of the ego. There is absolutely no room for interpretation. What is "true" can easily be determined by looking at the logical structure of what has happened and where things fit. If you master the metaphysics, you will be able to extrapolate the logical thought system to explain absolutely anything in its correct perspective.

What happens after the separation from God is completely 100% logical. Everything that happens after separation MUST happen, and it MUST happen in a very specific way. The effects of separation are not varied or one possibility among many. There is only one way to separate, there is only one scenario which comes about when separation seems to have happened, and there is only one outcome.

If you can learn the fundamental, completely logically consistent metaphysical structure of the separation, it gives you a framework in which everything else fits into place. A Course in Miracles is teaching this metaphysical structure, but it is not always very obvious. Its obscure nature tends to lead people to not even realize there is a solid "core" to the Course or that you can use this structure to perfectly explain everything the ego does, the meaning of death, and what MUST be true based on it.

For example, separation from God is not possible, because you cannot be somewhere that God is absent. God is everywhere. This immediately tells us that, logically, to believe that this IS possible is insanity. It also must tell us that to believe in such a separation is to believe in a DREAM, a fiction, something which is false or not true and not real. This is already the beginning of some very solid metaphysics, and many people grasp this basic starting point.

But then there is a progression, because as soon as there is a belief in separation, the ENTIRE ego thought system can be logically described and predicted for how it will operate, what it will perceive and believe, what it will value, and everything else about it. Even such things as special relationships, special hate, unconscious guilt and so on, are not just things that happen to be a part of the situation we're in, they MUST ABSOLUTELY FEATURE in an experience of being separate from God. There is a completely LOGICAL progression of thought and circumstance which HAS to come about when there is separation, which leads to all of these things.

Jesus describes some of this in the Laws of Chaos, where he says that first there are separations into individuals/bodies, then this MUST give rise to the perception that each individual is different and therefore lacking, and this MUST then give rise to a sense of competition because others have something you lack, and this MUST mean every individual is sinful for the attack that their "independence" inflicts on each other, and you then end up trying to "get" from others what you lack, by valuing what they lack and trying to possess it - which is the purpose of "specialness" and leads to all special relationships. All of this is a completely logical progression. It's simply what must happen and must unfold based on the separation having taken place.

Another example is what happens right after separation in terms of the split mind and how it becomes at war with itself. If the mind believes in separation, in order to be separate from God, it MUST have separation within itself. There is nowhere else for the separation to be. So the mind becomes divided, believing in "self and other". This MUST mean that WILL is also split, and this MUST mean that both of those parts are in conflict. There are two wills operating seemingly separately or with separate goals, since they logically cannot be the same or in agreement otherwise they could not BE separate. They MUST be at war with each other. They MUST be in a state of conflict. This conflict leads to ALL expressions of war and attack and vengeance and eventual death. It all progresses completely logically.

The metaphysics also shows that what once was a single whole mind, or whole self (Christ), must have become divided and split apart following separation. This mind that believes in separation thus gave rise to multiple illusions of individuals. The illusion of these individuals BEING individual is completely dependent on a strong illusion of the ways they are different, and as this illusion of difference becomes stronger and more established, it turns into what we call "form", which is what the BODY is. So a body is actually a logical progression of the thought system of separation and MUST come about if the separation has happened. Bodies are just very strongly-believed-in fragments of mind appearing separate and unique in order to maintain the ongoing breakdown of wholeness. This is also why bodies are a "picture" of the destruction of Christ, made as separation devices to keep individuals apart and therefore keep Christ from being whole.

There is no guesswork here. There are no opinions. There is no interpretation. This is simply a completely logical, consistent development which takes place. If there is a separation, it has "features" which come from it quite "naturally" and which are completely unavoidable. They are not optional. Bodies, worlds, special relationships, death, sickness, it is ALL a "natural" part of a thought system of separation. The metaphysics recognizes this and gives a perfectly consistent structure to it. The metaphysics can explain WHY all of these things come about.

As you learn the metaphysics, which is somewhat deeper than just "the words" of the Course, you will acquire a kind of template or set of simple laws which you understand to make perfect sense. These can be somewhat abstract so it can require some learning to "generalize" the learning and realize that it's all based on a simple set of logic. But once you then "get" the simple logic, you can now USE that simple logic to examine absolutely any aspect of life, any activity or purpose or way that something happens, and describe it in terms of what the METAPHYSICS says about it, which will be the truth. Irrefutable truth. Provided your grasp of the metaphysics is clear and consistent and you're not making subtle logical errors, the metaphysics gives you VISION to be able to see the truth of what's happening or where things fit together.

For example, recently there have been discussions about whether you can be at peace with death. There were many opinions given. None of the opinions were relevant. The only truth is in what the metaphysics says. In the metaphysical truth, the body is a separation device, it is an illusion, and it is within the mind of Christ. It blocks and hides what is behind it and its only function and purpose is to maintain the illusion of the mind being separate. The metaphysics also tells us that since God is life, and being opposite to God is the separation, separation MUST be death. It also must be a fiction of death - a dream of death. It HAS to be. It also tells us that therefore when the body is "alive", the body is still inside a dream of death. This also tells us that the death which occurs at the end of "life" is just a symbol for death, because what happens before it is also death. This is why Jesus says "death is not an end, it is a continuation."

Also since the metaphysics teaches that death is the opposite of life, and life and peace are one, and therefore death is not peace, we VERY SIMPLY can conclude that it is IMPOSSIBLE for there to be death and peace at the same time. This is irrefutable, perfect logic. This is the truth that the metaphysics tells us. It has nothing to do with anyone's opinion, anyone's lack of understanding, anyone's version of what they think is true based on their so-called experiences, or anything else. It CANNOT be true that death and peace are the same thing or that they truly can be 100% experienced at the same time. Yet many people have tried to justify that they are at peace with death or have come to accept it. They MUST be in denial. The metaphysics makes this clear.

Another simple truth which you can conclude based on the simple metaphysics of separation, is that the split mind is in a state of war BUT it also simultaneously NEEDS that war to continue, in order to maintain a sense of being less than whole and of having an opposite. If truly the opposition were completely wiped out of existence, there would be no more possibility of being at war, and war is entirely founded on being separate and having a split will. So on the one hand, the ego now is constantly trying to attack and be opposed to the "other", but at the same time, it MUST KEEP the other as an enemy for as long as possible. It does not want war to actually SUCCEED, it wants war to be CONTINUOUS.

This is a simple logical conclusion based on the metaphysics of separation. It's not my opinion or someone's interpretation. Therefore all states of conflict and war entail people choosing to suffer for as long as possible. It also means that if one group of people wins the war and totally wipes out the opposition, there would have to be PEACE, because without an opponent there is no basis for fighting. To end the war would thus truly undo the separation, it would be the undoing of those who tried to wage war, and this is not what the ego thought system wants. This is all simple logic. So if someone comes along and has a discussion about war or conflict or attack, if you grasp the metaphysics you can use it to explain what MUST be true about war and conflict.

The separation from God is an entirely CLOSED SYSTEM. There is no room for accidents, there is no room for multiple opinions or interpretations. There is only the FACT of what has happened. You can accept it or you can deny it. If you have a solid grasp of the metaphysics you can DEPEND on it so much that you can TRUST it and you can use it to discern whether people are saying bullshit or whether they are aware of the truth. It also however requires that YOU not be in denial and you not be making logical errors. And the fact is there are a lot of people making a lot of logical errors. Sometimes they are quite subtle. But when someone thinks they know what the truth is but have not quite got it, they will defend it to the death and it must produce war.

Metaphysics reveals that there is only one truth. There is no room for error. There are facts, and that's it. You don't get an opinion. You don't get to interpret it to fit what you want it to be. You don't get to change it. In fact, this extends to your relationship with God and the fact that you keep trying to believe that God has changed His mind about you, or that you can change God. Both must be logically false. But that doesn't stop us believing otherwise, because we are insane. To not get the metaphysics is insanity, and the ego will use it to confuse you and delude you.

There is so much "insight" which can flow out about all kinds of topics if you will just learn the fundamental basic structure of separation. It also reveals to you that there really is only one problem, one dream, one solution. Illusions of how certain things seem different or unique or unlike each other, calling for a special explanation, can be "seen through" if you have the metaphysics right. You will know what to trust, and how to discern. You will be clear about what is true and what is false. You will also be amazed at how you're able to use the metaphysics as a powerful TOOL to give you the truth - what MUST be true - based on what you have learned is logically consistent, EVEN IF you have never thought about the particular topic before. The metaphysics will tell you WHAT IS the truth of the situation, and MUST be true about it, regardless of whether you even believe it yourself.

This logical consistency also builds upon itself. It's like, if you have this blueprint and you use it to place the first few pieces exactly where they belong, then you start being able to draw further logically consistent conclusions from it. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, where if you start out with the correct corners and the correct edge pieces, all of the other pieces can be correctly positioned and discerned, leading to a completely consistent whole picture. It's almost like effortless learning. You don't need to keep learning lots of individual separate modalities or pieces of information. You just get this one 'guidance system' which is the light of truth, the thought system of the Holy Spirit, which puts into perspective absolutely everything else. You switch on this one light and ask IT what is the truth, instead of being in the business of MAKING UP what you want the truth to be all the time, and it will very obviously and clearly tell you exactly what the truth is, from a clear and consistent perspective.

This is also why it is imperative to surrender your egoic attempt to always be the one who decides everything, to always be the one who decides what things mean, to always have your own opinion, to always be running "your own life" which you see as a possession of your own separate from God's will. Trusting Holy Spirit/God is trusting the metaphysics of the truth. The metaphysics completely correlates to the Holy Spirit's thought system. As you trust IT, you are trusting HIM. And as you begin to THINK WITH it, you are thinking WITH HIM, and you will start to have thoughts which are in line with, compatible with, and consistent with, HIS way of thinking, which is perfectly supportive of the metaphysics. The metaphysics of truth IS the way that the mind functions from a true perspective.

So our opinions mean absolutely nothing. Our separate viewpoints are an act of war. Thinking we know that our interpretation of the Course is right, unless it actually IS in line with Holy Spirit's thought system, MUST be a state of denial and MUST entail the authority problem - the ego trying to be the one who determines what is true or not. Only the truth is true. We can accept it, or we can be in denial. If we are in denial, believing we know the truth, we are mistaken. You can accept God's love, or you can reject it, but you cannot change it. You can deny that God is real but that won't change the metaphysics of reality whatsoever. You can pretend all you want, but ultimately, all of reality is a CLOSED SYSTEM with no options and no alternatives. It is what it is. Trying to make it be something it is not, is ego, and WILL produce the illusion of death.

How was the tiny mad idea possible? How was it possible for us to mis-create? Why did God give us the ability to try to sin? Did we lose our innocence in the separation? How is it that this world seems to exist?

When God created his children, He gave them the freedom to will and create. The mind is not capable of ever doing anything that God didn't give it the ability to do. It cannot add abilities to itself, it can only operate within the parameters of its design. This means you literally cannot go against God's will or do anything He did not make possible.

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

But what God did do, was give you freedom. The power of the mind to freely choose to will to co-create. And this freedom is fully given.

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

Within the context of being "completely free", it is technically possible for you to try to USE your freedom against itself. You HAVE to be free to do this, in order to truly have freedom. While you have free will, it HAS to be possible for you to potentially USE that free will to try NOT to will anything. If this weren't a part of the freedom of will, you would not have free will. It's not a productive USE of will, since it creates nothing, but it is still part of it.

The thing is, although you are free to TRY to deny freedom, something completely pointless happens when you do so. Since it remains true that God's will cannot be opposed, and you cannot remove your freedom from yourself, and you cannot make yourself unpowerful, and you cannot be changed in any way, the exercise of TRYING to use your will to NOT will, to be "unwilling" or to oppose God's will, HAS to be futile.

It's not that you aren't free to TRY to do this, it's just that there is really no point in doing it. It's not possible to cause anything real to happen this way, because it denies creation. So it's like saying, I want to use my free will against itself to cause nothing to happen. I want to will not to will. I want to not create anything. I want to deny myself.

There is a circular logic which enters into this. You are trying to use your free will to cause your free will to stop being free and to will nothing. But how can you still be WILLING that you will nothing? You have to still USE the will to will that you don't will anything. So the notion is really absurd. You have to keep using the will, while claiming that you're not using it. And so it has to entail denial and it has to NOT accomplish what you're trying to make it accomplish. And never can you will the WILL itself to cease to exist, because you'd have to USE will to do that.

It has to be a state of denial, because the fact remains you can't change your freedom or power. So trying to DO so can only mean you are going into a DENIAL of what is true of you, and are PRETENDING to do whatever you're doing. You can't actually make yourself un-free or destroy your power. You can, however, seemingly deceive yourself in believing that its possible. Precisely BECAUSE you are free to do so. God did make it possible for you to be free to try to not be free, but He did not make it possible for you to ACTUALLY affect your freedom.

"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."

Another way to put it is, it is not possible to change God's will or to cause your own will to stop. It is literally impossible to separate from God or be where God is not. However, you are FREE to use your freedom to TRY to do so. You can INSIST that it is possible, and invest belief in it, and try to GIVE IT truth and make it real and convince yourself of it and deceive yourself, but you STILL cannot make it a reality or actually do it in reality.

As you try to do so, as you attempt to use your freedom to stop being free, as you try to will not to will anything, or as you try to will nothingness, or try to give reality and meaning to something impossible, you go into what we're calling the "tiny mad idea". The idea of separation and sin. Which just means you're insisting that something impossible is possible - that something false is true. That you CAN separate, you CAN sin, you have done so, and there is proof that the impossible is happening.

This can only be self deception and denial, because it's still impossible. But you are free to believe it if you want to. To believe it you have to DENY what is true, try to be out of touch with the facts, and pretend that the will has been denied. You are free to pretend that you have no freedom, which seems to place the mind in a state of "sleep" or dormancy, as though it is not creating or has no power, or is not alive. A sort of "stand-by mode", in which the mind believes that everything impossible is possible, and thus imagines that the opposite of God is happening through a kind of hallucinatory process of wishful thinking. ("There is no world apart from what you wish").

"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."

Now, going into this state, is NOT A SIN. NOR is it outside of the scope of what God made possible. You can never actually rewrite the laws of God. You can't give yourself something He did not give you. You cannot change yourself. You cannot destroy yourself or your freedom or your will. But it IS within your rights and within your power to deny or pretend that you can do these things.

Pretending that you are not immortal is the best you can do, because you cannot cause yourself to die. But you certainly can produce illusions, fabrications, that its happening, through the DESIRE to have it be possible. You can confuse your identity with these illusions. You can also believe that the suffering is real. But it remains unreal, and the truth is unchanged.

What this simply means is that by "mis-using" the mind to believe that impossibilities are possible and happening, you hallucinate a world of make-believe, which you try to invest in and convince yourself is true and real. You even try to give it immortality and life and will and a mind of its own. But you can't succeed. You can only fake it. But you are free to fake it.

Entering into this state of "denying that you are free", using your freedom of will to try to will not to have freedom of will, you are ONLY entering into a state of being MISTAKEN. If it is true that you HAVE freedom and will, you are mistaken when you believe that you don't. If it is true that you are immortal, you are mistaken when you believe death is possible. If it is true that sin is utterly impossible, you are mistaken when you believe sin is happening.

Being mistaken is still an "innocent" condition. Guilt does not have to enter into it at all. Someone can make an "innocent mistake", which is simply a failure to willingly admit that you're trying to do something which makes no sense. You can be mistaken in believing that willing against God's free will is possible. It's not possible. Nor can you really will against yourself. But you are free to believe it's possible, and to try to do it, and to try to convince yourself that you've done it. But you cannot do it, and so are mistaken when you believe this.

Believing that you can be separate from God, is a simple mistake. Since it's not possible, you can't do it. But you can try to convince yourself that it's possible. Doing that is pointless and futile because it can't BE possible. But you are free to try. You are free to resist the truth. Or to use your power to try to pretend to be powerless. You are innocent in this because all you're doing is using your God-given powers in a way that is a pointless exercise. A way which results in nothing really happening, as you "play small" and try to be little and powerless.

Provided that you recognize that mis-creation is just a state of being mistaken, and is not a sin, and is still well within the laws of God, and that at no time is God's will violated, even when you are mistaken, then you can also see that mis-creating is an innocent act. It's really not an act at all. And it does not change the truth about you. All it does is set up some illusion of deception and some confusion about what's really possible.

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the laws of God; NOT as the law itself upholds the universe as God created it, but in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error."

"Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release."

The Course also talks about how entering into this "detour into fear", which is just an attempt to make true what is not true, or to use will against itself, produced a "lower order mind" or a "system of thought" which seems to function opposite to how God originally indended it in higher reality. This lower (ego) mind is a mind of denial, deception, untruth and confusion. But it is not a sin. It's just a mis-configured and unwise mis-use of your God-given abilities.

"Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical, and the other creates the spiritual."

The physical world of bodies is what is produced in the deceptive state of being mistaken about the truth. In the state of denial, the dream of death, the illusion of separation, the pretense at being powerless and imprisoned, it produces the "forms of error" which the body sees. Error is just a mistake.

"No one CAN be "taken over" unless he wills to be. However, if he places his mind under tyranny, rather than authority, he intrudes the submission/dominance onto free will himself. This produces the obvious contradiction inherent in any formulation that associates free will with imprisonment."

Attempting to assert that will can cause will not to will, produced an illusion of an "unwilling world." A world in opposition to God. But this is STILL within the confines of the Son of God's freedom. The angels also have this freedom.

"Error cannot really threaten truth, which can always withstand it. Only the error is actually vulnerable. You are free to establish your kingdom where you see fit..."

"The "Princes of this World" are princes only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish their kingdom where they see fit.""God does not coerce".

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception. "

God is not viewing your excursion into "trying to make impossible things possible", as being a sin. He doesn't see it as a real threat to what you are, either. Nor does he coerce you into stopping doing this against your will. For God to oppose your free will he would have to oppose his own. He does however "encourage" and guide and help his children to "come to their senses". Because it remains true that "trying not to will anything" is a rather pointless exercise which can't really result in anything creative. It's more like, taking a nap where you dream of destruction or "the opposite of creating". A dream of mortality and death as "the opposite of eternal life."

We mis-created the world, but only as a mistake. Not as a sin. When it is recognized as only a mistake, sin is lifted away from it and it is regarded as forgiven. Being an illusion of something impossible seeming to be possible, this is seen through and beyond, and this overlooking is forgiveness. It's a forgiveness which looks past bodies and the physical to the light of reality, not deceived by the illusion that false things are true. To the the light of sanity and reason. We simply made the world in error and it can be undone.

"You made the body in attempting to deceive yourself."

"Miracles reflect..." "I have done this thing and it is this I would undo."All we're doing here, is basically, innocently, trying to do something which isn't really possible. We're using our freedom to try to imprison ourselves. We're using our immortality to pretend to be mortal. We're using our holiness to pretend to be sinners. And we're using the power of the mind to pretend to be weak and powerless. We can't ACTUALLY be imprisoned, or mortal, or sinful, or powerless. And so we're using all these things against themselves, to PRETEND that we don't have these things. This BLOCKS and disguises them, using illusions to make it appear something is true which isn't.

Seen as nothing more than an error, a mistake, a futile attempt, a pointless exercise, the dream of death is not "against" God's will, which cannot be opposed, but is an ATTEMPT to believe that opposing God's will is possible or has merit. The mind is just stretching the truth. But using the mind in a "destructive" way, against its own nature, isn't constructive or creative and it also doesn't allow you to experience happiness.

"The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere."

"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 level confusion of others."

God DOES will that you maintain the sanity of the clear recognition that there is NO POINT trying to use your freedom against itself. That it is truly impossible to WILL nothing. Or to make yourself have no power. Believing you are powerless when you are powerful, or that you are imprisoned when you are free, is obviously a state of denial, and this denial of life can only produce illusions of suffering and pain and misery."We also have observed that man can create an empty shell, but cannot create nothing at all."

"Whenever projection (creation) in its inappropriate sense is utilized, it ALWAYS implies that some emptiness (or lack of everything) must exist, and that it is within man's ability to put his own ideas there INSTEAD of the truth."

When you try NOT to create, you enter into "making" illusions. You produce an "emptiness" or lack of love, which is the world of "sin", meaning just the illusion of love's absence, or the absence of light. It isn't the presence of darkness, or of sin, or of real death, it is the illusion of the absence of their opposite. Because even in illusions you can't get outside of God's laws. You can never violate the parameters of your functioning as given by God. And so the world remains ONLY a mistake, not a real sin.

God's own will follows the knowledge that it is pointless to use will against itself, even though its possible to TRY to do so. Because when you try to do so, nothing is willed, and so nothing happens. God knows this and he is sane. His will is that you know it also. When you refuse to know it or you deny it, insisting that you CAN will nothingness to be something, you become deceived and confused. And God does not will that you enter into such suffering. "God's will for me is perfect happiness". And you can only be happy when you will in accord with God's true will - purely constructively and using your freedom to create. Free from self destruction.

"God Himself gave you the perfect correction for everything you have made which is not in accord with His Holy Will."

"The miracle compares the creations of man with the higher level of creation, accepting what is in ACCORD as true, and rejecting the DISCORDANT as false."

In all this, you always remain innocent, you can be correct or mistaken, but you cannot change the laws of God or of your true nature. You can be asleep in a denial state of trying to pretend that impossibilities are possible, but you can't ACTUALLY cause an opposite to God to happen. You can dream of it, imagine it, try to give it reality, even convince yourself of it, but you can't make it true. So at some point you have to admit, it's a fruitless exercise, and just return to creating with God. Using will to willingly will your creations, as God intended.

"All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the FEAR of awakening."

Fear is not "just fear". It's not just "an emotion". It's not just "one thing". It's not just "a reaction". Everything that fear appears to be, it is that, and it is not that. There is much more happening that isn't obvious.

Fear is the opposite of love. Death is the opposite of life and life is love. Fear and death are therefore the same state - the end result of the ego's thought system of sin.

Fear is self deception. Let's look at how the ego thought system deceives us.

God establishes what is ACTUALLY true. This truth is reality. It is eternal life, love, happiness, safety, peace. This truth is always true. Nothing can change it.

Ego means nothing more than truth reversal. It's an attempt to oppose the truth through denial. Ego can't change what is true. But, in ego you can DENY it or "pretend" that it's not true.

To deny what's true, you believe it is false. God's truth, or the truth about you, becomes false to you. Simultaneously, things which are false and unreal start to SEEM true and real. You start believing UNTRUE things about yourself.

Jesus describes the end result of this process (the ego thought system) as "total confusion". It's a state where everything true has been confused with or mistaken for, everything false. And everything false has been confused with or mistaken for, what's true.

You could not be more confused than to have no idea what is ACTUALLY true or actually real. It's a state of not recognizing anything for what it is. A total loss of perspective. It is insanity. Fear and death are insane. Fear is paralysis, or the stopping of life, which is death.

When your mind is confused, it's because you believe something is true which isn't REALLY true. Something seems real that is not real. Something seems to be happening that isn't really happening. You think it is, but it's not. In this state, you are simply very MISTAKEN. And in denial. And unwilling to accept that a totally opposite truth is the real truth.

What is false? Death, sickness, suffering, unhappiness, fear, guilt, sin, attack, murder, threat and danger, darkness, insanity, delusion, disassociation, not knowing who you are, unreality, non-existence, etc. All of this is false because it is OPPOSITE to what is actually true - God's truth. None of it is real and none of it exists.

What is true? Eternal life, happiness, freedom, fearlessness, freedom from sin and guilt, immortality, being incapable of sickness or death, nothing to be afraid of, no threat or danger, total safety, peace of mind, invulnerability etc.

When you CONFUSE these two, and put belief into the false stuff, you "make it real". You try to invest it with reality and truth.

"Whatever you BELIEVE IN becomes REAL to you."

To do that you have to deny what's really true. This denial is a block to awareness. It makes you UNAWARE of the real truth or the big picture. It disassociates you from what you are believing in the big picture, and the consequences of that belief.

That means you are CAUSING things (making them through belief), which are producing EFFECTS, but you are no longer aware that you are causing them, so they seem to be caused by something other than yourself. Who wouldn't be frightened of an "alien will" (a will outside of your awareness of what your own will is willing) that seems to do things "against your will"?

It's the mere fact that you are unaware of what you are choosing, wanting, supporting, believing in, that results in "stuff happening" that you didn't SEEM to will. And this stuff is then experienced as being unfairly treated. Especially given that everything that happens in ego is a form of suffering. And who wants to suffer? No-one sane.

So then, naturally, you perceive that you are suffering not because you chose to, but because someone or something else separate from you caused it. You really caused it, but you don't see that, so you HAVE to pin it on some other cause, automatically, to try to make sense of where it came from. This is the root of all projection.

The simple notion that there is "another cause" besides yourself, is the root of all fear. Because if something can CAUSE YOU other than God, can change you, affect you, or hurt you, without you being able to prevent it, that is grounds for terror. The mere perception of "a separate thing" that seems cut off from your oneness is grounds for fear.

As you move further into the ego darkness, increasing fear, consciously you start to experience what SEEMS to be a greater unwillingness to want or 'own' what is happening. You want to get away from the danger, away from the source of threat.

Because in denial you believe/perceive more and more than it's got nothing to do with your own choice. That you are having absolutely no part to play in making things happen, did not choose them, do not want them, did not cause them, and don't even HAVE a choice. And death is an attempt not to choose at all.

The more this increases, the more you go into denial, the less aware you are that you're choosing to believe death is salvation. Here, false = true and true = false. If both the true and the false are false, and the true and the true are true, there is a total blurring of distinction and no difference between them, resulting in total confusion.

The threat of death seems to be on the increase, your conscious horror at this increase makes you squirm like you don't want it and try to avoid it, but unconsciously you are choosing it.

For example, if you believe in cancer, at all, you will become afraid. Believing it exists whatsoever, that it has power, that it causes death, that it even exists at all, places your mind into denial. Because in God's truth, cancer does not exist. Cancer is false, untrue, unreal, non-existent, powerless, causeless, nothing. Cancer is totally an illusion that has no effect on the Son of God.

But if you've moved into "I believe cancer exists", you MUST now be in denial. That means you believe in cancer, but you are not aware that you believe in it. What's left of your conscious awareness is now limited only to the scope of what you are AWARE of. You are not aware of your belief, BUT, your belief is moving you TOWARDS cancer. Because whatever you BELIEVE EXISTS, you WANT MORE OF.

Whatever you believe in, you try to invest it with reality. You try to MAKE it be true. You give it a sense of truth, power over you, an alien will, causality, strength, threat. The more you believe in it the bigger of an 'enemy' you make it, and the more your perception warps to make it seem large and looming and able to affect you.

So there's your mind believing "cancer is a very real danger", which puts you into denial of the truth, which makes you unaware you believe in a dangerous threat, which makes you confused about what is true and false, which makes you think cancer is real and true and your salvation, which makes you want it, which CAUSES IT.

So now there is an increase in your 'environment' of the presence of this illusion of danger, and your conscious awareness is becoming afraid because strange disconnected threats are looming on the horizon, and you are not aware of how they got there. It seems like they're happening "on their own", separate from your mind. And because they seem separate, you perceive that you have no control over them. This perceived lack of "ability to influence it" produces fear.

This is the general state most of us find ourselves in - seeming to have no power or control over anything external, anything that seems separate, or anything in the world. As if the world is causal, decides your fate, and you just have to suffer, or run away in fear. As if it has its own will, separate from yours, that you can do nothing about, making its ultimate attack unavoidable.

Whatever you believe in, you make it real. Whatever you believe in, you give truth to. Whatever you believe in, you value. Whatever you believe in, you want to see. Whatever you believe in, you will perceive. Whatever you believe in, you make happen. Whatever you believe, you'll defend with your life, because you associate LIFE with "whats true".

It is not possible for example to believe "cancer exists", while also claiming to believe you are not threatened by it. I do not have it but I am scared of the idea, purely based on beliefs in its existence. You cannot believe in a causal power outside you without feeling threatened. You are not immune to it just because "it doesn't seem to be happening to me". You will fear it even if it's not seeming to happen. And the unconscious masses have done a lot to amplify its "reality".

The only way to not have fear of cancer therefore is to not believe in cancer. AT ALL. ie, cancer does not exist, cancer has no power over me, cancer does not cause death, cancer isn't affecting me, cancer has not done anything to me, cancer cannot do anything to me, I do not believe in cancer, cancer does not exist, there is no cancer, cancer is a lie, cancer isn't real, cancer is an illusion I made up, cancer has no mind of its own, cancer does not exist at all, there is no cancer, cancer is nothing, cancer is not making me afraid, I have power over cancer. etc

That's what you have to believe in order to be free from it. And being free from the BELIEF in it DOES make you INVULNERABLE. That's what you have to believe in order to not put yourself into the state where you'll be afraid of it. And that's what you have to believe in order to not CHOOSE IT. Because if you "believe it exists but I don't believe I have it", you are trying to have it.

Whatever you believe in, you are CHOOSING. If you don't want to choose something, you must NOT believe in it. You can't believe in something and then claim that it does not apply to you. You can't believe in something and then claim to be free of it. Believe it, and you give it power over you instantly and are moving towards manifesting/materializing it into your experience. And fear and suffering then become the consequence of that.

The secret of salvation states that you are doing everything to yourself. That means, in your confusion about what is true and false, you keep choosing things which are FALSE, by believing they are TRUE. By mistake. Because you are mistaken about what is true. You keep choosing things which are unreal, by believing they are real. And that means you literally WANT TO SUFFER.

By believing in illusions or false things, things opposite God's reality, you are electing to make those things part of your reality. So that you can have a false experience of them. Beliefs are attempts to CHANGE WHAT IS TRUE into what you want to be true. But belief can also be used to line up with what is ACTUALLY true, so that you believe the Atonement truth, which sets you free.

In fear, which includes unawareness, you are consciously kicking and screaming to get away from what seems to be coming to you "on its own". Unconsciously, ie behind denial, you are actually MAKING IT COME TO YOU by believing in it. And that literally translates to, you are doing it to yourself. Or the adage, "what you fear comes to you" or "what you fear increases". This is literally true.

Jesus says "You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

This also means there are NO CAUSES OF SUFFERING BEYOND YOUR OWN CHOOSING.

"It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

And that then means, if you were to actually sort out what is REALLY TRUE, from what you THINK is true, ie that you WANT GOD, and learn to recognize the ACTUAL truth again, you would also simultaneously recognize that false things ARE false. You would recognize that cancer is an illusion that does not exist. You would recognize that there IS NO THREAT. Because then you have stopped threatening yourself.

All fear comes from self-threat. A sense of danger that results from YOU believing that you are under attack. Which is an attack on yourself. "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."

For example, if you believe you sinned, and choose not to forgive yourself, you'll believe you are guilty. But this isn't merely a belief in guilt. It's a belief that you ARE guilty and an acceptance that your guilt is TRUE. If guilt is true, you will WILLINGLY ACCEPT that you DO deserve punishment, because it it SUPPORTED by what you believe is true. You will not object to it. So instead, you will WELCOME suffering. But even more-so, MAKE SURE IT HAPPENS.

This now means you YOURSELF believe that you logically deserve to suffer. And this means you now ACCEPT that you MUST suffer. Which means you believe you should suffer. Which means you now have it in for yourself.

It means you are now seeking to attack yourself in order to punish yourself, because it is justified, and this is SELF THREAT. It is suicidal. And that is going to terrify you more than any external projection of "who is causing fear" or "how its going to happen".

Guilt leads to fear. Guilt leads to more self attack. Your SELF attack is what frightens you. YOU are the cause of your fear.

So then when you are in fear, you are trying to hurt yourself. You are scaring yourself. You might project it onto all kinds of external stuff but it's self attack. Ever notice that when you are afraid you start finding all kinds of EXTERNAL things or "causes" to pin the fear on? Many things around you start to become threatening? That's projection. Your perception is warping. It's the same as accusing your brother of your own sins. You accuse your brother of your own self attack and reasons to fear.

So fear is really a state where you are CHOOSING TO SUFFER, where you are wanting what you are threatened by, are trying to make it happen, to undermine your immortality. BUT you are disowning it so much that it SEEMS like you have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

You are in denial that the thing you thought was going to help you is actually hurting you. You are in denial that your savior is your attacker. You are in denial that what you WANT is actually working against you. You are in denial that your defense against truth is causing you to be MORE sick. And you are under the impression that death is going to save you from God's wrath.

Your internal conscious messaging might be "I hope that doesn't happen, it's scaring me". But your ACTUAL activity is "I hope that happens, I want that to happen, I believe in it, it's going to save me." Your mind holds visions of threats and dangers in front of its perception to attack itself.

This is why fear is such a slippery thing. It's so deceptive, back to front, inside out and upside down. It SEEMS like the TOTAL OPPOSITE of what it is. The experience of it seems like you totally don't want it, but this COVERS OVER the fact you are WANTING exactly what you are frightened by. If you are scared, YOU scared yourself.

You have to own up to this, look deeply at it and realize what you actually are doing, rather than what seems to be happening on the surface. All victimy persons, everyone who is afraid, all who are terrified, ACTUALLY are choosing and wanting everything that they are afraid of. AND they are the one DOING THE ATTACK. This is why victims are victimizers and victimizers are victims.

Fear is choosing with the ego, siding with deception.

In fear you secretly choose to suffer, by choosing something that does bring suffering (ie to God it is FALSE), but which you BELIEVE brings salvation. And this stems entirely from being CONFUSED about what is really true and what is false.

All the attributes of God's truth need to be given back to God. You need to re-associate aspects of truth with God's truth. God's truth is where the safety is. God's truth is where salvation is. God's truth is what will ACTUALLY help and heal you and give you life. God's truth is what will protect you from harm. God's truth will give you immortality. And by choosing it, you will GET what you EXPECT to get, rather than the total opposite.

Learning to RECOGNIZE that is the entire process of working on your spiritual awakening. The "sorting out" of true vs REALLY true. What do you REALLY WANT to believe in. What are you believing that isn't REALLY true. How might you be very mistaken in your conviction that death is real? How might you be mistaken in believing that cancer even exists? How might you be confused about whether you can even be affected by anything, given you are immortal?

Gradually you will side with the ACTUAL truth rather than siding with what you BELIEVED was true. And that's a really good thing. Because now your expectation is that the truth will help you and make things better for you, and it ACTUALLY DOES. And then you will develop TRUST in it. You can't trust the ego. It is all lies and deception. One thing pretending to be something else. It is two-faced because it contradicts the real truth.

Only the truth is true. Only the false is false. Only eternal life is real. Death is an impossible illusion and does not exist. In God's love there is NOTHING to be afraid of. "Nothing unreal exists." Nothing false is true. And recognizing that will bring you peace and freedom from suffering forever.