The world appears to have a huge amount of stuff to offer you, things to get, somewhere to go, places to see, accomplishment to be made etc.. But. .... there is nothing in the world that you really want, and you need to become totally empty handed in order to want God. Who really wants to own even the tiniest part of a false world? Letting everything go and wanting nothing is the only way to detach from the world and go home to God. Wanting means you lack, and getting will never bring satisfaction of that belief in lack. Only God can fill the hole that he seemed to leave when you rejected him.

"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"

"How far away from this are you who stay bound to this world. And yet how near are you when you exchange it for the world you want. Now is the last step certain; now you stand an instant's space away from timelessness. Here can you but look forward, never back to see again the world you do not want. Here is the world that comes to take its place as you unbind your mind from little things the world sets forth to keep you prisoner there. Value them not, and they will disappear. Esteem them, and they will seem real to you."

"Until you realize you give up NOTHING; until you understand there IS no loss; you will have some regrets about the way that you have chosen."

"It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give. What can the sacrifice of nothing mean? It cannot mean that you have less because of it."

"In gratitude and thankfulness we come, with empty hands and open hearts and minds, asking but what You give."

"Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."

"Heaven Itself is reached by empty hands and open minds, which come with nothing to find everything and claim it as their own."

"Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you, for the simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing. The new perspective you will gain, from crossing over, will be the understanding of WHERE HEAVEN IS."

"Is it a sacrifice to give up nothing, and to receive the Love of God forever?"

""What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" This means that if he listens to the wrong voice, he has LOST SIGHT of his Soul. He CANNOT lose it, but he CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO HIM, until he chooses right. The Holy Spirit is your guide in choosing. He is the part of your mind which ALWAYS speaks for the right choice, because he speaks for God. He is your remaining communication with God, which you can interrupt, but cannot destroy."

"YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it YOU look upon with love. This GIVES it the only reality it will ever have. ITS value is NOT in itself, but yours IS in you. As self value comes from self EXTENSION, so does the PERCEPTION of self value come from the projection of loving thoughts outward."

"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."

This clearly tells us that God did not create the Earth because to do so would've required he be in TWO minds with TWO effects, which is impossible. Since Earth is opposite to Heaven in EVERY way, God would've had to have created two DIFFERENT creations, unlike each other in every way. This is impossible because everything God creates is the same in every way and like Him in every way.

God could only create ONE EFFECT coming from ONE MIND. He could only create ONE WORLD. And that world must be heaven. It MUST be heaven because love has no opposite, and only the creations of love (God) are real, and therefore the only WORLD that is real is the one God did create, which is Heaven.

Take your pick. Heaven or Earth. Which is your home? Do you REALLY want Earth when you could have Heaven?

Earth is nothing. Heaven is everything. Leaving the Earth behind and going to heaven you will gain everything and lose nothing. This world holds nothing that you want! A teacher of God will gladly give up all the pleasures of the world! This world is not your home! How can a place which does not even EXIST be your home?

As Jesus says:

"Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you, for the simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing. The new perspective you will gain, from crossing over, will be the understanding of WHERE HEAVEN IS. From HERE, it seems to be outside, and ACROSS the bridge. But, as you cross to JOIN it, IT will JOIN WITH YOU, and BECOME ONE with you. And you will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this, YOU GAVE UP NOTHING! The joy of Heaven, which HAS no limit, is INCREASED with each light that returns, to take its rightful place within it."

Jesus also says we will watch the world (earth) disappear, together.

"Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there any time you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does. And then-and then-I cannot speak of that. A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death. This is the message of the crucifixion: there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection. Illusion are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains."

Earth is illusion. It disappears. ONLY TRUTH remains. Earth does not become part of the truth. IT VANISHES. IT NEVER EXISTED TO BEGIN WITH!!!!!!!!

Earth does not exist. There is no world.

Healthy boundaries.. it's a concept thrown around as something to strive for. But what are boundaries and how do you make them and do they even exist?

You can only theoretically have boundaries between separate people. It's as though, if you acknowledge where you stop and other people start, or what is yours and what is theirs, ie the two of you are distinctly separate, then any blurring of that distinction is a crossing of boundaries.

So if someone comes along and 'steps on your toes' or violates your independent freedom, as it were, e.g. they blame something on you or disrespect 'you', then they've `crossed the line`. And if you are aware of where your 'line' is, then you can tell it's been crossed, and then its up to you to respond in a way that defends that boundary.

As separate human bodies it does at first seem natural and healthy to have healthy boundaries. Except that, even when you get healthy boundaries on an individual level, you still have to constantly maintain it. And that's because there's still a weakness. You're still vulnerable. You can still HAVE your boundaries violated. And this weakness comes from the fact you are separate from others. So the very 'boundaries' that supposedly are meant to establish your security and protection in fact establish a division that renders you attackable. Your boundaries are not strong enough to fend off attack or its effects, because they themselves are based on defense and attack. And there is no such thing as absolutely-impenetrable boundaries.

There is a higher form of this idea of healthy relations. It entails you remembering and realizing that you are ONE with others. You can't really be true to your 'self' (which is a shared self) if you are not also true to the whole. This is where it gets a bit abstract.

Basically, when you are true to who you *really* are, which is the One self that you share with all, your awareness of that truth automatically shows you what is true and what is false. When someone comes along and does something you are already aware of whether it is true or not, and whether it can hurt you or not. If you are in your One self, you are invulnerable. Invulnerability does not need a defense and it does not need artificial boundaries. It is its own defense because no illusions can affect who you really are.

So healthy boundaries are a stepping stone toward self respect and security and being able to assert yourself and to have a sense of protection of your identity. But ultimately they also wall you in and cut you off from others. This leads to the dilemma that you have to 'lower your boundaries' from time to time to let people in and actually have a connection, because if your boundaries are always 'up' you will just shut people out and feel isolated. But then when you expose yourself by lowering your boundaries, it leaves people open to walk all over you. Supposedly the response to this is to 'raise' your boundaries again on an as-needed basis. This is hardly very reliable.

That's why ultimately you want to rise above this whole need for living in a castle, having walls, having a drawbridge that you raise and lower to keep the enemy out when necessary. It's a human-level, ego-level, separate-self-level strategy to use boundaries to maintain a certain level of respect and to honor your sense of ego self. And there's nothing wrong with having that firm sense of who you are and who you are not - as an ego. But you are more than an ego and eventually you have to realize that this dualistic model of protection has a lot of maintenance to it, because boundaries are as much an attack as a defense. They are the ego's substitute for real protection and security, which comes from Oneness.

Being true to who you really are is the ultimate protection because, when you are aware of who you are, you automatically are confident (certain), you automatically see sanely and clearly to be able to discern who is doing what and for what reason, you are able to see that other people are calling out for love rather than attacking, and you know that you cannot be hurt because you are invulnerable. In your innocence lies your safety. Not ego-innocence which is vulnerable to abuse, but Holy Innocence, which is strong and reliable and truly safe.

Also remember, that the only person you need protection from, is yourself. Nothing happens to you against your will, and nothing can affect you unless you choose to affect yourself and agree to it. So how can you have a healthy boundary to separate you from yourself? In that light, if you are fully responsible for your reality and you are honest about it, you will simply stop attacking yourself and thus you are safe forever.

Healthy boundaries are a myth. It's the ego's way of trying to say, being completely distinctly separate from each other is HEALTHY. This is totally the opposite of the truth. It may be healthIER than being an ego with violated boundaries, because the ego feels safer when it is in isolation and separation. But it is NOT health.

No boundaries means death to the ego, on the world level, but no boundaries means absolute safety on the level of who you really are.

On the level of the physical world, all objects and forms can never be perfect. This is sobering to recognize. It's actually because of the nature of spacetime.

In order to have space, or locations, it's necessary that something is in one location and NOT another. It's also therefore necessary that any given object LACKS what any other given object has. There is no real sharing, whereby two objects are literally one object. Everything is separated out, exclusive, unique, different and unequal.

This applies throughout this universe. It sets up a scenario where, in terms of a physical object, which includes planets and human bodies and toys and cars and houses and food, it is literally impossible to find perfection.

"It is the world you see that is impossible."

"The world was made that problems could not be solved."

"All its roads lead to death"

So now, as we enter this physical world, seen through false perception of the body's eyes, blinded by sight of form, we now seek to try to find "the perfect thing".

The ego presents objects as options, choices, and then asks you to choose between them. It does not ask whether you believe in the objects existing at all, it simply assumes they do exist and leaves you with the only remaining "choice" of choosing A OR B. This "either or" scenario is built into the whole ego thought system of spacetime. "Do you want to die this way, or that way?"

But the problem is, you are now left with two inferior, partial, temporary, incomplete, unwhole options. Neither of them ca be perfect because they both are lacking something. They both entail compromise. None of them truly mirror any kind of divine nature. They are all flawed.

So now the best you can do is choose between two flawed possibilities, where you know that to choose one you will lack the other. And committing to any of them is not fully possible with full satisfaction or certainty because to choose one is to reject something else, leaving you empty handed.

If you choose object A, you lack what object B has to offer. It drives you nuts trying to settle on what you want. You try to look more closely for signs that one thing is "better" than the other, to judge and evaluate its worth or value, as if its even possible for one of them to BE perfect.

Then after a lot of frustration and fear and uncertainty and lack of commitment and inability to trust, you "settle" for what you think is the lesser of two evils. It seems to be the best choice only because you're willing to accept its limitations and what it cannot offer you, which seems less of a sacrifice than the other choice. And so you "commit", reluctantly and in fear, crossing your fingers that it will be the right one.

The ego is playing this game all the time. It is literally impossible to be 100% satisfied with ANY choice the ego offers, because they are limited and lacking. And it would simply have you choose between two forms of death. And you think that by choosing the better of the two, you will defer death a little longer.

As you look at this, you'll find yourself trying to seek for this "perfection in the world". The perfect choice. The perfect option. The perfect car, perfect house, perfect body, perfect diet, perfect tv show, perfect city, perfect president, perfect whatever. Trying to find that one something that is completely whole and lacking nothing and utterly fulfilling and flawless. And there is NO SUCH THING in this world.

Anywhere.

I stumbled on this many times, particularly in terms of artistic projects and trying to come up with something that was perfect. My mistake was not recognizing the ways in which limitation are inherent to this world. I thought in terms of ideas, that some kind of perfection was POSSIBLE among the physical objects or physical choices or things I could create physically.

This would lead to tremendous frustration and blown-out expectations and procrastination and low self worth and being afraid of the judgement of others when they would find out how flawed and imperfect my creations were, implying my own imperfection. And this would just snowball into a huge amount of avoidance and shame and dysfunction trying to deal with this whole mess of "how will I achieve perfection". And this search for physicalized perfection is the spiritual ego, with its mantra, "seek and do not find."

It is much better to recognize when I am seeming to seek perfection at a FORM level, and to recognize the truth that ALL form is INCAPABLE of perfection. So for example if I am trying to create a piece of art, or some project, I have to realize there are built in limits as to what is possible. It cannot BE perfect, ever.

Limits have to be realistically set, there is only so much time and energy, there are only so many features, there are only so many design decisions, the object cannot ever be some kind of "miracle" that pleases everyone infinitely.

For example maybe I'm writing a book and getting hung up on how this book will "cover everything", how it will "talk to everyone", how it will be everything to all people. And then this becomes paralyzing, because as soon as you try to appease the myriad "forms" the ego presents, such as billions of disagreeing egos, it is now literally impossible to please them.

In any creative endeavor, any form of shopping, any kind of selection process, any decision making about your life or your time or where you will go or what you will do, if it entails the physical level at all it is far more productive and sane to "accept" that there are these limitations on this level. And to then simply work within those limitations, removing the sense of expectation or "wishful thinking" that form CAN BE anything other than it can be.

This means accepting that the world of limits IS fundamentally limited and limiting. And by that I don't mean to just settle for imprisonment, because of course we are meant to rise above these limits, break all the laws of physics, go beyond all boundaries and demonstrate "the impossible is possible." But in terms of the form level, it JUST IS a world of limitation and pretending it isn't really gets us in trouble.

There is one passage in ACIM where it touches on this with regards to why Jesus was not able to "perfectly" save or teach the whole world during his lifetime. The nature of the beast is simply that operating IN TIME AND SPACE, there were limits, and he had to be selective, and there was a plan and a goal and various things to be done and not others.

A physical life cannot truly embody unlimited infinity, nor can divinity be fully expressed at the level of the world. This is a world of partiality and lack and temporary differences, inequalities and flaws. It can never be immortal or perfect or holy or innocent or have eternal life or be whole. It lacks, because it is a picture of lack. We can work with it, or we can break its rules with miracles. But even miracles can't keep death while expressing life.

The world can only do what it can do. It's in its nature. It's a world of limits. It won't ever give you heaven or salvation or the attributes of God's perfection. Through true perception it can be seen as a reflection of God's perfection, but it cannot be it.

"Is he the Christ? O yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of you. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God. And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God."

For many years I have thought that there are kind of 3 states. There is false perception, then true perception, then heaven. And this is kind of true, and some aspects of ACIM support this.

However, what there really is are just two states. Heaven and hell, reality and illusions. Life and death. Knowledge and Perception.When we think about true perception it's easy to think of it as a state in and of itself. But we need to remember we're talking about PERCEIVING. And that means it's much more to do with "looking at" something.

If you ask yourself, what does false perception LOOK AT, it really kind of looks AT itself. Because false perception IS an internalized, isolated, exclusive state, where perception feeds upon itself and is blinded by form. It does not really see anything, and it cannot see reality. It is selfish and self-deceptive. It's like an obsession with itself, a closed perception that does not see.

When you then look at what the course says about true perception, it's much more to do with NOT dwelling on itself. NOT dwelling on the body. Looking BEYOND illusion. Overlooking. Seeing past. And there is a great deal of evidence that it entails an ability to literally SEE reality. To see God, Christ, the Sonship, perfection, etc, which are IN heaven.

The more I look into it the more it makes sense. Perception is about "what you look at" or how you look at it. Yes you have states of mind - for example wrong mindendess (or closed mindedness) produces false perception. While open mindedness or miracle/right mindedness produces true perception. But from these seeming "states" or the states from which perception EMITS, perception itself LOOKS and is a form of vision. So it needs something to look AT. So let's say...

False perception LOOKS AT HELL.

True perception LOOKS AT HEAVEN.

While there seem to be two "states of mind" within dreaming, ie wrong-mindedness and right-mindedness, really when it comes to perception there is either "the inability to see reality' (per the body which cannot really see reality), and the vision of christ which can see christ. "Love looks upon love" etc.

If wrong mindedness CAUSES perceptual blindness and an inability to see PAST the illusions of falseness itself, right mindedness CAUSES vision and an ability to see PAST illusions. The only thing that is BEYOND illusions, is GODS KINGDOM.

This seems to in many cases line up with what the course says and in its wording, as to how "the real world" is a PERCEPTION OF THE KINGDOM. That the innocence can see God. That perception can even see "the real world" (heaven) under the holy spirit's guidance. That you can see the face of christ, who is in heaven. etc.

So again I come back to, false perception being like living in a prison cell inside a room with no windows. And true perception is like living in a glass greenhouse where you can see THROUGH the walls and see the outside environment (heaven). The PERCEPTION OF the real world - the perception OF heaven, using perception TO see, is still an illusion. "The real world still is but a dream"... BUT, it IS a perception ABOUT heaven - reality. And it is so close to true sight that it makes crossing over to reality easy. It's like window-shopping then going inside the store.

I don't really see anything that contradicts this model. In fact I see MORE contradictions in the model that true perception is "cut off from heaven" completely. As though, we're hiding inside a completely dark room the whole time with NO ACCESS whatsoever to reality, and only upon leaving the room AFTER true perception do we experience even a hint of God. This seems to fly in the face of so much of what the course says, about you bringing light to the world, a reflection of heaven on earth, how earth can reflect heaven's light, how the light of heaven can shine into the world, how love of God can shine into the world, etc. Heaven clearly LEAKS INTO the dream realm through its radiance. That's how you be the light of the world.

I am finding that this simpler model of "two states", heaven and hell, or reality and illusions, makes things a lot SIMPLER to deal with. We can just look to "what is true in reality" versus "illusions which are false". Or look to God's laws and the nature of the soul, versus the laws of the world and the nature of the ego. It's a much easier comparison, between opposites.

We can also then see that forgiveness really is about overlooking illusions entirely, looking BEYOND them, and there's nothing beyond them but reality. So forgiveness, ie atonement as acceptance of truth, is really about reaching out to heaven from WITHIN the dream. Sitting in the dream with goggles on, looking out beyond the walls of spacetime, to heaven... which is truly "the real world". A reality.

This also then makes more sense in terms of how the course says that God gave the real world to his son.... if the real world is a state in the middle of two other states, it would imply god created the real world to be a permanent creation, which it cannot be.

The quesiton then becomes much easier to think about. Are you aligning with God, or with ego? With life or with death? With light or darkness? With truth or lies? And as you APPRAOCH total alignment with truth you are still within the realm of perception, up until the end, when you cross over into heaven completely. This is akin to walking towards the transparent walls, then passing through the door into the reality of the kingdom beyond.

It's then not so much to do with trying to aim to enter a state of forgiveness or atonement, but that you want to become ABLE TO SEE REALITY, to see past this world to the Kingdom. This also reveals that "it its impossible to see two worlds" and "beyond this world there is a world I want" ties into wanting the Kingdom, or at least a perception of it, NOT some kind of pretend "in-between" state. An inbetween state has no meaning of its own and is logically unsupported. It means nothing other than to say it LOOKS AT one of two opposites. There is either the Kingdom or not the Kingdom, there is nothing else.

The body is very much the opposite of your reality as an immortal being. Your real self can never be changed, attacked, hurt or destroyed. But the body is defenseless, exposed and vulnerable, capable of destruction and utterly unsafe in a dangerous world.

"God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist."

Having lived your life in a body, you've had to deal with all kinds of vulnerabilities. And this has taught you that you are a target for destruction. Weak, susceptible, fragile, attackable and unsafe. That you can be destroyed and should take great care to avoid all possible threats. Wary of every passing car, frightened of every stranger, upset by the mere presence of something moving.

The body has endured suffering, pain, breakage, malfunction and damage. It has been influenced by the weather and the environment. It has been attacked and hurt, bullied and hit, poked and prodded, maybe even assaulted surgically. Maybe the body has been mutilated, perhaps parts of it are missing, perhaps it is ugly and deformed and lacking, and maybe it was never whole to begin with.

Because of this, and because you believe you are your body, you must have thought this about yourself. You believed you'd lost parts of yourself, that you were under attack, that you have to be constantly vigilant when crossing roads and stepping on cracks and turning corners just in case it is your day to die - hoping to alert you early that you might avoid more suffering. You've put considerable effort into securing your body, making a home for it, protecting it with walls upon walls and layers upon layers, trying to shield it from your enemies.

All of this has told you that you are weak and fragile, vulnerable and attackable, defenseless and exposed. It has caused you to feel frightened and threatened all the time. It has given you constant anxiety and nervousness, constant stress and concern. You never feel fully safe anywhere, you are always on alert and wary of the next biting teeth or hammering nails or sharp pointy objects, trying constantly to avoid the body's death.

"In the brief time allotted it to live, it seeks for other bodies as its friends and enemies. Its safety is its main concern. Its comfort is its guiding rule. It tries to look for pleasure, and avoid the things that would be hurtful."

This can have done nothing but undermine your peace of mind, your sense of safety, your confidence and your happiness. Having to be constantly on the lookout for danger like some kind of animal in dangerous territory. You avoid the places you don't like to go, you avoid the people who bother you, you steer clear of the brand names you don't trust, and you only expose yourself with select few. And you reason that better the devil you know than the ones you don't.

This all comes about by confusing your identity with the body, believing you are a body, that you are body-like or of a physical nature. It comes with the territory. You cannot believe you are a physical body without being afraid of death, because you know the body can die. You cannot believe the body is your self, without being traumatized when you clip your nails or cut your hair. If you are a body, you are literally as susceptible and vulnerable as the body is, even if you take measures to defend yourself or ward off attackers.

It is not possible to believe you are a body and to feel confident. It is not possible to believe you are a body and be sane. It is not possible to believe you are a body and have real relationships with anyone, because the body literally cuts you off from them. It is not possible to believe you are a body and feel a sense of true safety and peace, or happiness and love. "the body CANNOT be used for purposes of union"

The body is separate in a separated world. It stands apart and alone. By the mere fact that it does not share with others, separate by space and time, it is lonely and isolated. Believing you are a body brings with it a fundamental loneliness and sense of exclusion, of conflict and disagreement, and even constant war. Bodies can never be equal because they rely on inequality and difference to make them distinct. And so there is no peace available when bodies are your truth.

Believing you are a body deceives you and sets you up for failure. It guarantees death and sickness and ensures a breakdown in communication. Being a body means putting a death sentence on your head and limiting yourself to a small span of time, riddled with obstacles and difficulties and suffering. If you are a body you cannot be a mind, or an idea, or a thought of God. You are parentless and orphaned and alone.

The body is essentially a blasphemy against God, because it suggests things about you which cannot be true in reality. You are actually an immortal, permanent, absolute, unchangeable, endless being, given eternal life and incapable of ever being hurt in any way. If you believe you are a body, you do not believe in yourself. If you believe you are a body, you are shutting yourself off from who you are in reality, and are guaranteeing suffering.

Your real self is immortal, it cannot be hurt or attacked, it cannot be affected or altered, it is utterly invulnerable, it is impervious and unassailable. It cannot be attacked or threatened, it cannot be hurt or made to be sick, it cannot be poisoned or traumatized, and it cannot die. Your real self is permanently happy, constantly joyful, and utterly at peace. Its peace can never be disturbed because nothing can ever threaten it, just as it is always free from all fear and anxiety because it knows that it is perfectly safe from all harm.

To identify with who you really are as God created you is to escape from the torment of being a body. It is to free you from all potential for suffering, attack, sickness and death. Identifying with your spirit/soul lifts you out of hell and into heaven. It lifts you away from danger and out of harm's way. It gives you real protection and permanent peace. It guarantees you are sinless and guiltless, incapable of being evil, unable to attack or be attacked, harmless and unharmed forever.

Only by not being a body can you be as God created you, because God did not create bodies. Only by not being a body can you laugh in the face of death and overcome the world. It is the body that becomes a target for attack and destruction, and not your real self. Your real self is beyond the world and beyond space and time and beyond the laws of physics. It is not of this world because you were created in another world, in the Kingdom of God, where everything is eternal.

"You can never suffer because the Source of all joy goes with you wherever you go."

Your eternal self can never suffer pain, can never be hurt by another, can never be upset or offended, can have no reason to ever be afraid, can never have its peace disturbed, can never become sick or suffer, can never experience pain, can never malfunction or break down or degrade, can never become old or tired, can never lose anything, and can never die. Surely you would rather identify with your real self and be free from hell forever, than to regard yourself as a lump of flesh and bones stalking the earth like a zombie waiting to finish dying.

Only by associating yourself with the properties of immortality can you be set free from the mortal body and all its limitations. Only by identifying as permanent and unchangeable can you have no grounds for upset. Only by recognizing you can never be changed can you free yourself from the blame and tyranny of other people's actions. Only by knowing yourself as the eternal life God gave you can you utterly disregard anything the world seems to do or cause.

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

"To be without a body is to be in your natural state."

"This is accomplished very simply, as you instruct yourself that you are not a body."

"But I am not a body. What am I?"

"The Christ in you inhabits NOT a body. Yet He IS in you. And thus MUST it be that YOU are not within a body."

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

"But I am not a body. And my mind cannot attack. So I can not be sick."

"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."

I think one of the main reasons people seem to be homophobic, is just because we expect men to be men and women to be women. And if we ourselves are "straight" which largely means squarely or "purely" male or female and not a mix of the two, we project that onto everyone.

I think we become conditioned to think that there are only 100% males and 100% females. Then we project that onto people and expect them to comform to that.

When someone is more of a mix of gender traits, partly male, partly female, in whatever ways, it starts to fall outside of the standard "heteronormative" society model.

This is where a person starts to become offended, because whenever something seems to go outside of our beliefs, it registers to us as false. Whatever we believe or think is the acceptable standard is always regarded as true. When something seems opposite or doesn't fit with our truth, we judge it as false, and that also gets lumped in with negativity, evil, darkness, sin, guilt, perversion, rejection, etc. It's quite a basic mechanism.

So then if some man is partly female, but the model in the viewers mind is that they are supposed to be purely male, the person will seem to be violating the model. That will register as that they're not conforming to the norm, and are doing something they're not supposed to be doing. That registers as sin and violation and offence.

It's interesting that if a man is feminine and doing some things that a straight man would judge as wrong, but if you then ramped up the femininity of that man to the point where he turns into a complete woman, then the straight man suddenly would find no problem with them, because now they are conforming again to the model of strictly separate genders. So it's only the middle-ground where someone isn't entirely fitting into the strict model, that registers as an offence against the model.

This then leads to the viewer becoming offended, feeling violated, attacked, threatened, upset by the hideous creature they they see, which seems to be doing things and acting in ways that are not "normal" to them, or rather, not conforming to their model of what a man or woman is.

The problem really is that there is an expectation and a projection of the idea of what a man or women must be, and the ego especially likes to keep these extremely separated out. That you can be either one or the other, not both. "Not both" is the ego's standard function of "not God", because God's whole system of truth is based on both/and. The opposite of both/and is either/or, which the ego loves to uphold.

And indeed its sense of identity requires a strong contrast between exclusive opposites, in which the males try to keep the females outside of themselves so that they "know who they are" and have a firmer and clearer sense of identification with their gender. Or rather, so that their ego can stand out as being more separate and different, in order to have an identity, because the ego depends on opposition. And if you are not being "man enough" then you somehow are becoming too feminine and are stepping over the line.

If someone seems to fall outside of the projected model, it registers as false, evil, wrong, offensive, upsetting, an attack, violent against their very sense of identity. This does two things - it threatens the clarity of distinguishing who they are, in which they need to keep male and female separate in order to "exist", and secondly it seems to threaten the model of what a man or woman is.

This perceived violation is then interpreted as that the stranger is actually breaking rules, attacking their truth, going outside the bounds of what is acceptable into territory of "perversion", is seen as unnatural, vile and disgusting, can't be tolerated, and is seen as actually a direct attack upon the viewer and everything they stand for and are. Indeed if the person IS really purely a man AND then proceeds to act like a women, that would be register as an actual perversion.

Having perceived that the not-quite-straight person is threatening them and offending their ways, this then produces the perception of justified anger, because they feel actually literally under attack by the non-conforming person, as if that person will infect them, change them, influence them, invade their integrity, remind them of the fragility of their masculine identity, invade their boundaries, and do things to them which persons of a given gender are not supposed to be doing.

This can take on ridiculous forms such as fearing that the queer person will turn the kids gay just by living nearby, or radiate gay rainbow vibes into their minds, or have ultra evil sexual powers of lust after their treasured ones such that they'll be taken into a cult and subjected to satanic abuses, or that the queer person is simply am abomination against their God and breaking all the laws of heaven in a state of sin and madness.

So then they project hate and rejection onto the queer person, which they see as completely justified, because they've perceived that the queer person has attacked them first just by existing, and now this evil spectre must be destroyed in order to protect oneself. Which means the homophobia is seen as a justified and needed act of self-preservation based on fear. This is where the "phobia" part comes in, because the anger and abuse literally stems from a perceived fear, that something outside of what is acceptable is threatening to undermine their truth. Not just their truth, but their whole sense of identity and reality.

Because if a man can be partly not a man, and a woman can be partly not a woman, then that brings into question what is a man or woman, how are they defined, and how to distinguish a sense of self in the midsts of the seemingly "vague and muddy" mixture of gender and identity.

The ego would like things to be clear-cut, but the queer person is presenting a picture of something not so clear-cut, something which appears to be crossing over boundaries, "gender bending", breaking the ego rules of either-this-or-that, and corrupting the whole model of "man and woman produce male or female kids only." And now queerness is a boundary-violating attack upon families and marriage and religious institutions. And all this is is a concern for what happens when something transcends the rigid boxes that everyone wants to live in.

Really all of these reactions, which are just ego projections of a rigid model of identity, are only happening because the viewer lacks discernment and sees things in a very black-and-white exclusive and special way. They are not recognizing something, which is always the failing of the ego mindset. By not recognizing that the person is not JUST male or JUST female, and that people actually can be "not entirely one thing", there is no account made for people who seem to blend across the boundaries. And then "non-binary" is seen as the ultimate sin and rejection of all that is good and proper in the human race.

If they would open their minds from the closed-off either/or mindset of male/female strictness, which is closed-mindedness and a lack of spirituality, they would consider that some people (in body terms) are not purely male or purely famale, and that such people are completely acceptable and part of "nature".

If the viewer would then stop trying to force the person to be eieither man or woman, they wouldn't actually produce all the distorted reactions - which they do to themselves - that arise from trying to fit something into a box that it doesn't belong in. It's only because of the projecting of the "I know what a man is!" that a person requires someone else to conform to that.

There has to be an opening up to a greater repertoir of how many different types of human bodies there are, just as we have to open up to accept people from other countries and enthicities without judgement. And to then drop the expectation and conditioning that says you have to be one of only two things, and you must never be a mixture in any way. It's only those strict rules that give rise to a sense of the rules being violated, which then leads to the fear of invasion and the discomfort of being "pursued by a gay rapist", which then leads to the angry projections of guilt, which becomes homophobic abuse - all an attempt to maintain the ego.

If we could better recognize what people ARE, rather than what we think they SHOULD BE, we'll be better able to accomodate everyone and stop trying to force people to conform to a rigid tight little structure. The problem is really that egos are JUDEGMENTAL, and this judgement is always flawed and narrow and wrong.

Homophobia is actually just an expression of the regular ego doing its regular ego thing, just in the same way as any other conditioned belief which results in a sense of being offended by anyone or anything that outside of that belief - be it someone of another religion, another race, another gender, another color, size, hairstyle, whatever.

The fact is that the world is not black and white, it is not purely either/or, it quite often happens - though to less of a percentage usually - that there are exceptions to rules. Flowers that sometimes grow double heads, creatures which sometimes are half female and half male, humans that sometimes have a mix of sex-oriented organs, people with darker skin who become albino, people that are sometimes born as siamese conjined twins instead of separate bodies, etc.... nature isn't completely strict in its forms.

People only have prejudice against various aspects of the physical world when they think it's supposed to be a very very basic black-and-white model, where you have to be 100% this or 100% that. And as the mind believes strongly in separation the egotism emphasizes this contrast and exepcts everything to conform to it. And anything that deosn't is labeled as a sin. That's standard ego functioning, nothing special. It's unforgiveness. It's based on the belief that the world is absolutely real, and therefore separation is truth.

To be more forgiving we have to be willing to really look at what things are, not what we wish they would be, or what category they're supposed to fall into, or to judge them based on appearances while trying to fit them into neat little boxes. Some people are such a mix of things that you'd have a hard time even describing them accurately. In the past society was much more recognizing of the fact that everyone is to some degree bisexual, which is still true, even if people try to deny it.

Long story short, society needs to become more forgiving and learn that the human race isn't composed of pure men and pure women, but rather than absolutely everyone is at least to some degree partly both. All human embrios start out as female and even the males still have some trace of that in them. This is a world of relativity, in which nothing is absolute and nothing is extremely pure and nothing is completely separate. There is no real man or real woman. We are ALL hybrids, and everyone is queer. That's not wishful thinking etiher, that's the nature of spacetime.

In ACIM, Jesus spells out that forgiveness and atonement are the same thing, and so is true perception. These are all a state in which there is recognition, accurate perception, and a forgiving attitude which sees that there is no sin. Or moreso, it is the acknowledgment and re-acceptance of God's truth and the willingness to accept your permanent innocence, as you are in the Kingdom.

"For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to oneness far beyond themselves. True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees."

You can see that Jesus mingles these terms interchangeably. For example, here Jesus mixes forgiveness with true perception as a way of looking:

"Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not."

"But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals."

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

And here he mixes true perception and atonement, also indicating that a forgiving attitude produces atonement, which means it also produces true perception:

"It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. The means of the Atonement is forgiveness."

And here he tells us that complete forgiveness, aka true perception, is a state in which you have let guilt go, and have accepted atonement.

"If what you offer IS complete forgiveness, you MUST have LET GUILT GO, accepting the Atonement for yourself, and learning you ARE guiltless."

And here he refers to atonement as the undoing of errors, which is accomplished by forgiveness, which is ITSELF the state of atonement and true perception.

"The sole responsibility of God's teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself. Atonement means correction, or the undoing of errors."

Also how about this:

"Healing and Atonement are not related; they are identical."

"there are no degrees of Atonement. It is the one complete concept possible in this world, because it is the source of a wholly unified perception."

"Accept Atonement and you are healed. Atonement is the Word of God."

"The offer of Atonement is universal. It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances. And in it is the power to heal all individuals of all forms of sickness."

Here is something to consider which might be controversial. Jesus refers to forgiveness as a means of accomplishing atonement, but also as completely synonymous with the atonement itself. Because complete forgiveness is the atonement is the state you enter with true perception. Which means, by implication, that any state prior to acceptance of atonement is NOT forgiveness.

There is a very widely prevalent myth therefore in the ACIM community that we are to "do forgiveness" in order to reach atonement. But atonement IS forgiveness. So what are we to call that which leads UP TO it? Perhaps a better term which Jesus uses is "purification"

"Miracles are everyone's right (miracle mindedness is also the same thing as atonement and true perception), but purification is necessary first."

Now, we need to look at something a bit deeper. The main pivotal cornerstone of the ego's thought system is SIN. Sin can go one of two ways. If you take sin to be real, forgiveness is not justified, and so you become UNforgiving. Sin becomes a condemnation and attack, and you move into guilt.

But when you go the other way, if you take sin and recognize its unreality, untruth, and non-existence, THAT will put you into the state of forgiveness. And in effect, that means this recognition of "there is no sin" IS the atonement, and IS the basis for true perception or corrected perception. It is a forgiving way of seeing (Christ Vision).

This all "hinges" around sin. Don't forgive it and you move into guilt. Forgive it and you move into the recognition of innocence which is true forgiveness.

"From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away."

But let's take it even further.

There are two thought systems. One is the thought system of God which is Heaven and the Kingdom. Reality is run by this thought system because this is where God actually DOES His thinking, and all creative thought OCCURS there. Thats where the thought system IS.

Then, in contrast, the ego thought system, which opposes God's thought system, can be said to be LOCATED on this side of the idea of separation and sin. On this side, where sin is real, the entire contents of being on this side of the fence is unforgiving.

So what Jesus is asking us to do, really, is to take our mind out of the ENTIRE realm of unforgiveness, ie the entire ego thought system, and put it BACK into the Kingdom. Which means crossing over from the thought system of ego to the thought system of God.

What this means is that the Atonement and the acceptance of it, is an acceptance that God's system of thought is true and real, and it's a way of really regaining access to the Mind of God, to the Kingdom, and to your innocent holy self which resides on the OTHER side of the separation divide. Essentially, in another world.

So when we get into the state of forgiveness, in which there is nothing to forgive because sin is recognized as not existing, and thus no sin is perceived as true, it really means we're re-accessing heaven.

To accept atonement is the ONLY cure and the ONLY way to TRULY undo something. "Only atonement can be said to cure", meaning that only in the moment that you accept the truth about you that is IN HEAVEN, does your mind completely change and is cured and healed of its false beliefs.

Accepting atonement on any particular issue should entail you flipping over from the ego thought system to God's thought system. Going from sin and guilt, to innocence. Going from not accepting God's love, to accepting it.

There are actually some statements Jesus makes where he is saying that you do not REALLY change your mind, UNTIL you switch to the holy thought system. Which means getting out of the ego system ENTIRELY and putting your mind back into reality.

"To "change your mind" means to place it at the disposal of True authority. The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has elected to be guided by Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow him."

"the power of your simple change of mind: I loose the world from all I thought it was, And choose my own reality instead."

"The tiny change of mind by which the crucifixion is changed to Resurrection. And, being true, it is so simple that it cannot fail to be completely understood."

"Your hand becomes the giver of Christ's touch; your change of mind becomes the proof that who accepts God's gifts can never suffer anything."

"And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want."

Only choosing between TRUTH and ILLUSIONS, is your only choice, which is a choice BETWEEN thought systems, and therefore BETWEEN WORLDS. Either you will accept yourself as you are innocent in Heaven, or will accept yourself as sinful within the ego realm.

"Knowledge cannot dawn on a mind full of illusions, because truth and illusions are irreconcilable. Truth is whole, and CANNOT be known by PART of a mind."

While atonement and thus forgiveness and true perception might well be "illusions" within this world, outside the Kingdom, they are reflections of the Kingdom, and thus reflections of the truth about you IN the Kingdom. Accepting atonement is accepting that you are still as God created you, as you are in the Kingdom.

But Jesus clearly tells us that the FULL acceptance of Atonement SHOULD take you INTO HEAVEN. Whereby even true perception ends.

"Since perception rests on lack, those who perceive have not totally accepted the Atonement and given over themselves to truth. Perception IS a separated state, and the perceiver DOES need healing. Communion, not prayer, is the natural state of those who know. God and HIS miracles (you) are inseparable."

So when thinking of forgiveness, and doing forgiveness, or applying the course, we need to realize that if we DON'T get all the way to the atonement principle on some issue, we HAVE NOT really fully forgiven it. If we still believe that something happened or that sin was real, we are not IN a forgiving state of mind. In order to DO a forgiveness, successfully, essentially REQUIRES that you accept atonement - to accept the truth of your total ongoing innocence, and the complete recognition that there HAS NOT BEEN anything that needs forgiving.

While it seems there is something to forgive, and we think we're doing forgiveness, we actually are NOT doing forgiveness. What we're doing is preparing to enter a state of forgiveness. And that is purification work. But if we do that work, and we don't take it all the way to "nothing happened", "everyone is still innocent as God created us to be", "there is no sin", "sin is not real" etc... then we haven't really gone FAR enough in our change of mind, and are still really WITHIN the ego though system.

That means we've fallen short and the forgiveness is not complete, because we have not moved OVER to hooking our mind up with God, in service to Christ. Remember that mind in the service of Spirit/soul is its natural state, while when mind "goes rogue" and becomes its own tyrannical ruler, it is now in a separated state. To return to forgiveness and accept atonement is to actually put your mind back under the Authority of the Soul, which requires ACCEPTING THE INNOCENT SOUL AS YOUR TRUE SELF.

Only atonement can be said to cure, so we must be willing to go ALL THE WAY to the atonement truth and the acceptance of it, which opens you up to allow yourself to be loved by God, and to RECEIVE A MIRACLE, which you can then extend to others. Short of this, forgiveness is incomplete and atonement is still being avoided. And therefore it is not a complete cure. To truly forgive is to CURE, completely and totally and forever. Acceptance of your permanent innocence and worthiness is the only acceptable goal.

"The real world still is but a dream." - section 7 of Chapter 29, section 4 of ACIM.

The real world is what it means to still be IN the world, perceiving with Holy Spirit, recognizing the presence of the *reflection* of truth/God/love, still SEEING earth and the body, but seeing it completely accurately for what it IS.

In this state we are still perceiving, and yet our mind has entered a state of peace where we see peace "in" everything regardless of what happens here. And nasty bad things still happen here, but we see with such forgiveness that we know they are not true, nothing real can be hurt, and nothing is really happening.

It is in a way, a transcendence of a layer of illusions that was covering the Earth, causing you to "not see" the light of truth. Now you see both the Earth and also even more subtly a "container" of peacefulness and certainty. It is like standing on the outer edges of a scene, and looking in on it from a perspective of safety, even while the scene contains wars still raging, people being born into limiting bodies, suffering and dying.

In this "true perception", you are sort of seeing the background fabric of the physical universe. As though there is but at thin veil in between this universe and God, such that God’s light is starting to shine through from the other side.

In perception of the real world, there is an underlying awareness of unity and harmony and peace and gratitude behind everything. When the course speaks of "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind", this is the "level" of perceiving the "real world". We see God seemingly "in" everything, surrounding everything, but it is ONLY a reflection of God.

The mind is still *perceiving* and you’ve reached the absolute upper limit of what perception is capable of showing. It’s like getting a glimpse of heaven from across a bridge. You are still not in heaven, but it seems so close you can almost touch it. You will at this point still be able to walk around the earth and see people and do stuff, but you will also be seeing an interconnecting unity underlying all things, which will indeed seem beautiful.

You looking AT this underlying unity which cradles everything else (all forms etc) "within it", is the "real world" that you will be looking at. You will be fixated on the UNITY, not on the forms.

What this unity will show you, as a *reflection* of truth, is the way in which all of the physical forms within this perception are ILLUSIONS. It will be a perfectly clear RECOGNITION, an ability to see correctly, that everything in this "real world" is only what it IS, not what you would try to make of it as an additional layer of interpretation.

You will RECOGNIZE that bodies are illusions, that mountains and oceans are illusions, that death is an illusion, that birth is an illusion, that nothing is really happening here, and that all of the FORMS - the physical matter of planet earth - are NOT REAL. The "Reality" you’re seeing in the real world itself, the underlying fabric of the physical content, the "container" of all this, will contrast so strongly and clearly in showing you that all of the "phenomena" that is showing up, IS A DREAM and isn’t really happening.

So that means, the underlying truth that you’re seeing BEHIND matter, is a reflection of reality, and it is showing you that the matter ITSELF, seen in its proper context, is NOT reality.

This means the physical planet earth is part of the phenomena that’s showing up as an ILLUSION. It means the physical planet earth is essentially ON TOP OF or INSIDE OF the real world, but it is NOT the part of the real world that is showing you reality. It is a projected image, a dream, a layer, and that layer is NOT what is going to be "translated into heaven".

The layer of physical forms, bodies, earth itself, this physical universe, is NOT what is going to be translated into heaven. And you will know this, because you will be RECOGNIZING clearly that the earth is just an illusion, the "real world" is a SYMBOL of or reflection of truth that TRANSCENDS the illusion of physical matter, and ONLY the reflection of truth is the actual "real world".

And yet, it is not real, because as Jesus confirms, "the real world is still but a dream." And dreams do not exist. And they are not happening. And they are nowhere. And they have no real content. And they do not last. They are ILLUSIONS. And when illusions are recognized, they *disappear* because to overlook an illusion (forgiveness) brings about the recognition that what you thought was there (an illusion) IS NOT THERE.

When God then takes the last step by scooping you up and taking you HOME - meaning that you were NOT experiencing being at home while in the "Real world", the "reflection of heaven" that you saw in the real world (correct perception) is TRANSLATED into heaven, NOT the physical forms and objects and ILLUSIONS which includes planet earth. IT will not get translated into heaven. It will have ALREADY BEEN RECOGNIZED AS NOT BEING REAL, not existing, and having nothing to do with truth. Earth will have been recognized as a DREAM that does not exist. It will NOT be coming along forthe ride.

All the universe along with planets and stars will DISAPPEAR in light. Or lets put that more simply. It will all DISAPPEAR, full. Stop. Not because it has "become light" but because it was NEVER THERE to begin with. This is the meaning of "there is NO WORLD". None. Zip. There IS no earth TO translate. But the "real world" (true perception) IS translated into heaven, ie the mind is taken from a state of "perceiving correctly and recognizing there is no world", to TOTAL AWARENESS OF HEAVEN.

Quotes:

"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made. Your world is seen through eyes of fear, and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind. The real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness blesses, so they see a world where terror is impossible, and witnesses to fear can not be found. W-pII.8.1:1-4"

Comment: If the real world cannot be perceived except through forgiving eyes, then when you see the form of planet earth, you are NOT seeing the real world. Therefore, logically, the form of planet earth is NOT part of the real world. It is an illusion HIDING the real world.

Quote:

"The real world holds a counterpart for each unhappy thought reflected in your world; a sure correction for the sights of fear and sounds of battle which your world contains. The real world shows a world seen differently, through quiet eyes and with a mind at peace. Nothing but rest is there. There are no cries of pain and sorrow heard, for nothing there remains outside forgiveness. And the sights are gentle. Only happy sights and sounds can reach the mind that has forgiven itself. W-pII.8.2:1-6"

Comment: Just because the real world lets you SEE in a happy way, it does not stop you seeing "battles". It simply lets you see that nothing is really being hurt, because nothing is really happening. Literally you won’t be able to see sickness AS sickness, or death AS death. You will see a kind of unity which spans all of these things and reframed them in a different light. It will show you the "movie reel" of the movie that is playing out, so that you know it isn’t true or real. Objects and bodie will not seem separate. There will be a sense of oneness. But you will STILL not be 100% one with God because you are still perceiving. Perception is a state of consciousness, not a state of awareness.

Quote:

"What need has such a mind for thoughts of death, attack and murder? What can it perceive surrounding it but safety, love and joy? What is there it would choose to be condemned, and what is there that it would judge against? The world it sees arises from a mind at peace within itself. No danger lurks in anything it sees, for it is kind, and only kindness does it look upon. W-pII.8.3:1-5"

Comment: Notice that it says that SURROUNDING murder and death you will see a sense of safety, love and joy. The death is still going to be seeming to play out, but it will be framed in such a way that you will not be upset by it. It will seem like nothing. Bodies will grow and die and you will keep smiling, knowing that it is NOT PROOF that the Son of God can be killed. Seeing this is seeing "the real world", but it is NOT seeing heaven directly.

Quote:

"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love; the certain promise that he is redeemed. The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless. W-pII.8.4:1-3"

Comment: At the real world, you will be effectively "fully awake INSIDE the dream". Seeing a reflection of love is a sign of the promise of what lies ahead, it IS only a reflection. Full-on God Oness/permanent eternity CANNOT be experienced inside of perception. You are simply getting ready to go to heaven, and the sights you see now are a very small step away, as small as they can be, from Heaven’s true state.

Quote:

"The Holy Spirit has no need of time when it has served His purpose. Now He waits but that one instant more for God to take His final step, and time has disappeared, taking perception with it as it goes, and leaving but the truth to be itself. That instant is our goal, for it contains the memory of God. And as we look upon a world forgiven, it is He Who calls to us and comes to take us home, reminding us of our Identity which our forgiveness has restored to us. W-pII.8.5:1-4"

Comment: Once you see the "real world", aka, "the world as it actually is without denial or attack", which is still not reality, where "real world" simply means "an undistorted perception of an illusion" - real in comparison to false perception - you will have NO FURTHER USE for it. You have learned everything thre is to learn. You have seen that this world is an illusion, that God did not create. You will recognize that forms are not real.

God now takes the final step to take you OUT of perception and into awareness. OUT of this universe and into HEAVEN. True Reality!

Time has disappeared, space has disappeared, all of the planets and stars have disappeared in light. The "fusing together" of all parts of the illusory universe, as "one content", gives way to such a presence of God, that it shines away absolutely all forms and images. All bodies. Planet earth. All disappears completely. Like being dissolved in water. No trace left.

The final step "takes perception with it as it goes, leaving but the truth to be itself". Ie, everything perceived disappears, including earth, only what is LEFT is the truth. Everything that was covering up the truth does not exist any more. Earth is not turned into heaven or kept in form or made into reality. It has been SWEPT AWAY. It was a BLOCK to awareness, a world made by those mad with guilt, a delusion, and it is now UNDONE.

What is left, after that, is simply, the same thing, that was there, BEFORE separation took place.

What is left, MUST be the same, as what was there BEFORE we dreamed of worlds like the earth.

What is left, can only be, the EXACT SAME heavenly state, that was present and created eternally, which has not been affected in any way, which contains no planet earth, which has no illusions in it, and no forms.

It does not scoop up the earth and merge it into itself. THERE IS NO WORLD. There was no world in heaven before you separated, and there will be no world in heaven when the separation is collapsed. Heaven is a CONSTANT STATE. It will not be blended with earth.

Where there seemed to be "two" states, as in "the two become one", LOVE HAS NO OPPOSITE, and therefore the two become one BY GETTING RID OF THE SECOND STATE which NEVER EXISTED. In other words, separation is undone, and the CONTENT of separation was a one-sided viewpoint which made the earth. Separation is not two sided, heaven is not on one side of it and earth on another. The side of earth is the ONLY side which believes there are two sides! Love has no opposite, so heaven has no opposite, so there IS NO WORLD *TO* translate into heaven.

The entire physical universe is going to disappear in light. Light is going to SHINE IT AWAY. There will not BE a physical universe. And this is simply because, THERE IS NO PHYSICAL UNIVERSE OR PLANET EARTH RIGHT NOW! It’s all an illusion!!!!!! There is nothing TO merge with heaven, because the world (earth) is not real.

"There is no life outside of heaven." (EARTH IS NOT LIFE)

"Heaven is an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within" (NO EARTH, NO WORLD)

"The new perspective you will gain from crossing over will be the understanding of where Heaven is. From this side, it seems to be outside and across the bridge. (NOT IN THE EARTH) Yet as you cross to join it, it will join with you and become one with you. And you will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this you gave up nothing! (EARTH IS NOTHING) The joy of Heaven, which has no limit, is increased with each light that returns to take its rightful place within it. Wait no longer, for the Love of God and you. And may the holy instant speed you on the way, as it will surely do if you but let it come to you."

"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. Whenever you are with anyone ELSE, you have another opportunity to find them. Your power and glory are in HIM BECAUSE they are yours. The ego tries to find them in YOURSELF, because he does not know where to look. But the Holy Spirit teaches you that if you look only at yourself you CANNOT find yourself because that is NOT what you are."

Each of us has an identity. God gave us an identity in and as part of Christ or the Sonship, which we share. But in the separation from God, we denied who we were and sought an identity that wasn't shared. That meant denying our mutual identity, placing us in a state of not being certain of who we are. Another way of saying that is that we became afraid of who we are.

Then we started trying to make an identity that would replace the identity we lost. We were out of touch with reality. So we started trying to assemble an identity from various illusions, and from things which are not really who or what we are. In particular we tried to identify with something isolated and alone, that you could call "only yours", rather than sharing an identity with others.

This included identifying with our bodies, believing that our body is our self. To do this our mind has to literally "attach" itself to "mix itself with" the body, trying to become "one" with it. As if to blur the lines between what is the body and what is our self. So that there is only one seeming self, not two. By trying to identify with a body, we're trying to hide our real identity and forget it, so that all that remains is the body self.

If I bind my definition of who and what I am, or what is true of me, to the body, then I am saying I AM a body. And then everything about the body I take personally as if it speaks of and defines me. Maybe I'll feel positive about my body for various reasons, due to how it looks or what it is capable of. Or maybe I'll feel negative about it based on it being ugly or defective. But both are still identifications with the body.

We can also shift to identifying with the mind, or with thoughts. When we have thoughts we can get a sense of an artificial sense of self, mixed in with the thinking. The mind can chatter away with its noise and the more it talks the more you mistake the talking for the person doing the talking. As if the sound of thought is the presence of someone. As if the thoughts are a self. And now you've identified with thinking, perhaps with intelligence or intellect, with memory or accumulation of knowledge.

You can also identify with social standing, your social background, class, race, gender, how much money you have, where your family seems to rank in terms of some social hierarchy, whether you are upper-class or lower, living in wealth or in poverty etc. You can also identify with failing to have much of a worthwhile identity in any of these areas, perhaps with a poor body and poor finances and poor living conditions, seeing yourself as identified as a helpless victim.

I think we can also identify with objects, with animals and pets, with places, with homes and cars etc. We can identify with our children, and literally feel as though what happens to them happens to us. As though they are a part of us, to such an extent that when they suffer we suffer, or we take everything that happens to them as a personal attack. This can lead to the identity of being a father or mother, someone who wants to keep that identity and not let it go, and who cannot deal with the empty nest.

These are all confused senses of who and what you are. And we're all looking for ourselves because think we lost ourselves. We sense that we are uncertain, thus afraid, of who and what we really are - or don't want to know. We don't remember our identity. It's like we have an amnesia. Whether it be an amnesia imposed by birth through crossing the barrier of dimensions and entering a body prison, or the illusion that every time you're born you start from scratch to build an identity.

"Each man makes one ego for himself, although it is subject to enormous variation because of its instability, and one for everyone he perceives, which is equally variable." "The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in the minds of man that some people have gone so far as to doubt whether they were ever created at all."

So the big question really is, who are you? What are you? Are you the son of God as He created you? Or have you become something else? Do you want to be something else? Are you a body? Are you a relationship, or a child that you possess, or an object you own? Are you a social status or a financial position? Are you your job, or your role as a parent? Are you made of the guilt and fear and sin that you feel? Are you your thoughts and your thinking? Are you the intellect? Are you awareness? Do you have a soul?

Finding out who you really are, knowing yourself, is what Jesus says is the entire point of this course. It's about remembering and waking up to the recognition that you are still exactly the same identity that God created you to be forever. You are still Christ, you are still a soul, still part of the sonship, still perfect. Still a spiritual being. And your real identity is shared with all the other Sons of God.

So our whole process here is just sorting out, what are we experiencing as being our identity, who or what have we identified with or latched onto, what is it that we think is our self, and where have we put that? What have we tried to become "one with", other than God? What have we wrapped ourselves around in trying to portray ourselves as something God did not create?

If I think I am my body or my thoughts and have actually bound myself to them such that I seem to experience them "as me", then I am in need of correction. I am out of touch with who I really am and am believing I am something I am not. This means I lack awareness or awakening, or am unconscious. These mis-identifiations with things we are not, are blocks to awareness.

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

"Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching. 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. "

"The ego IS therefore a confusion in identification, which never had a consistent model, and never developed consistently."

"By accepting the Atonement for YOURSELF, you are deciding AGAINST the belief that you can BE alone, thus dispelling the idea of separation and affirming your true identification with the whole Kingdom as literally PART OF YOU. This identification is as beyond doubt as it is beyond belief. Your wholeness HAS no limits, because its being is in Infinity."

"EVERYTHING you perceive as the outside world, is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification, for everyone believes that identification is salvation."

"They are reflections both of your own proper identification WITH your brothers, and of your own awareness that YOUR identification IS maintained by extension."

"The IDEA of separation PRODUCED the body, and remains connected TO it, MAKING it sick because of its identification WITH it."

"This false identification makes you incapable of understanding what anything is for."

"When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father. Your identification IS with the Father and with the Son. It CANNOT be with one and not the other. If you are part of one, you MUST be part of the other because they ARE One."

"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 us must be."

"As long as your identification vacillates, (and B's is weak) you cannot accept the gift that belongs to you."

"Your identification with the Kingdom is totally beyond question except by you WHEN YOU ARE THINKING INSANELY."

"ALL attack is self attack. It cannot BE anything else. Arising from your OWN decision NOT to be what you ARE, IT IS AN ATTACK ON YOUR IDENTIFICATION. "

"Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by honoring his Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm Soul-identification. By perceiving the Spirit, they adjust the levels and see them in proper alignment. This places the Spirit at the center, where Souls can communicate directly."

"This is not my name alone, for ours is a shared identification. "

"The body is the ego's home by its own election. It is the only identification with which it feels safe, because the body's vulnerability is its own best argument that you CANNOT be of God."

"For example, if the identification is with the body, consciousness may distort superconscious impulses by denying their Source, and seeking their impact in the orgasm."