The purpose of sickness is to make you and the body seem to be "one".

The ultimate goal of sickness, which is "death", is the attempt to fully unite who you really are with the body, so that when the body is destroyed, it is claimed that "you" are destroyed.

The whole point of this happening is our attempt to destroy the Son of God - Christ, by associating His identity with something which CAN appear to be attacked, like tying a metal ball to His ankle and throwing Him in the ocean.

Sickness therefore is the way that we attempt to destroy ourselves, to try to prove that we are not God's Son. The closer that we can get to achieving this, the more it would seem we have become "the ego" - a fully separate self, which is symbolized by the BODY. If we are the body, and if the body is destroyed, then we would seem to be destroyed along with it. This is the illusion of death.

Forms of sickness vary, but pain in particular is a good example. Pain screams for your attention, day and night. It blasts your awareness with such a loud signal in the body that all of your waking moments are consumed with it. It is a particularly effective way to associate you with the body, because it leaves very little room for ignoring it.

Similarly, other "severe" diseases and so-called accidents can produce such intense long-term suffering such that the body is thoroughly identified with, and believed to be the Self. When the body is challenging you constantly with reminders about how sick you are, how disabled you are, how suffering you are, and how much pain you are in on many levels, it acts as a device for shutting out God. And it can lead to hopelessness, and eventually to death.

In the ego's glorious moment of triumph, it *seems* to achieve the death of the Son of God, through destruction of the body. The body can ONLY be destroyed IF the Son of God has fully granted permission for this to occur, i.e. has done it to Himself, and therefore has chosen to die. (Or at least to seem to, because He is immortal.)

Sickness then is only there as a way to bind you to the body, so that you will seem to be pulled away from God. God is the truth, and sickness puts distance between you and God. Therefore, "sickness is a defense against the truth" because it seems to allow you to escape "into" the body, in effort to find a way to move closer to death, because death is seen as the opposite of Life. Life is God, so death is an escape from God.

If the only purpose of sickness, in defense against truth, is to SEPARATE YOU from God through intimacy with the body, then the HEALING of sickness MUST entail a movement TOWARDS God and away from "body reality". The person must dis-identify from the body, and recognize that they are not physical.

Another way to express this, is that you must realize that the truth of who and what you are is not "form". The only way this can be true, is IF form itself is NOT truth. While the body and its experiences remain true or real to you, you will believe that YOU are those truths. That you are physical and that you can be hurt.

Withdrawal of "reality" from the body, and therefore from all form, is the path to healing sickness and death. In other words, withdrawing a sense of truth from what is actually an ILLUSION, and placing that sense of truth back where it belongs, aligned with the REAL TRUTH which is of God.

If you believe that the body is ever "really sick", or that what you're witnessing is a "real sickness", or that something is "really happening" to you or others, as evidenced by all of the signs and sensations of suffering, then you will be stuck. You must shift your perception to recognize that what you're SEEING is actually an ILLUSION OF SICKNESS. It is not real sickness, because there is no such thing.

What you're seeing, what you're experiencing, as sickness, is actually just an ILLUSORY IMAGE which is PRETENDING to be sickness. It is not really there. It is not really happening. No matter how it appears, no matter the severity or mildness, no matter the form or how long it's been present, it cannot be reality. Otherwise YOU will become the sickness, and the body, and you will die.

Either God's truth is the truth, or the ILLUSION is the truth.

Either God's truth is real, or sickness is real.

Either God's truth is the only truth, or the body has truth to it.

God did not create the body because the body is not real.

Learn then that when you perceive sickness, IF there is a measure of reality to your experience of what you're perceiving, you are MISTAKEN, and you are actually seeing an illusion, but are thinking that it is reality. You have GIVEN truth to it "I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me". Because you GAVE it truth, you can withdraw the truth from it. To do this you have to PLACE the truth somewhere else, and recognize where it really is. Shift the truth to be God's truth, and the truth will be removed from the sickness.

The truth is true and nothing else is true. The body is not the truth. Sickness is not the truth.

Work on this until you can literally look at the sickness and NOT BELIEVE IT. Recognize it is an ILLUSION. It's like a three-dimensional fake hologram being projected by a Spirit that is floating around in space pretending to be physical. It is not a REAL sickness, it is make-believe!

When you can look at sickness as NOT REAL, you will find yourself feeling HAPPY. You will be happy because you are not making errors, you are being forgiving, you are not falling for the illusion (it's a mind trick!), and you're not buying into it. You will find yourself smiling as you affirm and see "this is not real".

Recognizing that illusions are not real, lifts FEAR from you, because fear is a reaction to perceiving a real illusion. You could only be afraid IF what you see is really happening and IF what you see was not designed by God. Only real illusions can frighten! If illusions are NOT real, they cannot frighten. But you must BELIEVE that they are not reality. You're seeing something that isn't really there, it isn't really happening, and it is quite literally.... NOTHING.

Sickness is nothing. Death is nothing.

This "collapsing" of the illusion, this stripping it of its illusory reality, this taking away of belief in it, this withdrawing of the conviction that it is true and therefore suffering with reactions, is all part of forgiveness. Overlooking the error. Overlooking sin. Overlooking an illusion that you always thought was reality, but is in fact smoke and mirrors.

Your body's eyes will show you sickness. But your MIND's EYE will show you the truth - that the sickness is an illusion. The mind then is shining a light of truth - God's truth - and this has POWER to disperse and undo and correct what appears to be the sickness. IT MUST GO! Jesus has said, "illusions that are understood to BE illusions MUST disappear".

When someone is upset, it isn't real.

When someone is sick and suffering terribly, it isn't real.

When war is happening, it isn't real.

When someone is dying, it isn't real.

If this stuff were real, we would HAVE to be very upset! We would have an extremely hard time not being upset by this, because our mind is actually convinced that it's reality and will react to it with fear and suffering.

But imagine that these things are NOT real? This is just a dream, an illusion. You could see these things and NOT BELIEVE THEM, and LAUGH!!!!!!!!!

Too radical? Too ridiculously crazily outside the box of normal thinking? Too wild to be true?

This world is not your home.

Jesus clearly refers to the physical body dying. He remarks about how the physical worms eat the physical body. Which is indeed true. Go dig up a freshly buried corpse and look at the worms. Just as the body is destructible and can be destroyed, so too are the worms destructible and can be destroyed. What do you suppose the worms would eat if this world was heaven and there was no destruction and no way to take anything away from anything?

The worms wouldn't even eat, because eating is part of the devouring aspect of destruction. And human bodies wouldn't eat or digest either because all that means is they harvest chunks of the world and kill them off and destroy them and shit them out.

"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 to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life." God is insane, and fear alone is real."

When people suggest that planet Earth is God's creation and is real, it sets off my immediate bullshit alarms. There is absolutely no two ways about it, and no way to twist it around. We could say, well, the world is totally neutral, it doesn't have any meaning, so if an animal seems to die and we strip away all meaning, we could say that's totally neutral and means nothing and its not really death and its not really life. We could smile on it and love it and be joyful even as it happens and clap our hands as human bodies are mowed down my machine guns and bombs which we celebrate along with God as the children are savagely killed.

We could celebrate happily as the bodies are blown up. And if the bodies were real, that would indeed be quite insane. Who would be able to feel joyful about people's bodies getting killed off if the bodies are really people and the world is real? If the world is real all those victims are horribly mistreated and destroyed against their will and it is all terribly upsetting. There is NO WAY to be happy about that, if it is true. The mind HAS to suffer because of its belief that it is true.

We could say, well, if you lift away all judgements and all meanings and sense of guilt and attack and calling some things bad or wrong and labelling some things as horrible etc, then what are we left with? A strangely neutral meaningless world in which, even so, the machine guns are blazing and the bombs are ripping through the bodies and all the nice creatures are snuffing it still. Can this really be completely natural and normal and sane and the way things really are? Can this really be the hallmark of a completely loving creator?

Can it be, in all honesty, the will of a loving creator God, to create a world which is simultaneously regarded as perfect and harmless and holy and innocent and joyous and eternal and safe and free from all attack, smiling upon it like it's an absolutely beautiful creation, while simultaneously the actual forms of the world continues to fight and kill each other and suffer? While the pain receptors are still firing and the bombs are still destroying the houses and the bullets are still ripping holes in people's bodies. If you are totally forgiving toward it and seeing it with love and holiness then it could perhaps reflect heaven. But this heaven would have to be still separate from the things that occur.

It would be quite ridiculous to suggest that God in his infinite love would simultaneously love AND attack, or create beautiful things AND cause them to not last and to destroy each other and to change their forms such that none of them have long to exist at all, becoming unrecognisable and forgotten. Does it really make sense to suggest that even a world loved and forgiven that continues to have creatures falling down holes and weather freezing bodies and starvation and pain and all manner of limitations and difficulties, that this would make Earth BE heaven? It simply cannot be.

Who wants a God that is so contradictory that he produces a chaotic world while laughing about it? Who wants a God that in his infinite unlimited unconditional love produces environments for his creations to live in which simultaneously attack them and make their lives difficult? Who wants a God that "allows death to happen" as though He Himself condones and causes and sanctions and lives it? And who wants a world created by such a split-minded freak? Surely anyone with half a brain can at least see that the idea of God creating this world is utterly nonsense.

Some people will take this obviousness - that the suffering in the world is ridiculous and no-one can love it if it's real - and draw a conclusion. Either you could conclude the world is real and therefore life is bullshit and God is an asshole or doesn't exist at all. Or you could conclude that God does exist and is not an asshole and instead the whole world is not his creation. Either the world is real and God sucks, or the world is not real and God is great. Those are the only options. And thankfully God's reality guarantees that the suffering can end forever.

The strange twisted unforgiving loveless difficult limiting world of Earth and space and time is not of God. You can look upon it without judgement and forgive it, you can project the meaning of love onto it, you can transcend its separations and overlook its differences of form, you can bypass its behaviours and its faults and shortcomings, and remain in a happy state in spite of it. But to think that this means the world IS heaven is a huge mistake.

Heaven, the Kingdom of God, the world created by a truly loving and benevolent creator, could never even so much as CONCEIVE of forms and shapes that conflict, of scarcities that require feeding, of such things as weather which threatens existence, of wars and war machine and weapons, of having any such bullshit as a part of his pure perfect divine holy mind and life. Regardless of forgiving these things, of lifting away the demonising of these things, or labelling them as sinful, regardless of shining happily upon them as the light of the world and blessing them with love and healing, EVEN THEN the machinery of spacetime marches on its dismal chaotic endless tirade of destruction and uncertainty and constant indecision.

God could never create a world such as this. And if he could, he could not be a God, nor could he live, because his own nature would be to be partly alive and partly dead. He would be literally devouring parts of himself, destroying parts of himself only to make up new parts that were nothing like the ones that came before. This constant shifting and changing and fluxing of reality would mean that nothing is real AT ALL because there is no stable reality or constant state or perfect dependable anything. If God created the Earth, God is fragmented and deceptive and has multiple personalities and is at war with himself and is insane.

Anyone with half an ounce of sanity should recognize that a world such as the physical is absolutely in all ways and to all degrees utterly removed from what God could EVER be capable of creating or condoning. It is NOT his will that you live in this environment, in this way, with these objects, around these things, with these happenings. The world is insane and God wants better for you than this. God has created an environment for you in and as heaven which is so perfect you would laugh hysterically at even the suggestion that Earth could match up to its qualities.

This has nothing to do with hating Earth, or judging it or attacking it, or condemning it, or dwelling on its negativities, or amplifying its faults. It just is what it is. It is a flawed mistaken world made from insane minds that thought they could do better WITHOUT God. It just is what it is and nothing more. It simply is far short of the divinity of heaven and the perfection of real creation. A beautiful mistake at best, a half-hearted effort at best, and a rather confused strange twisted mistaken effort at best. But you can do better, and you deserve better.

The ego believes in oblivion. Not JUST the idea of being destroyed as in death, in which the body is disintegrated into pieces, but that such a thing is an irreversible ending beyond which there is no return. That you would die and then cease to exist, oblivious to life, forgotten, completely lost, totally annihilated. As though there is an actual ENDING that can take place, and you can get stuck in this ending and never return to a beginning. As though a rift or gap or separation so deep that there is no escape from it ever. And this idea of death produces loss, because it's the belief in a REAL END, a total STOPPING of all existence.

But even physical death does not attain this because death is just a change in form with some symbolism, and even the parts and materials of the body continue on. Death isn't enough in these terms for the ego, it wants more. It wants you to believe you can be TOTALLY ERADICATED from all existence, cast into nothingness, and NEVER RETURN to heaven. Especially never to give way to rebirth or continuation or a new beginning.

Oblivion is the ego's idea of irreversible sin, a death so total that it draws a line in the sand and says, you're gone, you don't exist, and you will never exist again. That isn't what physical death demonstrates, because even the body's materials last in other forms and as energies.

The belief that death IS a total ending, that it is oblivion, and renders a person absolutely cancelled forever, is what gives rise to a sense of despair and loss and hopelessness - no hope of return. And it is this that the ego feeds on - a seeming inescapable nightmare with no way out.

But such things don't exist, and there is nowhere to go to be in oblivion, since nothing is nowhere, and even bodies exist more than this. So there is no death, and no ending, and no cancellation, and no total loss of anything, on any level, ever, physically or spiritually. Physical things just transform, they don't fully stop. And what God created, lives forever.

Dictionary: "The noun oblivion has several meanings, primarily describing a state of being forgotten, unaware, or destroyed. The word comes from the Latin oblivisci, meaning "to forget". "

ACIM: "While it is reasonably satisfied with you, as its reasoning goes, it offers you oblivion. When it becomes overtly savage, it offers you hell."

"The definition of reality is God's, not yours. HE created it, and He knows what it is. You who knew have forgotten. And unless He had given you a way to remember, you would have condemned yourselves to oblivion."

"Such is the ego's version of immortality. And it is THIS the ego's version of time supports. The ego teaches that Heaven is here and now, because the FUTURE is hell. Even when it attacks so savagely that it tries to take the life of someone who hears it temporarily as the ONLY voice, it speaks of hell even to him. For it tells him hell is HERE, and bids him leap from hell into oblivion. The only time the ego allows anyone to look upon, with some amount of equanimity is the PAST. And even then, its only value is that it is no more."

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."

In the beginning of the ACIM Workbook, we're instructed to look around the room and tell ourselves, indiscriminately, that this thing we're looking at doesn't mean anything. And we're asked not to be selective in what we apply it to, applying it to everything equally. This EQUALIZING is what's important.

I'm finding that this basic idea is core to the process of mind training in order to awaken from this world. Basically, our minds have become very used to fragmenting everything into separate boxes, with separate labels.

We become blinded by perception of form, and we take the form of something to determine its meaning. Yet we've given it all the meaning it has. Differences and shifts and changes all seem to stand out as separate and exclusive. One thing is not another etc. And before you know it we have 1000 different responses to 1000 different things and never are we simple unconditional.

But the mind is not supposed to be in this kind of viewpoint, with a massive complicated hierarchy of illusions, with multiple different reactions and responses, treating one thing differently to another, adapting and changing based on circumstances etc. These are all unnatural for the mind which must be unconditionally constant in order to be healthy.

As we peruse the room and identify that one different seeming object is really to be treated no differently than another, we're beginning the process of collapsing the hierarchy of illusions, undoing the belief in separation, dispelling the illusion that one thing is NOT the same as another, and are gradually reprogramming the mind to be less conditional.

For me a huge way this has recently come to light is in the idea of the death of a body. On the physical level the ego world says that a body has been utterly destroyed and irreversibly erased from existence. But on the spiritual level the person still persists in eternal life. And they can't both be true.

Given that God would never allow one of his immortal creations to ever be destroyed, and there is no power greater than God's to overthrow his will, death is an absolute lie. The body's demise means absolutely nothing. It does not mean a person is dead, it does not mean God's son is destroyed, and it does not imply anything. Death is ultimately meaningless.

"The death of an illusion means nothing."

So then if you look at this closely and see that death cannot have a meaning, it causes nothing and has no effect, it is completely meaningless. And this then means that it doesn't MEAN anything DIFFERENT to a living body. And both of those bodies do not really mean anything.

"Nothing I see means anything."

It's in this erasing of the MEANING of separation, whereby you isolate something and give it a different unique meaning compared to something else, that the mind begins to split and fragment. Believing in separation plays out as believing the seeming messages we get from separate different objects.

It's as though the whole of physical unreality is screaming constantly to tell you that this one thing IS NOT another thing, this thing is NOT the same, this thing has unique properties, this one's red and that one's green, this one's bigger, that one's smaller etc. All constantly tempting you to believe that EVERYTHING is separate. And this couldn't be more OPPOSITE to how the mind is supposed to function.

When we see objects meaning something unique we are deceived by illusion, blinded by form, deceived by temptation, lost in a dream, and find our mind to be imprisoned. When we EQUALIZE forms and give them the SAME meaning, recognizing they have NO meaning of their own, that's when mind is entering a state of unconditionality, which means love.

"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."

So then we look at a body that seems dead and we do not assign it any meaning. And we look at bodies which seem alive and we do not assign them any meaning. And we recognize that both types of bodies are not really different in their meaning, or in what they are. They are both illusions, both unreal, both in ONE category.

Consider then that the mind in this state is a very cohesive whole unified mind. It's not a mind that goes putting labels on everything, putting things in separate boxes, emphasizing differences, or thinking of the things of the physical world as unique.

It's a mind that has ONE state, one feeling, one undivided will, one power, one wholeness, one unconditional action. It treats everyone and everything with the same singular completely still peaceful loving relationship. It responds to everything in the same way, and sees no "orders of difficulty".

Such a mind is not deceived by forms. Such a mind does not really pay any special attention to things which seem different, more important, less important, more serious, less serious. It has learned to see that both living and dead bodies are the same one illusion, the same one lie.

On a way then, the waking mind is finding a way to be whole and unmoved by the world, always constant and honest, always peaceful and loving. It doesn't buy into any temptations, it doesn't fall for the appearance of something seeming easier or harder, bigger or heavier. It finds a way to transcend all differences. And it really is about psychological transcendence. Completely disregarding the appearance of any differences of form whatsoever.

Such a mind isn't finding a way to see that the forms are ONE, or that God is the forms. It isn't finding oneness in them as such. It's transcending them toward the oneness that is behind and beyond them, a oneness that the forms don't even touch or influence in any way.

Because mind becomes whole and unified and loving and disregards differences, it sees in a sense a "reflection of heaven" - a unified transcendental perception - looking upon the physical separate objects still but NOT believing them, NOT falling for their forms, NOT blinded, NOT regarding them as truly different or true at all. But seeing them with a unified mind can't help but see unity IN PLACE of the differences, reflected there.

Cars are still separately driving down separate roads. Bodies are still separately walking down separate streets. Dogs are still barking at separate cats. But the healed mind is not deceived by how any of these things look. The healed mind becomes transcendental of all separate forms, all separate labels, all separate distinctions and differences.

So really in the start of the Workbook we're basically in at the deep end, starting off running, because we're already practicing this simple idea - getting the mind to wean off interacting with the world from a complicated chaotic jumble of vantage points, and shifting toward a singular vantage point which pays no attention to form whatsoever.

Its an odd idea really. Adopting a state of mind which is centered on a singular oneness, and unchanging wholeness, an unconditional love, rather than being 1000 separate things to 1000 separate people. Just being you, knowing thyself, unmoved and unchanged and unaffected. Simple and unified. Ignoring all separations and divisons. Having no belief in the false illusion of the material world at all. A wholeness of mind from another world.

"And what more transcendent aim can there be than to recall the Way, the Truth and the Life, and to remember God?"

"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."

"The resurrection is the complete triumph of Christ over the ego, not by attack, but by transcendence. For Christ DOES rise above the ego and all its works, and ascends to the Father and HIS Kingdom."

"Would you transcend YOUR prison and ascend to the Father?"

"Communion comes with peace, and peace MUST transcend the body."

"Then lay aside the body and quietly TRANSCEND it, rising to welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple look you not back on what you have awakened FROM. For no illusions CAN attract the minds that have TRANSCENDED them, and left them far behind."

The world in and of itself is completely hopeless. You think it isn't. You think there are ways it can work out. You think there is hope to be had. And most likely you have confused a more positive hopeful outlook with the world. Which makes you believe it's the world that has some hope. So let's separate it out VERY clearly and carefully.

The world ITSELF, physical form, the laws of physics, spacetime, all of it, IS HOPELESS. 100% hopeless. Occasionally things seem to go a little better than others, but eventually it all turns to shit. This it the absolute fact of it. Time is death and anything that changes will die. All things in the world will be destroyed. It all ends in death because it begins in death.

"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."

"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."

This has absolutely NOTHING to do with perception. It has nothing to do with your beliefs or values or interpretations or how you see the world or what you use it for. The world itself is hopeless. There cannot be hope in it because everything in it ends in death. Everything is destroyed. The very same seeming force of "time" that seems to allow flowers to grow and bloom is the very same force that kills them off.

ALL the world's roads lead to death. Sometimes there is a temporary illusions of peace in which the "thorns are not felt" at once, but later it settles in and takes everything away from you. The world was made SO THAT problems could not BE escaped. That means there is NO END to problems, no matter how much you are in denial or how ingeniously you keep insisting they can all be solved. You wilL NEVER solve them. It was made TO disappoint. It HAS disappointed you since time began.

"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."

So let's be completely clear. The world in and of itself has NO hope. What hope can there be when everything you do, everything you try to build, everything you make, everything you achieve, it is all going to eventually be DESTROYED by time. All the cities will fall. All the bodies will die. It is a BLEAK outlook because the world IS bleak. In and of itself has nothing to offer and nothing to give and nothing of value.

The people of the world are hell-bent in DENIAL, trying to find ways to constantly turn the world into a better place. A better place in terms of trying to civilize it. This is in effect an attempt to tame hell. It's a form of denial where we keep trying to take something which STILL will be destroyed, EVEN from the outset of making shiny new things, in one more futile attempt to get the dead world to live. To be renewed, refreshed, worth staying in. Until it dies. Until a supernova blows it all to shit and renders the human race totally irrelevant.

You should not look to the world FOR your hope. You should not look to the world for your salvation. You should not look to it for things to value and treasure and keep. It should not hold out hope to you, because it WILL take it away. This is the way of the world itself. This has nothing to do with the people or what the people think or how they perceive. It does this even WITHOUT any people around. It destroys and takes away and reduces and decays and rots. That is its nature.

"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 to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life."

Those poor worms. They thought they had a chance, living off the rotting fetid flesh of death, but they too were doomed to die even since they were born. This is the world's FUNCTION. This is what it was DESIGNED to to. It cannot function any other way because it was made to BE an opposite to how God functions. It was made to attack his function and be the opposite of life. It cannot succeed, it cannot work, it cannot provide, it cannot protect, it cannot produce life, it cannot save you, and it cannot love you. The world wants you dead.

You have to become very clear about this, because so long as you keep confusing your "trying to look on the bright side" with the world itself, you'll think the world itself has hope in it. You have to sort out the fact of what the world IS from your USE of it. Then you will realize that regardless of perceptions, the world ITSELF is just a piece of trash not worth anything. It is NOTHINGNESS pretending to be something.

So long as you believe that the world itself is SOMETHING, and can therefore GIVE you something, make you something, cause you something you prefer, and provide for you, you will WANT it. You will idolize it and treasure it and want to keep it. And the COST of this is that you will REJECT GOD. The price of choosing to believe in a made-up world is the DENIAL of the Kingdom, which is inherently the denial of life and happiness and real hope.

This is what people do not want to look at. You cannot get to realizing that you WANT heaven, until you realize that the world IS NOT heaven. So long as you think the world IS heaven, which all insane people do, you will want to keep it. You will seek and not find salvation and solutions IN AND OF the world which will always disappoint you. They will fail and will only partly work. And if you keep trusting them you will not be able to trust God.

Only when you can admit and accept that the world just fundamentally SUCKS, that it was made to BE broken and NEVER work, only then will you realize the inner stirring that happens. The sense that, surely, given how horrendously stupid the world is, this CAN'T BE THE WORLD GOD CREATED. It just can't be reality. It can't be true. It can't be how the laws of existence really function. it can't be where you're supposed to be living. And it can't really exist.

THEN.... you will be willing to turn around and look for A REAL ALTERNATIVE. The real alternative comes from the inner insistence that there MUST BE A BETTER WAY. There must be some kind of world or reality where all of this shite does not happen. There MUST be a reality where sickness and death don't exist. There MUST be a way to see that doesn't make hell seem like a nightmare. And there MUST be a whole different mindset that WORKS AND NEVER FAILS.

This is the opening up of the spiritual eye. This is where the physical sight begins to be not believed. Because you now realize that nothing in OR OF the world can show you reality.

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."

So you now start to realize that there MUST BE another world, another light, a higher mind, another thought system, another POSSIBILITY, and a REAL HOPE, that comes from BEYOND THIS WORLD. It is the light of heaven, the REAL potential of happiness that lasts and is never disappointed, and the actual accessible possibility of eternal life. It is what God has GIVEN, and is opposite to everything in the world. It is completely alien to everything everyone in the world thinks, and it reveals that the world holds NOTHING that you want.

Only by not wanting the world can you want God. You can't want both because they are opposites. Only be realizing there IS NO HOPE in the world can you open up to the fact that there must be a world where there IS HOPE. There has to be a real hope, rather than the false idle wishful thinking and fake denial and pretense that you've used your whole life to RESIST HELL and to try to make the world stop falling apart. Let the world fall apart and realize that's all it CAN do. And then bring the light of ANOTHER world where things do NOT fall apart, to this world, to perform miracles.

This higher healthier saner attitude of optimism and true hope and possibility must be rooted in God. It must be founded on the real truth and the DENIAL OF THE WORLD. To ACCEPT the other world at all is the acceptance of atonement. It's to accept that you are under no laws but God's and there is no truth but God's. That salvation is OF ANOTHER WORLD. That the only hope you have is God's HELP. That the only POWER there is, the only POSSIBILITY without limits, is the power of God - a power not of this world, which ENABLES YOU instead of disabling you.

The world has no hope whatsoever. It is already made of the idea of death.

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

Your false perceptions OF the world emphasize its hopelessness and pull out its pictures of hate and put borders around its scenes of crime and sickness and decay. Your true perceptions reinterpret these hopeless scenes and GIVE them hope from another world. Not a hope the world HAS, or is made of, but a hope that you find only by giving it, through projection onto it. An invitation TO those in the world, a signpost which points to ANOTHER world, which says "this way to happiness." This is the road out of hell, a road which the world itself will never offer.

"Fear not to cross to the abode of peace and perfect holiness. Only there is the completion of God and of His Son established forever. Seek not for this in the bleak world of illusion, where nothing is certain, and where everything fails to satisfy."

"The holy instant is your invitation to love, to enter into your bleak and joyless kingdom, and transform it into a garden of peace and welcome."

"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the presence of God."

The passages below are pretty intense (each is from different parts of the course). They're basically saying that EVERYTHING IN THIS WORLD IS DESTINED TO DIE. And that isn't an easy thing to comprehend yet alone accept. And if you CAN accept it (the meaninglessness of the world), perhaps you will be willing to go home?

The main reason we don't accept it is because it SEEMS as though, in the short term, some things live. That there can be seeming gaps in the dying, or sometimes paths will seem lighter and easier, even "pleasant" and enjoyable, and yet, NEVERTHELESS, even these brief vacations from death ultimately TURN INTO DEATH.

Even the lovely fresh bouquet of flowers, withers and dies and rots. Even the newborn baby, grows and ages and wrinkles and malfunctions and dies. Even the planet is born in the cosmos and evolved over billions of years only to be destroyed when its sun explodes. No matter what it is, no matter what you look at, ALL the things of this world are DESIGNED TO DIE, sooner or late.

This is the sense of the inevitability of death in this world, that "the world of bodies is the world of sin" and, therefore, since "the wages of sin is death", ALL types of bodies must die. And please note that I am not being negative or pessimistic here. I'm taking a square look at some facts. Facts that we like to avoid and pretend aren't true.

Such as the fact that EVERYTHING in the world eventually breaks down, goes wrong, malfunctions, decays. Yes it might take a while, and in the meantime it may seem that there are signs of life, of positivity, or purpose and meaning, activity, reasons to live, things to do and places to go. Which is sort of temporarily true. But then what happens eventually? It all goes to shit. Bar nothing.

Not one single thing in this world lasts forever. Not one single thing is permanent. This means the world cannot offer you safety, it cannot offer you freedom, it cannot offer you relief from problems, it cannot offer you life, it cannot offer you happiness, and in fact it really cannot truly promise ANYTHING, because ultimately everything is designed to die. Which means the world really has NOTHING TO GIVE. And that is because IT ONLY TAKES AWAY.

This is why, the only real salvation is found by TRANSCENDING THE WORLD, going within, rising above the battlefield, overcoming the world, moving beyond the earth, opening up to another world, returning to heaven, and waving bye bye to the dream of death. You can't find salvation outside of you because outside you there is only death and illusions of life. And this ultimately means, THERE IS NO WORLD. When will we be done playing with lifeless toys and dreams of mortality?

"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 to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction. Yet the worms as well are doomed to be destroyed as certainly. And so do all things live because of death. Devouring is nature's "law of life." God is insane, and fear alone is real."

"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."

"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 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 see only the perishable.

I see nothing that will last.

What I see is a form of vengeance."

"The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is NOT as you see it. God created ONLY the eternal, and everything YOU see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT see."

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

"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."

When something has an end. .. just that fact alone... makes it NOT ETERNAL. Because very simply, ETERNAL means WITHOUT END! God ONLY creates that which is eternal because HE is eternal and creates in his own likeness. He can't even CONCEIVE OF anything "ending" or being "not forever." You have eternal life, because God does.

Now if you look around you at this world you made, planet Earth. Look at it. Look for a while and notice that things end. Things come and go. There are seasons. There is birth and death. Things change. There is no sign of permanence anywhere. Not even the solid rocks last forever. Not even planets and stars. It all ends. So how can we sit here and claim that this is ETERNAL? That this is ETERNITY?

Think about this also. In the linear timescale of things, planet Earth came about LONG BEFORE human beings arrived on the planet. The Earth was here before a single soul set foot on it. IF God created it, the world's condition was set up BY GOD, PRIOR to the human race. Think about that for a moment. Because it means that if there was anything going wrong in the world BEFORE human kind came along, it was GOD'S DOING, nor ours.

So take a look at 4 billion years ago. No humans to be seen anywhere on the Earth. What was happening? Well, there were volcanos erupting, causing massive lava flows and killing off all kinds of creatures who were burnt and suffocated to death or destroyed by toxic fumes. There were massive floods the likes of which we haven't seen for millennia, wiping out entire continents of "living creatures", none of whom could do anything to stop it. There were horrendous storms during which all manner of things were zapped to death. There were asteroids impacting the earth and wiping out entire civilizations of animals, dinosaurs and the like. This all was happening before facebook, FYI.

So all that stuff is GOD's DESIGN, right? That was all HIS doing. HE created it. HE put it in place. HE manipulated the weather. He forces the tides to move. By an act of God he struck down an entire continent. If God made it, God SET IT UP, God set the wheels in motion, and it had NOTHING to do with humans.

So what does that mean, it means IF God did that, God is ***EXTREMELY CRUEL***, murderous, malicious, hateful, vengeful, careless, irresponsible, destructive and deadly. Is that REALLY what you think God is like? Is that REALLY how a loving, all powerful, eternal-life giving father acts? Is that REALLY the kind of environment that He would CREATE for his children to live in? Of course it's not. If he created it, he WOULD be *extremely cruel*.

And fortunately, God is NOT cruel. God is loving, kind, gentle, considerate, compassionate, protective, empowering, equal, perfect. He does not go around making death planets or hell words. He does not manufacture suffering. Nor does he calculate the ways that innocent creatures will be made only to be later destroyed. God is not like this. God is life-sustaining, loving, nurturing, holy, peaceful, benevolent.

How can ANYONE go through this Course and come out the other side believing that God made this planet? Are you in denial? I mean... are you just turning a huge blind eye to the things that happen here? And by blind eye I do not mean christ vision. I mean actual DENIAL. It makes NO SENSE to claim that God made a world where this kind of crap happens on a daily basis.

Did you know that over 130,000 human beings DIE every day? And if God made this world, is that not God's fault? YES. He made it possible. He must want it. That's what it means if He made the world. No exceptions. He is all in, and it's not human's fault. Can we really believe this and be sane? There should not be one SINGLE death in God's plan, in God's world. Not one. Yet alone 130,000 a day. I don't know why some people are so in denial of this. Why can't we admit that this world IS VERY CRUEL and because of its cruelty IT CANNOT BE LIKE GOD?

And that perhaps, just maybe... there is ANOTHER WORLD that God DID create which is TOTALLY PERFECT? Our heavenly true natural HOME, where we belong? And perhaps the Course is right when it says we are a STRANGER here in this alien, crumbling, tired old world, which has nothing but the STAMP OF DEATH on it?

"The laws of this world go against your nature"

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

When will we wake up and accept that this world is not our home? That we are a fish out of water here? Just visiting, in a dream nightmare. A world which thankfully IS NOT TRUE and will end. Because it's end IS guaranteed, just as it never was begun.

"HOW WILL THE WORLD END?

Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as it began."

I am grateful for the world GOD created. I am grateful that it is NOT THIS ONE. Because if it was, fucking hell we're all screwed.

When we project our sin onto other people, we position ourselves as wanting to be affected by them or by the world. We want them to be the cause of us, and to experience effects against our will.

This literally is an attempt to sacrifice ourselves. It is attempted suicide.

We seem to be willing somehow to trade our life in order for someone else to suffer for our sin.

We want them to be the sinner, so that we can be not the sinner, and will make ourselves their victim in order to prove that we are not the one who sinned.

And in so doing, will willingly sacrifice ourselves, make ourselves victimized, attack ourselves through them, and eventually render ourselves as "unwillingly dead", in order to prove the point.

At least, we reason, we'll go down as innocence and not the guilty one, and the guilty ones will get all the blame for seeming to cause this tragedy. And in death we will seem to be exalted and a hero, worshipped for the persona of goodness that we fooled the whole world into believing, when all we did was succeed at putting all blame onto everything but ourselves.

Projection is an attempt to get away with murder. To accuse and find someone else guilty of wrongdoing, in contrast to our own innocence, in order to prove that we were not the one who sinned against God. The problem is, when we attempt to do this, we murder ourselves, by attacking ourselves indirectly through other people and through our belief in being at the effect of external causes.

So when you want someone else to take the hit for you, rest assured, you will receive the effects. Jesus is explicit about this in the course. Do not think that the effects you prepared for your brother will be received by them and not you, because you can be assured that you will be the one to receive them.

Try to destroy another, and you will destroy yourself.

And as you try to destroy another, to make out that the world causes you to suffer and die, you might well come across as the least likely, least causative, least choosing, least wanting person in the world, as though there was nothing you could do to prevent this attack. And secretly, unconsciously, you will have orchestrated the entire farce to paint this rosy picture of yourself, in order to condemn the entire world and accuse all your brothers of sinning against you.

Everyone who dies goes down in flames and everyone who looks upon them considers it a tragedy and an unwanted victimization. Poor them. Well... they fucking chose every single part of it, and they did so in order to victimize everyone else in the world. No-one who dies does so without some degree of belief that the world has accused them and condemned them and has done this to them, and that therefore they are justified in being dead in order to accuse the world in return and find it to be the cause of them.

There is nothing glorious about dying. It is not a sign of dignity or respectfulness or accomplishment or unfairness. It is a mistaken choice to present the son of God as attackable and to use the body to attack the entire world. There is nothing justified about dying. It is total failure, the completion of the lie of sin, an absolute reversal of God's will, a complete opposition to sanity, and total denial. It is a movement into unconsciousness and suppression of will, a complete disownership of power and a giving up on God.

No-one dies without their own consent. Death is failure to live. Every person who seems to die has succeeded in fooling the entire world into believing that the son of God is bound to a body and is confused with what seems to by destroyable, and is therefore destroyed. It is a crucifixion of the Son of God.

The funeral which sorrowfully "honors" the person fails to mention that they told the biggest lie in the world, that they attempted to attack the entire world with their death, that they have demonstrated the profound belief that God has caused death not life, and that they have completely failed to awaken from their insanity. It is hardly something to celebrate.

There is no death. The son of God is free. He who believes this will demonstrate it by never again choosing to create the circumstances of death, which is firmly rooted in victimhood and self attack. No ascended master would ever demonstrate that they can be destroyed. All sickness is attempt to prove you can be hurt. And every form of suffering is an accusation that the world has caused this to happen and not yourself.

There is no such thing as a responsible sick person. There is no such thing as an innocent person who died. There is no such thing as a justified victim. And there is no such thing as someone dying in order to leave the dream.

All is choice.

Fear has the potential to paralyze you. It stops people from living. It keeps people imprisoned in their own homes.

People affected by fear can avoid doing certain things many, many times over, missing out on countless experiences, interactions and relationships.

Afraid one day, afraid many days, afraid for months or even years, and allowing this fear to run your life, there comes to be an entire "life" that you could've lived but you didn't, systematically avoiding it one opportunity at a time.

I've seen this happen to a number of people, whose ability to enjoy a full life is almost permanently destroyed by fear. That includes me - I used to be so afraid of people and of living life.

So many things which could've happened but didn't, because fear said it must be avoided. Or fear said it was a threat, or dangerous, or would upset someone, or that it would lead to punishment.

Fear is always about the believed threat of some form of punishment or attack that you *perceive* is going to happen. You're sure it will happen because you yourself believe that you are guilty, for whatever reason. Actually the only reason is because deep down you believed you have sinned. But sins are forgivable because they aren't real, and one who would punish you is a sinner themselves.

You don't have to live in fear your entire life. Fear is an illusion. It isn't real or founded in reality. It's a psychological condition of temporary insanity, projection and denial. It's a choice to disown yourself, and what ends up being disowned is your life that you're not living.

Don't let fear lock you in a prison today. Set yourself free.