Originally, God created us and flowed all of His love to us. We were completely open to receive it and we flowed it onward, completely naturally, extending the Kingdom.

When the 'separation' happened, we put various forms of distance between ourselves and God. We closed our heart to God. We shut God out of our lives and out of our minds.

We then found ourselves 'cut off', disconnected, lost, alone, abandoned, as if the 'cord' that connected us to God had been severed. Now of course, this was very upsetting (and still is).

Because of this, it then seemed that we were disconnected from the SOURCE of life. And because we saw ourselves as cut off, what we were left with was the perception that we did not originate IN God. Instead, we believed we must've just come into being spontaneously by some other means as orphans (symbolized by birth).

So now, without a connection to God, we are all alone, desperate, afraid, confused, we don't know what the hell is going on, and we have very limited resources. Our power is hugely diminished, we're hallucinating, we're insane, scrambling around in the darkness trying to make sense of it all.

So without acknowledging that a source (God) is extending/creating us, we come to believe it all seems to start with ourselves as the source - that WE are the source. Thus is born the ego - the starting point of separate existence. And by this token, we have separated the Father and the Son.

What I mean is, in Heaven, God the Father extends His Fatherhood to His Son and His Son also therefore possess a nature of Fatherhood as well, by which the Son also extends Creation. The Son is a Father to the Son's Children.

Get this... When the separation happened, Father and Son were separated, not just in terms of being separate beings but in terms of their shared nature where the Son is also a Father. This now means that the Son does not SEE Himself as the 'Son' of God, he only retains the idea that he is the Father. He sees Himself as retaining fatherhood but of not retaining sonship. He retains 'output', if you will, but shuts off 'input'. So now he thinks of Himself as 'the' Father, since he Himself does not seem to have a father, and this is how the ego believes IT is God. The ego is 'Fatherhood' without 'Sonship'. In a way, you could also think of this as 'giving without receiving', which produces 'making' (creating stuff that didn't come from God) and 'sacrifice' (losing everything and not receiving at all). It is by this method that the ego then MAKES its own Father, out of itself, because it is fatherless, and this newly appointed Father is the ego's OWN version of God - its fake God, a God of hate and death. The ego then idolizes this fake God, who calls for sacrifice, and the ego now both worships and fears this (and all other) substitute for God. It should be apparent how insane that is.

An interesting bit of metaphysics there!

Anyway... So now we see ourselves as the source, which means we think that we have to govern existence, run the universe, obtain power, control everything, force things to be according to our own separate will, and act like God. Classical ego.

So.... what we need to do now... the whole point of doing A Course in Miracles.... is to heal the separation - or at least, all of the belief that it has really happened. But we DO believe it and it does SEEM real. We really do SEEM to be experiencing the horror of being without God, of being Fatherless, of being disconnected from God deep in our hearts, of having been abandoned or rejected, or being absent of REAL LOVE, of not having a SOURCE, of being without unconditional love, of having to do everything ourselves and failing miserably.

We need to HEAL this sense of separation between the Father and the Son, between God and us. And this is a very heartfelt matter. It's not intellectual. It's not just on a mental/mind level. Love is FELT and EXPERIENCED! What we really want is to experience the love of God. Period.

So to do that we need to get back to the kind of relationship, the kind of 'structure' of the relationship that we originally have with God. That means, restoring our CONNECTION to God through communion and healing and openness, being open to RECEIVE guidance and healing and love from God again (which we have been sorely missing and doing terribly without!), becoming able to SHARE in what God is offering, and to then extend it once again through creative acts (miracles), to extend the Kingdom.

Father and Son need to be reunited and set back in their proper place and arrangement where God is the Source of Life, Life has extended itself AS the Son, and the Son extends it further. This is the only NATURAL condition. The physical world's 'nature' is NOT natural. Or perhaps some people refer to this divine holy relationship as SUPERNATURAL. This is what we need to restore, for ourselves, in direct relationship with God, for real.

God loves us. We've denied Him. We need to open to receive His presence.

Believing is receiving.

Believe in God, you will receive eternal life.

Believe in ego, you will receive suffering and death.

You receive because you believe in it. You believe it is your truth. Your reality. And what you deserve. You receive it because you make it happen.

When you believe in God, you join with God's will and create with Him and thus receive what you create.

When you believe in ego, you join with the ego's will and create with it and thus receive what you create.

Whatever you are receiving, it reflects what you are believing in.

You can't have a belief which is disconnected from what you receive, and you can't be in a state where you believe one thing and receive something else.

If you want to receive a miracle, you need to receive God, by believing that His truth is your truth.

If you want the results of the miracle but you don't want the alignment with God that's required to receive it, to choose it, you won't receive it. That's how sickness and suffering remain.

You get to choose what to believe in.

Most of the time, people consider themselves confined to their bodies. The body itself forms a barrier around their mind, shutting it in. The only place on the body where it seems the mind is 'visible' if you will, is perhaps through the eyes. The mind can express through the body in terms of moving the body and expressing, but generally speaking the mind stays inside the body behind the scenes, hidden behind the flesh.

However, some people who are perhaps more open in some ways, either by being 'psychic' or 'empathic', have in some way awoken the ability to go beyond the confines of their own body. This means, they are capable of moving or extending their 'mind' to locations outside the body.

A person for example who is empathic, you can kind of tell (especially if you are also empathic), because you look at them and can feel and sense how some part of their mind is NOT blocked by the body, and instead flows outward past the physical form. Particularly out of the stomache and power-chakra area. In a way, it's almost as if being able to see the mind of the person shining out of this area, as if the physical form of the body isn't even there at all.

Similarly, folks who are psychic tend to be more skilled at projecting a part of their mind outward and locating it at any other location, therefore quite literally being 'aware' in that location and receiving sensations, images, perceptions etc from that location. For example I once experienced a person who claimed to have psychic abilities, and would notice how his mind would quite often come and 'visit', as though he wasn't just over there in a body, but also over here in my body.

This may sound weird at first. But, even these examples of going beyond the boundaries of the body are barely even scratching the surface of what it means to be in Oneness.

In Oneness, the body's boundaries have absolutely no limiting effects on the mind whatsoever, and mind then is effectively capable of being everywhere and anywhere. This is in fact our 'natural state', and it's in fact unnatural and a sickness to not be able to join with other minds, to experience Oneness all the time, or to blend with others.

In effect, humanity is really a large, collective entity which has upon its surface many many seemingly individual points of awareness, which we think of a separate people, and yet is still all connected. It would be NORMAL for any one person in that collective mind to experience things that other people are experiencing also, not only as if it is their own, but that it actually IS their own, because it is shared.

I can tell you from experience personally, in fact, that it is possible for all forms of energy, emotions, even physical sickness, to be transferred and shared between people. You think certain things are contagious? Well, for someone who is quite empathic it is possible to actually, literally, take upon themselves the energetic presence and form of another person's discomfort or illness. And that illness then manifests or plays out in your own body. This can happen on emotional or mental or physical levels. In effect, 'ownership' of matter or form of body stuff can actually be shared and transfer between people.

This shouldn't really be an unusual exception, it in fact should be the rule, that all of us are so connected and One that we share in everything together. And it should not be at all surprising when we experience things that other people are experiencing.

In fact, it would be far clearer and more accurate to say, that NOT experiencing what other people are experiencing means you are very SEPARATE from other people, which means you have disconnected yourself from Oneness and do not 'share well', which means ultimately that you are in a state of sickness. Lacking empathy for example is a sign of a sociopath who has barely any sense of what others are feeling. Isolation, separation, aloneness, loneliness, sickness, withdrawal, darkness, etc are all the same condition of disconnection from the whole.

It isn't healthy for people to be disconnected from each other. And in A Course in Miracles, Jesus clearly lays out how it is by JOINING MINDS that we are capable of healing sickness in ourselves and others, because it is the *separation* of minds and the perception of separation between individuals that causes ALL sickness.

This means, there is a healing that can occur if you are willing to step out and be part of a Oneness, to unite with others empathically, to join with them, to resonate with and unite with them in 'spirit' and in 'energy', and to then transmit and share love and light and truth with that person. Or in other words, to allow Holy Spirit to erase all sense of separation between you, such that wholeness and unity and light are restored to the person, producing what we call a 'healing'.

1) Get quite and join with Love/Holy Spirit/Jesus

2) Become one with another person/empathically tune into them

3) Invite Holy Spirit to heal the separation in them and to send them healing love.

It's as simple as that. We simply join minds with others, share love with them, and love does the rest.

On the level of the ego mind, let's call it "level 1", cause and effect are separate. This is entirely based on the notion that the Son of God (who is the effect of God) is separate from cause (from God). Everything about the ego's thought system is based on this foundation.

The ego mind perceives that causes produce completely separate effects. Whoever causes something is separate from the effects they produce. All kinds of ego bullshit comes from this:

- You can do something to someone else without it affecting yourself

- Other people can do something to you without affecting themselves

- You can be hurt or have something happen to you without you willing it yourself

- You can hurt or do something to other people or objects against their will

- Events happen seemingly against your will at all times with no power to stop them

- You can get away with murder

It is a thought system in which cause seems to be power but effect seems to be powerless. This is because the Son of God (effect) has be disconnected from Power (God).

Even the properties of the physical world are based on this principle. Object A seems to do something to Object B, causing Object B to be affected in some way, but the effects on Object B are not the same as Object A. Object A may appear to be completely unaffected (e.g. using hard diamonds to cut metal).

Every interaction of physical objects/forms in the physical universe follows this principle of separation of cause and effect. The entire physical universe itself IS an expression of this idea of the Son being separate from the Father, and therefore is that He is "disconnected" from God by being in a body.

It's also a way for us to disown sin and go into denial. There has to be denial present in order for Object B to be "affected" by Object A in any way whatsoever, without those effects applying also to object A. Physical matter itself is therefore an expression of the denial of God, and every separation between every particle of matter or energy is also an expression of denial of God.

The physical world is really a state of denial and once there is no longer denial, there can be no more physical world! Separation is a state of differences - different forms - all of which are illusions of differences and do not really exist but in a state of denial of the truth.

The Holy Spirit's thought system, which we could call "level 2", is a thought system of total oneness, wholeness, sharing and equality. In it, what applies to oneself must apply both in its cause and its effects. It's a mindset where the Son of God is One with the Father. In it there is no separation, and therefore the One Mind shares equally in cause and effect. This leads to perceptions such as:

- What I do unto others I literally am directly doing to myself

- It is impossible to hurt anyone else without it hurting yourself, which is a profound incentive to never hurt anyone

- What applies to you applies to the entire Sonship equally

- If it is true for you, it is true for everyone everywhere

- In an all-or-nothing way, since what applies to you applies everywhere, either you and your brother are both guilty or you and your brother are both innocent.

- You cannot get away with murder because your attempt to bring about death (of God) destroys your own self. You cannot have God be affected by your sin but not yourself. Your belief in attack attacks yourself, and all attack is therefore self-attack.

- It is absolutely 100% impossible to be a victim or a victimizer.

So in the right mind or One Mind, cause and effect are reunited and therefore all of the laws of God come into effect. This includes ideas like "to have all, give all to all", or "give and receiving are one", or "who but myself can I crucify" etc. There are thoughts of oneness and universal equality.

This also means that in Holy Spirit's thought system, openness to this mindset of equality means you are able to now receive love as well as extend it, you are able to have shared interests, you're able to love others as yourself literally etc.

But it also means, that mind is capable of undoing, erasing, correcting, and repairing (healing) the mind of separation between cause and effect. That means this mind is able to overthrow and override all of the apparent physical laws such as the ways that one object seems to inflict "separate effects" on another, the way that disease and sickness unfolds as a state of victimhood, etc.

All of these things are healed and corrected by the mind of truth. This is why Holy Spirit's mind is miraculous, why absolutely nothing physical has power over it, and why absolutely ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. And by that I mean in the EXTREME, the most extremely unlikely unimaginable extraordinary supernatural fantastic fucking amazing things are possible, because anything is possible when you have holiness (wholeness of mind).

The unified mind which both gives and receives is far more powerful and empowered than the separated mind. In separation, cause is power and effect is powerless. In unity, cause is power and effect is power also. This means having power over all effects, and really realizing that all physical effects are actually states of powerlessness, and therefore should be EASY to manipulate by someone who is empowered with love.

Often Holy Spirit will say to me:

"Let me"

And often I am confused about what he really intends or means or what I should do in order to let Him. Like, does he want me to let Him express through me? Does he want to do a healing? Should I do absolutely nothing and let go?

Sometimes the brilliant simplicity of what Spirit expresses is too simple for my complicated ego to 'get'.

And he almost never clarifies this. So I've had to gradually, slowly, refine my understanding of what this means. It's like a kind of tuning fork that I'm homing in on, through progressive rounds of surrender and trust.

What I've noticed it seeming to mean recently, is that I will be in a process of trying to decide something on my own, and he'll say "let me"... and it's starting to dawn on me that he wants me to let him make the decision.

Not just to make the decision for me but to take over responsibility of all of the entire thought processes that I'd have to go through in trying to 'figure out' what to do... which is intellectual activity (when I have to be the one to do it). In other words, my ego mind has to expend a lot of effort trying to control life on its own, disconnected from Spirit.

Holy Spirit wants me to connect my mind to His, which seems to be a gradual development of connection.

So each time I stop trying to decide and I let Him decide, or even just let go of the whole need to decide anything at all (which is in the rules for decision), I might even forget that I was meant to decide anything at all.

All part of the development of trust.

"Sickness is a defense against the truth." - ACIM

Truth is divine perfect health. Truth is love. Truth is God.

When there is an unforgiving attitude, it produces sickness because it is an attack on yourself.

Sickness isn't a "thing". It doesn't have its own identity. It isn't a real thing. It's just a word for what it seems to look like when you are partly disconnected from or in denial of eternal life.

It is completely reversible because it is nothing more than an illusion. We simply need to return to a forgiving attitude by forgiving and undoing our unforgiving attitude.

Sickness must go. It does not have a power of its own. It is not a cause. It is only an effect, a side-effect of temporarily denying who you are.

It has no staying-power or causality. Sickness does not cause further sickness. Problems in the body do not cause sickness. Problems in the environment does not cause sickness. And sickness does not spread or increase on its own.

Sickness can only be an effect, or symptom. All notions of sickness being a 'thing' in its own right, that someone "has" a specific sickness, as though that sickness is a 'thing' that happens to them distinct from other things, that's not true.

And people don't "get sick" or "become sick". People choose not to be divinely healthy on some level.

Since sickness only seems to appear as an illusion when we are in denial of the truth, and since when we are not in denial of the truth sickness cannot exist, sickness does not really exist.

There is no "real sickness". Nobody is "really sick". They are experiencing illusions of sickness.

Sickness is nothing.

Sickness is not even the issue. It is just a symptoms of what it looks like when we defend against truth, which is a defense against ourselves, which is a self-attack. If we stop doing that, we will stop seeming to exhibit signs of sickness.

Only the truth is true.

The way you are meant to function correctly, as a child of God, is to be joined to God, plugged into His mind, hooked up to His Divine Health and absolute abundance, and sharing in all of His Power.

You are meant to be able to use His Power, according to His laws, to create just like Him, which has absolutely no limitations of any kind. It means you can create, and manifest in form, anything whatsoever that you desire to. And it also means, eternal life.

But when you are cut off from God and going it alone, you are literally disconnected from power, from healing, from love, from joy, from trust, from abundance, from Life, from everything that God wants to share with you right now.

So what kind of a life do you expect to find yourself living, when you're living a lie? What kind of life will you experience when you refuse to allow it to be a life joined to and being lived WITH God?

It's going to pale in comparison, and it's going to be a life of weakness and suffering and death and fear and loss and disaster. You can try going it alone and doing it all yourself and keep shutting God out, but God is very patient and constantly offers His Gifts to you without conditions.

So this is kind of your choice. You either can keep living 'with' the ego which means being separate and having to manage your own life all alone and to experience unhappiness, suffering, and eventually death, OR you can choose to receive, accept, and share in God's mighty abundance, to illuminate your life from the inside out and to set you in a position of exquisite joy, peace and power.

The two lives really are nothing alike. And there's really nothing the ego can offer you that is ANYWHERE near what God can offer you. Okay so I sound a bit religious or recruiting here... but ok. You think the ego has given you amazing things in the world and you cherish and find important? Wait till you get in on the action with God!

The ego is simply a state of self-attack, taking place within a mind which has become divided against itself.

In this state, part of the mind has disassociated from the other part. There now appear to be two identities.

One identity is consciously identified with as "me" and the other as "not me".

The "not me" self, is very often equated with "the ego". It appears to be the self that we're always blaming and scapegoating, attacking and accusing, thinking of as other people etc.

But the trap there is not realizing who is doing the perceiving of an enemy. The person who sees enemies, AND the enemies themselves, are both two parts of ONE delusional thought system. They are both you.

The ego is not so much "that enemy" or the thing which is against you or your problems etc. It is the attacker and that which is attacked. It is both sides of every war. It is the state of *separation* taking place within yourself, between who you are and this illusion of who you are not.

Separating yourself from God was also an attempt to separate yourself from yourself. This could only create a condition in your mind where your original self remained, and a second self was added. You now think that only the second self is the "bad self", and label it the ego, but it is no more or less the ego than the self which describes it, because your real self was placed with a "persona" that pretends to be who you really are. It is the separation BETWEEN the two fake identities that is the ego.

So basically, if no-one else existed and there was just you and your mind, the entire separation from God would have to be taking place inside of yourself. And any conditions of conflict in which there seems to be wars or threats or enemies, those things MUST be also included inside your own mind. They're not outside of you.

So this is the key - the secret to salvation, that you are doing this to yourself. You have to realize that this so-called "not me", aka "my enemy", actually IS you. It's you who are against yourself, not other people. It's you who are at war with your own self. You do not have any enemies beyond yourself. That "not me" self is just part of your mind and will which you're kind of pretending not to have any control over, as if it's running on autopilot.

You have to therefore learn to recognize, that whatever it is which seems to loom over you with power and a separate will and a sense of threat or causality, making "you" at its effect, is actually your own self doing this to yourself. In other words, it's one disassociated part of your mind attacking the part which you're still associated with. You think it is not you and is attacking you - that's just part of you that thinks you are not you, attacking part of you that thinks it is you.

Truth is, you are not EITHER of these two fake identities. You are not the attacker or the attacked. You are not the victim or the victimizer. You are also not the self who looks upon the "bad enemy" and condemns them. That self is the other half of the ego, and the ego is always attacking itself. You are not the persona who rejects the shadow, and you are not the innocent victim who believes the perpetrator is not their self.

If you could see, that every pain and suffering, every attack, every torture, was actually being administered by a split-off part of your own mind, which you had disowned and disconnected from your sense of "conscious control", or your sense of the scope of your power or the reach of your influence, and if you can learn to recognize it and see yourself actually working "through" it to do things to yourself, then you will realize... you can stop doing that.

You can stop attacking yourself. You can stop hurting yourself. But even moreso, since the self being hurt is not you either, you can realize that you are no longer going to play EITHER role of victim or victimizer, and are going to give up the sense of identity that you were trying to protect from a fake enemy, transcend both of them, heal the *SEPARATION* that was creating them both, and return to a mind of wholeness and oneness.

if you could but see that you do everything to yourself, and get in touch with that choosing and doing, then you would simply realize how futile that is and stop it.

Sometimes you'll find in the day that a song is playing in your mind. It seems to be on autopilot. It can play for hours without you even noticing. And then maybe you notice and can't get it out of your head. But the thing is, it's actually being played by a part of your own mind, a part which is mostly unconscious, and you are just "allowing" it subtly to keep going. When you reclaim that power and recognize, it's YOU who is making this song keep playing in your mind, you reclaim the ability to stop it from playing. And it will stop. Because no-one else was playing that song. It was you.

It's the same thing with any aspect of the ego. You think it's outside of your control, beyond your choosing, disconnected from your influence, outside your power, and separated from "you". Reclaiming and owning that is the key to salvation. Taking back responsibility for everything you are experiencing.

No-one and nothing can happen to you against your will. No-one dies without their own consent. If you do not choose to attack yourself, you will be in capable of experiencing attack. No-one else has the power to go against your will. Your will is as powerful as the Son of God. There is nothing that can cause you other than God. You cannot be at the effect of anything but God (and that's a good thing). It guarantees that you are immortal and invulnerable forever, if you will just stop doing stuff to yourself unconsciously.

If someone else is having a problem, and you feel concerned, there is something mistaken going on in your mind.

There is actually an ego reaction, based on the hierarchy of illusions, which says that based on the perceived severity of the situation, you should be having a certain amount of reaction.

Just even perceiving that someone ELSE is having a problem, seems to be enough of a belief in a "cause" happening outside of you, even if it not perceived as happening TO you, to produce a sense of "effects" showing up in your mind.

If it's you believing that someone else's body is under attack, this would seem not to be about you at all. But it is, because your mind is having the belief in attack. And even if it's someone "not me" seeming to be attacked, just the acceptance that it is occurring is enough to cause your mind to generate fear thoughts.

So then the question arises, is it possible when presented with situations in which other people are suffering, to be completely unmoved by it. Is it possible to not have a reaction, to not go into fear, or into diagnosis mode, or attempting to react to what seems very real.

And then this further leads to, is it OKAY to not react? Is it okay to remain calm and peaceful and seemingly "disconnected" from what is supposed to be a "normal reaction"? Is it okay to be happy when someone is upset, calm when someone is stressing out, peaceful when someone is in pain, etc. That basically, your inner state and emotion and mental condition becomes NOT DEPENDENT ON the external world.

Somehow this means transcending the hierarchy of illusions, orders of severity/difficulty, belief in seriousness, problems seeming to be real, other people's problems seeming to be real, and sinking into a kind of detached "insulation" or self-contained independently chosen state of being, that isn't always the EFFECT OF or a REACTION TO what's happening in the world. The idea of being in a state which the WORLD did not cause, is quite radically new.

Can I become not involved. Can I remain untangled from the illusions. In the face of dramas, can I not buy into them. Can I remain happy and peaceful at all times, which seems very very alien to the state of being constantly tossed around on the ocean waves like a rollercoaster of stressful reactions. Can I become independent of the world's causalities, immune to them, invulnerable to them, such that I am literally no longer AFFECTED by anything. And such that whatever state I experience *I* have chosen, and the world has not caused to happen in me.

"I am not at the effect of the world I see."

With regards to your ego and the ego of your brother, everything about it is self inflicted and separate. What is in your ego is not in your brother's ego. They are two separate, private worlds. They do not connect or join or communicate or share.

Everything happening within your own ego is not happening because of or in connection with or caused by what's happening in someone else's ego. It's all happening entirely independently.

Therefore, where the ego is concerned, you need to be completely responsible for the self-contained world that your ego lives in, which is a closed world, closed to your brother. Everything about it, all of the ego experiences, feelings, reactions, perceptions, are all entirely within yourself and are yours. Own them.

You need to disconnect your ego from the egos of other people. You need to realize that two egos do not communicate. You need to realize that what another person's ego is doing (anything unloving) is not in any way shape or form a cause of anything happening in your own ego. And vice versa. You are not doing anything to their ego and their ego is not doing anything to you. Egos are separate. Egos are individuals.

However, there is something that you do share with your brother. The only thing you can share with your brother, is sharing itself. Sharing means love, joining, communication, openness, equality, freedom, truth. These things, you DO share with your brother. These things, happen to both of you at the same time. These things are mutual, shared interests. These things connect you to your brother and join you together.

So be clear about this. The parts of your experience that are ego, you need to become very clear that these are SEPARATE from your brother and have nothing to do with him. They are your own private hallucinatory world. Nothing goes outside of this world. Ideas leave not their source. Your brother's ego ideas do not leave your brother either. Neither of you causes anything in each other through the ego. Your egos are completely separate and disconnected. All they can do is make noises and postulate before each other, but it is up to each person to decide whether to use their ego or Holy Spirit in perceiving the activities of another.

If it's ego, its yours. If it's love, it's shared. Never do egos really communicate and never do egos really cause things to happen to each other. The idea of attack is entirely an illusion because attack is withdrawal into a private world. Nothing any ego says is ever about you. Nothing your ego says is ever about anyone else.

Only in the holy relationship is there any real sharing or real communication or real relationship because it is a relationship based in reality. Ego relationships are not relationships at all.

If you are feeling unworthy or unwanted, know this.

In spacetime, cause and effect seem to occur whereby you cause something temporarily, it produces something temporary, and then the cause is withdrawn. As if it has deposited a creation and left it alone, essentially similar to the idea of birth.

Physical creations are like discarded pieces of trash, made momentarily and then forgotten about. In effect, its creator abandons it, does not want to maintain it, withdraws life from it, and leaves it to die alone.

What is deposited upon the Earth is merely thrown away, discarded and no longer nurtured by its creator. And being without a cause, it must die. This is true of all bodies and objects and forms, which are nothing but discarded rejects from a temporary creator who creates nothing that lasts and who wants none of his creations.

This is the metaphysical origin of feelings of unworthiness, of rejection by God, of being discarded and abandoned, of deserving death and of being orphaned in a trashcan of a world. If you ARE a body, then you are disconnected from your source, and your creator has rejected you as unworthy.

It is simply because you believe you are identified with something that is not permanent, came from a creator who does not permanently love you, were produced by a sinful evil cause who hated you and no longer wanted you, and who has left you for dead in a graveyard, lost and alone to wither and die.

No one can be sustained or maintained without a cause. Effects do not exist unless their cause is ongoing. You cannot step away from something, believing you have caused it, and have it remain. To do so is to reject and discard and abandon it to death. A creation which can exist on its own without its creator is a total illusion in this world. Without your creator you are nothing.

God is a permanent creator and he creates only that which is permanent, and he maintains you in his mind forever by his thought and will and power. He cannot ever stop loving you or stop creating you or sustaining you. That is why you are able to live forever, because he is permanently holding you in existence. You are forever ever-present and ever-perfect. He WANTS YOU permanently and so does NOT leave you.

Only in such a way can you BE worthy, or WANTED, or DESIRED by your creator, or VALUED enough to have permanent ongoing nurturing, support, maintenance and continued existence. Only if you were wanted FOREVER could you have eternal life. And this is how we have to learn to think of ourselves.

If we see ourselves as children of temporary parents, or deposits of a creator who has turned his back on us, or effects who have become orphaned from their cause, or fatherless sons, or motherless daughters, or in any way disconnected from our source, then we will see ourselves as unwanted. This is why all those walking the earth feel themselves to be unworthy, because they think they have become separate from God.

Separation is really the idea that cause and effect have become separated. That father and son have been separated. That the son no longer has a father. That the father is no longer a father and does not want a son. That the father has rejected the son and is trying to destroy him. And that the son has rejected the father and is trying to destroy him also. This MUST produce a sense of unworthiness because it means the father does not want the sons and does not value his life.

If you are the child of a permanent creator, who wants you permanently, and who can never stop wanting you, then you must be worthy and you must be wanted. If you are something lost and forgotten, discarded like a piece of trash, hated and reviled, evil and ugly, then obviously you're going to feel unworthy. Identifying with a body you MUST reject God and msut therefore feel valueless. The body is not worth ANYTHING, and if it is your self, then you have no creator.

A lack of worth therefore is nothing more than a breakdown in cause and effect. To be an effect without a cause, is to have been disowned. If you are disowned by your creator then what can that say of your value, who has turned his back and left you behind to suffer alone? Only if cause and effect are permanent can you be worthy of God. You cannot be some lump of flesh that was squirted out and became a separate thing, otherwise you ARE literally separate from your creator and are PHYSICALLY unwanted.

Fortunately God never leaves his children comfortless. He never abandons you. He never forgets you. He never stops loving and wanting you. He never finds you to be imperfect or worth discarding. He never stops suspending you in his mind, or making sure theat you live forever. He never leaves you and he never forsakes you. And most of all, he never fails to value you, because he has decided to hold you in his heart forever.

"You have not left me comfortless. I have within me both the memory of You, and One Who leads me to It."

"You do not walk alone. God's angels hover close, and all about. His Love surrounds you, and of this be sure: that I will never leave you comfortless."

"Before that, there was no need for healing and no-one was comfortless."

"It was accomplished FOR you by the Will of God, who has not left you comfortless."

"He will not leave you comfortless, nor fail to send His angels down to answer you in His Own Name."

"He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you."

"God did not leave His Children comfortless, even though they left Him."

"And he is entitled to everything, because it is his birthright as a Son of God."

"The Children of God are entitled to perfect comfort, which comes from a sense of perfect trust."

"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they, were created neither partially nor in part."

All thoughts create form at some level. This is because thoughts (ego thoughts) are ideas about separation. Regardless of their specific content they are always separation ideas.

Separation ideas always therefore lead to "form" in some way.

What this means is, the idea of separation from God, having that tiny mad idea, AUTOMATICALLY means that form MUST come from it. Form must be the end result of an idea of separation. The thought ITSELF shows up as form - separate images appearing real, and eventually being so "firm" that they seem like solid matter.

Form results from thoughts of separation because separation requires us to make an illusion of how two things are different and disconnected, not sharing space or properties. These illusory appearances make it seem like separation is real and result in the illusion of "separate objects".

Any ego thought therefore emphasizes separation between illusions. As the division between thoughts intensifies, or becomes more "dense", it HAS to eventually lead to the illusory manifestation of what we would call "physical solid matter" - a physical universe - which is essentially just a very heavy/serious thought.

Or to put it simply, the mad idea of being separate from God HAD to create a physical universe. It is a completely logical progression and consequence of having such an idea. Form derives from separation.

If separation is perceived or believed to be real, some kind of universe of forms, to some degree, must seem to manifest.

Before the physical universe there were also prior "stages" if you will, subtler levels of this, which have produced additional levels in the dream. Other dimensions. These are all part of the same ego holographic dream and many of these levels feature form to varying degrees.

As Jesus says for example, nighttime and waking dreams differ only in their forms/content. Being in the physical world is nothing more than being inside the tiny mad idea of separation. It is just an idea, and is not really happening. This is why the physical universe is an illusion. It's an illusory thought of separation - a thought of impossibility.

When you can recognize the illusion correctly, you have completed forgiveness. This means being able to transcend and overlook the thought which has made the physical world. Seeing the truth of this, is seeing the "real world", ie the true nature of the worlds of form (which may pertain to physical level as well as higher levels/dimensions of form).

Overlooking illusions makes them disappear. Overlooking the thought of separation makes it, and everything which has come from it (is inside it), disappear. This is why the physical and other higher dimensional universes MUST eventually disappear, or rather be recognized as having been nothing more than a dream/illusion to begin with. Illusions recognized must disappear. The tiny mad idea, recognized as purely false, must end.

Only Heaven is reality, the home of Immortal Spirit. Only Heaven will be left when all of these illusory universes disappear. Only Heaven is the Home of God and the Son of God. Only Heaven, God's Creation, is the real truth - the real universe of oneness.

When your idea of TRUTH is aligned with what God's truth is, you will resurrect. When your idea of TRUTH is aligned with the ego's idea of what truth is (death, opposite of life), it induces death.

Whatever your idea of truth is, you identify with it, think it is your self, will protect it, defend it, want it, believe in it, have faith in it, see it as real and love it above all else. It doesn't matter whether it is actually true or not in the bigger picture.

It's good when your idea of truth matches God's truth because this actually brings you closer to life and to health and happiness.

But when your idea of truth is mistaken and you believe something is true which is not, you will STILL defend it to the death, and take sides against life. This will result in you becoming sick and disconnected from life, and eventually to die.

This happens because you are choosing death (the belief that what is false is true) but are believing you are choosing life, because you are confused about what is true and what is false. The ego always tells you that if you choose its thought system you are choosing the truth. But when you actually listen to it and choose it, you are choosing to believe lies. And this will tempt you away from God and towards death. You will then experience unexpected consequences and suffering, because the ego's advice does not work and results in the opposite of what it claims.

When you are insane and delusional like this, believing that something is true that isn't, you will be heavily in denial and unwilling to accept the real truth. You will become unaware that you are hurting yourself and making yourself suffer with your defense of lies. You'll think you are saving your life by defending yourself against God's truth, which you now perceive as false and opposite and an enemy.

If you want to experience life and not death, you must choose to align your idea of TRUTH with God's truth, in recognition that only the truth is true. It is your choice which voice you listen to. Either you choose life by choosing to believe God's truth, or you choose death by choosing to believe ego's truth. Either way it is CHOSEN.

"No one dies without their own consent." "You cannot die unless you choose to do so." "You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself." Secret of salvation - you're doing this to yourself. There are no limits on mind other than that it cannot serve two masters - you must choose, whether you place your faith in death, or whether to place your faith in life. Faith in God is believing God and trusting God and accepting God's will. This literally resurrects you from the dead (fake death) and restores you to awareness of your immortality. Not even death can prevail against a Son of God who has commended his spirit into God's hands.

Cutting your Self off from God is separation.

Cutting yourself off from God means that now your Self is ISOLATED or disconnected from God.

It does not mean that you have no self or that you do not exist.

Nor does it mean that you having a Self is ego or a sin.

It merely means your Self has become surrounded with fictional illusions of SEPARATION which are not really there, which blocks your awareness of being as God created you.

God created you to HAVE A SELF. You are one of many sons of God.

Just because your Self is constrained and limited by walls of ego delusion, does not fundamentally mean that your "self" itself is false.

All it means is that you have tried to CHANGE your Self into an artificial self, one which is separated from the whole and one which does not want to be as God created it.

Just because you are in the world being "an individual" does NOT make individuality an error. It's not your individuality that is an error. It's the ego stuff that SURROUNDS your individuality and paints a picture of you being an identity that is not true of you.

Not having an EGO identity or an ego individuality, a cut off individuality, does NOT mean that when you get rid of the ego you will get rid of you "self". It only means that the FAKE SELF, which was formed from walls surrounding your REAL SELF, will disappear, and what will be left is your REAL SELF, WHICH IS AN INDIVIDUAL SOUL.

God created individual souls with individual free will. This is normal and natural. It is normal to have a SELF. It's just that, in God's creation, this Self is ALSO UNITED with all of the rest of creation - joined to it, sharing with it. It is ONLY THE SHARING that has seemed to end.

The lack of sharing and the sense of ISOLATION from the whole is all that needs to be undone and let go of. And letting go of that isolation reconnects you to the whole and DOES NOT MEAN that your "self" stops being separate and therefore you stop HAVING a self. It does not mean, there is nowhere that you begin and God ends. You do not cause God, God causes you. You exist forever as His creation. You cannot make yourself not exist any more than you can change God's creation.

All that falls away is the LIES ABOUT YOU, not YOU.

Look at anyone who has had an awakening. They will tell you, who they thought they were fell away and disappeared. So there is no THAT self left, but that person is standing there talking to you BEING A SELF, because they still have a soul. You are permanent.

Which part of "I am as God created me" means that you do not exist?

Because we don't realize how much power we have lost by following the ego, we might not realize just how much power is available to us.

Returning to God doesn't just mean we remain some kind of disempowered, barely able to do anything being that's nice and calm and unassuming. We've been so used to living in limitation and lack, spiritually starving ourselves, and so used to blocking the extension of God, that we may not anticipate the wealth that is on offer.

This wealth will return to us as we reclaim the Kingdom, and resurrect to our True Identity.

It is the difference between going from death, to being alive. Going from suffering to happiness. Going from loss to abundance. Going from fear to profound natural confidence.

It's as though we've taken God's power and presence and have tried to squeeze it and wring it out and drain all of the life out of it. We've become spiritually dry and barren.

As you awaken, your willingness to do God's will and your openness to RECEIVE, is going to open the floodgates to the extension of LOVE to flow and radiate through you. Love is power.

Quite literally, the absence of love is an absence of life-giving force, an absence of freedom, an absence of manifestational potential, and a breaking of causal power.

We're been preventing ourselves from wielding miracles, limiting and stopping or creative capabilities, and have placed ourselves in a prison with shackles on. Having bound ourselves to the ego and the body, we have shut down our unlimited power, and now thing there is no greater power to reclaim.

Your ability to cause anything has been reduced down to almost nothing by being in the ego. So much separation has come between cause and effect, to suggest they are disconnected. It's like the power cable is unplugged.

Returning to awareness of God's love WILL reconnect you with power. The power of the mind and heart. Causality will be hooked back up with effects to bring about immediate manifestations of God's will.

This power to cause and produce instant effects, where cause and effect are one, is your completely natural birthright. It is God-given and shared with God.

The potential of what can be accomplished in this power, compared to the almost complete powerlessness rendered by the ego, is staggering.

As you approach God, it is like stepping into the sun. The light radiates, warmth returns, everything becomes dynamic and alive, and life resurrects the dead. God is life and the giver of life which, by comparison, shows just how little and weak the ego is.

As you step out to express God's love, fulfill God's will, and extend God's power, miracles will become effortless and unlimited. Your word will become infused with Spirit, such that you can speak to mountains and force them to move, literally.

By reclaiming and owning up to your natural Christ Power, you will go from cowering and fearing, to certainty, authority, and complete power over all illusions. They will be nothing to you, both in truth and in expression.

You will become like Jesus, or Moses, or many other miracle workers, who share God's impressive might and powerful creative will. Going from a lifeless life to one infused with the living God is going to be night and day.

When there is a lack of awareness, ie awareness if blocked in some way, there is an inability to see the whole picture.

This "blindness" leaves a person with only a limited scope of ability to access information.

It does not matter how much information a person has. Everyone believes that they are fully aware of everything even if they are not. And as a result, will use whatever information they can access to decide what things mean or to discern why they are happening.

Not having all the facts leads to false conclusions. That is inevitable.

If you do not see the way that you are choosing, and what you have chosen, and what you have put in place, and why, you will be convinced instead that it must have been some external circumstance outside your power or control that has determined what you are experiencing.

This will automatically lead to the perception that decisions are being made against your will and against your interests. And it will appear that someone or something else is to blame for putting it in place.

This state of perceived powerlessness will render you a victim, in your own eyes, and this will appear to be a completely rational explanation, given the belief that you are aware of everything, even if you are not.

This will then make it seem completely justified to be angry at the apparent fact that someone or something else is limiting you, imprisoning you, choosing for you, or making things happen that you seem not to want consciously.

This anger will come across as frustration and a seemingly sincere, perhaps even innocent desire to not have these bad things happening to you. It will seem as if you have no say in the matter, did not choose them, do not want them, and cannot do anything about them.

All of this behavior is completely understandable given that you simply are not aware of all the information. Anyone who cannot see the whole truth is guaranteed to come to false conclusions, and those conclusions will appear completely justified and make sense to the person.

Anything which challenges those conclusions will appear to be insane or an attack, simply because the person is convinced that they know everything there is to know and have all the information necessary to decide for themselves why things are happening.

And yet, because the mind is unaware of vital information, especially the fact that the person is choosing absolutely everything that happens, the person does not see or accept or recognize that they have done this to themselves. Nor do they see that they have any choice in the matter, that they are contributing to the situation, that there is a freedom of choice, or that there is a possible way out of the suffering.

Instead, they will find blame to pin on some other plausible cause outside of themselves, maintaining their state of victimhood and perpetuating the suffering, yet seemingly with a simultaneous sense of unwillingness that this be happening. They will be in a state of contradiction because they themselves are choosing the suffering while simultaneously claiming not to want it. And while the state of unawareness is maintained, they will remain paralyzed and powerless to do anything to free themselves.

The only way to regain a sense of freedom, hope, power, and ability to cease the suffering and solve the situation, is to increase the level of awareness. The mind must become more aware that it is choosing everything it is experiencing.

It must become aware that it did choose to suffer in every way that suffering came, and that it itself put in place all of the situations and circumstances and relationships and dynamics which seemed to occur. Ultimately the mind must recognize that it did all of this to itself, that there is no external cause of any of its problems, that no-one else is to blame, and that simply because it chose this it can choose again.

The only hope there is lies in the recognition that you do have the power to choose and to be free, simply because it was you who created your own suffering. You can change your mind, and it will change your experience. Hope lies in increasing the awareness, honesty and willingness to accept responsibility, for having created whatever is occurring. Because if you created it, you can create something else. If you did not create it, you are permanently stuck, constantly a victim, and unwilling to accept that you play any part in why you are unhappy.

Those who are "asleep" at the wheel, continue to choose suffering unconsciously, outside of awareness, and are then not aware that they are doing so. They can therefore be forgiven for seeming to act the way they do, or to believe the way they do about external powers, because they simply are not aware of the whole story. Anyone who is asleep is guaranteed to experience the same sense of unwanted suffering, because they do not see that their own will is actually choosing experiences. And so the experiences seem to come out of nowhere, from beyond awareness, and act upon the seemingly conscious self which perceives them as coming from outside of the scope of itself.

Identity is always tied to the scope of awareness. If you are unaware of your whole mind, your sense of self is limited to what you are conscious of. As you lift away the blocks to awareness, your sense of identity will expand automatically. It will become more inclusive of the rest of your mind. Your awareness will increase and eventually you will discover that you are immortal spirit, whole and complete and still as God created you, having never really suffered or separated from God at all.

The only reason a person thinks that the world is out to get them is because they are out to get themselves. The only reason life seems unfair is because they are choosing unconsciously and outside of conscious awareness, therefore seemingly outside of the person's sense of who they are. From beyond the borders of conscious awareness, seemingly disconnected will power seems to force things to happen which the disconnected conscious self does not see itself as choosing. And so victimhood is inevitable.

This is why Jesus teaches to forgive others because they do not know what they are doing. They literally are in a state of mistakenness because they simply do not see or are not aware of the fact that they are causing everything to happen. When they do become aware that they are at cause not at effect, they will simply cease to make those mistakes. This mistakes arise automatically from blocked awareness. And so unblocking awareness is the solution which will end all suffering.

When awareness has no blocks, the mind can be consciously aware of the whole of self, plus the whole of God, plus all causes, and now sees everything in its correct perspective. Everything then makes proper sense, and lines up with truth and reality and the correct order of the levels. In this mind there is no suffering and no choosing against oneself because it then becomes clearly obvious that to do so would directly attack oneself, which is obviously insane. No-one in their right mind would choose against themselves. Those who are choosing against themselves are not in their right mind.

No-one is a victim without being unaware of what they are doing to themselves. All attack is self attack. All suffering is self inflicted. Once we stop attacking ourselves we will realize we were incapable of ever being attacked by any other cause, there is no other cause, and therefore we are free from attack and suffering forever.

The body is a wall, like a fence, which was drawn around a PART of your total mind, in order to section it off and claim it as personal territory. The purpose of this body fence is to define that some tiny portion of your mind is yours alone, not shared with anyone, and that all of God and Creation are kept outside. Within this fence is the idea of the selfish self, the ego, which now regards itself as a whole self, but through bodily identification lacks the relationships that imply being.

This means that as you return to the wholeness of yourself, of your soul, you necessarily must re-inherit and open up to the vast expanse of the rest of your mind, which had been disconnected and externalized. Literally, the rest of you is out there, in your brothers. You are much larger than the tiny little PIECE of self that is hidden in a body. Only a PART of your mind finds itself imprisoned in flesh and the rest of you is unlimited.

Your mind is in fact so unlimited it is larger than the universe of spacetime. And symbolically we invented bodies as a tiny speck of a fence around a tiny speck of the total mind/self. This tiny piece of yourself is what finds itself within the body, as an ego, believing it is the whole of yourself. The whole rest of yourself symbolically is outside the body fence as the external universe. And it is huge in comparison. When you awaken, you reunite with the rest of the universe that you separated a PART of your mind off from. Thus not ALL of you went into the separation, only a tiny portion of your total mind.

"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."

"The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built to separate ***parts of his Self from other parts***. It is ***within this fence he thinks he lives***, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love (the whole of himself). Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is. How else could he be certain he remains within the body, keeping love (the rest of him) outside (symbolized by the external world)?"

"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. The body is a tiny fence ***around a little part*** of a glorious and completely limitless idea (your full self). It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little ***segment*** of Heaven (a PART of your full mind), splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules (the selfish/special/posessive self that produces the body fence), and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe (the rest of you which seems outside the body and symbolically extremely vast).

***This fragment of your mind ("the ego") is such a tiny part of it***, that, could you but appreciate the whole, you would see instantly that it is like the smallest sunbeam is to the sun (you are much bigger than your little body self). Or like the faintest ripple on the surface of the ocean. In its amazing arrogance, this tiny sunbeam has decided it IS the sun; this almost imperceptible ripple hails itself as the ocean. Think how alone and frightened is this little thought, this infinitesimal illusion, holding itself apart, against the universe. The sun (God/soul/oneness) becomes the sunbeam's "enemy," which would devour it. And the ocean terrifies the little ripple, and "wants" to swallow it.

Yet neither sun nor ocean is even aware of all this strange and meaningless activity (God does not acknowledge your belief that part of you is separate from the rest). They merely continue, unaware that they are feared and hated by a tiny segment of themselves. ***Even that segment is not LOST to them*** (this tiny part of mind must be KEPT and reintegrated), for it could not survive APART from them. And what IT thinks it is in no way changes ***its total dependence on them FOR ITS BEING***. Its whole existence still remains IN THEM (you are always joined to the rest of yourself). Without the sun, the sunbeam WOULD be gone; the ripple WITHOUT the ocean IS inconceivable.

Such is the strange position in which those in a world inhabited by bodies seem to be. Each body seems to house a SEPARATE mind (a part of your total mind that is separated off), a DISCONNECTED thought, living alone and in no way joined to the Thought by which it was created. Each tiny fragment seems to be self-contained (your little sense of self), needing each other for SOME things, but by no means TOTALLY depended on their One Creator for EVERYTHING. And needing the whole to give them ANY meaning, for by themselves, they DO mean nothing. Nor HAVE they any life apart, and by themselves. (the little part of mind separated off in the body is still part of the whole).

Yet, like the sun and ocean, your Self continues, unmindful that this tiny part regards ITSELF as you. It is not missing; ***it could not EXIST if it were separate*** (its not really separate), nor would the whole BE whole without it. It is not a separate kingdom, ruled by an IDEA of separation from the rest. Nor does a fence surround it (body is an illusion), preventing it ***from JOINING with the rest*** (of you), and keeping it apart from its Creator. This little aspect is NO DIFFERENT from the whole (still holy mind), being continuous with it, ***and at one with it***. It leads no separate life, because its life IS in the Oneness in which its being was created.

Do not accept this little, fenced-off aspect ***as*** your Self (because you are unlimited). The sun and ocean are as nothing, beside what YOU are. The sunbeam sparkles only in the sunlight, and the ripple dances as it rests upon the ocean. Yet in neither sun nor ocean is the power that rests in you. Would you remain WITHIN your tiny kingdom (body), a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all he surveys, who looks on nothing (the world/gap), but who would still die to DEFEND it? This little self is NOT your kingdom. Arched high above it, and surrounding it, with love, is the glorious whole, which offers all its happiness and deep content to EVERY part. (including the separated off mind that's in a body)."

Here is also an additional quote from elsewhere in the course which confirms further that only a small part of our mind was stolen away from heaven, not all of us, and finds itself now to be in a body.

"Therefore, it is the tiny part of your self, the little thought that seems split off and separate, that the Holy Spirit needs. The rest is fully in God's keeping, and needs no guide. But this wild and delusional thought needs help, because, in its delusions, it thinks it is the Son of God, whole and omnipotent, sole ruler of the kingdom it set apart to tyrannize by madness into obedience and slavery.

This is the LITTLE part of you you think you stole from Heaven. Give it back to Heaven. Heaven has not lost it, but YOU have lost sight of Heaven. Let the Holy Spirit remove it from the withered kingdom in which you set it up, surrounded by darkness, guarded by attack, and reinforced by hate. Within its barricades is still a tiny segment of the Son of God, complete and holy, serene and unaware of what you think surrounds it. Be you not separate, for the One Who DOES surround it has brought union to you, returning your little offering of darkness to the Eternal Light."

Ego is the idea of being a completely separated off, isolated, alone, totally self-reliant, exclusive special unique self, which has no relationships with anyone and relies on no-one. Completely autonomous as though it is totally cut off from everything.

"The ego's goal is quite explicitly EGO AUTONOMY. From the beginning, then, its PURPOSE is to be separate, sufficient unto itself, and independent of any power EXCEPT ITS OWN. This is WHY it is the symbol of separation."

"The ego ALWAYS attacks on behalf of separation. Believing it HAS the power to do this, it does nothing else, because its goal of autonomy IS nothing else."

"the ego attacks everything it perceives, by breaking it up into small and disconnected parts, without meaningful relationships, and thus without meaning"

"The core of the separation delusion lies simply in the fantasy DESTRUCTION of love's meaning."

"Separation is only the decision NOT to know yourself. Its whole thought-system is a carefully-contrived learning experience, designed to lead AWAY from truth, and into fantasy."

"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."

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

"The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of separation."

"The Separation is merely another term for a split mind. It was not an act, but a thought."

"To fragment IS TO EXCLUDE, and substitution is the strongest defense the ego has for separation."

"For the IDEA of guilt brings a belief of condemnation of one by another, projecting separation in place of unity."

"the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness"

"You who were prisoners in separation are now made free in Paradise."

"Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering, and intense fear of loss."

"The ego arose from the Separation, and its continued existence depends on your continuing belief in the Separation."

"All it CAN offer is a sense of temporary existence, which begins with its own beginning and ends with its own ending."

"The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the Separation. No one has been sure of anything since then."

"Fear has made everything you think you see. All separation, all distinctions, and the multitude of differences you believe make up the world. They are not there. Love's enemy has made them up."

"BY their separation are their selves maintained. The little that the body fences off BECOMES the self, preserved through sacrifice of all the rest. And all the rest must LOSE this little part, remaining incomplete to keep its own identity intact."

"ALL sickness comes from separation. When the separation is denied, it goes."

"Guilt is ALWAYS disruptive. Anything that engenders fear is divisive, because it obeys the law of division. If the ego is the symbol of the separation, it is also the symbol of guilt. Guilt is more than merely not of God. It is the symbol of the ATTACK on God."

"SEPARATION therefore remains the ego's chosen condition."

"In separation from your brother was the first attack upon yourself begun."

"The separated mind cannot maintain the separation EXCEPT by dissociating."

"The separation IS the notion of rejection. As long as you teach this, YOU still believe it."

It's very useful as a tool to consider what something means if God were included. We think far too often "separately" and without including God.

Since God created you as a part of him, you are literally part of God. Such as in the lesson which says "Love created me loving" "Peace created me peaceful" etc. You inherited God. And you actually live within God within his being and mind. You're part of him.

So properly speaking, anything which applies to YOU, or to anyone, ALSO applies to God. Something can't be true of you unless it is also true of God. That's very useful to keep in mind.

So for example, if someone seems to be sick, we shouldn't just think of that person in isolation. We should include God. We should remind ourselves, if that person is a part of God, and God cannot be sick, then that person cannot be sick. Otherwise God would have to also be sick. This is along similar lines to:

"If God is real there is no pain. If pain is real there is no God."

"There is no cruelty in God and none in me."

That's the simple logic of it. If your brother, or yourself, is a part of God, and if God has a certain divine attribute, then you and your brother must also have that attribute. If they seem to have attributes that God cannot have, then they and you cannot have that attribute either.

Also if you accuse yourself, blame yourself, feel guilty, condemn yourself, attack yourself, etc, you should also remember that you are doing this to God as well. And in fact, also to the whole sonship.

We have to learn that we are not JUST ourselves, isolated and separate and disconnected from everyone. Everything we do or think affects the whole universe. When we assert that something ungodly applies to ourselves, or to others, we're also saying it applies to God.

We can use this fact to deprogram ourselves from illusions. We can say, since God is innocent, and I am part of God, I must also be innocent. If I were guilty, part of God would be guilty, and God can't be guilty. Therefore I can't be guilty. Or, since my brother is a part of God, he cannot be sick, because otherwise God would be sick. This is also a way to seeing God in yourself and others.

In general we need to open up more to being joined, connected, one, sharing, united in identity, with a truth (the golden rule) which applies to ourselves AND to others. An inclusive truth, instead of always cutting everyone off and pointing fingers at exclusive little boxes.

"If what you do to my brother you do to me, and if you do everything for yourself because we are PART of you, everything WE do belongs to you as well."

"It is not true that you can make decisions BY yourself, or FOR yourself alone. No thought of God's Son CAN be separate, or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the WHOLE SONSHIP, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of."

"His Father's Love for him belongs to you. Your function here on earth is only to forgive him, that you may accept him back as your identity. He is as God created him. And you are what he is. Forgive him now his sins, and you will see that you are one with him."

"You can overlook your brother's dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions, he becomes your Savior from YOUR dreams."

"Today let me give honor to Your Son, for thus alone I find the way to You. Father, I lay no limits on the Son You love, and You created limitless. The honor that I give to him is Yours, and what is Yours belongs to me as well."

Your natural state of being is:

1) God is the source of love and extends you

2) You receive everything from God and extend it further

3) Your own creations receive from you

Another way of putting it is:

1) God is the Father and extends you as His Son

2) Since he shares everything He is with you, you also inherit the ability to be a father

3) You therefore father your own creations which are your Sons

And another way of putting it is:

1) God is the source of love and love is miraculous

2) God creates you miraculously and shares miraculousness with you

3) You extend God's miraculous love and perform miracles

In this arrangement, which is the way things are in Heaven, and which is the perfect condition of your relationship with God, you RECEIVE everything from God. God just loves you unconditionally all the time for no reason other than to love you. You receive that, and appreciate the awesome gift that it is, and you joyfully extend it.

Now, when the 'separation' happened, the Fatherhood of God was separated from the Sonship of the Son. The son stopped experiencing Himself as the Son of God because, having cut off God's role as His father, He no longer could see Himself as a Son. However, the former Son of God retained the outward creative fatherhood properties He was given. So He continues to try to create, except that having disconnected from the Father he is no longer EXTENDING God's creation, but instead tries to be the SOURCE of what He creates. That means creating without God, which is MAKING.

The former Son of God also then sees Himself as orphaned from God and, having no source for Himself, is left only with 'Himself' to deal with His situation. Instead of receiving love and support from God, this 'separated self' has to invent its own support and its own substitute or love. Having separated from God, this separated self is now alone and afraid and lacking and limited. He is also powerless and weak. He attempts to continue the behavior of extension but without sourcing 'what to extend' in God. So instead he INVENTS, makes up, dreams and projects an imaginary creation (the world) which does not really exist, which is not sustained by God's love, and which therefore must perish.

Clearly, what's gone wrong in the separated Son's life is the disconnection between Himself and God... the shutting off the FLOW that comes FROM God to sustain Him, to provide for Him, to protect Him, to nourish Him, and to give abundantly to Him and to BE everything for Him. That's what the separation shut out of His mind. So now His mind seems intent on going off on its own tangent, running its own life, deciding everything alone, doing everything alone, and generally failing and suffering a lot. There is only one problem - separation from God, and there is only one solution - repairing the separation from God.

So now we find ourselves in this dreamworld of unreality, with separated lives and separate wills, with everything going to shit, and we wonder why. And we wonder how to get back to peace. And then we start doing our forgiveness and our thought management and so on, but you need this bigger picture in order to realize WHY you are doing all this and what the overall goal is. The goal is to UNDO THE SEPARATION FROM GOD completely. And that must mean, the restoration of the dynamics of the relationship that you had with God before the separation.

So this means, your mind/self now needs to transition from being alone, separate, making up lies and doing everything yourself, to RECONNECTING to God, opening up to receive supply/abundance/safety/love/protection/guidance FROM God again, becoming willing to extend what GOD has created (His love), allowing Him to be the source/God/origin instead of you having to invent stuff on your own, and then EXTENDING that outward to all of creation, acknowledging that this 'ex Son of God' is once again THE Son of God, restored to perfection.

So this means having to learn to surrender all of the side-effects that came about from becoming a separate self, which includes surrendering thinking for yourself, deciding for yourself, controlling life, regarding your life as 'your life' that you own in exclusion/exile, giving up the ways that you block the flow of love/miracles, undoing all sense of judgement/attack/separation/sin/guilt/fear that comes between you and God, opening your mind to RECEIVE from God His guidance and love and support, and weaning yourself off of all the ARTIFICIAL SOURCES of support and coping and replacements for what you lost (special love etc), which you MADE to take the place of God.

So as we RECLAIM our rightful place as Son of God again, and restore the relationship with God, and re-open ourselves to receiving the flow/extension of God's love/miracles, we are returning to being Christ and we're letting go of the 'circumstances' of how things ended up after separating from our Father. All the ways that we 'coped' with the separation need to be undone and replaced with getting our supply from God again.

A few quotes coming to mind...

"God goes with me all through the day"

"I am sustained by the love of God"

What's really driving home for me at the moment is the difference between WHAT I AM, and WHAT I BELIEVE I AM.

In ACIM metaphysics, what you are is a soul or son of God that God created. This self is FIXED, permanently perfect, flawless forever, absolutely immortal, incapable of corruption or sickness, unable to sin or be guilty or afraid, in need of nothing, lacking nothing, always absolutely at peace in love.

That's what you ARE, deep down. And the thing is ... this is always true. It NEVER CHANGES. It cannot be undone, replaced, overwritten, cancelled, deleted, or in any way modified.

So then what does that tell you? Anything that you believe about yourself that says otherwise MUST BE A LIE. And that includes everything we call ego, all sense of neediness, believing you lack or are unworthy, any belief that you are guilty or sinful, any fear, anything at all that is not of God is NOT A PART OF YOU.

It's actually like some other "layer" of junk piled on top trying to cover up and disguise the fact that you are STILL exactly as God created you. All of it must be a total lie, completely false, and it it not actually defining what YOU ARE, it's saying something SEPARATE FROM what you are, disconnected from you, like a camouflage wrapped around you to try to keep your true perfection hidden.

So that means all our issues, all our guilts, all sinfulness and fear, all sickness and definitions of ourselves that we made up, are all LIES that just float around the OUTSIDE of what you are, including the body, and NEVER even touch upon or change or have any influence on your ACTUAL NATURE at all.

Deep down inside you right now this second you are STILL exactly pure and perfect and holy and innocent, guiltless and sinless. SIMULTANEOUS to all the other stuff that you think is true of you. Innocent right now, while believing you are guilty. Perfect right now, while believing you are flawed. Immortal right now, while believing you are dying.

This contrast then shows you that what God has created you AS is ALWAYS TRUE, and it's what YOU ARE. And anything else that says otherwise is not anything to do with what you are, it's just a bunch of lies swirling around.

When the separation from God happened we DID NOT CHANGE AT ALL. All that happened was in our minds... we temporarily BELIEVED that we had changed, and bought into the beliefs so much that we thought they were true. They were all lies, completely fictional, absolutely unfounded.

Literally we're sitting there in heaven floating about being happy and then we PRETEND that we're not. We make up a bunch of stuff about ourselves which STILL isn't true, when OBVIOUSLY our perfect immortal innocent self is sitting right there still shining perfectly and flawlessly. It's just that we bought into these lies and took them to be actually true of us, imagining that we had changed, that we have defiled ourselves, that we have become corrupt end evil. WE HAVE NOT. It's just a psychological mistake.

So even right now this second inside you, you are STILL INNOCENT, there IS NO SIN in you. You have no real guilt. No flaws or defects. No sickness. Nothing lacking. No needs. Nothing to be fixed. Nothing you can do to change yourself. All that's happening is there's a big giant lie swirling around your mind that you're listening to even though it obviously completely contradicts everything about you. And UNDERNEATH these lies you are absolutely unphased, unchanged, unmoved.

Inside you, are you IN HEAVEN, BEING HEAVEN. Right now. The only cleanup work is to remove all the silly fictional stories about yourself that are not true.

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception."

"The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within."

The ultimate elephant in the room I think is God ... because a) he's very big and b) hardly anyone seems to talk about him.

Have you noticed that? We talk about holy spirit, jesus, forgiveness, miracles, bodies, worlds, guilts, fears, sickness, death, and all that. ... but I hardly ever see anyone talking about God.

"God" is in fact the most frequently occurring regular word in ACIM. You'd think we'd be talking about God more?

You could also say the whole course is about your relationship with God. The separation from God is the only problem, and reunion with God is the only solution.

So it's not really so much about the world, or the body, or people outside you, or worldly events and forgivenesses, or even our relationships in the world. It's actually about something deeper than that, something that comes even before your own creation.

Your relationship with your source, where you come from, what created you and wills you to exist. We've interfered with our relationship to God, and it is precisely that relationship that needs the healing.

In the separation, we denied God, shut God out, rejected love, threw away the inheritance of what God was giving us, pretended not to have a father, didn't want to be loved, disconnected our minds from spirit, and basically closed ourselves off to him.

That's essentially the whole problem. Everything else is based on that. The sense of separation from God is the only problem to be corrected. Which means, we have to acknowledge first of all that we have in fact shut God out, and secondly that we now need to let God in again and recognize our relationship to him.

The love of God must be received again. The power of God must be owned again. The gifts of God must be opened to again. The inheritance from God must be reclaimed. Your oneness with God must be restored. Your identity as part of God must be owned up to. Your location in God as your home must become your anchor. Your reliance and dependence on God in symbiotic relationship must be trusted again. Trust in God has to be developed again. And you have to be willing to extend God's love and power again as a co-creator.

What seems to be separation from brothers, issues about projecting onto the world, struggles with sin and guilt and fear and sickness and death, that all comes later. That's all symptomatic of not having God in your awareness. God - or love - is literally all you need. God is the answer to your prayers. God is the solution to all your problems. God is your strength, your power, your innocence, the light in which you see, the love with which you forgive, the life in which you resurrect.

God is everything to you. There is nothing else.

"God and the Souls He created ARE symbiotically related. They are COMPLETELY dependent on each other."

"Your creation by God is the only foundation which cannot be shaken, because the light is IN it."

"God created His Sons by extending His Thought and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind."

"The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. Amen."

"God is my refuge and security."

"The Name of God is my inheritance."

"God is my strength. Vision is His gift."

"God is my Father, and His Son loves Him."

"God is my Source. I cannot see apart from Him."

"God is my life. I have no life but His."

"I call upon God's Name and on my own. The Name of God is my deliverance from every thought of evil and of sin, because it is my own as well as His."

"I want the peace of God. The peace of God is everything I want. The peace of God is my one goal"

"God is my Life and YOURS, and NOTHING is denied by God to His Son."

"My only function is the one God gave me."

"I am as God created me."

Effectively the "sonship" or Kingdom God created, is really a kind of "collective consciousness". Yes it's not what ACIM would officially refer to as consciousness, having nothing to do with perception etc, but we do SHARE mind. There is this one mind which houses many minds. It's similar to the Borg on Star Trek in that sense. Everyone is plugged into everyone, and indeed also acts "as one" in a giant collaborative way.

This also means that you are not just some separate chunk of the collective. Whereby other people are separate chunks, as if there are then wires connecting you together. But moreso you actually are everywhere and in everyone. And your brother IS part of you literally. You share your actual self with their self so fully they are basically one, yet two. You really are the whole collective, and are also part of it. The whole, and the part, as in a hologram.

What we call ego or separation, is what you get when you take someone who is part of AND all of this collective, and you try to "fence them off". To isolate them in a little prison with a wall around it, so that you can sort of say, this collective unit is now divorced from the collective, disconnected from the "hive mind", isn't sharing anything, can't "hear" the thoughts of the other brothers any more, and has now become "alone" or orphaned.

This self which was, and still is, part of the whole, sees itself as lacking the sense of relationship and sharing that unites it with the "rest" of the collective, which is also the rest of itself. And so it is kind of like a split off part of the whole, which was part of the whole, but has forgotten that it was whole. So now it sees itself as only a part, and only partial. Such a sense of identity is alone and lonely, isolated and like on a desert island, cut off and unable to relate or share.

To "undo the ego" is really a matter of reintegrating the rest of yourself, which means plugging yourself back into the whole sonship, to share everything with everyone, to have real relationship with all equally. That is really just a matter of taking away the separations - the walls - that seemed to imprison that part of the mind, so that that part of the mind is able to reconnect and integrate with the whole again.

We're not here in the business of exterminating parts of mind, we're actually in the business of setting them free from imprisonment. An imprisoned mind acts like an ego because it has limited itself. But when that same mind lets go its sense of selfishness, specialness, or exclusivity, it expands to return to the whole mind. This isn't really a destruction of your self, it's just a removal of the sense of separation which gave you a false sense of being small and limited.

In that sense, the part of your mind that believes it is an ego, lifts itself away from the "egotism" that imprisons it, the walls are transcended, the sense of self expands to be more inclusive, you become more than "just yourself", and all of this sense of isolation, loneliness, abandonment, fear, hiding, darkness, being trapped, being lost, etc, all that stuff goes, because the mind opens up to freedom and joining again.

You are returning to the family of God. The chains that bind you and keep you in a hellish prison are what need to be undone, not your "self". But while you live in the chains, you will see yourself as small and selfish because of what the chains imply about you. If you identify with the prison you become the prisoner. But you are more than the prison, you are only imprisoned by it if you give it the power to do so. The ego is a prison cell, not a self. It's like a trap that you've become stuck in, and all you need is to be set free.

Independence can seem like a good thing. It seems to in some way be better than dependency on others, or codependency. It seems to represent being responsible for ones own life, and having the freedom to choose anything.

The ego has an idea about independence. To the ego mind, independence from God is highly sought after. If you can exist and be autonomous without Him, that's your goal. And you can be relatively successful at this, albeit that usually the success will be punctuated with failures and is short lived.

You can, if you want, have your life all to yourself and do whatever you want to do. But at some point it will become obvious that something is missing. There is an emptiness, and your heart yearns for meaning. And that's because your independence is an attempt to be separate from meaning.

Separation from God, in which God's love is heartfelt and meaningful, must lead to a meaningless life in which the ego has taken over control of your life and is running the show on its own. This autonomy is artificial and pretends to be freedom. But it leads to death.

Without God, alone and incapacitated, there is only so much you can do. You cannot move the planets or heal the sick. You cannot raise the dead or bring miracles to those in need. And you cannot experience true peace.

Your independence from God is at a price. You may not realize it at first, but the cost is great. To be separate is to have nothing. And yet independence from God is an attempt to have everything for yourself. This grasping and holding-on to everything cannot accomplish what it aspires to do. Instead, everything is lost and you have nothing of value.

Your very existence, your being, cannot last while it is disconnected from the Source of Life. Cut off from supply, you will become sick and die. Disconnecting from your Real Self and from God is a lonely path of weakness, vulnerability, suffering and death.

If you want to eat real food at the table of God, then it comes with requirements. The Kingdom has some conditions you must meet. It is not that the Kingdom is conditional, but it does not include the ego. The idea of independence from God must be recognized as an ego attempt to be separate from God, to have a will of your own, to overthrow the Authority of God and to play at being God of your own world.

This you must be willing to let go if you are to reconnect and reunite with the only source of True Strength. This you must surrender if you want the benefit of Eternal Life. You must give up your desire for separate control over your life, and allow yourself to receive God again. Together you can share everything, but alone you have nothing but scraps.

The world is a dry and dusty desert where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. Without God, it has no life, and there is no hope of forever. Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven, come to rejuvenate, resurrect and bring life back to the living. Only when you allow God to nourish you in this way might you enjoy the fruits of Heaven.

You can have it your way, exercising all the rights and freedoms to the full extent that individuality and separation allows, yielding every possible result that can come from an single separate self. But you will grow tired and be thirsty for more. And true meaning will not be found in a separate life.

God is your home. The Father shares everything worth having. True Peace can be yours again if you will open your heart and mind and let Him help you with living. Plug yourself back into His Power Source and return to Life. You have been dead without Him. Now is your time of resurrection. It's time for the prodigal son to come home.

We speak of the separation from God. But the separation is also a separation from the sonship, which means a separation not only from others, but also from the part of you which is shared with them.

Before the separation we were all one, joined together and sharing everything. We even shared our identity and our souls. We overlapped and everything belonged to everyone.

But then in the separation, we went into an isolation mode, where we saw our own self as not shared with others, as not extending to include them, and had a sense of a "gap" or rift of distance (space) form in-between us.

This then led to the production of bodies symbolizing this separateness, in which we enter a state of solitude. Or to put it another way, solitary confinement. By seeing that other people are not a part of myself, I saw myself as exclusively "only me", and therefore disconnected from everyone.

That's a very lonely state to be in, in which we see ourselves as the only inhabitant or our little prison body, and everyone else seems kept apart from us physically. Jesus refers to this state as one of solitude, in which we basically tried to stop sharing anything with anyone. We also can really think of this as the ego, because it's this way of changing your sense of identity to identify with a body and believe that you are a lonesome person.

The truth is then, that if your IDENTITY does not include others, you ARE alone. And since separation is selfish, you ARE being selfish if you think ONLY of what seems to be your own self. You must expand your sense of identity to encompass and include all others, recognizing them as PART OF YOU.

Only when you can experience that others ARE part of your own self can you have a vested interest in developing shared interests. If you ARE others, then what benefits you benefits them equally. This means opening up to being more than JUST you.

This isn't really an attempt to throw away your self. The sense of egocentricity only comes from having a sense of identity that doesn't share with anyone. It's a temporary side effect or symptom. I think we can say the ego is a symptom of the separation, and without separateness from others there is no egotism.

Instead we are to open up to join, to reunite, with others. To let them into us. To see our own self IN them. To recognize them AS ourselves. And to share everything with them equally. This doesn't mean getting rid of myself, it means ADDING ON all the other selves that I CUT OFF in the separation. It means GAINING a much more expanded sense of self, which INCLUDES everyone as part of you.

When you are more than just yourself, you have made room for the interests of others in your life. When your own separate self stops being "all important", when you stop depending on your own strength, when you put aside making all your own decisions, and when you let go of trying to be in control of everything, you make room for others, and for God.

I can only make room for God if I make room IN MY SELF to include others and to include God as part of me. I literally am you and you literally are me. ONLY when identity is SHARED, is there true holy relationship. Only when I am US, am I devoid of the selfishness of the ego.

"Lead not your little lives in solitude, with one illusion as your only friend."

"We do not go alone. And we give thanks that in our solitude a Friend has come to speak the saving Word of God to us. And thanks to you for listening to Him."

"In Heaven God's Son is NOT imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin."

"To each who walks this earth in seeming solitude is a Savior given, whose special function here is to release him, and so to free himself."

"But those who KNOW that they are all the same, need not salvation. And each one FINDS his Savior, when he is ready to look upon the face of Christ, and see Him sinless."

"This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make, in which to hide from God."

"The body HAS no purpose of itself, and MUST be solitary."

"I made up the prison in which I see myself."

"Christ's hand has touched your shoulder, and you feel that you are not alone. You even think the miserable self you thought was you may not be your identity. Perhaps God's Word is truer than your own."

"It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone. For remembering Him means you are NOT alone, and willing to remember it. Take no thought FOR YOURSELF, for no thought you hold IS for yourself. "

"If I am with you in the loneliness of the world, THE LONELINESS IS GONE. You CANNOT maintain the illusion of loneliness if you are NOT alone."

We can think of the body as a prison cell, and the ego as a prison guard and prisoner.

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a ***wall*** of flesh ***AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner*** in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master."

This wall of flesh, is what we call the body, but it is really the idea of SEPARATION, as a "separation device", just like a prison cell, designed to keep you isolated and cut off from others. The body keeps you IN, and keeps them OUT. It fences in actually a PART of your mind, and fences OUT the rest of your mind.

Now the thing is, what is your RELATIONSHIP to the prison body? If you identify with being separate, special, selfish, alone, cut off, abandoned, lost, lonely, in darkness, hiding from God, small/little, weak/frail, having no relationship, sharing nothing, etc... then you IDENTIFY WITH the prison cell.

When you identify WITH the separation device, you believe you ARE DEFINED BY the separation device. That its truth becomes your truth. And now that means you BELIEVE IN what the prison cell implies about you. And this forms "the ego", or the sense of "who and what I am", as defined BY the separation device.

If you see the body as hemming you in, keeping you separate from others, separating you off, causing you etc, then this imprisoned part of mind sees itself as IN the prison, and this produces a sense of identification WITH the prison (a bodily identity), which is what we generally call THE EGO. A sense of... who and what am I, if it's true that I am defined by this separation device.

This buying-into the body identity PRODUCES the sense of ego self. If it is true that you are a separate body, then it's true that you are unwhole and unholy. If it's true that you are disconnected from the whole by the body, then you are alone. All of this "I am separate" identification produces a sense of a "separated self." A self that WAS whole, which has BECOME separated, only because it sees itself as IN a body.

"This thing you made (the body) to serve your guilt, stands between you and other minds. The minds ARE joined, but you do not IDENTIFY with them. You SEE yourself as locked in a separate prison, remote and unreachable, incapable of reaching out as being reached. You HATE the prison (body) that you made, and would destroy it. Yet you would NOT escape from it, leaving it unharmed, WITHOUT your guilt upon it. But only thus CAN you escape. The home of vengeance is not yours; The place you set aside to house your hatred is NOT a prison, but an ILLUSION OF YOURSELF."

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found. The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it, and sheltered by its presence. If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!"

"To hold a grievance is to see yourself as a body."

"See yourself as bound, and bars become your home. Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized."

"Listen to what the ego says, and see what it DIRECTS you see, and it is sure that you will see YOURSELF as tiny, vulnerable, and afraid. You WILL experience depression, a sense of worthlessness, and feelings of impermanence and unreality. You WILL believe that you are helpless prey to forces far beyond your own control, and far more powerful than you. And you WILL think the world you made directs your destiny."

"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body. "

"The ego is idolatry; the sign of limited and separated self, born in a body, doomed to suffer and to end its life in death."

"Our upside-down perception has been ruinous to our peace of mind. We have seen ourselves in a body and the truth outside us, locked away from our awareness by the body's limitations."

"The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT."

"In Heaven God's Son is NOT imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin."

"Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

In A Course in Miracles, we are taught in many ways that we are all one. By this we mean, that God created an entire family, a sonship, comprising many individual beings, who simultaneously are individual and one. Each Son of God is all the Sons of God, as the One Son. "One brother is all brothers."

This means we have a kind of collective consciousness or "hive mind". The Christ Mind is this shared mind, which each individual mind created by God is merged and identified with. This means that anything in one mind, is also in another. Any form of healing is experienced by everyone. And everything you give or do affects everyone.

It also means you are not really an isolated, separated off stranger, who stands alone and has private personal experiences. This is why there are no private thoughts. The body is the idea that you are disconnected from everyone. But relationship re-establishes that you share and are joined, with the whole sonship. In fact you ARE the whole sonship. Part of you is in EVERY child of God.

In truth then, it is not possible for you to do or think or feel anything without it in some way influencing or being shared by THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE. Every attitude you have affects everyone. Every thought is heard by all. We are all plugged into a giant psychological web, sort of like a holographic internet. And everyone has access all the time to everything.

When Jesus accomplished the resurrection and ascension, he DID IN fact accomplish it for and with ALL of us. We could not be excluded from it, and all of us are a part of it. The atonement IS about sharing and is a collective relationship between an individual and THE WHOLE.

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

When Jesus resurrected and ascended, a "part of" all of us MUST have done this as well. The part of Jesus that is IN you, which IS you, accomplished this. Jesus had to basically plug into and accept the parts of him that are in all of us, shared with and one with us, knowing us AS himself, in order to accept atonement fully. Therefore his awakening did in fact wake all of us up, to some degree. He plugged us ALL back into God.

Each individual mind in the collective has its own will. So what does that mean when someone chooses to rise into the light? It means everyone else must be pulled upward at least a little, even if they themselves are pulling the whole sonship down. Some light MUST enter their minds, because the light in Jesus's mind is in ALL minds.

When Jesus accomplished this, we were ALL illuminated and enlightened to some degree, and some part of us knows this. And each time YOU heal or resurrect or think well of yourself and others, you ARE resurrecting the whole sonship. Part of you IS Jesus, and IS already awake in heaven. And as each person chooses the atonement, it is being chosen on behalf of everyone.

"You WERE in darkness until God's Will was done completely by ANY part of the Sonship. When it was, it was perfectly accomplished by ALL. How else could it BE perfectly accomplished? My mission was simply to UNITE the Will of the Sonship WITH the Will of the Father by being aware of the Father's Will myself. This is the awareness I came to give YOU, and YOUR problem in accepting it IS the problem of this world. Dispelling it is salvation, and in this sense I AM the salvation of the world."

"Then turn to one who laid all limits by, and went beyond the farthest reach of learning. He will take you with him, for he did not go alone. And you were with him then, as you are now."

"I ask for your forgiveness, for if YOU are guilty, so must I be. And if I surmounted guilt and overcame the world, you were WITH me."

"A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you may not even know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are not even aware."

"I am alone in nothing. Everything I think or say or do touches all the universe. A Son of God cannot think or speak or act in vain. He cannot be alone in anything. It is therefore in my power to change every mind along with mine, for mine is the power of God."

"To heal, or to make joyous, is therefore the same as to integrate and MAKE ONE. That is why it makes no difference TO what part or BY what part of the Sonship the healing is done. EVERY part benefits, and benefits equally. YOU are being blessed by every beneficent thought of any of your brothers anywhere. You should want to bless them in return, out of gratitude."

"When I am healed I am not healed alone.

And I would share my healing with the world"

"I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook to begin. My Atonement was for the canceling out of all sins (i.e., lack of love) which human beings could not otherwise correct. That is what the Biblical statement "underneath are the Everlasting Arms" means. (Helen Schucman explanation: This means that He will backstop whenever human miracles will not suffice for atonement purposes. However, it is perfectly clear that when a person can atone by miracles, both giver and receiver are atoning. It is better to atone this way because of the mutual benefits involved.)"Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, my children" really ends with "you do it unto yourself and ME." The reason why YOU come before me is because I do not need miracles for my own Atonement, but I stand at the end in case YOU fail temporarily."

"It is impossible that anyone be healed alone. In sickness must he be apart and separate. But healing is his own decision to be one again, and to accept his Self with all its parts intact and unassailed. In sickness does his Self appear to be dismembered and without the unity which gives It life. But healing is accomplished as he sees the body has no power to attack the universal Oneness of God's Son."

"And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, or who cross your mind, or whom you touch, or those who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you. Perhaps you will not recognize them all, nor realize how great your offering to all the world, when you let healing come to you. But you are never healed alone. And legions upon legions will receive the gift which you receive when you are healed."

"No-one is healed alone. This is the joyous song salvation sings to all who hear its Voice."

"I can help because the world is illusion, and I have overcome the world. Look past the tomb, the body, the illusion. Have faith in nothing but the spirit and the guidance God gives you. He could not have created the body because it is a limit. He must have created the spirit because it is immortal."

"My Father gives all power unto me."

"all power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His"

"By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS."

"All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do."

"But the truth is very simple; ALL POWER IS OF GOD. What is NOT of Him has no power to do ANYTHING."

Our natural relationship with God is quite different to how we think of ourselves in a separated state.

Here we might think of ourselves as independent, relying on no-one, having our own power and our own abilities. We walk in separate bodies and think of ourselves as self-sufficient and reliant on ourselves. But this isn't a natural state to be in, and it isn't how God set it up.

From God's point of view, he does not create separate things, which stand apart from him as though disconnected. He doesn't create things which have special stuff of their own, or powers that they don't share with others. Nor does he let go of them or cut the off or stop being a part of them.

When God creates you he extends his own self, gives everything he has, and includes you within his own being as part of himself. It's like living and staying in the womb forever. You have nothing that you've gathered for yourself, and nothing that didn't come from God. And everything you do have, remains his as well, but shared simultaneously with you.

Your natural condition then is to actually be completely dependent on God, in which you host God within yourself. It's like, without him you are an empty vessel, and he places his own power, mind, will, thought, life, love, peace etc, into you. And now you act as a host to him. And this mean that unless you are hosting him, you don't really have anything. No power, no mind, no love, nothing.

So in order to be in your natural state, functioning the way God intended, you actually have to rely on God and depend on him to BE the qualities that are best in you. There is no other source and you literally cannot live without him.

The sense of strength that you have does not come from you, it is actually the presence of God in you. The light which you see in isn't a light that you put there, it's his light shining in your mind from God. The will you will with, the thoughts you think, the freedom you share, your very own life, is actually all HIS. He shares it with you and you therefore have a symbiotic relationship with him.

This really means that not only do you have nothing that is exclusively your own, you literally have nothing at all without him. You are nothing and do not exist without him. However, with him you share and have everything that he has. You have all his gifts, all his power, all his thought and mind, all his will and freedom, all his love and life. It is in you, but it is not of you. Yet it is yours, because it is his, and you are part of him.

This means the only way to function naturally is to acknowledge God in everything, to let him BE the strength in you, to let his light shine through you so that you can see, to align with his will and thoughts, to do his will, and to function as a team with him. He does protect you and strengthen you and provide for you.

This plugs you into his power, and regardless of having NO power of your own, you have ALL of his power. By allowing your power to be his power, shared with him and expressing through you, his power becomes your own. He has given it to you, but without losing it himself, and so both of you have it. Without what God has given you, you have no power to do anything.

This is why the model of your body and your ego are against your inherent nature. They are ways to cut you off from everything and to have nothing. They disconnect you from God and from the only source of anything real. And once you are orphaned, you basically have nothing but scraps of lifelessnes and weakness and incapability with which to function. You can't live life like that, as an exclusively autonomous prisoner, captive to nothingness.

You can only really live and be happy and have strength and sanity by sharing life with God. He has to be acknowledged, interfaced with, and allowed to be a part of you. He has to be integrated into who and what you are. You have to make room for him. You have to let go and let him deal with stuff through you, because you simply cannot do it alone. He lives withiin you at your inner altar.

Depending on your own strength will only make you afraid because you know you are too weak to deal with anything without God. Depending on God however, you become all-powerful, strong, confident, certain and capable. And then there is nothing your holiness cannot do, miraculously, because he does it for and with you. God has taken care of everything.

Your whole life, since you found yourself in a body, you've believed that your self is SEPARATE from other people. That you are isolated and alone INSIDE your body, and no-one else is in there with you.

You have believed that everyone else is excluded from you, is not a part of you, and exists outside of you, stuck in their OWN bodies. And that therefore they are NOT you. But this is completely untrue and unnatural.

In heaven, the whole Kingdom of God, which is the Sonship, comprises many beings. But all of these beings are SHARED. They share all of themselves with each other. So much so that a part of each being is IN and AS other beings. They are all one. One brother is all brothers, every mind contains all minds. So the sense of "self" really means, "I am myself AND I am everyone."

In the separation from God, bodies were invented as separation devices to IMPRISON each self, to cut it off from others and to NOT SHARE with them. This produced a sense of a self which is only you, and not anyone else. A self which is alone, isolated, separate, exclusive, and DOES NOT SHARE with others. This self appears to be trapped inside a separate body, kept apart from others by a gap of space, and confined.

So now you grew up believing that anything that refers to you, refers to the "only me" that is inside your body. The sense of self that EXCLUDES everyone else. Me, and NOT you. Only me. Only MY self, and NOT your self. That's what your sense of yourself has turned into. A self which shares nothing, a self which is special and exclusive, a self which is alone, and a self which is DISCONNECTED from others.

But what you may not have realized is that, in applying the imprisonment of bodies to your unified self, you actually split the mind and separate off PART of you into your body, and LEFT OUT the part of you that is IN OTHERS. The part of you that is them, became seemingly disconnected from you. You were "separated out" from the shared group collective mind. And it's still true that PART OF YOURSELF IS OUTSIDE OF YOU.

So whereas before, your whole experiencing of how to receive something was to bring it INTO you from the outside in, to "get" from the world, to possess something ONLY for yourself, what needs to happen in truth is that you realize that the parts of you IN OTHERS have to also receive in order for YOU to receive. Because, literally, you ARE in them and if you exclude the part of you that's in them from receiving then you are literally deprived.

So now your whole sense of "who and what am I" has to EXPAND and become MORE INCLUSIVE. It has to go from "only me by myself" to "me including everyone else". That you ARE everyone. You are the whole sonship.

"The sonship is your soul." "We are the Kingdom, WE, the Sons of God." "One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds."

So now the dynamic of giving and receiving has to change. To your separated self, giving has been interpreted as LOSS, because to give away to someone NOT yourself is to LOSE what you had. And this is how the ego - the "me alone" sense of identity, sees it. And receiving was only ever seen as you GETTING for yourself and depriving others of what you have, so that they are the one sacrificing.

In truth, if you ARE everyone, and part of your very own self is IN them, then when you give to THEM, you are STILL INCLUDED, because the part of you in them receives it. And therefore to receive anything, you have to give it to YOURSELF AND OTHERS simultaneously. And the word for that is SHARING, or joining. Or even oneness.

It will seem odd at first, and counter-intuitive. It will seem ridiculous to suggest that you have to GIVE to someone "else", in order to receive. That whatever you want for yourself, you have to give it to someone else. That if you want to be healed, you have to give healing. That if you want to feel loved, you have to GIVE love. It will seem like you're being fooled, that someone ELSE is going to get all the benefit, and you will be left hanging. You'll be wondering to yourself how YOU are going to benefit at all if someone ELSE is getting all the stuff given to them.

But as you practice this and SHIFT your sense of self away from "I am only me" to "I am us", which is true sharing and natural oneness, you will realize that it does in fact work. When you do give love to another, you DO become elevated. This is why "miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver". Giving love makes YOU feel loved. Giving healing brings healing TO YOU. Making someone happy makes YOU happy.

This is actually the only way that miracles can be given to others. Because "miracles unite you with your brother" and "healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad." This is also where shared interests come into it.

If your SELF really encompassses and means, "You plus them", and you really start to develop a sense that YOU ARE IN THEM, then whenever you are thinking of your "own" interests you actually think of what is in the best interests of BOTH of you. You think of how you can BOTH BENEFIT and BOTH RECEIVE equally. You start to be your brother's keeper, because it is on your own best interest to do so.

The course also says that when you do this, when you start to see yourself as IN others, shared with them, which results in you looking out for your MUTUAL interests, you can now call yourself a Teacher of God. Because you are now TEACHING something BEYOND separation, beyond isolation and exclusion. You are teaching inclusiveness and sharing, which is aligned with God's nature.

"A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. His qualifications consist solely in this; somehow, somewhere he has made a deliberate choice in which he did not see his interests as apart from someone else's."

It can feel strange at first, but as you start to practive this, you realize that you need to "target" the you that is in someone ELSE, in order for YOU to really receive anything. And that when you try to target the you that is ONLY in your body, you end up being deprived. After a while you start to actually expand your sense of identity and self to INCLUDE other people. You start to feel like, references to "ME" are references to "US". That you start to ENCOMPASS others like a kind of umbrella.

Whatever is truly given is therefore given FOR you and TO you but also FOR others. This is why the light of God is given to you in order to move through you TO others. This is how miracles are working. Because we're really talking here about the basis of a holy relationship, a relationship in which "my selfish self" is being put aside and my sense of identity is transcending "just me" and is opening up to INCLUDE others.

That means you are becoming more WHOLE, or having more "self-fullness", because the whole of you really is the whole sonship. You ARE the Kingdom of God. You INCLUDE everyone in yourself. You are christ just as everyone is. So to be whole, you have to be everyone. Otherwise you exclude huge portions of yourself by excluding your brother.

You can't be seeing other people as "NOT ME" if you are to be spiritually awakened. Atonement is the TRANSCENDENCE of separation.

"Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself. Faith is invested in yourself alone. Everything else becomes your enemy, feared and attacked, deadly and dangerous, hated and worthy only of destruction."

"But NEVER you alone. This world is but the dream that you can BE alone, and think without affecting those apart from you. To be alone MUST mean you are apart, and if you are, you cannot BUT be sick."

"Specialness is the function that you gave yourself. It stands for you alone, as self-created, self-maintained, in need of nothing, and unjoined with anything beyond the body."

"It is not true that you can make decisions BY yourself, or FOR yourself alone. No thought of God's Son CAN be separate, or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the WHOLE SONSHIP, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of."

"You communicate with no-one, and you are as isolated from reality, as if you were ALONE in all the universe. In your madness, you OVERLOOK REALITY COMPLETELY, and you see ONLY YOUR SPLIT MIND everywhere you look. God calls you and you do not hear, for you are preoccupied with your own voice. And the vision of Christ is not in your sight, for you look upon yourself ALONE."

"You BELIEVE that it is possible to harbor thoughts you would NOT share, and that Salvation lies in keeping your thoughts TO YOURSELF ALONE. For, in private thoughts, KNOWN ONLY TO YOURSELF, you think you find a way to keep what you would HAVE alone, and share what YOU would share. And then you wonder why it is that you are not in full communication with those around you, and with God, Who surrounds ALL of you together."

"Salvation needs your help as well as mine. Do not forget you do not answer for yourself alone."

"You cannot hear the Voice for God in yourself alone, because you are NOT alone. And His answer is only for what you ARE."

"Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did. It is BECAUSE I learned for YOU, that you can learn of ME."

"You can no more pray for yourselves alone than you can find joy for yourself alone. Prayer is a re-statement of INCLUSION, directed by the Holy Spirit under the laws of God."

"The idea for today is obviously the reason why your seeing does not affect you alone." (I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts.) "WITHOUT His guidance, you will think you know alone, and will decide AGAINST your peace, as surely as you made the wrong decision in ever thinking that Salvation lay in you alone. Salvation is of Him to Whom God GAVE it FOR you."

"The ego teaches that your strength is in you ALONE. The Holy Spirit teaches that ALL strength is in God and THEREFORE in you."

"And how could your request be limited to you alone? No gift of God can be unshared."

"The gifts you have are not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give. This is the lesson that His giving holds, for He has saved you from the solitude you sought to make, in which to hide from God."

"It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery. As its UNholiness kept it as a thing apart, its HOLINESS will become an offering to everyone."

"Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE."

"This you COULD spare him AND YOURSELF. For reason would not make way for correction in you alone. Correction cannot BE accepted OR REFUSED by you, without your brother."

"Salvation IS His Will BECAUSE you share it. NOT for you alone, but for the Self which IS the Son of God."

"The contrast is far greater than you think, for you will love this concept of yourself, BECAUSE IT WAS NOT MADE FOR YOU ALONE. Born as a gift for someone NOT perceived to be yourself, it has been given YOU. For your forgiveness, offered unto him, has been accepted now for BOTH of you."

"Neither of you alone can serve at all. Only in your JOINT will does healing lie. For here YOUR healing is, and here will YOU accept Atonement. And in your healing IS the Sonship healed, BECAUSE your wills are joined."

This filesystem of a computer on an open network is actually a very good analogy for the structure of heaven and the relationship of individuals.

Let's say that there is a file system containing all this content.

Let's then say that you have your own computer (your soul) which is networked into the file system (via the christ mind which connects the souls).

Let's say that because the system is "open", other souls also can hook themselves up to the file system (via the christ mind).

And let's also say the system is so open that anyone who connects themselves to the file system also becomes "part of" the system, and their system is open, and so it allows access to their own computer by the main filesystem and also by all the other computers (souls).

In this open environment (heaven/sonship), I can access a file, say a pdf file, on the file system, and have full access to it. I can read the whole file. Simultaneously, you and other souls can access the same pdf file, and have full access to it, and share it, at the same time, and read the whole thing without limits.

Similarly I can access YOU, the file on your own computer (soul), and fully access everything about you and share "what you are", including any "creations" which you might have stored "inside" your own computer (within your being).

And as such in this open state, the entirety of creation is accessible to everyone simultaneously, fully, and without restrictions. Everything is shared. No-one is denied access. Everyone can access everything fully, even if others are accessing the same content, at the same time. Our access overlaps.

NOW.

Consider the separation idea, or the ego. What would happen if you suddenly became selfish, and decided that you wanted access to one of the files on the file system, to have the same full access you had before, BUT... with a condition.

The condition is, that no-one else is allowed to access it at the same time as you. You want exclusive rights. You want ownership. You want the content to be isolated. You want to keep others away from the content and not share it with them. And to do this you have to put a "wall" of some kind around the little piece of content to a) keep you inside of it where you can access the content, and b) keep others outside of it so they can't access it.

Now, let's say that rather than you doing this with a file on the main filesystem, you instead try to do this with your own computer (soul). Let's say you try to make it so that you have access to your self, but other souls don't. That the main file system is also deprived access from your computer, and no-one is allowed to share what's on your computer. You want a "private" system.

So you put up a wall around your computer (the body, around the mind) to try to keep you in and others out, so that you can have exclusive rights and possession of what is "inside" you and reject what now seems to be "outside you" (the rest of the network/sonship). You're now being selfish. You've put yourself into lockdown. You have shut yourself off from SHARING with the whole, from the network, and from the main filesystem, and so all you are left with is what's inside your own system.

In this state now, you are still basically the soul, the self, which you were before this happened. In this act, you did not actually invent a self. You already were a self, when you were sharing the filesystem, as God intended. Openly. But now that you put a wall around yourself, this makes "your self" become "separate". It's like you unplugged your computer from the network so that no-one else could share what you have.

So this produces "a self which has BECOME separate", which previously was not separate. This is what "the separate self" means. THIS *SELFISHNESS* is the EGO. Not the idea of a self or soul.... the idea of a self or soul that has become trapped in isolation due to the walls its put up, the blocks to awareness, which have disconnected and disassociated itself from sharing with the whole networked system. So now you are a perfect being surrounded by limitation. The limitation needs to be removed, not your SELF.

In fact, in order to "wake up" from the state, you need to plug your self back into the network (sonship) and re-join with the whole system (heaven), by plugging your computer (soul) back into the network via a cable (christ mind) so that you can share the whole system again. And this also means the whole system now has access to YOU as well, because you are part of the content. Literally this means that a part of the sonship, a part of creation, which was orphaned, is now returning to the whole, so that the whole can now SHARE IT and access it and therefore benefit from and enjoy it (you) just as much as you enjoy others.

So you see just like with computers, which host NON-PHYSICAL content, Heaven also hosts non-physical content. And in that kind of system it's possible for us to SHARE and have simultaneous access with everyone else, without anyone being limited or restricted or shut out in any way. This is the nature of Heaven, God's creation. It's all based on openness and sharing by many individual souls who ALL have FULL access to the WHOLE of everything all at once.

Your soul has full access to everything, and to the ego that would mean "there is nothing left" for anyone else. But to God, your full access means everyone else ALSO can share and have everything. Just not exclusively. There is no exclusivity, isolation, SPECIALNESS or selfishness in heaven. It's a totally 100% open shared system of freedom.

ACIM: "The ego is the idea of selfishness. The soul is the idea of self fullness."

"To the ego, THE EGO IS GOD."

"The ego's goal is quite explicitly EGO AUTONOMY. From the beginning, then, its PURPOSE is to be separate, sufficient unto itself, and independent of any power EXCEPT ITS OWN. This is WHY it is the symbol of separation."

"The ego is insane. In fear it stands beyond the Everywhere, apart from All, in separation from the Infinite. In its insanity it thinks it has become a victor over God Himself, and in its terrible autonomy it "sees" the Will of God has been destroyed. It dreams of punishment, and trembles at the figures in its dreams, its enemies who seek to murder it before it can ensure its safety by attacking them."

"If the ego's goal of autonomy COULD be accomplished GOD's purpose could be DEFEATED, and this IS impossible." ... "According to the ego's teaching, ITS goal CAN be accomplished, and GOD's Purpose can NOT."

"A harsh and strident form of communication arose as the ego's voice."

"Therefore, you have used the world to COVER YOUR LOVE, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego's foundation, the CLOSER you come to the Love that is hidden beneath it."

"The ego's fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of this wish. For it is this wish which seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other minds except through the body which was made to imprison it."

"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion." Jesus is clear about this. The ego is the idea of the OPPOSITE TO GOD. The idea that God is separate. That is, a seeming autonomous, separate entity, which stands alone, which rules its own kingdom, which is self sufficient and depends on nothing outside of itself, which has its own power, which does not need God for anything, and wants to be as completely distant from God's nature as possible. It wants to share nothing and have everything for itself selfishly. It wants to be the only thing that exists.

"Sin is the "grand illusion" underlying ALL the ego's grandiosity. For BY it, God HIMSELF is changed, and rendered incomplete."

"Do you really want to be in hell? Do you really want to weep and suffer and die? Forget the ego's arguments which seek to prove all this is really Heaven."

"For the ego's destructive urge is so intense, that nothing short of the crucifixion of God's Son can ultimately satisfy it."

"The ego's voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect the EGO to say "I am not real."

"The body is the ego's chosen weapon for seeking power THROUGH relationships."

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master."

"The death penalty is the ego's ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life. The death penalty never leaves the ego's mind, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. Wanting to kill you, as the final expression of its feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only one with which it will be satisfied."

"Possession for its OWN sake is the ego's fundamental creed, a basic cornerstone in the churches that it builds unto itself."

The ego is like the anti-God. Just as it is also referred to as the anti-Christ. It is the illusion of a separate self, a little isolated cut-off self, disconnected and alone, imprisoned in a body, unrelated to anyone else, not communicating with God whatsoever, suspicious of everyone, having no trust of anyone, and completely backwards in all its perceptions.

"The ego's opposite in every way,--in origin, effect and consequence--we call a miracle."

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

"Listening to the ego's voice MEANS that you believe it is possible to attack God."

"Peace is the ego's greatest enemy, because according to ITS interpretation of reality, war is the guarantee of its survival."

"Do not underestimate the intensity of the ego's drive for vengeance on the past. It is COMPLETELY savage, and COMPLETELY insane."

"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING."

"LOVE DOES NOT KILL TO SAVE. For if it did, attack WOULD be salvation, and this is the ego's interpretation, NOT God's."

"BECAUSE the body is not part of you. This makes the body the ego's friend."

"The ego's ceaseless attempts to gain the Soul's acknowledgement and thus establish its own existence are utterly useless. The Soul in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does NOT attack the ego. It merely cannot conceive of it at all. While the ego is equally unaware of the Soul, it DOES perceive itself as rejected by something which is greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego terms MUST be a delusion."

It sees God as everything the ego really is, believe itself to not be the ego at all. The ego actually believes it is sane. It regards its insanity as sanity, it regards its hell as heaven, it regards death as life, and punishment as atonement. It has everything completely backwards and upside-down. It sees God as evil and vengeful and sinful and attacking. It sees heaven as hell and holiness as blasphemy and innocence as guilt. Everything that is true is sees as false, and all that is false is regards as true. It is the complete anti-thesis to everything real.

"To the ego, completion lies in triumph, and in the extension of the "victory," even to the final triumph over God. In THIS it sees the ultimate FREEDOM of the self, for nothing would remain to interfere with IT. And this IS its idea of Heaven. From this it follows that union, which is a condition in which the EGO cannot interfere, MUST BE HELL."

"If you perceived the special relationship as a triumph over God, WOULD YOU WANT IT?"

"In a sense, the special relationship was the EGO's answer to the creation of the Holy Spirit, Who was God's Answer to the separation. For, although the ego did not understand WHAT had been created, it WAS aware of threat."

"Attack is ALWAYS physical. When attack in ANY form enters your mind, you are EQUATING YOURSELF WITH A BODY. This is the ego's INTERPRETATION of the body."

"They provide STRIKING examples, both of the ego's INABILITY to tolerate reality, and your willingness to CHANGE reality on its behalf."

"Crucifixion is ALWAYS the ego's aim. It SEES AS GUILTY, and BY its condemnation, IT WOULD KILL."

Each of us has this ego thing in our mind somewhere, and it has to be turfed out and catharted and undone. It is the central core of what keeps us in hell, and is the origin of all our guilt. It believes that everything sinless is sinful, that all of heaven is guilty, and that the Son of God is murderous. It tells every lie imaginable. It is twisted and dark and delusional and insane.

"WHAT IS NOT LOVE IS MURDER" - ACIM

Here's how this works.

A mind which is fully awake and aware, recognizes that it actually shares a mind with everyone. It is at one with them. It sees its own identity within others, and knows that they are part of itself.

A mind of oneness therefore recognizes that whatever applies to others directly applies to itself. It is aware enough to see that, because it is "in" others, if it were to attack others, it would be attacking itself. And because this is very obvious to the awake mind, it recognizes that such actions would be completely self-defeating, and so does not attack.

When the mind can see clearly that it is one with others, it will treat others only with love, because to do anything else would hurt its own self.

However, when the mind enters into a belief in separation, what it's doing is it's introducing an illusion of denial inbetween itself and others. This denial makes it seem as if other people do not have "shared interests" with itself, other people are different somehow, other people are disconnected from itself, and therefore what applies to them does not apply to itself. It does not recognize or see itself in others so does not believe that what applies to them applies to itself.

On these terms, the mind is now partly unaware that it is one with other minds, does not see itself in others, and does not recognize that to hurt others would hurt itself. It now seems plausible that there is an `option`, a possibility, to do something unto others that is not done unto itself.

Another way to put this is that a separation is introduced in-between cause and effect. The mind now believes it is capable of causing effects in others which are not caused in itself. It does not see that attempting to hurt others hurts itself, so it think it can "get away with" or be excluded from those effects.

The idea of being able to do something to others which does not directly affect yourself, is the idea of "getting away with murder." It means you can now seem to attack another without experiencing the consequences. This is attempted murder. The entire ego thought system is based on this, and absolutely everything that happens in the ego thought system is murderous!

The problem of the mind then is that even though it believes it is not one with other minds, and that it can get away with attacking/causing without being affected, it's actually not true that it gets away with it. In one way or another, the mind IS still attacking itself, and it is hurting itself when it tries to hurt others. The ego will claim this is not true, and that you can escape from the consequences, but it is in denial. If the mind attacks another, it itself will be attacked BY itself.

This then becomes the ego trap of believing that you can get away with projecting your sin onto others without having to deal with the consequences. It sets up the entire foundation of how you will deal with your sin/separation, by trying to make someone else receive the consequences of it, supposedly making you innocent or rather, letting you "get away with" your murderous intentions by having someone else be blamed for them. In this way, the ego creates a state of "fake innocence"... where you seem innocent because someone ELSE has taken the blame for your attack.

Therefore to the ego, innocence is murderous. To the ego, it is possible for the innocent to sin, and for the innocent to insanely destroy others without destroying itself. Can you imagine how ridiculous and twisted it is to believe that someone can be free of responsibility even though they're standing there with the murder weapon having just attacked their brother, believing they are completely free of all consequences? Within the dream, this is insanity, given they did not and will not escape the consequences. The cost of attack is the loss of their own identity.

When we say "do unto others as you would have them do unto you", this does not really mean that other people are separate from you and you should just treat them well. This would mean that maybe, maybe not, they might treat you well in return. This is still a breakdown in cause and effect, leaving open the possibility that even if you treat others well, they may still attack you.

The real meaning of this is that, in the mind aware of its oneness, how it treats others IS how IT treats itself. Therefore it is in its own vested interest ("shared interest") to treat others as it DOES treat itself, because whatever it does to another it IS DOING to itself. This does not rely on others to decide whether or not to reciprocate, because if you treat others with love you WILL experience the effect of love. This is also the true meaning of "karma", not that separate causes will decide to attack you in retaliation, but that YOU attack yourself. All attack is self attack.

What is not love, is murder. Any belief in attack, any sin, any guilt, and anger, any argument, any belief that something applies to others and not you, any way you come between people, any sense of separation, any illusion of being innocent while secretly scapegoating your sin onto others, means you are being murderous. You are trying to "get away with" having sinned and to not suffer the consequences.

The fact is, you do not escape the consequences of sin. If you believe in it, it will destroy you. It's not possible for something to apply to someone else that you don't also believe applies to yourself. You never really get to be "right" and others wrong, because if you are right, you are wrong. You never get to "succeed" in the ego's terms, because that means you have failed. You never get to "win" the ego's game, because that means you have used separation and have lost.

The only way to end the murderousness is to return to love. That means removing the blocks to awareness which prevent you from being able to RECOGNIZE yourself in others, to be aware of your ONENESS with others, and to therefore KNOW that if you do even one tiny thing to hurt anyone, it's going to hurt you. That's a pretty big incentive to always remain loving, because to attack is to be attacked by yourself, and who in their right mind, a sane mind, would want to do that? There is no sense to it.

The fact that what is not love is murder should not be used by the ego right now to make you feel guilty, or to say, well, this means that I'm being murderous because I'm not awake yet, therefore I'm even more sinful. Don't let the ego use this information to accuse you even more than you already have. Simply recognize this is what's happening and continue with your forgiveness of yourself. Murder is not REAL, it is an illusion. There is no REAL attack or REAL separation. It is just a state of being mistaken and thinking that it's possible to accomplish murder and to get away with it, when in fact it's not possible, AND you cannot really hurt who you really are.

There is no murder in heaven. There is no murder in God's reality. Only love is real.

Every time I see a body, I am tempted to believe I'm seeing a person. The person seems separate from me, they are not me at all, their body belongs exclusively to them, it's not my body, we are not in any way connected to each other. What applies to them does not apply to me at all.

That is the horrendous lie that bodies present to us. The temptation that your brother, who in truth is literally one with and a part of your self, is somehow cut off from you. On the basis of assuming that people are "not me", we then proceed with an entire culture and way of relating that revolves around "I am separate from you."

Ultimately this boils down to a question of, are you living by God's law of the Golden Rule, or are you denying it and trying to break God's law? First let's be clear that the Golden Rule is not some optional thing, it's fundamental to the nature of reality and all creations. We are all one with each other, part of each other, joined together and sharing, like a collective consciousness hive mind. In that arrangement we are still individual beings but we also share everything.

Within that thought system of sharing, overlap and oneness, the natural way to relate to someone is to regard them as YOURSELF. They are thus your brother, an equal, as perfect and whole as you, and literally part of yourself. This produces shared interests and an automatic motivation to ONLY treat them with love so that you are directly treating yourself - the part of you that's in them - with love. Everything belongs to everyone, everyone has everything, and everything is mutual.

In the ego's rendition, the body is a separation device. And make no mistake that the body literally symbolically CUTS YOU OFF from the hive mind. It represents the idea of being separate, disconnected, not sharing, not joined, not a part of anyone else, and completely alone. It is absolutely the opposite of the true nature of our collective sonship and brotherhood, and is totally unnatural.

This means that if you are in a body being identified with a body, believing bodies are separate people, you are literally LOOKING AT the denial of the laws of God. You are looking at the opposite of the golden rule, manifested as images of forms walking around, testifying that separation is real. The body ITSELF is nothing less than a demonstration of the idea of being completely separate.

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind"

"This separating off is symbolized, in your perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. Yet what this symbol REPRESENTS is but your wish to BE apart and separate."

Therefore just the mere sight of a body is enough to tempt you into the belief that God's law has been broken, the Golden Rule does not apply to anyone, and you are NOT in any way sharing anything with your brothers. You don't even have to act or relate to people or treat people a certain way for God's law to be broken by the mere appearance of the body.

Therefore, as the course is teaching, if you see a body, you are seeing WITH specialness, with selfishness, and thus with the ego. And the result is false perception, which fixates on physical form and makes bodies real to you. Upon seeing this, you have already believed in separation, and now the body is lit up and appears to you as a separation device, anchoring and fixing your brother into a prison within space and time, and cutting you off from them.

As soon as you are relating on a basis of "I am not you", ie your body is separate from my body, and I see you AS a body, and regard myself as my body, and we are NOT each other, we are in a state of special relationship. And that literally means we are at war. We have withdrawn the shared part of ourselves from each other and have gone to our separate corners, ready to fight.

We are at war merely by the very fact that we are identifying who and what we are with a device for separation, and have therefore believed that we ARE separate, and therefore are different, and thus not equals, and thus competitors.

Any time that I associate anything at all exclusively with a body, whether it be my own or that of another, I am in the ego and at war. I am having a special relationship, taking sides, judging, projecting guilt, attacking, accusing, and trying to destroy. Just by seeing a body and regarding it as the anchor and prison wall which is surrounding and sectioning off you or another, you are taking sides.

Once you've taken sides, you will not be able to help but relate to the other person AS a body, ie as a separated off, exclusive, isolated, distinctly separate being. One with whom you are NOT sharing, are not one, and they are NOT seen OR recognized as being a part of yourself. The entire vision of recognition and enlightenment which would show you that your brother IS part of you, is obscured by the body.

"the BODY of the other, ALREADY a severely limited perception of him"

"For sin is the IDEA you are alone, and separated OFF from what is whole."

Then you will proceed to go to war. You will find it effortless to accuse someone of being, doing, having, making, causing something, which ONLY they are doing, and you are not. You will now be into the realm of "getting away with murder", because it now seems that what applies to the other does NOT apply to you. What applies to what their body is doing, is not what your body is doing. Their separated-off will is now disconnected from your own, and you are not sharing or cooperating or willing in accord. Therefore you are against each other.

The loss of the awareness that you are one with your brother has devastating consequences. As soon as you have slipped away from unity ie holy relationship even slightly, you've pulled away from being joined to the other and have identified yourself as exclusive. That exclusivity is selfish and special, and will manifest as a body, which will show up in the mind to testify HOW you are separated off from the other. The body literally symbolizes your separateness.

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

By believing that you are not your brother, you are not a part of him and he is not a part of you, you cannot help but see yourself and your brother as separated off by a body. This identifies both of you with your bodies, and holds you apart from each other like inmates in separate prison cells. This is a breakdown in communication and an attack on love. It is a lack of relationship and a disconnect from each other.

It doesn't matter if the other person is someone you are allegedly married to, a spouse or partner, a lover, a sibling or child or parent, some stranger or neighbor, a boss or remote stranger, any time that we are unaware of our oneness with each other we have moved inside an entirely separate thought system of separation, in which the ONLY culture is "me not you".

Nor will you be able to sufficiently repair the relationship and bring it to a state of holiness WITHOUT questioning whether or not you and your brother are a body. The belief that they ARE their body, automatically cuts them off from you, and your believing this is HOW you imprison them.

"The special relationship is a device for limiting YOUR self to a body, and for limiting your perception of others to THEIRS."

"For the ego would limit everyone TO a body for ITS purposes, and, while you think it HAS a purpose, you will choose to utilize the means by which IT tries to turn its purpose into accomplishment."

"As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT."

No matter what you think your relationship is, regardless of how close or intimate you seem to be with another body-person, you are NOT intimate if you are not one. You are also not happily married if you are married to a body. Nor are you head over heels in love if what you're in love with is a body. To love a body is to separate yourself from the other person, to NOT SEE them, and to keep them at arm's length, pun intended.

If you want to overcome the conflict, the war, the fighting, the disagreements, the arguments, the special hate, the special love, the lack of communication and connection, your only choice is to transcend bodies. You have to get your mind out of the separation-oriented culture and resume an entirely opposite culture based on the Golden Rule. You have to learn that you ARE part of the other person, neither of you is separated off BY a body, and the bodies are not even there. You have to see yourself INCLUDED in them as you look upon them, and NOT look to their bodies to identify them.

If you are heavily into the association that the person IS their body, and you've bound their identity to it, and every time you see the body you think that's them, you have a lot of work to do. And it could take some considerable time to undo all the ways that you've taught yourself to separate people off, bind them to physical objects, identify them by those objects, and therefore stay separate from them.

The ego culture of exclusivity and separateness is completely opposite to God's natural culture of sharing and unity. Bodies cannot and will not ever depict or accomplish God's culture. They have to be bypassed and transcended and overlooked. Your whole sense of who and what you are has to expand to INCLUDE others. And then how you relate to them, WHO you are defending, WHAT you are relating with and to, radically changes.

"Minds need not bodies to communicate."

"It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU."

If you have relationship issues which, guaranteed, every body-to-body relationship HAS, the real problem is THE BODY. Allowing, supporting, and facilitating the use of the body as a separation device, anchoring people TO bodies, is the whole foundation of your relationship woes. Nor can you overcome those woes and KEEP the body. You have to be willing to stop identifying people with bodies, including yourself, and including your "loved ones."

"The body cannot KNOW. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you."

Any time that you fall for the trap of believing "that person is not me", because you've seen their body and have witnessed to the belief that their body IS SEPARATE FROM YOU, you have gone into the ego culture of separation and war. Any time that you do not recognize your brother as yourself, you will fall into a special relationship. Any time that you can see PAST the bodies, and identify the person with a SHARED IDENTITY in Christ, which is part of your own identity as Christ, you have moved into holiness and union.

"A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of ***loving your neighbor as yourself***. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."

"***It is impossible for a Child of God to love his neighbor EXCEPT as himself.*** That is why the healer's prayer is, "let me know this brother as I know myself."

If you want to perform miracles, you have to transcend the entire mindset, thought system and culture of "separate me versus them". You have to join minds with the other so that your mind can share its light with the other mind and heal it. You cannot save or be saved without doing this, and bodies will always interfere with this.

If you pay any attention to the body AT ALL, you are looking at and emphasizing the separation. The body is separation's symbol. It is the wall around the mind that keeps it separated off from other minds. As long as you are having relationships WITH BODIES, you are not having real relationships with your brothers as God created them.

"Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used ONLY as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds NEED not the body to communicate. ***The sight that SEES the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship***. And while you look upon each other thus, the means and end have NOT been brought in line."

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, ***keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time***, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master."

"Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe."

"The urgency is only in dislodging your minds from their FIXED POSITION here."

"The special relationship is totally without meaning WITHOUT A BODY. And, if you VALUE it, you must also VALUE THE BODY."

"To this distorted form of vision, the OUTSIDE of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."

"The ego's fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of this wish. For it is this wish which seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other minds except through the body which was made to imprison it."

"And BOTH of you stand there before Him now, to let HIM draw aside the veil that SEEMS to keep you separate and apart."

"If you WITHHOLD agreement, and accept the part YOU play in making sickness real, the other mind cannot project its guilt without your aid in LETTING it perceive itself as separate and apart from YOU. Thus is the body NOT perceived as sick by BOTH your minds, from SEPARATE points of view. UNITING with a brother's mind prevents the CAUSE of sickness, and perceived effects."

Separation seems to have disconnected our mind from Spirit. Jesus describes the separation process thus:

"7 First, the assumption is implicit that what God created can be changed by the mind of man.

8 Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or wanting is accepted.

9 Third, the belief that man can distort the creations of God, including himself, is accepted.

10 Fourth, the idea that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him is implied.

11 These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation. None of this existed before, nor does it actually exist now."

When this was occuring, basically we created a fictional lack in the mind, and then proceeded to fill it with our own separate voice.

Or in other words, began to express the idea that we created ourselves, that we author reality and truth, and we decide everything, that we can usurp God’s will, etc.

So then our mind has kind of gone rogue, it’s unplugged itself from God and is now making up realities (fantasies) left and right. It isn’t operating in service to Spirit so it generates its own content, the likes of which is UNLIKE God intended.

Rather than receiving all of its input, direction, and usefulness from a Spiritual source (soul), it instead runs amock inventing stuff on its own. It invents an artificial second identity, a world, bodies, events, fictional problems, you name it.

This all happens because it is unplugged from Spirit. It isn’t getting the proper input anymore so it just starts hallucinating. Outputting stuff it ITSELF thinks the input should be. It thinks it is the creator of itself.

What this means is that we have become unwilling to RECEIVE, and all that we want to do is CAUSE without accepting the effects of Spirit. We are basically trying to convert ourselves, from being an EFFECT of God/Spirit, to being the CAUSE of God and not at his effect.

When God created our soul, He shared His creative ability with us and gave us free will to enjoy creating in His/our perfection. This means we were able to RECEIVE FROM GOD, and EXTEND GOD, creating onward. So we were receiving and giving simultaneously. "Giving and receiving are one".

After separation, we stopped doing the RECEIVING part, and just kept on with the "creating part" which now became "mis-creating".

"All of his miscreations can literally disappear in "the twinkling of an eye" because they are merely visual misperceptions."

Since we stop receiving God’s will, God’s truth, God’s reality, God’s divine order and sanity, we go off making-up a bunch of shit out of nothing, for no good reason, with no solid foundation. We don’t get it from God. We dream, because instead of extending God’s truth, we just output with no correct input.

Being in ego then is a state of causing but not receiving. OR in other words, giving without receiving, which is SACRIFICE. This is also the same thing as "what is not love is murder" or "getting away with murder", in which the mind is trying to cause effects in others, without receiving the effects in itself. It is trying to express self, without receiving from God. It is trying to have an identity that has not been GIVEN BY God. It is trying to live without Him.

The key feature then of our awakening process, our endeavors to become closer to God again, entails OPENING UP TO RECEIVE again. Being WILLING to let INPUT come into you, to inform you and flow through you again, from A TRUE SOURCE or signal. To LISTEN to the Voice of God, instead of listening to our own voice. To EXPRESS God’s Will and miracles instead of our own magical bullshit.

This means putting your mind back in service to Spirit, becoming willing again to express God’s will instead of making up a will, being guided, directed, healed and empowered by God. And also it means being willing to ACCEPT, ALLOW, and RECEIVE God’s truth - in the atonement.

The ego’s game is all about trying to define a substitute self, in a substitute world, making stuff up all over the place without God. It wants to be the author of itself and make-up its own output. It think’s it’s prety special and important and capable, as if it does not need God’s input. It is like a screaching speaker system, broadcasting its own sounds instead of playing what the musical SOURCE is telling it to play.

Undoing the ego means surrendering this tyranny, this self-rule, this mode of functioning, this "thinking with the ego", where we "make" without God and don’t allow ourselves to RECEIVE INPUT.

We need to learn again to let God do for us everything we have been trying to do without Him. To let Spirit use our mind. To allow Spirit to work through us to extend miracles. To let God be the one to decide what the truth is. To accept His Will instead of inventing our own wishful thinking. To "channel" God again instead of making up our own signal.

It is all in the receiving. You cannot receive UNLESS YOU SURRENDER EGO CONTROL. Being in control of what your mind makes, in opposition to how Spirit wants it to be in ITS service, is a protest against God’s will and an attempt to steal the mind from God. It is supposed to be used for creating and extending love, not for making up your own fantasies.

God has provided the content. HE is downloading it to you. You simply need to be WILLING to receive it. We are not accustomed to receiving, as ego-oriented folk. It’s not what the ego wants to do. Billions of facebook accounts attest to the ego’s desire to broadcast ITSELF and not God. Mind is required to let there be help or input, or truth, that it has no ability or desire to define or interfere with.

Accepting the atonement is an act of TOTAL SURRENDER, giving back the mind to spirit, handing over decision making to spirit, dropping all fights against God’s will, admitting that God is the ONE SOURCE, ALLOWING GOD TO BE THE ONE WHO IS RIGHT, and letting Him do TO YOU and THROUGH YOU whatever he wants, happily, and gratefully, because he ONLY wants to love you. Which, fortunately, is absolutely in our best interests and can only bring us joy, not some kind of prison sentence.

God is waiting patiently for us to LET GO AND LET HIM. He wants to heal through us. He wants to love through us. We simply need to become willing to surrender our ego’s authority problem and LET HIM. To plug our mind back into HIS BROADCAST, His radio station, and to radiate it outward WITH Him.

Holy Spirit WILL UNDO ALL the consequences of your wrong decisions, IF YOU WILL LET HIM. You let Him by surrendering your ego and being open to TRUSTING Him and ALLOWING HIM to move IN YOU and through you. He can heal your sickness, your body, your mind, your life, your problems, IF YOU WILL LET HIM. He wants to help you and to heal you FOR YOU.

Holy Spirit is active. He is capable and willing to do anything FOR YOU. We are not supposed to be doing this course all on our own. We are not responsible for doing all of the healing or for fixing all of ourselves. We show willingness, by surrendering unwillingness, and then LET HIM DO IT FOR US.

"He asks but little. 8 It is He Who adds the greatness and the might. 9 He joins with you to make the holy instant far greater than you can understand. 10 It is your realization that you need do so little that enables Him to give so much."

He very actively WILL COME INTO YOU and will perform supernatural healing on you, and on others through you, without you lifting a finger, IF YOU WILL LET HIM. If you thought you had to do this whole entire course on your own and that the only advances would come from your own efforts, you are mistaken.

The Holy Spirit will start to operate FOR you and THROUGH YOU (speak through you, heal through you, direct you specifically, etc) as you start to surrender enough that you LET HIM, that you MAKE ROOM FOR GOD in your life.

As you start to RECEIVE AGAIN, being willing to accept atonement again, being willing to accept your innocence again, GOD WILL MOVE and will start to do stuff FOR YOU. It’s pretty awesome, when you let go of the reigns and take a leap of trust in Him. To let someone else "do stuff to you" for your benefit DOES require trust, which you CAN develop. Once you trust Holy Spirit to heal you FOR you, incredible things start to happen.

Invite Him in. Let Him work in you. RECEEIEEEEEEIIVE His Help. He wants to help you. You don’t have to do this all on your own.

The golden rule is the nature and law of God. In God, everything is equal and shared. What applies to one brother applies to all brothers. What is true of me is true of you. But even moreso, because brothers are ONE, they literally share identity and soul. I am in you and you are in me. We are part of each other. We are irrevocably joined and share everything, even our selves.

We can describe this as the golden rule, in which what I do to you I also do to myself. There is no option or clause that your brother MIGHT treat you a certain way. You treat your brother a certain way SO THAT you are treated a certain way, because you ARE him, and so you are DIRECTLY treating yourself how you would wish to be treated.

There are no exceptions to this and it is impossible to violate or break this law or be outside of it. It is always operating, whether you are accepting of it and living by it, or whether you are attempting to ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply to you.

If we are one, then I have a shared interest with you. Whatever I do to you I do to myself. Whatever I give to you I receive. Giving and receiving are one. If I were to attack you, I'd be attacking myself. Therefore, it's in my own best interests to ONLY LOVE, otherwise I will make MYSELF suffer, and by my own hand. I have to INCLUDE you, otherwise I will suffer from exclusion.

"Ego" is nothing more than an attempt to oppose, deny and ignore this law. It is an attempt to pretend that it does not apply. That I am not you and you are not me. That we are not equal. That what applies to me doesn't apply to you, because we are different. If we are separate, we not one, and now I should have my own selfish interests - survival of the fittest.

It's like, were both standing on the same floor. Then there is a separation, like an earthquake. The floor cracks in two. I now seem to be on one side, and you on the other. But also the heights of the floors have shifted, and mine is slightly above yours. The two floors are now separate and different and not equal.

This is the separation from God, the seeming split in the mind, which suggests that instead of us all being one, we are now two, split apart, separated off, isolated in our own private territories, and kept apart. We can't seem to share because we can't span the divide of the broken ground, and everything we do is separate.

On this basis of separation, or not being able to share, the breakdown in unity, the collapse of oneness, the arising of exclusion, and the seeming imprisonment on either side of the rift, we get the denial of the golden rule. It seems possible now that because I am not a part of you, and am separate and isolated on my own island, I can only now think of my OWN interests. What I do to myself is done to myself alone, and if I throw a rock over at you, it hurts only you and not me.

While I might believe that what I do to you is NOT done to myself, or what is true of you is NOT true of me, it becomes possible to enter this state where we're trying to get away with murder. It suggests I could attack you, and escape the consequences. I could do something to you which is not done to me. I could give something that I do NOT receive, because I am not INCLUDED in it, because I've become EXCLUDED from you. As though giving and receiving are not one.

So the whole ego system is all about this sense of being exclusive, separated off, not sharing, not one, unequal, different, disconnected, dis-associated, and isolated. Our whole belief then shifts to it seeming to be plausible that we can attack without being hurt, or we can accuse without being accused, or we can make someone be guilty to take the guilt off our own shoulders. That no matter what we cause, we can escape the effects. I can hurt you, and not myself.

So this is then what the ego does, all the time. IT HAS ONE MODE of functioning. It's all it CAN do, because it is ONLY the idea of separation. Its aim is to emphasize, enhance, increase, and deepen the sense of being separate, so that IT increases. That's it's only goal. To attack ever more strongly and cause ever more disruption in equality. It's entire existence DEPENDS on the continuation of this inequality, this rift between brothers, and this sense that you cannot share anything with anyone because they're separated from you.

If the two floors or islands were to meet, and reconnect, and level out, and become one single unified space again, the two brothers could be reunited, and all sense of inequality and difference would melt. And ALSO there would have to now be an acceptance of the golden rule, because if we are sharing everything, then what applies to me now also applies to you and vice versa. We are now the SAME. We are one. So I cannot do anything to you without doing it to myself.

The interesting thing is that even when we're in an ego state of believing that we ARE separate, and are not a part of others, the golden rule actually still applies. We can BELIEVE that we are attacking something "not myself", and we can BELIEVE that the effects are being felt ONLY by that other separate person, and we can BELIEVE that we completely escape any consequences for it, BUT WE DO NOT. Because there are dire consequences STILL operating, consequences which are SELF INFLICTED, which CANNOT be avoided.

If you attack another, you STILL attack yourself, because you STILL ARE them. If you hurt another, you ARE hurting yourself. If you try to destroy another, you ARE destroying yourself. You may not REALIZE that you are, because you think of yourself as PROTECTED BY THE SEPARATENESS, as if the prison walls keep you SAFE. And so you think that attacking someone makes you SAFER. But it in fact erodes your safety because the more you attack the more YOU become imprisoned and weakened.

"Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and IS dissociation, and also that once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the device which KEEPS IT GOING. The reason, however, may not be as clear to you as you think. What you project you disown, and therefore DO NOT BELIEVE IS YOURS. You are therefore EXCLUDING yourself from it, by the very statement you are making that you are DIFFERENT from someone else. Since you have also judged AGAINST what you project, you attack it because you have already attacked it BY rejecting it. By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe."

You cannot be strong without your brother. You cannot be happy without your brother. You cannot be healthy without your brother. You cannot be loved without your brother. You cannot be powerful without your brother. You cannot be free without your brother. You cannot be innocent without your brother. You cannot be holy without your brother.

So if you try to attack in any way, to produce the separation, to make yourself MORE separate, emphasizing the ways that someone else is an inferior evil shit that you hate and who should feel terribly guilty for being so wrong, YOU ARE accusing yourself of this. So you might ask yourself, "would I accuse myself of this?" You will think you're NOT accusing yourself because you don't see yourself as A PART OF the other person, but you are still doing it.

There is a HUGE COST to attempting to ignore the golden rule. The cost is that your mind becomes split, you become self-destructive and suicidal, you become alone and lonely, you become weakened and live in darkness, the world becomes a nightmare of conflict and war, you lose all sense of peace and happiness, communication breaks down and you become unable to relate to anyone, it makes you question whether you even exist, and you will try to destroy yourself. That's a pretty major cost for believing something that isn't true, as if it were real.

You DO have a vested interest, because when you attack you DO experience consequences, even if you do not REALIZE that you do. You may not recognize that every time you attack you feel worse. You may not recognize that when you hate someone you feel awful and guilty.

You may not recognize that when you accuse someone angrily of being guilty of something, to make yourself feel better, you increase your sense of being separate and small and weak and alone. Or that anger hurts your mind and body. You have to recognize what the consequences of attack ARE, so that you will decide that you do not WANT to be murderous anymore, because it actually is not REALLY in your best interests.

The golden rule always applies. It is never broken or violated. You can deny it. If you deny it you will suffer. If you deny it you will be confused as to why your life sucks, and you will probably blame it on someone else, thinking that they are not you, and that therefore you haven't blamed yourself. Everything you do you to do yourself and to all your brothers, to the entire sonship and to God. This is also the secret of salvation. You are INCLUDED IN EVERYTHING. And inclusion is ultimately love.

When we come to the course, typically we come with a pretty big bag of beliefs.

One major belief, accrued over a lifetime, is that we are separate from the world. The world is this huge thing outside us. We learned "by experience" that it does things on its own, against our will, and we do not SEEM to have any direct mental power OVER it at all.

Only a rare few have even a slight hint of what we might call "telekinesis".. mind over matter. Some bend spoons thinking it's amazing but it's barely anything.

This is what the ego set up... to be in bodies shut off from the power of the mind and *disabled* so much that we can't even use the mind DIRECTLY to make anything happen. And then we just... got used to it.

We do have SOME power over the body, even regular non ACIM folk do... like you can cause the body to change in various ways based on your experiences and moods and so on. You can choose to go into anger and make your blood pressure go up. You can manifest headaches when you don't want to go somewhere. You can develop sore throats when you didn't speak your mind. All kinds of stuff happens to the body just in normal ways as a result of the mind's power - just a little bit of power, demonstrating itself.

But beyond the body, we generally see ourselves as "cut off", disconnected, powerless, completely unable to affect anything outside of it.

Then we come to the course.

And then we hear the course saying stuff about how we need to change our perception and that what exists in the world is an outward picture of an inward condition. We REFERENCE our EXISTING BELIEF SYSTEM of "I am not connected to the world", and then try to make sense of it.

So this lead us to think, ok... My mind is not outside my body and has no power over what's out there, so this MUST MEAN, that within my own body, inside my mind inside my body, there are some false perceptions which I need to change, and this will change how I SEE the world out there... BUT, it will not actually CHANGE the world out there whatsoever.

This is because the old belief system of powerlessness, littleness, being stuck in a body, having no mental power, is still circulating as a "foundation" for what you are learning. And so you learn WITHIN that context without questioning it or thinking that it even CAN be questioned. What you learned prior to the course closed your mind, and you proved it to yourself over and over again by how many times you couldn't stop the ice-cream from falling on the sidewalk, had to suffer from the weather, or couldn't prevent an accident.

So then you learn the entire course and try to make it "fit" inside this framework, building UPON what you think you already know. This leads to GROSS DISTORTIONS of the meaning of what Jesus says. It leads to the belief that he is talking about "you in a body" when he refers to "the world you see" as being something you made up... therefore, since you believe you can only change what's INSIDE your body, which you think is all of your mind, you do not even begin to think that changing your mind would change your BODY, yet alone anything OUTSIDE OF IT. And so when Jesus says things like "the world you see", you will dilute and mangle it to fit into what it would mean INSIDE your body, therefore.. referring to your private personal misperceptions OF the world, rather than literally or directly the world.

The disconnection or rather, separation between cause and effect, between your mind and what it believes, and the out picturing of that AS body and AS THE WORLD - the physical planet - forms - bodies - people - objects - the spearation between you and that stuff seems insurmountable and too far-fetched to believe you might be able to have power over it, or that it MUST change, or that you CAN change it with your mental changes. You simply do not see, or believe, that your mind is the cause of what is literally out there.

This leads people to believe also that if they change their internal perception, housed inside the limits of their body, they will be able to become PEACEFUL and happy, IN SPITE OF, the conditions which are in the body or outside of it. They see both of them as outside of their "self" and so outside of their own mind's power or reach or control. This leads people to believe that they can a) be at peace without healing sickness, b) can be at peace with the body dying, c) can be at peace even though people continue to be able to attack their body, d) are happy to just put up with sickness because somehow, there is a way to be peaceful in spite of it.

This of course is the distortion that entirely arises because of the FOUNDATION of the thought system, which has been built up over many years, teaching us that we are CUT OFF from the world, that there is huge SEPARATION between cause (us) and effect (the world). We don't seem to have ANY mental powers at all to make objects move, to heal sick people, to stop death, to reverse suffering, or any of the rest of it. This is because our mind is BLOCKED, and we are not aware of the whole truth.

Jesus is in fact teaching us in the course that we DO HAVE THIS POWER, which is a power to LITERALLY MOVE A PHYSICAL MOUNTAIN, or even to create a planet, because this is the natural result of having CAUSAL POWER over the EFFECT which is out there. The inner picture MUST be reflected outward. So when the mind decides, hey, I am going to rearrange this entire forest but uprooting all the trees and putting them in a different assortment, that's what will happen. But we do not believe we have even REMOTELY anything near that power, because of just how radically LIMITED our mental power seems to be.

We are GROSSLY out of touch with the power of the mind. Just even being in a body seems to shut us off form being able to do this. And yet these things are miraculous. These miracles demonstrate the power the mind has OVER MATTER, because the mind that KNOWS it is CAUSE, simply knows that everything else MUST be at its effect, and so its power over it is UNLIMITED.

It is only because we believe STRONGLY that we are limited by this body, limited by the isolation of being a separate self, totally out of touch with the MIND, believing we have a mind when in fact we just have a TINY LITTLE BIT OF MIND operating as a conscious self, shut off from what we really are capable of, that we won't consider it even POSSIBLE that the Course is telling us we literally made the world, or that we can change it with our mind alone.

This is the level of resistance to miracles. This is the resistance to all ways that mind may exert its power "over matter". "That the mind can heal the body but the body cannot heal the mind is proof that the mind must be stronger than the body." ... the mind is supposed to be ABLE to COMPLETELY do whatever it wants to do with the body. No limits. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

But so long as we believe we are these little piddly WEAK little body-identified selves, MINDLESS, cut off from everything external, seeing no oneness or ability to join, and having no power over any forms whatsoever, we are going to just CONTINUE TO BE VICTIMS AND DIE. And that's simply because we do not recognize that we are choosing that, because we have yet to wake up to the power of the mind. We are accidentally choosing death, until we realize that we are the Son of God for whom nothing is impossible.

So there is a LOT of this resistance in the ACIM community, and even those who are on the cutting edge of opening up to the power of the mind are still like little babies in terms of the development of this power. I would sort of put myself in that category and there still seems to be so little I can actually do, definitely nothing of my own will, and even with God acting with me I am still very limited. But I am willing to be open to the possiblity that my mind, shared with God, has far more power over this world than it appears, and WAY more than I have been led to believe by the ILLUSION the ego created to make it seem I have no power at all.

We have to realize that just by being in a body, we made ourselves TOTALLY POWERLESS, victims at the effect of the world. No power whatsoever to stop things from happening. That's extremely the OPPOSITE to our natural state of miracle mindedness. We need to UNLEARN what this illusion has taught us, and reclaim the power of the mind over matter to be able to perform magnificent miracles and be free of these limitations. This is why Jesus says time and again that there is nothing you cannot do, and ALL THE POWER IN HEAVEN AND EARTH HAS BEEN GIVEN YOU. But we do not see it, or believe it, because we're so used to being blinded by this illusion of separation between what is inside me and what is outside. That must be undone.

When you think of guidance you think of you being separate from the source of guidance - God, and attempting to receive some kind of communication. You hope at first to get any kind of communication at all, and later that you MIGHT actually listen to it and act on it.

I can tell you honestly and personally that even though I receive a lot of guidance in this way, in which it seems to be a separate communication to me, I do NOT always believe it or act upon it, because I still have an ego. Sometimes I struggle with it significantly or outright resist accepting it, and can fight with it for days or weeks before finally doing what it says.

There is a vast spectrum between what you could call a state of 'no guidance' and a state of 'total guidance'. The ego separated state, in which you are identified with ego and see yourself as very separate from God, is a state of no or low guidance. And because of how separate you believe you are, and how unconscious you are, you would be scared by more direct forms of guidance and intimacy. So in that state, it can be appropriate for you to receive guidance in a 'form' that you can accept. And at first that might be simply some synchronicities or some subtle intuitions or insights. Whatever you can accept. And likely you will be quite confused by it and mis-trusting of it and not very likely to listen to it.

It takes a lot of ego-undoing, a lot of surrendering, a lot of developing of trust, a lot of healing, a lot of relinquishing control of 'your life', a lot of opening up to love, and a lot of waking up, in order to get to a point where the 'gap' between you and God closes to such an extent, that there is no longer any NEED for guidance. Instead, in the ultimate state, God is one with you, lives through you, your will is God's will, you simply DO God's will immediately and spontaneously, and you have no need to get some kind of special messages that you might be prone to reject. Instead, you have full acceptance and full openness and trust, so you simply LIVE a divinely directed, divinely orchestrated, and divinely 'guided' life. This is God living in and through you, and you expressing and extending His Kingdom. Total oneness.

So most people are somewhere in-between these two extremes. And depending on where you're at, you're going to have various spiritual lessons and things that you're going to have to go through in order to 'enhance' your guidance. That is, to open up to and trust most in ... what essentially is... your relationship with God. Guidance is just another word for communication, and communication is just another word for your direct experience of and intimacy with God. So to whatever extend you are open to God, that is how much you are going to be guided, and the extend of that guidance, and what form it will take. So long as you are heading in the direction of HEALING your relationship with yourself and God, you are moving in the direction of enhanced guidance, or rather, an enhanced UNITY with God, joining with and accepting His will as your own.

So you don't need to necessarily have 'courage to act' on guidance, as such. You only are doubtful because you don't yet trust its source enough. Which really means you still listen to the ego or trust the ego too much, or rather, you rely on yourself - your own guidance - too much. It's a toss-up between whether you will follow the guidance or whether you'll do what 'you' think is better. You learn to trust guidance by getting in touch with guidance that comes from TRUTH, and which is based in LOVE, otherwise you cannot develop trust. So the source has to be loving. Or at least, more awake than you are. You need to keep discerning that it is acting in your best interests or is on your side or is 'trust-worthy', and not just blindly trust it at first without having some scrutiny. The scrutiny comes from your ego but you kind of need it at first in order to sort of prove to yourself that it CAN be trusted. Ultimately each step you take towards trust development is a step in your willingness to let go of the ego and to become more 'dependent' on the guidance. If the guidance has your best interests in mind and does not hurt you and does not deceive you and, over time, helps you and heals you, then it will earn your trust and you will open to ever increasingly deep levels of... communion with its source.

So if at the moment you are at the stage where you are experiencing what you call 'noise', and are trying to discern what is guidance or what is not.... I am guessing the ego is interfering with your efforts, which is normal. In other words, parts of you still rely on your own mind. Your mind, your intellect, because easily engaged in trying to figure out stuff on its own. Make it shut up. Make it quiet. Or rather, watch for it trying to do that. Stop trying to fix and solve and figure out. You can't be guided if you are trying to figure out what to do of your own capacity to understand the problem or know what to do.

So to some extend the mind that you have, has become 'posessed' by the ego and is being used for control. This is not natural. And it does this because it is DISCONNECTED from Holy Spirit. Or seems to be. He who perceives and experiences himself as 'separate' HAS to depend on his own ego abilities, the ego use of the mind, to try to survive and get through life or make sense of things. But you're not MEANT to be in that mode of functioning. The mind is supposed to be in service to God, in which God - Spirit - informs the mind of what it needs to know, and USES IT, utilizes it, like a tool, to work THROUGH.

This is the natural, healthy use of the mind, and it requires that the ego is not trying to control the mind or use it for its purposes. So you have to practice this, and this is ultimately all to do with your entire spiritual path and growth - learning to trust Spirit, to trust God, learning to let go of ego control, learning to surrender, learning to LISTEN, learning to DISCERN THE TRUTH, etc. YOU need to learn to discern what is true and what is false so that you can be open to the truth, which means the truth can then direct you, NOT so that you can then act on it in separate isolation.

As the Course says a few times, you will be told SPECIFICALLY what to do. And this is also why this prayer has deep meaning:

"I am here only to be truly helpful.

I am here to represent Him Who sent me.

I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do,

because He Who sent me will direct me.

I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.

I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal."

This is kind of a statement of what it is like to be in TOTAL UNION with Holy Spirit, where your mind is completely under the direction of spirit, with no ego. You won't be able to really 'get' or 'do' this prayer and actually act this way until you've completely surrendered the ego - which I have not.

Miracle principle 4: "All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice will direct you very specifically."

Being directed specifically is ultimately what we will experience when we becoming willing enough, trusting enough, open enough.

If you are in a state of having too much 'noise' then you are listening to the ego too much and still believe the ego too much, which means it's just going to have to take some time (not essential but likely) to continue waking up and developing trust, in order for that noise to become... sorted out.... for you to USE the opportunity of ego interference to continue to discern what is true, what is false. Over time your guidance will become stronger and clearer and you will experience it more as your open invitation for Spirit to live through you rather than you getting occasional text messages.

In other words, don't think of the ego noise as just interference - that's the ego's use of it - instead USE it as an opportunity to sharpen your discernment skills, what is true and false, to sharpen your listening skills, your surrendering skills. Use it to improve your TRUST in and DISCERNMENT OF real guidance. The ego is really just there to stimulate you, to act as a catalyst, to help point you in the right direction by tempting you in the wrong direction - if you use it that way.

Living with God is your natural way of life.

Lately what I've been trying to focus on is what can be *experienced*. The truth can be described in thousands of words but really it is an experience. We're really talking about you getting to the point where you can experience happiness, experience love, experience peace, experience God. God is an experience.

So what this means is looking at what you are experiencing NOW, and looking at what tools you can practically USE to actaully shift your experience to a happier, fuller, more truthful/authentic one.

And this has nothing really to do with what you are thinking about what you're experiencing or what's going on around it or what you should be experiencing, but the actual direct immediate experience - your feelings, your psychological reactions, your perception of reality, your union with God. What is reality to you right now, in honesty and not trying to 'please' Jesus?

This isn't done on a mental level or in terms of theory or discussion. What you really need is practical tools that WORK that bring about a real TRANSFORMATION of what you are experiencing. You are meant to LIVE the truth, not just talk about it. You're meant to actually feel God's love, live in God's love and be God's love.

What I've been seeing also is that when you try to be or attain a goal or theoretical truth that is too far beyond what you can actually EXPERIENCE, all of your energies start to flow into the intellect because they aren't grounded or rooted in what is real to you. You try to grasp at it and affirm it and think about it and make it seem like you understand it but you're not actually *experiencing* it because it's outside your envelope. It's very easy to conceptualize 'oneness' but, are you actually fully omnipresent and experience absolute unlimited psychological access to every part of existence? Nope.

I can testify that I went to great lengths in my mind and intellect in understanding the Course and the metaphysics and the high-level statements of truth and how it all fits together and all that. I was looking for some kind of a way to experience truth by having the biggest or best thought about it, or the widest grasp of where it fits, or the most abstract or subtle aspects of what Jesus has taught about the truth.

But even when I thought I really really really was getting it and understanding it, mentally, it was NOT followed by a result of experiencing love, or experiencing God. It did not bring peace. And it was like getting to the end of a path that you thought would lead you to the truth or to God only to find out that it does NOT lead there.

It doesn't lead there because its a journey in thinking and intellectualizing rather than the much more real, direct EXPERIENCING of truth. So I had to learn this, the hard way, that it can't be all about the talk or all about the theory or all about the metaphysics. It IS okay to seek for understanding (ACIM says understanding is appreciation of the truth), but you can't EXPERIENCE it on a purely theoretical level.

When we're not actually dealing with what we are experiencing - the immediate interaction of you vs what's in front of your face right now and how your mind is having a RELATIONSHIP with it - then it moves away from here-and-now and becomes removed and distant, turning into just a theory or concept.

Your head, your intellect, is quite capable of handling concepts and theories and thoughts about them, but its as though the intellect is an artificial ego device to be separated from reality, from the here and now. I would find myself tending to even intellectualize my feelings, transferring emotional energy into my head and trying to process it there through thought. Instead of feeling. Instead of experiencing.

I've also seen people get caught up in what they 'should' be doing or are supposed to be believing, launching into 'trying' really hard to force yourself to be those things, without ACTUALLY being able to do so. It creates the spiritualized ego. And when asked questions about what they are experiencing now or what they are really feeling, they are disconnected from it.

They will respond about what they think of it or what it means or what they think they're supposed to say or what lofty course idea they're meant to believe, but they don't REALLY believe it. They don't REALLY mean it. And they're out of touch with where they're really at, cut off from FEELING. Feeling is much closer to being than intellectualizing. But people don't want to feel. They don't want the immediate experience of reality, preferring to be buffered against it by all of these intellectual walls of thought and guilt and shame and force and pressure and ... using the wrong tool for the job.

What you may find as I have, as well, is that what I can experience has certain boundaries that prevent me from experiencing anything too far outside my 'comfort zone'. My mind won't stretch that far. If there's a suggestion to be or do something that I'm just not ready for, there's no way I'm going to be ABLE to do it yet alone willing to do it.

You can be willing enough to take small steps from where you actually are to where you want to get to next, but giant leaps are next to impossible. And when you try to make giant leaps before you're really ready, you will BYPASS, which means you're in denial about what you're really believing and experiencing and are pretending to be further along than you want to admit to. It's the ego that tries to throw you into 'advanced spirituality' before you are really ready or willing or able to actually BE it, because it wants the prowess of 'mastery' without ACTUALLY letting go of enough ego to experience it truly.

So you need to stop, go within, and look much closer to home, much closer to where you are realistically at right now. What are you experiencing right now. What are you feeling. And this is where you have to be really honest. Do you REALLY believe what the course is saying? Probably not. What do you believe instead? You have to work through this stuff. You can't pretend not to have blocks to awareness, you have to ACTUALLY look for them and acknowledge that they're there and then work on transforming your beliefs/viewpoints/attitudes so that you can ACTUALLY be free of these blocks.

They don't go away by sweeping them under the carpet, or by using denial, or by shutting them out, or making yourself unconscious, or bypassing to a level of advancement you're not ready for. There is nothing to be ashamed of in admitting that you are NOT the advanced spiritual successor to Jesus just yet. If you don't acknowledge what you're actually experiencing then you aren't going to be able to change your experience. And I think that's what this is all about - transforming what you are experiencing so that you can experience something better. And this means dealing with the 'reality' of your situation, not some ACIM-driven fairytale about how spiritual you are or how lofty the concepts are or what you are 'supposed' to be like.

How do you feel? Where are you at? What is honestly true for you right now? Have the courage to look at it, feel it, experience it, be with it. Acknowledge how fucked up you are. Then re-interpret your evaluation of yourself and transform your experience of yourself into a genuinely higher version of yourself.

Authenticity.

AND WHY THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES...

In this world, forms of objects and bodies and planets are all made to establish how one thing is DIFFERENT to another.

So when we look at the spectrum of types of sickness for example, we have DIFFERENCES in appearances. A headache, a cold, some back pain, a broken leg, a disease, and death, all SEEM different in their FORMS.

However, difference IS NOT reality or truth or sanity. Differences are fundamentally an ego thing.

So what do you think happens to your body when all of its "differences" are undone? Clearly it cannot even exist at all. If it is not being used to make differences real, then it is not being used to differentiate degrees of sickness.

It is DIFFERENCE between things that produces all forms of sickness and death. Or in other words, forms of SEPARATION. Total death requires total intense separation from Life, identifying the body as being so UNLIKE LIFE that it must be dead.

So on this spectrum, death is literally just an attempt to reinforce or EMPHASIZE how "unlike life" the body is. And that's a result of the MIND that is projecting and using the body, and ITS degree of belief in how unlike life it is. Death is ISOLATION from life, which confines you to and identifies you closely with being a body, because a body is a symbol of something STANDING APART from the whole.

When you believe you are NOT LIKE GOD, or you are not the way God created you which is in His likeness, you WILL produce some kind of "difference" in your mind and that WILL produce an APPEARANCE (illusion) of difference in the body. The body will start to look like it is not LIKE LIFE, and so will start to show up as falling apart and malfunctioning and dying.

The body ITSELF, in terms of its FORM, was made as an attempt to assert that what you are is DIFFERENT from all others. That's because "your body" is literally physically cut off from other bodies, does not look like them, has different qualities and seems not to be operated by any other minds, if you ARE this body then you are SEPARATE from others, and therefore you are UNLIKE WHOLENESS, and therefore you are not like LIFE, and therefore you are DEAD.

So the body itself is actually a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son, or the idea that the Son is DEAD because it has been separated out into illusions of distinct different parts which are unlike and disconnected from each other. This fragmentation of identity as FORMS OF DIFFERENCE is, however, an ILLUSION.

The mind does not HAVE to elect to SEE this way. It does not have to regard itself as confined to or IDENTIFIED BY the body or the way that this particular body is showing up versus those of others. The mind can elect to OVERLOOK the body, recognizing that it actually was made to SEPARATE, by its fundamental nature of appearing different and isolated, and it was designed as an instrument for ISOLATING YOU to one very small limited location.

The mind can elect to NOT BELIEVE that this isolated body form is actually representative of its identity. It can believe and perceive that this one body is not ITSELF, and does not limit it, and that the mind is not "identified as" the body. To do that however requires the undoing of mental beliefs in DIFFERENCES BEING REAL. And that means learning to OVERLOOK ALL DIFFERENCES and to not believe in them.

That means you have to learn to not be convinced that one APPEARANCE is actually TRULY different to another, that one sickness is more severe than another, or that even death itself is any more "true" than a paper-cut. When we believe in separation we believe in difference and therefore automatically start believing in the "hierarchy of illusions", which is TOTAL FICTION.

When you can learn to NOT pay attention to the ILLUSION OF DIFFERENCES, of forms, and LOOK PAST them, which DOES mean to FORGIVE them, you get into the kind of mind that recognizes that ALL forms are illusions and are all THE SAME, NOT DIFFERENT, and therefore any miracle that you would apply to one is THE SAME as would be applied to another.

This is what results in awareness that THERE IS NO ORDER OF DIFFICULTY IN MIRACLES. If death is not REALLY any different to a broken nose, then it should not in any way present any greater difficulty in healing than to stop the nose bleeding. Jesus in fact mentions in the Course that the idea of raising the dead should really be no harder than anything seemingly less severe. This does however require total faith and quite an advanced degree of NOT BELIEVING illusions of separation, or appearances.

ALL appearances of difference were made to DECEIVE and BLIND YOU. "Nothing so blinding as sight of form". The Holy Spirit CAN utilize the body as a holy temple through which it is only used for COMMUNICATION. Communication means extension, ie total SHARING, oneness, unity, IDENTICALITY, seeing that you and your brother are ALIKE in every way, overlooking all DIFFERENCES, and recognizing that the same Love that God put in YOU is also in your brother. This results in HEALTH and HEALING, because the belief in *separation* is the root cause of ALL sickness and death.

Without BELIEVING YOUR EYES, or rather, without believing that "differences are true", you can no longer believe that a certain form is any more true or difficult to heal than another. It also therefore means, that when you can demonstrate that THERE IS NO DIFFERENCE, and that the appearance of a difference - regardless of its extremeness - can be easily "ironed out" by a mind that does not BELIEVE in the difference (because it's an illusion), this can literally IRON OUT the difference IN FORM, producing a collapsing of the extremes of "different forms", the reversal of sickness, and even restoring LIFE to the DEAD.

The "erasing of death" should thus be natural to a miracle worker, and as easy as showing that there IS NO SEPARATION in any sickness. That sickness itself is merely an idea of fictional difference and a mind that does not believe in it can produce changes in APPEARANCE that represent NO DIFFERENCE, which causes sickness to literally disappear from the form because the mind is stronger than the body and stronger than all forms.

This also ultimately means, that once communication is whole and there is no belief in the LIE OF MATTER, and not being convinced by ANY illusory APPEARANCE of difference in form, this ENTIRE UNIVERSE must simply be cancelled out. If there cannot be any differences, and if all differences are illusions, and the entire fabric of MATTER is based on belief in one thing being separate or different from another, there literally CANNOT BE ANY MATTER, because there ARE no differences between things, and thus does this universe COMPLETELY DISAPPEAR once it is RECOGNIZED as an illusion. "Illusions recognized must disappear".

This is why there is no world and why God could not have created something that exhibits conflict and separation and death.

There is a certain leap of faith required in learning to trust and work with Spirit. It's like opening up to trusting that something completely out of sight and out of control is going to be there when you need it. We are completely unaccustomed to seeing situations this way and it requires a lot of TRUST.

Since we have been relying on our own self all this time, on our ego intellect, our own abilities, our knowledge etc.... we are very used to needing to have a sense of personal confidence in a situation in order to proceed with an action.

So we'll have to make sure that we're in the right mood, we have to have all the ducks in a row, we need reassurance that this is the right thing to do, and we feel that we need to kind of talk ourselves into the right frame of mind to 'perform'. We have to ready ourselves, and we won't move ahead to take actions until we have gathered enough ego information and enough reliance on our own capabilities. And to create something of quality simply threatens us to have to perform at the top of our game, which is nerve-wracking.

But the problem with this is that it shuts out Spirit. The problem is, since we are experiencing ourselves as disconnected from Spirit, we keep having to rely on ourselves, depend on ourselves, accumulate our own skills, develop our own prowess, acquire our own knowledge, and build ourselves up to try to handle situations. But this puts all of our sense of TRUST squarely in our own ego abilities. Trusting our own ego produces FEAR which undermines any sense of reliability.

Spirit doesn't work the same way the ego works. Spirit is much more spontaneous. Spirit is also extremely capable and unlimited and doesn't suffer from the inadequacies, limitations, insecurities and difficulties that our ego self has to deal with constantly.

Spirit is actually ready to fly right now, right away, without any preparation. God is immediately on hand and ready to heal, right now. Holy Spirit is immediately on hand and ready to teach the highest of truths, right now. They don't need time to get ready. They don't have to figure out what to do. They don't need to get themselves into the right mood or to be on their best form or to have put aside as many fears as possible in order to take some decisive action.

So what this means is, if you want to work with Spirit, such as to express Holy Spirit's Voice or to teach from a higher place or to perform a healing miracle, there has to be a certain amount of 'blind faith' and a different kind of trust. This trust quite literally means that you really need to actually START taking steps to move forward and express, knowing that Spirit is going to show up immediately and be there to help you.

It actually kind of requires you to be much more spontaneous and UNPREPARED. (Who knew that being unprepared could lead to greater confidence when trusting Spirit?!) And even if you feel unprepared and uncertain and afraid and doubtful about whether YOU can pull off whatever it is that you're about to attempt - teaching, healing, writing, whatever.... even though you do not know what the heck you are going to say, even though do not know how the heck you're going to 'do this', you have to actually start doing it with faith that Holy Spirit is right with you in the MOMENT.... and that as you begin to 'flow', all of Heaven is going to rush in to support and help you.

There are people who receive healing miracles, let's say for example they have a broken arm or something. The person prays for them and healing begins, but the person still believes they don't have a healing, and the arms seems to be a problem. But then the healer tells the person, MOVE YOUR ARM. And the person moves their arm, and AS they move their arm, healing comes to the arm.

There are countless examples of this in Jesus's miracles where he tells someone to actually DO something, to do something that they supposedly currently cannot do, so that WHEN they attempt to do it, with some faith that it will BECOME possible, their willingness and openness is what actually brings the miracle into them and healing occurs, AS they ACT AS IF they are healed. For example Jesus might've commanded 'get up and walk', and a paralyzed person who could not walk, would at least ATTEMPT to get up and walk, with enough trust and faith that perhaps it COULD work, and then as they get up, suddenly they can walk. But not until they started trying to do so.

So you see, Spirit is very immediate and becomes a part of the flow as and when you are willing to actually take some action on faith. You will not be prepared. You will not be ready. You will not know how you're going to do this. You'll get to the very limits of the edges of your own ego abilities and all the information you could possibly have gathered and all the preparedness you could've possible done, and still there is another step needed. To trust Spirit, you have to take the leap. You have to ACT AS IF miraculous things can happen, ACT AS IF healing is going to flow when you say it will, ACT AS IF Spirit is going to back you, even if right now you don't feel even connected to Spirit. And Spirit will rush in and be right there to support you.

For example, I am writing a book and I have procrastinated on this for a long time because I kept feeling that I wasn't quite ready, or in the right mood, or I just wasn't prepared. I felt like I needed to get MYSELF into the best possible frame of mind, the most purified readiness, the most spiritual of mindsets etc, in order to be ABLE to pull off this writing. And I could never really rise up to the occasion. I couldn't get myself into the 'heights' of what I knew needed to be written down, and was just always riddled with insecurities and excuses and fears and worries about how was *I* going to write this and how was *I* going to be able to know what to say or to say it correctly etc. So I avoided it.

But then what broke, was that I came to a place of at least realizing it's not going to be me doing this on my own. It's not going to come FROM me, its going to come from Spirit. And I'm going to write it down, but I'm not going to know WHAT to write. I'm not going to be able to prepare for it or study for it or have everything all organized to try to get a sense of confidence about it. Instead, what its going to call for is for me to actually sit down, hands on the keyboard, and to be in that moment WITH Spirit, inviting Spirit to be the one to write, and to then just start doing it. Just GO. And that means trusting something totally outside of myself, totally beyond my own abilities, beyond my mind, beyond any personal readiness. And in that moment, in the now, in the present 'flow' of it, Spirit is right there and started talking, and I started typing, and out it came.

Surprisingly easy once it got going, but I'd avoided it so much because my mind, my ego mind, my separate mind, couldn't see past itself. It couldn't get outside of its own box or its own reliance on "I must do this all by myself". The mind needs to be handed over to Spirit. Spirit is meant to be in charge of how the mind is used. And this really does mean actually surrendering this constant reliance on independent self, on separately having 'the power' or 'the skills' to do whatever. To be Spirit-backed we have to stop being so independent and so self-reliant and trust something that we don't even seem to have any control over, a source of confidence and teaching and creation that is beyond our own self. And nothing can prepare you for that. You have to just do it and try to trust that you're going to be backed up, and you will be.

This is why development of trust is so important. Learning to trust that Spirit has got your back, that Spirit can heal, that Spirit can do miracles through you, and that Spirit can help you no matter whether you have everything under control or not. It's all about learning to be part of a TEAM, instead of going solo all the time. You don't have to do this all by yourself, and you DO NOT have to find the confidence and prowess to pull off some amazing feat of expression all on your own. It's much easier to let Spirit do the heavy lifting, if you can let go enough to take a shot in the dark. And that's what it's like often, just blindly assuming that Spirit will do its thing when you take action to begin the flow.

I'm glad to say I got a whole chapter written, once I finally stopped fearing (depending on my own strength) and trusted that I just had to 'show up' in the present moment and be ready and willing and that Spirit would do the rest. It can really be daunting to have this kind of trust, to trust in something you can't see and doesn't even seem to be there until the very moment that you're having the faith that it will show up. Something outside your control, outside your mind.

Our minds are supposed to be connected to Spirit in this way. They're not supposed to be separated off and trying to rely on themselves. We're not supposed to be bolstered up, or turned into 'models of success', or superheroes. We're not meant to be thoroughly educated and learned. We're not meant to develop this extraordinary prowess at doing something amazing all by ourselves. This is not how the mind is meant to operate in isolation. It's meant to be connected to and a RECEIVER of a flow of spiritual power from Spirit. It's meant to be in service to Spirit. It's meant to receive God and to extend God, not to come up with its own separate power or its own separate abilities. Transitioning over from self-reliance to God-reliance is a tough challenge and goes entirely against our entire ego-centric way of living, but it's what we're called to do.

It adds a whole new level of meaning to "let go and let God".

Minds are not separate, they are joined. We are part of a collective, which is connected by the Christ Mind. My mind contains your mind, and your mind contains my mind.

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

Because our minds are WITHIN each other, what I choose to do with MY mind, IS in fact a PART OF your mind choosing it also. What I seem to choose "for myself", I am choosing for BOTH of us. This reflects the course teaching that "nothing is for yourself alone."

If I choose to recognize the unity of our minds, while you are attempting to see our minds as disconnected/separate, you will not be able to do so because a unified view is stronger than a separating one. Thus I can prevent you from being sick.

If I agree that you are sick because I also want to be sick, then together we both consent to being separate and nothing prevents this separateness, so we both enter into sickness together.

Similarly if we have both entered into a sickness of mind together, we have entered into "vulnerability", and now it will appear that I can negatively influence your mind, but only by reinforcing and playing upon and amplifying what you already believe yourself. It's a kind of consenting to be affected.

It is also true that mind can express the power of God, which has the power to heal and to enlighten. You actually DO have the power to CAUSE mind to change. You can influence the minds of others, and they can influence your mind.

This is why when you are healed in some way, your healing also heals others to some degree, because they are part of you. And when you have healing thoughts, these thoughts go out to the whole sonship and give it healing, just as thoughts of attack attack the whole sonship - or try to.

It's because our minds are joined that there are no private thoughts. We are permanently in a kind of "mind-meld" where we are WITHIN each other's minds. And that means there is this kind of tug-of-war situation, or a link, whereby if I lift my mind up your mind will be dragged up as well.

When Jesus chose the resurrection and returned to heaven and holiness, his awakening INFLUENCED all of us. We are all effectively less insane because Jesus, who is a PART OF US, is now very sane. And his mind is giving our minds strength.

It is because your mind has POWER and IS part of other minds, that the responsible choices you make with YOUR mind is "on behalf of" the whole sonship. And influences everyone.

It is because our minds are joined that we have ACCESS to each other. It is because our minds are joined that we can INFLUENCE each other. It is because our minds are joined that we can HEAL each other, as well as try to reinforce each other's insanity. It is because our minds are joined that we HAVE A RESPONSIBILITY and are our brother's keeper.

While other minds, which are part of US, are not freed from ego, neither are we. This necessarily means that we cannot rest, and have work to do on behalf of the sonship and the atonement plane, which is NOT DONE, until EVERY single mind returns to the sharing of oneness in God.

The easiest analogy is that we are like SIAMESE TWINS, two beings whose brains are joined together for example. We therefore are DEPENDENT on each other, and what either one chooses affects the other. This is because of the law of God that everyone is one and everything is shared.

It is because of this that a MIRACLE can heal others and raise them from death!

"You once said that souls cannot rest until everyone has found salvation. This happens to be true."

"My Atonement was for the canceling out of all sins (i.e., lack of love) which human beings could not otherwise correct."

"YOU CAN REMEMBER THIS FOR ALL THE SONSHIP. Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is YOURS. But YOUR remembering is HIS, for God cannot be remembered alone."

"I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing."

"I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts."

"The idea for today is obviously the reason why your seeing does not affect you alone."

"And as you let yourself be healed, you see all those around you, or who cross your mind, or whom you touch, or those who seem to have no contact with you, healed along with you."

"But you are never healed alone. And legions upon legions will receive the gift which you receive when you are healed."

"That is why they need your remembrance of Me and Him who created Me. Through this remembrance you can change THEIR minds about themselves, as I can change YOURS. Your minds are so powerful a light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can enlighten yours."

"Today we are again emphasizing the fact that minds are joined. This is rarely a wholly welcome idea at first, since it seems to carry with it an enormous sense of responsibility, and may even be regarded as an "invasion of privacy." Yet it is a fact that there are no private thoughts."

"Miracles seem unnatural to the ego, because it does not understand how SEPARATE minds can influence each other. Nor COULD they do so. But minds cannot BE separate. This other self is PERFECTLY aware of this. And thus it recognizes that miracles do NOT affect ANOTHER'S mind, only its OWN. They always change YOUR mind. There IS no other."

"No mind is sick until another mind AGREES that they are separate. And thus, it is their JOINT decision to be sick."

"If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are DENYING TO THEMSELVES. If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not be sick. The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH. The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs."

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"The reason why people are afraid of ESP, and so often react against it, is because they KNOW that thought can hurt them. Their OWN thoughts have made them vulnerable."

"Casting spells" merely means "affirming error", and error is lack of love. When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made. This distortion makes them vulnerable to the curse of others, since they have already cursed themselves. The miracle worker can only bless, and this undoes the curse and frees the soul from prison."

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

"By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others. The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them. By affirming this, the miracle worker releases the mind from over-evaluating its own learning device (the body), and restores the mind to its true position as the learner."

"Healing is an act of thought by which two minds perceive their oneness, and become glad."

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

"However, it is perfectly clear that when a person can atone by miracles, both giver and receiver are atoning. It is better to atone this way because of the mutual benefits involved.)"Inasmuch as you do it unto the least of these, my children" really ends with "you do it unto yourself and ME."

"Every decision is made for the WHOLE SONSHIP, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of."

"I am alone in nothing. Everything I think or say or do touches all the universe. A Son of God cannot think or speak or act in vain. He cannot be alone in anything. It is therefore in my power to change every mind along with mine, for mine is the power of God."

"You are more than your brother's keeper."

"I miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself."

The ego mind is a mind of separation and conflict.

The ego mind always has two faces - a persona and a shadow.

Within the ego mind itself, one part of itself is against the other part. The ego mind attacks itself, being an idea of self attack.

The persona portion of the ego mind is what most people most often identify with, thinking that this is their entire 'self'.

The shadow portion of the ego mind is the part most people disassociate from, project onto others, and hide unconsciously. This part of the mind we do not identify with, and believe it is not even a part of ourself. Therefore we scapegoat it onto others and accuse other people of being it.

But at all times, both the positive and negative are within the confines of our ego mind. Both the stuff we think is good and the stuff we think is bad are within our mind. And the stuff we think is our 'self' and the stuff we think is 'not self' (i.e. 'others) is still within our own mind.

Both the enemies that we perceive as 'not me', or 'out there', and the innocent victim that we try to position ourselves as 'in here', are both a part of a single mind which is at war with itself.

This war is taking place between your mind and your mind. It is a war of self-attack. Within the arena of your mind, you have these two sides, comprising the persona judger and the shadow retaliator. Or, the persona victim and the shadow victimizer.

Most of the time the shadow is projected and disassociated from, meaning we see it outside of 'our self' (the persona self) and disconnected from it. We literally believe through disassociation that it is not our own self, we want nothing to do with it, we try to get rid of it, and we use the persona part of our mind to attack it. Even though it's a part of (not apart from) this one mind.

We become so deceived by this 'split' in consciousness, this mental delusion of two selves, that the persona part of us, which we most typically believe is the whole ego, does everything it can to disassociate itself from the projected sin/guilt/fear/wrongness. It wants nothing to do with it, entirely because this attitude increases the sense of *separation*, or the severity of the 'split' within the mind, between the good-favoring and bad-favoring parts.

We need to learn the secret to salvation, according to Jesus, which is that "you are doing this to yourself".

What this means is, our whole mind is a container in which there is both the ego persona and the ego shadow. The stuff we deny, reject, judge, project, and attack is the shadow part, but it's still a part of our own mind. And the persona part which tries to reject that part is also in our own mind. It is not that the good parts are good or that it is being attacked by the bad parts that's the issue. That's not the problem. The problem is the sense of *separation* between these two parts.

The sense that the 'bad stuff in me' is 'someone else', is our major error. The accusation of sin onto someone else, which is really our own sin, is a mistake. The belief that someone is not One with us, is a mistake. The projection of our darkness outward, and our cutting it off from ourselves to create an enemy, is a mistake.

The darkness of the shadow ONLY appears to be dark and unwanted because of how intensely the 'good-seeking' persona part of us, that we retain identification with, tries to increase the 'contrast' between the two. The darkness would not appear AS dark if this separation or rift or split were not as pronounced. But this would also have to mean that the good-focused part of the mind be diminished in its exclusivity, its favor and its judgement.

See it is not just the bad icky shadow stuff that we need to 'get rid of'. In fact it is the ego persona that tries to get rid of that stuff, which means the ego persona is kept, and therefore the ego is kept, making this a trap. The more you try to get rid of stuff the more you manufacture a story about how dark that stuff is, and it will grow stronger as an enemy of the persona. All enemies are pretty much tied into the persona's idea of what it does not want, in order to make itself look better. But if the persona is going to attack the shadow, then the mind is going to become more split, and both parts are still going to stay within the confines of the single mind. So you will suffer.

Enemies are not the problem. Separation between good and bad is the problem. Separation between good-loving persona and good-hating shadow is the problem. And not realizing that both of these parts of your experience are entirely WITHIN your own mind, and has NOTHING to do with anyone else, is the big realization here.

You need to come to a perspective, an awareness, where you are looking at the contents of your mind, and realize that both the persona part of your mind is within you, AND the shadow part - the enemy, the attacker, the things you don't want, the parts you think are 'other people', that is ALSO in your mind. And you need to get to where you can see BOTH at the same time as being part of YOU. It is that awareness, where a sense of Self 'spans' and INCLUDES both parts, that you are in the kind of space where you can see that you are, literally, doing this to yourself. You are the victim and the victimizer. You are the persona and the shadow. You are both parts of this separated ego.

When you see this, and hold this perspective for a moment, where you can see both 'characters' if you will, both parts of you at once, you will see in that light how ridiculous it is that you are against yourself. The awareness that who you thought was an enemy, is YOU, will wake you up. The awareness that you thought you were against some other person but were in fact against YOU, will wake you up. The awareness that the behavior of the enemy, which you thought you had nothing to do with, is actually just another puppet - another part of YOU, that YOU are using against yourself... seeing that will wake you up.

You have to get to where you can see and accept that both sides of the split-mind war are WITHIN your mind and are both parts of what's going on inside yourself. This awareness will show you the utter ridiculousness of the war that you are waging against yourself, the roles that you are playing in your mind which you thought were distinct, the Self that you are - the awareness which encompasses the persona and the shadow, which is your real PERSONALITY. You are the awareness in which you see the war that you are waging, and the fact that you are playing BOTH SIDES, that you are literally against yourself with two artificial personalities.

You have to see that you are BEING both of those fake personalities (persona and shadow, victim and victimizer), and that it makes absolutely no SENSE that you can possibly be truly both at once unless you lose sight of this awareness. And since you are in this awareness, the 'illusion' that you are only one of these two parts cannot be maintained. It's like realizing that two characters in a play - enemies - are both being played by the same actor. And that awareness will set you free from the illusion of a separation.

This awareness is the key to salvation, because in this awareness and in the admitting that you are both the victim and victimizer, you will see how utterly futile and ridiculous that is, as well as owning up to the awareness that you are the one doing this... nobody else is involved, because the 'other person' was actually your own shadow, which is part of your own mind, part of your split identity - one of two parts of you. This UNIFIES your awareness, because you are likely willing to drop this stupid activity as soon as you see it, because it is so obviously insane and self-defeating.

When you see this... just wait to see how long you need to have this awareness before the entire thing just disappears ... it only takes a moment. It only takes for you to glimpse this, and both the persona and the shadow will cancel each other out. As soon as you see that you've been doing this all to yourself, both sides will collapse. The awareness that saw both these parts as parts of itself, is the light which will dispel this darkness. The darkness was the *illusion* of a separation between these two parts - the idea that one of these parts was 'not you'. But it is you. And that undoes the separation, so both sides have to now cease to be separate. They come together, unify, all contrast disappears, and ONENESS is restored. And it will be like nothing even happened.

The secret to salvation... you are doing this to yourself.

Someone was accusing me of things I believed I didn't really do. They seemed to be just hell-bent on projecting their blame somewhere. It seemed uncalled for, and that I was unfairly treated.

My reaction to this was that I became angry. I felt that I was justified in being angry because it seemed that what the person was claiming was not true. And yet, if it was not true, why was I taking it seriously at all and having a reaction?

I believed I was innocent. I believed I was not guilty of what I was being accused of. They were literally claiming that I had done things which I had literally not done, physically. It seemed so obvious that I did not do these things that this "proved" my innocence. I was using physical evidence of "the world" as proof of what was true, to prove that I was innocent.

I also believed that, therefore, this person was just wrong and doing something to me. It seemed unfair and unwelcome and as though it was causing upset in me.

Each time they accused me of this, I felt more and more angry and annoyed. It seemed like if they would keep doing this, I couldn't see a way to become anything other than more and more upset.

But then I started to look at what was happening in my mind and how I was perceiving this. A key fact came to mind, where I remembered that, at least in theory, I could not be upset about something unless I believed it myself.

Whenever someone is reacting to an attack, making it real, taking it seriously, and exclaiming that it is not true, usually it means the person actually does believe it is true on some deeper level. There is denial involved, but here's the problem.

In our state of guilt, we used denial to make our guilt go unconscious. It was pushed out of conscious awareness. We used a mask of fake innocence in order to deny that we are guilty. This fake innocence is something that we actually believe is the truth about us. It completely covers up the guilt makes it look like, even to ourselves, that there is no evidence of being guilty. And then because the guilt is actually unconscious, we are not even AWARE that it is there, so we actually believe that we really are innocent. Imagine believing you are innocent when in fact you are guilty!

So when someone comes along and accuses us of something, we tap into this sense of innocence and rely on it and treasure it and defend it like it's the real truth about ourselves. Based on that being true, we then seem completely justified in being angry and upset and annoyed when someone claims that we are actualy guilty of something. But you'd think that if we really deeply believed in our innocence, we would be unshaken by such accusations. The reason we're not, is because deep down there is guilt, and it is being triggered into conscious awareness.

When I look at this with Jesus, I remembered that those who are upset believe in their own guilt, even if they are claiming to be innocent. I was able to then be open to the idea, that I must actually still believe I am guilty somehow. I must be still accusing myself of sin, otherwise when my brother accuses me of it I would not take it seriously. I saw in myself the presence of this sinfulness, this guilt. I saw that *I* believed in it and thought it was true of me at this time.

What this revealed is that while I was busy accusing the other person of accusing me unfairly, as though I believed they shouldn't be accusing me, I was in fact accusing myself the whole time. I could hardly blame them for doing what they are doing, when I myself am doing the same thing to myself. Admitting to doing this to myself, it was obvious and clear that I in fact did not really believe I was innocent, *I* believed I was guilty. My innocence was fake, and therefore the foundation for my justification for retaliation and anger was completely unfounded.

Seeing my own belief in my own guilt, recognizing it as coming from me about myself, somehow sobered my mind. It brought awareness and honesty. The facade of fake innocence disappeared. What was therefore revealed, was that even though this whole time I thought I had a problem of this other person accusing me unfairly, *I* was actually accusing me unfairly. They were just triggering it off, reminding me of what I actually believed about myself unconsciously, and my own unconscious belief was probably attracting them into my life to accuse me in this way, reflecting my own belief back to me.

I seriously thought I was the innocent one. I thought that I was holier than thou. I thought I was being honest, that I was sincere and genuine and truthful. I thought the other person was clearly the one who was being vicious and mean. I actually believed heavily in my own fake innocence. I was in denial, and not realizing that I had this big belief in my own guilt lurking under the surface. I had no idea that *I* myself believed I was guilty in this way.

Having a good look at this opened my eyes. I could now see the truth, that this person actually was not accusing me of something that I didn't believe in. They were accusing me of something I DID believe in. I was upset because I did believe I was the guilty person they accused me of being. I just didn't want to admit to believing it about myself.

If I myself am believing in my guilt, then the other person is not actually doing anything to me that's different from what I'm doing to me. They're not adding guilt at all. Effectively, they are just making me aware of it. My refusal to recognize that *I* believe I am guilty, was making me project my guilt, and accuse my brother of accusing me of being guilty. I thought the source of the guilt was in him, and not in me. I thought he was the cause of it, but I was.

I am not sure how I managed to stay in such a state of unconsciousness for so long. I do not know how I didn't realize or even suspect that I believed in my own guilt in this way. I thought I was defending my true self. I thought I was being honest. I thought I was innocent and guiltless, and therefore justified in being upset by a false attack. But why would the truly innocent be upset if they know they are not guilty? They would just laugh and it would not affect them at all. That I was reacting and defending my illusion of innocence just showed that deep down I did not really believe in it, or it wasn't real.

I didn't actually really take this any further. I didn't look into whether it was true that I was guilty. I didn't get into whether I really did sin. I didn't get into trying to accept the atonement. I didn't even see this as "doing a forgiveness", necessarily. I just thought it was an interesting insight, which had revealed that I actually wasn't being affected by the other person, I was being affected by myself. It somehow, nevertheless, completely disconnected my ego from the other person's.

The following day, I felt noticeably peaceful and I could not explain it. Somehow my mind was different. Somehow I did not feel engaged with that person in the way that I had. My ego seem deflated. I didn't seem to engage with that person in anywhere near as much of a kind of tug of war manner. I seemed detached and just doing my own thing. I couldn't explain why I kept feeling waves of peace, as though it came out of nowhere. I no longer felt like that person was doing anything to me at all. It was like the entire story and drama had just burst and stopped. It was gone.

All I did was realize that I had been doing this accusing toward myself, and that it wasn't actually the other person who believed this about me. My own belief was my only problem. What they were doing had absolutely nothing to do with me. That was enough to unlock the forgiveness and heal my mind. My experience was so different after that. Finally I felt a peace that I had not felt for a long time.

The fake wall of innocence which hides our unconscious guilt, is a major barrier against realizing that we are doing this all to ourselves. It is the defense against guilt, which protects us from guilt. We do not want to dismantle it. We do not want to question whether it is true. We just want to believe in it as though is is completely true, and that it is defending ourselves from all attacks. And yet this defense, itself, is merely covering up our self attack, and making it look as though we are being vulnerably affected by others. It is a block to awareness, a locked door which is disguising our our guilt and our own death wish, keeping it hidden from awareness so that we dont' even suspect that we ourselves are trying to destroy ourselves.

Who me? Innocent me? Me who is not guilty? Me who has no awareness of being guilty at all? Little sweet little innocent me? Yes.... this layer of innocence is FAKE. It is not the truth. It is protecting me from the deeper layer of belief, that I am actually sinful and guilty and deserve to die. I have to stop believing that I am innocent, become aware that I believe I am guilty, then work on undoing that guilt and the sin behind it, to get back to REAL innocence. Fake innocence is a terrible impediment, masking our guilt and deflecting our self-attack onto everyone else. To realize that we ourselves believe in our own sinfulness, and that it is not other people doing this to us, completely collapses the entire state of false perception which shows us others people as though they are causing us to be hurt.

It is me that I must forgive. Other people are not the problem at all. They are just reflecting what I am doing to myself. I have my own self attack, hidden behind layers of denial and projection. This is what I need to recognize and own up to and heal. This will automatically heal all of my relationships because everyone else truly is innocent and this has nothing to do with them. We but accuse our brothers of our own sin.

Disassociation plays a big part in making your forgiveness seem much more difficult.

Disassociation means that you are "not associating your self" with something. You're trying to put distance between you and something.

The problem is that you use disassociation on your SELF. You split off a part of your own self, the content of your mind, by having an unforgiving attitude of judgement. Then you try to reject that part of yourself, label it, judge it, hate it. You try to think of it as something you don't want, that is not your self.

You use these tools of separation against it because this helps you to have the impression that it's got nothing to do with you. You want nothing to do with it, like you want nothing to do with an enemy.

It is possible with your mind, to so thoroughly disassociate yourself from this "part" of yourself that you've decided to hate, and to have such a strong sense of rejection against it, that you come to believe it is NOT YOU.

So now that this part of you seems like it is not you, you quite literally perceive, experience, and belief that this thing is 'someone else'. You believe it is "not me".

If you've ever had an enemy in the form of a person, someone who perhaps seemed to abuse or hurt you a lot or who you were really angry with, or who over time you built up a hate towards, it could be a family member or an old friend or lover or a politician etc... notice how you had this sense of wanting nothing to do with them. You did not want to associate yourself with them, didn't want to be near them, even wanted to "get rid of them" from your experience. Maybe you even wouldn't have minded if they were dead or something.

Well this is what happens with a part of yourself that you disassociate from. You attack this part of yourself so strongly and pull yourself away from it, split yourself off from it, and there is this seeming "rift" between you. A separation. You use denial and illusions to make it SEEM like it is not part of your "self". You dis-identify with it, and form a different sense of identity that shuts it out. And the way that you perceive this part - which now appears like an 'other', with an alien will - looks to you like someone completely separate from you.

So as you break off parts of yourself and reject them, you form an attitude of tremendous rejection and attack towards them, and this makes them change how they appear to you. They look like something you don't want, like an enemy. And your sense of 'self' is disconnected from it. You say it is not you. You perceive it not you. You isolate your sense of "self" from it so much that you really believe it is not you. And that means, it's not "inside you". It's not part of yourself. And therefore, it has to be NOT YOU. So... if it's not you, it must be someone else's stuff, right? It must belong to someone else.

So this is where you then perceive that this rejected part of yourself is in fact intimately tied into someone else. And as you walk around the planet and meet people, you will still continue to experience this condemned part of yourself, within yourself, but you will have disassociated from it so much that you will perceive it's part of other people. You will think it is theirs. And this is what we usually refer to as "projection". This is how you seem to project things onto other people. You overlay your disassociated self onto others.

So then when you're in this situation where it seems like someone is an enemy, and you hate their guts, they really have nothing to do with this. There is a portion of your mind that you hate the guts of, and you're seeing this on top of the person. And you're so dis-identified with that part of you, that you think it's not you, or yours.

Like, it seems like it the other person is quite literally the one who is doing this stuff to you, because you think that this hated part of yourself is attacking or enemy of what remains of your "self". And so is born the idea and perception that you are being victimized by "other" people, by "not me". And this also means, you are now completely irresponsible because you are allegedly not the one who is doing this to you. And simultaneously this paints whats left of you as "innocent" - the innocent victim who has nothing to do with this evil thing.

But you are not really in a victim/victimizer relationship with other people. You're in this relationship with this broken-off part of your own self, which you hate, which is STILL within the confines of your own mind. So the question arises, who are you? What is left of you, if you are not this part you rejected?

Well when you've broken off part of yourself and judged it and disowned it, the part that remains is what we call the ego persona. You think it is the part of you that you are identified with and which is your "self". You think it is all of your self, your whole self, because it's the only parts of you that you have accepted and allowed. It's the parts of you related to what you want to be, how you want to be seen, the good citizen, the successful achiever, the strong personality, whatever. The parts you "keep" are the parts that you have not disassociated from, so you think this is still you. You don't realize that the other parts you've cut off within yourself are also you.

So now within your total mind, there is this small portion that remains, the persona, which is who you THINK you are, and this persona self focuses on including what it wants and rejecting what it doesn't want. And what it doesn't want are the things that it judges and attacks, within you. So this persona attacks you. And it relegates part of you off as not worthy, not allowed, not acceptable, not lovable, not forgivable, not good enough, bad, evil, etc. All of those parts form this disassociated self, another word for which is the "shadow".

This shadow portion of your own self is still within your mind, and there is a war going on between it and your persona. The persona wants to get rid of it at all costs, and does so by continually refining and trimming down what's left of you, chopping off parts it doesn't like with goal of artificial perfection. If it were to succeed with that goal, there would be nothing left of you because it will have relegated so much of you to the hated shadow. The shadow part of you, the disassociated self, which you think is in other people, is really still within your mind, and there is a war waging between these two parts.

So the stuff you hate about you, projected onto others, is believed to be attacking the stuff you exalt about you, which now sees itself as under attack and needing to defend itself. But the hilariously ridiculous, insane thing is, both of these perspectives, these two identities, are both inside of YOU. You have a split mind. Everything you think is inside you, inside your body, you have kept, and now the surface of your body shows this 'mask' of the persona to represent where you stop and where "otherness" starts. And anything outside your body that you think of as "not you" is where you DUMP all of the parts of you that you cannot love. And by relegating all these parts to "not me", "other", "external", it is very easy to perceive that this stuff belongs to someone else.

So now it's someone else'e fault that you nice tidy ego persona is being attacked. Or someone else is doing it to you. Or there is a cause outside of you - so you think. Or you are being affected and upset by something, some separate self, some alien will, that is outside of what you think is 'you', attacking you and trying to destroy you. But it's really part of you. It wants to be integrated and it wants to be unified and it wants to actually cancel out the persona so that your IDENTITY can become WHOLE.

The separation between these two parts of you is the problem. The fact that the persona attacks you by saying only a part of you is acceptable, and the rest is not, creates a split in your mind and therefore creates the shadow. So now the persona has become the defender of a false idea of self, and the shadow that it ITSELF has created, now becomes its apparent enemy.

This makes forgiveness difficult at first because you walk around this planet constantly perceiving that everything to do with "other people" has nothing to do with you, is not your stuff, is not your problem, is not in your mind, is not something you put there, you can do nothing about, you are a victim of it, and you want nothing to do with it. This is disassociation. It IS your stuff. It IS your self. It IS your content. So you have to see that your upset about so-called "other people" has NOTHING to do with them. It's your upset about a part of your own self. It's your persona being upset about the shadow. Part A being upset about Part B, of you.

So you are at war with yourself. And you are attacking yourself. And both sides of yourself are attacking each other. And there is a separation between them. And you hallucinate that the separated-off you is not yourself. So this has to be healed somehow. The separateness of these two split parts needs to be undone.

The only way this can be achieved is when you become willing and able to see, and recognize, that this whole drama is taking place WITHIN YOU. It's really not outside of you. It's got absolutely nothing to do with other people. The problem you see in them is YOUR STUFF. It's your power. It's your attack. So there's this victimizer that you think is out there, and this victim that you think is in here, and BOTH of these characters are inside the whole of your own mind. Both of them are being PLAYED BY YOU. You are simultaneously being the victim and the victimizer. The part of you that you think remains - your persona self, is being animated by your mind. And the part of you you think is not you, the projected shadow, is also being animated by your mind - like a remote puppet on a string.

Now, when you see this, it is very powerful because no longer are you paralyzed by believing in disassociation. No longer are you locked in from being able to do anything about this as a result of believing it's totally under someone else's control, is not within the realm of your mind and is not something you can wield control over. By seeing that you are the actor who is playing BOTH SIDES, the person and the shadow, the wanted and the unwanted, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, the innocent and the guilty, the attacker and the attackee, you will see this war going on INSIDE YOURSELF.... and recognizing that YOU are the one who is playing both parts, that must snap you out of falling for this ILLUSION that it's got something to do with someone else. You must see that your identity, your actual identity, is "behind" both of these split characters, and therefore YOU are doing this, YOU are creating this 'performance', and YOU are the one who is having a war with yourself.

So if you can see this, that you're doing this to yourself, that you're playing both roles, and nobody else is involved, then this AWARENESS unmasks both characters, because it is so utterly ridiculously that you can no longer be deceived by it, and you recognize that they're both you. So now you have become INCLUSIVE, instead of exclusive. Inclusivity is healing, unifying. The awareness in which you see both characters simultaneously shows you that it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to have been one and not the other. It's impossible for you to be maintaining this position of "I'm the victim who isn't doing this to myself". And it's impossible to also maintain the position of "I'm the victimizer who is doing it to the persona". The cover is blown. The illusion is broken. They're both you. And you're doing it to yourself. It can be shocking to see this. But it is liberating. It sets you free to see the truth of what's going on.

Anyone who sees this, that they are doing this to themselves, will be set free. The persona and the shadow both will be undone, and an awareness will take their place. This awareness is your real self. Or in other words, your WHOLE SELF, which does not have these parts disassociated from each other. Your whole self is not stuck inside the illusion of victim/victimizer roles. It is not deluded that someone is doing something to it, or that it is doing something to someone. So now you are set free by the light of truth.

This also then means, automatically, that you will stop believing that this has got anything to do with other people, and that they're not really your enemies, and they really had nothing to do with this from the start. You thought it was to do with them because you were projecting your shadow self onto them and accusing it, attacking it, trying to get rid of it. Jesus describes this completely clearly in the course, that we project our own sin onto others and then attack it in attempting to destroy it. But other people are all innocent. This war was never with anyone else, it was with yourself.

This is the secret to salvation. You are doing this to yourself. You are your own enemy - but not just the receiver of attack, but also the one who attacks. You are both parties. And its you that needs healing and forgiveness between what has become two parts of you.

Everything that we consider to be a sin, is nothing more than being mistaken. Being mistaken means you are making an error in judgement. You've come to a false conclusion. It means you are incorrect. You have faulty reasoning. You are not recognizing what is true.

Sin is also the idea of insanity, and insanity really is nothing more than confusion about what is true and real. Believing that something is true which is not, is simply a state of being mistaken. You have simply made an error, and now you are confused.

While you are in the confusion, believing that your false truth is true, you ARE mistaken, but you do not recognize that you are mistaken. You believe that you have actually sinned, pulled off the impossible, and accomplished something that can never happen in reality.

To believe this IS, nevertheless, being very mistaken. Just as denial hides the truth from you. Just as framing all acts as sins is a failure to recognize they are JUST mistakes. God knows that his children as simply mistaken, and can never be sinners, and all they need is to recognize their error and accept the truth.

In fact let's put it this way. You should reframe EVERY sin, as nothing more than being mistaken. Every single thing which you consider sinful, evil, wrong, bad, negative, etc should be recognized for what it IS and not for what you think it is.

If someone is trying to attack another, they are simply mistaken. They are mistaken about who they are. They are mistaken in believing the other person is not one with them. They are mistaken for believing they are guilty, and they are mistaken in believing that projecting that guilt onto someone else is going to make it leave their mind. Even if they go through with this, they are still simply making a sequence of mistakes.

Even serious attack such as murder is a state of being mistaken. The person is obviously insane, which means they are confused and do not recognize what is true. They are very much mistaken about what the truth is. They believe that they are justified in the attack, when in fact they aren't, and so they are mistaken. They believe that the death of the other will allow them to gain something, which isn't true, and so they are mistaken. And by finding the other person to be deserving of death, is a totally mistaken notion, since no-one deserves death.

No matter how you look at it, if you look at the big picture and recognize what is true - the immortal innocence and perfection of all beings, it becomes very clear that we can simply be MISTAKEN, but we cannot sin. All evil acts are mistakes. All scapegoating is a mistake. All belief in your own unworthiness is a mistake. Every abuse, torture, rape, killing, destruction, is all to do with people being very mistaken. Even the causation of horrible events is a mis-creation, a mistaken choice in what to cause.

No one in their right mind is mistaken. Being sane means recognizing reality and knowing what is true. If you know what is really true, you are not mistaken about what is true. If you are in touch with reality, you are not mistaken about what is possible. No one in their right mind would even try to sin or attack anyone, because they recognize that they would have to be VERY mistaken to believe it could a) be accomplished and b) be justified.

If you feel guilty, you are simply incorrect about being guilty. You cannot be guilty in God's eyes, because He created you to be innocent forever. So your belief that you are guilty is an error. You are incorrect. You are confused about what is true. You might be insisting that you are RIGHT, but it's not going to make you HAPPY, because being right about something which is false is a state of the denial of happiness.

Forgiveness, in the purest sense, is nothing more than recognizing what is true. It's a state of NOT being mistaken. It's a state of recognition, sanity, and having the whole story. It lacks no information and is not deceived. It simply looks and notices that everything ego or evil is simply false, impossible, untrue, unreal, has no consequences, and does not prove anything. It also recognizes that to believe in such things as possible would be a mistake.

It's kind of like, a question of whether or not you have the facts. If you have all the facts, you are in touch with reality. You know what the whole picture is. But if some facts (information) are missing, you probably are going to start drawing some false conclusions. And now you are entering into illusions, into temptation and deception, because something now appears to be something it isn't.

So let's put it this way. Right now this instant, there is no sin anywhere. There is no evil anywhere. All there is, is a bunch of people who are, temporarily, very mistaken. That is all. They're not evil. They're not sinners. They're just confused. They are out of touch with who they are. They don't recognize their brothers. They believe things are true which aren't. They are just temporarily insane. And insanity is nothing but being mistaken.

Mistakes can always be corrected. They are just temporary errors that you are making. Kind of an "oops". You concluded something which was incorrect. You decided that something means something that it doesn't. You reasoned with faults and ended up confused. You are perhaps unwilling to accept the truth and are in denial of it, which is just a desire to stay mistaken, due to not recognizing that you are.

Those who are insane therefore don't recognize they are simply mistaken, and believe their beliefs are completely true. Those who are in denial do not recognize that they are in denial, they believe they are fully aware of everything and are accepting all of the truth. They aren't, and so they are mistaken. But they believe they are not mistaken.

This then ends up being the key to the turning point in the mind. It's a matter of having to have that "little willingness", to be open to the possibility, that what you believe MIGHT simply be a mistake that you've made. Not like having to admit to being in sin, or that you really are guilty, but just that you are somehow "technically" incorrect. This doesn't have to entail shame or guilt or other rebounds related to being "wrong". It's just a simple fact.

If, while you are in the midst of believing you are completely right, and are not mistaken, and are not recognizing why you are mistaken, you become at least a little willing to consider with some humility that you MIGHT not be "correct", then you start to open up to CORRECTION. You have to be able to get some larger truth into your mind. You need a miracle to shine in the mind and remind you of what is true. To correct your level confusion. Being CORRECT has nothing to do with being RIGHTEOUS.

Correction, which is provided by the Holy Spirit and the truth he represents, is simple the radiant fact of "the miracle", the truth, reflecting the truth of God. It acts as a light of sanity, correctness, accuracy, truth, recognition and reason. You need correction, having made ERRORS, so that you will become "corrected". When you are corrected, you are sane. When you are corrected, you are happy.

So really it all boils down to a simple matter of whether you are correct or whether you are mistaken. Sin never really enters into it, nor does guilt or fear. Those are all the seeming side effects of being mistaken, coupled with the rejection of correction. The rejection of forgiveness. Forgiveness is really just a matter of diffusing the drama of "sin guilt and punishment" and looking at the facts. Looking with sight, with reason, at what things ACTUALLY are. Recognizing that ALL you are right now is in a mistaken state, you've made an error somewhere along the lines, and now all you need is to correct it.

"CORRECTION of the error brings release."

"The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong- mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception."

ALL sin must be re-framed as nothing more than being mistaken. Every person you hate, is just mistaken. And you are just mistaken for hating them. Anyone who ever hurt you, was simply mistaken for hurting you, because they made an error. And any hurt you experienced was simply you being mistaken, believing you can be hurt at all, given you are immortal. So now you, and the other person, are just mutually mistaken. And that is all.

And what that tells you is that if someone's attack upon you was merely a consequence of them being MISTAKEN about yourself and themselves, they DID NOT REALLY MEAN IT. They were NOT in their right mind when they expressed this action, based on a mistaken state of mind. They did not realize what they were doing. They THOUGHT they were right and correct and true, but they were mistaken. They were CONFUSED. And they attacked you BY MISTAKE. Since what they did was out of a state of mind of being mistaken and in error, an error which they THEMSELVES did not even realize they were making, you cannot hold it against them.

To forgive someone, therefore, for sin or abuse or attack or harm of any kind, for any kind of upset or broken relating or outright onslaught, is merely to RECOGNIZE that they are NOT in their right mind, they ARE very mistaken. And if you buy into it, into the belief that they are TOTALLY sane in all their decisions and are acting against you ON PURPOSE knowing exactly what they are doing, deliberately, YOU are very mistaken as well. There's just got all these people making mistakes all over the place, NOT sinning, NOT being truly guilty.

The world is just a world of insanity. A mad world, within a mad idea. Even the tiny mad idea that you can do the impossible, was simply a mistaken conclusion. It was an effort to assert something that can NEVER be true. It was an attempt to claim that God can be attacked or opposed. That is not possible. Anyone who believes in that is SIMPLY MISTAKEN. And any belief in sin or separation or bodies or spacetime is SIMPLY a mistaken belief. These things are all false, untrue and impossible.

It utterly boils down to nothing more than a question of accuracy. Are you correct, or are you mistaken? Are you really in touch with what is true, or are you confused and mistaken? Are your beliefs lined up with God's will and truth, or have you invented some MISTAKEN truth which contracts the truth and is therefore mistaken? Do you recognize you are mistaken and are you willing to accept correction?

When Jesus says (biblically) "Forgive them Father for they know not what they do", this encapsulates the whole thing. If you were to recognize what people are doing, or what their state of mind is being driven by, you'd recognize they simply DO NOT KNOW what they are doing. They are MISTAKEN, in a mistaken state of mind, a state of insanity. They aren't even aware of what they're doing. They think they are doing something else. And if they do not love you they don't even recognize you.

By recognizing that all "sinful behavior" is simply by confused, temporarily mentally ill people acting out from states of mistakenness, not realizing what they are doing, not really knowing why they are doing it, how can you accuse them or hold it against them? All they're doing is making a mistake and being in error, doing something by mistake, believing it was something else, not REALLY intending to. No-one REALLY wants to hurt anyone. No one REALLY in a right-minded sane state WANTS to induce suffering.

Let's say that simply, when someone's mind goes into a state of confusion, they lose touch with reality. How they act or express themselves then is going to be coming from a kind of unconsciousness, a lack of awareness, not really knowing what they are doing. They are going to act in error. They BELIEVE they know what is true, but they don't. And everyone simply acts on what they believe is true. It's not possible to do otherwise. So now you've got people seeming to exhibit insane evil behavior, justifying it, but who are only acting WITHIN the confines of their thought system - within the confines of their truth.

When their truth is not true, when they are mistaken and confused, they are LOST. And when they are lost they are out of touch with themselves and with others. And all their actions now become ACCIDENTAL. They keep making mistakes. They keep justifying things based on mistakes. They keep being motivated by mistakes. Compelled by mistakes. Urged into certain reactions based on mistakes. Because they are not awake. And the whole time they don't even know they are doing this because their conscious mind is disconnected from reality and everything they do they believe is totally justified.

There is no sin. There is only a temporary error. And all errors can be corrected. And making a mistake does not call for PUNISHMENT of any kind. If someone is taking a math test and makes a mis-calculation and comes up with a confused result, which they think is accurate, and which they will defend, they hardly deserve to be punished, hit, abused, damaged or destroyed. Because those are not the things that the person NEEDS, and those things are NOT CORRECTION. It does not provide them with the CORRECT ANSWER in any way.

PUNISHMENT DOES NOT CORRECT MISTAKES. THOSE WHO PUNISH ARE MAKING MISTAKES.

In fact, punishment is itself a mistake. It's based on a false perception that the error was a SIN, and not just a mistake, and that a person can undo their temporary insanity by experiencing pain and suffering, to "motivate" them towards the truth. This is utterly ridiculous. All that punishment does is cover up the mistake, turn it into a sin, solidify it, lock it in, and add to the mental illness in the mind by adding more confusion-inducing pain and suffering. It does not work. All it does is lead to even more resentment and mistaken conclusions later.

If someone has made an error on their math test, what it really calls for is proper correction of the mistake. The person needs to be SHOWN, by example, what the CORRECT truth is, and why it is true. The MISTAKE needs to be identified and pointed out, not as a sin, but simply to bring awareness and recognition. Then the student recognizes WHY it was a mistake, because the true truth makes more sense, and automatically justifies alignment with it because it is OBVIOUS. The student than "takes on" the greater truth and receives it and is now corrected, such that in future they will not be mistaken again. They have become the truth. This is the true correction of errors without punishment ever entering into it.

A belief in sin calls for punishment and death. A belief that a mistake is NOT merely a harmless correctable mistake, is a belief that it deserves to be punished. Evaluating that all mistakes CAN'T be corrected, due to severity or consequences, is still a further mistake, which justifies punishment. Oops sorry, your mistake was TOO BIG, so it's overflowed into sin territory, so now we're going to attack you and take something from you so that you suffer, to "atone for it". Punishment then becomes atonement.

Yet even murder is JUST A MISTAKE, and through miracles all the consequences of that wrong decision can be undone by the holy spirit. "He will correct all the consequences of my wrong (mistaken) decision IF I will let Him."

Real atonement, the undoing of error, which is forgiving, and which always recognizing that we're all JUST mistaken, not sinners, is a gentle correction, a loving correction, a harmless correction, which merely makes you aware of what the truth really is and shines a light so that you can see. And then in that light the mistake is recognized for what it is, its underpinnings are exposed, the steps are retraced, and it is undone at its source. Now is the mind corrected and correct, accurate and truthful. And now forgiveness has brought a healing and life instead of death.

Jesus said this:

"The world, in the original connotation of the term, included both the proper creation of man by God and the proper creation by man in his right mind."

Here we’re told that God created "man’ (souls) and gave man (souls) the ability to create, when in his right mind (as God intended). All of this is taking place within God’s realm, the Kingdom of Heaven. Heaven also IS God’s Creation and everything in it including the souls.

The souls together comprise "the sonship" and since they share oneness with all of Creation, they are all "the One Son" ie the one/united creation. At this point it has absolutely nothing to do with physicality or planet Earth or separation.

"The latter (man’s ability to create in his right mind) required the endowment of man by God with free will because all loving creation is freely given."

So we know that it is natural to have free will, for each "individual soul", who is part of oneness, and who is also christ. Each individual soul is therefore "free" to independently dream or not.

At this point, pre-separation, in my opinion all of this is encompassed within God’s Kingdom, Heaven, which IS the sonship and IS creation and INCLUDES all souls. All as one Sonship, one creation, on being, on sense of identity yet still many parts. (I know I know, suspend disbelief).

All of this content, is what the Course originally refers to as WORLD. This was God’s world, God’s creation. What really exists. (Not the "real world"). This is the same thing as "the universe" of God.

God gave a world to His Son, spoken of here:

"The statement ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life’ needs only slight correction to be meaningful in this context; ‘He gave it to His only begotten Son.’"

I believe, the world referred to is simply the Kingdom of God, heaven. It is the only place where there is everlasting life. This is true in both versions - that "God gave His Son" = world (God’s created universe, not earth, God expressed/gave the Sonship), and that "God gave the world to His Son" = God’s creation, heaven, given "to" his Son to SHARE and be a part of as God’s Kingdom/expression. This has nothing to do with the physical universe, a world made by separation, or planet Earth in any way.

At this Level, Heaven, Creation, God, Sonship, The Son, The Sonship, Souls, Reality, Universe, World, Eternity, Oneness, Christ, Children of God, and Christ’s Creations, and the creations from Souls, are essentially all part of a single experiential realm or state of mind/being in which there is perfect sharing, multiple minds, yet all sharing and reflections of God’s mind as well.

"God has but one Son, knowing them all as one."

"It should especially be noted that God has only one Son. If all His creations are His Sons, every one must be an integral part of the whole Sonship. The Sonship in its oneness transcends the sum of its parts."

ie, "the son" IS the sonship, which contains multiple sons of God, all equal, and perhaps there is no single "first begotten son" kind of identity. Just the multitude souls? Yet every soul is fully one with the whole sonship, sort of implying two levels or aspects to identity? "Soul-self" and "shared-self’? And that when the "sharing" is severed, what’s left is the soul estranged as a separated son, still having its own identity but seemingly disconnected from the whole.

Then there was the separation...

"All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that man has the ability to usurp the power of God."

Or to put it another way, each soul can choose to sleep (or they all slept at once?), and "dreaming" (authority problem, separation, sin, level confusion, fear) is the mis-creation of each soul’s free will. Each soul tried to "withdraw" from the unity of the whole sonship, going into a state of isolation with artificial walls around it (later to become bodies), seeming to no longer be part of oneness, no longer sharing, no longer connected.

Jesus says this:

"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, possible of both accomplishment and real effects."

Notice it says "the son of God". Given all souls form the sonship and together they are collectively "the son of God", along with whatever else God created (angels etc?), does this not mean that all (or some of?) God’s "Creation" collectively had the tiny mad idea? Ie we’re not just talking about a single son, but many sons "falling" together?

We’re also told this:

"What God does know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His children are wholly joyous….God's extending outward, though not His completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thought, "My children sleep and must be awakened."

So we’re told there that when some parts of the sonship (souls) are blocking, the entire sonship is affected and so God then knows he needs to create the Holy Spirit.

Here is the version from the urtext, which is more clarifying:

"It should be noted that God has begotten only one Son. If you believe that all of the Souls that God created are His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul must be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have too great difficulty with this. The Sonship in its Oneness does transcend the sum of its parts. However, it loses this special state as long as any of its parts are missing. This is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until all of the individual parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then, in the true sense, can the meaning of wholeness be understood."

When the sonship, or even one part of it, still believes in separation, is dreaming, unaware of the whole, or rejecting the sonship, the sonship is incomplete. In this state, what the sonship experiences now is the "fall" into, and the dreaming OF, collectively, the "second world".... the world of death and separation.

This second world comprises everything that is "inside" the tiny mad idea, all thoughts of sin and death, the entire physical universe which was made a "place" (actually a state of mind) in which God seems not to exist. This second "world" is the world in which we experience perception (of all kinds). This "world" is the entire physical universe. It may additionally comprise further fake universes in higher dimensions because the separation from God progressed through various stages.

So then there are two worlds. God’s universe/creation/heaven, and the illusory universe/what we made/physical universe which is artificial ("Earth is opposite to heaven in every way"). We typically think of world as the planet, but it means the entire realm in which we seem to exist. All of the "universe" we think is the universe, all planets and stars, all galaxies and nebula and civilizations. And all of the massive expanses of space and time. All of this is "the world" - the world WE MADE, which God DID NOT CREATE. A world of separation. And within this world, this realm, planet Earth is just one of many illusory locations.

There is a series of workbook lessons, I posted about this recently, which tell us 1) we’re experiencing a hell of false perception laid on top of the world we made, 2) true perception is then introduced as an alternative way to view "this world" (this fake universe), 3) we’re guided to experiment with discerning true from false, 4) we’re then told about how HEAVEN is ANOTHER world (a 3rd experience, beyond false and true perception) reachable when "this world" is left behind (the world/realm/universe we made).

The lesson "No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth" specifically describes us leaving this "world" and returning to Heaven, to the realm of Creation, to God’s universe. Which is not the Earth or even the physical universe.

This also means that, the collective "Son of God" dreamed the fictional "world" which houses the fictional planet earth (there is no world). This also means then that if true perception shows you the "accurate perception" of the world YOU MADE (physical universe), to see accurately/truly the world you made is to see what THE SON projected. Since this "world", the physical universe, is the "One Son’s dream" or, the collective dream of the Sonship, which we all made together, and since the course says "The world IS perception", seeing this world with true perception is us perceiving PERCEPTION. Perception twice removed!

As individual souls we’re looking upon what the One Son projected as a fake universe. Within this context alone, we EACH have a false perception OF the One Son’s perception. A false perception of "the world" (and you can include Earth in that world). False perception ADDS a "personal layer" on top of the world we made, true perception removes that layer and reveals what is "there" without distortion. Yet this world we’ll see, the "real world", is STILL within perception. It is STILL the 2nd world, the one WE MADE, not the one God created.

We will disappear this 2nd world. This 2nd world is one we made up, invented, it is a DREAM. An illusory universe. It doesn’t really even exist at all. IT is the opposite to the nature of heaven in EVERY WAY. It is not a part of heaven now, and it will never be. Being an illusion, it must disappear entirely. Being literally NOTHING, it never was, does not exist NOW, and never will. It simply will vanish when recognized in the light of truth. The light will shine it away. It will be no more because it never was. We don’t need it.

God has created a "world" - Heaven - a "place" (as much as any, though different to the physical experience), "fit for a King" ... a realm of permanent joy and love and eternal life. It is EVERTHING, where the "world" we made is nothing. The world we made is not real. "There is no world" is a direct statement speaking to this - this world we made, which includes planet Earth and more, does not exist. "The world holds nothing that I want" ... not just the world of false perception, OR the world of true perception. The world we made, to replace God’s world, holds nothing that I want. The "real world" is an illusion, not a reality. God’s reality is the REAL, real world.

These are, to me, essentially the two worlds. And within the world we made, because perception is selective and has degrees, there is a really screwed up state of false perception (hell), and a much more preferable and closer-to-reality state of "true" perception. As clear a state of perception as we can possibly have while still being OUTSIDE of heaven. And "there is no life outside of heaven", because the world we made is not life.

I guess I’m just putting this out there. FInding my way to a clarity about this which makes sense to me. Take what you like leave the rest.

As humans with egos, we are accustomed to thinking of ourselves as "separate people." This is because of the ego. We have identified "self" with an individual body, and not the bodies of others, and thus perceive that we are ISOLATED and SEPARATE.

It is from that perspective of being an isolated, cut-off, separated being, that we interpret what ACIM seems to be saying about your perception, your mind, exactly what is inside your mind and what seems not to be. This has led to a great deal of misunderstanding of Jesus's teachings about perception and correction because it's all being viewed FROM a state of EGO.

"What is the Body? The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built, to separate parts of his Self from other parts. It is within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love. Identifying with his safety, he regards himself as what his safety is."

You have to recognize that the Sonship, which contains all souls God created, are not just a sum total of many individuals. It's not simply "7 billion humans" all lined up next to each other. There is an essential part to the nature of God's holographic creation, which is SHARING.

The minds of each Son, WHEN in His right mind, is very much shared with other minds. Or let's say, "open to" or "joined with" or "connected to". Each Son is one PART of the holographic creation of God, and each PART contains the WHOLE. So while each Son seems to be an individual, and there are many individuals in Heaven, each individual is ALSO a "container" or medium through which the WHOLE also expresses. It's like being plugged into God.

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth."

"The mind that taught itself to think specifically can no longer grasp abstraction in the sense that it is all-encompassing."

The ONLY parts of this that turns into the ego, is when you unplug yourself from God, unplug yourself from the collective shared mindset, disconnect yourself from the Sonship, and see yourself as ISOLATED.

See, people think that you cannot be an individual and be in Heaven or that individuality is ego. This is because, as a starting point, they think that the individual is "separate" from others, and that this separation is therefore ego. But this is starting from a false premise. In God, the natural state of things is that everyone SHARES and is JOINED WITH everyone else, is open to them and shares and extends love with them. It is the reduction of the SHARING which brings about the ego, NOT their individuality. You could say, ego makes a person "more individual", it does not establish their individuality.

So if you can picture a soul in its natural state, it is an individual BUT IT IS ALSO sharing all of itself with the WHOLE of all creation, the entire sonship, and all of God. It is a part, but totally joined to the whole. And there are many parts, joined to the whole. As though everyone is sharing a collective experience, which is what we call oneness. But this oneness or sharing does not obliterate the wholeness of each individual soul.

It is ONLY when a soul unplugs itself from the whole, stops sharing God's mind, stops being one with the sonship, and "withdraws itself" from the collective, that it becomes ISOLATED. It seems isolated now because it seems cut off and separated off and DISCONNECTED from the whole. This state of isolation requires "walls" to be erected around the individual. Or to put it another way, we stop sharing with others and recoil into a defensive position of suspicion and conflict instead of lovingly embracing others. These are not walls which define the individuality ITSELF. They are walls which BLOCK SHARING. As if putting a blindfold on someone, or preventing them from ever touching anyone else.

These artificial "blocks to awareness" ARE the ego. They are what keep you CUT OFF from others, versus being JOINED WITH others. These walls are NOT what make you an individual. Your individuality is a state of being individual AND JOINED. What makes you an ego is ceasing to be joined, so that ONLY your individuality remains, as though you are now orphaned or blocked from sharing anything with the collective. It is an attempt to leave the Sonship and go off on your own.

The result of this isolation is that you end up seeming to STILL be an individual, but without a sense of being connected to the whole. Since it is normal and natural to be joined with the whole, when you are NOT joined with the whole there must be some kind of BLOCK in the way which is "separating you off", rather than allowing you to join. Joining DOES NOT UNDO YOUR INDIVIDUALITY. It SHARES IT. This makes total sense in a holographic model of heaven but not the ego's thinking.

Now, you as a "human" in "a body", this is an idea of you being separated off. As though in prison, or not allowed to share with anyone. Isolated, alone, separate, unable to join. That is what makes for an EGO. The ego is the idea of being separated from unity, but the ego is NOT the idea of having an individuality. Individuality actually is an OPENNESS TO LOVE, like a loving individual, whereas ego is an unloving individual. You can still be individual and love your family, or you can be an individual and hate your family. The hate is the ego, not the self, but the hate forms a FICTIONAL IDENTITY which you overlay on top of yourself. That fake self is a SUBSTITUTE for your real individuality, not the antithesis of existing as a self.

So you then think, ok, I am one of many separated humans in one human body. What's inside my body seems to be me. I've become separated from all others BY my body, and whatever is outside my body is not me. So that leads you to perceive, that you have a "personal mind", which is your own separate mind. You actually DO have an individual mind which God created, but it is not supposed to be isolated. It is kept in a box when it is kept inside the walls of the body. The body is a device for LIMITATION.

So you get used to this. And then you think to yourself, ok, here is A Course in Miracles, it's talking about "my perception", so it must be talking about what is INSIDE MY BOX, within my limited mind. And therefore, I need to change my limited isolated mind, my personal perception, in order to change my personal hell, and accept a personal atonement just for myself. No. That's not what the Course is telling you.

The Course completely acknowledges in fact that you SHARE illusions with other people just as much as that you have a personal set of illusions trapped in your own little box. It teaches that the content of this "world", physical objects, wars, bodies, death, sickness, lack, conflict, murder, etc, IS PART OF the illusions which are taking place in a JOINT ENDEAVOR of wrongful thinking, on the part of many many individual souls who COLLECTIVELY are DREAMING this entire universe.

So what appears to be just your personal mind, or your personal thoughts, or your personal ego illusions, which you are working on, and which the course DOES tell you to correct and heal.... that is only PART OF YOUR PERCEPTION. That is only part of your MIND. Because your mind, in its natural state, is not just that which is "isolated" within yourself like a separate cut off mind. You are not supposed to be applying the course ONLY to the part of mind which you've sectioned off and called your own.

The purpose of the course is to remove the LIMITS you placed on your mind, to undo the BLOCKS TO AWARENESS OF LOVE (awareness of the whole) which you placed on your mind, and to lift away the artificial barriers which made you think your mind was "separated off" in the first place. That means, that your mind is actually not JUST your personal private hell within your "little self". Your mind is ALSO OUT THERE, very large, very powerful, very spacious, SHARED WITH and joined with all other minds.

This is because you as part of the Sonship which God created, are not just a separate individual in a box. You RADIATE LIGHT AND LOVE outside of yourself, you extend love, and you SHARE LOVE AND MIND with all other minds. So that means, that "your perceptions" are not just limited to your boxed-in perceptions. Your perceptions ALSO INCLUDE perceptions being had by the parts of your mind which are more WHOLE, and the parts of your mind which are SHARING with other minds.

That then means, you have to look at what it is that the COLLECTIVE SONSHIP is dreaming, what the WHOLE is imagining, and recognize that this entire physical universe is actually an IDEA OF SEPARATION, within the SHARED MIND of the Sonship. And your mind IS PART OF THAT. So that means your mind also encompasses this entire universe, your mind is part of that which is dreaming this entire universe, all of the physical objects in this universe are IMAGES IN YOUR MIND, this entire world IS PART OF YOUR PERCEPTION, and the forms which are showing up are actually THOUGHTS AND IDEAS that you are having. Not just you, but many souls, collectively contributing to this mass visualization of hell.

So as you remember, ok, you are not a boxed-in separated mind, you are a JOINED connected mind, which is SHARING mind and will with the whole sonship, you are FAR LARGER than this universe and everything taking place in it even on what SEEMS LIKE a physical level,is actually happening WITHIN YOUR MIND - within all our minds. Not all illusions are totally "cut off and isolated" inside your head. There are illusions outside your head also. And even your head is an illusion. Your body is a separation device to make it seem like your mind is not part of the mind that's dreaming the world.

So if you think, ok, all I need to do is fix my own personal mind and claim atonement for myself, you are falling short. You're forgetting that you are an aspect of something much larger. And because PART OF the process of correction IS to do with correcting "your thoughts" and "your perceptions" and "your beliefs", you can find many many parts of the Course which support doing that. But if it's considered to be entirely within a context of "my separate self", you are missing additional parts of the picture.

You are MORE THAN the separate isolated self that you have come to think of as you. You are MORE THAN the self which thinks "about" this world as though it exists without your doing. You are MORE THAN the self that perceives itself to be so isolated and separated by its body, from what is "out there", that it thinks its mind is not even out there at all and is entirely housed within a box.

You are MORE THAN a perceiver OF forms which show up out there as if by magic. Who put them there? Who made bodies appear? Who invented planet Earth? YOU DID, along with many others, in a collective shared idea. Jesus says even ideas of separation have to be SHARED otherwise they cannot be ideas at all.

Separation is not just something you did alone, and it is not something that you will just undo alone. The acceptance of the atonement is NOT JUST FOR YOU. That is the selfish ego making itself special and trying to keep your mind from sharing itself with other minds. Your responsibility is to accept the atonement for yourself BUT ALSO SO THAT you accept it for others so that you can help them join you. It is not a selfish act. It merely means you must accept atonement so that you can GIVE IT because you are PART OF THE PLAN of atonement and need to become a miracle worker so that you can HELP OTHERS. This is spelled out in several quotes, like those below:

"The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. This means you recognize that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors are healed by the Atonement. Once you accept this, your mind can only HEAL (others). By denying your mind any destructive potential and reinstating its purely constructive powers, you place yourself in a position to undo the level confusion of OTHERS."

"The unforgiven have no mercy to bestow upon another. That is why your sole responsibility must be to take forgiveness for yourself. The miracle that you receive [into your own mind], you give [to others]."

"This is what is really meant by the statement that the one responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself. The teacher of God is a miracle worker because he gives the gifts he has received. Yet he must first accept them."

"When you have been restored to the recognition of your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. 6 As you share my unwillingness to accept error in yourself and others, you must join the great crusade to correct it; listen to my voice, learn to undo error and act to correct it. 7 The power to work miracles belongs to you."

"The forgiven are the means of the Atonement. 2 Being filled with spirit, they forgive in return. 3 Those who are released must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of the Atonement. 4 Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the Holy Spirit unite with me for the salvation or release of all of God's creations."

So open your mind and eyes to recognize that the course is not a selfish course, it's not about your separate selfish ego doing the course for itself. It's not about maintaining isolation. It's not about you choosing something in isolation which has no effect on anyone else.

It's about you taking up your NATURAL FUNCTION as the light of the world, to share and extend the truth to others through miracles, to learn to give as you receive, to reclaim the role of being part of the WHOLE MIND which dreamed the world, to purify the perception that IS THE WORLD, and to therefore UNDO THE UNIVERSE by recognizing it is an illusion, even in its physicality, because it is nothing but a mistaken idea shared by the Sonship of which you are a PART AND WHOLE. Being "a part" does not mean "being apart".

The world is perception. Forms are ideas and thoughts. Objects are visualizations. Matter is an hallucination. Your mind is dreaming this entire universe along with other minds. The mind that needs correction is far broader than just your isolated little human self, yet it includes your separate self which needs to have its limitations lifted away to realize and recognize that YOU ARE THE WHOLE. You are the ONE SON OF GOD as much as you are ONE OF MANY sons of God.

Reclaiming your IDENTITY as the One Son of God is also part of recognizing your function in the Sonship and the part you play as one of many equal sons. To go from believing you are ONLY a part of God, to realizing you are part of God AND share the whole of God and his creation, is the identity shift that needs to take place. This is not a course in fixing up your ego identity, or making your isolated self happier or more at peace with an external world that you have no power over and no responsibility for and did not put there. This is a course is GOING BEYOND your identity to reconnect with the whole, the oneness, the sharing of love, which is far larger and more encompassing than you think.

Your mind IS responsible for the physical world showing up. It IS responsible for making wars happen. It IS responsible for producing mountains and deserts and forests. It DOES have that power. Not in isolation, but as part of its shared power with the Sonship. This course is not just about you. Nor is it about the ending of your individuality. It is about taking your separated-off individuality and plugging it back into the SHARED MINDS of the Sonship, and also into the collective unity of the One Son which is one with God's mind also.

That means your perception and your perceptual errors INCLUDE the world ITSELF, not just your isolated view OF the world, and not just the content of your individual isolated mind. Bodies were made by the ONE SON of God to separate "Himself" apart and make believe He is many separated parts. The One Son of God includes the Sonship, which ARE PARTS, but also are not separated off like the ego is. Instead they are JOINED NATURALLY and yet divided NATURALLY. Unnatural division is ego, not whether or not you are individual. In-dividual means 'cannot be divided', because it is A WHOLE. And wholeness means SHARING. So any whole must be shared with any other whole, and therefore all individuals must be part of a whole. This is the nature of God's creation.

I went back and slowly re-read the entire "miracle principles" from a very early urtext version, plus some other sections.

The impression I have of miracles now is different and more cohesive. Whatever our understanding of them is, they must incorporate every single thing Jesus says about them, including the ability to literally move mountains, to heal the sick and raise the dead, and also to correct perception. Here are some key points and new clarity on the subject.

1) Miracles are best understood in a vertical direction. They come down from above and lift upwards, or restore life and reality. "Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from heaven." "performed by those who have more (above) for those who have less (below)". They extend or radiate down into the world from God. They also go out sideways between brothers because brothers are ultimately IN heaven.

2) Every aspect of the "descent" into egotism, separation, degrading reality, becoming insane, unwillingness, unconsciousness, etc which is all an attempt to introduce separation between brother's minds (to split the sonship or divide the Kingdom), to interfere with mind-to-mind communication, is the exact opposite of miracles. Projection is opposite to miracles. Magic is opposite to miracles. Miracles inherently correct level confusion, heal projections, undo magic (which includes sickness), and restores awareness of the truth.

3) Every movement towards restoring communication, reintegrating reality, bringing wholeness to your mind AND your brother's mind, uniting you with your brother, healing relationships, removing separations, all effects resulting from separation and sin (including sickness, illness, suffering, death), and cancelling out the "consequences" of sin, are accomplished by miracles. "Miracles unite you directly with your brother". "The purpose of miracles is to restore reality". "Miracles make brothers one in God" etc. The ultimate aim of miracles is to induce revelation and direct communion with God. This however does not exclude miracles that manipulate forms or move mountains, because mountains are actually also thought-forms in the MIND and are actually BELIEFS which mind can manipulate. "The world IS perception" (in the mind).

4) Miracles originate in the mind of Christ. They require the absence of fear, and an awareness of Christ's presence. Jesus inspires them. While they come FROM the Christ mind, you can be in varying degrees of "miracle mindedness" depending on whether your mind is functioning and responding in an ego-driven way or a love-based way. "Miracles are seen in light" "Miracles reflect an inner awareness of Christ." They are therefore typically requiring quite an advanced state of mind, BUT they also can be performed even by "beginners" who are able to temporarily put fear aside and shift into VERTICAL perception away from the horizontal belief system, which allows them to bring forth a miracle which helps develop "conviction in the ability" by seeing physical appearances change. The ability to make this shift isn't necessarily an act of your own purification but a USE OF the parts of your mind that have already been purified.

5) There are two aspects - miracle-mindedness/readiness, and miracle-working. To be miracle-minded is based on the STATE of your mind. But a mind based on love is not unexpressive or static. It is a mind that extends, gives in order to have, shares, increases, creates. Being miracle-minded/ready emphasizes that you are "ready, willing, and able" to "perform" or "do" miracles. The "action" aspect of miracles should be under Christ control (Jesus) due to the atonement plan and should be "involuntary". You are not supposed to consciously control that part of it yourself, but you ARE responsible for becoming "ready, willing and able".

6) "Miracles are thought-creations". Our mind goes through varying degrees of power to CREATE or project, depending on how much ego there is. We become more able to express creatively as we wake up. The mind can shine INTO and BLESS other minds due to having both been created by the "same spark" of God - being of like kind. Miracles not only unite you with your brother, they also increase your own strength by giving love, and also strengthen your brother. They in a sense "repair" the sense of separation between both of you, increase the level of communication, and therefore UNDO the manifestations of the separation idea (forms of sickness etc). Miracles are tightly associated with CREATION, and therefore are capable of creating. They combine "thought-creation" with belief, in order to produce results, which includes changes to *appearances* - meaning all forms, in a law-defying way (including moving mountains).

7) Miracles are not shifts in perception as such. However they can produce a shift in the perception OF OTHERS. Miracles are inter-personal ACTS. They are something you DO to EXPRESS the state of love that you are. They are an "application" of your holiness, and thus create in the same way that God applies himself to create. Because they can "correct" misperceptions in yourself AND others, they can heal your brother and yourself. They bestow grace and blessing on others. Miracles can correct perception and shift it, but when you yourself "correct thinking" and "change perception" that act itself is not necessarily a miracle. Miracles express from above downwards, changes of mind express from below upwards. You stepping "up" to the miraculous mind can require many steps before you are "high" enough to express "downward" with miracles. In a way though, any movement towards God/truth/love is a step in the right direction. The shifting itself isn't the miracle, the miracle is the love that expresses AFTER the blocks to awareness are removed. Although having said that, when you express a miracle it strengthens you also, increasing your sanity, so....

8) The miracle-mind thought system is totally different to the ego thought system in that it has an omnipresent and holographic nature. This means that the miracle is everywhere. It also means the miracle can express in "a part" of the dream and seem to produce a wide variety of specific results. However all miracles are inherently united and consistent and devoid of any recognition of levels of difficulty or heirarchy or size or any other ego construct. "To God all things are possible." I visualize God as like this ocean of liquid where all aspects are fluidly flowing all over the place and completely defies the entire ego thought system and all of its very rigid, compartmentalizing laws. The miracle-minded are literally miraculous in that they can create anything, can do anything, can heal anything, can produce any changes to any appearance, and there is nothing they cannot do.

9) Miracles collapse time because they introduce sort of a separate "moment" of time in which all of the horizontal laws are defied and a "new state" is directly implemented, instantly, which is almost like taking a tiny clip from "the future" and inserting it into the current timeline "out of the temporal order". Another analogy is a vynil record, as if you suddenly bump the arm and it skips some tracks and resumes playing further along in the song. The interval in-between of the "thousands of years" that were skipped, essentially has collapsed or deleted an entire portion of the timeline. Their purpose IS to collapse time and bring about the end of the need for time. Ultimately they lead to revelation and total wholeness, and then are no longer needed. This is all to do with mind. But this DOES NOT exclude apparent changes to forms, bodies, sickness or death, because all of those things are actually mental states, thought-forms, ideas, images in the mind, which are just as much within the scope of mind-power as anything you would normally consider "inside your mind". You have to realize the entire universe is WITHIN our shared minds, and therefore even physical forms have to be ultimately disappeared and "healed" and "shone away" by our light, in order for the the entire sonship to totally be free from dreaming.

10) Miracles are a maximal service you can render a brother. All expressions of love are maximal. That means they express FROM "total" love, not partial. However, you can be in varying degrees of miracle mindedness depending on how you express or "relate". If in a given situation, you have one possible response which is egotism where you make the problem real and use it for attack etc, and another possible response is that you remain "in love" and affirm the truth of both of you and see your brother as sinless and calling out for love and you "empower" both of you, this is a miracle. You chose to love instead of hate, you chose to express a truthful healing charitable gracious blessing rather than attack.

11) Miracles are also "energizing" in that they give LIFE to others ("all around the signs of life spring up"). They supply a lack. They are given by those who have more to those who have less. Lack is just "lack of love", so by supplying love you bless and remove a curse and energize and shine light onto the "area of separation" which causes it to reintegrate and become whole again. "The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness" because you have to be in a mindset of wholeness (miracle readiness) in order to see your brother's holiness and innocence, which strengthens this in both of you and thus energizes and gives life to both of you. When you heal, therefore, BOTH of you receive healing. Separation isn't a "private idea", it's something that "comes between" like a double-sided sword, and removing this sword restores communication in BOTH directions.

12) Miracles can move mountains and raise the dead. Since both of them are illusions and all forms are illusions, and all illusions are based on separation, the miracle-minded have total power OVER these things, either by bringing life to them and healing them, or by demonstrating this power OVER them by changing appearances. A body returning from death and decay to life, or a mounting moving from left to right, are both "changes to appearance". Miracles change appearances to PROVE and demonstrate that the forms themselves ARE illusions BECAUSE they could be changed, and therefore cannot be real because they are so easily manipulated by the mind. The illusion of objects being physical, heavy, large, or that death is too difficult to undo etc, all these illusions crumble to nothing when they are shown to be changeable.

13) Miracles require faith and trust. Having faith in your brother's innocence even when they show up as guilty/sinful/sick, overcomes/overlooks/forgives their illusions and can shine them away. Your mind CAN enter the mind of another and enlighten it. Also certainty (fearlessness) is required (even if temporarily suspended), because miracles occur as thought-acts which are decisive and committal. You don't have to merely have "strong belief" "of your own", you need to also RELY ON or depend on God, trusting HIS power and strength, and knowing what HE is capable of, so that you have TRUST in the certainty of the outcome and KNOWING that it must occur. This goes beyond your "self" as an individual or separate miracle worker. You can do nothing on your own, but you can work WITH God to co-create. Faith/trust also correlates to belief.

14) Miracles also correlate to acceptance/receiving of atonement. They are expressed through PRAYER, which brings about the active "doing" of miracles, because in the prayer you combine thought and belief and faith (key ingredients that are MUST have's), and ask with the heart (not necessary to use words). This "asking" is almost the same thing as "expressing" or "stating" and "seeing" what change you want to occur, as though it has already happened and has been received. "Believe you have received and you shall have it." Miracles EXPRESS FROM the atonement. You have to accept some atonement to accept some "miracle juice", so that you can give it. That means that in some small way, in some part of you, on some issue, you accepted the truth about you as innocent and loved, rather than condemn yourself with sin. This part of you now has received a miracle or has been restored to a more miracle-oriented way of being, and this now can express to others. In a healed part of you, when confronted with another situation like what happened before, you might now "bless" instead of "see sin", and this IS capable of healing others.

15) Overall it seems miracles are essentially HOW the entire illusion of separation is reversed. In all its way, all its appearances, all its consequences. Every form of suffering, all sickness, death, and also demonstrations of the falseness of the ego's laws. Moving a mountain may well demonstrate and violate laws of physics and weight and size and so on, proving that these are not TRUE, that illusory limitations are not true, and this can bring healing to the mind. Miracles can be teaching devices. They remind you and your brother of what is true about you. The entire "lifting up" of all brothers and the "lifting away" of all forms of separation and the "disappearing" of all suffering and forms and illusions and eventually the universe itself, is "the miracle", which is kind of everywhere and omnipresent and comes from God.

16) You are a miracle. This means that God creates miraculously because God is also miraculous. It's natural to be miraculous. You are miraculous in the sense that anything is possible to the holy, and God who is alive has miraculously created the sonship. To the ego, it should not be possible, but it is. A miracle as a "creative expression of thought" is your natural way of creating in heaven. It's how you express love. It's an extension of yourself and increases joy and overcomes lack and restores BOTH you and the thing you create. When you express miracles or miraculously in the world it similarly follows the same laws of GOD and creates wholeness, healing, health, happiness, freedom, love, perfection, holiness, joy, peace, life.

17) Miracles are super-natural. This means they are totally above the ego's "nature", and fly in the face of everything we think of as "the nature" of this universe. This includes all ego laws and physics and time and space. They express from above the battlefield, from heaven, falling like drops of healing rain on the desert (absence of love) below and supply a lack and bring the dead back to life, raising it up towards resurrection. Miracle workers are like angels or holy beings who step inside a dream of death and start expressing themselves, demonstrating all over the place that nothing here is fixed or limiting or has any power over you at all. As beings of light and immortality and creativity, when we express as this kind of identity (christ-aligned) we totally defy every law of the world and therefore literally produce "miraculous" effects. To the ego, miracles are considered un-natural, but to God they are considered completely natural. There is nothing they cannot do and there is nothing your holiness cannot do. You are UNLIMITED, and the sheer degree of limitation of this ego world is shown to be extremely false by every miracle expression.

18) Being miraculous is your natural inheritance and does not require anyone else to choose to be miraculous. It doesn't "require" a holy relationship. BUT, it can IMPLEMENT a holy relationship due to the fact that it heals the separation between brothers. Jesus as the one who woke up can perform them for anyone, and he inspires all miracles which intercede for your holiness, but in so doing, he also unites you with Himself and the two of your minds join and share love, if you are willing. You still have free will and no-one can force anyone to wake up or be healed if they do not want it or if it would frighten them.

19) If you can grasp how God's mind is omnipresent and this means that all of him is in every location FULLY at the same time, which TOTALLY defies the entire ego world and all its forms of matter and space and time, you can get a better sense of how anything is possible in God. And how, in contrast to that, this world and its laws are set up to be extremely limiting, to suggest no two things share anything, forms are things in their own right, nothing is coming from the mind, mind has no power over anything ("the mind must be stronger than the body, every miracle demonstrates this"), and everything is separated off and compartmentalized into boxes and finite objects. This is SO TOTALLY OPPOSITE to God's nature and the nature of anyone who has access the miracle-working mind or the "attitude of love". Love isn't just a finite thing in a box. It is miraculous, life-giving, spacetime defying, and completely ignores all illusory differences. When the world is PROVEN to be NOT separated out, and NOT disconnected from the mind, and NOT a thing in its own right and can easily be changed by the power of the mind, the true nature of God's UNLIMITEDNESS is revealed.

20) Miracles are what happens when an ego-defying, omnipresent, spatially-defying, time-defying, massively potential, unlimited, whole miraculous mind, comes into contact with the ego illusion of limitation and separateness. You can express them and bestow them everywhere, they are unlimited in number, and all support each other forming a "web" of atonement. You have to realize that all physical objects are part of the MIND, and are thoughts, and are perceptions, and are ideas in the mind. Therefore when mind changes and there are actions of expression of miracle-mindedness, this CAN and DOES also change and manipulate the appearance of physical objects. Separating mind from body is an error in this sense. Mind has power OVER the body. "That the mind can heal the body but the body cannot heal the mind proves the mind must be stronger than the body." Whenever you elect to "be a bit more miraculous" or "be a bit more loving" or "express and stay strong in the truth" or "utilize your creative power" or "bless another" or "repair separation" or "reveal the unreality of an illusion" or "demonstrate that you are not limited" or "join minds with your brother" in any way, you are being miraculous.

One thing has been a constant throughout your whole life. You have always been you alone. You have always been a separate person, autonomous within the confines of a body, and not once has there been anyone in there with you. Everyone else is just like you, in that they are unlike you, and unlike everyone else. And never have you found anyone who is the same as you.

This experience comes with a sense of "I am only me", completely cut off from others by a wall of bodies. And that seems to suggest "I am wholly myself." And yet, it is not an experience of knowing who you are, but of being out of touch with who you are. It's an experience of "I don't know who I am" while at the same time clutching at straws to define who you are. Looking for something to identify with, to convince yourself it is your self, because you have lost yourself.

You have been lost, confused, afraid, alone, lonely, weak, powerless and constantly bombarded with attack. And every time it has been "only my self" that has experienced this - the poor-me victim. And every time you have been unhappy it has seemed you are unhappy alone, afraid alone, suffering alone, sick alone, guilty alone, dying alone. And not once has it seemed that anything you have felt within yourself has been the same as that of anyone else at all. You haven't even had the slightest clue what anyone else is thinking or experiencing.

This is the experience of what we might call someone who is "being an ego". It is the automatic experience of anyone whose sense of self is a "separated off" self. A self that is excluded, isolated, imprisoned in a body, kept apart from sharing anything with anyone, and thoroughly limited to what the body dictates.

"This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time" Such a person has not really changed in terms of their perfection, but they have changed in terms of their relationship. There has been a communication breakdown between themselves and others. The body depicts this breakdown as a tremendous hurdle which filters and translates everything into confusing symbols. This is a person who once was free, but who has been locked up inside a body and has forgotten what it means to share. Their mind seems isolated and unaware of anyone else's mind.

Let's say there is no such thing as "an ego" at all. There are only people. And some of these people have decided to try to cut themselves off from others. They have done this by placing themselves inside a prison cell, and have tried to identify with that prison cell so that their whole sense of self narrows and confines to within its walls. They are a self which once was glorious and magnificent, expansive and unlimited, which has dimmed its light and condemned itself to a dungeon, to die alone and in solitude.

"The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real. "There is no man who does not feel that he is imprisoned in some way. If this has been the result of his own free will, he must regard his will as if it were NOT free, or the obviously circular reasoning of his own position would be quite apparent."

"For his belief in limits HAS imprisoned him."

"An imprisoned mind is not free by definition. It is possessed, or held back, by ITSELF. Its will is therefore limited, and not free to assert itself."

It is unnatural to be only yourself. Some people will model what ACIM says on the basis that, when you are awake, you are wholly yourself. And therefore when you are in ego, you are not entirely yourself, or are unwhole. But this is not entirely accurate. It is more accurate to say that when you are in ego you are ONLY yourself to the EXCLUSION of others, and when you wake up you are waking up to being MORE THAN just yourself. You are a whole self AND MORE THAN a whole self.

The entire premise of being "in ego" or "in separation", is that you are excluded from others. You are not sharing with them. You are not identifying with them. You don't regard them as part of you and you see yourself as a standalone, independent, self-reliant being. Not that being self-reliant is wrong. In fact you were created to be wholly sufficient and complete and lacking nothing, sharing the power of God. It isn't that you are "capable" that's wrong, it's that you try to be capable ON YOUR OWN.

This means that fundamentally the separation is really about you rejecting your inheritance from God. It's about you not wanting to be an effect of God. A rejection of God as your father. An unwillingness to acknowledge that you ONLY have what he has given you. That you do not have anything, nor can you BE or DO anything, WITHOUT him. That everything you are, comes from him, and is part of him and shared with him. Rejecting all that God has given is what makes you "separated off".

As soon as you are separating yourself off, to be a powerful being who does not want power, you immediately disempower yourself. You immediately enter into fear, because you know deep down that you have actually stripped yourself of power. You know you are not capable anymore. You can't successfully do ANYTHING on your own, although you can try. It will fail in some way. Anything you make will die. And all your mis-creations will crumble. You can't give immortality to anything because you are denying it in yourself.

You can be with God and be guaranteed of success. Or you can be without God and be guaranteed of failure. Realize then that everything that you try to do ALONE, WILL FAIL.

Everything. You are fundamentally in a state of fear whenever you try to be without God, think without God, do without God, see without God, think without God, live without God. You are fundamentally rejecting success, and life, and power, and happiness, and health, by trying to go it alone. Imprisonment as a solo-self is not freedom.

What this reveals then is that, for your whole life, you've been acting LIKE an ego. You've been trying to independently figure everything out, to understand what everything is, to give meaning to everything based on your whims, opinions and beliefs, and there is nothing that you've ever done that wasn't a solo effort. Even when you did things in a team or with others, you were still alone. And even your efforts to be a part of something bigger than yourself kept you in the dark.

This means there is a logical premise at work, behind every failure, and guaranteeing everything you do will fail. And it goes like this: IF you are a separated-off self, you LACK EVERYTHING. And therefore everything you do will be a mistake, will break, will be wrong, will upset you, will make you suffer, and will be depressing and frustrating. Being alone IS a limitation.

IF you are a separated-off self, you are automatically in a state of fear and anxiety which you will not be able to get rid of. It doesn't matter how much you work on it. It doesn't matter what path you take, what you believe, what choices you make, what thoughts you have, how you feel. Nothing you do will work completely, if you do it separately. Doing it separately CAUSES you to suffer. Doing everything alone PUTS YOU IN PRISON. There is NO freedom there. Or as some may put it, "there is no rest for the wicked."

"Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience. Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering, and intense fear of loss."

See how Jesus confirms that if you are a "separated one", you WILL experience all manner of unhappy things. Note that he also says that since the separation, no-one has been sure of ANYTHING...

"The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the Separation. No one has been sure of anything since then."

We have quite literally entered into a state of FAILURE, by participating in the separation. It is a state of being flawed, of fundamental attack, insecurity, unholiness, suffering and despair.

The problem then comes when you start to believe that there is something you can DO about it, WITHIN the confines of this situation, that will make it better. You will try to fix it yourself. You will try to think your way out of it with your own thoughts. You will try to do techniques on your own. You will be the one who decides what you prefer and what will work for you. You will make all the wrong choices. And you will always be the central figure in every single thing that you do. Your whole life will revolve around yourself, and you will be trying to SAVE this self at the same time.

This self will do A Course in Miracles. This self will pray. This self will try to become more spiritual. This self will try to become separately enlightened. This self will try the latest techniques and sample the spiritual buffet-line, looking for something it thinks it needs, something it has lost. Some kind of salvation, which will save it from all the fuck-ups and failures that continue to plague it. And as it seeks for this, it will not find it.

"Everyone is looking for himself and the power and glory he thinks he has lost."

"Yet the ego, though encouraging the search very actively, makes one proviso; - do not FIND it. Its dictates, then, can be summed up simply as, "Seek and do NOT find."

The problem is that it is this very sense of being an isolated self that is the ENTIRE problem. The confinement, the walls that surround you, the body, the gap, the lack of communication, the broken relationship, the isolation and the exclusive specialness, all CONTINUE the problem. Being "separated" is the problem, the problem is NOT being a self. Because when you are separated, you are NOT being yourself.

This "self" that you are working WITHIN the confines of, trying to get IT to be holier and more awakened, just stays WITHIN those confines and does not want them to ever be questioned. It doesn't consider that ITSELF, or, its way of identifying itself as "separated", is the whole problem. It's the ONE problem behind all problems. The one issue that isn't getting solved. You think you are already all of yourself, and only yourself.

So then some people will say that you have to GET RID OF, ie KILL AND DESTROY, this self, in order to be free. In order to be truly spiritual, it has to die. This is utterly bullshit. It's just another in a long line of solutions which separated selves have come up with for how to deal with their suffering. The whole act of trying to BE separated off is an attempt to destroy the unlimited nature of yourself, in the first place. So making the self FULLY dead is just a continuation of that. Self needs to expand, not die.

"The sudden EXPANSION of the self that takes place with your DESIRE for it, is the irresistible appeal the holy instant holds."

The self does not need to be destroyed. The self needs to EXPAND its definition of its identity. It needs to realize that it is MORE THAN the confined limited sense of self that it has been living under. That it is MORE THAN ITSELF.

Because ego really is just a notion of selfishness or being self-absorbed, as though to say, putting your whole attention on YOU EXCLUSIVELY. If you being exclusive is the problem, destroying you isn't the solution. What you need is freedom from exclusivity.

"You have made much progress, and are really trying to make still more, but there is one thing you have never done; not for one instant have you utterly forgotten the body."

What Jesus is saying here is that the one thing we have never really done is question THE PRISON that we're in, the sense of what it is that has defined us as "separated". We have not brought into question whether we actually ARE separated, and have not been willing to realize that ALL our suffering has been CAUSED BY that sense of isolation. If I am ONLY me, then I have become separate.

Identifying WITH the body has made us narrow and limited. The body is narrow and limited. It's like an anchor in time and space. When we think of it as "my self", we have to think of ourselves as narrow and limited. And now we are small and special and selfish and cut off. We have to forget the body in order to expand the sense of self beyond the separation. The body symbolizes the separation (as a separation device), so we have to open up to being MORE THAN a body. And if I am more than ONE body, I am more than JUST myself.

Before the separation, every soul that was created by God in heaven, was whole, and also overlapped with each other. Everyone shared everything including identity. Christ is the one identity of every soul, and every soul is a member of that identity. I am christ and you are christ and we are one as two christs. The fundamental premise here is that everything is shared including yourself. You are you, but YOU ARE ALSO me. You are everyone. Therefore you are more than JUST a separate being - you are not just ONE creation of God, you are all of them.

It is natural therefore that you should regard yourself as ... fully wholly yourself, AND fully wholly everyone. This is a normal sense of identity. You are the whole sonship. You are in fact the entire Kingdom of God. And all its contents, every part of it, all its beings and creations, are a part of your self. This is what a natural identity is supposed to be. You, as an individual whole being, are ALSO one with everything.

"The Kingdom of Heaven IS you."

"The sonship is your soul."

"Is he the Christ? Oh yes, along with you."

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds."

"The separation" was nothing more than a WITHDRAWAL of the parts of you which are shared with others, a retreat into fear, into being small and scared and vulnerable trapped in a little tiny body in a corner of spacetime. It was simply your unwillingness to SHARE YOUR SELF, and an attempt to have exclusive ownership and control over who you are. It was just your attempt to break away from the family unit and orphan yourself, like a black sheep who has become estranged and unwanted.

After the separation you simply wandered off "alone", as though you had been unplugged from the hive mind, disconnected from the input of spirit/soul, and unable to communicate with God anymore. You saw yourself as lacking everything and absent of anything. And so you were starting out empty and bereft. You had nothing left but your little sense of "there's only myself left". And this "only me, not you", formed your sense of identity. This is what we call "an ego". It's not really something new you made, it's the self God created that has been locked in chains.

The one thing we therefore need to do for salvation, and the one thing we may never have done in our entire lives, is consider that we are NOT JUST OURSELVES. We are more than just ourselves. To really truly SHARE with anyone we have to BE them. We have to open up to an identity, a sense of self, that INCLUDES OTHERS. Others have to actually become a part of you again. Not to the exclusion of you, nor calling for your destruction. You are a self who is whole, who must also reconnect to the whole.

If your every effort to go it alone and do everything independently of God has meant AUTOMATIC FAILURE, in every case, then your ONLY salvation from all forms of suffering is to stop doing everything on your own. The end of separation is simply the end of "trusting in your own strength" to the exclusion of all else. It means waking up from a sense of "I am only me", to "I am us." From ME to WE. From individual, to mutual. This is what shared interests are about.

Only if I am willing to let God decide WITH me can I be sure that the decision will be accurate and wise and certain of success. Only if I am willing to let the Holy Spirit judge the meaning of everything for and with me, can I be sure that the meaning I SEE is correct and sane. Only if I admit that everything I do alone WILL BE FUCKED UP, by default, can I be open to allowing myself to be HELPED. Opening up to His Help is opening up to RECEIVE.

The Holy Spirit is there to HELP us. He is the help, because he is the notion of being more than limited. He is unlimited, as we are in truth. And to remember our unlimited nature we have to be open to allowing something MORE THAN JUST ME to participate in everything I do, think, feel, plan, decide, pursue, live, say, etc. Only by allowing God back into our lives, in effect, can we resume our natural state of DOING EVERYTHING WITH HIM. And therefore, no longer being alone.

Everything you have ever done alone, no matter what it is, no matter how intelligent you've been, no matter how much you planned and schemed, no matter how much you figured out or understood, no matter how many concepts you came up with or how accurate they were, ALWAYS produced suffering in one form or another. Because all of them were attempts to narrow and confine yourself. And always because of the simple fact that YOU DID IT ON YOUR OWN.

That was ALWAYS the problem, because being alone is unnatural. God did not will that you be alone, so to be yourself you must rejoin the brotherhood of light.

"For you dwell in the Mind of God WITH your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone."

"To be alone is to be separated from Infinity, but how can this be, if Infinity has no end?"

"There IS no end to God and His Son, for we ARE the universe. God is not incomplete, and He is not childless. Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself. Do not deny Him His Son, for your unwillingness to accept His Fatherhood has denied you yours. See His creations as HIS Son, for yours were created in honor of Him."

"He is the Voice for God, but never forget that God did not will to be alone. He SHARES His Will with you; He does not thrust it UPON you."

"To be alone MUST mean you are apart, and if you are, you cannot BUT be sick."

"To be alone IS to be guilty. For to experience yourself AS alone, is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son, and thus to ATTACK REALITY."

"God would not have us be alone because HE does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son and gave him the power to create with Him."

"The gratitude of God Himself is freely offered to everyone who shares His Purpose. It was not His Will to be alone. And neither is it YOURS. Forgive your brother, and you CANNOT separate yourself from him, nor from his Father."

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

Fear is not "just fear". It's not just "an emotion". It's not just "one thing". It's not just "a reaction". Everything that fear appears to be, it is that, and it is not that. There is much more happening that isn't obvious.

Fear is the opposite of love. Death is the opposite of life and life is love. Fear and death are therefore the same state - the end result of the ego's thought system of sin.

Fear is self deception. Let's look at how the ego thought system deceives us.

God establishes what is ACTUALLY true. This truth is reality. It is eternal life, love, happiness, safety, peace. This truth is always true. Nothing can change it.

Ego means nothing more than truth reversal. It's an attempt to oppose the truth through denial. Ego can't change what is true. But, in ego you can DENY it or "pretend" that it's not true.

To deny what's true, you believe it is false. God's truth, or the truth about you, becomes false to you. Simultaneously, things which are false and unreal start to SEEM true and real. You start believing UNTRUE things about yourself.

Jesus describes the end result of this process (the ego thought system) as "total confusion". It's a state where everything true has been confused with or mistaken for, everything false. And everything false has been confused with or mistaken for, what's true.

You could not be more confused than to have no idea what is ACTUALLY true or actually real. It's a state of not recognizing anything for what it is. A total loss of perspective. It is insanity. Fear and death are insane. Fear is paralysis, or the stopping of life, which is death.

When your mind is confused, it's because you believe something is true which isn't REALLY true. Something seems real that is not real. Something seems to be happening that isn't really happening. You think it is, but it's not. In this state, you are simply very MISTAKEN. And in denial. And unwilling to accept that a totally opposite truth is the real truth.

What is false? Death, sickness, suffering, unhappiness, fear, guilt, sin, attack, murder, threat and danger, darkness, insanity, delusion, disassociation, not knowing who you are, unreality, non-existence, etc. All of this is false because it is OPPOSITE to what is actually true - God's truth. None of it is real and none of it exists.

What is true? Eternal life, happiness, freedom, fearlessness, freedom from sin and guilt, immortality, being incapable of sickness or death, nothing to be afraid of, no threat or danger, total safety, peace of mind, invulnerability etc.

When you CONFUSE these two, and put belief into the false stuff, you "make it real". You try to invest it with reality and truth.

"Whatever you BELIEVE IN becomes REAL to you."

To do that you have to deny what's really true. This denial is a block to awareness. It makes you UNAWARE of the real truth or the big picture. It disassociates you from what you are believing in the big picture, and the consequences of that belief.

That means you are CAUSING things (making them through belief), which are producing EFFECTS, but you are no longer aware that you are causing them, so they seem to be caused by something other than yourself. Who wouldn't be frightened of an "alien will" (a will outside of your awareness of what your own will is willing) that seems to do things "against your will"?

It's the mere fact that you are unaware of what you are choosing, wanting, supporting, believing in, that results in "stuff happening" that you didn't SEEM to will. And this stuff is then experienced as being unfairly treated. Especially given that everything that happens in ego is a form of suffering. And who wants to suffer? No-one sane.

So then, naturally, you perceive that you are suffering not because you chose to, but because someone or something else separate from you caused it. You really caused it, but you don't see that, so you HAVE to pin it on some other cause, automatically, to try to make sense of where it came from. This is the root of all projection.

The simple notion that there is "another cause" besides yourself, is the root of all fear. Because if something can CAUSE YOU other than God, can change you, affect you, or hurt you, without you being able to prevent it, that is grounds for terror. The mere perception of "a separate thing" that seems cut off from your oneness is grounds for fear.

As you move further into the ego darkness, increasing fear, consciously you start to experience what SEEMS to be a greater unwillingness to want or 'own' what is happening. You want to get away from the danger, away from the source of threat.

Because in denial you believe/perceive more and more than it's got nothing to do with your own choice. That you are having absolutely no part to play in making things happen, did not choose them, do not want them, did not cause them, and don't even HAVE a choice. And death is an attempt not to choose at all.

The more this increases, the more you go into denial, the less aware you are that you're choosing to believe death is salvation. Here, false = true and true = false. If both the true and the false are false, and the true and the true are true, there is a total blurring of distinction and no difference between them, resulting in total confusion.

The threat of death seems to be on the increase, your conscious horror at this increase makes you squirm like you don't want it and try to avoid it, but unconsciously you are choosing it.

For example, if you believe in cancer, at all, you will become afraid. Believing it exists whatsoever, that it has power, that it causes death, that it even exists at all, places your mind into denial. Because in God's truth, cancer does not exist. Cancer is false, untrue, unreal, non-existent, powerless, causeless, nothing. Cancer is totally an illusion that has no effect on the Son of God.

But if you've moved into "I believe cancer exists", you MUST now be in denial. That means you believe in cancer, but you are not aware that you believe in it. What's left of your conscious awareness is now limited only to the scope of what you are AWARE of. You are not aware of your belief, BUT, your belief is moving you TOWARDS cancer. Because whatever you BELIEVE EXISTS, you WANT MORE OF.

Whatever you believe in, you try to invest it with reality. You try to MAKE it be true. You give it a sense of truth, power over you, an alien will, causality, strength, threat. The more you believe in it the bigger of an 'enemy' you make it, and the more your perception warps to make it seem large and looming and able to affect you.

So there's your mind believing "cancer is a very real danger", which puts you into denial of the truth, which makes you unaware you believe in a dangerous threat, which makes you confused about what is true and false, which makes you think cancer is real and true and your salvation, which makes you want it, which CAUSES IT.

So now there is an increase in your 'environment' of the presence of this illusion of danger, and your conscious awareness is becoming afraid because strange disconnected threats are looming on the horizon, and you are not aware of how they got there. It seems like they're happening "on their own", separate from your mind. And because they seem separate, you perceive that you have no control over them. This perceived lack of "ability to influence it" produces fear.

This is the general state most of us find ourselves in - seeming to have no power or control over anything external, anything that seems separate, or anything in the world. As if the world is causal, decides your fate, and you just have to suffer, or run away in fear. As if it has its own will, separate from yours, that you can do nothing about, making its ultimate attack unavoidable.

Whatever you believe in, you make it real. Whatever you believe in, you give truth to. Whatever you believe in, you value. Whatever you believe in, you want to see. Whatever you believe in, you will perceive. Whatever you believe in, you make happen. Whatever you believe, you'll defend with your life, because you associate LIFE with "whats true".

It is not possible for example to believe "cancer exists", while also claiming to believe you are not threatened by it. I do not have it but I am scared of the idea, purely based on beliefs in its existence. You cannot believe in a causal power outside you without feeling threatened. You are not immune to it just because "it doesn't seem to be happening to me". You will fear it even if it's not seeming to happen. And the unconscious masses have done a lot to amplify its "reality".

The only way to not have fear of cancer therefore is to not believe in cancer. AT ALL. ie, cancer does not exist, cancer has no power over me, cancer does not cause death, cancer isn't affecting me, cancer has not done anything to me, cancer cannot do anything to me, I do not believe in cancer, cancer does not exist, there is no cancer, cancer is a lie, cancer isn't real, cancer is an illusion I made up, cancer has no mind of its own, cancer does not exist at all, there is no cancer, cancer is nothing, cancer is not making me afraid, I have power over cancer. etc

That's what you have to believe in order to be free from it. And being free from the BELIEF in it DOES make you INVULNERABLE. That's what you have to believe in order to not put yourself into the state where you'll be afraid of it. And that's what you have to believe in order to not CHOOSE IT. Because if you "believe it exists but I don't believe I have it", you are trying to have it.

Whatever you believe in, you are CHOOSING. If you don't want to choose something, you must NOT believe in it. You can't believe in something and then claim that it does not apply to you. You can't believe in something and then claim to be free of it. Believe it, and you give it power over you instantly and are moving towards manifesting/materializing it into your experience. And fear and suffering then become the consequence of that.

The secret of salvation states that you are doing everything to yourself. That means, in your confusion about what is true and false, you keep choosing things which are FALSE, by believing they are TRUE. By mistake. Because you are mistaken about what is true. You keep choosing things which are unreal, by believing they are real. And that means you literally WANT TO SUFFER.

By believing in illusions or false things, things opposite God's reality, you are electing to make those things part of your reality. So that you can have a false experience of them. Beliefs are attempts to CHANGE WHAT IS TRUE into what you want to be true. But belief can also be used to line up with what is ACTUALLY true, so that you believe the Atonement truth, which sets you free.

In fear, which includes unawareness, you are consciously kicking and screaming to get away from what seems to be coming to you "on its own". Unconsciously, ie behind denial, you are actually MAKING IT COME TO YOU by believing in it. And that literally translates to, you are doing it to yourself. Or the adage, "what you fear comes to you" or "what you fear increases". This is literally true.

Jesus says "You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

This also means there are NO CAUSES OF SUFFERING BEYOND YOUR OWN CHOOSING.

"It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

And that then means, if you were to actually sort out what is REALLY TRUE, from what you THINK is true, ie that you WANT GOD, and learn to recognize the ACTUAL truth again, you would also simultaneously recognize that false things ARE false. You would recognize that cancer is an illusion that does not exist. You would recognize that there IS NO THREAT. Because then you have stopped threatening yourself.

All fear comes from self-threat. A sense of danger that results from YOU believing that you are under attack. Which is an attack on yourself. "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."

For example, if you believe you sinned, and choose not to forgive yourself, you'll believe you are guilty. But this isn't merely a belief in guilt. It's a belief that you ARE guilty and an acceptance that your guilt is TRUE. If guilt is true, you will WILLINGLY ACCEPT that you DO deserve punishment, because it it SUPPORTED by what you believe is true. You will not object to it. So instead, you will WELCOME suffering. But even more-so, MAKE SURE IT HAPPENS.

This now means you YOURSELF believe that you logically deserve to suffer. And this means you now ACCEPT that you MUST suffer. Which means you believe you should suffer. Which means you now have it in for yourself.

It means you are now seeking to attack yourself in order to punish yourself, because it is justified, and this is SELF THREAT. It is suicidal. And that is going to terrify you more than any external projection of "who is causing fear" or "how its going to happen".

Guilt leads to fear. Guilt leads to more self attack. Your SELF attack is what frightens you. YOU are the cause of your fear.

So then when you are in fear, you are trying to hurt yourself. You are scaring yourself. You might project it onto all kinds of external stuff but it's self attack. Ever notice that when you are afraid you start finding all kinds of EXTERNAL things or "causes" to pin the fear on? Many things around you start to become threatening? That's projection. Your perception is warping. It's the same as accusing your brother of your own sins. You accuse your brother of your own self attack and reasons to fear.

So fear is really a state where you are CHOOSING TO SUFFER, where you are wanting what you are threatened by, are trying to make it happen, to undermine your immortality. BUT you are disowning it so much that it SEEMS like you have nothing whatsoever to do with it.

You are in denial that the thing you thought was going to help you is actually hurting you. You are in denial that your savior is your attacker. You are in denial that what you WANT is actually working against you. You are in denial that your defense against truth is causing you to be MORE sick. And you are under the impression that death is going to save you from God's wrath.

Your internal conscious messaging might be "I hope that doesn't happen, it's scaring me". But your ACTUAL activity is "I hope that happens, I want that to happen, I believe in it, it's going to save me." Your mind holds visions of threats and dangers in front of its perception to attack itself.

This is why fear is such a slippery thing. It's so deceptive, back to front, inside out and upside down. It SEEMS like the TOTAL OPPOSITE of what it is. The experience of it seems like you totally don't want it, but this COVERS OVER the fact you are WANTING exactly what you are frightened by. If you are scared, YOU scared yourself.

You have to own up to this, look deeply at it and realize what you actually are doing, rather than what seems to be happening on the surface. All victimy persons, everyone who is afraid, all who are terrified, ACTUALLY are choosing and wanting everything that they are afraid of. AND they are the one DOING THE ATTACK. This is why victims are victimizers and victimizers are victims.

Fear is choosing with the ego, siding with deception.

In fear you secretly choose to suffer, by choosing something that does bring suffering (ie to God it is FALSE), but which you BELIEVE brings salvation. And this stems entirely from being CONFUSED about what is really true and what is false.

All the attributes of God's truth need to be given back to God. You need to re-associate aspects of truth with God's truth. God's truth is where the safety is. God's truth is where salvation is. God's truth is what will ACTUALLY help and heal you and give you life. God's truth is what will protect you from harm. God's truth will give you immortality. And by choosing it, you will GET what you EXPECT to get, rather than the total opposite.

Learning to RECOGNIZE that is the entire process of working on your spiritual awakening. The "sorting out" of true vs REALLY true. What do you REALLY WANT to believe in. What are you believing that isn't REALLY true. How might you be very mistaken in your conviction that death is real? How might you be mistaken in believing that cancer even exists? How might you be confused about whether you can even be affected by anything, given you are immortal?

Gradually you will side with the ACTUAL truth rather than siding with what you BELIEVED was true. And that's a really good thing. Because now your expectation is that the truth will help you and make things better for you, and it ACTUALLY DOES. And then you will develop TRUST in it. You can't trust the ego. It is all lies and deception. One thing pretending to be something else. It is two-faced because it contradicts the real truth.

Only the truth is true. Only the false is false. Only eternal life is real. Death is an impossible illusion and does not exist. In God's love there is NOTHING to be afraid of. "Nothing unreal exists." Nothing false is true. And recognizing that will bring you peace and freedom from suffering forever.

Salvation is SO simple, that it can seem difficult to grasp, especially when we are so used to being deceived that there are many separate, different, isolated problems. When the form of the problem deceives you, which is believing that illusions are real and true, you do not recognize the problem. And when it seems there are an endless string of different problems, escape from suffering seems hopeless.

You think the problem is about what the form says the problem is about. But the form is a disguise. The form is made to deceive you to believe the problem is specific and confined to one thing. And when you seem to solve that one thing you do not really solve the real problem.

The problem we need to recognize is the single problem, the only problem, which is believing that the world is true and real. Not recognizing it is a failure to recognize that this is only a dream, not a reality. That there is no world. When we do not recognize this problem, this one belief, we become lost and confused in the many forms of the world, we buy into the hierarchy of illusions, different situations seem separate, and the form they take starts to dictate the solution.

If you were to recognize the true problem, the separation idea, which is the belief that the world is true and real, or that an opposite to God exists, this recognition alone would solve the problem. The problem really, then, is the LACK OF RECOGNITION of what the situation IS, causing your mind to become tangled up in and lost in a world of a seemingly endless string of disconnected pieces and specific problems.

If the only problem really is that you have swapped what is true and what is false, what is real and what is unreal, then it is easier to solve. If the only problem is that you have assigned EVERY attribute of God and reality TO that which is not God and is unreal, and you have assigned every aspect of what is not God and is unreal TO God, then the simple solution is to reverse this reversal of the recognition of what is really true. That only the truth is true and only the false is false.

Salvation is in fact then incredibly super simple. All you have to do is un-swap the true and the false, the real and unreal. To correctly distinguish between the true and the false, so that the truth is recognized AS true - God's truth - and the false is recognized AS false - the illusory dream world which doesn't really exist.

"For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM. The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is WHY its perceptions are so variable. It does not reject goodness entirely, for this you could not accept, but it always ADDS something that is NOT real TO the real, thus CONFUSING ILLUSION AND REALITY. For perceptions cannot be partly true. If you believe in truth AND illusion, you CANNOT TELL WHICH IS TRUE."

"But HIS (Holy Spirit's) function is to distinguish only between the false and the true, replacing the false WITH the true."

This is all that is needed to be set free from ALL FORMS of suffering, no matter the form they take. This ONE LESSON is all that need be learned, and applies to all situations no matter the form they take. The lesson is the re-framing of the WHOLE world, the entire picture, the changing of the PREMISE of everything that seems to be happening, so that you recognize again that IF this entire world is ONLY a dream, not a reality, this completely invalidates ALL forms of suffering and problems.

You can go through life tackling individual problems till the cows come home to die. You can get lost and deceived in the many ways that EACH problem seems different. You can fear the onset of the next big problem, which you fear will be different to yet just as threatening as the last, or moreso. And how will it be solved differently than the one before? Problems can take on the form of a person who has a broken leg, which seems to be different to, the tap is leaking, which seems different to, the car needs fixing, which is different to, someone just threatened me with their contagion.

And an endless string of individual SPECIFIC FORMS are presented by the ego, IN the world, AS the world, which is a horizontal experience of the world, with never-ending supply. Like taking a road littered with constant obstacles, where each one throws you off in a different direction or hurls you off-center right after getting done dealign with putting out another fire of a different form. When will it end? How many DECEPTIONS of specific problems, all of which are unreal, do you need to experience before you realize THEY ARE ALL DECEIVING YOU into believing there are MANY problems, and NOT ONE OF THEM IS TRUE?

It ends when you start to not be deceived by the FORM the problems are taking, and instead start to question the validity of ALL problems, by changing your mind ABOUT THE WORLD. This is the shift from false to true perception. If you can rise up above ALL problems, have no reaction to ANY problems, then there is nothing to fear and you cannot suffer. If ALL the problems are ONE problem, once recognized as false, then EVERY problem is simultaneously solved through ONE change. And this one change is the recognition - enlightenment - that NO PROBLEMS EXIST because there is no "world of problems".

Forgiveness, then, to redefine it in clearer terms, is merely the recognition that there is no world, there are no real problems, none of the forms are true, there are no differences between forms, every problem is the same problem, the whole world is unreal and untrue, there is no reality to sin, sin does not exist, and there is no suffering at all. It's the recognition that this IS ONLY A DREAM. And therefore, every single thing that seems to happen has its MEANING entirely changed, because of the change in the premise of the whole thing.

If the world WERE real and true, and a war were happening, this would be a nightmare. But the instant that you recognize that the world IS NOT real or true, and is just a dream, this utterly changes the meaning of the entire event. Not only is the event not happening, it is having no real consequences, there is no real suffering, there IS NO WAR, and nothing is happening. Upon THIS recognition, you cannot react, and you cannot be afraid. Because you WOULD NOT REACT AT ALL to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. And now the ENTIRE war and every part of it IS INVALIDATED.

You can only be afraid if you believe that the dream world, which is an illusion of a world, has reality. The instant you believe it has reality, truth, cause, power, will, mind, existence, life, presence, happening, effects, etc... you have become confused, are insane, will now be lost in illusions, taking forms to be real, and will be deceived. And now you MUST be in fear because something which does NOT exist appears to exist. Something NOT OF GOD seems to be happening, which is terrifying. And now the form of every problem will stand out as DIFFERENT to the others and will deceive you into an endless road of suffering.

"Deny anything not of God any power to affect you."

Everything in the course points towards the SIMPLICITY of salvation. It is the transcendence of form. Moving beyond appearances. Recognizing that THIS IS ALL A DREAM. Recognizing that the entire world is based on a FALSE PREMISE. It is NOT real, and God DID NOT create it, and IT DOES NOT exist. Which changes the meaning of everything that seems to be happening. To such an extent, that you cannot possibly have grounds for reacting to anything, or being upset by anything, or hurt by anything, because there is NOTHING THERE. And when "nothing unreal exists", you HAVE to be happy, safe and at peace.

The world, essentially, is nothing more than an hallucination. It is a dream you are having IN YOUR MIND. It isn't a world of existence and it is not part of existence. It is entirely contained in your imagination, in thought. "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts." "There is no world apart form what you wish." "The world is false perception". You project a world and perceive WITHIN your mind. "The world IS perception." There is no world here at all, really. We are just dreaming of a world, in our mind, in a state of sleep. And if you believe this illusion of a world HAS ANY REALITY, you are lost in the dream and WILL suffer.

All salvation therefore, the escape from suffering, the escape from sleeping, the escape from insanity, the escape from sin and death, entails nothing more than recognizing IT IS NOT GOD. It is not real or true. It is not really there. You must take AWAY from it all the power you gave to it. You must take away from it all the sense of truth, reality, power, causality, presence, life, will, mind, spirit, union, consequence, existence, that you GAVE to it, when you confused illusions with the truth.

"Nothiing in the world has the power to bring oppression ... to make you ill or sad or weak or frail" ... "but it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see".

When you took what is true and what is false, and swapped them, which is ALL THAT HAPPENED in the separation from God, which is responsible for EVERYTHING that seemed to arise from the separation, you CONFUSED the true with the false, you stopped distinguishing between them, and you believed true things were false and false things were true. And so you MIXED truth into the false and tried to GIVE the false reality. This has to be undone. It is simply undone by reversal of the denial of God, and the acceptance that ONLY THE TRUTH IS TRUE, and nothing else is true. That is the atonement.

Your challenge now is to learn to NOT be deceived by the FORM of multiple separate illusions, separate events, separate problems, separate bodies, and instead to see that THE WHOLE WORLD and your belief in it is the problem. You suffer because you believe in the PREMISE of this world. You suffer because you think this stuff is ALL HAPPENING. You suffer because you HAVE TO react to the world in fear and stress IF you believe it is real. And you suffer ONLY because you think there is TRUTH to appearances.

Salvation is simple. Salvation is singular. Salvation is abstract. Salvation is ONE solution to ONE problem. The belief that a world opposite to God is real, is the one problem. This produces EVERY form of suffering, because form is made real. The recognition that the world IS NOT A REAL OPPOSITE to God (who is all encompassing and has no opposite), sets you free from ALL suffering NO MATTER what form it takes in the dream. Awareness of dreaming recognizing this IS just a dream, and sighs with relief that nothing unreal exists.

"The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you, out of what you have made, and to perceive only this is salvation, because it is the recognition that reality is ONLY WHAT IS TRUE." ... This is a very simple course. Perhaps you do not feel that a course which, in the end, teaches nothing more than that only reality is true is necessary. BUT DO YOU BELIEVE IT?"

"How simple is salvation! All it says is what was never true is not true now, and never will be. The impossible has not occurred, and can have no effects. And that is all. Can this be hard to learn by anyone who WANTS it to be true? ONLY unwillingness to learn it could make such an easy lesson difficult. How hard is it to see that what is false can not be true, and what is true can not be false? You can no longer say that you perceive no differences in false and true. You have been told exactly how to tell one from the other, and just what to do if you become confused. Why, then, do you persist in learning not such simple things?"

"How simple, then, is God's plan for salvation. There is but one response to reality, for reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but one Teacher of Reality, Who understands what it is. He does NOT change His mind about reality, because REALITY does not change. Although YOUR interpretations of reality are meaningless in your divided state, His remain consistently true. He GIVES them to you because they are FOR you."

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

"Salvation lies in the simple fact that illusions are NOT fearful, BECAUSE THEY ARE NOT TRUE. And they but SEEM to be fearful to the extent to which you fail to recognize them FOR WHAT THEY ARE. And you WILL fail to do this, to the extent to which you WANT them to be true. And, to the same extent, you are DENYING truth, and so are making YOURSELF unable to make the simple choice between truth and illusion, fantasy and God."

"We have repeated how little is asked of you to learn this course. It is the same small willingness you need to have your whole relationship transformed to joy. The little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit for which He gives you everything. The very little, on which salvation rests. 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."

"Have faith in nothing, and you will FIND the treasure that you sought. Yet you will add another burden to your mind, ALREADY burdened, or you would NOT have sought another. You will believe that NOTHING IS OF VALUE, and will VALUE it. A little piece of glass, a speck of dust, a body, or a war, are one to you. For if you value ONE thing made of nothing, you HAVE believed that nothing CAN be precious, and that you CAN learn how to make the UNtrue true. The Holy Spirit, SEEING where you are, but KNOWING you are elsewhere, begins His lesson in simplicity with the fundamental teaching that TRUTH IS TRUE. This is the hardest lesson you will ever learn, and in the end the ONLY one."

"Simplicity is very difficult for twisted minds. Consider all the distortions you have made of nothing; all the strange forms and feelings, and actions and reactions, that you have woven out of it. Nothing is so alien to you as the simple truth, and nothing are you LESS inclined to listen to. The contrast between what is true, and what is not, is PERFECTLY apparent, yet you do NOT see it. The simple and the obvious are NOT apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns BECAUSE of them. All this the Holy Spirit sees, and teaches, simply, that ALL THIS IS NOT TRUE."

"The quietness of its simplicity is so compelling, that you will realize IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DENY THE SIMPLE TRUTH. For there IS nothing else. God is everywhere, and His Son is IN Him WITH everything. Can he sing the dirge of sorrow, when THIS is true?"

"Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution. ... The problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle. And I invite the solution to come to me through my forgiveness of the grievance, and my welcome of the miracle which takes its place."

"A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already, you will still have the problem because you cannot recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. But the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized.

Everyone in this world seems to have his own special problems. Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted. Who can see that a problem has been solved if he thinks the problem is something else? Even if he is given the answer, he cannot see its relevance."

"We will try to free our minds of all the many different kinds of problems that we think we have. We will try to realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told. Then we will ask for the solution to it. And we will be told."

"Be not deceived by the form of problems today. Whenever any difficulty seems to rise, tell yourself quickly:

"Let me recognize this problem so it can be solved.""

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. 4 But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."