Sometimes when less than happy, I will notice that probably some fear is present. I will look at the "fearing" itself and to some degree this shines a light on it and dispels it. Just even admitting to being afraid is helpful.

But what I recently discovered is that when I am less than happy, it is possible to actually notice that I'm believing not just in fear and guilt, but in sin. If I recognize this and look at the sense or feeling of "its a sin" or "sinfulness" or "I am sinful", which can express itself in any form of guilt or fear or emotional upset, I am quite surprised how rapidly a tremendous weight is lifted. It's like a dark veil is just lifted right up and all of those symptoms just disappear.

If sin isn't real, then everything that came from sin must go with it - all the guilt and all the fear and all of the unhappiness. It's like unplugging the problem at its core.

In ACIM the idea of evil is defined as 'ego', more or less. Not just individual egos but also a collective one.

The ego uses temptation to distract you from the truth. It is capable of creating scenarios in which it seems like you want and enjoy things which you would normally not want or enjoy.

It is also very cunning in that it can use your very own weaknesses against you. If you think that some person or project or activity might be 'the answer' and that it will save you, even though it's not true, the ego will encourage you to pursue it. And it knows you are likely going to go along with it because you yourself are the one who is believing it will work, or is what you want.

I have only recently discovered that my own ego has been 'playing me', using my own self deceptions to lure me away from the truth. It's particularly bad if I am very mistaken about something, like I think I'm onto some kind of solution or really great thing, but really it's another ego bullshit wild goose chase which will have me 'seek and do not find' for a long time.

In other words, if I choose to believe in an illusion and I give it faith and am convinced of its supposed value, this becomes a blind spot in my awareness. My ego comes along and says "why don't you do that thing, you know you want to, you know you like it, you know how appealing it is". And then I'll be all gooey eyed with hypnotic spirals spinning in my eyeballs while I salivate over this very appealing, attractive opportunity. All the while, my mind is completely distracted from God.

Notice though that the ego thus really has no power of its own. It can only use the things I have agreed to as a way to tempt me away from the truth. If it weren't for me getting gooey eyed over some new piece of technology or some amazing movie or some pathway that seemed really enticing, the ego would have no way to deceive me. I have deceived myself, willingly, and that is all the ego needs.

It can trigger off a memory of these tempting offers just at the right moment, knowing that their allure will particularly hurl my awareness off in a different direction, like some rat in a maze that just caught a glimpse of a big chunk of delicious cheese. Suddenly all my senses are ignited and the unfinished business I have with this 'promising savior' has captivated/captured my attention. I fall for my own traps.

It's good to be aware the ego is actively tempting us in this way, using our own mistakes against us, and trying to get us to reinvest in anything other that what we really are. There is nothing guilty or bad or wrong with enjoying life, but if we are psychologically using it as a false savior, then we will fall for temptation - the temptation to believe the truth is not true and God does not deserve our attention.

Watch out ... for yourself :-) You are the one who gives the ego the fuel it needs, and you thus hire it to serve your false interests. It is merely a reflection of your own self deception. It is not against you but for you. You want it. But you need to want God instead.

There can't be three different truths. They would all be conflicting. Only one of them can be the real truth.

Whatever the truth is, you do not get to decide what it is. It is what it is, and it has been established by God.

It doesn't matter how certain you are of what the truth might be, or what you've learned, or who you are, or how much evidence you've accumulated. It doesn't matter how much time you've spent analyzing what you think the truth is.

There is only one truth.

You don't get to decide what it is. Ever. You have no power to change it. No power to make it be different. No power to overthrow it. It doesn't matter how much denial you are in or how certain you are that something else is true.

Only the real truth is true.

So what this means is, you do not get to have an opinion. You do not get to have your own personal viewpoint or personal opinion or belief or collection of concepts which define what the truth is. You actually do not get to define what the truth is at all.

On your spiritual quest, you may believe that you have discovered something more true than what you used to believe, but you may still be off by quite a lot. These are stepping stones of discovery, as you gradually sort out what is really true and what is not.

The truth has to be consistent and it has to account for everything. Gradually over time if you are very open minded and honest you will come to an awareness of the entire truth, as it is, without your interference or your opinion.

But at no time do you get to make something be true, or make-believe it is true, or make something become reality. If it is true and real, it is true and real forever, and it is permanent, and nothing can change it.

So really, the truth is not found by your making it up, or dreaming it, or being the one who figures it out, or through analysis, or expertise and learning. It is only something that you can ACCEPT. It is only something you can SURRENDER to. It is only something you can become aware OF.

You have no say in determining the truth. Your attempts to do so are purely denial. They are delusional. They are part of your belief that you are God. It is the authority problem.

You can't change God's mind about you. God always knows what the truth is. God always knows that you are 100% innocent and cannot really separate from Him. God knows your dream of death isn't really happening at all and holds no truth whatsoever.

Your opinion counts for nothing. Your beliefs do not change reality. Nothing you can do can stop God from being unconditionally loving. You have never had power over His Will. Your own will can do nothing real outside of alignment with His Will, otherwise you are just in wishful thinking.

Only the truth is true. Only God's truth is true. And your only possibility is to set aside all of your attempts to make something else true and simply accept what God has already made real.

Surrender your egocentric viewpoint. Your opinion is meaningless. God's truth is the only truth and you can only accept or deny it.

For years I thought scapegoating only happens one way. Usually you find a target and you blame everything on them and attack them. Yeah, not pretty. Usually the target is someone who you are are offended by, threatened be, some kind of "enemy".

But, what I've discovered is, it's possible to use a person that you are very close to, care about, love, etc... in a scapegoating way as well. It just doesn't look like scapegoating because it has all this "I want to help you" stuff thrown in.

You care about the person, you want to see them happy, you want them to not suffer, etc... various forms of "special love".

Usually in projection it's the "icky stuff" that gets projected. The shadow. You repress stuff with your persona and condemn it and project it. You project the sin and guilt most often. But sometimes, you also project from the persona.

This on the surface shows up like a kind of "positive projection" where you think you're just trying to help, fix, save, protect, care about, etc... but these are all ego attitudes. They're the ego's version of healing, the ego's version of forgiveness, the ego's versions of being helpful. They all have strings attached, are codependent, and are conditional.

Guilt within oneself can be repressed and denied, and then you go into a state of believing that you're guilty for causing your loved one to feel unhappy or being sick or having problems etc. So then you try to fix them, save them, change them, coerce them, control them, trying to "make their lives better".

But there's always this unacknowledged neediness, this dependency on getting the other person to heal so that YOU will get some benefit from it, and trying to use their situation of suffering as a way to prove your innocence. If you can undo their suffering, which you believe you caused, through your initial sin, it exonerates you.

This is how the unhealed healer operates. It's a state of believing you are helping when you are hurting. It's much less obvious than typical scapegoating because it does not LOOK LIKE an attack. It's wrapped up in care and special love and victimhood and being a savior and a hero etc. Even in terms of believing you are trying to prevent the person from suffering, sickness, even death. It seems noble. But it's bullshit.

For me this one has been much trickier to recognize and easier to fall into. What doesn't on the surface look like an attack, or making an enemy, is still an ego mechanism for trying to get your needs met. It's still manipulative and controlling. "I need you to be well" has this dark underlying tone of "if you don't be well, I won't love you".

The unhealed healer doesn't have the real love to give, to cause real healing, so doesn't know how to really heal. What passes for healing is not really healing. What passes for concern, worry, caring, is not really healing.

The real problem is the belief you sinned, are guilty for causing someone or something to be negatively affected, and now feel remorse and a sense of guilt that you need to do something to get someone else to reverse so that you can feel better about yourself. "They are healed, so I am not so upset now about what I did" kind of thing. And if they refuse the control and the subtle manipulation, out will come the ego claws "how dare you not get better!". lol

Quite the trap. But there is a way out. You did not sin. You are not guilty. So you do not NEED to fix your projected self condemnation.

The sheer extent of being deceived by FORM, is easy to recognize in this world. The sheer degree by which we have fallen for the belief that DIFFERENT FORMS are in fact different things.

We've given them different values, different meanings, different importance, different seriousness, different degrees of problem, different solutions, different natures, different materials, different shapes and colors and sizes. There is no end to the variations.

Look then at our addiction to forms. Our addiction to OBJECTS. To bodies, to toys, to buildings and cars, to special foods, to special relationships, to idols we worship. The idolization of places and things.

Look at how we seek after the next best special toy. That particular preferred clothing. That special kind of house. That dream car. That selection of food at the grocery store we like the taste of. That lifestyle. That environment. The decorations for our homes and bodies.

And look at how the world is constantly driven to tell you the many ways that the FORMS of things are different, special, unique, worth having. That some forms are SALVATION. That other forms are to be avoided, in favor of the chosen ones.

That if you just get this special form you will be happier, better off, safer, healthier. That some forms have magical powers and are better for you, while others hurt you. That some forms are to be avoided while others are to be deeply desired.

Look at all the bullshit values we've given everything. A bar of gold is allegedly more valuable than a bar of shit. The fancy dresses and suits seemingly worth more than shabby rags. Expensive houses and cars seemingly better than that old clunker.

The world tries to manufacture untold new forms, to leverage new properties of matter it discovered, and to sell the next most amazing form to you. This leads to all the shopaholic frenzy of possessions and purchases, sales and discounts. Ways to get more objects and forms of salvation.

To surround yourself with a fortress of form and to completely shut out all reality. To tell yourself your important job is doing some real good and is a great symbol of status, when all it is keeping you blinded and locked into a prison. To seek for riches, or for poverty, believing either one is the better form or more spiritual.

And then look at how we spiritualize forms and worship idols. How we put them on pedestals or throw them in the trash. And not for long will the next amazing form tempt you with its thrills, only to be discarded soon after when another comes to take its place.

Always competition. Always one-upmanship. Always the next best thing. Always superceding and overthrowing and exalting only to destroy. This is what the world is like. Driven mad by the utterly nonsense illusion that ANY form is DIFFERENT to any other. That one thing is not another thing. That all things are separate.

And so by worshipping form we worship death, because death means a lack of wholeness, and a preference for littleness. And there is no wholeness in the world as a result. And wholeness is health, meaning the worship of forms produces sickness. And now the body has become the hero of the dream, the celebrity, the one to watch.

Every way this world offers up the next puke casserole of "stuff" that you're supposed to think of as "not the same" as all the "stuff" that came before it, be not deceived. Consider that this world is going to just keep churning out form after form after form, all the while thinking it is creating something NEW, when all it is doing is rehashing and remaking what is old and dead.

Do you really WANT anything this world has to offer, when all it offers is the same one thing? The same illusion of fake things which have fake importance? Stuff you don't need, stuff you don't really want, stuff you can't rely on, stuff that just constantly changes into new forms to tempt you away from the truth.

Just how many thousands of "things" do you need? Just how many pieces of paper and shiny coins? How many different pairs of shoes and pieces of clothing? Exactly why do you collect all the rare and unusual trinkets and treasures? Why do you think EACH one is truly unique and not like the rest, worth having? And why do you seek to find the rarest and most valuable ultra-special items, exclusively for you which no one else has?

This is the madness of the world. It is disappearing up its own backside in its obsession with MAKING more and more and more. Regurgitating an endless list of piffle and drivel. Tempting you that the next right kitchen counter and the next sofa and the next douvet cover is going to save you from the very biased lopsided problems it is designed to cause? And which solution will ever set you free from the very problems it induces?

The forms of this world are a trap. They are ALL made to tempt you away from God and from wholeness, health and truth. They are all a decoy, disguising the fact that they are all ONE THING. One big illusion, pretending to be many illusions.

You keep buying the same shit over and over and over again because you don't realize it is the SAME as the last shit, just in a different form. And while you think the differences that keep forms apart are desirable, you will keep falling for the same one trick. This world really has NOTHING to offer. And ALL its objects are a lie.

"The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need."

"It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give."

"This world holds nothing that you really want"

"The world you see has nothing that you need to offer you; nothing that you can use in any way, nor anything at all that serves to give you joy. Believe this thought, and you are saved from years of misery, from countless disappointments, and from hopes that turn to bitter ashes of despair. No one but must accept this thought as true, if he would leave this world behind and soar beyond its petty scope and little ways."

"Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world, and it will serve no other end but this. For everything must serve the purpose you have given it until you see a different purpose there. The only purpose worthy of your mind this world contains is that you pass it by, without delaying to perceive some hope where there is none. Be you deceived no more. The world you see has nothing that you want."

"When we are all united in Heaven, you will value NOTHING that you value here. For nothing that you value here you value wholly, and so you do not value it at all. "

"If you will lay aside the ego's voice however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts which give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind which has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages."

"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it CAN blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true."

"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" This means that if he listens to the wrong voice, he has LOST SIGHT of his Soul. He CANNOT lose it, but he CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO HIM, until he chooses right."

"The wearying, dissatisfying gods you made are blown-up children's toys." "The gap that is not there is filled with toys in countless forms." "Look calmly at its toys, and understand that they are idols which but dance to vain desires. Give them not your worship, for they are not there." "Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead?" "Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home?" "In my hands is everything you want and need and hoped to find among the shabby toys of earth. I take them all from you and they are gone. And shining in the place where once they stood there is a gateway to another world through which we enter in the Name of God." "What toys or trinkets in the gap could serve to hold you back an instant from His Love?" "Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made." "Whom He has judged can only laugh at guilt, unwilling now to play with toys of sin, unheeding of the body's witnesses before the rapture of His holy Face."

I seem to be operating through a male body in this lifetime. It has a certain appearance. A certain shape. It functions in a given way and has certain seeming abilities and inabilities. There are appendages and shapes and features which other bodies don't seem to have. It seems to have a physical gender. It seems to have needs. When it looks upon itself in the mirror using its own eyes it sees an image of what it seems to be.

But this body is not who I am. I am not a male, or a humanoid. I do not really have arms and legs or a head. This strange creature I inhabit is not my self. It is but one of many possible iterations of bodies, all of which are distinctly different, and none of which are an accurate representation of my soul. None of them, not even this one, depicts who I really am.

"What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."

Your face is not how you look, any more than the face of another person's body is how they look. The face is a disguise designed to present a picture of what appears to be a "person", or someone looking, or someone speaking. But this face is just an instrument, a device, a facade, like the outside of a building. It actually hides the invisible self which cannot be seen with the body's eyes. This face is merely an arrangement of bones and flesh and muscles and sensory organs operating in a certain, very specific way.

What you are as a permanent, perfect creation of God, cannot possibly bend to become the shape of a particular body. In one lifetime you might show up as a woman, in another as a man, and in another as a woman again. Shapes and features of different sizes and proportions and colors and behaviors. None of these conform precisely to the true nature of what you are, and not one of them is wholly a perfect depiction of yourself.

In fact, because the core of you is so perfect and formless, every single body that you could ever utilize cannot come close to or even touch upon your true nature. Every one of them is distanced from your identity and set apart from or is external to your soul's true nature. They are all strange pictures of persons, who are not really persons, portraying physicalized images of artificial identity, as temporary substitutes for who and what you are.

When you identify with or as this body, believing it is completely yourself, there must be quite a jump of the gap between your true nature and the nature of this strange image. You must distort yourself, confine yourself, mangle yourself, in order to consider yourself to BE IT. You must be not yourself, in the most extreme way, in order to regard it as who and what you are. Are you at toe? Are you a buttock? Are you teeth? Do you chop off parts of yourself when you get a haircut? Do you shed yourself? Are you constantly changing? You are not these things. And trying to identify as these things, alone, must induce mental illness simply because these things are so unlike you.

There was a gospel of Judas which was discovered, I think it was part of the dead sea scrolls. I watched this on tv some years ago... in which, for one thing, Judas was properly recognized as being the one who was closest to Jesus and most believing him, which is why the authorities later depicted him as the worst traitor, to slander him. And in this gospel there were accounts that Jesus had already accomplished such spirit identification that he was able to transfigure in and out of different bodies. Sometimes appearing as a woman, sometimes as a child, or an old man, depending on what form was suitable to meet with particular people.

I don't find this to be improbable or impossible. Some of the great masters of the East have acquired similar abilities, dissolving the body and turning into a ball of light which then flies over the land and then rematerializes as a body later. Clearly when one has total clarity about what one is, and has power over the body and all forms, this kind of thing becomes easy and possible.

We are not bodies. We are spirit beings. And we do not need bodies in order to exist. "To be without a body is to be in your natural state." You do not need a body to be with God, or to be yourself. "God did not create the body." and so it is not a natural part of you or your inheritance. We must learn to correctly recognize that even the body we have right now, is not our identity. I am not a 6-foot caucasian male in his 40's. This is just the particular picture that my mind is projecting or that I chose to show up as or "incarnate into". In my last life, I was probably a woman.

In order to love yourself and to love everyone equally you cannot be offended by, putt of by, judging of, preferring, or being biased in any way about particular types of bodies. Fat or thin, large or small, tall or short, gay or straight, masculine or feminine, hairy or bald, ugly or beautiful, it should not matter, because these are all just clothing. Just flesh suits which our real selves are temporarily using. And no matter how a particular body appears, it is not the person.

Holding the body against them is like accusing them of sin. You must learn to look beyond your body and theirs, to recognize that deep within, there is a shining light, a perfect soul, just the same as yours, and all the children of God are perfectly identical and equal in Christ.

Jesus writes: "See the point about miracles as a perception corrector (for himself) ***before*** he can effect (perform) miracles as CREATIVE ENERGIZERS (for others), which they are."

Becoming a miracle worker has two phases. As Jesus writes here, in the first phase there is an emphasis on the correction of YOUR perceptual flaws. This GIVES WAY, to the second phase, which is the ability to EXTEND love to others as a creative energizing power, which can heal them.

This is because miracles express FROM a loving state of mind, and in the initial phase you are NOT loving enough to express them yourself. You have to shift perception FIRST, to get INTO a loving state, before you can PERFORM a miracle.

This all hinges around a very simple mechanic. The question of, are you in a state of mind in which you are willing to EXTEND?

When you are in the first phase, you are still much too selfish, too in the dark, too afraid, too unwilling, and riddled with sin, to be able to truly extend maximal love to others. You can't PERFORM miracles very effectively. The mind is deluded with false perception and temptation. In this stage, your mind is very much IN NEED of help itself. It can't effectively get out of the way or give or supply the lack in others, because it itself is too lacking.

In this first phase, our main function is PURIFICATION. We need to RECEIVE healing for ourselves. The mind has to be trained. Fear has to be undone. Sin has to be forgiven. Blocks to awareness have to be removed. All the ways that we are HOLDING BACK THE LIGHT have to be dissolved. It's kind of like, you are a light of healing, but while your light is covered up with ego bullshit you cannot SHINE enough to effectively "shed light" onto others. You are too dark.

"Miracles are everyone's right (the right to PERFORM them), but purification is necessary first."

So you have to go through a phase, which could be quite extensive, of purification for yourself. Here you can RECEIVE miracles, ie outside help, FROM those who are already miraculously powerful. That could be another miracle worker who can SUPPLY YOUR LACK, because they "temporarily have more" than you, or it might be healing received from Jesus or the Holy Spirit. Our task here is also to practice forgiveness and learn to undo sin through atonement.

Now, you can probably imagine what's going to happen as, over time, your mind becomes LIGHTER. Or rather, the various ways that you are unwilling to EXTEND LIGHT into the minds of others, unwilling to join, and are too focused on separation, is removed. What's going to happen as you open up, develop trust in your brother, forgive yourself and him, and remove the blocks to unconditional love?

You're going to gradually SHINE more, becoming brighter and more able and willing to ALLOW love to extend through you. You're learning to line up with God's will. To let go of ego. To connect and communicate. To express love more unconditionally. Special relationships are melting into holy relationships. And your mind is becoming UNBLOCKED. So it's not getting in the way of the extension of the mind itself.

As this progresses, you are gradually approaching the second state of miracle mindedness and more consistently "being the light of the world." As you UNVEIL yourself, you are more willing and able to express love and extend LIFE. You start becoming more able to GIVE to others and to serve, to be truly helpful. And you begin to represent God and Christ more. Your mind is reconnecting with other minds and your heart is opening to love.

By becoming less blocked, less inhibited, less afraid, less selfish and less separated off, you are resuming your NATURAL FUNCTION of miraculousness. Being miraculous is actually permanent. Even God is miraculous and so are all His creations. "Miracles are a universal blessing from God" "God's miracles" "You are a miracle" "The miraculous nature of the soul" etc. Miracles are supposed to naturally be happening ALL the time.

When we talk of miracles as ONLY the shifts in perception which LEAD UP TO the state of miracle mindedness, we are missing half the story. This would imply that once your mind IS shifted into truth, you STOP being miraculous. This is not AT ALL true. In fact what happens is you are uncovering your PERMANENT and natural innate miraculous NATURE, which puts you back in touch with being ALWAYS miraculous.

As your mind becomes healed, YOU become able TO heal others. As you become more loving and unafraid, you are able to GIVE the miracles you have received. As you become more in line with the Golden Rule, you are able to recognize that giving and receiving are ONE. As you remove the blocks to awareness, you become more JOINED with other minds and SUPPORT and STRENGTHEN them.

"Those who are healed become instruments of healing."

So the first phase is all about uncovering your natural miracle working ability and nature, and the second phase is about starting to get in touch with and EXPRESSING that nature. First becoming stronger in the truth, then GIVING that truth to others. First receiving healing that you need in order to BE healed, then GIVING that healing to others effortlessly.

Some people focus only on the aspect of ACIM which discusses the "benefits to you" of reaching the atonement "for yourself". Your sole responsibility. But this misses an entire other half of the story. The rest of the story tells us of how, having been restored to our natural condition, we become empowered to WORK MIRACLES ourselves, by being able once again to EXTEND God's Power to others.

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

Jesus is ALSO clear in the course that he does not intend for us to WAIT until we reach 100% atonement before working any miracles. In fact, he describes it as an ability to be PRACTICED.

"The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability."

He states that as we ATTEMPT to perform miracles, sometimes we will have successes and that DOING THEM will BRING conviction in the ability. That we need a bit of convincing and the only way to get that is to TRY to perform them. Perhaps we will fail at first. Perhaps we will be too involved in the ego to get a result. But if we don't TRY, we will not discover what we can do or learn from mistakes.

"Miracles are taken first on faith" also tells us that initially we have to TRUST and have faith in order to perform miracles, because we are OUT OF TOUCH with the miracle-minded state. And so we need Holy Spirit or Jesus to do the work for us. To help us out where we fail. But LATER, as we get more in touch with our innate miraculousness, we become more able to directly PERFORM them ourselves.

He also describes how if we were to just TEMPORARILY suspend fear, or uses words to focus the mind in prayer, that this would be sufficient to bring about a miracle. EVEN IF we then return to a state of fear afterwards. He also discusses how "some of you have healed the sick at times but have not raised the dead because your faith was not whole." A PARTIAL faith can bring about "minor miracles", while a FULLER faith (a more healed mind) can bring about what would seem to be "more difficult" miracles such as raising the dead.

Becoming ABLE to perform a miracle, is clearly a PROGRESSION, something to be experimented with, explored, discovered, learned, strengthened, so that we can GAIN confidence in the ability. We will see lesser miracles and later more significant ones as we hone the ability. As our mind becomes more purified, it becomes easier. As our ego gets more out of the way, we become more powerful. As we trust more, we gain God's Power more. And as we become more truly loving, we are able to supply a lack of love in others, healing and enlightening them.

This is also why Jesus says "an untrained mind can accomplish nothing." Meaning that a trained mind CAN accomplish something. A trained mind is more ABLE to perform miracles for others.

We are to gradually unlock our potential as miracle workers. We are to "test the waters" and dabble and TRY to perform them. We are to experiment with working with the Holy Spirit. And we are to learn from our failures and forgive our faults and fears, so that we can become more effective healers. Once we reach consistent miracle mindedness we'll be so empowered that we can effortlessly perform miracles all day every day. "Every day should be devoted to miracles."

So miracles "benefit both the giver and the receiver". As you attempt to give them, even from a non 100%-atoned state, they LIFT YOU UP, as well as lifting others up. As you flow and give the love that you DO NOT have, you tap into the flow and it starts to move, and it starts to LIFT YOU out of the darkness. You get healed as well as the other person. But once you have BEEN healed, and are sustaining a higher level of functioning, the healing you extend has less need to heal YOU, and focuses more on the healing you GIVE to others.

"Miracles are the maximal SERVICE you can render to others."

Being miraculously MINDED, as a state, is distinct from miracle DOING/WORKING, which is an EXPRESSION FROM that state.

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

Becoming closer to the miracle-minded STATE is the first PHASE of learning to be a miracle worker. Miracle DOING/WORKING is the EXPRESSION/extension of that state, which entails the PERFORMING of miracles for others. This second state is completely natural and automatic and effortless and MANDATORY. You cannot become loving WITHOUT being willing to GIVE love. You cannot be healed without a willingness TO HEAL. And you cannot accept atonement or miracles without a recognition that it is to be SHARED with others.

I've been noticing lately, in myself, and also in other people, that guilt may not always look like guilt.

I am familiar with guilt in the sense that, let's say, I steal someone's property and then see them struggling without it, maybe I start to feel remorse or shame or that I should give it back, and so acknowledge that it's wrong in some way and start wanting to make amends, feeling guilty that way. This seems a more typical definition of guilt.

But I think there is an experience of guilt which feels much more like a state of self attack, seriousness, and is very prone to projection. It's a state of accusation, and the person feeling guilty starts to accuse others at the same time. This accusing takes the form of projection and is usually hurled out in the form of anger.

As Jesus says, "All anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY"

Why would you attempt to make someone guilty? It's really an attempt to project your own guilt onto them, to make them out to be the one who is guilty rather than it be you. This isn't really the same experiencing as feeling afraid and trying to blame the cause of fear onto someone, but the projection dynamic is similar.

And so the clue here is, that there is a strong correlation between anger and guilt. And I've been noticing especially the past few days, not only that if I am angry there is some subtle but definite sensation of "feeling guilty" or "feeling wrong" or "its my fault" tucked in behind it. And I've been suddenly noticing this in other people as well.

I saw a couple of people today who seemed edgy and short and were a little accusational. While on the surface they seemed like they were sort of "raw" and pointing a finger at others, or were holding a sense of "I'm wrong, because of you", I noticed they also were feeling kind of guilty about something. And in that guilt they felt angry at themselves, but typically so caught up in projecting it that they seemed to be trying to make others guilty instead.

The reason I'm bringing this up is because in the past, for example, I was often afraid for various reasons, but I did not know it. I did not RECOGNIZE it. I would have the fear and all the stuff that goes with it, but I did not label "whatever that feeling is" as fear. I was too immersed in it, like being in a fog. I couldn't see it from the outside. So I would've said, in the middle of feeling fear, no, I'm not afraid. I didn't even know I was in such a state of anxiety. Or that what I felt WAS that.

Similarly with this guilt, I've been doing a lot of healing and I notice often that there is this kind of heavy "something" that seems hidden from my awareness, which always seems to drag me down and makes me feel serious and often moving into anger or projection. And as I try to lift up closer to happier lighter states, this same curtain of something keeps pulling me back down. And I'm realizing gradually that this un-recognized something is actually guilt.

I actually feel guilty for a whole bunch of things and I did not even know that i was feeling this way. I was just "doing the guilt" unconsciously. This came to my attention because in one situation I expressed that I felt guilty about something, not even thinking that this was why I was annoyed, that I had not admitted to before, and after expressing this noticed that I felt significantly better. And that was unexpected, like I accidentally discovered what was really bothering me. And then after admitting to feeling guilty and letting it go, I felt so much freer.

Also per some things I've been reading in the course lately, I see Jesus saying things about guilt and about how without guilt you'd be happy and without guilt you'd have salvation and so on. That guilt is the opposite of love as well. And this all seems to add up. The state of ego, the state of fear, guilt, sin, death, suffering, unhappiness, it all seems to be various "forms" of the movement away from God.

In general a belief in sin leads to a belief in guilt and then to a belief in fear of punishment. But in Jesus's descriptions it sounds more like any amount of separation from God, any movement away from love, puts you simultaneously into a state of fear, and guilt, and sin, and suffering and sickness. It's all a movement towards darkness. And in particular, without guilt or a belief in guilt, there is no support for sin.

Sin says, you sinned. If you believe it, you become guilty. If you do not believe it, you become forgiven. It pivots AROUND sin, but guilt is evidence that you've believed sin to be true. If sin is true, then you ARE guilty and will feel it. But if sin is NOT true, you are NOT guilty, and will experience the innocence that lies beyond sin. Sin is kind of like a principle or concept, an illusion, and whether you believe in it or not sets you on a path to listen to ego or to listen to holy spirit. And "the world of bodies is the world of sin" so believing bodies are real produces guilt, while believing they are not produces innocence.

"The laws of sin demand a victim."

"(body's eyes) For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt."

So now I'm working on the removal and undoing and acknowledging and recognition and noticing of "I feel guilty". And I think that it can be quite subtle at times and elusive. And it is "implied" in a lot of situations, even if its minor. And I think this guilt has a heck of a lot to do with all manner of unhappy feelings and conditions and forms of suffering. It's the heavy anchor that we drag behind us. I think most people are living in heavy guilt and don't even know it, and that has been me too."

I have also been noticing lately that I have not been giving myself enough credit for what I've been able to do. And I also notice myself "over-giving" or "over-serving" in a sacrificial way. And that suggests to me that its because I feel a GUILT, and this guilt is driving an illusory form of service which really is some attempt to "make up for" "being the cause of" the problem, which I'm blaming myself for. I think I don't credit myself with enough innocence and thereby end up making myself guilty for things I'm not even guilty for, and then start over-compensating for it.

Without guilt there is no self blame, and without guilt there is no reason to project guilt onto others through anger. And without guilt you cannot have sinned, so must be innocent.

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."

"Only by persuading you that IT is you, could the ego possibly induce you to PROJECT guilt, and thereby keep it in your mind."

"All anger is nothing more than an attempt to MAKE SOMEONE FEEL GUILTY, and this attempt is the ONLY basis which the ego accepts for special relationships."

"Projection means anger, anger fosters assault, and assault promotes fear."

"That is why the undoing of guilt is an essential part of the Holy Spirit's teaching."

Lately I feel like I have found a whole new sense of identity, and that I've discovered God.

I have been dwelling on two workbook lessons, 91 and 92. They talk about how I am not a body, and asks therefore, what am I? The focus is put on discovering who I really am if I am a not a limited, separated self, and begins to reinforce the various attributes of what must be my real self.

Then in 92 it builds on this by suggesting that all the attributes of my real self are actually shared with God. That for example God's light is my strength, that I see in God's light, that I share God's mind, that my strength is actually God in me etc.

These to me seem to be a kind of two step leap in identity - 1) That I am not a body and am something above and beyond this level and world, and 2) That all my real attributes are actually PART OF GOD. That my actual self is SHARED with him and everything true of my real self is INHERITED and simultaneously one with him.

That means that to claim my real self, to be not a body or an ego, I actually have to realize that I am part of God himself, that everything I have comes from him, that there is a strength and a power IN me which is actually HIM. That I am host to him, that he is in fact the life and the light in me, and that I can kind of step back into him and merge with him. Even my self, my soul, is actually an extended part of God himself which HE DWELLS IN.

I cannot really explain it but there has been a strange leap in confidence, sense of outward expression, of certainty and fearlessness, which has suddenly erupted as a result of this. It seems like a major shift in who and what I AM, away from "I'll do this all by myself" to "God and I will do this together." A leap from exclusion to inclusion, and from selfishness to sharing.

I've been having some .. bright and clear views of the world, in which it looks quite beautiful, which seems to effortlessly come by affirming that all MY attributes are actually God in me. That I see in his light, think with his mind, that my strength is his, that I forgive with his love, that I SHARE with him. And through this acknowledgement of him in my mind, I leap further to seeing God in everything. And this is also about TRUST.

I have to say that the degree of seeming 'light' that these visions entail is far beyond anything that any other course practice has ever revealed. And it seems so simply accessed through the acknowledgement of God in me, and that my SELF is embedded in him and a part of him. I am an extension of God. Everything I am comes from him and IS HIM!

By opening up to that, which is WITHIN myself, kind of behind myself, all of the sense of happiness and love and power and light and so on just seems to switch on like a lightbulb and flood my perception with 'forgiveness'. This isn't an intellectual exercise or a concept or theory. It's an immersive experience. I am putting myself into God's hands and am seeing myself as united with his attributes. That anything I have is OF him and not of me.

What I am is not just myself. What I am isn't an isolated, fenced-off me. The walls are dropping. What I am is shared with the whole. What I am is given to me by something much larger. And it seems the blessings and gifts of God are FAR FAR FAR in advance of any sense of "me and mine" that I could possibly come up with as a body-identified ego.

It also seems so very simple. Just stepping back and sinking into a sense of self that is made of God himself. Allowing myself to host him. Accepting that I am what he has created me to be. Recognizing not simply that I am some kind of spiritual self, but that I ONLY have what God has PUT in me, and what he has put in me is HIMSELF!

This also leads to the recognition that everyone else, all other children of God, also have God in them. And I am seeing this in the course more and more. To attack another is to attack God because they are host to God. To recognize that they are HOST to God, is to recognize their sacredness and to honor the power of God in them.

I cannot join with another WITHOUT joining with God and the Holy Spirit in them, because all must be included! I can't exclusively join with just one person, to the exclusion of God. God has to be part of the joining because he is the love. And his entire Kingdom must be there as well. To love unconditionally is to love the whole sonship at once.

To be an isolated, separated, exclusive, body-identified self, is to be HOSTAGE to the ego. You can be hostage to the ego or host to God. This is our choice. To host God is to have him be in you and through you, in which all he shares with and gives to you, is given FOR you and FOR others. And thus does it extend beyond yourself alone, because nothing is for yourself alone.

"Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom YOU invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you." "I who am host to God AM worthy of Him.

He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I DO NOT INTERFERE with His plan to RESTORE to me my own AWARENESS of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need ADD nothing to His plan,

But to RECEIVE it, I must be willing NOT to substitute my own IN PLACE of it.""

"You who are host to God, are also host to THEM."

"Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you ARE host to God, and hostage to no-one and to nothing."

"For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is there ALREADY, by recognizing that His Host is One."

"We asked you once before, "Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?" Let this question be asked you by the Holy Spirit in you, EVERY time you make a decision. For every decision you make DOES answer this, and invites sorrow or joy, accordingly."

"It is not true that you can make decisions BY yourself, or FOR yourself alone."

"Do not forget you do not answer for yourself alone." "Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did."

"The Holy Spirit enables you to PERCEIVE THIS WHOLENESS NOW. You can no more pray for yourselves alone than you can find joy for yourself alone."

"And sight of bodies becomes the sign that sacrifice IS limited, and something still remains for you alone."

"The gifts you have are not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give."

"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."

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