In the course there is a lesson about how God is in everything I see, and later ... because God is in my mind etc. And it talks about seeing God "in" things, like in a waste paper basket. This is often misunderstood to mean that God IS the waste paper basket, when in fact it means you project God's meaning onto it because He is in your mind, not because He is outside your mind. Essentially, if you were to see God, you would not see the basket at all.

"You cannot behold the world and know God."

So there I was, sitting on the toilet. Pondering life's mysteries, like you do. And next to me was sat a wicker basket which we use for the laundry. And so I looked at the basket and wondered in my mind, "is God really in this basket?". Jesus then took the opportunity to immediately show me the truth about this.

I noticed that I could not seem to feel my hands, as if they were barely there. I seemed to be "out" of them as if out of my body or something. This was slightly disorienting, but they felt like they barely existed and weighed nothing. At the same time, I felt what seemed to be "my spirit hand", passing through the basket, and waving around.

As it did this I was aware that the basket was nothing but air, or like a puff of smoke, which was being wafted and displaced by the movement of my spirit-hand. It was very interesting, because it was like the basket didn't even exist. It had no barrier, it was not solid, it put up no resistance, and there was no physical collision with it. Instead it seemed like the lightest, faintest, slightest hint of a whisp of air, dispelled and moved simply by waving. As if just a cloud of particles that could effortlessly be blown away on a breeze.

This ended after a few seconds. But it was enough to reveal to me the quite surprising and "real" truth about the basket. As my physical eyes feasted once again on its solid form, its structure, its shapes and colors, its firmness to the touch, I couldn't help but remark that all of this must be an illusion. In comparison to there being literally NO BASKET, all these seemingly real properties must be some kind of fakery. Without that sense of a boundary, that sense of colliding with it physically, and not being able to pass through it, the basket is nothing but a whisp of smoke. A thin veil.

And so beyond the basket, if God were to be seen, it is recognized that there is no basket at all. It is easily and effortlessly dispelled. Dismissed with the simple waving of a hand, as if it were made of the lightest air, and really nothing at all. Only the spiritual sight could really see this. And clearly spirit is capable of anything, instantly, with no effort at all. Because Jesus showed this to me as if it were the easiest thing in the world. My physical eyes could not see this at all, and my body still reported the solidity of the basket. I wondered then what it would take to recognize this about all the world.

"Nothing so blinding as perception of form."

"There is no world."

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. "

"Raise it together, for it is but a veil that stands between you. Either alone will see it as a solid block, nor realize how thin the drapery that separates you now."

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

Forgiveness is a high state of mind, aligned with the Holy Spirit's vision, in which you SEE and RECOGNIZE everything for what it truly is. That which is true is recognised and accepted as true, while that which is false is recognised and rejected as false.

The problem is, when you are lost and confused amidst various mental distortions, delusions, deceptions, convictions, being a victim and seeing yourself as a body and other such things, that high state of accurate truth that would set you free is "inaccessible."

So then you have a paradox. The very state of mind you need to get INTO in order to be free from the delusions of the mind and its suffering, is only a state that you can reach AFTER the delusions have stopped. The very forgiving viewpoint needed for accurate perception and recognition, is hidden behind all the clouds of deception and lies. So how do you navigate out of the ego mess you've made when you can't see straight?

First thing is you should ask the Holy Spirit to help you before you even attempt to forgive, and ACIM tells you you should be doing this every time:

"Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven."

So you are supposed to ASK FOR HELP first, because you're so lost and confused you don't know the way out of your insanity. Then having asked for help, you RECEIVE help, by being willing and open. Particularly a willingness to be mistaken about what you believe, and willing to move closer to the truth.

Then the Holy Spirit can help you. You should find that as you then begin to try to unravel the tangled mess of your ego victimhood, your mind is going to take a different course - the Holy Spirit can and will influence your thinking and cause you to come to insights and conclusions and realizations and perspectives quite effortlessly.

Like your mind just starts to open up and flow on a kind of slipstream of inspiration, on a path that leads quickly upwards. This is the Holy Spirit enlightening your mind, and it works in realtime AS you proceed to work through your dilemma. As you have willingness and receptivity to find a way to the truth, He helps you along and lifts you up.

Eventually you'll want to get to the place where you can see clearly that the beliefs you had were mistaken, the guilt was unfounded, there has been no sin, and therefore there's no need to keep supporting the victimhood and suffering that you were choosing. Then in that atonement-view you can let it go.

"Ask then His help, and ask Him how to learn forgiveness as His vision lets it be. You are in need of what He gives, and your salvation rests on learning this of Him."

"To keep it for yourself to solve WITHOUT His help is to decide it should remain UNsettled, UNresolved, and lasting in its power of injustice and attack."

"Prepare for this each morning, remember God when you can throughout the day, ask the Holy Spirit's help when it is feasible to do so, and thank Him for His guidance at night. And your confidence will be well founded indeed."

Ok so you might be feeling like you're incapable, always making mistakes, are clumsy, can't communicate with people well, or problems just keep happening that you can't seem to solve. But it's not just you. It's a systemic problem of the world in general.

The world is just fundamentally difficult.

"You on earth have no conception of limitlessness, for the world you seem to live in IS a world of limits. In this world, it is NOT true that anything without order of difficulty can occur."

"Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped."

This also ties into the laws of chaos. Basically in the separation from God we invented all kinds of levels, degrees, amounts, variables, contrasts, divisions and differences.

This has set up an entire landscape of what we can only describe as a mismashed chaotic jumble of disjointed pieces and conflicting differences. Everything is in contrast, nothing gels, everything conflicts with everything else, the whole continuity is broken and every form seems to beg for a different response.

We automatically have made physical obstacles, difficult terrains, awkward weather, speech deficits, communication problems, incompatible personalities, loss of function, broken behaviors and dysfunctional relationships. Not to mention that pretty much everyone is insane.

This just automatically makes the whole world fundamentally a difficult place to be. Everything involves effort and struggle, adaptation and interpretation. You have to always have caution and be careful lest you perhaps hurt yourself. Who knows what crazy lune you might run into or what strange problem is going to erupt out of nowhere.

So don't take these things personally to mean something is wrong with you. It's not "just you" that has to struggle navigating this awkward environment. I used to beat myself up for being poor at communication until I realized the entire world is set up to break it. It's an imperfect world where nothing really works effortlessly or easily.

When we are not in heaven, or out of the body in spirit, we are in an environment that is fundamentally a strain. It is unnatural to us. In fact all things physical are totally opposite to our true nature. They are alien to us. It's like trying to live on an alien planet that you have no clue about, and no-one gave you the manual or prepared you for it.

So don't worry if life seems to just keep on sucking. It's just how the world is. We are tasked with recognizing this, then laughing at it and forgiving it. Because a world made by mistake can't help but be mistaken.

"Grace is the natural state of every Son of God. When he is NOT in a state of grace he IS out of his natural environment, and does NOT function well. Everything he does becomes a strain, because he was not created for the environment which he has made. He therefore CANNOT adapt to it, nor can he adapt IT to HIM. There is no point in trying. A Son of God is happy ONLY when he knows he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make."

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.

"This meant that man had no needs at all. If he had not deprived himself, he would never have experienced them. After the Separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for human action. All behavior is essentially motivated by needs, but behavior itself is not a Divine attribute. The body is the mechanism for behavior."

"Within HIMSELF he HAS no needs, for light needs nothing but to shine in peace, and from ITSELF, to let the rays extend in quiet to infinity."

"It is a recognition that you HAVE no needs which mean that something must be DONE."

"Father, in Heaven it is different, for there, there are no needs."

"I need do nothing".

If you do not believe you HAVE love, that you are love, and that you share love, you will see yourself as lacking love. This absence of love, emptiness, darkness (absence of light), will form a barrier against the love that is in you, blocking it from sight.

You will then "seek and not find" love FROM anywhere else, because you don't recognize that it is in you already. You'll see yourself as "in need", and DEPENDENT UPON, others, to supply the lack of love to you. This forms the foundation of "special love", in which you want to be loved by anyone BUT YOU, need to be loved, request to be loved, and try to coerce others into loving you. Self hate produces murderous desperation.

A healthy person does not need anyone to love them because not only is God loving them 100%, they are receiving that love and they ARE love. They can't experience the absence of love in themselves, and so have no "need to get love". And so they are now seeking special relationships in which to try to satisfy a gaping hole.

When you are needing love from others, you are believing that you are unworthy of love, so the seeking for love is not really genuine. On the surface is seems like you desperately want love but underneath it's based on the belief that you seriously are lacking it. And both contradictory beliefs are held in unison. So long as this is the case, love won't be received or deeply accepted within you. Nor can anyone give you what you really already have.

It's a myth that we are supposed to be "loved by others". Or rather, it is natural to be loved by everyone but it is unnatural to NEED to be. Love can be shared, but you share love not because you need it. You share it because you HAVE it, and because it brings you joy to increase it by sharing it, by giving it and receiving it equally. As soon as you enter into a lack of love for yourself, you will see love's absence and try in vain to find it somewhere else.

This inevitably is going to produce codependency because now you are in a position of trying to bargain for love, to coerce, to manipulate and control, while also being dependent on the source of that love. Addicted to getting the love from "somewhere else", or "someone else". Feeling like crap when you're not around them. Having an illusion of feeling somewhat better when they're giving you what your ego wants. Upset when they reject you. Unable to SUSTAIN a state of happiness regardless of what people are doing.

We have to be the love. We are the love. Love is our natural inheritance. If we block awareness of it we'll think we don't have it and won't give it. But by giving it you activate the flow and begin to acknowledge that you have it. It's natural to flow love when you are naturally unlimited and not blocked. It doesn't take effort. Being effortlessly loving is natural and miracles are natural expressions of love. But if we can't or are unwilling to acknowledge the perfection, lovability, divinity, holiness, innocence etc in ourselves, we aren't going to allow ourselves to recognize that we have the love already.

God put love in you, because God is love. You are permanently a host to God. Allow God to be in you and through you and you are already filled to overflowing. Reject God and you reject love and become needy. Accept God and you receive love and have no needs.

When Jesus said heaven is not a place he meant only it is not part of spacetime.

In the following section He talks about this. Notice the section is called "beyond the body", not staying in the body.

"VI. Beyond the Body

1 There is nothing outside you. That is what you must ultimately learn, for it is the realization that the Kingdom of Heaven is restored to you. For God created only this, and He did not depart from it nor leave it separate from Himself. The Kingdom of Heaven is the dwelling place of the Son of God, who left not his Father and dwells not apart from Him. Heaven is not a place nor a condition. It is merely an awareness of perfect Oneness, and the knowledge that there is nothing else; nothing outside this Oneness, and nothing else within."

Anything outside of heaven, which means this universe of illusions, is not part of Heaven, is not real, and does not exist. There is no world. And "there is no life outside of heaven" meaning anything outside heaven (Earth) is not life.

Also, ask yourself this. Where is Jesus? Apparently he is not in a body. He left bodies permanently 2000 years ago. So where is he? You cannot experience heaven while being in a body still. The body has to be disappeared in the overcoming of the illusion of death, before you can be freed of the limitations that the body places on awareness.

Many times Jesus states "in Heaven."

Jesus is in heaven. He is not in a body or in this universe. ACIM was comminicated to Helen through channeling from another dimension.

Being in the reflection of heaven, which is the face of Christ, in this world, is not being in heaven. Heaven is an awareness ONLY of God as real. Abstract, pure, holy and eternal. "Heaven and Earth are opposite in every way" tells us if you are "in Earth"you are not in Heaven. Otherwise God created this world, which is bullshit.

"God is in everything I see"applies only to seeing the face of Christ in this fictional world, which is only preparation for the transition to heaven. It does NOT mean God is in this world or that God is lurking behind its forms. Who can be at peace with death and destruction, or accuse God of creating such a cruel world, when death is a sign of hatred? God is love, not hate, and eternal life does not mean bodies that suffer and die.

Read the lesson "no one can fail who seeks to reach the truth". It takes you BEYOND even the real world, beyond true perception, beyond the face of Christ, beyond the forgiven world, escorted by Angels to Heaven. And Jesus says He can take you to Heaven any time. He wouldn’t exactly have anywhere to take you if being in the world meant you were there already.

Heaven is not Earth. Earth is not real and does not exist.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way.

God does not suffer conflict. Nor is His creation split in two. How could it be His Son could be in hell, when God Himself established him in Heaven? Could he lose what the Eternal Will has given him to be his home forever? Let us not try longer to impose an alien will upon God's single purpose. He is here because He wills to be, and what He wills is present now, beyond the reach of time."

"You cannot fail today. There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you, that you might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it, to the light."

The truth is, while you value something and believe there is truth in it, you will not want to let it go. You're convinced other stuff is less true and is not what you want, and that you should protect what you have faith in. That's a reasonable attitude. Although what you believe might ultimately be false, Holy Spirit is not here to tell you "you can't have that" or that "you shouldn't do that".

What is asked of us is simply to be a little bit willing to return to the Light of Truth. We don't have to have to be willing, ever, to have stuff ripped away before we are ready. Nor do we need to feel guilty when we are not ready or when we want to keep stuff. The truth is you WILL NOT let go of stuff when you are not ready because you can't let go without being genuinely willing and ready. Holy Spirit knows that and that it would be a complete waste of time to 'force' you.

At some point, if we are to wake up to truth, we need to be willing to entertain the possibility that what we think is true might not be - and that something we denied or thought wasn't true might well be the truth. We've denied God and we need to reverse that. But to reverse it we have to question where we've put our sense of value, and we've put it into many things that aren't really the truth.

So maybe we value music. Most people do. Or nice sunsets. Or videos of puppies and kittens. If you go do those things, in light of what the Course says, the ego will say "if you do this you're not doing the Course, so you are guilty". The ego positions itself as Holy Spirit's right-hand man as if bestowing the punishment that allegedly would come from Holy Spirit for your failure to comply. Holy Spirit did not appoint the ego to do this, and you're not guilty. Being mistaken doesn't mean you're guilty or deserving punishment.

At some point though you might be willing to get closer to God, and that will mean opening up to a greater truth. And once you expose yourself to the greater truth, you're not going to be ABLE to go backwards. It will also show you, in light, that what you thought was true or valuable, is really actually not AS valuable as the real truth. It's not as meaningful. ONLY when you are able to see through what you thought was important and recognize it for what it really is - an illusion, nothing of value, a decoy, or a ridiculous ego scenario, you will then be ready and willing to let go of it. Stepping into the truth IS letting go of it.

There is no force involved. There is no coercion. There is no pressure. There is no guilt for not being ready. WHEN you are truly ready, there won't be anyone standing there telling its about goddam time you sacrificed already. You will, and can, only let go of stuff, when you AGREE that the stuff you're letting go of is NOT of value to you, and that what you've chosen instead IS of value (God's truth). When you can see clearly in LIGHT, it is obvious what is true and what is false - what is valuable and what is valueless. Then there is no struggle and no fight. Nobody's ripping stuff from you, and you're not having to just go cold-turkey on stuff you still feel attached to before you're ready.

So yes you can keep all your stuff and your behaviors and your beliefs and all of it as long as you want. Guilt free. AND, even when you realize that this stuff is not truly worthy of the Son of God, that doesn't mean anyone's going to say "see told you so" or try to make you stop doing those things. You can still watch TV if you want, or walk the dog, or eat food. But the important difference then is that you do not NEED to and you don't believe it is reality.

At some point, when you are ready, you WILL look at every stone and turn it over and realize the gifts the ego was offering versus the gifts God is offering, and you will gladly choose God's gifts, and you will gladly and effortlessly let go of the ego's gifts. This includes all of the ego's laws. It includes all of the things you think you NEED and WANT, other than GOD alone, in order to survive and exist and be happy. That includes needing to eat food, drink liquid, sleep, breathe air, or be a body at all. You might still do these things for a while, but a MASTER does not need any dependence on anything besides God.

To summarize, there is no guilt or punishment coming for your 'sinful' behavior of enjoying chocolate cake or watching movies. But your dependence on these things as your source of truth might be keeping you away from something far more magnificent, and eventually you might decide to change your mind about what you want. And when you're ready to do that, Holy Spirit is right there ready to take the opportunity to gently guide you forwards to see for yourself what it is you've been denying.

Ultimately because you are denying God you are denying yourself/depriving yourself of everything God offers, which is an absolutely huge blessing that you've rejected. Why deny yourself such magnificence and joy? Jesus might at this point prod us - "ask yourself, do you want your little trinkets the ego has to offer, or do you want the love of God?" And since is it GOD that you stand to GAIN when you let go of things of lesser meaning, YOU CAN'T LOSE.

Here's some quotes explaining why what ACIM terms as "the real world" IS NOT Heaven - they are two entirely difference "places" or experiences. The real world is firmly rooted in perception, Heaven is beyond perception, beyond Earth, beyond this universe, beyond bodies of any kind, and can only be known and experiences in real awareness. This is why "Heaven is an AWARENESS (not perception) of perfect Oneness".

You are to reach the "real world" first and then God will scoop you up into Heaven. But the real world, itself, is actually NOT REALITY, and is UNREAL. This terminology has confused many people. It merely means, "the world AS IT IS" (the "real" version of it) rather than your perceptual distortion about it. It's "relative" terminology, not absolute.

Also Heaven is still very DIFFERENT to Earth, due to the fact that even the real world and Earth are still illusions based on separation.

"THE REAL WORLD STILL IS BUT A DREAM. Except the figures have been changed. They are not seen as idols which betray. IT IS A DREAM in which no-one is used to substitute for something else, or interposed between the thoughts the mind conceives and what it sees. No-one is used for something he is not, for childish things have all been put away. And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into A DREAM where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love."

"Perception of the truth is not the same as KNOWING it."

"For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to oneness far beyond themselves."

"The world stands like a block before Christ’s face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

"Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God."

"For where God’s memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, NO BODIES"

"The Holy Spirit has no need of time when it has served His purpose. Now He waits but that one instant more for God to take His final step, and time has disappeared, taking perception with it as it goes, and leaving but the Truth to be Itself."

"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers."

"For, as your sleeping and your waking dreams represent the same wishes in YOUR mind, so do the real world and the truth of Heaven join in the Will of God. The dream of waking is easily transferred to its reality."

Here is where you move BEYOND THE REAL WORLD:

"Here (in the real world) are YOU forgiven, for here you have forgiven everyone. Here is the new PERCEPTION, where everything is bright and shining with innocence, washed in the waters of forgiveness, and cleansed of every evil thought you laid upon it. Here there is no attack upon the Son of God, and YOU are welcome. Here is your innocence, waiting to clothe you and protect you, and make you READY FOR the final step (to heaven) in the journey inward. Here are the dark and heavy garments of guilt laid by, and gently replaced by purity and joy.

Yet even forgiveness is NOT THE END. Forgiveness DOES make lovely, but it does NOT create. It IS the source of healing, but it is the MESSENGER of love, and NOTits Source. Here you are led, that God Himself can take the FINAL STEP unhindered. For here does nothing INTERFERE with love, letting it be Itself. A step BEYOND this holy place of forgiveness (beyond the real world). A step still FURTHER inward, but one you CANNOT take, transports you to something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT (heaven). Here is the SOURCE OF LIGHT; NOTHING PERCEIVED, forgiven, nor transformed. But merely KNOWN." (heaven).

Also

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange WORLD *YOU* MADE and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you that you might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. This is a day of gladness, for we come to the appointed time and place where you will find the goal of all your searching here and all the seeking of the world, WHICH ENDS together as you pass beyond the door."

Entry to heaven: "Put out your hand and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in dreams."

I haven't been focusing on miracles for a while, but kind of accidentally lately I've been finding myself exposed to some statements about miracles. I seem to be seeing them in a different light. Which is funny because "seeing in the light" is a big part of it.

There is one thing ACIM says fairly clearly and it's that miracles are ONLY seen in light. It also says miracles and vision are completely connected to each other. At times it also suggests miracles are so high in terms of states of consciousness, as to be right up at the christ level. Such as that the eyes of christ deliver them to all they look upon.

It also tells us that miracles, seen in light, are all over the place. A miracle stands next to what seemed to be a false perception, and these miracles are even there when we don't see them. We can block awareness of the miracles but that doesn't mean they're not there. And that suggests they are "ways of seeing."

I also found in experience recently that in one instance where I was driving behind a car and was about to scapegoat and then chose not to, kind of "holding back" the projection of guilt, Jesus called it a miracle. So then that got me thinking, what is a miracle really? We're also told that miracles and grievances are opposites. Also that ego-projection and miracles are opposites. So that tells us a bit about the state of mind or the activities of mind.

We're also told that miracles don't "do" anything, although we're also told they UNDO the interference that the ego was DOING. They "correct" the mind and sort of straighten out perceptions. They're also described as the translation of denial into truth. Also that miracles merely remind the mind of who the dreamer is, ie putting your awareness back in touch with you being causal and not seeing yourself as a victim or as in a position to scapegoat.

Miracles appear to be tied into true perceptions, as though they are glimpses of an accurate perception of something. But we're also told that they are thought creations, that they can energize others, that they can supply a lack. And that they are expressions of love. In prayer love is received, and in miracles love is expressed.

The impression I'm getting is that the love is coming down from a higher level ie heaven, and we are the open door who has to extend them. This is a sort of cause-effect chain, where God gives us the miracles and then we transfer them to others. As in "Miracles are a universal blessing from God through me to all my brothers."

If we are in a state of christ mind where we're fully open to the truth, then we are fully able to extend and pass on these miracles, these parcels of love. It's almost like they reflect the idea of creations, in which we are co-creating with God, extending God and paying forward what we've received. This is why you can only give the miracles you've received.

On the one hand it seems that a miracle is like a gift of love, a form of healing, which corrects the mind and lifts it up out of false perceptions into true perception. As stated in terms of miracles "entailing" a sudden shift into vertical perception. At the same time this gift of love has power and healing in it, as all love does, and so while it corrects your sight and you "see with the miracle" or through the miracle-sight, you also extend that love and power and it can cause things to happen.

Jesus also refers to them as examples of right thinking. Right thinking is sanity and true perception. Accuracy of thought and mind. These moments of clarity and non-attack and non-judgement and non-projection, recognize sinlessness ie as in forgiveness, and broadcast that wholeness of mind to the whole sonship. They are thus also expressions of holy relationship ie total unconditional relationship.

Since Jesus refers to them as thought-creations, and that thoughts can create higher or lower realities, these miracles are clearly a function of mind and thought, which includes power and love, as kind of acts of "higher dreaming". These miracles lift up the mind and heal it, as in "interceding for your holiness". And as a result you see correctly, and your correct seeing has corrective properties which can shine light into other minds and correct them.

Thinking of someone like Jesus in a state of christ-mind, or near to it, he was so sided with heaven's laws that he could constantly radiate and pass on that miraculousness at will. He could use the mind, in combination of thought and belief, and with the power of God behind it, to cause things to happen. And each of these were love-based expressions. Including raising the dead and healing the sick and moving mountains. The mind is just naturally miraculous and powerful when it's in its healed state.

So miracles are definitely tied to mind, and to seeing, and to light, and to forgiveness, and to giving and receiving, and to extension of God and love. They are acts, performances, expressions, doings, which emit out of the mind and are given and shared, as part of the natural outgoing of love and its unlimitedness. Someone miraculous has the light of God in their eyes and just sees everything with sparkling light and can effortlessly bestow blessings of supernatural transformation everywhere they go.

"The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and who calls on his brothers to do likewise."

If a miracle can be as simple as a right-minded non-attacking non-scapegoating non-projecting opposite to a grievance, where you "look and wait and judge not", in which you are being closer in alignment to how the Holy Spirit sees, then we're asked to basically get our mind-seeing into the light where it can bestow miracles all the time. Seeing forgiveness given to everything. Meeting all things with heavenly blessing.

Or something like that.