The wish to be unfairly treated is a compromise attempt that would COMBINE attack and innocence. Who can combine the wholly incompatible, and make a unity of what can NEVER join? Walk you the gentle way, and you will fear no evil and no shadows in the night. But place no terror symbols on the path, or you will weave a crown of thorns from which your brother and yourself will NOT escape. You CANNOT crucify yourself alone. And if you are unfairly treated, he MUST suffer the unfairness that you see. You CANNOT sacrifice yourself alone. For sacrifice is total. If it could occur at all, it would entail the whole of God's creation, and the Father with the sacrifice of his beloved Son.
In your RELEASE from sacrifice is HIS made manifest, and shown to be his own. But every pain you suffer do you see as proof that HE is guilty of attack. Thus would you make yourself to be the sign that he has LOST his innocence, and need but look on you to realize that HE has been condemned. And what to YOU has been unfair will come to HIM in righteousness. The unjust vengeance that you suffer now belongs to HIM, and when it RESTS on him, are YOU set free. Wish not to make yourself a living symbol of his guilt, for you will NOT escape the death you make for him, and in HIS innocence you find your own.
I used to think that "false empathy" meant when you are basically empathizing with someone, sympathizing, or sort of getting into their emotional drama etc....
Now I see it is more than that. It means really `joining` with someone in, and agreeing about, ANY kind of ego scenario, relating to ANY appearance or ANY illusion that covers up the immortal, God-created Real Self.
If a person comes along and is in any way demonstrating belief in being anything less than God created them, perfectly whole and holy and innocent and invulnerable, then that's an ego drama. If I go along with it, buy into it, join with them in it, participate in it, take it seriously, listen to it, judge it, engage with it or any of that, that's me entering into false empathy.
It's kind of like a false Oneness... a false joining, that says, I will join with you in a subjective illusion and pretend it is objectively real, and the two of us will then be 'infected' with this ego attitude and at least we'll agree with each other that this it the truth.
Real empathy then would entail absolutely not joining in ANY ego whatsoever, overlooking all ego, persona, and appearances, not believing in or taking seriously ANY presentation that runs against that (including anyone seeming to be sick, diseased, afraid, upset, etc)... holding the light, holding the truth, being a beacon, a leader, and strength that invites the other person to remember who they really are.
ACIM says of healing: "Forgiveness is not real unless it brings a healing to your brother and yourself. You must attest his sins have no effect on you to demonstrate they are not real. How else could he be guiltless? And how could his innocence be justified unless his sins have no effect to warrant guilt? Sins are beyond forgiveness just because they would entail effects that cannot be undone and overlooked entirely. In their undoing lies the proof that they are merely errors. Let yourself be healed that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother and yourself."
What this is saying is that when you fully believe the truth, that you are not a victim, that forgiveness has been performed, and that atonement has been claimed, there MUST be a DEMONSTRATION OF HEALING, in both yourself and your brother, to SHOW that what seemed to happen in sin has had NO REAL EFFECT.
This correlates with a part in the bible which says that signs must follow those who believe, meaning, supernatural manifestations of truth must be exhibited as proof that what you believe is true. Not just a belief intellectually, but a DEMONSTRATION.
"You must attest his sins have no effect on you to demonstrate they are not real."
If your brother does something to you and it has an effect on you, this proves his guilt. Jesus is asking us to prove his innocence, by not allowing such effects to be shown.
And just think about this:
"Forgiveness is not real unless it brings a healing to your brother and yourself."
Heaven = "Logical AND" e.g.
"I have everything, AND so do you"
"God is made of love, AND so am I"
Ego World = "Logical Exclusive OR"
In ego, no two objects share anything. You can say something like:
(ObjectA but NOT ObjectB) OR (ObjectB but NOT ObjectA)
The ego combines negation "NOT" in order to exclude, and combines it with selection between two things "OR", which doesn't allow for "BOTH", producing an "exclusive OR" - a fundamental state of inequality and difference.
When one thing is one way, it MUST be different to another thing, therefore the other thing is not the same. e.g.
"An apple is not an orange"
"Its either an apple or an orange but not both"
"I have the apple, therefore you do not"
This entire universe and all the "laws" within it are based on this ego logic of "exclusion".
The entirety of Heaven is based on the simple logic of "inclusion", which is the logical "AND" operation.
ACIM asks us to learn to "think like God": "To think like God is to share His certainty of what you are. And to CREATE like Him is to share the perfect love He shares with YOU. To this the Holy Spirit leads you, that your joy may be complete because the Kingdom of God is whole."
Wholeness, and sharing, entail "AND". We BOTH have everything. Me AND you. When it stops being AND and goes into "either or but not both", you're going into ego.
It should be obvious that Heaven is all about "inclusiveness" and Earth/this universe we made is all about "exclusiveness". That is why "Heaven and Earth are opposites in every way."
Denial can be used two ways.
1) Deny God's truth and replace it with lies.
2) Deny lies and replace it with God's truth.
One defends the ego and makes God unreal. The other defends God and makes the ego unreal.
Denial of God has progressed very far and is responsible for everything that happens in this world.
Denial of ego is the only way to resurrect and return to safety.
Sometimes, denial is combined with level confusion. When this happens, you use denial incorrectly in the name of thinking that it's making you more spiritual, but instead it's increasing separation.
Denial of the body for example could go one of two ways. You could deny that it is real, which is correct, if done as a recognition that it is unreal and not as an attack on it seeming to be real.
Or, you could be believing the body is real and attempt to PRETEND it is not there, by using denial to attack it to try to make it go away. This will separate you from it and produce sickness, instead of transcending it.
In other words, denial needs to be used honestly and with clarity. If you are "in denial" about how you are using denial, that can be a problem.
Proper use of denial will entail a clear RECOGNITION of what something IS, without avoiding it or pretending to make it into something it is NOT.
Clear perception of what the ego is, what the body is, what illusions are, is all that is needed in order to "deny the ego". MISTAKEN perception will lead to the improper use of denial, because it means you see the ego as real instead of an illusion, and will then use denial to fight with it to try to make it go away.
When you are sick or someone is sick or has any other problem, you need to be careful about your desire to heal it.
Having perceived something that you think is real, you WILL have a reaction to it. The reaction is PART of the misperception which led to you believing something real was happening in the first place. The reaction WILL entail fear because you must be afraid when you witness something that you think is real but is not.
So your reaction might compel you to want to "do something" to fix it, heal it, change it, make it go away, etc. And based on that motivation, you might go either way... you might either:
a) Continue making it real and react to it and try to force it out of your life. This will make it even more real, keep it, empower it, and is a further attack on you and the person.
b) Stop and realize you need to apply forgiveness, retrace your psychological steps, and undo the faulty perception which led to this reaction. THEN you might be in a position to offer a miracle.
So just be careful where you're coming from. You turn into a false savior when you think there is a real problem to solve.
The challenge you have is to NOT believe there is a real problem, to demolish and dismantle every trace of belief that the problem is happening, get your perception corrected so that you can see the truth, and recognize that NOTHING has happened. The illusion is not real. And then you are in a position of appropriate sanity and power to bring about miracles if needed.
This means, you need to get into a really unconditionally loving place within yourself, and feel that love in your heart. It is NATURAL for miracles to occur when you do so, like they are practically effortless.
But when the Course talks about love it doesn't just mean the degree of love you can experience as a separate ego self. It means GOD, all of God, as all the love there is. The power of love. Which is beyond all other powers. That love inspires miracles. And those miracles MUST entail sharing and extending love to another.
It's not something that occurs because you stand on the opposite side of the street to someone and think fondly of them, or decide to lift your sins off their shoulders in an act of forgiveness.
Miracles EXPRESS love, which is a power, which is directed by intelligent Spirit, and which heal every aspect of existence. Miracles are ACTS OF GOD. Mind, body, emotions, finances, relationships, employment, social unrest, war, you name it, all healable.
This all comes naturally when there is love being extended.
A miracle is then like a kind of 'glow' of spiritual power, of unconditional love, which expresses and radiates and shines with such intensity that it has authority over all darkness and illusions and literally corrects all faults and errors, restoring a divine order.
God is involved in miracles because God is love.
This has nothing to do with your mental somersaults or thought-therapy. It only has to do with love.
Miracles can only properly be understood from the perspective of looking "down" from a higher vantage point, a vantage point of unconditional love.
They cannot so easily be understood when lookup "up" from below, as one who is attempting to awaken. Those awakening do not understand love and cannot grasp or experience how a single thing - an expression of love - could encompass the entire scope of what miracles entail.
They are nothing more than emissions of love, coming from a higher level to a lower level, causing that which is lower to be raised up and brought back into the light. In doing so, "the dead" are raised back up to life.
It's all about the love. Real love, not special love.
Miracles of love are expressed from above to below "like drops of healing rain" which give life back to starved and thirsty creatures, restoring "life" where there appeared to be death.
Love is life-giving. Love has healing power. Love can undo and cancel the entire ego illusion, and everything to do with bodies and worlds.
Miracles are a heart-felt love expressed in softness and gentleness and depth, innocent yet strong, unhidden yet powerful. These expressions of love are like a healing balm for the mind, immediately loosening and dissolving all forms of lack.
Miracles supply a lack of love, with love, so that the life-giving presence of God is restored, producing healing. All forms of sickness come from a lack of love, ie separation from love, so miracles repair the lack and provide "life", producing health where there once was sickness and loss.
Miracles are the light which shine away all darkness with their presence. Nothing can withstand them. They know no order of difficulty because all expressions of love are maximum love - whole love, full love.
Love can be expressed to others and instantly provide the lack of love they've been experiencing, producing instantaneous healing. All suffering is the absence of love. Miracles express love in order to undo the absence of God.
God heals.
The Course talks about the development of trust. What is that?
Well, at first you trust the ego and its false truth. You don't trust God, and you don't trust the real truth. You have trust, it's just misplaced.
Trust is the same thing as faith which means, that you learn over time that God's truth is true and the ego's truth is not true. Also you learn that God's truth can be trusted, and you come to learn that the ego that you used to trust is actually not trustworthy.
The ego's trust is based on you being unaware of its motives and the side-effects of believing in it. It wants you to think its your friend. It wants you to think it is cohesive and makes sense and is sane. It doesn't want you to see the ways in which it does stuff which undermines its trustworthiness.
While the ego has the wool pulled over your eyes you will trust it. You'll trust everything about it. You'll trust your senses. You'll trust the idea that you are a physical body. You'll trust your body's senses, your memory, your perceptions. You'll trust that the world is really happening.
But these are in fact forms of mis-trust in God, because to have so-called trust in illusions is to not trust at all.
Learning to trust God means that you become convinced that God's way is the truth, that you can depend on it, that you rely on it, and that you want it. And that HAS to entail you relinquishing your trust in the ego's version of reality.
You have to to unlearn the trust you've placed in the ego in order to reveal the trustworthiness of God.
God can be trusted because God is love and wants only to love and support you. The ego can't be trusted because it is the anti-christ and would like you to cooperate with its plan of death. It's a slight difference.
As you gain trust in God's truth, you begin to seriously question trusting the ego's world. And that means when the ego makes shit happen you have trust in God moreso than the appearance of what's happening. You trust God more than events suggest you should. You ignore what the ego is screaming at you through all your senses, and listen within instead. That's having faith. Faith is trust.
It's safe to trust God.
Honesty is the basic machinery of awakening. It means you have a willingness to accept what is true regardless of whether it suits your ego or makes you look good. It means putting the truth before your own personal position, and being willing to be seen in its light.
All parts of any forgiveness process entail honesty. You have to be honest to admit to and discern what is true and what is false. You have to be honest with yourself in accepting responsibility for having chosen everything you are experiencing. And it takes a lot of honesty to admit that you are not being victimized by anyone but yourself.
So honesty is really all about putting aside all of the ego pursuits, perspectives, and self-serving and face-saving attitudes, which are really all *lies*, and owning up to what's really going on. It's a matter of owning up to what is real rather than what you want to make of the situation.
Honestly also requires us to surrender every ego activity that we're using to try to win favor or defend ourselves or make ourselves look better. It means being what you really are, admitting to what really is, and accepting reality without you changing it.
Honesty is the best policy, because it is sanity. It is awakening. It is awareness of truth. It is allowing and accepting God's nature and presence. Sometimes it will take for you to really examine what you're doing and why and to have a 'little willingness' to admit the ways that you're mistaken or are trying to deceive. So really it all boils down to... is it really true... is it really factually real and true as in Holy Spirit's truth.... or is it false.
Honesty is the truth. Dishonesty is the lies.
So if we're to wake up to God and truth and reality, we're going to have to be really really really really really completely willingly honest at all times. Otherwise we're kidding ourselves, and fooling ourselves, and deceiving ourselves, and then we are the ones who end up suffering.
In all honesty, we are still as God created us. It we are willing to completely admit and accept that, it's game over for the ego.
Honesty gives you access to the truth which sets you free.