In A Course in Miracles, Jesus speaks of the face of innocence. This is an aspect of the ego identity which tends to side with "positivity" and "being good" and "people pleasing" and trying to portray itself as innocent, harmless, even weak and frail. This face of innocence is "the innocent victim", and sides with victims. The illusion of innocence is there to cover up secret hidden desires to attack and victimize. And the innocent face is a way to pretend you are not the cause of anything that happens.
In psychological terms the face of innocence is what we also call "the persona". It's part of the split mind. It's a device we use to only accept that which appears to be acceptable, positive, good, desirable, etc. But it also acts like a knife, splitting the mind and rejecting parts that it finds not good enough. It is in fact a way that the mind attacks itself by identifying aspects which are unacceptable and dissociating from them. This places them into the "shadow" behind walls of denial (blocks to awareness). It is perfectionistic, because it always asserts that you are not perfect enough.
Jesus: "The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that it appears to be. For it is made to serve two purposes, but one of which the mind can recognize. The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted ON. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes offers solace. It believes that it is good, within an evil world. This aspect can grow angry, for the world is wicked, and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears, at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good."
"This aspect NEVER makes the first attack. But every day a hundred little things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to irritation, and at last to open insult and abuse."
He goes on to describe how this face of innocence covers up a terrible secret. That behind this "special love" there is "special hate". Underlying the face of innocence and the innocent victim, is an attack and judgement and condemnation. And in it, others stand accused of sinning against you. The face becomes a way to portray oneself as "at the effect of the world", such that if it appears to be the innocent party, then others must stand accused at the slightest provocation. It is a device for scapegoating.
"Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach. It is a lesson in a terrible displacement, and a fear so devastating that the face which smiles above it must forever look away, lest it perceive the treachery it hides. The lesson teaches this; "I am the thing you made of me, and as you look on me you stand condemned, because of what I am." On this conception of the self the world smiles with approval, for it guarantees the pathways of the world are safely kept, and those who walk on them will not escape."
Behind the innocent face therefore, there is a hidden accusation that others are sinful, and the face is held up as a mask ready to "receive" their attack, like a trap. The face is easily offended and easily upset by the world and the acts of others, as it was designed to be. It is produced by the condemnation of oneself, the partitioning off of parts of self as "evil", hiding this from ones own awareness (in the shadow) and then projecting it onto others. Thus behind the face of innocence there is judgement and condemnation, unforgiveness and victimization of others.
"Here is the central lesson that ensures your brother is condemned eternally. For what YOU are has now become his sin. For this is no forgiveness possible. No longer does it matter what he does, for your accusing finger points to him, unwavering and deadly in its aim. It points to you as well, but this is kept still deeper in the mists below the face of innocence. And in these shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved, and kept in darkness, where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would surely show. "
False innocence is not real innocence. It's a mask that people wear to pretend to be spiritual or holier than thou. It is not authentic and isn't your self. It's a disguise, designed to make you look like the innocent one so that you are not identified as the source of guilt. Always the ego takes steps to DENY what it does, to deny your soul, to deny even that you sinned, to deny that you are even guilty, resulting in the production of a facade which hides your own guilt from you. You will then "look" innocent but only in appearance, and no-one would suspect you are the one who is attacking.
The persona and the shadow - the accepted parts of self and the rejected parts of self, are the two halves of the split mind. You keep the rejected parts in darkness because, if they were brought into the light, you would see that the mind is one, not two. And this would heal and undo the split, removing both the persona and the shadow. And it is this the persona avoids at all costs.
"Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking, whereby two systems of belief, which CANNOT coexist, are BOTH MAINTAINED. It HAS BEEN recognized that, if they were BROUGHT TOGETHER, their joint acceptance WOULD become impossible. But, if one is kept in darkness FROM THE OTHER, their SEPARATION seems to keep them both alive, and equal in their reality. Their JOINING thus becomes the source of fear, for, if they meet, acceptance MUST be withdrawn from one of them."
"The light of guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are BROUGHT TOGETHER, the truth of one MUST make the falsity of its OPPOSITE perfectly clear. "
"WHAT DO YOU WANT? Light or darkness, knowledge or ignorance are yours, but not both. Opposites must be brought together, and not kept apart. For their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by union, as YOU are. In union, everything that is not real MUST disappear, for truth IS union. As darkness disappears in light, so ignorance fades away when knowledge dawns."
If you see yourself as being victimised in any way, mistreated, not respected, attacked, hurt, threatened, judged, abused, terrorised, not recognised, hated, left out, invalidated, accused, misrepresented, subject to racism or sexism or homophobia, in any other way somehow slighted or offended by anyone OTHER than yourself, they your ego has formed a FACE OF INNOCENCE, and you ARE in heavy denial!
This face of innocence is a facade the ego wears to DENY AND COVER UP the internal guilt, to hide itself from itself in self-hate. The internal guilt is denied, so that it is not even recognised as existing at all within you, and is then projected. It is then seen IN AND AS everyone else other than oneself. It then appears that everyone but yourself is doing something TO YOU against your will that is un-asked for and undeserved.
This projection of guilt and ego frames you as an innocent victim of it in OTHER people, which in turn justifies an angry counter-response - since you see yourself as doing absolutely nothing wrong at all, which points a further finger - a second layer of projection - designed to hide the first, to further reinforce the ways that other people have obviously sinned, been guilty, committed evil acts, failed to live up to standards, or any other way that they are defective.
The "mask" of innocence is worn as a face psychologically, really a disguise, as part of the ego. And it is especially part of the spiritualised ego. Having denied that oneself believes oneself to be guilty - which is still an ongoing internal belief - on sees oneself as "not guilty", and thus innocent. But this is a fake innocence covering up a persistent guilt. The guilt is then projected onto others and associated with them, as though attached to them and part of them.
It is particularly viciously reinforced by an increased level of anger and resentment, as a REACTION to what is now perceived as something other people are doing to you and not you doing to them. The more you feel justified in anger the more you project even more separation and increase the sense of dis-association between you and the guilt. This is designed to make sure it seems that you have nothing to do with the guilt, and it is entirely associated with someone other than yourself. The more this is believed the more unconscious you become as a helpless victim.
What this entails really is self attack, which began long before the projection of guilt. Self and self innocence were denied, producing an accusation against oneself as an attack upon oneself. This is a denial of self as God created you. This is an opinion of oneself - an ego view of oneself - that is far short of the divine holy self that God created you as.
This vicious self-attack produces guilt, inferiority, judgement, self-hate, and various other forms of self destructive behaviour. This is DENIED, which makes it seem largely unconscious or at least disowned and "not part of me". And the result of this is projection. It is given away in order to try to make it not be a part of oneself, or within one's mind. It is seen as "outside" the mind, external to the self (body perimeter), as though literally someone other than oneself, seen as an inherent built-in permanent PART OF someone else. And now it is THEY who are guilty and full of sin.
The result of this is then the formation of a face - a facade - a persona - a cover-up face of innocence, which sees itself AS innocent, but with fake innocence. This fake innocence is shallow and is merely a smokescreen to hide the self-hate that is behind it. Thus self-denying person then believes they are doing no wrong, asking for no harm, doing nothing to hurt others, and are completely benevolent, yet conveniently also are experiencing being "unfairly treated" as a victim. And this of course, if it were true, means anger is completely justified and everyone else should die for THEIR sins against the innocence.
The fact is however that this still remains a SELF ATTACK, because the mind is still hating itself, still believes it is guilty, does not want to admit to this, is IN DENIAL, and refuses to even look at what is being denied. The unwillingness to look at the denied guilt is because of the belief that IT IS THERE, and that it is dark and real and terrible. And the ego DOES believe that you are full of sin. So instead of looking within, it looks without, to find the guilt there instead.
Once the guilt is denied and projected there forms an extremely long lists of all the sins, errors, guilts, mistakes, faults, weaknesses, defects, horrors, and various other forms of unholiness that are regarded as the truth about OTHER people, and not oneself. And THEIR guilt and sinfulness is kept apart from YOURS, so that you are in no way associated with it, and can maintain an illusion of being the innocent one.
Being subject to an incredibly long list of things other people are doing wrong, and thus attacked and victimised BY, is DESIRED AND CHOSEN, so that the face of innocence can be maintained. Even if it seem to hurt oneself to do so, and even if one has to be willing to BE victimised - or so it may appear on the surface - this is ACCEPTED as the natural cost of being able to find someone else to be the fall guy for the guilt.
We even in the extremes are willing to be attacked, hurt, made to be sick, destroyed and killed off, if it will mean that someone ELSE can be accused of sin. And then we can say, "brother by your hand I die." This means that we literally are willing to suffer, be sick, and die, if it means the sick body can accuse someone ELSE of causing it to be the way it is, so that the mind can be exonerated of the sin IT believes it has committed against self, others and God.
But not for an instant does the guilt leave your own mind, not for an instant does your mind truly become healed of it, not for an instant do you escape what is being denied, not for an instant do your accusations of other people's wrongfulness NOT target you, not for an instant do you escape the murderous consequences, and not for an instant do you get away with NOT being hurt by the projections. Yet alone the fact that you then hurt yourself through other people due to the way that you see them as causing you to be hurt, which you want.
Ultimately this means that this whole mechanism is STILL a way of attacking and destroying yourself, of hurting yourself, and that you are doing this to yourself. This is the secret of salvation. Recognizing that it is YOU who is accusing yourself of guilt, it is YOU who is projecting the guilt, it is YOU who is in denial, it is YOU who does not want to admit to wearing a face of innocence, it is YOU who wants to be a victim, and it is YOU who keeps using people to attack yourself. And not once do you really WANT it to stop, because that would mean having to be more honest, stop scapegoating, look within at the guilt, and undo it. Those who are dissatisfied with OTHERS, are incredibly dissatisfied with THEMSELVES.
"Only the self-accused condemn."
"You but accuse your brother of your own sins."
"Projection will ALWAYS hurt you. It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is to KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING. It is solely a device of the ego to make you feel DIFFERENT from your brothers and separated FROM them. The ego justifies this on the wholly spurious grounds that it makes you seem better than they are, thus obscuring equality WITH them still further."
And if you think you are not condemning yourself and it is only others that are condemning you, you ESPECIALLY are doing this. Your denial can be very strong and it can make it seem like you are not doing anything wrong AT ALL, that you have never chosen or provoked the slightest attack, and it is entirely everyone ELSE on your list of sins that has failed to measure up to God's standards.
Admitting to all this takes a greater willingness to be honest, to stop attacking yourself, to stop hating yourself, to stop projecting blame onto others, to stop believing that other people are the guilty ones, to stop judging others as the ones with egos, and to be far deeper in the willingness to look at WHAT YOU ARE DENYING. Because only by admitting that you are denying how much YOU hate yourself, are you going to ever stop finding a thousand ways to encourage others to hate you FOR you.
Projection of guilt simply keeps the separation going, and the ego absolutely loves that, as it hides behind its wall of "I'm completely innocent, I'm not doing anything to myself." You are trying to destroy yourself. Look at that! And stop doing it.
"The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that it appears to be. For it is made to serve two purposes, but one of which the mind can recognize. The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted ON. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes offers solace. It believes that it is good, within an evil world. This aspect can grow angry, for the world is wicked, and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears, at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good.
This aspect NEVER makes the first attack. But every day a hundred little things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to irritation, and at last to open insult and abuse. The face of innocence the concept of the self so proudly wears can tolerate attack in self-defense, for is it not a well-known fact the world deals harshly with defenseless innocence? No-one who makes a picture of himself omits this face, for he has need of it. The other side he does not want to see. But it is here the learning of the world has set its sights. For it is here the world's reality is set, to see to it the idol lasts.
Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach. It is a lesson in a terrible displacement, and a fear so devastating that the face which smiles above it must forever look away, lest it perceive the treachery it hides. The lesson teaches this; "I am the thing you made of me, and as you look on me you stand condemned, because of what I am." On this conception of the self the world smiles with approval, for it guarantees the pathways of the world are safely kept, and those who walk on them will not escape.
Here is the central lesson that ensures your brother is condemned eternally. For what YOU are has now become his sin. For this is no forgiveness possible. No longer does it matter what he does, for your accusing finger points to him, unwavering and deadly in its aim. It points to you as well, but this is kept still deeper in the mists below the face of innocence. And in these shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved, and kept in darkness, where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would surely show. You can be neither BLAMED for what you are, nor can you CHANGE the things it makes you do. And you are each the symbol of your sins to one another, silently, and yet with ceaseless urgency condemning still your brother for the hated thing you are.
That you are what your brother made of you seems most unlikely. Even if he did, who gave the face of innocence to you? Is this YOUR contribution? Who is, then, the "you" who made it? And who is deceived by all your goodness, and attacks it so? Let us forget the concept's foolishness, and merely think of this; there are two parts to what you think yourself to be. If one was generated by your brother, who was there to make the other? And from whom must something be kept hidden? If the world be evil, there is still no need to hide what YOU are made of. Who is there to see? And what but is attacked could NEED defense?"
If you meet a person who complains a lot, they frame themselves as a victim and then tell you all the many many ways that someone or some group of people are wrong. They go on and on and on and on and on endlessly. And meanwhile you feel like you are being held hostage and can't get away and you can't shut them up. And then as you try to leave, they follow you and keep on going with their diatribe.
What's happening is the person is full of guilt and shame and secretly condemns themselves a lot. They see themselves as victimised by all the many things in the world that they seem to not like. But they are not being spiritually responsible, for their experiences and feelings, so constantly accuse the world of causing it. They feel justified in pointing a finger of blame and listing off all the many sins they see outside themselves, but really because they themselves believe they are sinful. They hate themselves, so they like to hate others. Their shit don't stink, and they portray themselves as always idyllic and harmless and justified in being righteous.
The payoff for them is that if they can project their sins onto other people and find everyone to be guilty, it makes them have a certain sense of psychological relief from the heavy burden of their own hidden guilts. They get to come off as innocent and not like those who sin, separated off from them, and therefore not the guilty one. It produces an illusion that they believe they are not guilty, which is a form of denial.
Meanwhile, the more that they do this, the more they are basically imprisoning others. They are projecting their own imprisonment, and in effect really see themselves as imprisoned by their own guilt. They are locked in and stuck in their own confinement, so are expressing confinement to you. And that makes you feel like you are being locked in confinement. Whether or not they actually target you or complain about something you are believing or doing, it doesn't matter, because they want your indirect acknowledgement that they're right and that you are bearing witness to their innocence.
So long as you agree with them, don't stop them, allow them to spew, and go along with it as though condoning it and not challenging it, they will keep going and never end. They find validation by your passive receipt of it. Meanwhile their condemning blaming imprisoning vibe can make you feel like you're being held hostage and that the other person is using you, like you're chained to them and have to hear the long list of sins, so that they'll feel better about themselves. They don't want to let you go or be free because they won't be able to scapegoat and get rid of their guilt. It's really a guilt dump onto you so that they feel better, in illusion.
There is another way that this plays out. I've noticed if someone sees themselves as a victim and isn't being spiritually responsible, they'll believe that things you personally do make them feel unpleasant, guilty, shameful etc. They will then accuse you of being the cause of their suffering, even though they did it to themselves by taking something personally. They will twist what you said and use it against you as though you caused them to have a reaction. And now they'll start to get angry at you and scapegoat you and demand an apology.
This becomes a form of intimidation, where responsibility has been shifted, and now you supposedly are responsible for making them feel better. They hold what they did to themselves against you, and now you feel like it's your fault, you feel guilty, and now you feel like you have to atone or make it up to them. You have to now grovel and lower yourself and make an apology, after which they grin with delight that they forced it out of you and made themselves feel superior.
It becomes a kind of tyrannical relationship of control and blame, where you are accused of causing them what they're supposed to be responsible for. You feel imprisoned by this accusation, and supposedly guilty for causing them. They get this angry strong opinion about how you're wrong. They totally depend externally on someone apologising or meeting their needs or sucking up to them, in order for them to feel better, because they are not being responsible for how they feel. They depend externally on this positive feedback and getting positivity from others, to make up for their lack of responsibility for feeling shit. And meanwhile they judge the living shit out of everyone and everything.
So then you start to feel obligated and held hostage and like you can't tell them they're wrong. Since they depend so heavily on external validation, you also sense that if you were to say anything against them or that they might take as an attack or that they might think of as not validating their bullshit, they will become even more angry and negative and scapegoating, and then they'll become a big monster and do something even more threatening and aggressive and controlling. So then you become afraid that they'll have power over you, control you, manipulate you, and that you're not good enough.
This kind of person is so victimy and so dependent on externals and so believing the physical world and generally likely atheistic and non-spiritual, such that they act like a gatekeeper and superior person whose opinion has to be requested on all matters. Like they are really important and special. And if you agree with them they shower you with ultra positivity and loveliness, and if they don't agree with you they go into an angry pout mode and become aggressive.
The special love flips to special hate. So now it's very hard to question their motives or to point out their flaws or to push back on their strong opinion because you know they'll just go into attack mode and make you an enemy. So instead they get to stay in a kind of 'everything's wonderful' state of illusion and fake special love relationship and dishonesty and irresponsibility, acting like they have the face of innocence all pleasant and nice to everyone, only to become an enraged monster when anyone points out their bullshit.
Either way you can end up feeling held hostage by someone's ego, with demands that you act a certain way, or indirectly demands that others act a certain way, in order for them to be happy. It can be difficult to stand up to and to draw a boundary with these people, to stop them from their spewing or to raise doubts about their motives. In both cases the person is a scapegoater, a judger and a hater of the things in the world that they consider wrong.
They segment the world into positives and negative, side heavily with what they like and side heavily against what they don't like. This is a spilritualizaiton of the world, an attempt by their egos to make out that some parts of the illusion are better than others, and leads to believing that they themselves are better than others. In their siding with the face of innocence they become overpowering and seeing themselves as holier than thou. In effect, those who portray themselves as the innocent victims tend to be the most vicious accusers.
"The partly innocent are apt to be quite stupid at times." UrT3D3
"This is particularly unfortunate, because frightened people are apt to be vicious" UrT3C15
"The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted ON. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes offers solace. It believes that it is good, within an evil world. This aspect can grow angry, for the world is wicked, and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears, at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good." UrT31E2
"Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach. It is a lesson in a terrible displacement, and a fear so devastating that the face which smiles above it must forever look away, lest it perceive the treachery it hides. The lesson teaches this; "I am the thing you made of me, and as you look on me you stand condemned, because of what I am." UrT31E4
"I ask Your blessing on my sight today. It is the means which You have chosen to become the way to show me my mistakes, and look beyond them. It is given me to find a new perception through the Guide You gave to me. And through His lessons to surpass perception and return to truth. I ask for the illusion which transcends all those I made. Today I choose to see a world forgiven, in which everyone shows me the face of Christ, and teaches me that what I look upon belongs to me; that nothing is, except Your holy Son."
Today our sight is blessed indeed. We share one vision, as we look upon the face of Him Whose Self is ours. We are one because of Him Who is the Son of God; of Him Who is our own Identity.
What would you see, WITHOUT the fear of death? What would you feel and think, if death held NO attraction for you? Very simply, YOU WOULD REMEMBER YOUR FATHER. The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives, the Father of the Universe, and of the Universe of universes, and of everything that lies even BEYOND them, would you remember. And, as this Memory rises in your mind, peace must still surmount a final obstacle, AFTER which is salvation completed, and the Son of God ENTIRELY restored to sanity. For here, your world DOES end.
The fourth obstacle to be surmounted, hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. Yet, as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to JOIN with Him at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ Himself like to a leper's, and the bright rays of His Father's Love which light His face with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light BEYOND it, when the fear of death is gone.
This is the darkest veil, -- upheld by the belief in death, and protected by its attraction. The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is but the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego, never to lift this veil, not to approach it, nor even to SUSPECT that it is there. This is the secret bargain, made with the ego, to keep what lies BEYOND the veil forever blotted out and unremembered. Here is your promise never to allow union to call you OUT of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of God seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of your Self from you; THE FEAR OF GOD, the final step in your dissociation.
See how the belief in death would seem to 'save' you. For, if this is gone, what can you fear but life? It is the attraction of death that makes life seem to be ugly, cruel, and tyrannical. You are no more afraid of death than of the ego. These are your chosen FRIENDS. For, in your secret alliance with them, you have agreed never to let the fear of God be lifted, so you could look upon the face of Christ, and join Him in His Father. Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way; the fear that RAISED it yields to the love beneath, and so the fear is gone. And so it is with this.
The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit FROM you, fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Him. The exaltation of the body is given up in favor of the Spirit, which you love as you could NEVER love the body. And the appeal of death is lost forever, as love's attraction stirs and calls to you. From BEYOND each of these OBSTACLES to love, Love Itself has called, and each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies BEYOND. Your WANTING fear SEEMED to be holding them in place. Yet, when you heard the voice of love BEYOND them, you answered, and they disappeared.
And now you stand in terror before what you swore never to look upon. Your eyes look down, remembering your promise to your "friends." The "loveliness" of sin; the delicate appeal of guilt, the "holy" waxen image of death, and the fear of vengeance of the ego you swore in blood not to desert, all rise and bid you NOT to raise your eyes. For you realize that if you look on THIS, and LET the veil be lifted, THEY WILL BE GONE FOREVER. All of your "friends," your "protectors," and your "home," will vanish. Nothing that you remember NOW, will you remember.
It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you, if you but raise your eyes. Yet all that WILL occur is YOU will leave the world forever. This is the re-establishment of YOUR will. Look upon it, open-eyed, and you will nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things BEYOND you, forces you can NOT control, and thoughts that come to you AGAINST your will. It IS YOUR WILL TO LOOK ON THIS. No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear, nor the cold sweat of seeming death, CAN stand against your will. And what attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it, and COMPLETELY One.
The learning of the world is built upon a concept of the self adjusted to the world's reality. It fits it well. For this an image is that suits a world of shadows and illusions. Here it walks at home, where what it sees is one with it. The building of a concept of the self is what the learning of the world is FOR. This is its purpose; that you come WITHOUT a self, and MAKE one as you go along. And by the time you reach "maturity," you have perfected it to meet the world on equal terms, at one with its demands. A concept of the self is made by YOU. It bears NO likeness to yourself at all. It is an idol, made to take the place of your reality as Son of God.
The concept of the self the world would teach is not the thing that it appears to be. For it is made to serve two purposes, but one of which the mind can recognize. The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted ON. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes offers solace. It believes that it is good, within an evil world. This aspect can grow angry, for the world is wicked, and unable to provide the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with tears, at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and good.
This aspect NEVER makes the first attack. But every day a hundred little things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to irritation, and at last to open insult and abuse. The face of innocence the concept of the self so proudly wears can tolerate attack in self-defense, for is it not a well-known fact the world deals harshly with defenseless innocence? No-one who makes a picture of himself omits this face, for he has need of it. The other side he does not want to see. But it is here the learning of the world has set its sights. For it is here the world's reality is set, to see to it the idol lasts.
Beneath the face of innocence there is a lesson that the concept of the self was made to teach. It is a lesson in a terrible displacement, and a fear so devastating that the face which smiles above it must forever look away, lest it perceive the treachery it hides. The lesson teaches this; "I am the thing you made of me, and as you look on me you stand condemned, because of what I am." On this conception of the self the world smiles with approval, for it guarantees the pathways of the world are safely kept, and those who walk on them will not escape.
Here is the central lesson that ensures your brother is condemned eternally. For what YOU are has now become his sin. For this is no forgiveness possible. No longer does it matter what he does, for your accusing finger points to him, unwavering and deadly in its aim. It points to you as well, but this is kept still deeper in the mists below the face of innocence. And in these shrouded vaults are all his sins and yours preserved, and kept in darkness, where they cannot be perceived as errors, which the light would surely show. You can be neither BLAMED for what you are, nor can you CHANGE the things it makes you do. And you are each the symbol of your sins to one another, silently, and yet with ceaseless urgency condemning still your brother for the hated thing you are.
Concepts are learned. They are not natural. Apart from learning they do not exist. They are not given, and they must be made. Not one of them is true, and many come from feverish imaginations, hot with hatred and distortions born of fear. What is a concept but a thought to which its maker gives a meaning of his own? Concepts maintain the world. But they can NOT be used to demonstrate the world is real. For all of them are made WITHIN the world, born in its shadow, growing in its ways, and finally "maturing" in its thought. They are ideas of idols painted with the brushes of the world, which cannot make a single picture representing truth.
A concept of the self is meaningless, for no-one here can see what it is for, and therefore cannot picture what it IS. Yet is all learning that the world directs begun and ended with the single aim of teaching you this concept of yourself, that you will choose to follow this world's laws, and never seek to go BEYOND its roads, nor realize the way you see yourself. Now must the Holy Spirit find a way to help you see this concept of the self must be undone, if ANY peace of mind is to be given you. Nor can it be unlearned except by lessons aimed to teach that you are something else. For otherwise, you would be asked to make exchange of what you now believe for total loss of self. And greater terror would arise in you.
Thus are the Holy Spirit's lesson plans arranged in easy steps, that, though there be some lack of ease at times, and some distress, there is no shattering of what was learned, but just a re-translation of what seems to be the evidence on its behalf. Let us consider, then, what proof there is that you are what your brother made of you. For even though you do not yet perceive that this is what you think, you surely learned by now that you BEHAVE as if it were. Does he REACT for you? And did he know exactly what would happen? Could he see your future, and ordain before it came what you should do in EVERY circumstance? He must have made the world as well as you, to have such prescience in the things to come.
That you are what your brother made of you seems most unlikely. Even if he did, who gave the face of innocence to you? Is this YOUR contribution? Who is, then, the "you" who made it? And who is deceived by all your goodness, and attacks it so? Let us forget the concept's foolishness, and merely think of this; there are two parts to what you think yourself to be. If one was generated by your brother, who was there to make the other? And from whom must something be kept hidden? If the world be evil, there is still no need to hide what YOU are made of. Who is there to see? And what but is attacked could NEED defense?
Perhaps the reason why this concept must be kept in darkness is that, in the light, the one who would not think it true is YOU. And what would happen to the world you know, if all its underpinnings were removed? Your concept of the world DEPENDS upon this concept of the self. And BOTH would go, if either one were ever raised to doubt. The Holy Spirit does not seek to throw you into panic. So He merely asks if just a LITTLE question might be raised. There ARE alternatives about the thing that you must be. You might, for instance, be the thing you chose to have your BROTHER be.
This shifts the concept of the self from what is wholly passive, and at least makes way for active choice, and some acknowledgment that interaction must have entered in. There is some understanding that you chose for BOTH of you, and what he represents has meaning that was given it by YOU. It also shows some glimmering of sight into perception's law that what you see reflects the state of the PERCEIVER's mind. Yet who was it that did the choosing first? If you are what you chose your brother be, alternatives were there to choose between, and someone must have first decided on the one to choose, and let the others go.
Although this step has gains, it does not yet approach a basic question. Something must have gone BEFORE these concepts of the self. And something must have done the learning which gave rise to them. Nor can this be explained by either view. The main advantage of the shifting to the second from the first is that you somehow entered in the choice by YOUR decision. But this gain is paid in almost equal loss, for now YOU stand accused of guilt for what your BROTHER is. And you must SHARE his guilt, because you chose it FOR him, in the image of your own. While ONLY he was treacherous before, now must YOU be condemned along with him.
The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world. And everyone believes that he must find the answer to the riddle of himself. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the ESCAPE from concepts. It does not concern itself with content of the mind, but with the simple statement THAT IT THINKS. And what can think has choice, and CAN be shown that different thoughts have different consequence. And it can learn that EVERYTHING it thinks reflects the deep confusion that it feels about how it was made, and what it is. And vaguely does the concept of the self appear to answer what it does not know.
Seek not your Self in symbols. There can be no concept that can stand for what you are. What matters it which concept you accept, while you perceive a self which interacts with evil, and reacts to wicked things? Your concept of yourself will still remain quite meaningless. And you will not perceive that you can interact but with yourself. To see a guilty world is but the sign your learning has been guided by the world, and you behold it as you see yourself. The concept of the self embraces all you look upon, and NOTHING is outside of this perception. If you can be hurt by ANYTHING, you see a picture of your secret wishes. Nothing more than this. And in your suffering of ANY kind, you see your own concealed desire to kill.
You will make many concepts of the self as learning goes along. Each one will show the changes in your own relationships, as your perception of yourself is changed. There will be some confusion every time there is a shift, but be you thankful that the learning of the world is loosening its grasp upon your mind. And be you sure and happy in the confidence that it will go at last, and leave your mind at peace. The role of the accuser will appear in many places and in many forms, and each will seem to be accusing you. But have no fear it will not be undone. The world can teach no images of you unless you WANT to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are.
It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recognized as made on NO assumptions that would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary clean and free of guilt. There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:
"I do not know the thing I am, and THEREFORE do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world and on myself." Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will TELL you of Itself.
Forgiveness-to-destroy has many forms, being a weapon of the world of form. Not all of them are obvious, and some are carefully concealed beneath what seems like charity. Yet all the forms that it may take have but one goal; their purpose is to separate and make what God created equal, different. The difference is clear in several forms where the designed comparison cannot be missed, nor is it meant to be.
In this group, first, there are the forms in which a "better" person deigns to stoop to save a baser one from what he is. Forgiveness here rests solely on the base of gracious lordliness so far from love that arrogance could never be dislodged. Who can forgive and yet despise? And who can tell another he is steeped in sin, and yet perceive him as the Son of God? Who makes a slave to teach what freedom is? There is no union here, but only grief. This is not mercy. This is death.
Another form, still very like the first if it is understood, does not appear in quite such blatant arrogance. The one who would forgive the other does not claim to be the better. Now he merely says that here is one whose sinfulness he shares, since both have been unworthy and deserve the retribution of the wrath of God. This can appear to be a humble act, and can indeed become a rivalry in baseness and in guilt. It is not love for God's creation and the holiness that is His gift forever. Can His Son condemn himself and still remember Him?
Here the goal is to separate from God the Son He loves, and keep him from his Source. This goal is also sought by those who seek the role of martyr at another's hand. Here must the aim be clearly seen, for this may pass as meekness and as charity instead of cruelty. Is it not kind to be accepting of another's spite, and not respond except with silence and a gentle smile? Behold, how good are you who bear with patience and with saintliness the anger and the hurt another gives, and do not show the bitter pain you feel.
Forgiveness-to-destroy will often hide behind a cloak like this. It shows the face of suffering and pain, in silent proof of guilt and of the ravages of sin. Such is the witness that it offers one who could be savior, not an enemy. But having made him enemy, he must accept the guilt and heavy-laid reproach that thus is put upon him. Is this love? Or is it rather treachery to one who needs salvation from the pain of guilt? What is it for, except to keep the witnesses of guilt away from love?
Forgiveness-to-destroy can also take the form of bargaining and compromise. "I will forgive you if you meet my needs, for in your slavery is my release." Say this to anyone and you are slave. And you will seek to rid yourself of guilt in further bargains which can give no hope, but only greater pain and misery. How fearful has forgiveness now become, and how distorted is the end it seeks. Have mercy on yourself who bargained thus. God gives and does not ask for recompense. There is no giving but to give like Him. All else is mockery. For who would try to strike a bargain with the Son of God, and thank his Father for his holiness?
What would you show your brother? Would you try to reinforce his guilt and thus your own? Forgiveness is the means for your escape. How pitiful it is to make of it a means for further slavery and pain. Within the world of opposites there is a way to use forgiveness for the goal of God, and find the peace He offers you. Take nothing else, or you have sought your death, and prayed for separation from your Self. Christ is for all because He is in all. It is His face forgiveness lets you see. It is His face in which you see your own.
All forms forgiveness takes that do not lead away from anger, condemnation, and comparisons of every kind are death. For that is what their purposes have set. Be not deceived by them, but lay them by as worthless in their tragic offerings. You do not want to stay in slavery. You do not want to be afraid of God. You want to see the sunlight and the glow of Heaven shining on the face of earth, redeemed from sin and in the Love of God. From here is prayer released, along with you. Your wings are free, and prayer will lift you up and bring you home where God would have you be.
I seek my own identity, and find it in these words: "Love, Which created me, is what I am." Now need I seek no more. Love has prevailed. So still it waited for my coming home, that I will turn away no longer from the holy face of Christ. And what I look upon attests the truth of the identity I sought to lose, but which my Father has kept safe for me.
"Father, my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my identity untouched and sinless in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up. And thanks to You for saving me from them. Amen." W(472)
Forgiveness is for God and toward God but not of Him. It is impossible to think of anything He created that could need forgiveness. Forgiveness, then, is an illusion, but because of its purpose, which is the Holy Spirit's, it has one difference. Unlike all other illusions it leads away from error and not toward it.
Forgiveness might be called a kind of happy fiction; a way in which the unknowing can bridge the gap between their perception and the truth. They cannot go directly from perception to knowledge because they do not think it is their will to do so. This makes God appear to be an enemy instead of what He really is. And it is just this insane perception that makes them unwilling merely to rise up and to return to Him in peace.
And so they need an illusion of Help because they are helpless; a Thought of peace because they are in conflict. God knows what His Son needs before he asks. He is not at all concerned with form, but having given the content it is His Will that it be understood. And that suffices. The form adapts itself to need; the content is unchanging, as eternal as its Creator.
THE FACE OF CHRIST has to be seen before the memory of God can return. The reason is obvious. Seeing the Face of Christ is perception. No-one can look on knowledge. But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate. Yet from this gate it is no more than just a step inside. It is the final step. And this we leave to God.
It is a symbol, too, but as the symbol of His Will alone it cannot be divided. And so the Unity that it reflects becomes His Will. It is the only thing still in the world in part, and yet the bridge to Heaven.
God's Will is all there is. We can but go from nothingness to everything; from hell to Heaven. Is this a journey? No, not in truth, for truth goes nowhere. But illusions shift from place to place; from time to time. The final step is also but a shift. As a perception it is partly unreal. And yet this part will vanish. What remains is peace eternal and the Will of God.
There are no wishes now for wishes change. Even the wished-for can become unwelcome. That must be so because the ego cannot be at peace. But Will is constant, as the gift of God. And what He gives is always like Himself. This is the purpose of the Face of Christ. It is the gift of God to save His Son. But look on this and you have been forgiven.
How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so. And now the mind returns to its Creator; the joining of the Father and the Son, the Unity of unities that stands behind all joining but still beyond them all. God IS NOT SEEN BUT ONLY UNDERSTOOD. His Son is not attacked but recognized.
Christ is God's Son as He created him. He is the Self we share, uniting us with one another, and with God as well. He is the Thought Which still abides within the Mind That is His Source. He has not left His holy home, nor lost the innocence in which He was created. He abides unchanged forever in the Mind of God.
Christ is the link that keeps you one with God, and guarantees that separation is no more than an illusion of despair. For hope forever will abide in Him. Your mind is part of His, and His of yours. He is the part in Which God's Answer lies; where all decisions are already made, and dreams are over. He remains untouched by anything the body's eyes perceive. For though in Him His Father placed the means for your salvation, yet does He remain the Self Who, like His Father, knows no sin.
Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace, within the Heaven of your holy mind. This is the only part of you that has reality in truth. The rest is dreams. Yet will these dreams be given unto Christ to fade before His glory, and reveal your holy Self, the Christ, to you at last.
The Holy Spirit reaches from the Christ in you to all your dreams, and bids them come to Him, to be translated into truth. He will exchange them for the final dream which God appointed as the end of dreams. For when forgiveness rests upon the world and peace has come to every Son of God, what could remain to keep things separate, for what remains to see except Christ's face?
And how long will this holy face be seen, when it is but the symbol that the time for learning now is over, and the goal of the Atonement has been reached at last? So therefore let us seek to find Christ's face, and look on nothing else. As we behold His glory, will we know we have no need of learning or perception or of time, or anything except the holy Self, the Christ Whom God created as His Son.
Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the world's purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of misery and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit's final dream. It is the recognition of the gifts of God. It is the dream in which the body functions perfectly, having no function except communication. It is the lesson in which learning ends, for it is consummated and surpassed with this. It is the invitation to God to take His final step. It is the relinquishment of all other purposes, all other interests, all other wishes and all other concerns. It is the single desire of the Son for the Father.
The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared but gladly welcomed. Idols have disappeared, and the remembrance of God shines unimpeded across the world. Christ's face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it.
Here the curriculum ends. From here on no directions are needed. Vision is wholly corrected and all mistakes undone. Attack is meaningless and peace has come. The goal of the curriculum has been achieved. Thoughts turn to Heaven and away from hell. All longings are satisfied, for what remains unanswered or incomplete? The last illusion spreads over the world, forgiving all things and replacing all attack. The whole reversal is accomplished. Nothing is left to contradict the Word of God. There is no opposition to the truth. And now the truth can come at last. How quickly will it come as it is asked to enter and envelop such a world!
All living hearts are tranquil, with a stir of deep anticipation, for the time of everlasting things is now at hand. There is no death. The Son of God is free. And in His freedom is the end of fear. No hidden places now remain on earth to shelter sick illusions, dreams of fear and misperceptions of the universe. All things are seen in light, and in the light their purpose is transformed and understood. And we, God's children, rise up from the dust and look upon our perfect sinlessness. The song of Heaven sounds around the world, as it is lifted up and brought to truth.
Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. What further sight is needed? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love behind all forms, beyond all purposes. Holy are we because His Holiness has set us free indeed! And we accept His Holiness as ours; as it is. As God created us so will we be forever and forever, and we wish for nothing but His Will to be our own. Illusions of another will are lost, for unity of purpose has been found.
These things await us all, but we are not prepared as yet to welcome them with joy. As long as any mind remains possessed of evil dreams the thought of hell is real. God's teachers have the goal of wakening the minds of those asleep, and seeing there the vision of Christ's face to take the place of what they dream. The thought of murder is replaced with blessing. Judgment is laid by, and given Him Whose function judgment is. And in His final judgment is restored the truth about the holy Son of God. He is redeemed, for he has heard God's Word and understood Its meaning. He is free because he let God's Voice proclaim the truth. And all he sought before to crucify are resurrected with him, by his side as he prepares with them to meet his God.
I was mistaken when I thought I lived apart from God, a separate entity which moved in isolation, unattached, and housed within a body. Now I know my life is God's, I have no other home, and I do not exist apart from Him. He has no Thoughts that are not part of me, and I have none but Those which are of Him.
"Our Father, let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes. For we who are Your holy Son, are sinless. We would look upon our sinlessness, for guilt proclaims that we are not Your Son. And we would not forget You longer. We are lonely here, and long for Heaven where we are at home. Today we would return. Our name is Yours, and we acknowledge that we are Your Son."
No one can judge on partial evidence. That is not judgment. It is merely an opinion based on ignorance and doubt. Its seeming certainty is but a cloak for the uncertainty it would conceal. It needs irrational defense because it is irrational. And its defense seems strong, convincing, and without a doubt, because of all the doubting underneath.
You do not seem to doubt the world you see. You do not really question what is shown you through the body's eyes. Nor do you ask why you believe it, even though you learned a long while since your senses do deceive. That you believe them to the last detail which they report is even stranger when you pause to recollect how frequently they have been faulty witnesses indeed! Why would you trust them so implicitly? Why but because of underlying doubt which you would hide with show of certainty?
How can you judge? Your judgment rests upon the witness that your senses offer you. Yet witness never falser was than this. But how else do you judge the world you see? You place pathetic faith in what your eyes and ears report. You think your fingers touch reality and close upon the truth. This is awareness which you understand, and think more real than what is witnessed to by the eternal Voice of God Himself.
Can this be judgment? You have often been urged to refrain from judging, not because it is a right to be withheld from you. You cannot judge. You merely can believe the ego's judgments, all of which are false. It guides your senses carefully, to prove how weak you are; how helpless and afraid, how apprehensive of just punishment, how black with sin, how wretched in your guilt.
This thing it speaks of and would yet defend it tells you is yourself. And you believe that this is so with stubborn certainty. Yet underneath remains the hidden doubt that what it shows you as reality with such conviction it does not believe. It is itself alone that it condemns. It is within itself it sees the guilt. It is its own despair it sees in you.
Hear not its voice. The witnesses it sends to prove to you its evil is your own are false, and speak with certainty of what they do not know. Your faith in them is blind because you would not share the doubts their lord can not completely vanquish. You believe to doubt his vassals is to doubt yourself.
Yet you must learn to doubt their evidence will clear the way to recognize yourself, and let the Voice for God alone be Judge of what is worthy of your own belief. He will not tell you that your brother should be judged by what your eyes behold in him, nor what his body's mouth says to your ears, nor what your fingers' touch reports of him. He passes by such idle witnesses, which merely bear false witness to God's Son.
He recognizes only what God loves, and in the holy light of what He sees do all the ego's dreams of what you are vanish before the splendor He beholds. Let Him be Judge of what you are, for He has certainty in which there is no doubt because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its Face. Christ cannot doubt Himself. The Voice of God can only honor Him, rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness.
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. And thus He judges you. Accept His word of what you are, for He bears witness to your beautiful creation and the Mind Whose Thought created your reality.
What can the body mean to Him Who knows the glory of the Father and the Son? What whispers of the ego can He hear? What could convince Him that your sins are real? Let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this world. His lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth.
He will remove all faith that you have placed in pain, disaster, suffering and loss. He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them. You will no longer doubt that only good can come to you who are beloved of God, for He will judge all happenings and teach the single lesson which they all contain.
He will select the elements in them that represent the truth, and disregard those aspects which reflect but idle dreams. And He will reinterpret all you see, and all occurrences, each circumstance, and every happening which seems to touch on you in any way from His one frame of reference, wholly unified and sure. And you will see the love beyond the hate, the constancy in change, the pure in sin, and only Heaven's blessing on the world.
Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself. In everyone and everything His Voice would speak to you of nothing but your Self and your Creator, Who is One with Him. So will you see the holy Face of Christ in everything, and hear in everything no sound except the echo of God's Voice.
We practice wordlessly today, except at the beginning of the time you spend with God. We introduce these times with but a single, slow repeating of the thought with which the day begins. And then we watch our thoughts, appealing silently to Him Who sees the elements of truth in them. Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back to you as clean ideas which do not contradict the Will of God.
Give Him your thoughts, and He will give them back as miracles which joyously proclaim the wholeness and the happiness God wills His Son as proof of His eternal Love. And as each thought is thus transformed, it takes on healing power from the Mind Which saw the truth in it, and failed to be deceived by what was falsely added. All the threads of fantasy are gone, and what remains is unified into a perfect Thought that offers Its perfection everywhere.
Spend fifteen minutes thus when you awake, and gladly give another fifteen more before you go to sleep. Your ministry begins as all your thoughts are purified. So are you taught to teach the Son of God the holy lesson of his sanctity. No one can fail to listen when you hear the Voice of God give honor to God's Son. And everyone will share the thoughts with you which He has retranslated in your mind.
Such is your Eastertide. And so you lay the gift of snow-white lilies on the world, replacing witnesses to sin and death. Through your transfiguration is the world redeemed and joyfully released from guilt. Now do we lift our resurrected minds in gladness and in gratitude to Him Who has restored our sanity to us.
And we will hourly remember Him Who is salvation and deliverance. As we give thanks, the world unites with us, and happily accepts our holy thoughts, which Heaven has corrected and made pure. Now has our ministry begun at last, to carry 'round the world the joyous news that truth has no illusions, and the peace of God, through us, belongs to everyone.
This is a day of silence and of trust. It is a special time of promise in your calendar of days. It is a time Heaven has set apart to shine upon, and cast a timeless light upon this day when echoes of eternity are heard. This day is holy, for it ushers in a new experience, a different kind of feeling and awareness. You have spent long days and nights in celebrating death. Today you learn to feel the joy of life.
This is another crucial turning point in the curriculum. We add a new dimension now; a fresh experience which sheds a light on all that we have learned already, and prepares us for what we have yet to learn. It brings us to the door where learning ceases, and we catch a glimpse of what lies past the highest reaches it can possibly attain. It leaves us there an instant and we go beyond it, sure of our direction and our only goal.
Today it will be given you to feel a touch of Heaven, though you will return to paths of learning, yet you have come far enough along the way to alter time sufficiently to rise above its laws, and walk into eternity a while. This you will learn to do increasingly, as every lesson, faithfully rehearsed, brings you more swiftly to this holy place and leaves you, for a moment, to your Self.
He will direct your practicing today, for what you ask for now is what He wills. And having joined your will with His this day, what you are asking must be given you. Nothing is needed but today's idea to light your mind, and let it rest in still anticipation and in quiet joy wherein you quickly leave the world behind.
From this day forth your ministry takes on a genuine devotion, and a glow that travels from your fingertips to those you touch, and blesses those you look upon. A vision reaches everyone you meet, and everyone you think of, or who thinks of you. For your experience today will so transform your mind that it becomes the touchstone for the holy Thoughts of God.
Your body will be sanctified today, its only purpose being now to bring the vision of what you experience this day to light the world. We cannot give experience like this directly. Yet it leaves a vision in our eyes which we can offer everyone, that he may come the sooner to the same experience in which the world is quietly forgot, and Heaven is remembered for a while.
As this experience increases and all goals but this become of little worth, the world to which you will return becomes a little closer to the end of time; a little more like Heaven in its ways; a little nearer its deliverance. And you who bring it light will come to see the light more sure; the vision more distinct. The time will come when you will not return in the same form in which you now appear, for you will have no need of it. Yet now it has a purpose, and will serve it well.
Today we will embark upon a course you have not dreamed of. But the Holy One, the Giver of the happy dreams of life, Translator of perception into truth, the holy Guide to Heaven given you, has dreamed for you this journey, which you make and start today, with the experience, this day holds out to you to be your own.
Into Christ's Presence will we enter now serenely unaware of everything except His shining Face and perfect Love. The vision of His Face will stay with you, but there will be an instant which transcends all vision, even this, the holiest. This you will never teach, for you attained it not through learning. Yet the vision speaks of your remembrance of what you knew that instant, and will surely know again.
Forgiveness is this world's equivalent of Heaven's justice. It translates the world of sin into a simple world, where justice can be reflected from BEYOND the gate behind which total lack of limits lies. Nothing in boundless love could NEED forgiveness. And what is charity WITHIN the world gives way to simple justice past the gate that opens into Heaven. No-one forgives unless he has believed in sin, and STILL believes that he has much to be forgiven. Forgiveness thus becomes the means by which he learns HE has done nothing to forgive. Forgiveness always rests upon the one who offers it, until he sees HIMSELF as needing it no more. And thus is he returned to his REAL function of creating, which his forgiveness offers him again.
Forgiveness turns the world of sin into a world of glory, wonderful to see. Each flower shines in light, and every bird sings of the joy of Heaven. There is no sadness and there is no parting here, for everything is TOTALLY forgiven. And what has been forgiven MUST join, for nothing stands BETWEEN, to keep them separate and apart. The sinless MUST perceive that they are one, for nothing stands between, to push the other off, and in the space which sin left vacant do they JOIN as one, in gladness recognizing what is part of them has NOT been kept apart and separate. The holy place on which you stand is but the space that sin has left. And here you see the Face of Christ arising in its place.
Who could behold the Face of Christ, and NOT recall His Father as He really is? Who could fear love, and stand upon the ground where sin has left a place for Heaven's altar to rise and tower far above the world, and reach beyond the universe to touch the heart of ALL creation? What IS Heaven, but a song of gratitude and love and praise, by everything created, to the Source of its creation? The holiest of altars is set where once was sin believed to be. For here does every light of heaven come, to be rekindled and increased in joy. For here is what was lost to them restored, and all their radiance made whole again.
Forgiveness brings no little miracles to lay before the gate of Heaven. Here the Son of God Himself comes to receive each gift that brings him nearer to his home. Not one is lost, and none is cherished more than any other. Each reminds him of His Father's Love as surely as the rest. And each one teaches him that what he fears he loves the most. What BUT a miracle could change his mind, so that he understands that love cannot BE feared? What other miracle is there but this? And what else NEED there be, to make the space between you disappear? Where sin once was perceived will rise a world which will become an altar to the truth. And YOU will join the lights of Heaven there, and sing their song of gratitude and praise.
For as they come to YOU to be complete, so will you go with them. For no-one hears the song of Heaven, and remains without a voice that adds its power to the song, and makes it sweeter still. And each one joins the singing at the altar which was raised within the tiny spot that sin proclaimed to be its own. And what WAS tiny then has soared into a magnitude of song, in which the universe has joined with but a single voice. This tiny spot of sin that stands between you still is holding back the happy opening of Heaven's gate. How LITTLE is the hindrance which withholds the wealth of Heaven from you. And how GREAT will be the joy in Heaven when you join the mighty chorus to the Love of God.
The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.
The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt.
Knowledge is not the remedy for false perception since, being another level, they can never meet. The one correction possible for false perception must be true perception. It will not endure. But for the time it lasts it comes to heal. 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. True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees.
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 is a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty.
This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. For there the altar to the Son is set, and there his Father is remembered. Here are all illusions brought to truth and laid upon the altar. What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. Where is hope while sin is seen as outside? What remedy can guilt expect? But seen within your mind, guilt and forgiveness for an instant lie together, side by side, upon one altar. There at last are sickness and its single remedy joined in one healing brightness. God has come to claim His Own. Forgiveness is complete.
And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. 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. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever.
Oh my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you back to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and into timelessness; out of all fear and given back to Love.
Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, WHEREVER it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you BE this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this, "Choose once again if you would take your place among the Saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there." For He HAS come, and He IS asking this.
How do you make the choice? How easily is this explained! You ALWAYS choose between YOUR weakness and the strength of Christ in you. And what you choose is what you think is real. Simply by never using weakness to direct your actions, you have given it no power. And the Light of Christ in you is given charge of everything you do. For you have brought your weakness unto Him, and He has given you His strength instead. Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you.
In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created altars unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you. His holiness is yours because He is the ONLY power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His ONLY Son. The images you make can not prevail against what God Himself would have you be.
Be never fearful of temptation then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His holy sight. The Saviors of the world, who see like Him, are merely those who chose His strength instead of their own weakness, seen APART from Him. They will redeem the world, for they are joined to all the power of the Will of God. And what they will is ONLY what He wills.
Learn, then, the happy habit of response to ALL temptation to perceive yourself as weak and miserable with these words:
"I am as God created me. His Son
can suffer nothing. And I AM His Son."
Thus is Christ's strength INVITED to prevail, replacing all your weakness with the strength that comes from God, and that can NEVER fail. And thus are miracles as natural as fear and agony APPEARED to be before the choice for holiness was made. For IN that choice are false distinctions gone, illusory alternatives laid by, and nothing left to INTERFERE with truth.
You ARE as God created you, and so is every living thing you look upon, REGARDLESS of the images you see. What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive YOURSELF defenseless and in hell. Yield NOT to this, and you will see ALL pain in EVERY form WHEREVER it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun. A miracle has come to heal God's Son, and close the door upon his dreams of weakness, opening the way to his salvation and release. Choose once again what you would have him be, remembering that every choice you make establishes your own identity as you will see it, and believe it IS.
Deny me not the little gift I ask, when in exchange I lay before your feet the peace of God, and power to bring this peace to everyone who wanders in the world, uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear. For it is given you to JOIN with him, and through the Christ in you unveil his eyes, and let him look upon the Christ in him. My brothers in salvation, do not fail to hear my voice and listen to my words. I ask for nothing but your OWN release. There is no place for hell within a world whose loveliness can yet be so intense and so inclusive it is but a step from there to Heaven. To your tired eyes I bring a vision of a different world, so new and clean and fresh you will forget the pain and sorrow that you saw before.
But this a vision is which you must SHARE with everyone you see. For otherwise you will behold it not. To GIVE this gift is how to make it yours. And God ordained, in loving kindness, that it BE for you. Let us be glad that we can walk the world, and find so many chances to perceive another situation where His gift can once again be recognized as ours. And thus will all the vestiges of hell, the secret sins and hidden hates be gone, and all the loveliness which they concealed appear like lawns of Heaven to our sight, to lift us high above the thorny roads we travelled on before the Christ appeared.
Hear me, my brothers, hear and join with me. God has ordained I cannot call in vain. And in His certainty I rest content. For you WILL hear, and you WILL choose again. And in this choice is everyone made free. I thank You, Father, for these holy ones who are my brothers as they are Your Sons. My faith in them is Yours. I am as sure that they will come to me as You are sure of what they are, and will forever be. They will accept the gift I offer them because You gave it me on their behalf. And as I would but do Your holy Will, so will they choose. And I give thanks for them.
Salvation's song will echo through the world with every choice they make. For we are one in purpose, and the end of hell is near. In joyous welcome is my hand outstretched to every brother who would join with me in reaching past temptation, and who looks with fixed determination toward the light that shines beyond in perfect constancy. Give me my own, for they belong to You. And can You fail in what is but Your Will? I give You thanks for what my brothers are, and as each one elects to join with me, the song of thanks from earth to Heaven grows from tiny, scattered threads of melody to one inclusive chorus from a world redeemed from hell, and giving thanks to You.
And now we say "Amen." For Christ has come to dwell in the abode You set for Him before time was, in calm Eternity. The journey closes, ending at the place where it began. No trace of it remains. Not one illusion is accorded faith, and not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the Face of Christ from anyone. Thy Will is done, complete and perfectly, and all creation recognizes You and knows You as the only Source it has. Clear in Your Likeness does the Light shine forth from everything that lives and moves in You. For we have reached where all of us are One, and we ARE home where You would have us be.
This week begins with palms and ends with lilies, the white and holy sign the Son of God is innocent. Let no dark signs of crucifixion intervene between the journey and its purpose; between the ACCEPTANCE of the truth and its EXPRESSION.
This week we celebrate eternal life, NOT death. And we honor the perfect PURITY of the Son of God, and NOT his sins. Offer each other the gift of lilies, NOT the crown of thorns; the gift of love, and NOT the "gift" of fear. You stand beside each other, thorns in one hand and lilies in the other, uncertain which to give. Join now with me, and throw away the thorns, offering the lilies to REPLACE them. This Easter I would have the gift of your forgiveness, offered by you to me, and RETURNED by me to you. We CANNOT be united in crucifixion and in death. Nor can the Resurrection be complete 'til YOUR forgiveness rests on Christ, along with mine.
A week is short, and yet this holy week is the symbol of the whole journey that the Son of God has undertaken. He started with the sign of victory, the promise of the Resurrection ALREADY given him. Let him not wander into the temptation of crucifixion, and DELAY him there. Help him go in peace BEYOND it, with the light of his own innocence lighting his way to his redemption and release. Hold him not back with thorns and nails, when his redemption is so near. But let the whiteness of your shining gift of lilies speed him on his way to Resurrection.
Easter is not the celebration of the COST of sin, but of it's END. If you see glimpses of the face of Christ behind the veil, looking between the snow white petals of the lilies you have received and GIVEN as your gift, you will behold each other's face, and RECOGNIZE it. I was a stranger, and you took me in, not knowing who I was. But, for your gift of lilies, you WILL know. In your FORGIVENESS of this stranger, alien to you and yet your ancient Friend, lie HIS release, and YOUR redemption WITH him. The time of Easter is a time of JOY, and not of mourning. Look on your risen Friend, and celebrate his holiness, along with me. For Easter is the time of YOUR salvation, along with mine.
Here is Jesus talking about how as you enter the real world (not heaven), the physical world is now seen as SHADOWS, which SEEMED SOLID, which now appear TRANSPARENT AND FAINT, at times FORGOT.
"Christ's vision is the bridge between the worlds. And in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. ****Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them.**** Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see."
And he goes on elsewhere to speak of how the body is diminisihed in your sight...
"Across the bridge it is so different! For a time the body is still seen, but not exclusively, as it is seen here. The little spark that holds the Great Rays within it is also visible, and this spark cannot be limited long to littleness. Once you have crossed the bridge, ****the value of the body is so diminished in your sight**** that you will see no need at all to magnify it."
And again, the world is regarded as nothing but a thin veil, an illusion of smoke and mirrors, hanging before the face of christ, which can be easily brushed aside.
"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.****" The body becomes a shadow, circling around the good, no longer obscuring sight of the real world.
"By focusing upon the good in him, ***the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight***, and will at length be seen as ***little more than just a shadow circling round the good.*** And this will be your concept of yourself, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see. For you will not interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. And in His sight there is another world."
And the veil is brushed aside...
"The fourth obstacle to be surmounted (fear of death) hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's Love, ****peace will lightly brush the veil aside**** and run to meet Him, and to join with Him at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ Himself like to a leper's, and the bright Rays of His Father's Love that light His face with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light beyond it when the fear of death is gone."
nb: "The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son" Attracted by what is beyond the veil... YOU WILL LEAVE THE WORLD FOREVER!
"It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you if you but raise your eyes. ****Yet all that will occur is you will leave the world forever.**** This is the re-establishment of your will. Look upon it, open-eyed, and you will nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things beyond you, forces you cannot control, and thoughts that come to you against your will. It is your will to look on this. No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear nor the cold sweat of seeming death can stand against your will. For what attracts you from beyond the veil is also deep within you, unseparated from it and completely one."
"For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one."
True perception, aka Christ Vision, means seeing with forgiveness, ie seeing with a forgiving attitude. This is a mind that does not believe in sin and does not see sin.
False perception, aka the body's vision, means NOT seeing with forgiveness, ie seeing with an unforgiving attitude. This is a mind that believes in sin and sees sin.
What you SEE, when you have false perception, you ONLY see BECAUSE your perception is unforgiving. And what you see with false perception (yes, the world, bodies) ONLY EXIST WITHIN your false perception, NOT beyond it.
What you SEE, when you have true perception, CANNOT BE SEEN when you have false perception. And false perception is DENIAL OF REALITY.
The way to perceive with Christ Vision is to NOT USE anything that exists in the realm of false perception. That means THE BODY, because the body is FALSE and a denial of reality.
The body has permanent false perception. "These eyes made not to see will never see." You CANNOT use the body's eyes to see reality. "The body sees ONLY ILLUSIONS."
To see reality you must use the spiritual eye, aka christ vision, which DOES NOT USE the body's eyes or depend on them in any way, because THEY are made of false perception.
Using the body's eyes disables the use of the spiritual eye because they DENY forgiveness. The body's eyes DO NOT OVERLOOK, and therefore what they SEE they only see because they FAIL to see PAST what they see.
When they look AT surfaces of objects, it is because they are UNFORGIVING. If they were forgiving, they would OVERLOOK ALL WALLS. A sight that is BLOCKED BY WALLS is false perception.
Given that christ vision means to be forgiving, because it is true perception, christ vision MUST OVERLOOK and NOT SEE whatever the BODY sees. Therefore Christ Vision DOES NOT SEE WALLS, BODIES, OR THE WORLD.
The body sees only other sinful bodies. That is false perception.
"FORGIVENESS DOES NOT LOOK UPON BODIES."
"TO SEE A SINLESS BODY IS IMPOSSIBLE."
You cannot look AT a body WITHOUT using false perception. Which means you believe in sin, and as a result are then SEEING sinful things in a sinful way. If you want to look at a body WITHOUT sin, it is IMPOSSIBLE!!! You must overlook the body and NOT SEE IT, in order to BE in a state of mind of innocence. The innocent ONLY LOOK UPON GOD and his creation. The innocent DO NOT HAVE, AND DO NOT SEE BODIES. There are no bodies in reality. "Gone are bodies."
Seeing the face of Christ causes you to CEASE USING the body's eyes. The world which the body is made of, exists within, is seen within, and symbolizes, DISAPPEARS from your sight when you see the face of Christ. Because to see the face of Christ requires TOTAL true perception, which does not see bodies OR the world of bodies AT ALL. In fact the world vanishes and is FORGOTTEN when you see the face of christ.
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; ***the world forgotten***, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. "
When the face of Christ is UNVEILED, it is because THE VEIL has disappeared. And the physical world IS THE VEIL which the body's vision is blinded by.
The "body's eyes" is ANY state of egotism. ANY state of confusion as to what is true and false. ANY state of a belief in sin. ANY state of death or suffering or fear. And the fact is, that this STATE, is what has CAUSED the physical human body to appear. The human body ONLY EXISTS WITHIN that state. It is the state of false perception. If you perceive the false as true, you will make false things real, and materialize an illusory FORM OF ERROR - a body.
The BODY, has ONLY false perception. It is only seen WITH false perception. It sees other bodies ONLY WITH false perception. You CANNOT SEE bodies with forgiveness. To see a sinless body is IMPOSSIBLE. To "Forgive bodies" has to mean to OVERLOOK THEM AND NOT SEE THEM.
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them." "...the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal."
False perception includes therefore the state of mind in which Heaven is denied, and ALSO therefore the ENTIRE WORLD that comes from it, which includes the physical body itself AND ITS PHYSICAL EYEBALLS. "These eyes made not to see will never see" is referring to the BODY'S EYES, its seeing mechanism, its eyeballs, its reliance on external photons of light which are DENIED by the forms of error (matter), and its interpretation of those sensory signals which were MADE TO BLOCK KNOWLEDGE.
"The body sees only illusions." Literally. ONLY illusions. "The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it." The body can ONLY SEE what GOD DID NOT CREATE.
Here is the fact of the body PHYSICALLY seeing ONLY the world of forms and illusions, which is physical matter, flesh and bones, other bodies, and the planet:
"The body's eyes see only form. They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. And they were made to look on error and not see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside surface of nothing. To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."
Do the body's eyeballs see only forms? YES.
Do the body's eyeballs fail to see PAST forms? YES.
Do the body's eyeballs see only the outside surfaces of objects? YES
Are physical objects therefore the "Granite block of sin"? YES.
Is the PLANET literally a PHYSICAL WALL that stands between you and reality? YES.
"The world of bodies is the world of sin". PLURAL bodies, not just your body, not just your body's eyes. The world where MULTIPLE BODIES exist, the container of the location of bodies, is the WORLD OF SIN. OUTSIDE the bodies. The ENVIRONMENT in which bodies appear to exist, is THE WORLD OF SIN! The entire world including all physical objects and bodies is MADE OF SIN AND DEATH.
"Without the idea of DEATH there is no world."
The world of sin, which is the world of bodies, is the world that the body is BLINDED BY and CANNOT SEE PAST, because the body CANNOT OVERLOOK ERRORS, and physical objects are the FORMS OF ERROR that the body cannot see past. The body has permanent false perception.
"These eyes, made not to see, will never see. For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker's goal but not to see. For this the body's eyes are perfect means, but not for seeing. See how the body's eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form means understanding has been obscured."
Are the body's eyeballs SEEN THROUGH by their maker? YES.
Do the body's eyes REST ON EXTERNALS? YES.
Does their vision stop at the surface of nothing unable to see past it because it is an UNFORGIVING false perception that does not overlook FORMS OF ERROR? YES.
Are the body's eyes BLINDED by perceiving FORMS? YES. When you SEE FORMS - **OBJECTS** - BODIES. ... you are BLINDED. Because the forms are the outside surface of NOTHING, they are not real, and they do not really exist! And seeing them PREVENTS YOU FROM SEEING REALITY. They block your vision. This is why the body's eyes cannot see reality EVER. You cannot USE the body see reality EVER.
This is why you have to forget the body and develop the SPIRITUAL EYE, because it's a way of SEEING that bypasses THE BODY totally and OVERLOOKS EVERYTHING THE BODY SEES, meaning it is NOT blocked by the surface of objects, it is NOT blinded by perceiving forms, it does NOT fail to overlook the granite block of SIN that the world is made of, it DOES NOT SEE BODIES, and it CAN LOOK AT REALITY. Reality is BEYOND the physical.
"Your brother's reality is beyond his body."
"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."
The dream is the PHYSICAL WORLD. It's the world you made. The world of sin and death that the BODY LIVES IN and CANNOT SEE PAST. Reality is BEYOND THE PHYSICAL WORLD. And you can only see it by OVERLOOKING, literally seeing THROUGH, the physical world. Because the world IS THE VEIL OF SIN over the face of christ.
"And so you and your brother stand ... before the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ. "
"This world of idols is a veil across the face of Christ, because its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself."
"Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Son of God"
"Let not your eyes be blinded by the veil of specialness that hides the face of Christ from him, and you as well. "
"The world stands like a block before Christ's face."
A PHYSICAL BLOCK. WHICH THE BODY IS BLINDED BY. A WALL OF SIN.
"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"
The PHYSICAL MATERIAL VEIL WILL DISAPPEAR, revealing the face of Christ which is BEYOND IT.
"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."*** - because THE WORLD, the PLANET, EARTH, where BODIES exist, the WORLD OF SIN, is a world of NOTHINGNESS - it is a THIN VEIL over the face of christ BLOCKING REALITY. Physical matter is a block to awareness and is IN the mind because your mind is BIGGER than this world.
"You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts" "Both heaven (formless eternity) and EARTH (physical planet) are in your mind."
"A world forgiven cannot last. 2 It was the home of bodies."
Even a forgiven world was WHER BODIES EXIST. The world of SIN. Which is turned into the forgiven world. BUT>....
But forgiveness looks past bodies. 4 This is its holiness; this is how it heals. 5 The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. 6 From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. 7 And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? 8 For place has gone as well, along with time. 9 Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. 10 Forgiveness proves it is impossible ****because it sees it not****. 11 And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."
"C-4.1. The world you see is an illusion of a world. 2 God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. 3 Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. 4 Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. 5 But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.
C-4.2. The body's eyes are therefore ***not the means by which the real world can be seen***, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. 2 And so they do. 3 For ****everything they see not only will not last****, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. 4 While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."
This is very clearly spelled out in the course. If you're seeing THIS WORLD, you are USING THE BODY. The world of bodies is the world of sin. Forgiveness DOES NOT look upon bodies. It sees unity BEYOND bodies, BEYOND the physical veil of matter, BEYOND this world. ANOTHER WORLD. Heaven and earth are totally opposite.
You cannot look at physical bodies in a forgiving way. They CANNOT BE SEEN by forgiveness.
You cannot look at the physical planet in a forgiving way. A FORGIVEN WORLD CANNOT LAST.
"To forgive is to OVERLOOK", not to look AT.
There is no body. There is no world. They exist only WITHIN states of mind that are false. They are hallucinations by insane individuals.
"The world is the INSANE THOUGHT SYSTEM of those DRIVEN MAD by guilt." "The world IS FALSE PERCEPTION".
They are seen only WITH false perception because they exist INSIDE OF false perceiving. And you cannot see them if you are innocent. There is no Earth in Heaven.
"Only the creations of light are real." "The living world of Light" is God's Kingdom, not the world of sin or bodies or forms or planets.
There is no world here.
"Awake in the dream" is where a person has near-total christ vision and is still in a body, still seeing the world through physical senses while simultaneously overlooking it with direct mind-vision. The world appears as a thin veil, it is recognized as a dream, and is regarded as unreal. The body is still being used by this "healed mind", but the person is highly identified with spirit and is not deceived by anything the body shows them. They are the light of the world, and a teacher of God.
"Awake FROM the dream" occurs only when christ vision is total, the veil of physical matter becomes so transparent that it parts entirely, is completely "seen through" (overlooked, forgiven), making it transparent and eventually to disappear from sight. Christ vision becomes the ONLY vision, the world disappears, the real world is seen for an instant, and then you WAKE UP ENTIRELY FROM DREAMING as all perception (even of the real world) ends. You return awareness of the Kingdom as your only reality. And that means goodbye bodies forever.
"It would indeed be impossible to be in the world with this knowledge. For the mind that knows this unequivocally knows also it dwells in eternity, and utilizes no perception at all."
"But the face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this ***no longer sees the world***."
"For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, ***and disappears*** before His holy sight."
"Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. ***What further sight is needed***? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love ***behind all forms***, beyond all purposes. "
"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 which it came."
"Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And ***gone are bodies*** (sick ones and healthy ones) in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, ***no walls, no bodies***, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."
What that implies is... you have NEVER seen another REAL person with your body’s eyes.
You have to learn then to recognize that a body IS NOT a person. It is a wall of flesh, clothing, a disguise, HIDING what the body’s eyes cannot even see.
"What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."Look especially at someone’s face, and see it not as the face of a living being, but instead as just a wall, a disguise BLOCKING your vision, to conceal the true nature of the person. If someone sees your face, they DO NOT see you.
Imagine there is an alien spirit being living inside the body but it cannot be seen at all. It’s buried deep inside. It’s hidden behind the flesh, the bones, the skin, the eyes and mouth, all of it. You can’t see it, because your body’s eyes are not able to see it. But it’s there. And the body is meant to BLOCK you from seeing it.
"Nothing so blinding as perception of form."And thus recognize in that perspective, that a body, every body, your body, is NOT what any REAL person looks like. Your face is not your face. Your shape does not resemble you. Another person’s face is not a first hand experience of their nature. Looking at them is NOT looking at them.
The body was made to DECEIVE YOU. This is a world of deceptive mechanisms. Every single body is not a person but a decoy. There are billions of decoys walking the Earth, and not one of them is a first-hand representation of anyone.
"You made the body in attempting to deceive yourself.""The body is clearly a device for separation."You’re not people watching. You’re body watching. And people are not bodies. This whole world is an illusion, populated by imaginary persons, animated to look as if they are alive, when all they are is illusory images. Pictures in a dream. They are the veil that hides reality from your awareness. They are the cover-up job that is made to tempt you to believe God’s Son is a body.
"The "reality" of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God's Son is a body. And if God created bodies, death would indeed be real. But God would not be loving.""Everything the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole without the meaning that the whole would give.""The body's eyes see only form. 4 They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. 5 And they were made to look on error and not see past it. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. 7 To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. 8 Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? 9 It is held back by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived.""These eyes, made not to see, will never see.""See how the body's eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. 6 Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. 7 Nothing so blinding as perception of form. 8 For sight of form means understanding has been obscured.""Only mistakes have different forms, and so they can deceive. 2 You can change form because it is not true. 3 It could not be reality because it can be changed. 4 Reason will tell you that if form is not reality it must be an illusion, and is not there to see. 5 And if you see it you must be mistaken, for you are seeing what can not be real as if it were. 6 What cannot see beyond what is not there must be distorted perception, and must perceive illusions as the truth. 7 Could it, then, recognize the truth?"No gift of Heaven has been more misunderstood than has forgiveness. It has, in fact, become a scourge; a curse where it was meant to bless, a cruel mockery of grace, a parody upon the holy peace of God. Yet those who have not yet elected to begin the steps of prayer cannot but use it thus. Forgiveness's kindness is obscure at first, because salvation is not understood, NOR TRULY SOUGHT FOR. What was meant to heal is used to hurt because forgiveness is not wanted. Guilt becomes salvation, and the remedy appears to be a terrible alternative to life.
Forgiveness-to-destroy will therefore suit the purpose of the world far better than its true objective, and the honest means by which this goal is reached. Forgiveness-to-destroy will overlook no sin, no crime, no guilt that it can find and "love." Dear to its heart is error, and mistakes loom large and grow and swell within its sight. It carefully picks out all evil things, and overlooks the loving as a plague; a hateful thing of danger and of death. Forgiveness-to-destroy IS death, and this it sees in everything it looks upon and hates. God's mercy has become a twisted knife that would destroy the holy Son He loves.
Would you forgive yourself for doing this? Then learn that God has given you a means by which you can return to Him in peace. DO NOT SEE ERROR. Do not make it real. Select the loving and forgive the sin by choosing in its place the face of Christ. How otherwise can prayer return to God? He loves His Son. Can you remember Him and hate what He created? You will hate his Father if you hate the Son He loves. For as you see the Son you see yourself, and as you see yourself is God to you.
As prayer is always for yourself, so is forgiveness given you. It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him. You want to see them there, and not in you. That is why forgiveness of another is an illusion. Yet it is the only happy dream in all the world; the only one that does not lead to death. Only in someone else can you forgive yourself, for you have called him guilty of your sins, and in him must your innocence be found. Who but the sinful need to be forgiven? And do not ever think you can see sin in anyone except yourself.
This is the great deception of the world, and you the great deceiver of yourself. It always seems to be another who is evil, and in his sin you are the injured one. How could freedom be possible if this were true? You would be slave to everyone, for what he does entails your fate, your feelings, your despair or hope, your misery or joy. You have no freedom unless he gives it to you. And being evil, he can only give of what he is. You cannot see his sins and not your own. But you can free him and yourself as well.
Forgiveness, truly given, is the only way in which your hope of freedom lies. Others will make mistakes and so will you, as long as this illusion of a world appears to be your home. God has given all His Sons a remedy for all illusions that they think they see. Christ's vision does not use your eyes, but you can look through His and learn to see like Him. Mistakes are tiny shadows, quickly gone, which for an instant only seem to hide the face of Christ, which still remains unchanged behind them all. His constancy remains in tranquil silence and in perfect peace. He does not know of shadows. His the eyes that look past error to the Christ in you.
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. Prayer cannot be released to Heaven while forgiveness-to-destroy remains with you. God's mercy would remove this withering and poisoned thinking from your holy mind. Christ has forgiven you, and in His sight the world is holy as Himself. Who sees no evil in it sees like Him, for what He has forgiven has not sinned, and guilt can be no more. Salvation's plan is made complete, and sanity has come.
Forgiveness is the call to sanity, for who but the insane would look on sin when he could see the face of Christ instead? This is the choice you make; the simplest one, and yet the only one that you can make. God calls on you to save His Son from death by offering the love of Christ to him. This is your need, and God Himself holds out this gift to you. As He would give, so must you give as well. And thus is prayer restored to formlessness, beyond all limits into timelessness, with nothing of the past to hold it back from re-uniting with the ceaseless song that all creation sings unto its God.
But to achieve this end you first must learn, before you reach where learning cannot go. Forgiveness is the key, but who can use a key when he has lost the door for which the key was made, and where alone it fits? Therefore we make distinctions, so that prayer can be released from darkness into light. Forgiveness's role must be reversed, and cleansed from evil usages and hateful goals. Forgiveness-to-destroy must be unveiled in all its treachery, and then let go forever and forever. There can be no trace of it remaining, if the plan that God established for returning be achieved at last, and learning be complete.
This is the world of opposites. And you must choose between them every instant while this world retains reality for you. Yet you must learn alternatives for choice, or you will not be able to attain your freedom. Let it then be clear to you exactly what forgiveness means to you, and learn what it should be to set you free. The level of your prayer depends on this, for here it waits its freedom to ascend above the world of chaos into peace.
As you approach closer to what's in your heart, to be true to yourself, to be authentic and real, expressive and uncensored, you're going to come face to face with blocks to love.
These will come up inside you with an emotional charge likely from past events. This stuff doesn't just go away.
In your past, particularly in childhood, when you were expressing yourself more openly and freely, if you did something that other people decided was "bad" or wrong or that you should be guilty for, and especially if you were punished in some way or love was withheld, then you'll store this belief that being yourself will lead to pain. That unless you censor yourself and stay within the lines, you will likely make mistakes and will suffer for it.
Other ways it comes up is that you can't do what you want or express how you'd like because someone will disapprove, or you're only supposed to do what you were told to do (which is a common parenting style), or that if you do what you want you will displease people, or will experience rejection again.
So then as you go to do what you feel you'd love to do, you'll stop yourself with fear or sickness (as a defense), because you know that based on the past, if you go ahead in this way, someone is going to get hurt. You.
So you fear the same unforgiving attitude, the same unloving response, and the same guilt-trip, pain or suffering. When you believe that being yourself will make you unloveable, how are you going to be yourself?
Making mistakes should lead to forgiveness, be responded to with love, and reassure you that you are still innocent. Especially since "nothing really happened." If they don't, and if something negative happens, and you form a false self image based on this pain (which you do to yourself), then it stays lodged in your mind/emotional body until such a time as you attempt to do something in life that confronts it.
If you're intent on waking up or healing or forgiving etc, then sooner or later you will be pushing the envelope of your beliefs and comfort zones and you're going to come face to face with your pain again. If you want to move forward rather than hit a wall again, healing is going to have to happen. Whether you will have a catharsis or cry your eyes out or do a massive forgiveness or receive a miracle, one way or another the baggage has to go.
But then you will be set free.
"An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of **anti-Christ** which constitutes a gap BETWEEN the Christ and what you see."
So anti-christ or "the world of idols" is some kind of wall that you interpose between you and Christ/face of Christ. And this wall is AGAINST or opposed to and blocking of Christ - the world is the anti-christ.
"An idol is a wish, made tangible and given form, and thus perceived as real, and seen OUTSIDE the mind."
So you have this wishful thinking ie ego belief illusion, which you see as outside the mind, which takes on FORM. ie, these ideas appear as physical objects, and they're seen as being outside the mind/body. They form the world, the form of the physical matter.
"Yet they remain ideas, and CANNOT leave the mind that is their source. Nor is their form apart from the idea it represents."
e.g. the body is a form. Other people's bodies are forms, and you see these as outside your mind, because your mind is having wishful anti-christ thoughts about your brothers. And this wish to see them as not christ shows you a body which blocks your awareness of their Christ nature.
"All forms of anti-Christ oppose the Christ. And fall before His Face like a dark veil which SEEMS to shut you off from Him, alone in darkness."
So now the physical objects, the forms, which are the anti-Christ or against Christ ("the world was made as a picture of the crucifixion of God's son" - ie, a picture of Christ having been attacked). The physical world falls like a dark veil - a solid wall of matter - which shuts you off from Christ. The physical universe is this veil, it is the veil over the face of Christ which blocks your vision, seen as outside of your mind/body and in-between you and Christ.
"Yet the light is there. A cloud does not put out the sun. No more a veil can banish what it seems to separate, nor darken by one whit the Light Itself."
The face of Christ is BEHIND this wall of flesh, bones, bodies, planets, objects, still there, able to be seen with Christ Vision/true perception, but first the VEIL OF MATTER (sin/anti-christ) must be removed or be seen through (overlooked) in order to see PAST it to the Christ. ie the anti-christ has to get out of the way, meaning your beliefs and wishful thinking have to get out of the way, so that you can stop seeing the world of bodies/anti-christ/veil and instead see Christ. "Forgiveness (christ vision) does not look upon bodies."
Often our idea of love is special love, which means exclusive or conditional love.
That means, it's relatively commonplace and 'normal' to only feel loving toward things that you approve of, while you spend the rest of your time rejecting everything else. But this isn't unconditional love.
Sometimes it takes some difficult lessons in which to learn to be unconditional toward others. But it also works the other way - if you are going to be yourself at all times and not enter into fake persona identities or putting on a facade when around certain people, you're going to need to learn to be unconditionally yourself, no matter what.
So that's going to take a lot of honesty, to be true to the truth about you at all times.
But as you become more yourself, more loving toward yourself in all situations, you will also become more loving toward others in all situations.
Sometimes the people who you do not like, or who are your enemy, or who offend you or even attack you, are the ones who have come to try to prompt you to love unconditionally.
What they do for you is they push your buttons and give you signals that say they do not love you, so that you will come to confront the limitations and conditions that you've placed on your own response. Will you hate them in return?
You will come face to face with your own inability to love them unconditionally, perhaps your patience wore thin and you lost your cool, or you just can't accept people being that way. But why.... the why is, really, that you can only love conditionally, and you can only therefore love yourself conditionally.
You may then find yourself, in the face of such opposition, realizing and exclaiming that you CANNOT love them. There is some reason, so strong, as to why your love stops and you seemingly refuse to love them. Particularly if you feel justified in resentment or anger or hurt. But then this will bring you face to face with your limitations. WHY can't you love them? Why can't you overlook and forgive them? What is it that you think is 'about them' that you can't love, which REALLY is about YOU that you can't love? Why do you have a limitation of conditionality placed on your ability to love?
Because what that will mean is, if you can't love them, you can't love yourself. But here is the marvelous opportunity.
If you can somehow dig even deeper, put aside your resentments and grievances, and find SOME way to above and beyond to love EVEN MORE, even beyond what you thought you could love, you will be breaking through the barriers of your conditionality - your conditioning - both towards others and towards yourself. Your love will GROW.
And then you will find yourself in situations noticing that you feel stronger and more loving towards all people, even strangers. That you feel more open to them, compassionate toward them, and more understanding of them. You will realize that somewhere somehow you put aside some kind of barriers that you had erected around yourself which always kept people at a distance or made it seem difficult for you to be around anyone that wasn't your special chosen ones.
Your sense of trust and certainty will skyrocket, you will find a renewed confidence and fearlessness due to the removal of a sense of separation, and you will genuinely feel in your heart a feeling of love for people that you never knew was possible.
To accomplish this, therefore, we need our own limtiations to be confronted, we need our own conditionality to be pointed out, we need our own 'reasons' for not being able to love someone - with all our justifications as to why - to be brought into question so that we will put them aside and find a way to love that goes beyond specialness and beyond confinement. This is our gift to others but also is our gift to ourselves, because we deserve to be the love that we really are at all times and this light shouldn't be kept under a rock called specialness.
As Jesus said a long time ago, love your enemies. Otherwise the walls you erect to keep them out keep your love in a prison, and being a prisoner makes you feel unloved as well. Unconditionally loving yourself is a much more deeply satisfying place to be.
It can be very important for your life to totally fail sometimes. It's good for the ego to totally fuck up.
It is important that you come to realize that what you've been trying to do DOES NOT WORK.
You will initially feel like this is absolutely the worst case scenario, where everything is falling apart and going to shit, and nothing is working how it's supposed to.
BUT...
This is very important.
It means you will come face to face with the fact that your ego method of dealing with things is completely flawed. And, there is an extremely powerful (yet painful) potential in that.
Only when you can fully ADMIT to yourself that your ego behavior is flawed - such as an attitude of trying to fix and save everyone - believing you are the source of everything - thinking you have authority and control over your life - believing you are in charge of your existence - when these FAIL you STOP BELIEVING that these approaches work.
You surrender them. Possibly on your knees. In tears.
And it seems right then that you are absolutely at your worst, BUT, you are mere millimeters away from something truly marvelous.
Because, when you DROP the ego tools that you have come to realize do not work, you surrender trying to do this all yourself, you withdraw all of your conviction and value and faith from these broken lifestyles, and this puts you in a position for SOMETHING ELSE.
And guess what... that something else is then ready to come flooding in. If you've seen clearly that trying to fix everyone is fundamentally totally flawed because it just makes the situation WORSE, then.... naturally... the opposite must be true. Stopping fixing must HELP.
But it's more than this. Ultimately it means, you are coming face to face with your authority problem over God, the power you think you have over your life, and you are FORCED to surrender it.
You think this is terrible, like your life is destroyed. But then you realize... wait a minute.... there is another option open to me. What if I let God be the authority? Wait a minute.. what if God has the power I've been trying to have and I can share it with Him? Wait a minute... what if I can actually be happy if I stop trying to do this myself and I instead align with His will? .... all these popcorn insights start to fire off as you suddenly realize that your ego strategy was actually a CLOSED DOOR which was shutting out the EASE of being with God, making your life difficult and driving you nuts.
So now you rip the door off its hinges, the light floods in, you suddenly realize THERE IS A BETTER WAY, and hey presto, suddenly you find real relief and your will has become aligned with God's will. And now you can actually enjoy the journey of returning to God and heading in the direction of union with God, rather than always trying to run the other way. Yay!
So your life fails... its a blessing in disguise. Looks awful, feels crap, you don't want it, but you don't realize what it's leading to. It NEEDS to fail, so you can be set free.
A collection of related quotes where the physical is no longer seen...
"By focusing upon the good in him, THE BODY GROWS DECREASINGLY PERSISTENT IN YOUR SIGHT, and will at length be SEEN AS LITTLE MORE THAN JUST A SHADOW CIRCLING AROUND THE GOOD. 4 And this will be your concept of yourself, when you have reached the world BEYOND THE SIGHT YOUR EYES ALONG CAN OFFER YOU TO SEE. 5 For you will not interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. 6 And in His sight THERE IS ANOTHER WORLD."
"The veil across the face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, they all are different names for just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself that holds him off from you, and you away from him."
"And so you and your brother stand, here in this holy place, BEFORE THE VEIL OF SIN that hangs between you and the face of Christ. 2 Let it be lifted!"
"The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. 2 Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to join with Him at last."
"Let not your eyes be blinded by the veil of specialness that hides the face of Christ from him, and you as well."
"The veil of ignorance is drawn across the evil and the good, and must be passed that BOTH MAY DISAPPEAR, so that perception finds no hiding place"
"Your CHOSEN HOME is on THE OTHER SIDE, BEYOND THE VEIL. 2 It has been carefully prepared for you, and it is ready to receive you now. "
"Only the veil that has been drawn across reality is lifted. 3 Nothing has changed."
"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."
"Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world."
"The veil that you have drawn across the face of love has DISAPPEARED."
"The veil is lifted through its gentleness, and nothing hides the face of Christ from its beholders."
"Never allow purity to remain hidden, but shine away the heavy veils of guilt within which the Son of God has hidden himself from his own sight."
"(sin) THE BODY'S EYES BEHOLD IT AS SOLID GRANITE, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. 5 Yet reason SEES THROUGH IT easily, because it is an error. 6 The form it takes cannot conceal its EMPTINESS from reason's eyes."
"Reason will tell you that if form is not reality it MUST BE AN ILLUSION, and IS NOT THERE to see. 5 And if you see it you must be mistaken, for you are seeing what CAN NOT BE REAL as if it were."
"Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. 3 Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins AND OF HIS BODY."
"You SEE THE FLESH or recognize the spirit. 2 There is no compromise between the two. 3 If one is real the other MUST be false, for what is real denies its opposite. 4 There is no choice in vision but this one."
"If you choose FLESH, you never will escape the BODY as your own reality, for you have chosen that you want it so. 8 But choose the spirit, and all Heaven bends to touch your eyes and bless your holy sight, that you may SEE THE WORLD OF FLESH NO MORE *except* to heal and comfort and to bless."
"In Christ's sight, the world and God's creation meet, and as they come together ALL PERCEPTION DISAPPEARS." (world is not creation)
"The real beauty of the temple cannot be seen with the PHYSICAL EYE. 11 Spiritual sight, on the other hand, cannot see the structure at all because it is perfect vision. 12 It can, however, see the altar with perfect clarity."
"This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision, simultaneously WEAKENING THE INVESTMENT IN PHYSICAL SIGHT."
"True vision is the natural perception of spiritual sight, but it is still a A CORRECTION RATHER THAN A FACT. 2 Spiritual sight is SYMBOLIC, and therefore NOT a device for knowing. 3 It is, however, a means of right perception, which brings it into the proper domain of the miracle. 4 A "vision of God" would be a miracle rather than a revelation. 5 The fact that perception is involved at all REMOVES THE EXPERIENCE from the realm of knowledge. 6 That is why visions, however holy, do not last." (even 'heaven on earth' does not last)
"W-pII.10.2. The final judgment on the world contains no condemnation. 2 For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin and WHOLLY PURPOSELESS. 3 WITHOUT A CAUSE, and now WITHOUT A FUNCTION in Christ's sight, it merely SLIPS AWAY INTO NOTHINGNESS. 4 THERE IT WAS BORN, and there IT ENDS AS WELL. 5 And all the figures in the dream in which the world began go with it. 6 BODIES NOW ARE USELESS, and will therefore FADE AWAY, because the Son of God is limitless."
There is a myth in the ACIM community relating to how perception works. It's based on the belief that we only have one perception, one outlook. There's us, in the body, perceiving. We read stuff about how perception shifts and how it changes what we see.
So we think ok, my one perception will shift and it will show me a different world. In other words, the bad stuff I was seeing will seem to disappear and I will see good stuff. We read about the spiritual eye and christ vision and we start to think that our entire perception is going to shift to ONLY seeing perfection and beauty.
This of course then implies that all the bad stuff, all the sickness, the wars, the conflict, the decay, it's all going to magically disappear from my perception and I will not see it at all. Which in turn means, all the hospitals will be empty, everyone with broken limbs will magically be fixed, it's my dream so the entire physical contents of the world will transform into a heavenly condition.
This is not what ACIM teaches.
Perception is a little more complicated because there are actually two perceptual mechanisms involved, and Jesus goes to great lengths describing them.
One perception mechanism, the spiritual eye, is direct "mind seeing", also referred to as the eyes of Christ or Christ Vision. This seeing does not rely on or depend on the body whatsoever. It is not limited by space or time or distance. The mind can be anywhere, go anywhere, see anywhere. It can see through walls.
In fact, the spiritual eye does not really acknowledge what ACIM refers to as "the veil" of physical matter, the granite block of sin. It looks right THROUGH it as if it's not even there and looks to the light of the real world beyond. This fixation on the face of Christ is one way of perceiving. But there is another.
The body has its own perceptual mechanism. It has physical eyeballs. Its form of perception depends entirely on illusions. And the body's perception is not capable of seeing anything else.
"Everything the body sees is an illusion."
"These eyes made not to see will never see"
"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality."
"The body's eyes behold it as solid granite"
"Nothing the body's eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation"
"This is the function you have given your body's eyes. 5 It is not seeing. 6 It is image making. 7 It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions."
The body's perception relies entirely on the laws of physics, which the spiritual eye completely transcends. They rely on photons of light, concentrated particles of finite energy. Light has to collide with surfaces of physical forms, objects, matter, and be "denied" by the form. The light is thus "reflected" rather than passing through it. This reflected light then enters the body's eyes and passes images to the mind for interpretation.
This is a fundamental difference between the two types of perception. What Jesus refers to as "physical sight" can only "see" when vision is blocked. In other words, seeing has to stop at the surface of objects, in order to see them as being there. This seeing is therefore blinded by physical objects. "Nothing so blinding as perception of form." Your eyes cannot see through matter.
Spiritual vision is the opposite, in that it does not stop at physical objects, it is not limited by matter or surfaces, it looks right through them as though they are just a very thin transparent veil. It overlooks the physical world because "to forgive is to overlook", looking beyond to the light.
Christ vision sees past the illusion of physical form to something beyond it - the face of Christ. Vision therefore doesn't really pay attention to what we would call physical stuff or the world of bodies, nor dose it function based on "seeing photons".
"This world of idols IS a veil across the Face of Christ"
"the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ"
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body"
"The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ."
"Real vision is not only unlimited by space and distance, but it does not depend on the body's eyes at all"
Essentially, body vision is blinded by perception of the form of physical objects/matter, but to the body this causes it to "see" them. ie my vision "stopped at" the surface. Spiritual vision does not use photons of light, does not depend on physical matter, and sees directly with the mind.
The thing is this. For anyone who has a body or is in a body, BOTH mechanisms for seeing are simultaneously functioning. It does not matter how asleep or awake you are, whether you have false perception or true perception. It does not matter if your mind is sick or healed. If you still have a body, the body's eyes STILL will continue to report images of the PHYSICAL ONLY world to the mind, at the same time as the mind trying to see past it. It will still see the forms of matter, bodies, wars, sickness and death.
This is also why for example you can read the ACIM workbook and STILL READ THE WORDS, even if you are making progress in opening christ vision, because you are still using the body's eyes at the same time. Those who wake up in the world are still perfectly capable of watching tv and choosing food and navigating around a building and driving a car.
This "double vision" of body sight and mind vision, will occur as a kind of parallel perception. As the spiritual eye opens, as your mind opens up to direct vision, as you overlook (forgive) the world of matter, your body is still going to function in exactly the same biologically limited manner. It is still going to relay messages to the mind as to what it senses and sees. And the mind has to sort out what these messages mean to it.
Mind, as the only seer ("only the mind sees"), is therefore receiving impressions either directly (the real world, face of Christ), or indirectly (via the body's eyes). It is experiencing TWO inputs for a while. In order to open the spiritual vision, investment in physical sight has to be diminished. But this only means that the images coming from the body are recognized as illusions not to be believed. Visions of reality are accepted as true, visions of the physical are recognized as false. There are two levels of perception:
"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye (which is now a second way to perceive), simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the ***two types or levels of perception*** is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind ***that has let itself be healed*** (has christ vision AND is using the body) will no longer acknowledge them. 3 ****There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others (seen with the body's eyes still), and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before****. 4 But the healed mind (having true perception, accurate recognition) will put them all in one category; they are unreal (recognized as false)."
This does not mean the mind is blind to sick bodies. NOR does it mean that seeing sick bodies is proof that your mind is sick! You see them because your BODY shows them to you, but your mind decides whether to BELIEVE what the body sees.
You still see physical signs of sickness because you're still USING the body. Even when the body is used by the Holy Spirit for communication and healing, even when your spiritual eye is very open, physical sight STILL functions and the mind DOES still SEE the images of the physical world. But it categorizes these images as "these are not reality, they are illusions." It is not tempted by them, deceived by them, nor does it believe they depict the truth. This means you are AWARE that you are in a dream ie "awake in the dream."
"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. ***They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die*** (via physical eyes).Yet they are not deceived by what they see (because the mind is not tempted and doesn't believe the physical is real)."
So you see (pun intended), while having a body, your mind is going to be in a state where you keep seeing the physical world, in its continued condition of constant inescapable corruption and death, complete with sick broken bodies and suffering and time and everything going wrong. BUT, the condition of your mind will be such that the MEANING of these images will be different. How they strike your mind will be different. And what you recognize them AS will be different.
You WILL still see the same FORM of physical matter, people with missing limbs, rotting leaves, dead carcasses, the signs of decay and weathering, rot and animals eating animals etc. But your mind will not regard them as true, real, valid, wanted, heaven, or God-created. They are simply recognized as an illusory dream. You will be aware that it is a dream. This doesn't mean you are blind to them, it means you see them accurately for what they are. True perception produces ACCURATE perception, which correctly interprets body visions, and is therefore NOT an INABILITY to see bodies.
Being in this position, where your mind can see beyond the physical world to the light of reality, where all differences and forms and shapes are not given credence, but where the physical is STILL included in what is seen due to still having eyeballs, you are now above the battlefield, in the world but not of it, aware of dreaming. And now you are in a position to be truly helpful.
What that means is, you can discern accurately what others are doing in the world. You can see their physical ailments. You can recognize their emotional and mental sickness - their call for love. And you are in a position to offer them help, WITHOUT making their sickness real. It's because you DO NOT believe the sickness (that you do see) is real, that you CAN help.
"But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals."
This is what makes you a teacher of God. Being in a position of greater truth YET STILL IN THE WORLD. Able to still REACH those who are still in bodies, able to heal both the minds AND bodies of others, able to see sickness and famine and war and death, and able to offer help. Able to heal the sick, transform matter, raise the dead, move mountains, etc.
This sets you up for the situation where there is a ground for performing miracles. Because only if you can be "more healed" (have opened christ vision, mind seeing past bodies) while simultaneously being exposed to those who are "less healed" (can still see them with the body's mechanisms), do you have any way to HELP anyone. You are still "where the sickness is" but are not sick yourself.
And miracles are a service. They are given by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less. They supply a lack. This is ONLY possible if you can be in the world in a healed state, NOT disappearing into a state of perfection. This is the function of a teacher of God. They help those who are less loving than themselves. They dissipate the fear in others. They raise the dead and heal the sick. This is ONLY possible because you have simultaneous Vision and body sight.
Christ needs your body to reach those who need reaching at a PHYSICAL level. Miracles are needed to demonstrate PHYSICALLY symbols of truth and to prove to those whose eyes are not open that there is a better way. The body is used to communicate to those who see only bodies, that their spiritual vision may open. And miracles are performed to liberate their minds from being blinded by perception of form. To demonstrate that the laws of the world can be broken.
ONLY when the face of Christ is FULLY seen, at the instant of atonement, is the investment in physical sight COMPLETELY undone. And investment only means dependence upon and belief in. The "veil" of physical matter, which the body alone can see ("only the body makes the world seem real"), appears as thin and transparent to the healed mind. It is seen through like x-ray vision to the light beyond.
And then eventually it vanishes from sight completely as the real world is seen but for an instant. Only as the world is not seen AT ALL do you stop seeing sick bodies. Because only as the BODY ITSELF is utterly transcended and let go does the mind awaken to a body-less reality. This means the mind goes beyond being awake in the dream (vision + body vision), and returns to a state of ONLY seeing with the mind (and only seeing the Kingdom of God). That's what it means to wake up FROM dreaming, in which for you the world ends.
This is why Jesus was able to walk the Earth in a highly healed state of mind, HELP OTHERS, perform miracles, SEE LEPERS, SEE THE DEAD, and demonstrate the laws of God. Without his BODY'S SIGHT, he would not have been able to see OR communicate with those who were limited to bodies. And because He had both christ vision and body sight, he could act as a Teacher of God in this world, before he woke up FROM the dream of death entirely.
"But the face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this ***no longer sees the world***."
"For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, ***and disappears*** before His holy sight."
"Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. ***What further sight is needed***? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love ***behind all forms***, beyond all purposes. "
"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 which it came."
"Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And ***gone are bodies*** (sick ones and healthy ones) in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, ***no walls, no bodies***, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
Here's Jesus talking about how the physical world - the veil - seems to you to be SOLID, but is not. It's a thin veil of illusions, and it seems to become more solid to you if there is guilt in your mind. As guilt is lifted, so is the world's "solidity", it becomes transparent to you because you can see THROUGH its illusions, beyond the form of error, to the truth. "You can literally see sense."
"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."
"You who believe you walk in sanity with feet on solid ground, and through a world where meaning can be found, consider this: These are the laws on which your "sanity" appears to rest. These are the principles which make the ground beneath your feet seem solid. "
"If you but recognized how little stands between you and your awareness of your union with your brother! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet within you is a Force that no illusions can resist."
"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would try to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, BECAUSE it is an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."
"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. "
"And so you stand, here in this holy place, before the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ. LET it be lifted! 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."
"For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. The body seems to be more solid and more stable than the mind"
"This heavy-seeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like rock, is like a bank of low, dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the sun. Its impenetrable appearance is WHOLLY an illusion."
"The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him. "
"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."
If I react differently to each person, or in each situation, I am not being unconditional. I think that one response is appropriate for one situation, another in a different situation. And in this way, my ego becomes locked into and engaged with the FORM of the situation. If someone becomes angry, I react with sternness. If someone is kinder, I react with kindness. This is conditionality.
I didn't really realize that I was doing this all the time. I was giving back a response based on what I received from the person, instead of giving a response based on what I received from God!
It is very challenging to be loving all the time, in spite of and regardless of ego appearances. Our ego is easily triggered when other people act unlovingly. It's also easy to buy into the appearance that something has gone wrong with someone's life and that they're guilty of a fault. It may seem true in form that they are doing something, but my reaction doesn't HAVE to mirror that guilt/attack back to them.
Being able to love all the time totally flies in the face of what the ego shows us and completely denies all ego illusions the power to change us. I have been going through this lesson recently, learning that ONLY LOVE works in a dire situation, and ONLY LOVE can make a difference. All of my other reactions and manipulations and misperceptions and emotional reactions did nothing but make the situation worse.
Unconditionality is very much contrary to how the ego operates. It wants difference and change and special conditions placed on all interactions. When someone is happy, you love them. What about when they are depressed, or violent, or insane, or severely upset? Can you overlook that and LOVE THEM?
I found myself coming face to face with my own inner inability to love, as situations pushed and challenged me to love unconditionally. I said to Jesus "I cannot love that"... and I couldn't. Or I believed I couldn't. It wasn't true. It's just that I was being forced to have to love when my ego didn't want to and so I had to move PAST my ego (overlook/forgive) in order to love anyway.
It seems hard to do this at first. I like many are so used to just having the normal automatic ego reactions. And the ego is especially very TEMPTING in trying to pull us into its drama, to get us to believe that something has gone wrong. Holy Spirit's advice to me in the face of ridiculous ego absurdity was LAUGH! It seemed completely inappropriate, and it was actually hard to find a laugh, but I did it.
Gradually I'm growing more capable of loving unconditionally even when faced with ego bullshit, and, the cool thing is, that this means that in order TO love unconditionally, I have to learn to put aside my own ego self-attack, which fails to love myself unconditionally, and as a result, the more I choose unconditional love the more I seem to gain some kind of... invulnerability to the ego's temptations. Situations seem to be bothering me less, or they are not latching onto me as easily. I am having less reactions. Things which would've upset me, I've had to overlook, and that means I'm no longer as deceived by the ego. Yay.
So now it's more a question of, a situation happens, and then REGARDLESS of what the situation looks like, choosing to only come from love, in the heart, rather than all the other 'reasons' for responses of the ego which come from the head. Just plainly ignoring everything, ignoring how it looks, ignoring appearances, ignoring the form of the situation, ignoring what the ego is demonstrating, and then demonstrating unconditional love instead. I WILL STILL LOVE YOU ANYWAY!
The challenge is to keep this up all the time. To come from love, all the time. ALL the time. Not just sometimes. Love love love love love love love love love.
The "physical world", exists only IN false perception. This is why the body's eyes can see it. The body's eyes are rooted in false perception permanently.
"Everything the body sees is an illusion."
"These eyes made not to see will never see."
"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."
"Eyes perceive falsely"
The world is like a veil that hangs in front of the face of Christ to block your vision. It must be seen THROUGH and past, which is what it means to OVERLOOK it, which IS forgiveness.
When you overlook the world, and look to the light beyond all forms and bodies, the light of the real world, you will become UNABLE to see the world. At its peak, christ vision makes the veil become totally invisible, the world is utterly forgotten, and it disappears.
You only become able to see the physical world by LOWERING your "frequency" to one less loving, causing you to enter into illusions and start to allow them into your mind, making them real, causing you to "see them". Without false perception, you CANNOT SEE the false world. And you cannot see BOTH the false world and the true world in their simultaneous entirety.
"The world you see (the false world) must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."
"You cannot behold the world and know God."
In order TO see the real world, the TRUE world, you have to make the false world - Earth, FALSE, and not believe it's TRUE, otherwise you are making NO distinction between what is true and false and are CONFUSED (ego). Only by being clear about what is true and what is false, or what is good and what is evil, can you DISCERN with accurate (true) perception what is REAL and what is UNREAL.
The world that exists ONLY in false perception, DOES NOT exist in true perception. In true perception you see the real world, in which there ARE no streets, buildings, houses, shopping malls, street lights, not even night and day, and not even the sun and the earth.
If you want to see the face of christ, you have to LET GO OF this world. You have to access the spiritual eye and use christ vision. And you have to see PAST physical matter, IGNORING IT. Making it unreal to yourself. Recognizing it as false. Realizing it IS just an illusory world, not a real world. It is by recognizing that illusions ARE NOT REAL, that you transition from false to true perception. True perception recognizes what is real and what is illusion.
You cannot forgive the world and keep the world. "A world forgiven cannot last." You can ONLY forgive that which is an ILLUSION, and see through its illusory nature to the truth beyond it. Doing this makes the illusion DISAPPEAR. Forgiving the world UNDOES it, and makes it disappear. You cannot SEE IT when you see the face of Christ. Because then, the world is forgotten entirely.
In the following quotes, Jesus outlines clearly why you CANNOT see BOTH worlds at once, in full. And sight of one REQUIRES that you NOT SEE the other. You cannot therefore keep both heaven and Earth, you have to choose one or the other. And ONLY one of the two is real.
"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought that gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, ****where all the world must disappear**** and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."
"***The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it***, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when ***all things visible will have an end.***"
"The world as YOU perceive it cannot have been created by the Father, for the world is NOT as you see it. God created ONLY the eternal, and ***everything YOU see is perishable***. Therefore, there must be another world which you do NOT see."
"The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive ***nothing ELSE***. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM."
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; ***the world forgotten***, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream"
"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."
"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "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 is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." ***This world you see MUST BE DENIED***, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. ***YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS.*** For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. ***The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER.***
***Both are not true***, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it.
This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. And of these two, but one is real. Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth."
"Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, ***simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight.*** The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute.'
In this world, it always seems as though we are at the effect of the world. As if the world is dreaming us, causing us, doing things to us, making us feel certain ways, triggering certain reactions.
When the world does something, the "ego" in us seems to react with various kinds of stress, emotions, fears, retaliations etc. Always it’s like being strapped into a ride where you have no say in what you feel or what your state of mind is. As though the world entirely dictates everything you experience.
What does the world have in store for you today? What problems is it going to slap you in the face with? In what way is it going to decide your fate? How it is going to upset you and shit on you and make you feel afraid? This is what it is set up to to do, all day every day.
False perception is a backwards perception. It literally feels like everything you experience is coming at you from the world. Your moods, your emotions, your reactions, your state of mind, whether you are happy or sad, or calm or upset, seems entirely at the whim of an external alien will.
The ego in us, is this part of mind that seems to just sit there and receive punishment. The world has some shit on store for you today? Fuck you. The world wants to crap all over your nice sense of security? Fuck you today. The world wants to decide everything’s just going to hit the fan all at once? Fuck you especially.
This is how it is set up. This is what happens in false perception. This is how we experience life, every day, when we believe that the world is the cause of us. That outside forces are shaping us. External events determine whether the day sucks to hell or whether it’s a "good one".
And so, in your mind, there’s this receiver of experience, the seeming passive and powerless and weak and victimized self, defenseless and vulnerable and completely at the effect of everything. That is the ego. That is a state of mind of false perception, of blindness, of being a victim 24/7. That the world is doing you.
To not question this, is to remain unaware of reality, light, truth, power and peace. To not question it is to simply be victimized all the time. Stuff just continues to go wrong, over and over and over again. Shit happens. Bad stuff goes down. Unexpected things break. There’s sudden emergencies. The world plots against you and wants you dead.
This is what the inner victim believes. And because it is the belief in this, it also plays the role of this. It is the desire to be victimized. It is the attempt to position oneself as at the effect of the world. To suffer. To have the world capable of doing things to you. To allow us to overpower you, upset you, shake you, disturb your peace, and take your freedom and happiness away.
It’s not easy to break out of this because this ego self, this receiver of punishment by the world, this sufferer and victim of an alien will, is practically wired into the world like a totally passive absorber of punishment. It sees the world as happening from the outside in, happening to it, not from it. Nothing is seen as coming out of it or as being caused by it or it being responsible for how anything is. This is the ego in all its selfishness and all its irresponsibility and the face of innocence.
This is how it’s wired. It’s like it’s made to be plugged into the world. The world is set up to send messages to it, and it is set up to receive the messages. And in particular it is set up to seem not to even interpret the messages, but to take them at face value. To believe it them, and to let the world define for itself what its truth is. It’s even set up so that whatever the world says it is doing to you, it does that to you, and you have the appropriate reaction according to the hierarchy of illusions.
If the world decides today to do something severe to you, the ego in you decides to go along with it blindly and suffer in the extreme. If the world decides to seem to give you a break, the ego in you decides you’re somehow being let off and given a break from the barrage of punishment. Only to expect that the next fuck-you is just around the corner.
But there is something very weird about this, because it is in fact very backwards. It’s completely unnatural for it to be backwards. It’s like living in the world in such a way, that you don’t see yourself as having any power to do anything, and only that you are to just lay down and let the world walk all over you. Like you are a piece of carpeting onto which the world can just shit as it pleases.
The outside seems to comes into you, people do stuff to you, others decide who and what you are, and the world dreams of you any way it wishes. You seem even to be made by other dream figures, and modified by them as life goes on. This is so strange and so backwards to experience "life" as though the external world is the cause of everything you are forever.
This is the fundamental, natural, corresponding and automatic arrangement of the nature of this world, and the nature of your ego. This is the special relationship, locked into form and dedicated to suffering and victimhood. Where your every relationship is founded on what you get and take from the world and what it does to you on your behalf.
This is how you are automatically wired, as a body identity, to experience the world as an automaton. To sense it, to have it tell you what is there, to have the world stimulate you from the outside in, and to define what your experience is. It transmits stuff into you from the outside and seems to tell you what there is to see and feel. And never does it attempt to challenge this arrangement or raise doubts about the world’s ability to dominate you.
To overcome this, to move into true perception, which requires not only the reversal of cause and effect in your entire though system, but also the total questioning of every way in which the world seems to do anything at all, you have to be willing to fly in the face of what seems "physically natural". To even go against the standard setup of the body senses. To be confronted with the attempt by the world to cause you, and to be uncaused by it. To disregard all temptations and not fall for the belief that sin is really happening to you. Because really this is a dream coming from you designed to make it look like it’s coming from itself.
This is the work and the challenge and the spiritual way out of hell. This is the forgiveness of the world. To stare the world in the face and recognize it is not coming AT you, but FROM you. To realize you have a say in it, you contribute, you choose, you consent, you cause, you have power, and you cannot be a victim. It is completely unnatural in terms of this world to attempts to do this, which is why it can seem so difficult to do it consistently. The world has no end of temptations and problems to offer you to distract you onto the slippery slopes of hell.
The truth then flies totally in the face of the world and is nothing like the world. The world is false. Truth offers a perspective which comes from the inside and extends outward through love rather than acting like a black hole of suffering. It ignores any suggestion that the world does anything to you or anyone, and is completely unaffected and unmoved by any and all occurrences and suggestions of attack happening. It is to stand in the onslaught of a river barraging you in your face and be solid like a rock, unmoved and unwavered by its endless attempted attack.
What you are is immovable, unchangeable, permanent, fixed, absolute, eternal, immortal, invulnerable, powerful, harmless, unassailable, perfect and causal. Asserting and expressing this at all times is the goal. You are not relative but absolute. You are not finite but infinite. You have power over this world and over all phenomenon, over the body and over space and time and matter and energy. You are real and the world is not. And only if it is not is there hope that you can overcome it.
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.
Forgiveness overlooks, undoes, and makes disappear. Forgiveness is not something you apply to REALITY. It is something you apply to an UNREAL world, an illusory world, in order to dispel it.
"To forgive is to OVERLOOK."
"I will forgive and this will disappear."
"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies."
"And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time."
The aim of reaching "the forgiven world" is NOT to keep it! The aim of forgiving the world is to SHINE IT AWAY and see it not!
"You cannot behold the world and know God."
"Eternity will shine away the world."
"The world will END in laughter"
The aim isn't to forgive the world so that it can become beautiful and KEPT. It appears only temporarily beautiful because you do not CONDEMN it. You see a reflection of holiness and heaven's beauty IN it, because YOU are beautiful. But the world itself is UNDONE by your beauty.
To heal the world is to ERASE the world.
To raise the dead and heal the sick is to END THEM.
Bodies cannot remain in a state of forgiveness. Seeing the face of Christ causes you to FORGET THE WORLD.
Forgiving the world means lifting away from it the efforts you made to MAKE IT REAL. Believing an ILLUSORY world is real, means you believe illusions are reality, which is FALSE PERCEPTION.
Loving the world does not KEEP it. It dissolves it. Love shines away all forms and erases the universe in light.
"Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream."
"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 here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love."
"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."
"From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."
Injury is impossible. And yet illusion makes illusion. If you can condemn you can be injured. For you have believed that you can injure, and the right you have established for yourself can be now used against you, 'til you lay it down as valueless, unwanted and unreal. Then does illusion cease to have effects, and all it seemed to have will be undone. Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave.
Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge. To condemn is thus impossible in truth. What seems to be its influence and its effects have not occurred at all. Yet must we deal with them a while as if they had. Illusion makes illusion. Except one. Forgiveness is illusion that is answer to the rest.
Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams away, and though it is itself a dream, it breeds no others. All illusions save this one must multiply a thousand fold. But this is where illusions end. Forgiveness is the end of dreams because it is a dream of waking. It is not itself the truth. Yet does it point to where the truth must be, and gives direction with the certainty of God Himself. It is a dream in which the Son of God awakens to his Self and to his Father knowing They are One.
Forgiveness is the only road that leads out of disaster, past all suffering, and finally away from death. How could there be another way, when this one is the plan of God Himself? And why should you oppose it, quarrel with it, seek to find a thousand ways in which it must be wrong; a thousand other possibilities?
Is it not wiser to be glad you hold the answer to your problems in your hand? Is it not more intelligent to thank the One Who gives salvation, and accept His gift with gratitude? And is it not a kindness to yourself to hear His Voice and learn the simple lessons He would teach, instead of trying to dismiss His Words and substitute your own in place of His?
His Words will work. His Words will save. His Words contain all hope, all blessing and all joy that ever can be found upon this earth. His Words are born in God, and come to you with Heaven's love upon them. Those who hear His Words have heard the song of Heaven, for these are the words in which all will merge as one at last. And as this one will fade away, the Word of God will come to take its place, for It will be remembered then and loved.
This world has many seeming separate haunts where mercy has no meaning, and attack appears as justified. Yet all are one; a place where death is offered to God's Son and to his Father. You may think They have accepted, but if you will look again upon the place where you beheld Their blood you will perceive a miracle instead. How foolish to believe that They could die! How foolish to believe you can attack! How mad to think that you could be condemned, and that the holy Son of God can die!
The stillness of your Self remains unmoved, untouched by thoughts like these, and unaware of any condemnation which could need forgiveness. Dreams of any kind are strange and alien to the truth. Yet what but Truth could have a Thought Which builds a bridge to truth which brings illusions to the other side?
Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you. The truth bestows these words upon your mind, that you may find the key to light and let the darkness end:
"Only my condemnation injures me.
Only my own forgiveness sets me free."
Do not forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought. Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal.
Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father. Let today be celebrated both on earth and in your holy home as well. Be kind to both, as you forgive the trespasses you thought them guilty of, and see your innocence shining upon you from the Face of Christ.
Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son.
There is no condemnation in him. He is perfect in his holiness. He needs no thoughts of mercy. Who could give him gifts when everything is his? And who could dream of offering forgiveness to the Son of Sinlessness Itself, so like to Him Whose Son he is, that to behold the Son is to perceive no more, and only know the Father? In this vision of the Son, so brief that not an instant stands between this single sight and timelessness itself, you see the vision of yourself and then you disappear forever into God.
Today we come still nearer to the end of everything that yet would stand between this vision and our sight. And we are glad that we have come this far, and recognize that He Who brought us here will not forsake us now. For He would give to us the gift that God has given us through Him today. Now is it time for your deliverance. The time has come. The time has come today.
Grace is an aspect of the Love of God which is most like the state prevailing in the Unity of truth. It is the world's most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely. It is past learning yet the goal of learning, for grace cannot come until the mind prepares itself for true acceptance. Grace becomes inevitable instantly in those who have prepared a table where it can be gently laid and willingly received; an altar clean and holy for the gift.
Grace is acceptance of the Love of God within a world of seeming hate and fear. By grace alone the hate and fear are gone, for grace presents a state so opposite to everything the world contains that those whose minds are lighted by the gift of grace can not believe the world of fear is real.
Grace is not learned. The final step must go beyond all learning. Grace is not the goal this course aspires to attain. Yet we prepare for grace in that an open mind can hear the Call to waken. It is not shut tight against God's Voice. It has become aware that there are things it does not know, and thus is ready to accept a state completely different from experience with which it is familiarly at home.
We have perhaps appeared to contradict our statement that the revelation of the Father and the Son as One has been already set. But we have also said the mind determines when that time will be, and has determined it. And yet we urge you to bear witness to the Word of God to hasten the experience of truth, and speed its advent into every mind which recognizes its effects on you.
Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being He encompasses all things. No mind holds anything but Him. We say "God is," and then we cease to speak, for in that knowledge words are meaningless. There are no lips to speak them, and no part of mind sufficiently distinct to feel that it is now aware of something not itself. It has united with its Source, and like the Source Itself, it merely is.
We cannot speak nor write nor even think of this at all. It comes to every mind when total recognition that its will is God's has been completely given and received completely. It returns the mind into the endless present, where the past and future cannot be conceived. It lies beyond salvation; past all thought of time, forgiveness, and the holy Face of Christ. The Son of God has merely disappeared into His Father, as His Father has in Him. The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state.
This is beyond the experience we try to hasten. Yet forgiveness, taught and learned, brings with it the experiences which bear witness that the time the mind itself determined to abandon all but this is now at hand. We do not hasten it, in that what you will offer was concealed from Him Who teaches what forgiveness means.
All learning was already in His Mind, accomplished and complete. He recognized all that time holds and gave it to all minds, that each one might determine, from a point where time has ended, when it is released to revelation and eternity. We have repeated several times before that you but make a journey that is done.
For Oneness must be here. Whatever time the mind has set for revelation is entirely irrelevant to what must be a constant state, forever as it always was; forever to remain as it is now. We merely take the part assigned long since, and fully recognized as perfectly fulfilled by Him Who wrote salvation's script in His Creator's Name, and in the Name of His Creator's Son.
There is no need to further clarify what no one in the world can understand. When revelation of your Oneness comes, it will be known and fully understood. Now we have work to do, for those in time can speak of things beyond, and listen to words which explain what is to come is past already. Yet what meaning can the words convey to those who count the hours still, and rise and work and go to sleep by them?
Suffice it, then, that you have work to do to play your part. The ending must remain obscure to you until your part is done. It does not matter. For your part is still what all the rest depends on. As you take the role assigned to you, salvation comes a little nearer each uncertain heart that does not beat as yet in tune with God. Forgiveness is the central theme which runs throughout salvation, holding all its parts in meaningful relationships, the course it runs directed, and its outcome sure.
And now we ask for grace, the final gift salvation can bestow. Experience that grace provides will end in time, for grace foreshadows Heaven yet does not replace the thought of time but for a little while. The interval suffices. It is here that miracles are laid; to be returned by you from holy instants you receive, through grace, in your experience, to all who see the light that lingers on your face.
What is the Face of Christ but his who went a moment into timelessness, and brought a clear reflection of the Unity he felt an instant back to bless the world? How could you finally attain to it forever, while a part of you remains outside, unknowing, unawakened and in need of you as witness to the truth?
Be grateful to return, as you were glad to go an instant and accept the gifts which grace provided you. You carry them back to yourself. And revelation stands not far behind. Its coming is ensured. We ask for grace and for experience that comes from grace. We welcome the release it offers everyone. We do not ask for the unaskable. We do not look beyond what grace can give. For this we can give in the grace that has been given us.
Our learning goal today does not exceed this prayer, yet in the world what could be more than what we ask this day of Him Who gives the grace we ask, as it was given Him?
"By grace I live. By grace I am released.
By grace I give. By grace I will release."
"Do not perceive ANYTHING God did not create, or you ARE denying Him."So you can PERCEIVE something God CREATED, which is in heaven?
"ALL His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other because they were created neither partially nor in part. ... The Holy Spirit enables you to PERCEIVE THIS WHOLENESS NOW."
These statements clearly tell you that you are able to PERCEIVE the contents of heaven. To perceive Christ. To perceive Creation.
This doesn't mean that perception is the same as knowledge. "To perceive the truth is not the same as knowing it". But this again implies that you CAN perceive the truth - and God is truth.
"God is in everything I see because God is in my mind?" should perhaps read "I can use perception to perceive God."
"Perception, at its loftiest, is never complete. Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception can be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach everywhere under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds everything in light. Yet no perception, however holy, will last forever."
I did a very in-depth study of EVERYTHING that ACIM says about "the real world". It seemed ultimately very clear that the real world is a little removed from heaven itself. e.g "The real world still is but a dream."
It also became clear that there is such a thing as perceiving the "face of Christ". Yet.... Christ is in heaven, so are you not perceiving heaven?
I STILL keep coming back to this idea, that the real world, the reflection of heaven, the face of christ, the perception of truth, perceiving God, seeing the Son of God, etc.... is in some manner... YOU LOOKING AT HEAVEN, but THROUGH the filter of perception.
This would seem to make more sense in terms of the "real world" being used a a term (which is not the same as the forgiven world). The forgiven world is the overlooked ILLUSORY world (earth etc), while the real world is the PERCEPTION or vision of reality. Appropriately named "real" as in, it reflects reality or is "true". True perception can perceive the truth.
We know that the real world is a "borderland of thought" in between the illusory world and heaven. Just outside the gates. But we also know it is so much on the 'border' of the illusory world of dreams that it is practically outside of it and beyond the VEIL of illusions, which was covering the face of Christ. ie it IS the face of Christ.
It makes more sense also to say that the FACE of christ, is the PERCEPTION of Christ (which is not the same as the KNOWLEDGE of Christ). And that the real world isn't just some static state, but is you looking AT heaven through perception.
"You will first dream of peace (heaven) then awaken to it."
I continue to come back to this idea that the "real world" really is a kind of "window shopping" into heaven. Like looking into heaven from the outside, from a vantage point of separation. Because "perception is a separated state." It is like an IMAGE or a photograph of heaven. A reflection in a mirror. Just once removed slightly from the actual thing.
It's appropriate to then say that the REAL real world is heaven, and "the real world" we PERCEIVE through interpretation, is "the real world" ie the light seen through the filter of consciousness. This is also why ACIM says that "nothing there but shines and shines forever" and that everyting in the real world IS ETERNAL.
If eternal means PERMANENT, the real world HAS to be a perception OF that which is permanent (heaven)... even though the real world "state of mind" ITSELF is temporary, because it's happening via perception. So what you see in true perception is heaven, eternity, but through a judgement/interpreration based way of seeing, which is itself removed from the direct experience.
In the first quote above, it is implied that you CAN see things that God created. I also did a very deep study of all terms relating to VISION, and SEEING within heaven, and there is very strong evidence that congition is able to SEE... the mind can SEE... in reality. This seeing isn't PERCEPTION, which is an interpretative function and a substitute for knowledge. "Nothing there is perceived, only known."But knowing, cognizing, is a direct awareness of what is really there. e.g. "The soul never leaves the SIGHT of God." And we're told many times that Christ lends us HIS EYES. There is a whole lot of material about being able to see in reality, without a need for perception. There, seeing is KNOWING what is there.
We should then perhaps think of "the real world", aka the face of christ, or the "interpretative image of heaven", as an actual PERCEPTUAL experience of the Kingdom. It's not quite the same as being IN the Kingdom or KNOWING it, but it is very closely correlated. "Those who perceive still need healing."
And as another quote says, perception can reach ANYWHERE under the Holy Spirit's guidance. That should include being able to perceive the Kingdom. And how would the Holy Spirit look upon CHRIST, given Christ is IN the Kingdom?
There is a curious line, like this, for example, which perhaps is literal, relating to seeing gardens and endless dancing brooks..."When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of ****violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear, life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away****; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after vision (knowing heaven), who is there who could refuse what must come after? Think but an instant just on this; you can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see."
It also clues you in that when the course talks of "you cannot see both worlds" and "beyond the world there is a world I want" etc... it's ACTUALLY referring to the comparison of Earth vs Heaven, but it saying that you can at first PERCEIVE heaven using vision/true perception, THEN go there. ie the perception of the real world is not like an internal vision inside a closed box where you see the interior walls, like its own 'state'. It's actually like a GLASS ROOM where you can perceive heaven beyond it, so clear that it's almost like being there.
So what if, false perception shows you the unforgiven world, earth. .... true perception renders the false world untrue and forgiven, recognized as an illusion, overlooked, and seen beyond, and true perception/christ vision also allows you to look to the LIGHT of heaven beyond the world, to christ and God, which you first perceive, then know. ie we're being asked to see the IMAGE or REFLECTION of heaven, using perception, before we cross over into it.
If we say that seeing the face of Christ, is really a use of perception from WITHIN the realm of perception, INSIDE the separation, LOOKING OUT BEYOND the separation at heaven OUTSIDE the bubble of spacetime and matter, then the true perception we are cultivating is really an ability to SEE Christ, who is OUTSIDE the dream, FROM the inside. The veil of matter becomes invisible, like a glass room, allowing you to look OUTSIDE its walls.
This renders "the real world" - a perception - not as simply some kind of "inbetween state", where all it sees is its own content, but rather than it is a PERCEPTION of reality, seen from a separated vantage point, but with such clarity and accuracy and openness that it is like peering into heaven itself. There is no perceptual function IN heaven (where you have true sight), but there is a perception OF heaven from the outside looking in.
And so forgiveness brings the ability to SEE truth, reality, love, light, heaven, holiness, christ, God, peace, perfection, etc."The miracle perceives everything (in heaven) as it is. If nothing but the truth (heaven/reality) exists, right-minded seeing cannot see anything but perfection. I have said that only what God creates or what you create with the same Will has any real existence. This, then, is all ***the innocent can see*** (can see perfection, which is in heaven). They do not suffer from distorted perception."
You might think that the only blocks to awareness are in your mind. ie, in your brain. You might think that there is no such thing as a block "outside your body."
But the world you see out there, is coming from your mind. And in fact, your mind has made a world. It is hallucinating a world. This means that effectively, your blocks to awareness will be regarded as outside of you, just as much as internal.
In fact, let's even go so far as to say, that blocks to awareness can be PHYSICAL. Especially since "you maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts" and "both Heaven and Earth are in your mind."
Let's see what Jesus says about this:
"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."
So Jesus is saying, THE WORLD - Earth, physical matter, is standing like a BLOCK in front of the face of Christ. ie the world's FORMS are BLOCKING your sight of Christ. They are coming between you, getting in the way. This is no mere symbol or metaphor either. Literally you've put what appears to be a PHYSICAL WALL between you and God.
Jesus also goes on to refer to the seemingly solid world as a block.
"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would try to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, BECAUSE it is an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."
Notice how the body's eyes are looking upon this "block of sin" as though it is SOLID GRANITE. Thick and solid seeming. Physical matter. This is "the veil". It is a BLOCK to awareness of Christ. A PHYSICAL WALL, made of thought in your mind.
He also notably tells you that REASON is able to SEE SENSE by OVERLOOKING this block. Recognizing the block as an "error". Which means physical objects are ERRORS. They are the FORM of error, the various forms that error (the separation idea, belief in sin) has taken. And here we are also clued in that physical forms are "forms of error."
"ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not recognize, and does not know if it is there or not. Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole, without the meaning that the whole would give. And yet mistakes, regardless of their form, can be corrected. Sin is but error in a special form the ego venerates. It would preserve all errors, and make them sins. For here is its own stability, its heavy anchor in the shifting world it made; the rock on which its church is built, and where its worshippers are bound to bodies, and believe the body's freedom is their own."
Jesus also refers to solidity, in equation with illusions. Ie the physical world which SEEMS SOLID, is an illusion.
"If you but recognized how little stands between you and your awareness of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist. This body only seems to be immovable. This force is irresistible in truth. What, then, must happen when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for what is quietly passed through and gone beyond?"
So to the body's eyes, the forms of error, physical objects, solid matter, their seeming "solidity" "weight" "firmness" etc.... these things all seem real. And failing to OVERLOOK them, is a lack of forgiveness. They form "the veil", which covers up the face of Christ. In fact, this world of SOLIDITY is an attempt to BLOCK YOUR VISION. The physical world, including Earth, and all the stars and galaxies, were made as a place where God could enter not. ie, were made as a WALL to BLOCK YOU from God. To come between you. To make it seem like you are not in the Kingdom.
To the body's eyes, "these eyes made not to see will never see" were made so that you CANNOT see the face of Christ. They were designed to LOOK AT the outside surface of nothing, matter, whereby photons are reflected off (denied) and bounce into the eyes to tell you "the world is there, it is solid, it exists." But because the world BLOCKS vision, it is the fact that your sight was BLOCKED BY the solid matter, that you have not ACTUALLY SEEN. You did not OVERLOOK the surface of the physical objects, and so did not see the face of Christ. "Nothing so blinding as perception of form."
"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and not see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."
"It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL."
Here's Jesus is clearly stating that the physical human body's form of sight, can ONLY see forms, and they only look on ERROR, and this error of form they look at is the granite block of SIN. Which means that the physical world is made of sin, and the body was designed to make the sin seem real. The body's vision STOPS at the SURFACE of nothing (forms, objects) and fails to see past it. This forms A SOLID PHYSICAL WALL, which stands between YOU and THE TRUTH (heaven/God/Christ).
"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."
"How is this done? It is extremely simple, being based on what this little kingdom really IS. The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you.
Everything these messages relay to you is quite external. There are NO messages that speak of what lies underneath, for it is NOT the body that could speak of this."
The body can only "see" BLOCKS, and it sees them precisely BECAUSE vision STOPPED at their surface and failed to go beyond. Seeing with the body is thus NOT seeing at all, it is false perception. It is a state of seeing the interior surface of a walled-in room of hell and darkness, as if it's all that exists. A failure to look through or past the walls (with a kind of x-ray vision, christ vision), makes the world seem like it is SOLID and REAL and ALL THAT EXISTS. And believing this is blindness. It's an unawareness that the Kingdom exists, and an attempt NOT to see God.
"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."
So here Jesus is clearly saying, that there is a light BEYOND the veil, beyond the wall of flesh, beyond the granite block of sin, beyond physical matter. By becoming able to SEE this light, you MUST use spiritual vision (christ vision) which is forgiving and DOES NOT SEE BODIES. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." It looks PAST bodies, past the illusion of form, past error, past the WORLD, TO the light. To the face of Christ. The face of Christ is effectively BEHIND the world (really outside of it, because we're inside a bubble of illusions, dreaming of exile).
So what this really adds up to is, BLOCKS TO AWARENESS are not simply your attitude about the world. They are not taking place just "in my head". There quite literally has been a PHYSICAL BARRIER placed outside you as the world, designed to tempt you to believe that THE WORLD is real, so that you do NOT SEE reality. So long as you use the body's eyes to see it, you will be blinded. You cannot look AT it with forgiveness to try to TURN IT INTO a Kingdom of God. It is made of the denial of the Kingdom. The world itself has to be OVERLOOKED.
And that means, blocks to awareness are not just inside your mind in the way you might think of them. The planet is a block to awareness. If you BELIEVE IN IT, your mind agrees with your body's eyes and you become unable to see. You instead perceive hell. This is false perception. The world you made is hell, the opposite of heaven. "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way." But if your mind chooses NOT to believe what your eyes are telling you is there, it becomes able to OVERLOOK what the body sees to see THROUGH IT, PAST IT, like a thin veil.
You not only overlook a block to awareness "in your mind", you overlook it "out there" also. By not believing in the world, you do not SEE IT. And this is based on the fact that your mind IS LARGER THAN THE UNIVERSE. It must be, because it CONTAINS planet Earth. If size can be considered real, your mind MUST be bigger than your body. In fact all bodies are within it, including all galaxies. And you put them INSIDE your mind to BLOCK awareness of where you really are - in Heaven. To remove the block, therefore, is ultimately to REMOVE THE WORLD.
"This world you see (with the body's eyes) MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision (christ vision). YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."
"You do not really want the world you see (with the body), for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it."
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."
You must DENY that what the body sees is real. You must OVERLOOK everything it shows you. You must NOT BELIEVE the testimony of the flesh. You must IGNORE it. You must look through its lies, its errors, its illusions, be NOT deceived, and look PAST THE WORLD, past your brother's body, to reality. This is what Christ vision allows you to do, and the development of this overlooking is the whole purpose of the workbook.
"The purpose of these exercises (workbook intro) is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world. The workbook is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the undoing of what you see now, and the second with the restoration of sight."
"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
Look at that.
Christ vision DOES NOT look up on a body. It does not regard the body as "there". It looks PAST it. That is forgiveness.
It beholds a light BEYOND the body. That light is the face of christ. It's reality, or at least the real world.
It sees NO separation (no forms).
It sees BEYOND all happenings and events that the body seems to suggest are still there, while fixated on the light that is BEYOND it.
BEYOND WHAT CAN BE TOUCHED (the physical).
So as you "remove blocks to awareness", you are learning NOT TO SEE the blocks. To see beyond them. Which means seeing beyond the WORLD, which is really in your mind as AN HALLUCINATION OF A WORLD. To not believe in the blocks allows you to forgive the world, and this means being able to LOOK BEYOND it to reality. Because the world is an illusion, that you made up, to block your vision, so that you would not be aware of God.
"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."
Once the face of Christ is seen, perfectly, the physical world - the veil - which hangs like a block - disappears completely from your sight. The world is forgotten. Perception translates to knowledge and you wake up in Heaven.
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."
"Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."
"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. 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. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"The stars will disappear, and night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the seasons, and the lives of men; all things that change with time and bloom and fade, will not return."
"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."
There are a set of steps by which your own sin comes to find itself inside of your brother.
1) Believe you are sinful (oops, are you sure?)
2) Grab ahold of that sin
3) Hand it over to your brother and shove it down his throat (project)
4) Disassociate yourself from it and wash your hands of it
5) Put on your 'happy face' and pretend you are innocent
6) Point a finger at the sin, which is now in your brother
7) Accuse your brother's sin of being evil, and attack it
You then see sin in your brother and seemingly 'not' in yourself, because your mask of pretend innocence HIDES the fact that the sin is still in you and never left. The face of innocence covers up your guilt and makes everyone believe you didn't do it.
The one left holding the baby is then your brother in whom you see your projected sin, and you attack him for it, to make sure it stays well away from you.
At the same time, you are then terried that your own sin, which you got rid of, might come back to haunt you. You start to suspect it's going to attack you, find you, hunt you down and enact itself upon you again.
As this is playing out, it seems to transpire that 'the sin' does indeed come back to attack you, manifested in forms of punishment and victimhood, seemingly done 'by' the person in whom you shoved your sin, and now you get to claim:
"I am an innocent victim, I did not ask for this, they are attacking me without my will, the sin is in them, look look I can see the sin in them, it's all their fault".
Well, pretty convenient, to keep up this charade, given that it conceals the sin in you, within your own mind, and puts on a show that you are not sinful at all. You're trying to convince yourself and everyone around you that you do not believe you are the sinner, all the while keeping your sin hidden in the shadows of your mind underneath your blanket of fake innocence.
Now, to reverse this is going to mean, you have to take off the fake mask of innocence, you are going to have to stop being a victim, AND - horror of all horrors - you are going to have to TAKE BACK the sin that you shoved into your brother. It's yours, anyway. You have to separate your brother from your sin, i.e. from the guilt. You have to find a way to see them as innocent and as not `owning` the sin. It's not theirs. They are not sinful.
But you don't really want to do this because if you take back your sin, lo and behold, your mask of innocence (which was a total farce) has to be taken off of yourself, and you have to come face to face again with the sin being IN YOU. You do not like the sin being in you, that's why you tried to get rid of it in the first place.
So why would anyone 'seemingly' in their right mind want to take off their lovely sheen of innocence and own up to being a sinner? It's not exactly an attractive offer.
However, until you do this you have no chance to really heal it. And there is a healing option. If you take it quickly to Holy Spirit and let Him decide whether it's true or not, he will guarantee to find you ALWAYS innocent. It's pretty easy, but you have to be open minded about ACCEPTING that it's true that you're innocent.
There is a way out of hell.
If you were not afraid of death, you would remember God. The fear is death is a reaction to the belief in death. And the belief in death is an attempt to give reality, truth, life, will, power and mind, to the opposite of God.
By believing in death, you are trying to avoid God. Death is the attractor which tempts you away from life, and God is Life. It is the polar opposite, the nemesis of life and the alternative to reality. It is nothing less than the idea of non-existence, the logical complete extreme which is thought to oppose God's will entirely.
It is not simply that you are afraid that loved ones will die. It's that you believe in death, alone, and this belief is flooding over and infesting your view of others. You are afraid of people dying and losing what you value because you believe in death.
The belief in death is the belief that death can do something, that it has a power to cause something, that it brings reality to a stop, and ends life. We've given our power away to death and have worshipped it. We've made it our idol, and have tried to use it as a substitute for life.
We say we don't want it but there is no difference between making the world real and making death real. The world IS death."This is a dream of death."
"Without the idea of death there is no world."
So while we're working on changing our premise of reality from "the world is real" to "the world is a dream", we will also encounter the idea that everything we believed about death is also untrue. Death has to be brought fully into question. Its seeming reality has to be taken away. Your belief in it has to be undone. You cannot accept your immortality otherwise.
Without the idea of death, there is no world, because the world is a dream of death. "The world was made as an attack on God." "The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son." So long as we give any belief to this world, we are believing in death. So long as we believe we are bodies, we are believing in death. So long as we put our faith or value or credit or importance or worth or treasure into the things of this world, we are investing in death.
The process of awakening from the dream of death, is nothing short of the process of overcoming death itself. To reach the atonement is to resurrect, and the resurrection is the assertion of Life. The assertion of God. It is a reunion with Life, in which death is blotted out entirely.
"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
To give reality to the world is to give reality to death. It is an attempt to step away from God. It's an avoidance of life. The only way to reclaim your immortal reality is to step out of the dream of death through truth and into the light, where there is no death. There is no death because there is no world.
"There is no death, the Son of God is free."
"What would you see, WITHOUT the fear of death? What would you feel and think, if death held NO attraction for you? Very simply, YOU WOULD REMEMBER YOUR FATHER. The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives, the Father of the Universe, and of the Universe of universes, and of everything that lies even BEYOND them, would you remember. And, as this Memory rises in your mind, peace must still surmount a final obstacle, AFTER which is salvation completed, and the Son of God ENTIRELY restored to sanity. For here, your world DOES end.
The fourth obstacle to be surmounted, hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. Yet, as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to JOIN with Him at last. For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ Himself like to a leper's, and the bright rays of His Father's Love which light His face with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light BEYOND it, when the fear of death is gone.
This is the darkest veil, -- upheld by the belief in death, and protected by its attraction. The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is but the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego, never to lift this veil, not to approach it, nor even to SUSPECT that it is there. This is the secret bargain, made with the ego, to keep what lies BEYOND the veil forever blotted out and unremembered. Here is your promise never to allow union to call you OUT of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of God seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of your Self from you; THE FEAR OF GOD, the final step in your dissociation."
The real world is not this world. It is not planet Earth. Nor is it in fact the same thing as the forgiven world.
The real world is a "borderland of thought" which is IN BETWEEN this world and heaven. It is a transcendental state in which there are no physical objects, bodies, planets, streets, cities etc. No space or time or matter.
In a sense, it is a kind of layer of almost-oneness, underlying or behind all physical matter, yet still slightly outside of heaven. You could almost think of it as the 'container' which houses space, time and galaxies. It is a singular REFLECTION of heaven's oneness.
"There is a borderland of thought that stands ****BETWEEN this world (earth) and Heaven.****"
"Christ's vision is the BRIDGE BETWEEN the worlds. "
The real world is not space or time or within spacetime or having anything to do with matter or objects or bodies or planets. It transcends both space and time is a universal singular state.
"It is not a place, and WHEN you reach it is APART from time."
"This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that IS, received instead.
Given that "The world of bodies is the world of sin", and thus because sin is denied, THE WORLD OF BODIES IS DENIED in the real world. This is why there are no bodies there.
"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies"
This is the journey's end. We have referred to it as the "real world."" In the state of this real world, which is an inclusive state of accurate perception, the "world of illusions" which comprises a VEIL hanging over the face of christ, is seen as a SHADOW swirling around. It is transparent and fading and even at times forgotten.
"The world (earth) 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,****
"Things which seem quite solid here (in physical reality ie Earth etc) ***are merely shadows there; transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot****, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them."
"For a time the body is still seen, but not exclusively, as it is seen here (on earth)."
"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.****"
"***the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight***, and will at length be seen as ***little more than just a shadow circling round the good.***"
"****peace will lightly brush the veil aside****"
The veil, is the veil of the separation, the gap, the mad idea, space and time, the world we made, hell, earth, all galaxies and stars, the whole seeming content of the physical universe, all bodies, all creatures made of flesh, and all notions of beginnings and endings. It is a regarded as A SHADOW because it is made of darkness, being the idea of the opposition to the world of light.
If you think of the real world as a bucket of pure water, spacetime is swirling around in the water like an impurity. Some dark substance which is mixed in with it. Those who know the water is the reflection of purity, are not deceived by the impurity and recognize it as alien and false and unreal and an illusion.
The veil which hangs over the face of christ is the entire contents of spacetime, which was made to come between you and your brother. It is literally all walls, all flesh, all bodies, all surfaces, all matter. It hangs like a veil because it was made to separate you from yourself, and to come between christ and God. The world WITHIN the veil is a world of illusions. That includes planet Earth. The veil is not drawn ACROSS the earth, it IS the earth.
Eventually the veil itself completely vanishes, becoming utterly transparent. It is recognized as purely an illusion, and disappears from sight. For a moment, only the real world remains to be perceived, as the world is FORGOTTEN and returns to NOTHINGNESS. The reflection of heaven is complete and christ's face emerges as a symbol of the end of separation. THEN the mind crosses fully over the bridge, beyond the borderland, through the gates of heaven, and into heaven itself.
So what is the forgiven world? The forgiven world is the VEIL, the illusory realm, the shadow world, which includes earth and all galaxies, which is seen in a forgiving way from the perspective of the real world. It is not awarded any sense of reality or sin or attack or guilt, because the real world is a loving state of mind. But AT THE SAME TIME, it is also RECOGNIZED AS FALSE, unreal, and not really existing. It is the awareness of dreaming, that this world IS A DREAM.
"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies." Anything you forgive disappears, because you can ONLY forgive illusions. If you forgive the earth, IT MUST disappear. You cannot forgive it if it is reality. The forgiven world is the veil that interferes with christ, the real world is christ's vision which recognizes the veil as nothing but a dream, and ultimate reality is solely heaven itself, beyond both the forgiven world and the real world.
"The real world still is but a dream." "Even the real world will vanish from your site." "Heaven is all that remains."
Jesus gave us a nice analogy this evening for how we reverse cause and effect, how the ego functions, how we create scapegoats, and how we do stuff to ourselves.
The analogy is that of a hand puppet or glove puppet. The ego is like a puppet we use.
By itself, the puppet has no will, no life, no power to do anything. It lies motionless when you are not using it. It doesn't do anything to you or to anyone else. It's just a tool that goes unused and sits on a shelf.
At this point, you know that you are the one who has all the power to make stuff happen, and you know that you are the only one who can do stuff to yourself. All the puppets are dormant.
You decide to pick up the puppet and put your hand into it. You're now wearing it. And immediately, you start to move your arm around to move the puppet. And then you start to move your fingers to make its little arms and legs wiggle and maybe make its face move. Maybe you'll even give it a funny voice to add to the illusion that it is alive. You are trying to bring it to life, to "make it real", and to imbue it with the belief that can really do something.
At this point, you start to make believe. You start to weave a fantasy where the puppet is brought to life, where it animates, it moves and makes noises, and inevitably, you'll start to make it do things. Maybe its suddenly able to pick up objects. Maybe its able to poke people or tickle them. Maybe it can do stuff even to your own body.
The issue here is, once you start to pretend that the puppet is the one that is doing these things, you've introduced a major error in your mind. You've placed a separation between you - as the source of all power and life - and this puppet, even though your hand is still animating it - which makes it now seem that the puppet is not getting its power from you.
So now the puppet seems to have its own power, its own will, its own life. It has become the culprit. And now it is the one that gets blamed for doing stuff to yourself or others. You have turned it into a scapegoat. You can pretend to do stuff to yourself or others, through the puppet, pretending the puppet is the one doing it, so that the puppet is to blame and not you.
So let's invent a scenario. Let's say that this puppet, which symbolizes the ego, as a tool for you to use and give power to, isn't really able to do anything at all. But you decide to use the puppet to punch yourself in the face. So you do it. It hurts. You've attacked yourself. But because you believe responsibility for the puppets actions is no longer your responsibility, its obviously the puppets fault. It should be apparent how it is insanity to blame the puppet or to believe it has causal power over you.
In this there are two things happening. You are now a victim of the puppet and your disassociation from being the puppeteer makes it seem as though YOUR OWN ACTIONS against yourself are not coming from you. So not only can you blame the puppet for hurting you but you can claim that you had nothing to do with it, which justifies anger. So not only are you victimized by yourself but you cover it up by scapegoating, but you also now justify that scapegoating because it seems you didn't do it to yourself.
This is literally what happens in life whenever you believe that someone else or something else has power over you, is causing you, is affecting you, is changing you, influencing you, making you, forcing you, attacking you, victimizing you, whatever. If there is any ounce of this kind of perception or belief, you have disassociated from your own participation. You're actually attacking YOURSELF, through the puppet/ego/person/attacker, and pretending its not you. You do this in your mind. You attack yourself vicariously.
As we reveal the truth of this, you can see that as you slip your hand into the puppet and bring it to life and make it seem to have its own will, and then you punch yourself in the face, you will probably believe you are not the one punching yourself in the face. You blame the puppet, the person, the attacker. But if you don't take responsibility for it, you are stuck in the victim mentality.
So what you need to do is, stop pretending that your own puppets are doing stuff against you with their own willpower. It is YOUR OWN POWER that is attacking you THROUGH these externalized puppets. You send out your own self-attack, self-guilt, projecting it out into the puppets in the world (also your body), into things you eat, into things you see, into things you say you don't like, and you ANIMATE these things to seem to attack you. And you fear the power they seem to have. But here's the secret...
The power that you fear is attacking you against your will, by these puppets, IS YOUR OWN POWER. Its your arm, in the puppet, that's punching you in the face. It's your mind, that's extending out through other people and then turning on you. So the power you fear is your own power. And you see it in other things but its really yours. And there IS NO OTHER POWER acting against you other than your own. There is no other arm in the puppet. There is no other puppeteer out to get you or trying to work against you. It's you. You are doing this to yourself.
Owning up to being the puppeteer is the key to salvation. Taking responsibility for making stuff happen to you. Being the mind that is choosing to see situations in such a way that you perceive it as though the puppets in your life are doing this stuff of their own decision. They are nothing more than tools that your mind is using for self-attack. And here's the good news...
If everything that attacks you is YOUR OWN POWER being used against yourself, and if everything you are afraid of IS YOUR OWN POWER being used against yourself, and if you CHOOSE to stop condemning yourself.... who's going to do anything to you? Nobody. Nobody else is out there to do stuff to you. This is all an inside job. It's you as your own enemy. You need to forgive yourself for what you have not done and recognize your innocence. You need to own up to being the puppet master and take the gloves off! Stop hitting yourself. Stop punishing yourself. Stop judging and condemning yourself. Stop finding yourself guilty and stop proceeding to punish yourself for stuff you have not done.
Take the puppet off your hand and own your power. It has no power of its own. Take it back. Its yours. It was yours all along. And then you can recognize.. this is the key to the atonement...
The puppet is just a puppet. It cannot and does not do anything. It never has. It is not real. It is not alive. Nothing has ever happened to you. Job done. The ego is a puppet. It's your puppet. That's all it is. Once you take back your power and own up to who you are, you put down the ego and it is lifeless and powerless. Cause and effect have been placed back in their proper orientation and you are no longer a victim.
Freedom.
Yet the ideal outcome is rarely achieved. But psychotherapy begins with the realization that healing is of the mind, and in psychotherapy those have come together who believe this. It may be they will not get much further, for no-one learns beyond his own readiness. Yet levels of readiness change, and when therapist or patient has reached the next one, there will be a relationship held out to them that meets the changing need. Perhaps they will come together again and advance in the same relationship, making it holier. Or perhaps each of them will enter into another commitment. Be assured of this; each will progress. Retrogression is temporary. The overall direction is one of progress toward the truth.
Psychotherapy itself cannot be creative. This is one of the errors which the ego fosters; that it is capable of true change, and therefore of true creativity. When we speak of "the saving illusion" or "the final dream," this is not what we mean, but here is the ego's last defense. "Resistance" is its way of looking at things; its interpretation of "progress" and "growth." These interpretations will be wrong of necessity, because they are delusional. The "changes" the ego seeks to make are not really changes. They are but deeper shadows, or perhaps different cloud patterns. Yet what is made of nothingness cannot be called new or different. Illusions are illusions; truth is truth.
Resistance as defined here can be characteristic of a therapist as well as of a patient. Either way, it sets a limit on psychotherapy because it restricts its aims. Nor can the Holy Spirit fight against the intrusions of the ego on the therapeutic process. But He will wait, and His patience is infinite. His goal is wholly undivided always. Whatever resolutions patient and therapist reach in connection with their own divergent goals, they cannot become completely reconciled as one until they join with His. Only then is all conflict over, for only then can there be certainty.
Ideally, psychotherapy is a series of holy encounters in which brothers meet to bless each other and to receive the peace of God. And this will one day come to pass for every "patient" on the face of this earth, for who except a patient could possibly have come here? The therapist is only a somewhat more specialized Teacher of God. He learns through teaching, and the more advanced he is the more he teaches and the more he learns. But whatever stage he is in, there are patients who need him just that way. They cannot take more than he can give for now. Yet they both will find sanity at last.
"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there is to choose between, and nothing more than these."
As Jesus states here, the real and the unreal are all that you can choose between. Each of these is a "world", or a system of thought or order or thought. Reality is the higher order reality, an unreality is the lower order "reality" - the illusion of spacetime. These are the only two states that you can choose between. Two worlds, not three.
The "real world" described in A Course in Miracles, sometimes speaks in a manner which makes it sounds as if it is some kind of "in-between world", between heaven and earth. Not earth, not heaven, but something else. There are also references to it being a borderland of thought between the two. Kind of like the threshold of a doorway which is not really a place but a transition or meeting place, like a bridge.
But there are also other references to the real world which are framed more as if references to heaven itself. Such as "nothing there but shines and shines forever." And "This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all." And "Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT." These references are to me clearly references to heaven, yet use the term "real world".
I think in ACIM circles the attempt to grasp "what is the real world" has led to a lot of confusion especially due to the use of the term "real", and has led people to think it is a third world interposed between heaven and earth. I don't think this is really the case. I've been shown and told that the real world is the kingdom of God.
In terms of what Jesus has said about there being only TWO options, the "real world" becomes a far more appropriate term for HEAVEN. Because after all, Jesus is very careful and accurate in his choice of words, and heaven IS very appropriately "a real world". Not a pseudo-reality or an inbetween-almost-reality but actual reality. What else would you very appropriately call heaven but "a real world" - because it is actually completely real.
I see also references to christ vision looking beyond the physical unreal world to the light of heaven. I see references to us seeing christ - and christ is in heaven. I see references even to seeing God or having visions of God, who is not in this world. There are references to seeing your creations as well, which are in heaven. These all seem to further point to "the real world" being heaven.
Now, that said, it IS clear that there is a CONTEXT, and it also is the most frequent context, in which "the real world" term is referring to something seemingly "outside" of heaven. Particularly in terms of "For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight." And "The real world still is but a dream." Plus "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."
Now here's how I'm interpreting this. Let's simply and logically clearly say that heaven is the only real world. It is appropriately titled the real world. Let's also recognize that in spacetime we are using perception. Perception is once removed from knowledge. It is judgemental and interpretative rather than direct cognition or knowing. Perception is image-making. This "layer" of images overlays reality.
So now let's say that there is heaven AS a real world, and then there is a PERCEPTION OF heaven from "outside of it". This is a perception experienced by those who still have perception, who are looking in the direction of heaven, toward the light of God. They are literally peering INTO heaven from the outside. I think of this as "window shopping". They're outside heaven, in a body, having a perception or "vision" (true perception), but they're looking towards and upon reality.
"when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision?"
This PERCEPTION OF reality is a dream still. It's like an image or a surface crust or layer of how heaven would appear TO perception. And let's not forget that "Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception CAN be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light." This to me implies that perception can reach to heaven and can see heaven.
So now what I'm saying is, the context where "the real world" is described as a borderland, a bridge, an image, a symbol, the face of christ, still a dream which can disappear, this is all talking about the PERCEPTUAL INTERPRETATION OF HEAVEN. It's not a direct experience of heaven or christ but it's how heaven and christ look when you use perception to look at them instead of direct knowing. It's still a little removed from heaven but it forms a kind of "image" or symbolic experience of it. This image is still a dream and that's why it comes to an end.
"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love"
"But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate."
So here Jesus seems to be confirming that "the real world" as used in its more common context, being removed from heaven, is SYMBOLIC - a symbolic version of the ACTUAL REAL HEAVEN. And symbols aren't something in themselves, they POINT TO the thing. They represent it, like a photograph. By using PERCEPTION to look upon the reality of the kingdom, you see it symbolically and no longer see the physical world. The "face of christ" then literally is like a surface appearance of christ, an outside "facade" ie a symbolic representation of the christ that is WITHIN heaven.
This to me is currently the only way to support the idea that there are ONLY two worlds. Not that there is a "real world" sandwiched in between them, or that this borderland has stuff in it. Because we're also told ""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 is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."
To me, the only way "the real world" can have contents that shine FOREVER, in contradiction to the fact that "even the real world will vanish from your sight", is that it's a reference to HEAVEN. Heaven's contents will shine forever. Heaven IS the real world. But the PERCEPTUAL VISION of heaven is what he refers to in the context of "the real world" that is a symbolic dream, which ends. First you see the kingdom as accurately as perception CAN, within its limits, and then you go INTO it.
"Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light. But no perception, however holy, will last FOREVER."
"Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for."
Note here that he's telling us that in the holy spirit's PERCEPTION, we will see the son of God. Where is the Son of God? He's in heaven. He IS heaven. He is the sonship. The Holy Spirit loves to look upon christ who is in heaven. His perception is a vision of christ, which later gives way to the direct cognitive knowledge of christ.
"And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ's love for what he looks upon."
"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God."
This is why I've concluded that essentially the forgiven world is the ILLUSORY world of space and time and matter, which is looking AWAY from heaven towards form. It is earth, the world, which has been forgiven. And forgiveness forgives it BY OVERLOOKING IT, looking beyond it towards heaven. The real world is heaven, and it is the light which christ vision sees, which is initially seen using perception. When this perception is full and complete, as in seeing the face of christ or "christ as if seen from the outside", perception ends and you now enter into heaven.
ie "the real world" really is the kingdom of God. The perceptual interpretation of that real world is what is commonly thought to be "the real world". The real world is NOT a reinterpreted earth. That's the forgiven world. Because reality cannot be forgiven, only illusions can be overlooked. Christ vision which is true perception forgives the world by looking past it to the light of reality.
There are only two worlds. Reality and unreality. Perception is always within the realm of unreality, but can be adjusted to be more accurate and thus to perceive reality from the "outside". To interpret the kingdom. This is its view of the real world of heaven from within the perceptual landscape. When this perception is whole, the illusory forgiven world disappears entirely and is forgotten, and perception comes to an end.
So the commonly referenced "real world" (outside of heaven) is actually a perceptual interpretation OF the ACTUALLY REAL world of heaven. It's you looking at heaven through perceptual interpretation, with vision (true perception). It looks just like heaven because it is looking AT heaven. It is not a third world but is actually an experience of heaven's reality and contents through the heaven-aligned filter of true perception. Perception no longer distorts it and perceives it directly. This perceptual layer thus becomes irrelevant because it is not needed, and you then move into the direct experience without perception in the way, to SEE the SAME REAL WORLD of the kingdom, forever.
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream."
"Beyond this world there is a world I want."
"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."
"Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other."
"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him."
"The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true, and wholly YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it God created you as one with Him."
"As mediator between the two worlds, He (Holy Spirit) knows what you have need of, and WHICH WILL NOT HURT YOU."
"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains." "Heaven remains your only alternative to the strange world you made."
"The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture. As you look on THIS, you realize that IT IS NOT A PICTURE, but a reality. This is no figured REPRESENTATION of a thought-system, but the Thought Itself. What IT represents is THERE. The frame fades gently, and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation,"
"The (physical unreal) world stands like a block before Christ's face (perception's view of christ in heaven). But true perception (vision) looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil (of illusions), so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is (an illusion, nothing). And now it cannot fail to disappear (so it is recognized and vanishes), for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears (a vision of heaven), and in that instant is the world forgot (the forgiven unreal world) , with time (spacetime) forever ended as the world (forgiven) spins into nothingness from where it came."
"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. 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. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
When the world is seen with false perception, that is, with the body's eyes being believed and seeing nothing else, blinded by perception of form, the world seems like a dark prison and God is nowhere.
When you lift up and see with Christ Vision, or true perception, which is a spiritual seeing by the mind itself, not dependent on the body's eyes or on photons of light bouncing off surfaces, the world vanishes. The spiritual eye is love looking upon love, Christ looking upon Christ.
However, just before this, in the in-between stages, when you are working on your forgiveness, healing and purification, there is an intermediary "mix" between these two. The spiritual eye is coming online, but the body's sight is still believed to some extent.
What this produces is that the world, which is like a veil of sin hanging in front of Christ's face, becomes more transparent. It's forms are less believed, it's matter is less blocking.
All sense of real sin is being lifted away from its appearances. Guilt is being unprojected. And this makes the world appear to gradually become brighter, lighter, more lovely, more forgiven.
However, it's only possible for this "world in the process of being forgiven" to show up PRIOR to seeing the face of Christ in full. If you were to reach true perception, you wouldn't be able to see the world at all, because the veil lifts at the very top, at the last moment, becoming completely invisible.
In a way, we could say that what appears to be the visible world, the physical world, becomes gradually more invisible. And the seemingly invisible world, the real world, becomes gradually more visible. And as Jesus says, "you cannot see both worlds."
"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER. "
He also says that what you consider to be "false", you do NOT see, and what you consider to be TRUE, you do see. So if the real world is true, and Earth is false, which it is, then seeing the truth of the real world "blinds you" to seeing Earth.
So at the top, when you reach totally purified perception, the veil of physical matter, the granite block of sin, becomes fully transparent and disappears from sight. Like a dream that fades.
That "forgiven veil", is the forgiven world. By forgiving the world, you are shining it away. By forgiving it, you are overlooking it to the light beyond it.
"And it is given us to look past death and see the light beyond."
"And the mind that RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT was healed."
"Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ's vision sees the real world in its place."
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body."
The more you forgive the world and stop projecting sin onto it, the more forgiven it becomes. BUT ALSO, the more it disappears. It fades because it is not really there. This is why:
"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies."
"To forgive is to OVERLOOK."
You cannot forgive something that is REAL. Forgiveness makes stuff disappear. You cannot forgive the world and KEEP it. Things you forgive are ILLUSIONS. "Illusions recognized must disappear." If you are to forgive the world, it MUST be an illusion. And it must disappear.
"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."
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."
Here's a fact. NOTHING ABOUT YOUR BODY HAS ANYTHING TO DO WITH YOU. The body is not your self. Its form, shape, color, size, activities, say NOTHING about you. Your face isn't even your face. Its gender and sexual persuasion is not yours. You have been a hundred bodies in a hundred lifetimes. Not even ONE of them defines you or is TRUE of you. If you believe otherwise, you are confused about who you are, and have a body-identification issue. To be spirit-identified you must stop confusing yourself with the body. To awaken, you MUST recognize yourself as ONLY SPIRIT. And ALL spirit is identical.
"I am not a body I am free, for I am as God created me."
You are not a man or a woman.
You are not straight or gay or bi or trans or anything else.
You are not beautiful or ugly based on the body's looks.
You are not fat or thin or chunky or rotund or lanky.
You are not oversized or overweight or underweight.
You do not have a face.
You do not have arms and legs.
You do not have genitalia of any description.
Your musculature says nothing about your strength.
Your wimpyness says nothing about your strength.
The size of your private parts says nothing about you.
The way your brain functions is unrelated to what you are.
Your amount of seeming intellectual ability is meaningless.
You are not tall or short or anything in between.
You are not hairy or bald or naked or dressed.
Your clothes do not say anything about you.
The trinkets and ornaments you wear do not define you.
Your tattoos and birthmarks are not your identity.
Your amount of sexual libido or prowess means nothing.
Your taste for certain foods is irrelevant to your soul.
You do not have any of the needs that the body has.
You have not been born or grown or aged or suffered.
You have not changed in any way due to body changes.
You never gained or lacked anything.
Your body's features have nothing to do with you.
The color of your skin says nothing about you.
Your ethnic background does not define you whatsoever.
You have not ever done anything that the body did.
You have never touched another person.
You have never seen another person with the body.
Your body joining with a body is nothing to do with you joining with your brother.
Your hair size, shape, length, color, style, is not you.
You are not that which you see in the mirror.
Your defects, disabilities, missing or damaged parts, have absolutely no bearing on your perfection.
Your differences and uniqueness has nothing to do with your perfect equality with all God's children.
The identity that is in you is the same as in everyone.
How long you've been in a body means nothing.
What generation you seem a part of it irrelevant to you.
The pride of being part of a certain family is artificial.
Your support of certain body-groups is mistaken.
Your preference for certain body types is part of your own body identification.
Your hatred of certain body types if part of your own body identification.
All the body's senses tell you nothing.
Every sensation is illusory.
You have never been born and you will never die.
Complements about your body have nothing to do with you.
Hatred towards your body has nothing to do with you.
When your body is attacked you are not attacked.
You don't really have a face or arms or legs or a butt.
Your eyes are not your eyes.
You are not from a certain part of the world.
Your cultural background is entirely made up.
Your prejudices are evidence you think people are bodies.
Your racism is a belief in being a body race.
Your homophobia is an over-identification with your body.
How your body smells does not define you.
You have no color, no shape, no size.
You do not move in a certain way.
You do not sit down or stand up or sleep.
You do not eat food or drink.
You cannot be affected or changed or grown.
You have never had any kind of appearance.
It's not great to be a [fill in body type], you are not that.
You are not what you inherited from your parents.
You are not genetic.
You are not stuck with any type of body.
You are not limited by bodies.
You are not worshipped when your body is worshipped.
You have never communicated with a body.
Your body is no more valid than anyone else's.
Your body is no better or worse than anyone else's.
Your body is not more important than anyone else's.
No-one has anything you don't have.
You are not good looking or ugly or plain or handsome.
Being naked does not expose your real self to anyone.
The makeup on your body does not change you.
You do not have an image, you are not an image
You are not fashionable or poorly dressed.
NOTHING ABOUT THE BODY IS TRUE OF YOU!
YOU ARE NOT A BODY. YOU ARE SPIRIT!
Anything that God did not give you is not true of you. "God did not create the body."
When the body is recognized as an illusion of NOTHINGNESS, it will disappear. YOU are all that remains.
"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, i cannot experience loss and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today. I will worship no idols, nor raise my own self concept to replace my Self. I am in the likeness of my Creator. Love created me like itself."
What is an idol? Do you think you know? For idols are unrecognized as such, and never seen for what they really are. That is the only power which they have. Their purpose is obscure, and they are feared, and worshipped, both, BECAUSE you do not know what they are for, and why they have been made. An idol is an image of your brother, which you would value MORE than what he IS. Idols are made that HE may be replaced, no matter what their form. And it is this which NEVER is perceived and recognized. Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or a circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or achieved, it is the same.
Let not their form deceive you. Idols are but substitutes for your reality. In some way you believe they will complete your little self, and let you walk in safety in a world perceived as dangerous, with forces massed against your confidence and peace of mind. They have the power to supply your lacks, and add the value which you do not have. No-one believes in idols who has not enslaved himself to littleness and loss. And thus must seek BEYOND his little self for strength to raise his head and stand apart from all the misery the world reflects. This is the penalty for looking not within for certainty, and for a quiet calm which liberates you FROM the world, and lets you stand apart in quiet and in peace unlimited.
An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of anti-Christ which constitutes a gap BETWEEN the Christ and what you see. An idol is a wish, made tangible and given form, and thus perceived as real, and seen OUTSIDE the mind. Yet they remain ideas, and CANNOT leave the mind that is their source. Nor is their form apart from the idea it represents. All forms of anti-Christ oppose the Christ. And fall before His Face like a dark veil which SEEMS to shut you off from Him, alone in darkness. Yet the light is there. A cloud does not put out the sun. No more a veil can banish what it seems to separate, nor darken by one whit the Light Itself.
This world of idols IS a veil across the Face of Christ BECAUSE its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself. A dark and fearful purpose, yet a thought without the power to change one blade of grass from something living to a sign of death. Its form is nowhere, for its source abides within your mind where God abideth not. Where IS this place, where What is everywhere has been excluded, and been kept apart? What hand could be held up to block God's way; whose voice could make demands He enter not? The "more-than-everything" is NOT a thing to make you tremble and to quail in fear. Christ's enemy is nowhere. He can take NO form in which he EVER will be real.
What is an idol? Nothing! It must be believed BEFORE it seems to come to life, and GIVEN power that it may be feared. Its life and power are its believer's gift, and this is what the miracle restores to what HAS life and power worthy of the gift of Heaven and eternal peace. The miracle does not restore the truth, the light the veil between has NOT put out. It merely LIFTS the veil, and LETS the truth shine unencumbered, being what It is. It does not NEED belief to be Itself, for It HAS BEEN created, so It IS. An idol is ESTABLISHED by belief, and when it is withdrawn, the idol "dies."
This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die.
WHERE is an idol? Nowhere! Can there be a gap in what is infinite, a place where time can INTERRUPT eternity? A place of darkness set where all is light, a dismal alcove separated off from what is endless, HAS no place to be. An idol is beyond where God has set all things forever, and has left no room for anything EXCEPT His Will to be. Nothing and nowhere MUST an idol be, while God is everything and everywhere. What purpose has an idol, then? What is it FOR? This is the only question which has many answers, each depending on the one of whom the question has been asked.
The world BELIEVES in idols. No-one comes unless he worshipped them, and still attempts to seek for one that yet might offer him a gift reality does NOT contain. Each worshipper of idols harbors hope his SPECIAL deities will give him MORE than other men possess. It MUST be "more." It does not really matter more of what, - more beauty, more intelligence, more wealth; or even more affliction and more pain. But MORE of SOMETHING is an idol FOR. And when one fails another takes its place, with hope of finding more of something ELSE. Be not deceived by forms the "something" takes. An idol is a means for getting MORE. And it is THIS that is against God's Will.
God has not many sons, but only One. Who can have more, and who be given less? In Heaven would the Son of God but laugh, if idols could intrude upon his peace. It is for HIM the Holy Spirit speaks, and tells you idols HAVE no purpose here. For MORE than Heaven can you never have. If Heaven is within why would you seek for idols which would make of Heaven less, to give you MORE than God bestowed upon your brother AND on you, as One with Him? God GAVE you all there is. And to be sure you could not lose it, did He ALSO give the same to every living thing as well. And thus IS every living thing a part of you as of Himself. No idol can establish you as MORE than God. But YOU will never be content with being LESS.
If you were witness to a miracle happening, you would probably be simultaneously in awe, perhaps frightened, stunned, and it would also defy a whole bunch of 'laws' that you believe are true.
If it seems that it can't be possible that someone's broken leg is suddenly healed, there is just "no way" that you can accept that this is possible, and yet it happens in front of your face, or even to your own body, this is going to produce a whole bunch of reactions.
One of the things that witnessing a miracle will do is it will DEMONSTRATE to your mind, factually and experientially, that something has just happened which does not FIT into your belief system or your idea of reality. Something just occurred which defies all of the laws that you thought were real. That alone will EDUCATE you, by demonstration and experience, that the laws you thought were true cannot be.
It will also cause your mind to become momentarily aware of a state of being which transcends form. "Miracles are temporary shifts into invisibility, that is why they heal" - ACIM.
"Principle 16 - Miracles are teaching devices" - ACIM
If one moment your hand is burnt, and then in the next moment your hand is suddenly not burnt, this miracle will defy and transcend all physical laws. Your mind will not be able to process this at the ego level. It will be bypassed. Your mind will become aware even if just briefly, that bodies can't be real, or at least that physical form can't be 'stuck' being in a certain state, and this will give you access to TRUTH experientially. This will undermine possibly everything you believe in, but you won't be able to deny it. (The attempt to then DENY this 'attack by truth' will make you sick. ;-)
This is similarly what happened when Jesus went through the crucifixion. He did it to demonstrate that the body is not real and death is not real. When one moment the body seems to be being tortured and killed, and then seems to die, and then a few days later shows up again as though nothing happened... it's not just a matter of oh look, there's Jesus.. your mind instead is going to have an instantaneous shift in awareness.
If Jesus is showing you to your face, that bodies can be switched on and off at will, one moment being dead and the next moment being perfectly alive again, you aren't going to initially be able to comprehend HOW, and just the mere fact of you experiencing this will SHOW YOU and make you aware that the body CAN'T be real - that death CAN'T be real, because here is the PROOF of that staring you in the face.
This has a profound healing effect on the mind and CAUSES awakening.
This is why miracles are also teaching devices because they demonstrate the truth and bypass all of the ego's laws and give examples of, experiences of, the truth in action. They educate by example that the physical laws CANNOT be true. And so they have the potential to instantly awaken and to instantly destroy illusions and false beliefs.
If Jesus showed up next to you right now, and then told you to shoot him dead, and you did it, and then he got up and there was no bullet hole and he was perfectly fine, it would blow your mind. Your mind would HAVE to expand in order to accommodate the evidence. It would show you perhaps for the first time in your life a demonstration of how bodies are not real. And you would've been always assuming that bodies are fixed and objective and constant and all the other illusions about them. And now suddenly Jesus shows you that they are nothing but images which can be flipped into any state at a moment's notice... that totally blows your entire world view about what bodies are. It's highly educational.
That's why Jesus uses miracles for TEACHING, because they demonstrate the truth and teach by experiential example, which defies the ego's thought system and baffles onlookers, causing them to be forced into an awakening.
This is also why many Course students DO NOT REALLY BELIEVE IN MIRACLES, because it is such a world-defying, body-defying, mind-warping, totally transcendent experience that the ego cannot conceive of it, does not support it, doesn't believe in it, can't be open to it, and doesn't understand it. So there is a LOT of resistance against the idea that Jesus LITERALLY is teaching us to perform such miracles.
They are two MECHANISMS for seeing, and they REPORT in two entirely different ways, and it's to you to decide WHICH OF THEM you are going to listen to. And you cannot listen to them both, fully, at once.
"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see."
"for they can see only illusions"
"Everything the body sees is an illusion."
"Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception"
The body, has 100% permanent false perception. It is a fixed, PHYSICAL form of perception which CANNOT EVER see anything other than form, error and illusion.
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body"
"The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all,"
"Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."
"Everyone sees only what he thinks he is."
"Forgiveness does not look upon bodies."
Christ vision, also, is a FIXED STATE. It is the spiritual eye. The spiritual eye CAN ONLY SEE THE LIGHT. Can only look upon the real world. It CANNOT SEE BODIES.
"the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled"
"YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."
Let's be clear about this.
There are two worlds. The world of false perception which is the physical world of bodies and sin and forms and errors and illusions. "Only the body makes the world seem real."
There is also the REAL WORLD, where there are NO BUILDINGS, no streets, bodies, forms, errors, not even the sun.
These are two separate fixed STATES.
1) False perception - TOTAL ERROR.
2) True perception - TOTAL SENSE.
The body's form of perception - the *physical sight*, USES the body's physical eyeballs to see. "These eyes made not to see will never see" reality. They CANNOT in any way be adapted to SEE in any way OTHER than they were made to see. They will NEVER see the real world. They are fixated on hell, on the illusory world. Physical. This is a fixed state of false perception.
Christ vision is an entirely different KIND of perception, which DOES NOT rely on the body whatsoever, does not USE the body whatsoever, does not NEED the body's eyeballs, and can SEE WITHOUT A BODY. This vision LOOKS ONLY AT THE REAL WORLD - at the face of christ. It is FIXED, in a position of TRUE PERCEPTION.
Now, this flies in the face of common belief that you "transition your ONE perception" from false to true. False perception is an illusory hell. True perception is an illusory heaven. You however can choose WHICH FORM OF SEEING YOU USE. You can also TRADE OFF one for the other.
Using 60% christ vision causes you to use 40% body sight. Using 90% christ vision causes you to use 10% body sight. You CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS.
So what actually happens is, your MIND is electing HOW MUCH TO BELIEVE in each of these TWO WAYS OF SEEING. Will it believe the body totally? Will it believe the spiritual eye totally? And how much? And as you believe one, you do NOT believe the other.
The spiritual eye is just as much a WAY OF SEEING as the physical eye is a way of seeing. Your MIND elects WHICH to pay attention to. And if you pay attention to one, it is because you have DENIED the other. You cannot FULLY use both at once. It's one or the other. You can't BOTH have physical sight AND christ vision operating FULLY at once.
"The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."
So instead of thinking of your perception as being this SINGLE thing that you need to "shift" out of falseness into trueness, instead thinking there being TWO RADIO CHANNELS, you can TUNE INTO one, by TUNING OUT of the other. You can't listen to both. As you TUNE IN to christ vision's station, you begin to see the LIGHT that christ vision can see. As you tune out of that, into the body's sight, you begin to see the WORLD OF BODIES (which is the world of sin). And doing this BLOCKS your RECEPTION of the christ vision station. It blocks your sight.
You cannot EVER make the body see reality. You also cannot ever make christ vision see the body. YOU, as mind, have to choose WHICH of them you will see, and how much. And only when you choose to see christ vision FULLY, will you STOP SEEING THE PHYSICAL WORLD. "The world is forgotten". The VEIL of physical matter becomes transparent and disappears!
"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."
"For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight."
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."
"Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."
The physical world THUS VANISHES FROM YOUR MIND. You cease using the body entirely. You stop seeing physical matter. You stop interacting with the PHYSICAL world, which does NOT EXIST.
"Heaven is all that remains."
"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."
"here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"The stars will disappear, and night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the seasons, and the lives of men; all things that change with time and bloom and fade, will not return."
"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him.""
This idea is particularly difficult to believe at first. Yet it is the rationale for all of the preceding ones.
It is the reason why nothing that you see means anything. It is the reason why you have given everything you see all the meaning that it has for you. It is the reason why you do not understand anything you see.
It is the reason why your thoughts do not mean anything, and why they are like the things you see.
It is the reason why you are never upset for the reason you think.
It is the reason why you are upset because you see something that is not there.
Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it. Yet that is precisely why you need new ideas about time. This first time idea is not really so strange as it may sound at first. Look at a cup, for example.
Do you see a cup, or are you merely reviewing your past experiences of picking up a cup, being thirsty, drinking from a cup, feeling the rim of a cup against your lips, having breakfast, and so on? Are not your aesthetic reactions to the cup, too, based on past experiences? How else would you know whether or not this kind of cup will break if you drop it? What do you know about this cup except what you learned in the past? You would have no idea what this cup is except for your past learning. Do you, then, really see it?
Look about you. This is equally true of whatever you look at. Acknowledge this by applying the idea for today indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye. For example:
"I see only the past in this pencil."
"I see only the past in this shoe."
"I see only the past in this hand."
"I see only the past in that body."
"I see only the past in that face."
Do not linger over any one thing in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically. Glance briefly at each subject, and then move on to the next.
The kingdom of God is ultimate reality. This side of the gate of heaven/separation, we're in the perceptual realm of spacetime.
At the height of this perceptual state, perception can become very "accurate" and line up with reality so closely that you perceive things "as they actually are", also referred to as "the real world."
Jesus refers to this as you making "reality contact", as well as "accurate perception", "true perception" and various other things like forgiveness, atonement, vision, reason etc.
Basically in order to see and be aware of "how things actually are", we have to have a mind that is not insane and does not attack or distort or deny or hide from reality.
We avoid reality in various ways. Attack, denial, resistance, fear, scapegoating, hate, sense of separation, selfishness/self interest, specialness, body identification, unwillingness, dissociation etc. Basically all the ego activities.
All of these activities are ways to try to "avoid" reality by squirming and sidestepping and being unwilling to just FACE IT DIRECTLY. To admit to it, to ALLOW IT to be what it is.
By reality here I don't necessarily mean the physical contents of spacetime, because that's all illusions. But reality is something where you have to be completely PRESENT, aware, fully alert, extremely honest, and completely lacking in any form of denial.
Your mind can't be distorting what's there, having preferences, wishful thinking, wanting even the physical forms to be different, hoping for a non-existent future, dredging up the past, wanting something to be different to how it is etc.... otherwise you don't directly face "what is".
In order to face what is, regardless of whether that seems to be the physical world's current PRESENT configuration in the NOW, or the general sense of presence and nowness that is the "now of time", symbolic of eternity ... you have to give up all of the ways that you avoid the truth. Another word for that is surrender.
And this doesn't just mean an occasional surrender. It means a state in which you are no longer FIGHTING, no longer at war with, whatever is. It means no longing judging or attacking reality, or attacking the present. No longer living in the past or future. The only physical world that exists is the configuration of the one that exists right NOW, not the past or future version.
An unwillingness to admit to or accept "what is now", takes you away from the present state and into every dark avenue of the ego. The ego is literally an attempt to escape from reality, to escape from the present. And that means putting up a fight against reality to try to make it go away, to avoid it, to deny it, to destroy it.
So ultimately it takes you getting into a state which we might call "being totally surrendered". This surrendering literally asks of you to surrender the fight against God, to stop being at war with the present or the illusory contents of the world. No longer wishing that things were different, no longer being unwilling to accept WHATEVER happens on this level, and no longer having any kind of separation or denial between you and what is.
Essentially this leads to acceptance, in which you're willing to "let things be", and can accept the truth of the atonement. Strangely it requires you to also be able and willing to accept the current state of the physical world, but only because it happens to be in front of your face. Really you are entering an acceptance of the present moment, regardless of whether it's filled with content forms, and the acceptance is not tied to the physical at all.
To accept atonement therefore is to accept reality, to accept the truth, to accept God, to accept that only the truth is true and nothing else it true, to accept that there is no past, to accept that only the current configuration of the world is there anymore, and to have absolutely no ways in which you are trying to avoid or deny or prefer something else.
So we have to get into a totally surrendered state, a state where our war with reality and life and truth comes to an end, where the mind is totally focused and accurate in its perception, avoiding nothing, hiding from nothing, not minding what happens no matter how it looks, having no reaction whatsoever to anything that would suggest you "don't want it" to be that way. Just completely dropping all ego and all resistance and all insistence on making things be different than God's will.
In that totally surrendered state you are awake and ready to return to God. It is the only way to find peace because it's the end of YOUR one-sided ego war. And only by total acceptance can you enter the Kingdom.
"Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it. This is what is meant by the point on "perspective adjustment." UrT1B31A
"The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong-mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception." UrT3F10
"Misperception is a BLOCK to knowledge, while ACCURATE perception is a stepping-stone TOWARD it." UrT4G1
"You ATTACK the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot SEE it." UrT11I1
"Remember, then, that God's Will is ALREADY possible, and nothing else will EVER be. This is the simple acceptance of Reality because only this is real. You cannot DISTORT reality and KNOW WHAT IT IS. And if you DO distort reality you will experience anxiety, depression, and ultimately panic, because you are trying to MAKE YOURSELF UNREAL." UrT8J16
"This is Palm Sunday, the celebration of victory, and the ACCEPTANCE of the truth." UrT20A1
"The full acceptance of salvation as your only function necessarily entails two phases; the recognition of salvation as your function, and the relinquishment of all the other goals you have invented for yourself." URW65L1
"And the world awaits your glad acceptance, which will set it free." UrW310W104
"The ACCEPTANCE of peace is the denial of illusion, and sickness IS an illusion." UrT9I14
"Now let the peace that your acceptance brings be given you." UrW80L5
"You but emerge from an illusion of what you are, to the acceptance of yourself as God created you." UrT24C14
"Christ waits for your acceptance of Him as YOURSELF, and His Wholeness as YOURS." UrT10E8
"Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought; you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself." URT93L7
"I choose to testify to my ACCEPTANCE of the Atonement, NOT FOR ITS REJECTION." UrT13H3
"The ego analyzes; the Holy Spirit ACCEPTS. The appreciation of wholeness comes ONLY through acceptance, for to analyze MEANS to separate out." UrT10F14
In terms of cause and effect, God who is cause created us as his effect, yet shared his causal ability with us, making us also able to cause. We are an effect of God, but we are also a co-creator and cause of our own creations.
God is cause. We are cause. And nothing can alter what we are or make us an effect, other than God, because we are sustained by God's constant will. We are affected by nothing, having been given eternal life, maintained forever by God himself.
The idea of the separation from God, introduced the idea of a breakdown in cause and effect. That means, a breakdown in the relationship between God and his creation/son. It suggests that causes are separate from their effects.
This also produced the belief that you are not caused by God. And also that you can cause God - which is the authority problem - a denial of the causal power of authorship. And therefore that you can cause what God created, thus changing what God created. And since you were a creation of God's, it began the belief that you could change yourself and redefine yourself, plus make-up a new father.
In this process, your recognition of being a creator was denied, you disowned God as cause and thus disowned causation, and began to see yourself as not causal. You began to see yourself as an effect, or affected by, or changed by. You began to believe thigns could happen to you against God's will and against your will. As the course says...
"Sickness and death entered the mind of God's Son against His Will."
In other words, you began to see yourself as at the effect of something other than God, and other than yourself, as though that which has been created (or dreamed/mis-created) has turned around and has begun to create, cause, define and affect what you are.
This introduces level confusion, as well as the reversal of the true and the false, and the reversal of cause and effect. You now see yourself as an effect and not a cause, and you deny causing anything. This means you are trying to "be affected", and to portray yourself as something that can be affected, so that you can change yourself into what you wish to be.
This produced the body, which is a sort of outside picture of the idea of a self that can be at the effect of its environment, a self that can be an effect and not a cause, with no power to cause at all, and acted upon by the world. This body presents the "face of innocence", which hides the idea that you're trying to be a victim, ie trying to be affected, by the world.
"The first presents the face of innocence, the aspect acted ON. It is this face that smiles and charms and even seems to love. It searches for companions, and it looks at times with pity on the suffering, and sometimes offers solace. It believes that it is good, within an evil world."
So now there is this artificial you, which looks like a body, and which is "acted upon" by the world, in which the arrows or direction of causation begins out there somewhere, external and beyond the body and the self/mind, and comes in and acts upon the body/self/mind and causes it to change. Causes it to be affected. And thus the face of innocence, the surface of the body, becomes the canvas on which "effects" are painted to make it seem like you are caused by an alien will outside yourself.
Another way to put this is that, as soon as cause and effect were reversed, you introduced the idea of being "affectable" rather than immortal, that you could change and be changed. And this was the beginning of being a victim. And this is also exactly the beginning of the ego thought system.
To be a victim is to be ego. To be a victim is to be at the effect. To be a victim is to be an effect, not a cause. Victimhood is the denial and refusal to admit to being the cause. Victimhood is irresponsibility and a complete displacement of the responsibility for causing anything, portraying itself as helpless and powerless and at the mercy of anyone and anything.
And this shows up as the face of innocence - the innocent victim that seems not to ask for attack but is still attacked and can then justify anger and revenge. A self that won't take responsibility for causing anything, in an attempt to disown responsibility for sinning against God. To deny and disown all responsibility is to displace and project it onto others and the world, so that the guilty self can pretend to be exonerated.
If you are an effect, you are an ego. If you are an effect, you are a victim. If you are an effect, cause and effect have been reversed. This effectively means that if you swap cause and effect back around and claim total responsibility for being the cause of everything you experience, then you can no longer be a victim, and that also means you can no longer be an ego.
Ego is made of effects. It can only exist as a victim. It requires powerlessness and a disowning of causal power. It must see itself as deprived and lacking and less than whole. It cannot survive when you are powerful, it cannot survive when you are responsible, it cannot survive when you are the cause of everything. It depends on you remaining a powerless victim, and depends on cause and effect staying reversed. To be responsible is to own and know yourself as God created you!
Backwards peception or false perception is another name for ego and another name for being at the effect of the world. Backwards perception is the reversal of cause and effect, in which you are always affected by something seemingly against your will, while secretly choosing it. True perception is the restoration of cause and effect into their proper sequence, in which you are now the cause and the dreamer and a victim of nothing, totally invulnerable, incapable of suffering or blame.
So you can see that to put it simply, with the authority problem which is the breakdown and reversal of cause and effect, as soon as you begin to identify with/as being an effect/affected/victimized, as soon as you give away your power, as soon as you regard yourself as not the cause of what you experience, you are producing an egoic thought system and are losing your mind.
To reclaim total responsibility for the power of God and for causation and creative authorship and being absolutely incapable of being caused by anything but God, denying the power of anything not of God any power to affect or hurt you, which is the proper use of denial, you simply need to own up to being the immortal victimless powerful causer and chooser of what you experience. If nothing can happen to you, you cannot be an ego. If you are purely causal, you are the immortal son of God.
"Father, I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. As You created me I have remained. Where You established me I still abide, and all Your attributes abide in me because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable. Let me know that I am an Effect of God, and so I have the power to create like You. And as it is in Heaven, so on earth. Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your Effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, where earth will disappear, and separate things unite in glory as the Son of God."
See if you can follow this. It's quite simple and clear....
"A world forgiven cannot last. 2 It was the home of bodies .... 5 The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. 6 From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. 7 And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? 8 For place has gone as well, along with time."
"...for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. 7 For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever"
Ok. Focus on a few vital facts here.
1. The FORGIVEN WORLD, is the home of bodies. Human bodies. 3D physical flesh and bones.
2. When sin/guilt is gone (ego is gone), there is nothing to hold SPACE AND TIME in place. They both end.
3. The forgiven world depends ENTIRELY on the existence of space and time.
4. After seeing the face of Christ with Christ Vision/True Perception, the "last perception of the world", all WALLS and BODIES no longer exist. "No walls, no bodies." They are not merely there but seen differently. There are NONE. ZERO.
5. In REALITY, there are no walls, and no bodies.
THEREFORE. .... this is absolutely sound logic...
THE WORLD OF BODIES IS NOT REAL.
The world of bodies DEPENDS ENTIRELY on space and time, and when space and time END, which they will, THE ETNIRE CONTENTS of space and time, all three dimensional objects, all bodies, ALL PLANETS, ALL STARS, ALL GALAXIES, CANNOT REMAIN! Without SPACE, they cannot BE what they are in 3D. Without TIME they cannot show up at all.
ALL OF IT, the entire content of this universe, ALL BODIES, ALL FORMS, ALL PLANETS, are not real. They DO NOT exist in reality where there are NO BODIES, and NO WALLS, and NO TIME, and NO SPACE.
Misperception OF the world, merely distorts what the world IS. However, that doesn't mean the world IS real behind your misperceptions OF it. The world ITSELF, is an illusion. Your correct perceiving of it, your forgiving of it, merely reveals to you the truth ABOUT it, which is that IT IS NOT REAL. And this is why "a forgiven world CANNOT LAST." The forgiven world IS NOT REALITY.
If you can follow this and see the sense, congratulations. If not. ... well.... try again?
We are now ready for another review. We will begin where our last review left off, and cover two ideas each day. The earlier part of the day will be devoted to one of these ideas, and the latter part of the day to the other. We will have one longer exercise period and frequent shorter ones in which we practice each of them.
The longer practice periods will follow this general form: Take about 15 minutes for each of them, and begin by thinking about the idea and the comments which are included in the assignments. Devote about 3 or 4 minutes to reading them over slowly, several times if you wish, and then close your eyes and listen. Repeat the first phase if you find your mind wandering, but try to spend the major part of the practice period listening quietly but attentively.
There is a message waiting for you. Be confident that you will receive it. Remember that it belongs to you, and that you want it. Do not allow your intent to waver in the face of distracting thoughts. Realize that, whatever form they take, they have no meaning and no power. Replace them with your determination to succeed.
Do not forget that your will has power over fantasies and dreams. Trust it to see you through, and carry you beyond them all. Regard these practice periods as dedications to the way, the truth, and the life. Refuse to be side-tracked into detours, illusions, and thoughts of death. You are dedicated to salvation. Be determined each day not to leave your function unfulfilled.
Reaffirm your determination in the shorter practice periods as well, and using the original form of the idea for general application, and a more specific form when needed. Some specific forms will be included in the comments. These, however, are merely suggestions. It is not the particular words you use that matter.
Just as God's Son completes his Father, so your part in it completes your Father's plan. Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies which lead separate lives and go their separate ways. One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one is equally essential to them all.
God's Will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose to go against His Will? The part that He has saved for you to take in working out His plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills. This part is as essential to His plan as to your happiness. Your joy must be complete to let His plan be understood by those to whom He sends you. They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh.
You are indeed essential to God's plan. Without your joy His joy is incomplete. Without your smile the world cannot be saved. While you are sad the light which God Himself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lusterless. And no one laughs because all laughter can but echo yours. You are indeed essential to God's plan. Just as your light increases every light that shines in Heaven, so your joy on earth calls to all minds to let their sorrows go, and take their place beside you in God's plan.
God's messengers are joyous, and their joy heals sorrow and despair. They are the proof that God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Father's gifts as theirs. We will not let ourselves be sad today. For if we do, we fail to take the part that is essential to God's plan, as well as to our vision. Sadness is the sign that you would play another part, instead of what has been assigned to you by God. Thus do you fail to show the world how great the happiness He wills for you. And so you do not recognize that it is yours.
Today we will attempt to understand joy is our function here. If you are sad your part is unfulfilled, and all the world is thus deprived of joy, along with you. God asks that you be happy, so the world can see how much He loves His Son, and wills no sorrow rises to abate his joy; no fear besets him to disturb his peace. You are God's messenger today. You bring His happiness to all you look upon; His peace to everyone who looks on you, and sees His message in your happy face.
We will prepare ourselves for this today in our five minute practice periods, by feeling happiness arise in us according to our Father's will and ours. Begin the exercises with the thought today's idea contains. Then realize your part is to be happy. Only this is asked of you or anyone who wants to take his place among God's messengers.
Think what this means. You have indeed been wrong in your belief that sacrifice is asked. You but receive according to God's plan, and never lose or sacrifice or die. Now let us try to find that joy which proves to us and all the world God's Will for us. It is your function that you find it here, and that you find it now. For this you came. Let this one be the day that you succeed!
Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you. He will be there. And you can reach Him now. What could you rather look upon in place of Him who waits that you may look on Him? What little thought has power to hold you back? What foolish goal can keep you from success when He Who calls to you is God Himself?
He will be there. You are essential to His plan. You are His messenger today, and you must find what He would have you give. Do not forget the idea for today between your longer practice periods. It is your Self who calls to you today. And it is Him you answer every time you tell yourself you are essential to God's plan for the salvation of the world.
"Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach. Would you BE this, if Christ appeared to you in all His glory, asking you but this, "Choose once again if you would take your place among the Saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there." For He HAS come, and He IS asking this."
Temptation is quite a big thing. The entire world was made as a temptation. There is an ACIM quote that says exactly that but I couldn't find it. What does it tempt you to do or believe? In and of itself it is nothing but it has the "potential", if you are not vigilant for reality, to seemingly coerce you into believing that something is true that is not. That something is real or happening that is not.
This was the purpose of the world you made. It was designed not only to shut God out but to also tempt you, taunt you, suggest to you, and to try to convince you, that some things are true and real which are not. In your "susceptibility" to temptation you fall for these illusions, these tricks, these deceptions, and believe in them. Only by not believing in them are you able to overlook the temptation and not be caught in it, which is forgiveness. To forgive is to overlook temptation.
So often we are tempted to believe something based merely on its seeming presence in the world. Someone's body seems sick. Something bad seemed to happen. Something went wrong. Whatever it is, it's a temptation. You are being tempted by "the ego" to believe lies and illusions. Your body's sense are stimulated by these sources of temptation all the time. Sights, sounds, smells, tastes, tactile inputs, all designed to suggest to you "something is there", "something is real", "something is happening".
When you ARE being tempted and have fallen for it, and you are in this heavily tempted ego unconscious state where you are just on autopilot believing the world is real, there isn't a significant seeming contrast between what's happening and reality. But as you start to step back from illusions and question the world's bullshit, a growing contrast arises between what appears in front of your face, and what is true.
And then you'll start to feel challenged or caught between.... do I believe what my senses are telling me and buy into the disaster and believe the sickness and go along with the magic and fall for the fear-inducing hell, or do I circumvent all of that, disbelieve it, seek the Holy Spirit and try to find a way to forgive and undo and perform a miracle, which completely flies in the face of the entire planet, goes against the grain, seems totally contradictory and seems almost crazy to even contemplate? Do you put your trust in a truth which is unseen and a possibility that the entire world testifies is impossible? And this then is all to do with overcoming an order of difficulty in miracles.
You are tempted to believe that the world is filled with difficulty, of all different levels, and that it's even difficult to change or correct even a tiny thing, yet alone a big thing. This has to be disbelieved. Not fallen for. Cancelled. The whole world is a lie. How will you stand in the face of a lie and not believe it, when the whole world is screaming for you to believe it? To know better. To recognize the world is an illusion, unreal, untrue, false, completely bullshit. While you're in it. Immersed in the lying. Immersed in the stimulation and temptation.
"Teachers of God choose to look upon dreams a while..... they are not deceived by what they see."
In ACIM we're told about "the real world" and many people have different ideas about what that's referring to. Here's my take on it. It took me quite a long time to realize this.
Contrary to popular belief, the real world is actually another name for Heaven. God's creation. Reality. This is why Jesus correctly uses the word "Real" in relation to it. It is the Heaven that God created, which also is another name for the Sonship. It is described for example in this quote:
"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "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 is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."
The shining forever only takes place in Heaven. It's not a temporary shining or an intermediary place. There is no Earth there, no bodies, no walls, and no sun to cause "night and day." No buildings, no streets, nothing physical. It's talking about Heaven.
Now, in some OTHER statements Jesus makes, he is speaking in a context of having perception still. And when He is speaking within this context, He refers to "the real world". But is now referring to the real world, Heaven, from a perceptual standpoint. So now what he's calling the real world, is the PERCEPTION OF the real world. It's a symbol, within a dream. An interpretation or judgement, a partial glimpse or reflection of Heaven within the separated state. He refers to that "image" of the real world AS the real world, because you are PERCEIVING the real world - heaven - but this is not the same thing as being IN Heaven.
"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made."
"The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."
Jesus says for example that you can PERCEIVE the real world, which means that you can be still OUTSIDE of the Kingdom, looking in from a separated state - because "perception is a separated state". It's like window shopping.
"To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself."
"The forgiven world", is actually a reference to Earth/this universe which is seen through, past, and beyond, as a thin veil which covers the face of Christ. The "face of Christ" is another synonym for the PERCEPTION OF the real world of heaven - sort of an outside exterior look at the surface of Heaven from a separated state. The forgiven world is Earth, the real world is Heaven. And "the real world" (perceived) is what you see BEYOND "the forgiven world" (earth) when you overlook it with forgiveness but are still having perception. And "those who perceive still need healing" and "perception of the truth (perception of the real world) is not the same as knowing it (being IN IT, one with it)".
"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world (perception of heaven), reaching quietly and gently across chaos (earth/hell/forgiven world), and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf (part of the forgiven world, NOT the real world) becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection (signs are symbolic, not the ACTUAL thing - the perfection seen is the real world BEYOND the forgiven world of the leaf). From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."
Similarly "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind" really means that you look at/through/beyond the forgiven world of Earth, it becomes transparent, and you see BEYOND IT, to the real world, and it is the real world that is GOD... that you SEE BEYOND the physical, beyond forms, and seems to be "in" what you physically see, because you're seeing both the physical AND the real world at the same time. This does not in any way make the forgiven world REAL, NOR does it associate it with God. God is IN what you see because he is BEYOND the forgiven world that forgiveness is OVERLOOKING and seeing PAST, TO reality. And when you forgive the world and see God "in" it, the world disappears and reveals there is ONLY GOD, no world.
"Every illusion brought to its forgiveness is gently overlooked, and disappears."
"A forgiven world cannot last."
Once the face of christ is seen, ie real world is perceived, the forgiven world - the veil - actually disappears from sight completely, because "it is impossible to see two worlds."
"This world you see (earth/forgiven world) MUST BE DENIED (not put on a pedestal!!!), for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS (there ARE TWO WORLDS, heaven and earth, and Heaven is HERE, Earth IS NOT HERE). For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER." - its like a seesaw, you can be up or down but not both. As true perception dawns, false perception ends. As heaven is recognized, earth is forgotten.
"For what appears to hide the Face of Christ (earth/forgiven world) is powerless before His Majesty, and **disappears** before His holy sight." (thus earth can't be holy)
"Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows MUST give way to light." (body is made of darkness - "the body is a dream" "the body is the IDEA OF SIN made flesh and projected outwards.")
Here for me is the key distinction between these "four" different worlds/terminologies:
Unforgiven world" Earth/this world, not overlooked, it is an illusion, and IF YOU BELIEVE IT IS REAL, you are delusional and insane and are blinded by perception of form. You are not seeing PAST form so are no forgiving. This makes the world seem like a real place, a real nightmare of hell. Where "things happen", people suffer, and there is real death. THIS is "the world you made." It has nothing to do with God, and the Holy Spirit DOES NOT see it because His forgiveness COMPLETELY overlooks it and fixates on the real world.
Forgiven world: Earth/this world, overlooked with forgiveness, seen through, recognized WITH truth of true perception as BEING FALSE, becomes transparent and disappears when the face of christ/real world is seen. True perception overlooks it. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." Teachers of God (not advanced) still see it overlaid on top of the perception of the real world as a thin veil and so can operate "in" the forgiven world/earth from a state of "mostly awake" or "Awareness of dreaming is the function of God's teachers". This awareness is NOT awakening. It is "conscious sleep", because dreams are still being DREAMED.
Real world (as perception of heaven from outside): Also is the same thing as the face of christ, and "the real world still is but a dream". This perception OF the real world isn't reality, it's a reflection of Heaven within the dreaming state. It seems heaven-like and "holy" but it is still an illusion. Perceiving this FULLYy you NO LONGER SEE planet Earth and cannot remain in this state longer than an instant before God scoopes you up and you return to awareness of BEING IN Heaven.
Real world (as Heaven itself): Being IN heaven, with no perception, no forgiven world, no bodies, no buildings etc. This is the living world of light. God's creation. The sonship. Reality. The REAL world that is not earth in any way.
"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike (no perception IN the real world of heaven). Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done (includes atonement). And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God (all physical forms/worlds). God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant (perception of real world has made it impossible to see physical worlds), and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause (forgiven world disappears in this perception of light). For where God's memory has come at last (in heaven) there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies (no f'ing bodies in heaven!), and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
Here for example is a reference to how Heaven, the REAL real world, can reach into THIS world - the forgiven world.
"This aching world (Earth/physical/unforgiven world/hell/even as the forgiven world) has not the power to touch the living world (real world of Heaven) at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world (Heaven IS ANOTHER WORLD - the REAL world). But the REAL world (heaven) HAS the power to touch you even here (outside the Kingdom, in this illusory world), BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT (heaven). And what you call with love WILL come to you (from Heaven). Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made (earth/unforgiven world), and do not want (earth holds nothing that I want). The only effort you need make, to give this world (earth) away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make (God created Heaven not earth), is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE. (Earth, un/forgiven world, is FALSE!)."
"The world you made (earth etc) is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself (heaven)."
God created the real world of heaven: "The real world (heaven, perceived) is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true and WHOLLY YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade (earth will disappear). But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son ("And God so loved the world (heaven) that he gave it TO His only begotten Son - God doesn't give planets."). Your ONE reality (heaven) was GIVEN you, and BY it, God created you as one with Him. (in heaven)"
Now, the Holy Spirit is a simultaneous MAKER (not creator) of the world you made. You made hell, but he repurposes it to direct you towards Heaven, and to change your perception of/making of it so that you stop interpreting it as hell and reinterpret it as a REFLECTION of Heaven, once removed from Heaven. HE, therefore, made "the real world" as in, the PERCEPTION OF the world GOD CREATED, Heaven, from inside the dream. And this real world is the face of christ. It is NOT EARTH. He ignores, overlooks, cancels, everything of the forgiven world and points beyond it.
"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the laws of God; NOT as the law itself upholds the universe as God created it (heaven), but in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error. There IS another purpose in the world that error made (you made earth in error/sin), BECAUSE it has another Maker Who CAN reconcile its **goal** with His Creator's purpose.
In His perception of the world (forgiven world, totally overlooked), nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness (and "to see a sinless body is impossible" because perception does NOT SEE bodies). Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness. Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind, where it MUST be, and light the BODY up INSTEAD of it."
You can only perceive bodies if you believe in sin. You can only see bodies if you are Unforgiving. You can only see bodies/the forgiven world if you are NOT fully forgiving! Because a forgiven world cannot last and sinlessness is not OF the forgiven world, it's of the real world. Holy Spirit totally overlooks Earth and bodies and the forgiven world and fixates on the real world, temporarily through perception OF the real world and simultaneously IN the real world (heaven).
The Holy Spirit offers a happy dream to replace the nightmare dream that you made. It does not replace the world you made, it reinterprets it, OVERLOOKS it, and looks toward Heaven. The world you made as opposite to Heaven is hell, this planet, this universe. Spacetime. It is opposite to Heaven in every way. Holy Spirit allows you to forgive it and overlook it and forget it. This does not mean looking AT IT and LOVING IT. IT means learning TO SEE, by NOT SEEING THE WORLD - not allowing "perception of form" to BLOCK YOUR SIGHT. To look away from dark dreams of hell towards the light and eventually beyond it entirely. The real world is BEYOND the forgiven world. Christ Vision is like x-ray vision.
"You will first DREAM of peace (forgiven world/perception of real world), and THEN awaken to it (in Heaven/THE real world). Your first exchange of what you made for what you want, is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love (false perception vs true perception). In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams (earth + symbol of real world) where ALL perception is."
"And the real world is but your welcome of what always was (perception of heaven gets you ready to wake up TO heaven). Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening (being IN heaven) to what you have NOT lost. "
"The world you made" and "The world you see" are this planet and the surrounding environment. All of spacetime. You are not supposed to hold it dear or value it or want to keep it. *****SIGHT OF IT, IS COSTING YOU*****. "This world you see (earth, with body's eyes) MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. ****YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS****. (very key mechanic, one or the other not both) For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER." - you cannot see earth if you see heaven, period. You cannot see even the perception of the real world/face of christ and still see physical objects.
"You do not really want **the world you see** (earth + space), for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built (yes physical houses) have never sheltered you. The roads you made (yes physical roads) have led you nowhere, and no city that you built (yes like chicago, new york, london) has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of ***death*** upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it." (get rid of that shit!)
"To be without a body is to be in your natural state."
True perception, perception of the real world (heaven), the face of christ, the happy dream, are all the same. Perception is always within the dream, OF the dream, or as an interpretation of heaven. It can reflect heaven or rather you can shine heaven's light into the dream from heaven and illuminate it and shine it away or overlook it, and see YOUR reflection of your IMAGE of your real self there. Once removed from reality.
"Knowledge is power BECAUSE it is certain, and certainty is strength. Perception is temporary. It is an attribute of the space-time belief, and is therefore subject to fear or love. Misperception produces fear, and true perception produces love. NEITHER produces certainty because all perception varies. That is why it is NOT knowledge. True perception is the BASIS for knowledge, but KNOWING is the affirmation of truth."
Knowing occurs only IN heaven, not through perception.
Notice also there is a huge difference between the REFLECTION of heaven, and ACTUALLY BEING IN heaven.
"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them (YOU are the reflection), are ready at last for Heaven. There, ***holiness is not a reflection***, but rather the ***ACTUAL CONDITION*** of what was but reflected TO them here (on earth, BUT IN YOU, Earth does not become holy). God is no **image** (reflection are IMAGES in a dream), and His creations, as part of Him, hold Him in them in truth. They do not merely REFLECT the truth, for THEY ARE truth (ACTUAL holiness). When **no perception** stands between God and His Creation, or between His Children and their own (perception is gone), the knowledge of creation MUST continue forever. The **reflections** that you accept into the mirror of your minds in time (within the dream of spacetime), but bring eternity nearer or farther.
But eternity ITSELF is beyond ALL time (beyond spacetime!) Reach out of time and touch it, with the help of its ***reflection IN you***, and you will turn FROM time to holiness, as surely as the reflection of holiness calls everyone to lay all guilt aside. Reflect the peace of Heaven HERE, and bring this world to Heaven. For the REFLECTION of truth draws everyone TO truth. And as they enter INTO it, they leave ALL reflections behind. In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected. By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts. And thus, remembrance of His Father dawns on him, and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own reality."
PERCEIVING the real world (heaven) is seeing the "face" or "surface of" Christ from the outside. Outside the kingdom essentially. "The world", aka Earth etc, is a block - a literal physical blockage - a wall of sin - the veil - standing before and in the way of sight of heaven. Jesus refers to it as "the granite block of sin" which the body's eyes are totally blinded by and cannot see past. PHYSICAL sin.
"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 (earth) forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."
So as stated in you cannot see two worlds, once you FULLY perceive with true perception, you become INCAPABLE of seeing the world of bodies. The veil - which houses all the bodies and planets - DISAPPEARS, and now you PERCEIVE Heaven only. This is perception of the real world. What many people think "is the real world". But this reference, this perceived IMAGE of a real world, is a dream. ie "The real world still is but a dream"
The world of bodies, planets, animals, forests, civilizations, galaxies, is a dream world. It becomes the forgiven world. HELL, becomes forgiven. And this "forgiven world" WAS made of the idea of sin and separation and death. And by forgiving it, you are OVERLOOKING it, which causes it to DISAPPEAR. If you forgive hell, it will disappear. If you overlook sin, things MADE OF SIN, will disappear. If you overlook the separation, THE GAP, which contains spacetime, will disappear. And leave no trace in its going.
"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 (earth is made of sin), for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world (spacetime world) in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. (spacetime ends) Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible (bodies cannot exist in heaven, they rely on spacetime). Forgiveness proves it is impossible (no exceptions) because it sees it not (forgiveness, complete as the atonement, DOES NOT SEE THE WORLD OF BODIES). And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty. This is the shift that true perception brings"
Once the world is forgiven by all beings/souls, the forgiven world will entirely vanish. It is made of darkness. It is the ABSENCE of light. It is the idea of death. "Without the idea of death there is no world." It is opposition to reality. It is denial. It is made of the attempt to claim that light does not exist and darkness exists. When the light comes, light shines away darkness because darkness is not a real "thing". It's merely the illusion of the absence of light/love/God, and being an illusion it vanishes when it is recognized as such. "Illusions recognized must disappear." "The body cannot stay without illusions."
"They live in secrecy, hating the sunlight, and happy in the body's darkness, where they can hide, and keep their secrets hidden, along with them."
"And the seeming reality of the darkness makes the idea of light meaningless."
"No darkness abides ANYWHERE in the Kingdom, so your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your OWN mind." (yes, your OWN mind, as an individual mind, one of many)
"Light does not ATTACK darkness, but it does shine it away."
"The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes." (body's eyes cannot see reality ever, and it also cannot perceive the real world!)
"The body is darkness."
The universe, as we know it, the physical, with Earth and other stuff, will disappear in the light. Earth does not translate INTO light, because it an ILLUSION of light's absence. It does not BECOME heaven. Earth is the ILLUSION, that there is an absence of heaven. It's a lack of light, which is impossible. "It is the world you see that is impossible." It's NOT THERE NOW. It's just an illusion, not a real thing. IT doesn't have an "it". When there seems to be darkness it is only because there seems to be a lack of light. There is a huge difference between light's seeming absence, and ACTUAL real darkness. Real darkness does not exist. The world, does not exist. It will simply vanish as an hallucination. There is no world. There is no body. There is no earth in heaven.
"Eternity will shine away the world."
"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."
THERE WILL NOT BE A SINGLE SHRED OF EARTH KEPT WHEN IT IS SHONE AWAY BY THE LIGHT, just as all darkness VANISHES COMPLETELY when you switch the light on. "Illusions leave NO TRACE in their going."
"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it (because to SEE it you will NO LONGER see earth). For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."
And yes it does say literally, the SUN.... will vanish.
And then... there's being IN heaven.
"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made (earth) 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 (earth does this) 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."
Yes the physical planet earth, hell, is opposite to Heaven in EVERY WAY. And God would've have to have been SPLIT MINDED In order to make it because he DID create Heaven and heaven is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to Earth's nature and laws. "The laws of this world go against your nature." So he could not have created Earth AS WELL as Heaven. And earth IS NOT Heaven, it's a "sorry outcome".
"He thinks he made a hell opposing Heaven, and believes that he abides in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place he cannot find. " (you think you abide in, live, in reality, on planet earth. It is not reality, it is hell)
You can go beyond this world to the world of light, Heaven, which God created as your true home. Your REAL HOME. The REAL world.
"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. (talking about PERCEPTION of the real world/forgiven world).
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. 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." (into heaven).
"This loveliness is NOT a fantasy (perception OF the real world from outside). It is the real world, bright, and clean, and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the truth. (forgiven world has disappeared). The bridge between that world (perception of the real world) and this (Jesus talking from INSIDE OF HEAVEN - the REAL world) is SO little, and SO easy to cross, that you could not believe it is the meeting-place of worlds so different (yes, two entirely different worlds, earth and heaven). Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world (earth/forgiven world/perception OF real world) at all (from beyond it). This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time (spacetime) into eternity (heaven), and beyond all ugliness (YES EVERYTHING IN SPACETIME IS UGLY - the forgiven world is ugly), into beauty that will enchant you (the beauty of HEAVEN ITSELF), and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection."
Prayer is a way to true humility. But here again it rises up, slowly at first, and grows in strength and love and holiness. Let it but leave the ground where it begins to rise to God, and true humility will come at last to grace the mind that thought it was alone and stood against the world. Humility brings peace because it does not claim that you must rule the universe, nor judge all things as you would have them be. All little gods it gladly lays aside, not in resentment, but in honesty and recognition that they did not serve.
Illusions and humility have goals so far apart they cannot coexist, nor share a dwelling place. Where one has come the other disappears. The truly humble have no goal but God because they need no idols, and defense no longer has a purpose. Enemies are useless now, because humility does not oppose. It does not hide in shame because it is content with what it is, knowing creation is the Will of God. Its selflessness is Self, and this it sees in every meeting, where it gladly joins with every Son of God, whose purity it recognizes that it shares with him. Now prayer is lifted from the world of things, of bodies, and of gods of every kind, and you can rest in holiness at last. Humility has taught you how to understand your glory as God's Son, and recognize the arrogance of sin. A dream has veiled the face of Christ from you. Now can you look upon His sinlessness.
High has the ladder risen. You have come almost to Heaven. There is little more to learn before the journey is complete. Now you say to everyone who joins in prayer with you:
"I cannot go without you, for you are a part of me."
And so he is in truth. Now must you pray only for what you truly share with him. For you have understood he never left, and you, who seemed alone, are one with him.
The ladder ends with this, for learning is no longer needed. Now you stand before the gate of Heaven, and your brother stands beside you there. The lawns are deep and still, for here the place appointed for the time when you should come has waited long for you. Here will time end forever. At this gate eternity itself will join with you. Prayer has become what it was meant to be, for you have recognized the Christ in you.
Here a beautiful and inspiring collection of short quotes all to do with going BEYOND. Beyond the body, beyond appearances, beyond forms, beyond sin, beyond the world. This is the goal of the course. To return home to Heaven.
"Beyond all idols stands his holy will to be but what he is."
"Beyond the body"
"Beyond this world there is a world I want. I choose to see that world instead of this, For here is nothing that I really want."
"You can only GO BEYOND it, and look back from a point where SANITY exists, and SEE THE CONTRAST."
"It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body to LET yourselves be joined."
"Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."
"Understanding IS beyond perception, because it introduces meaning. But it is below knowledge, even though it can grow TOWARDS it."
"Not yet is Heaven quite remembered, for the purpose of forgiveness still remains. Yet everyone is certain he will go beyond forgiveness, and he but remains until it is made perfect in himself."
"The Holy Spirit is the Christ mind that senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception."
"Let us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look beyond them, understanding what they are, not what they would maintain."
"We go beyond the veil of fear, lighting each other's way. The holiness that leads us is WITHIN us, as is our home."
"I DO go before you, because I am beyond the ego. Reach therefore for my hand because you want to transcend the ego."
"Appearances deceive but can be changed. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all. And if you fail to see beyond appearances, you ARE deceived. For everything you see will change, and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and capable of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that makes it real, and keeps it separate from all appearances. It must transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change."
"Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception both. It is obscured by changing views of him which you PERCEIVE as his reality."
"Each speaks in time of what is far beyond it. Two voices, raised together, call to the hearts of everyone, and let them beat as one."
"And It must use all learning to transfer illusions TO the truth, taking all FALSE ideas of what you are, and leading you BEYOND them to the truth that IS beyond them."
"Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. "
"Your destiny and purpose are far beyond them, in the clean place where littleness does not exist."
"You whose hands are joined have begun to reach BEYOND the body, but NOT outside yourselves, to reach your shared identity TOGETHER."
"Desiring to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of belief and faith goes far beyond the body, SUPPORTING vision, not obstructing it."
"ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely. "
"NOTHING beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because nothing IS beyond you."
"One instant of complete belief in this, and you will go beyond belief to Certainty."
"The holy instant's radiance will light YOUR eyes, and give them sight to see beyond ALL suffering, and see Christ's Face INSTEAD."
"Who stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens up an ancient door that leads beyond the world? You are a stranger here."
"Do not defend this senseless dream, in which God is bereft of what He loves, and you remain beyond salvation."
"Truth is so far beyond time, that ALL of it happens at once. For as it was created one, so its oneness depends not on time at all."
"Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sounds and sights of this insane world. You do not live there."
"He will enable you to go far beyond the healing YOU would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole He will lay His Own COMPLETE Will and make YOURS whole. What can the Son of God NOT accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him? "
"And now the mind returns to its Creator; the joining of the Father and the Son, the Unity of unities that stands behind all joining but beyond them all."
"But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines in me and in itself. "
"He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond everything that would hold you back."
"It is this that makes it holy and beyond the world. It is its holiness that points to God. It is its holiness that makes you safe."
"This thought has power to wake the sleeping truth in you, whose vision sees beyond appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is."
"Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to him."
"The universe beyond the sun and stars, and all the thoughts of which you can conceive, belong to you."
"How far beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God!"
"If they understood what is beyond them, they would not BE handicapped. You do NOT know the meaning of love, and this IS your handicap."
"Then turn to one who laid all limits by, and went beyond the farthest reach of learning. He will take you with him, for he did not go alone."
"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."
"Who, then, can say which one can be healed of what, and what must remain beyond God's power to forgive?This is insanity indeed.It is not up to God's teachers"
"Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS. "
"Otherwise, you still are free to choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought, and one which comes to you from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a heritage forgot, yet holding everything you really want."
"He is here because He wills to be, and what He wills is present now beyond the reach of time."
"He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them."
"But what is that to those who have been given one true relationship, BEYOND the body? Can they be long held back from looking on the face of Christ?"
"Only joy increases forever. Joy and Eternity are INSEPARABLE. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit. "
"When truth has come it harbors in its wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain but looks beyond it, steadily and sure."
"It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that demonstrates you did not do them."
"What lies beyond them cannot BE attacked."
"For His answer is the reference point BEYOND delusions, from which you can look back on them, and see them as insane."
"It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never died, but has been kept obscure."
"They choose for all mankind; for all the world and all things in it; for the unchanging and unchangeable beyond appearances; and for the Son of God and his Creator. "
"For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind."
"NOTHING is beyond His will for you. But signify your will to remember Him, and behold! He will give you everything but for your asking."
"The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture."
"Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held within His holy Will beyond all possibility of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness. We are creation; we the Sons of God."
"Its holy purpose stands beyond your little range. When vision has shown you the holiness that lights up the world, you will understand today s idea perfectly."
"The power set in you, in whom the Holy Spirit's goal has been established, is so far beyond your little conception of the infinite, that you have no idea how great the strength that goes with you."
"Yet, for all its might, so great it reaches past the stars and to the universe that lies beyond them, your little faithlessness can make IT useless, if you would use the faithlessness instead. "
"For the words we use are mighty, and they need no thoughts beyond themselves to change the mind of him who uses them."
"You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace."
"Yet this is writ in hell and NOT in Heaven, where you are BEYOND attack, and prove his INNOCENCE. "
"Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied your simple request."
"Today we will make our first real attempt to get past this dark and heavy cloud, and to go through it to the light beyond."
"The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked."
"Knowledge is far beyond your individual concern. You who are part of it, and all of it, need only realize that it is of the Father, NOT of you."
"And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see."
"Today's exercises are an attempt to go beyond these differences in appearance, and recognize a common content where it exists in truth."
"From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks."
"And it is given us to look past death and see the light beyond."
"It is the world s most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely."
"It is past the clouds, and in the light beyond. Remember that you will have to go through the clouds before you can reach the light."
"Help him go in peace beyond it, with the light of his own innocence lighting his way to his redemption and release."
"But it begins within the world perceived as different, and leading from this fresh perception to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond."
"Grace is not given to a BODY, but to a MIND. And the mind that RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT was healed."
"Far beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a Savior first, before he can remember what he is. And he must save who would BE saved."
"There is no Thought of God that does not go with you to help you reach that instant, and to go beyond it quickly, surely and forever."
"Accept these little gifts of thanks from us, as through Christ's vision we behold a world beyond the one we made, and take that world to be the full replacement of our own."
"You have many times been urged to look beyond the body, for its sight presents the symbol of love s "enemy" Christ s vision does not see."
"And so they need a teacher who perceives their madness, but who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them."
"We go beyond appearances today, and reach the source of healing from which nothing is exempt. "
"The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives, the Father of the Universe, and of the Universe of universes, and of everything that lies even BEYOND them, would you remember."
"The fourth obstacle to be surmounted, hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to JOIN with Him at last."
"From BEYOND each of these OBSTACLES to love, Love Itself has called, and each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies BEYOND. Your WANTING fear SEEMED to be holding them in place. Yet when you heard the voice of love BEYOND them, you answered, and they disappeared."
"No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear, nor the cold sweat of seeming death, CAN stand against your will. And what attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it, and COMPLETELY One. "
"Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt BECAUSE it goes beyond the body."
"This One can teach you how to look on time differently and to see BEYOND it. But NOT while you believe in sin."
When you are afraid, you might think your primary problem is fear - or the causes of it, and that you need to get rid of the fear.
But the fear isn't the real problem.
The real problem is that under the fear is a NEED, and a DESIRE to be afraid. You WANT to be afraid. That's the real problem. Because that's where all your fear is really coming from. You keep choosing it.
So you become distracted by the fear and think it was caused by someone or something else, which keeps you from really looking at the source of the fear. You don't want to look at it. Underneath all fear there is a NEED to be afraid - some kind of choosing that you want, on purpose. Why?
You need to be afraid because of what is BEHIND the need to be afraid - which is the guilt that you're hiding. Fear seems to protect you from guilt. Or more specifically, making up a story about why you need to be afraid helps you cover up guilt and deny it and hide it. Hiding from the decision to be afraid, hides your guilt.
So don't even think that the need to be afraid is the source of your problems, because behind this need there is guilt.
But the guilt isn't the real problem either.
If you look into it, you think the guilt is caused by something outside of you, or that someone (e.g. God) has found you guilty, other than yourself. But really, behind your guilt there is a NEED, and a DESIRE to be guilty. You WANT to be guilty.
Why would you want to be guilty? You want to be in the guilt because by suffering it head-on it allows you to deny and avoid owning up to any kind of choosing of the guilt, any reason why you might be creating it, and hides the fact that you want it. Experiencing guilt as something unwanted, covers up the fact that you DO want it. You don't want to admit that you want it because that would be admitting that you're doing it to yourself.
Generally you don't want to admit that you are the cause of any of this, because your main intention is to hide from God, to repress your identity, to cover up responsibility for choosing, to make believe that stuff can happen on its own that cannot happen, and to succeed in creating an alternative identity that God didn't create.
Yet even behind the fact that you NEED and WANT to be guilty, there is something else. You need guilt because it covers up your sense of sin. If you didn't tell yourself you want guilt, you'd have to face the sin head-on. The need to be guilty is a made-up story that covers the sin, denies it, seems to protect you from it, and puts more distance between you and the fact you are the one choosing.
So if you were to come face to face with sin, you'd probably be horrified about what you believe you have really done, since sin is the idea that you really did separate from God through attack. But even this seemingly horrifying ordeal is yet another layer of cover-up, because underneath the seeming undesirability of sin, is indeed yet another NEED to be sinful, DESIRE to be sinful, and WANTING to be sinful.
You will explain that you have become sinful because God has been affected and therefore you did indeed do something to God and therefore God has deemed you sinful, but this is just another cover-up. It's another story, to try to disown the choice YOU made to pretend to be sinful. You wanted to be sinful, and you made sin, because once again it allowed you to deny who you are, pretend you are not with God, and put more distance between you and reality.
So sin is not even as much of a problem as what came before it, and that is, the need and desire to be sinful. You are making the sin and causing it, not anyone else. But even behind THIS, there is yet another layer - which is the experience of 'pure separation', the idea that you are separate from God. This might seem to have been the first starting point of this whole charade, but it's not. Because behind the idea of separation there is a NEED, and a DESIRE to be separate.
You WANT to be separate. You want to be separate because you're trying to pretend to be not what you are, and you can't do that while you admit to or own up to the immense freedom you have in God. You want to pretend that God cast you out of Heaven but He didn't. You did, or at least, you pretended to. So it was your desire to be separate, that seemed to make you separate.
Always behind what you are currently experiencing, there is some other truth, some other responsibility, some other fact that you are covering up and don't want to admit to. And the whole reason you don't want to admit to any of these layers, is because of your overall, big-picture ambition, of attempting to be separate from God in every way possible. It's your dream, your goal, your ultimate desire, to be so completely devoid of God that you become an individual with your own identity and your own realm to rule over, without God. That was the entire point of your make-believing that such a thing is possible.
Every step of the way, we shift the blame and put the responsibility for choosing onto anyone and anything not ourselves, but since there is nothing not ourselves, we have to pretend that other parts of our own self are against us. That someone 'else' chose this. And that means having a split identity - a split mind. Which is the ego.All along the way we WANT and DESIRE and CHOOSE every single experience of separation, sin, guilt, fear, punishment and death. All of it. None of it is happening to us whatsoever.
Owning up to everything we're doing to ourselves is the way Home.
"You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would JUDGE reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."
Here, Jesus appears to simply say that whatever you believe is true, you will see. The kind of world you will see depends entirely on your mind's decision as to what to accept. Whatever you accept into your mind becomes your reality. Therefore inversely, whatever you reject as false does not enter your mind, and therefore you do not see it.
This means that if you believe the world of bodies is true and real, you will see it, and as a result of seeing it, you will make the real world invisible to you. Because the real world is blotted out by this choice to perceive an illusory world and not a real world.
Similarly, if you desire to see only love, you will see only the real world. As a result, that which is now recognized as false, will not be seen. This is reflected in the teaching "you cannot see both worlds." And "The world you see must be denied, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."
Jesus also confirmed this basic law here: "This is in strict accord with vision's FUNDAMENTAL law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this."
So very simply, whatever you want to see, you will see. In all cases. Whether it be "I want to see a sinful world" or "I want to see reality" or "I want to see love" or "I want to see death as though it's really happening." Whatever you value, desire and believe in, you want to see, and so you see it.
"Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And ****if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision****. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."
The spectrum of choice here is in terms of whether you want to see death, darkness, evil nightmares, sin and guilt and murder etc, or whether you want to see harmlessness, peace, joy, love, safety etc. Consider this a vertical spectrum, ranging from darkness to light.
At the bottom in the greatest darkness, there is the most belief that illusions are real. Here there is significant denial, blockage, unwillingness, condemnation, belief in sin, horizontal causality, suffering and death. As resurrection towards the light is made, all of this diminishes and is replaced with calm, happiness, peace, love, gentleness, loveliness, forgiveness etc.
The darkened state of perception, Jesus is calling false perception. The lightened state of perception, Jesus is calling true perception. ie, in false perception, that which is FALSE is SEEN because you WANT TO. In true perception the TRUTH is seen, because you want to. This is a spectrum between illusions and reality, between death and life, between fear and love, between chaos and peace.
So this depends on what is happening in your mind and what you believe is true. Your mind decides this FIRST, and THEN sees what it has believed in. Projection of the belief makes perception. "Perception is a result, not a cause". Jesus also likens this process to HALLUCINATION, in which you basically make up IMAGES based on what you want to see, regardless of whether it's really there.
Someone in great darkness is hallucinating strongly (insanity). They SEE a world that strikes them as horrifying and upsetting. As the focus shifts to love, the hallucinations diminish and "what is really there" is revealed. ie the real world, or rather, the illusory world "as it is" with nothing added to judge it. The world is now "forgiven" and appears neutral and lovely. You wanted to see love in it, so you do. "Love looks upon itself."
Jesus also appears to be quite clear, that by choosing to "shift perception" towards Christ Vision, which enables you to become aware of and see "the real world", doing so causes you NOT TO SEE the dark icky world. In fact, he even goes so far as to say that in the purest true perception, the world of bodies is completely forgotten, you don't even see bodies AT ALL. And the real world HAS no bodies.
"And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision."
"You have the vision that enables you to see the body not."
"Thus is the concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the Face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this One. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight."
He is clear that you cannot see both worlds. You cannot see BOTH the false perception world and the true perception world as the same time. At least, not seeing either of them fully. To fully have vision is to NOT see the world of bodies. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." And this is simply because the Spiritual Eye does not USE the body's eyesight to see. And ALL it sees is the face of Christ. It does not see a world based on photons of light because it does not use the body's light sensors (eyes).
"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."
This is key because it means, either you will look at the false world, or the true world. Either the illusory world, or the real world. Either the world that has no buildings or streets or stores or the sun, OR the world that has buildings and streets and stores and the sun.
"For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."
This means, either you are using the body's physical sight, OR you are using the Spiritual eye. The Holy Spirit correlates to the spiritual eye and He only looks upon Christ.
I have come to think of these as like two "devices." Both of them are also illusions, and therefore technically ego. But the illusion of forgiveness can point towards the truth. You can either use the body's physical sight sensors to pick up images of a physical world, or you can use the Spiritual Eye, which CAN ONLY SEE SPIRIT. The spiritual eye CANNOT BE USED to look upon the world of form! It can only look at REALITY. And the world of form is an ILLUSION.
For you, as mind, you can decide how much of the Spiritual Eye you will behold. ie how much you believe it's messages are true. But here is the catch. To the extent that you ATUNE to the spiritual eye, you inversely TUNE OUT of the physical eye. Which means, you're going to either emphasize or deemphasize what the body's eyes are showing you, based on how much you have forgiven.
"Corrective learning always begins with awakening the spiritual eye, and turning away from belief in physical sight."
"This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."
The body's sight is one source of "input" to your mind's awareness. The spiritual eye is the second source of input to your mind's awareness. Dialing the knob tunes between the two. Your mind thus ALIGNS WITH, ie agrees with as real, either the physical world or the spiritual world. And agreement means, you believe it is true and real. By tuning into one, you tune OUT of the other. You cannot see BOTH!
In order to SEE the physical world, therefore, your mind has to CLOSE the spiritual eye. Guilt is required in order to tune into it. A belief in sin is required. A belief in death is required. The physical is also tuned into through body identification.
By believing in narrowness, blockage, sin, guilt, fear, death, attack, isolation, separation, selfishness, upset, unhappiness, sickness etc... your mind confines itself to the body. The more it binds itself to the body the LESS it sees with the spiritual eye. The more it believes these things are TRUE, the more it will SEE them in the world it sees.
The body is like a fixed frequency of hell. The spiritual eye is like a fixed frequency of heaven. The more you tune into one the more real it becomes to you. And this then determines what of the TWO worlds you will see.
The world you made, is the illusory world, which includes all dreams and includes the real world and the physical. Within this, christ vision shows you this world as having NO FORMS, while the BODY shows you this world as having solid forms.
There are no objects or bodies in the real world. If you see bodies your mind is in judgement and is starting to sin, causing you to see bodies made of sin. "Only if there were a body is sin possible." "It is impossible to see a sinless body." Christ Vision does not see the body AT ALL, because innocence ERASES the separation idea and bodies are incompatible with innocence.
Essentially, the belief in ego causes your spiritual eye to close, your mind to shut down, your perception to ATUNE to the body's frequency of permanent FALSE perception, which shows ONLY a false world, and then you will have visions of hell. And the world will now seem upsetting and threatening and dark and dangerous, and not deserving of forgiveness.
THe whole purpose of the body was to accomplish this, such that if the mind were to believe that it is ONLY a body, a perception of hell would ensue. "Only the body makes the world seem real" tells you that if you tune INTO the body level of sight, physical sight, and believe it, the world WILL seem to be the ONLY reality. It will take on greater solidity, firmness, tangibility and intensity.
"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain."
"Sin is a block" ... "The body's eyes behold it as solid granite"
"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."
"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning."
If you tune into body identification, a belief in sin, fear, or any kind of denial of reality, any form of judgement or egoic attempt to defend against God, you will narrow your focus and isolate to a body, causing you to see more exclusively through its eyes, and project onto its images heavy judgements of sin and guilt, which will turn the body's images into visions of hell and real suffering.
If you tune out of the body, into spirit, and into the spiritual eye, you tune out of body perceptions. Out of false perception. Physical sight becomes de-emphasized, and it is given less credit. Thus what was seen as the physical material world through the body's eyes begins to be seen as a transparent, thin veil, rather than a heavy solid surface of matter.
"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."
"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."
"For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight."
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."
As you tune into the radio station of the real world, you tune out of the radio station of the physical world of forms. Christ enters your awareness and the world of bodies leaves. "The world of bodies is the world of sin". As your belief in sin leaves, so does the world of sin.
In the transition, temporarily there is a parallel of utilizing the body's sight in part, and the spiritual eye in part. These are occurring simultaneously. This causes the physical world to still be seen, up to a point (before christ's face is unveiled) but all the judgement and fear and guilt are lifted away from this image of a fake world. It becomes but a thin veil, a forgiven world, an image of loveliness and a reflection of heaven. But simultaneously it is becoming thin, light, transparent, and is fading from sight, because you DON'T WANT IT. Upon reaching the face of Christ, the physical world is forgotten ENTIRELY and completely VANISHES from view. It literally becomes INVISIBLE to you. "Illusions recognized (as false) must disappear."
Becoming able to see the real world is the final step just prior to going to heaven. But the fact is that to be ABLE to see it, you have to NOT USE the body's eyes AT ALL. And in fact the Spiritual eye does not depend on OR use the body's eyes, and can even function without a body. The Spiritual eye is direct mind-to-mind seeing, and BYPASSES anything physical entirely, overlooking it. When the shift to true perception is complete, Christ is ALL that is seen, AND NOT THE WORLD OF BODIES. It is NOT POSSIBLE TO SEE BOTH! "You cannot see both worlds."
Here, then, as the world is GONE from view, you are ready to return to heaven, and in this state, the physical world has literally faded out of view. It is no longer there TO see, and you do not believe in it, or want it. You do not see it because you do not WANT to see it, and you do not see it because you have CHOSEN to ONLY see reality - vigilance only for the Kingdom. Here, only the truth is true.
By focusing on truth, you DO NOT SEE WHAT IS FALSE. What is false does not exist. And there literally IS NO WORLD to perceive. The world is GONE. It never was, and sights of it were hallucinations. Only reality is real. And now perception has finished its function and you are ready to ascend from the real world into Heaven.
"Without the idea of death there is no world."
"You cannot behold the world and know God."
"Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."
"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. 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."
"The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."
A brother is an equal sibling of a shared parent.
God is the Father, the shared parent. God created more than one child, more than one son, IN REALITY. Those children are brothers to each other. It takes at least two children to be brothers. The state of being a brother is a permanent reality and relationship, in Heaven, which has always been and always will be. We are permanently brothers. Being a brother has nothing to do with the ego or with separation ideas. The ego is not your father. All references to "brother" in ACIM are talking about the GOD-CREATED EQUAL BEING that is your brother in REALITY. This is A Course in Miracles.
"Heaven is the home of perfect purity. And God created it for YOU. Look at your ***HOLY BROTHER, SINLESS AS YOURSELF*** (having NO ego at all), and let him lead you there."
"I trust my brothers, ***WHO ARE ONE WITH ME***."
"You, ***MY CHILDREN***, are afraid of ***YOUR BROTHERS***, and of ***YOUR (shared) FATHER***, and of YOURSELVES. "
"Perceiving ***THE MAJESTY OF GOD AS YOUR BROTHER*** is to accept your own inheritance. "
"You do not know YOUR creations, because you do not know ***YOUR BROTHERS WHO CREATED THEM WITH YOU***."
"Whenever you heal a brother by recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging ***HIS POWER TO CREATE AND YOURS***. HE cannot have lost what you recognize, and you MUST have the glory you see in HIM. ***HE IS A CO-CREATOR WITH GOD WITH YOU***. Deny his creative power and you are denying yours and that of God Who created you."
"***ALL YOUR BROTHERS*** must enter WITH you, for until you have accepted them, YOU cannot enter. "
"No-one who condemns a brother, can see HIMSELF as guiltless in the peace of God. "
"Brothers can misperceive one another, but they rarely maintain that they do not ***KNOW*** (knowledge is of heaven) each other. This is possible only if they maintain that they are NOT really brothers." (beleiving your brother is not REALLY a brother is not ACIM).
"By guiding your BROTHERS home (home of both of you), you are but following HIM."
"For you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER (to go home together as many)"
"Release your brothers from the slavery of THEIR illusions, by forgiving them for the illusions which YOU perceive in them."
"And as they rest, the face of Christ shines on them, and they remember the laws of God, forgetting all the rest, and yearning only to have ***HIS LAWS PERFECTLY FULFILLED IN THEM AND ALL THEIR BROTHERS***. "
"If you would hear me (Jesus, at the level of Heaven), ***HEAR MY BROTHERS*** (who are still his brothers at the level of Heaven), ***IN WHOM GOD'S VOICE SPEAKS***."
"The name of Jesus, is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ ***IN ALL HIS BROTHERS*** and remembered God."
"Your relationship with them IS without guilt, and THIS enables you to look on ***ALL YOUR BROTHERS*** with gratitude, because ***YOUR CREATIONS WERE CREATED IN UNION WITH THEM***." (in heaven!)
What if you decide that you are not going to die?
Immediately this flies in the face of everything the world's population holds as true and inevitable. It flies in the face of an entire weight of collective thoughts and beliefs about what is normal and natural in this universe.
You wouldn't be the first to accomplish this either. St Germain for example was known to be "in a body", maintaining agelessness, for several centuries. Babaji is known to be hanging around without aging. There are others.
Jesus calls for every A Course in Miracles student to accomplish this also. He asks us to swear not to die. He tells us to choose resurrection, to not attack the body, to not make it sick, and to heal it. He asks us to make it a picture of health not a picture of crucifixion.
He asks us not to make the body age, or decay, or be sick, or die, but instead to maintain it in a state of guaranteed perfect health indefinitely, for as long as this is useful. That could mean thousands of years, or just a few.
You probably have assumed all your life that just because everyone else's bodies grow old and die and no-one can seem to cure death, that this is the only option. That death is inevitability and it's your fate. Particularly that death cannot be reversed, yet alone prevented.
You see the seasons come and go, the leaves die off, the flowers wilt, the animals turn to carcasses, and people are put in the ground. And we think this is normal and natural and unavoidable. Something to be "accepted" and adjusted to and made out to be something you can do "in peace".
But Jesus is asking a much higher calling for us. He wants us to use the body as a symbol of eternal life, a breath of immortality, to those who have grown tired of the fetid scent of death.
He wants us to allow the Holy Spirit to heal and resurrect the body through miracles, to present a picture of total health and loveliness to your brothers so as to teach them there is no sin and no attack.
He wants us to demonstrate, in person, physically, that there is no death, and that we have power over death. And that means that we make it possible for this exact body we have right now to not die. To not decay. To not grow old and withered and look like a prune. And to be incapable of corruption.
Are you willing to take up this challenge? If you're going to take this course the whole way then it is going to require of you at some time to actually commit to not dying. You cannot have a shred of belief in death or experience of death in your mind and being if you are to reach the end of the curriculum, which is resurrection - death's total opposite.
So you might as well decide right now. I am not going to die this time. I am going to move towards health, life, happiness, wholeness, healing, miracles, the power of the mind over the body, and I refuse to simply go the way of the worms along the funeral procession of death and decay.
How about you decide today, that you will not intent to die this time, you will not merely unconsciously accept notions that you will die, and you will not allow the body to die. It is your challenge to become miraculous and to heal the body's ailments and cure its diseases and undo death itself. To demonstrate your immortality using the body as a tool to prove your mind is stronger than death.
Few will rise to the challenge. It seems ridiculous. It seems impossible. It flies in the face of everything. Just stop and think for a minute. What if in this lifetime right now, with this body, you simply are not going to go through death? What if you're going to simply keep this body, heal it, resurrect it, protect it through miracles and the Holy Spirit, and maintain it in perfect functioning? For as long as you like?
Once the body is being healed by a sane mind, it cannot become sick, nor can it die. So now it is not possible to leave it through death. "A dream of death cannot be left through death but by truth". Truth means resurrection and life.
The body becomes a shining symbol of immortality and you can longer leave it through sickness or decay or suffering. The old doorway to darkness is closed. And the only way to then leave is to simply lay it aside, without decay, without attack, without sickness, in which the body does not corrupt or destroy or symbolize hell. And then it disappears.
What if you don't have to die physically? And what if you can resurrect all the way to invulnerability and immortality? And what if you can prevent the body from being attackable? And what if you do not have to keep aging? What if you can fly in the face of everything the world believes and choose not to die?
"You cannot die unless you choose to do so."
"No one dies without their own consent."
"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."
"The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked."
"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all."
"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all."
"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible. ... Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching"
"What you would prove to him you will believe. The power of witness COMES from your belief. And everything you say or do or think but testifies to what you teach to him. Your body can be means to teach that it has never suffered pain because of him. And in its healing can it offer him mute testimony to his innocence. It is THIS testimony that can speak with power greater than a thousand tongues. For here is his forgiveness PROVED to him. A miracle can offer nothing LESS to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did NOT do. And so is HE convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you."
"Swear not to die, you holy Son of God! You make a bargain that you cannot keep. The Son of Life cannot be killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that must be one."
1) God created heaven which is perfect. You are in heaven as an immortal being, along with your brothers.
2) You believe you're not in heaven, and made a second world with the idea of opposing everything.
3) The second world is the physical world. Everything about it is false and opposite to God's nature. Not one single thing in it is true or real.
4) As part of the physical world, you also made a body. It's a separation device made to deceive you. It separates you off from God and your brothers and makes suffering seem possible.
5) The body agrees with the physical world's nature entirely, making it seem real. The body cannot see anything else and it cannot see reality at all. Everything it sees is an illusion.
6) Your mind seems to be in a body. Your mind seems to use the body's senses to sense the world you made. The body reports that it is real and happening. Everything in the world presents proof of sin and death and the body says it's really there.
7) If your mind believes what the body is telling it, it will be deceived. The body lies to it, because the world is a lie. So mind has to learn that everything in the world is unreal and untrue, being not of God. This can seem VERY difficult.
9) God created the Holy Spirit to judge perfectly. His perfect judgement IS forgiveness. He does not believe anything in the world. He knows the world is impossible and nothing in it is really happening. He is completely sane and cannot be deceived.
10) You have to stop judging on your own and ask the Holy Spirit to judge everything for you. You cannot forgive correctly on your own! You have to join with him in his verdict about what the world is and see it through his eyes. To see it but NOT believe it is to overlook it.
11) Adopting the Holy Spirit's view of the world reveals a forgiven world. A world which is not condemned, but also not believed. Even as the world constantly shows you impossible horrors, the Holy Spirit lifts you above it to laugh in the face of death and not take any of it seriously. The world becomes a lucid dream.
12) When you are complete in allowing the Holy Spirit to judge everything for you, you will see "the real world", which will be heaven's reflection upon the chaos of the physical world - seen as the face of Christ. Then you will be ready and willing to go home to God, and will awaken from the dream.
When you are a people pleaser, it means that you hide yourself from others. You do this by putting a mask or "persona", a facade or "face" over the top of yourself, showing to the world only what you want them to see. You present yourself to them as all smiles, nothing going wrong, everything is great, as if you're amazing and happy and "fine" when in fact you're dying inside.
It may seem that in this effort to please others you're trying to please them, but you're not. You actually are trying to hide yourself from them so that you only show them what you think they will approve of, in order to hide what you think they will not approve of. It stems from secret sins and hidden hates, self condemnation and self judgement, by which you perceive yourself as flawed. You're not making them be pleased with YOU, you're making them pleased with a FAKE person that doesn't even exist.
The persona you put on as a fake self, a cover over your hideous insides, cuts you off from others and from yourself. It is the most horrible state to experience, emotionally. A sense of embarrassment, shame, being harshly judged. By you.
Make no mistake, what happens when you people please is you separate yourself from your oneness and openness with other people, and you also separate yourself from yourself. You lock yourself in an internal prison where no-one ever really sees who you are and you don't let anyone in. You don't share anything with anyone and you are too afraid to be vulnerable.
The funny thing is that by being exposed and vulnerable you become invulnerable. It's only when you think you need to hide that you develop something that needs hiding. Your dark secret sins are nothing in the light. They don't exist.
But hiding yourself behind this mask is your idea of an attempt to protect yourself. You think that it is shielding you from the threats of others, that if you will just show them a smiling face that seems agreeable and not upsetting, they will not hurt you. It's a coping mechanism to try to defend yourself. The problem is, you are attacked by your own defenses.
Because by believing that someone else is judging you harshly and that you have to put up the smiling-face shields, you are also condemning yourself harshly. And that self condemnation can result in the most horrendous deep emotional pain way beyond anything another person could seem to inflict on you. Deep, deep shame and embarrassment and the sense that you are very wrong. It hurts you. You hurt yourself, by pleasing others.
And newsflash, other people do not want your pleasing, and they do not want to be pleased. Not if they are unconditionally loving. They didn't ask for you to defend yourself or present yourself that way. You're not really doing it for their benefit. You just think you are. You think they are the one who judges you, when all along it is yourself judging yourself indirectly through what you think they think of you.
The simple truth is, you cannot be yourself, while you people please. You are not being honest or authentic. You are not free. You're not free to simply express yourself and let the chips fall where they may. You're not free to open up and be vulnerable or hurt or emotionally upset or to let people help you. It's a state of being very cut off and alone. It's the opposite of health and the opposite of life.
By hiding behind a persona/facade all you do is feel ignored, judged, not-belonging, dissociative, and wishing you were somewhere else. Because you are somewhere else. You're not present. You're not being yourself. You're trying to be something you're not. You're trying to portray yourself as some kind of image that has nothing to do with who you are. And this image is destroying you. Because so long as it stands in for your identity you are imprisoned and trapped and weak and afraid.
No-one can be happy when they are not being true to themselves. No-one can be happy and relaxed and free from fear when they are trying to show up as "always positive" when that's totally unrealistic. That persona, puts you into the darkness. It puts you in the shadows and turns you into a shameful guilty sinner lurking behind this public image of yourself that hides your dark evil ways. And if only you'd come out into the light you'd see that you are not even remotely evil. It's the darkness that's the problem, not you.
Learning to simply just BE YOURSELF is the entire curriculum of spiritual awakening. To be as God created you. To be so accepting and natural in being who you actually are, free of pretending and cover ups and denial. Pleasing others denies your soul. Learn to tell the world to fuck the hell off. You don't need to be pleasing anyone, not one single person. And if they don't approve of you, that has nothing to do with you. You will make yourself suffer far more through your rejection of yourself than anyone else ever could.
Be free. Be you. Be visible.
Real vision means unlimited seeing. The ability to see anywhere at anytime, without limits. That means being able to see across the universe even, ignoring the laws of physics.
"Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light."
"This can occur REGARDLESS of the physical distance that SEEMS to be between you and what you join; of your respective positions in space; and of your differences in size and seeming quality. Time is not relevant; it can occur with something past, present, or anticipated."
When we made the separate world, we also invented obstacles to sight. PHYSICAL OBJECTS ARE BLOCKS TO AWARENESS. Physical matter became seemingly solid walls, which Jesus refers to as "the granite block of sin." All physical matter is made of the idea of sin. "The world of bodies is the world of sin." This sin takes on many different forms, and each forms an image that seems to stand between you and reality.
"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see ONLY illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside FORM of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the OUTSIDE of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."
Physical sight falls short of unlimited seeing. It relies on photons to rebound off "the outer surface of nothing" (objects) in order to see at all. It depends on laws of physics, which are illusions. It cannot see past or through solid walls because the walls repel light. This is also symbolic (IMO) of the repulsion of heaven that the granite blocks of sin represent.
"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."
"And Christ is invisible to you BECAUSE OF WHAT YOU HAVE MADE VISIBLE TO YOURSELVES."
In effect your physical sight stops whenever it is presented with a physical object, and so is actually "blinded", in terms of the big picture idea of unlimited vision. You seem to "see" what is physically there, but by seeing it, you actually are BLINDED TO seeing what is BEYOND it. You can't seem to see THROUGH it like x-ray vision because its physical form stands in the way. This is because the world was made like a veil to hang BETWEEN you and Christ.
"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"
"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth."
By seeing physical objects, such as human bodies, you are in effect blinded by form. Form is not meaning. Form is sin, or correctly reinterpreted is "error", which calls for correction. Everything the body sees is the forms of error. "The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it."
So Jesus is literally telling you that we made the body's physical sight mechanism ON PURPOSE to BLIND US to seeing reality. It was made to FIXATE on the form of error (world of sin), a world which seems to depict things happening that cannot happen in reality. A world of impossibilities and blasphemies and pictures of evil and death, all of which violate the truth of God.
"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."
"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold? What need have they of sights or sounds or touch? What would they hear or reach to grasp? What would they sense at all? To sense is not to know."
So now we have a kind of prison world, a closed-in box, with solid interior walls, in which you find yourself imprisoned, standing in a prison body, seeming to walk around in freedom but only because the prison is so large (all of spacetime). And everything the body sees is a prison wall which it cannot see past. And it will never see past. And so its eyes cannot be used to see reality - you need a different kind of vision. Which is why:
"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."
In effect, when your MIND uses the body and believes what the body shows to it, given only the mind actually sees, it is blinded by perception of form. Physical matter presents false images of imaginary things which don't exist. If you believe what you're shown by the body's eyes then you are blinded. Which is interesting given the eyes are supposed to give you the ability TO SEE - they do the exact opposite.
"Man believes that what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark. This is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the spiritual eye, which always depends on light."
It also goes further that when you look at FORM, you are blinded to MEANING. Because "reality is meaning." God is meaningful. When reality is obscured by physical matter, it shuts out all meaning. Again this is why the physical world is a meaningless world. It has NO meaning of its own. "The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real."
"Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form MEANS understanding HAS BEEN obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they CAN deceive. You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is NOT reality, it MUST be an illusion. And is Not THERE to see. And, IF you see it, you MUST be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it WERE. What cannot see BEYOND what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions AS THE TRUTH. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?"
Certain shapes, colors, sizes, arrangements, conditions, states, now appear to dictate, potentially as a temptation, what something MEANS. Because being void of meaning, you have to decide what it means. The ego would make its FORMS reality, and therefore construct a hierarchy of illusions, where certain forms MEAN certain things. Where forms of sickness appear to be real and important. And now in false perception, physical form BLINDS you and DICTATES what everything is, as if meaning IS the form and there is no other meaning.
This can become especially upsetting because you can for example be faced with an image of a physical body that seems to be malfunctioning. And just seeing this at all is an assertion of the proof of sin, of possibilities that cannot happen in God's reality. Yet it's there, staring you in the face, forcing you to look at it, such that you can hardly deny it. Yet you MUST deny it, otherwise you will believe it is TRUE. And then you will derive MEANING from it, and will start to react to it as if it's really there.
If you look upon a meaningless world, through the body's physical sight, and you believe the FORM of what you see, as if it is reality, then you are in "false perception". Your mind is believing an illusion of opposite things to God, opposite to possibility, as if they are real. It is deceived. "The world is false perception."
Then, because the world's physicality means NOTHING, the mind actually tries to GIVE it meaning. Either it projects ego meaning onto it or it projects God's meaning onto it. "Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality."
"If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes which it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist."
Since real meaning is BEYOND the physical, BEHIND the prison walls, BEYOND space and time, and the body cannot see it, you need a spiritual sight to see it. And in order to see it, you have to SEE PAST the physical. This means you have to overlook it.
This is why forgiveness OVERLOOKS the physical world of matter and looks TOWARDS the light. "To forgive is to OVERLOOK." It's like ignoring the physical form and looking straight through it, NOT blocked by appearances and NOT limited in how far your sight can reach.
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched (physically), a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation (ignores physical differences). And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events (which is the physical level), without the slightest fading of the light it sees (beyond the physical simultaneously)."
This is like seeing THROUGH the veil as if the veil is thin and light and transparent, as if physical matter no longer HIDES the face of Christ. As if you an see God "in" everything you see. Because christ vision pierces the PHYSICAL VEIL OF SIN, and allows you to see reality BEYOND what the body can see.
"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."
"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 (a meaningless illusion of a physical world). 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."
Jesus merely asks us to choose again. To keep choosing again until we make the correct choice.
"I must have made a wrong decision because I am not at peace. I made the decision myself but I can choose otherwise."
He tells us that whenever we are not at peace, ie suffering in any form, it is because we have chosen to do so, and this resulted from making a wrong decision. We chose to suffer, and this was a mistake. He now invites us to try again to choose heaven, heaven being a choice I must make.
"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again.""
We are exercising our free will at all times, our ability to choose freely. Anything that we experience other than peace and joy and love is because we chose it. We can only attack ourselves and are the only one able to seem to hurt ourselves through a mistaken choice. And we have just as much power to choose otherwise.
"And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""
"Mind is the mechanism of decision."
At all times, we are simply deciding. We are simply choosing. Do I want to accept that I am as God created me still, and therefore accept the whole Atonement principle and return to awareness of my soul, or do I want to continue choosing to suffer in various ways. It is up to me.
"God does not coerce."
"Learn of His happiness, which is yours. But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth, and joyously laid down, by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light, He will accept FROM you, BECAUSE YOU DO NOT WANT IT. And He will gladly EXCHANGE each one for the bright lesson He has learned FOR you."
Lessons are nothing other than choices. By choosing that you want something, you put yourself into a psychological position. You have taught yourself that something seems to be true which is not, through a mistaken choice. Now the lesson is that you must unlearn this mistaken choice and re-learn or remember what the truth really is.
All lessons have the same outcome of re-accessing God's truth, because the only universal curriculum (which is mandatory) is the same for everyone - learning the single simple truth of God and awakening to acceptance of it.
What seem to be trials are simply present conditions that have been chosen, or scenarios arranged, offering an opportunity to change your mind about what you want, to learn to forgive and overlook rather than to use these mistaken selections to hurt yourself.
Always it is simply a matter of, what do I want. Do I want the world more than I want God? What do I value? What do I accept as true? What am I willing to do and accept? Do I want heaven today or do I want hell? It's up to you, you have the freedom always to come and go as you wish. And God waits patiently for you to freely choose to return Home to Him.
If you are suffering, you chose to. If you are experiencing unlove, you chose not to love yourself. If you are sick, you wanted to be for a reason. If you are happy, you chose only happiness for yourself. If you feel attacked, you decided to feel attacked. If you are in pain, the pain is serving your wishes. Only if this is true is the secret of salvation true without exception, and only if this is true is there any kind of hope for escape from hell by your own choice.
"In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again.""
"Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His holy sight."
"For you WILL hear, and you WILL choose again. And in this choice is everyone made free."
"The power of decision is my own. .... No-one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No-one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No-one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no-one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."
"My Self is ruler of the universe. ... It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me."
The ego is a state of insanity, in which what is true and false are completely confused with each other. In ego we have conditional love. We believe that some things are just downright evil, guilty, bad and wrong. We categorize the world into a hierarchy and we decide certain things like murder, war, sickness etc are all hell, while other things like sunsets and rainbows are lovable.
Unconditional love on the other hand would say that it loves ALL the time regardless. It sees innocence and harmlessness everywhere. Which means it continues feeling love even in the face of evil and war, attack and murder and death. It keeps smiling regardless. It even finds something beautiful to see in it.
To the ego it's going to have a reaction that this is completely insane. To suggest that war is not bad, and sickness is not wrong, and all forms of suffering are lovable. You'll feel like protesting against the idea of awakening because it flies in the face of everything the world believes. It goes against your moral compass and your sense of values and of what is good and evil.
Real love doesn't change when situations change, it doesn't adapt to the situation and it doesn't pay any attention to the form of what's happening. It could be considered oblivious and seemingly inconsiderate in a sense.
ACIM it telling us that we need to find a way to love the world even though, in and of itself, its own nature seems unlovable. Even the war and destruction and murder has to be somehow forgivable, and forgiveness is an earthly form of love. A form of unconditional love. But the idea of loving hell, or loving attackers, or loving abusers, or loving punishment, it all starts seeming outrageously blasphemous and offensive to the ego.
The ego in its insanity always believes that anything truly sane is insane. It thinks God is evil. It believes heaven is hell. It wants nothing to do with the truth or the Holy Spirit. Ideas of unconditional love are seen as treacherous and ignorant and lacking compassion for the "real suffering". Anything which really makes true sense is seen as completely nonsense.
This is why it can seem challenging to "wake up" because our egos actually believe the direction we need to head in is going to take us further into insanity, closer to evil, and away from safety. At first the notion that you can see beauty in something "the son of God made in hate" seems impossible and ridiculous. The idea that objects and forms of separation and attack could be regarded as representing the truth, seems completely false.
But somehow we still have to find a way to consider how it may be possible that there is a higher vantage point, capable of being forgiving towards attackers, capable of loving hell, and even capable of translating hell into heaven. The idea that earth can reflect heaven in spite of its completely flawed-seeming nature, at least on the level of form, seems far out of reach, and unwanted, but must be accomplished if we are to rise above the battlefield into the light.
This idea obviously follows from the two preceding ones. But while you may be able to accept it intellectually, it is unlikely that it will mean anything to you as yet. However, understanding is not necessary at this point. In fact, the recognition that you do not understand is a prerequisite for undoing your false ideas. These exercises are concerned with practice, not with understanding. You do not need to practice what you really understand. It would indeed be circular to aim at understanding, and assume that you have it already.
It is difficult for the untrained mind to believe that what seems to be pictured before it is not there. This idea can be quite disturbing, and may meet with active resistance in any number of forms. Yet that does not preclude applying it. No more than that is required for these or any other exercises. Each little step will clear a little of the darkness away, and understanding will finally come to lighten every corner of the mind which has been cleared of the debris which darkens it.
These exercises, for which three or four practice periods are sufficient, involve looking about you and applying the idea for the day to whatever you see, remembering the need for its indiscriminate application, and the essential rule of excluding nothing. It is emphasized again that while complete inclusion should not be attempted, specific exclusion must be avoided. Be sure you are honest with yourself in making this distinction. You may be tempted to obscure it.
For example:
"I do not see that typewriter as it is now."
"I do not see this key as it is now."
"I do not see this telephone as it is now."
Begin with things that are nearest you, and then extend the range:
"I do not see that coat rack as it is now."
"I do not see that face as it is now."
"I do not see that door as it is now."
If you cannot hear the voice of God, it is because you do not choose to listen. The fact that you DO listen to the voice of your ego is demonstrated by your attitudes, your feelings, and your behavior. Your attitudes are obviously conflicted; your feelings have a narrow range on the negative side, but are never purely joyous; and your behavior is either strained or unpredictable. Yet this IS what you want. This is what you are fighting to keep, and what you are vigilant to save. Your minds are filled with schemes to save the face of your egos, and you do not seek the Face of God.
The glass in which the ego seeks to see its face is dark indeed. How can it maintain the trick of its existence except with mirrors? But where you look to find yourself is up to you. We have said that you cannot change your mind by changing your behavior, but we have also said, and many times before, that you CAN change your mind.
When your mood tells you that you have willed wrongly, and this is so whenever you are not joyous, then KNOW this need not be.
In every case you have thought wrongly about some Soul that God created, and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass. Think honestly what you have thought that God would NOT have thought, and what you have NOT thought that God would have you think. Search sincerely for what you have done and left undone accordingly. And then change your minds to THINK WITH GOD's.
This may seem hard to you, but it is MUCH easier than trying to think AGAINST it. Your mind IS one with God's. Denying this and thinking otherwise has held your ego together, but has literally split your mind. As a loving brother, I am deeply concerned with your minds, and urge you to follow my example as you look at yourselves and at each other and see in both the glorious Creations of a glorious Father.
When you are sad, KNOW that this NEED NOT BE. Depression ALWAYS arises ultimately from a sense of being deprived of something you want and do not have. KNOW you are deprived of nothing, except by your own decisions, and then decide otherwise.
When you are anxious, KNOW that all anxiety comes from the capriciousness of the ego, and NEED NOT BE. You can be as vigilant AGAINST the ego's dictates as FOR them.
When you feel guilty, KNOW that your ego has indeed violated the laws of God, but YOU have not. Leave the sins of the ego to me. That is what the Atonement is for. But until you change your mind about those your ego has hurt, the Atonement cannot release you. As long as you feel guilty, your ego is in command, because only the ego CAN experience guilt. THIS NEED NOT BE.
You, Helen, have been more honest that Bill in really trying to see whom your ego has hurt, and also in trying to change your mind about them. (Helen Schucman doubtful whether this is accurate - written at a time when she was very angry.) I am not unmindful of your efforts, but you still have much too much energy invested in your ego. THIS NEED NOT BE. Watch your minds for the temptations of the ego, and do not be deceived by it. KNOW it offers you nothing.
You, B, have not made consistent efforts to change your mind except through applying old habit patterns to new ideas. But you have learned, and learned it better than H., (Helen Schucman doubtful about accuracy here) that your mind gains control over ITSELF when you direct it genuinely toward perceiving someone ELSE truly. Your lack of vitality is due to your former marked effort at solving your needless depression and anxiety through disinterest. Because your ego WAS protected by this unfortunate negative attribute, you are afraid to abandon it.
When you have given up this voluntary dis-spiriting, you have already seen how your mind can focus, and rise above fatigue, and heal. But you are not sufficiently vigilant against the demands of your ego that you disengage yourself. THIS NEED NOT BE. The habit of engaging WITH God and His Creations is easily made if you refuse actively to let your minds slip away. Your problem is not concentration: it is a belief that nobody, including yourself, is WORTH consistent effort.
Side with me CONSISTENTLY against this deception, as we have sided against it briefly already. Do not permit this shabby belief to pull you back. The disheartened are useless to themselves and to me, but only the ego can be disheartened.
Have you REALLY considered how many opportunities you have to gladden yourselves, and how many of them you have refused? There is no limit to the power of a Son of God, but he himself can limit the expression of his power as much as he wills. Your mind and mine can unite in shining your ego away, and releasing the strength of God into everything you think and will and do. Do not settle for ANYTHING less than this, and refuse to accept anything BUT this as your goal.
Watch your minds carefully for any beliefs that hinder its accomplishment, and step away from them. Judge how well you have done this by your own feelings, for this is the one RIGHT use of judgment. Judgment, like any other defense, can be used to attack or protect, to hurt or to heal. The ego SHOULD be brought to your own judgment and found wanting there. Without your own allegiance, protection, and love it cannot exist.
Judge your ego truly, and you MUST withdraw allegiance, protection, and love from it. You are mirrors of truth in which God Himself shines in perfect light. To the ego's dark glass you need but say, "I will not look there because I KNOW these images are not true."
Then let me the Holy One shine upon you in peace, knowing that this and only this MUST be! His Mind shone on you in your creation, and brought YOUR mind into being. His Mind still shines on you and MUST shine THROUGH you. Your ego cannot prevent HIM from shining on you, but it CAN prevent you from letting Him shine THROUGH you.
The first coming of Christ is just another name for the Creation, for Christ is the Son of God. The SECOND coming of Christ means nothing more than the end of the ego's rule over part of the minds of men, and the healing of the mind. I was created like you in the First, and I am reminding you that I have called you to join with me in the Second.
If you will think over your lives, you will see how carefully the preparations were made. I am in charge of the Second Coming as I have already told you, and my judgment, which is used only for its protection, cannot be wrong because it NEVER attacks. YOURS is so distorted that you believe that I was mistaken in choosing you. I assure you this is a mistake of your own egos. Do NOT mistake it for humility.
Your egos are trying to convince you that THEY are real, and I am not, because if I AM real, I am no more real than YOU are. That knowledge, and I assure you that it IS knowledge, means that Christ must come into your minds and heal them.
While I am not attacking your egos, I AM working with your higher mind whether you are asleep or awake, (just as your ego does with your lower mind.) I am your vigilance in this, because you are too confused to recognize your own hope.
I was not mistaken. Your minds WILL elect to join with mine, and together we are invincible. You two will yet come together in my name and your sanity will be restored. I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do. I have called and you will answer. I KNOW that miracles are natural, because they are expressions of love. My calling you is as natural as your answer and as inevitable.
"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while."
"The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?"
"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers."
*****"They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die."*****
"Yet they are not deceived by what they see."
******"The body's eyes will continue to see differences."******
"But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them."
******"There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before."*****
"But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal."
This is a vital teaching because it is the reason why, even with a healed mind, even in true perception, you CAN STILL SEE the various bodily states of other figures in the dream. Sick, suffering, and dying. And the ability to SEE these things, has absolutely nothing to do with YOU BEING SICK. You seeing these things has absolutely NOTHING to do with you projecting sickness, judging, attacking, or believing in sickness.
YOUR mind still SEES the same FORMS, through the body's eyes, but RECOGNIZES that none of these IMAGES are REAL. It recognizes them all as UNREAL. It disregards the differences and does not BELIEVE that they are REAL SICKNESS or REAL DEATH. But the mind NEVERTHELESS, SEES THESE THINGS HAPPENING IN THE DREAM STILL.
This is why you as a miracle worker are then able to RECOGNIZE that some person has a broken leg, or just got hit by a car, and has a NEED for a miracle, which you can SUPPLY.
There HAS to be a potential for inequality between your mind and what is seen, otherwise it violates several miracle principles. For example "Miracles supply a lack" "Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less". It would not be POSSIBLE to supply the lack of love/life to those who have less, IF every single thing you SEE is an EXACT EQUAL MATCH to the content and condition of YOUR MIND.
If you were only seeing the world as a "mirror" of yourself, and if you were the only dreamer, than it would be true that what you see is ONLY what you believe yourself. But the fact is that there are distinct differences between seeing with Christ Vision and seeing with body vision, and both of them happen at once until you reach the atonement.
Many people believe that you only have "one perception" and that this perception gradually shifts and changes and "turns into" true perception. THIS IS NOT TRUE. And when you believe this, you will believe that you simply "cannot see sickness unless you are sick". It disregards the fact that the body has one kind of perception, the spiritual eye has another, and they BOTH happen at once. All the way up to ascension to Heaven you're still going to be receiving signals from the body, into your mind, which you will perceive, ALONG WITH, perceptions you are having of what is BEYOND what the body is showing you, the face of Christ. BEING HEALED, DOES NOT MAKE YOU BLIND TO THE SICKNESS THAT THE BODY CAN STILL SEE.
The body is permanently stuck seeing with false perception. It sees with false perception even if you are 99% done with the curriculum. "These eyes made not to see, will never see". And yet the body, while you have it, WILL continue to send you images of hell, pictures of objects and bodies moving around in various states.
The fact is that you don't JUST have this one kind of perception. You develop Christ Vision AS a SECOND WAY OF PERCEIVING, which occurs initially IN PARALLEL to body eyesight. The development of Christ Vision and your gradual ascension towards true perception WITH it, awakening the spiritual eye, is the perception you TRANSFORM, and which later becomes perfectly healed. Meanwhile, the body is STILL going to send images to the mind. These images will now begin to change in their seeming meaning or "how they strike you", how they register, and will transition from "seeming to be true/real" to "seeming to be false/unreal". YET STILL SEEING THEM.
At this point you still have TWO INPUTS OF PERCEPTION coming into the mind. One is coming from the body senses, the other is coming from the Christ mind. From spirit. The spirit-to-spirit perception is happening at the same time as the false perception of the body. Only when the true/christ perception is perfected, does the body perception become SO "seen through" and disregarded as false, that it starts to disappear, and eventually you ONLY see with Christ Vision. Which means seeing the face of Christ ONLY and NOT SEEING THE WORLD OF FORM OR THE BODY OR WITH THE BODY.
Many people don't seem to understand the mechanism of perception. Jesus explains it in the course. The body's eyes send signals to the mind, which passes through a belief system which filters and changes the meaning or projects meaning onto the images, changing them and then presenting them to the mind which looks upon these filtered images and "sees". The belief system therefore acts as an interpreter of the signals that are coming in from the body.
When the belief system believes in ego and separations, it categorizes the images from the body's eyes in many different conflicting ways and the mind looks upon these categorizations. When the belief system is unified and cleared it becomes empty and transparent, seeing in a correct and truthful way. The body still sends images into the system from "outside" and the belief system now reinterprets (holy spirit) and frames them from a perspective of truth, which causes the images to be recognized as images of unreality and are all false. The mind thus categorizes them all as unreal - that everything the body sees is an illusion.
Here the mind is SEEING the reinterpreted layer of filtration, through the Holy Spirit's corrected perception, and is seeing the truth ABOUT the images coming from the body. The truth about these body signals is that they are false and unreal. The mind at this point is still able to receive these images and look upon them and interpret them as unreal illusions. This is how the mind can still "look upon dreams a while".
Simultaneously, as vision by body eyes is continuing, Christ Vision is developed which does not use the body's eyes at all. It is a "direct seeing", the seeing function of the mind. "Only the mind sees". This seeing initially takes place through true perception, shared with the Holy Spirit, whereby the body signals are OVERLOOKED (forgiveness) and all things physical are *seen through* as if they are a wall of illusions trying to deceive you. Temptation. You look through this, with the mind, literally, and see PAST the surface of objects showing up in these images. BEYOND these images, there is sight of the face of christ which is BEYOND the physical.
As the mind learns to use the spiritual eye and christ vision this strengthens and the signals from the body are labeled as "false" more and more. They are recognized as "false perception". "The world is false perception". It looks past the false perception that IS the world, and sees beyond it to another world, Heaven. The forgiven world is OVERLOOKED. The veil of "matter" becomes thin and transparent and eventually is seen through (not believed) so much that it disappears entirely. This is the state of perfect christ vision, which sees ONLY the face of Christ and does not even see with the body's eyes at all. The body is forgotten, it disappears entirely, and you return to God.
IN Heaven, you now resume mind-to-mind communication which could be considered "the vision of the son of God", where there is "no thing" to see, nothing separate to look at, only God and creation to know and be aware of.
Until you get to perfect pure christ vision you WILL still see with the body's eyes to some degree. And because of this, you WIL be able to still see the forms in this world. Doing whatever they do. Just because you are becoming more spiritually awake it does not change in ANY WAY the free-willed activities of other brothers in their bodies. If they are sick, or well, or alive, or dead, or attacking, or being friendly, all of it can be easily seen and accurately rendered to the mind. The mind has perfectly clarity about it, and can even see more in it than was seen before. It is thus perfectly possible to still SEE someone having a broken leg, without it in any way implying that YOU have a broken leg or a belief in sickness.
For a while, you have this "double vision", two types of perception, two mechanisms for looking. Which is why you are perfectly capable of being wholly truthful in Christ Vision while at the same time SEEING the body's images and recognizing them as wholly false. This is how God's teachers look upon dreams, recognize them as illusions, can recognize anyone in distress, can see sick bodies and healthy bodies, can tell the ways someone is mistaken, can recognize the errors someone is making, can discern correctly what is true and what is false about what they see, and thereby are in a POSITION TO HELP THOSE IN THE DREAM. BY OFFERING THEM MIRACLES.
When we are introduced to this world, it is through false perception. That means we SEEM to "see it with" the body's eyes, and we believe the body's way of seeing. And the body shows us the world of form, which is cruel and dark and a place of death.
We do not even realize our mind is in any way making, or interpreting, how the world is. We observe. We see its suffering and carnage. And we decide the world is an inherently bad place.
Jesus then tells us:
"The world is false perception".
"The world IS perception."
"There is no world apart from what you wish"
"Projection makes perception."
What this suggests is, when your mind is in a dark attitude, it projects a world which it simultaneously perceives as a dark place. And when the mind is in a light attitude, it projects a world which is simultaneously perceived as a light place.
What it also suggests is, there IS no world, beyond your mind's dreaming and projecting of one. Ie the world is in your mind. And Jesus agrees to that.
"You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts."
"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you, it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive."
What this tells us is there is not really an objective world. The world doesn't exist without someone dreaming of it, in their mind.
It may appear, conceptually, that there is a neutral, meaningless world, like a mirror, waiting for you to project whatever kind of images you want onto. And it might suggest this neutral world is a receiver of either your dark projections or your light projections. And that you see this darkness or light "in" "it" accordingly.
But He is also telling us that at no time does the body or world exist. That it is an hallucination.
"Perception is a result, not a cause."
"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal?"
"Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by which the outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin, and seems to witness to its reality. ***It still is true that nothing is without.*** Yet, upon nothing, are ALL projections made. For it is the PROJECTION which gives the "nothing" all the meaning that it holds. ***What has no meaning, cannot BE perceived.*** And meaning always looks within, to find itself. And THEN looks out. ***All meaning that you give the world outside, must thus reflect the sight you saw within.*** Or better, if you saw at all, or merely judged against."
You look within your mind first, and then you project. And what you see, is only what you have projected, because projection MAKES what you perceive, and perceiving is the RESULT of what you projected.
Therefore you see only "a world" "out there" because you are projecting it inside your mind. It is not really out there at all. It is nothing. There is nothing to project onto. Only what you project AS.
This tells you essentially that the world you see in false perception, when your mind is dark, when you look within and see darkness, and then project it outward for perceiving, is seen ONLY in the dark of mind.
And this tells you that, essentially, there is ANOTHER WORLD, another "version" of a world, unlike what you saw in false perception, which is seen in light. It is seen only by looking within, seeing the light of Christ, and then projecting outward as Christ Vision. That "real world" has no resemblance to the world of false perception.
In fact, because there is no objective world, and you maintain it entirely in your mind, and because your mental attitude "tunes you out" of one world and "into" another, the Holy Spirit's happy dream, seeing one makes you unable to see the other.
"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."
"Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began."
It's kind of like saying, when you are in a bad mood, you project a hellish version of a planet Earth. When you are in a good mood, you project the real world, which contains no forms, no suffering, no sickness, no death. They are like tuning into different TV stations. Investment in the spiritual eye weakens investment in the physical sight.
"Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos."
The world, which we call Earth, seems to exist only so long as we dream of it. A forgiven world, is how Earth appears to be when seen through forgiving eyes. It is not the real world, because in the real world there are no forms. But it may appear close.
Earth is a veil, hanging in front of the real world, and must be seen through to the light. This is what Christ Vision does, overlooking the world. And eventually this veil lifts entirely to reveal the real world/face of Christ in its fullness. And in this Vision, the world - Earth, is completely forgotten, and disappears from sight entirely.
"This world of idols is a veil across the face of Christ, because its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself."
"Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world."
"the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ."
"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."
The Earth, hell, the forgiven world, the real world even, are all dreams in your mind. The real world offers you an entirely different outlook, vision, and something to look at, beyond the world of bodies and sin.
"This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. "
"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."
"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him. But while he still lays value on his own, he will DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves WHAT HE LOVES NOT, and following not the road that love points out."
"Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. "
"When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision?"
"Damnation is your judgment on YOURSELF. And this you WILL project upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the witness to the choice you made, and learn from this to RECOGNIZE the one you made. The world you see but shows you how much joy YOU have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as YOURS. And, if this IS its meaning, then the power to GIVE it joy MUST lie WITHIN you."
"You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would JUDGE reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."
The world is difficult to deal with, because it is completely opposite to reality.
"And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."
"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."
"The world was made that problems could not be escaped.""In this world, it is NOT true that anything without order of difficulty can occur."
It would be challenging enough if this world were just a LITTLE bit unlike reality. You could maybe deal with it better if it at least resembled it in some obvious way. But physical form was designed to COMPLETELY deceive you.
"Nothing so blinding as perception of form."
So instead what you are faced with, every day that you wake up, is a picture of a world which demonstrates utter impossibilities, complete violation of God's laws, constant threats to the existence of what was previously immortal, visual proof everywhere you look that death is real and attack is possible, and just a constant barrage of problems and things going wrong.
How anyone can deal with this on any level is incredible.
Fortunately sometimes "life" seems to throw you some bones and maybe there is a temporary reprieve in the suffering, or you can hole up in your house to create a false sense of security, or maybe just avoid all the bad stuff as much as possible. But this doesn't really make it go away or stop happening.
Then ACIM is saying to us, that not only is this entire world designed to represent an impossible, blasphemous opposite to God's nature, it is also your job to somehow laugh in the face of it. To overlook all its faults and inherent murderousness. To find a way to look at it such that, outright horrendous attack and evil are actually "not that". That somehow you're supposed to even recognize that your body's senses are lying to you, that there is not even one speck of the world that is doing anything other than tempt you into hell.
To say it's not easy to rise above it, is an understatement. Threats of death are happening all the time. And if it doesn't seem to be going to hell for you, it's going to hell for someone else. And then you're temporarily thankful that you're not the one getting it this time in a world of punishment.
"For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. "
Can we just, take a moment to acknowledge, how HARD it is for all of us, to try to rise above a world which is so vehemently anti-christ and anti-life? This is no easy feat. The truth may be simple but it is by far not simple at all to fly in the face of everything an entire world tells you is true. We're all doing the best we can and sometimes it can be very difficult.
Somehow there is a light at the end of the tunnel, a hope that we have to keep holding onto, a promise of redemption and salvation. A trust that is developed in the Holy Help. And a victory over death. We keep striving forward because we are so deeply attracted to God and want to be Home. And ultimately that is what will pull us back to heaven's reality, regardless of how much the world tries to pull us down. We who MADE it to pull us down, need merely recognize we no longer want to do that, and we are free.
"And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.".
In this world, God's Son comes closest to himself in a holy relationship. There he begins to find the certainty his Father has in him. And there he finds his function of restoring his Father's laws to what was held OUTSIDE them, and finding what was lost. Only in time can anything BE lost, but never lost forever. So do the parts of God's Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of time brought nearer. Each miracle of joining is a mighty herald of eternity. No-one who has a single purpose, unified and sure, can BE afraid. No-one who SHARES his purpose with him can NOT be one with him.
Each herald of eternity sings of the end of sin and fear. Each speaks in time of what is far BEYOND it. Two voices, raised together, call to the hearts of everyone, and let them beat as one. And in that single heart beat is the unity of love proclaimed and given welcome. Peace to your holy relationship, which has the power to hold the unity of the Son of God together. You give to one another for EVERYONE. And in your gift is everyone made glad. Forget not Who has given YOU the gifts you give. And through your NOT forgetting this, will you remember Who gave the gifts to Him to give to you.
It is impossible to over-estimate your brother's value. Only the ego does this, but all it means is that it WANTS the other for ITSELF, and therefore values him too little. What is inestimable clearly cannot BE evaluated. Do you recognize the fear that rises from the meaningless attempt to judge what lies so far BEYOND your judgment you cannot even SEE it? Judge not what is invisible to you, or you will NEVER see it. But wait in patience for its coming. It will be GIVEN you to see your brother's worth, when all you WANT for him is peace. And what you want for HIM, you will receive.
How can you estimate the worth of him who offers peace to you? What would you want EXCEPT his offering? His worth has been established by his Father, and you will RECOGNIZE it as you receive his Father's gift through him. What is in him will shine so brightly in your grateful vision, that you will merely love him, and be glad. You will not think to judge him. Who would SEE the face of Christ, and yet insist that judgment still has meaning? For this insistence is of those who do NOT see. Vision OR judgment is your choice, but never BOTH of these.
Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used ONLY as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds NEED not the body to communicate. The sight that SEES the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon each other thus, the means and end have NOT been brought in line. Why should it take so many holy instants to let this be accomplished, when one would do? There IS but one. The little breath of eternity that runs through time like golden light is all the same. Nothing before it; nothing afterwards.
You look upon each holy instant as a DIFFERENT point in time. IT NEVER CHANGES. All that it ever held or will ever hold is here right now. The past takes nothing FROM it, and the future will ADD no more. Here, then, is EVERYTHING. Here is the loveliness of your relationship, with means and ends in perfect harmony ALREADY. Here is the perfect faith that you will one day offer to each other, ALREADY offered you. And here the limitless forgiveness you will give each other is ALREADY given; the face of Christ you yet will look upon ALREADY seen.
Can you EVALUATE the giver of a gift like this? Would you EXCHANGE this gift for ANY other? This gift returns the laws of God to your remembrance. And merely BY remembering them, the laws that held you prisoner to pain and death MUST be forgotten. This is no gift your brother's BODY offers you. The veil that hides the gift hides him as well. He IS the gift, and yet he knows it not. No more do you. And yet have faith that He Who sees the gift in BOTH of you, will offer and receive it for you BOTH. And through His vision will YOU see it, and through His understanding RECOGNIZE it, and love it as your own.
Be comforted, and feel the Holy Spirit watching over you, in love and perfect confidence in what He sees. He knows the Son of God. And shares his Father's certainty the universe rests in his gentle hands in safety and in peace. Let us consider now what he must learn, to SHARE his Father's confidence in him. What IS he, that the Creator of the universe should offer it to him, and KNOW it rests in safety? He looks upon himself not as his Father knows him. And yet it is impossible the confidence of God should be misplaced.
I took a deep dive into every single statement about "the real world", to find out all possible implication of what it IS and IS NOT referring to.
It is clear to me that what Jesus calls "the real world" IS "the borderland of thought" in between the world we MADE in false perception, and the reality of Heaven. The real world is a REFLECTION of heaven, seen in forgiveness through the eyes of Christ. It includes your ability to see WITH love, looking with forgiveness upon/past the world you made, so that the world you made in attack is seen in the holy instant present as the forgiven world.
The real world also clearly comes BEFORE your re-entry to heaven, and this is backed up in numerous statements. It is entirely within the realm of perception and consciousness, as the highest state of consciousness possible prior to awakening to knowledge. It is still a DREAM but it is a happy dream, a forgiving dream, in which there is no idol worship or illusion or fantasy. And Jesus does distinguish that it has "reality" to the extent that it shares or reflects the reality of heaven.
The real world was also given by God to REPLACE the world you made. In essence, you MADE hell, which is an illusory world of sin and death. Then the Holy Spirit answered this in the co-making of the real world, which is like an alternative dream. A dream of forgiveness and light and love. It REFLECTS heaven, but is not heaven. It is true perception, salvation, atonement, the miracle, right mindedness, and is GIVEN by God. God GAVE you this real world to replace the one you made, made by the Holy Spirit.
God loves the real world, because it is seen WITH love, and seeing the world you made WITH love makes it impossible to see the world of sin and death. Forgiveness overlooks bodies and looks beyond to the light of the real world, the face of Christ. BY loving the world, the UNREAL world is not seen, because love influences perception. And by projecting love, the HOly Spirit projects the real world for you to see, IN PLACE OF the unforgiven world.
What I found also are many statements clearly discerning that the term ILLUSION refers to an UNFORGIVEN world only, to false perception. The world we originally tried to make without God/Holy Spirit. The world of sin and death and sickness. The world of bodies and forms and planets. That is the world WE made, through unforgiveness, and through attack and guilt and sin and fear.
Jesus refers to THAT world as "an illusory world" and quite consistently, all references to ILLUSION appear to refer ONLY to that world, not the forgiven/real world. Because IN the "real world" state you reflect truth and DISPEL all illusions, RECOGNIZING what is there. This is why true perception is ACCURATE perception.
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it." thus refers to the false perceptual world of bodies, UNFORGIVEN, unreal, untrue, in which the truth is obscured and lies seem like truth. A world seen without any reason or sanity or light. A world of deception. When you approach true perception, ILLUSIONS are seen through and undone and removed, and so true perception does not see an ILLUSORY world, it sees "the real world". The world as it is WITHOUT the distortion of illusion, and free from the ego's shadow. It's kind of like the world with minimal ego.
The real world, or the sense of it "having reality", doesn't mean it IS reality as in Heaven, but it does mean it is "as is", founded on love, and is not MIS-perceived. True perception is accurate perception and LINES UP WITH what knowledge or direct sight would see. It is truthful.
I also saw references indicating that THE VEIL, which is a reference to the physical world hanging in front of the face of Christ (whereby the face of christ is another synonym for the real world/true perception), refers ONLY to the unforgiven world. The veil entails the world of bodies, the granite block of sin, the forms of error, the gap, etc.
This veil is SEEN THROUGH AND PAST to see the real world/face of Christ. Also when you see the real world you DO NOT SEE the unforgiven world of sin and bodies. It is forgotten. And in its TOTAL forgetting you ONLY see the real world. And as Jesus says, you will barely have time to thank God for this before he takes you home. The veil of illusions parts, the real world is seen, then you go to heaven.
There are numerous references to you FIRST arriving at the real world, the borderland of thought between the world of sin that you made, and actual Heaven which is God's Kingdom, and THEN God taking the last step to take you home. Out of time, into eternity. Out of bodies, into the light of eternal life. There is a clear distinction between Heaven and the real world, whereby the real world is at most Heaven's REFLECTION, and is seen through the eyes of Christ. And also interestingly, we are to recognize Christ FIRST, before we move onto the love of God.
So the "real world" is a state of light and awareness and wakefulness, WHILE still dreaming. It is a DREAM OF being awake. And in this sense as you approach the real world you DO seem to be waking up, becoming more aware. And at the real world you are practically fully awake, but slightly asleep still. Only moving on from the real world INTO heaven do you fully awaken. But prior to this you can be exceedingly wakeful while still in a body.
The real world, being a reflection of heaven, also is a state that reflects sharing. Holy relationships reflect real relationships. There is equality and a kind of oneness. There is a lack of separations and divisions. A kind of unity is seen spread across chaos. And what used to be a world of sin and death is reinterpreted in such a way that a hidden song of gratitude and light is seen and heard radiating from it. Sights of war and death are reinterpreted, through perception, as harmless and gentle and welcome. And the healed peaceful mind projects peace and love and sees only peace and love in it.
Note that seeing from love, you look toward love, which is a light BEYOND BODIES. The illusory world, the veil, is seen through, and overlooked, by forgiveness, through extension, which is christ vision. The world is seen as "forgiven" because it is recognizes as an illusion and is not seen as real sin. It is seen PAST. And this overlooking makes the illusory world seem holy and forgiven. But simultaneously sight (spiritual eye) reaches beyond the illusory world TO the light of the real world. Eventually it sees ONLY this light, as the veil disappears, fully revealing the face of Christ.
After this, the real world DOES END, because it IS a dream, except for the eternal love that was reflected in it through thoughts of love, which are saved as gifts. Because the real world IS still a dream and it vanishes as true perception is converted into knowledge. Being FULLY in the real world is like being on the OUTSKIRTS of the world, standing on the edge, not involved, not confused, not caught up in the world. Being passer by. Seeing from love and truth. Illusions recognized and dispelled. In a state of mind outside of separateness and form. Awareness of dreaming. A borderland of thought just shy of heaven and outside of heaven's gate.
I have a lot of quotes, but here's a handful of the clearer snippets that I highlighted along the way...
"Only this is the real world, and perceiving ONLY this will lead you to the real Heaven"
"The real world is all that the Holy Spirit has saved for you, out of what you have made"
"your new and ONLY real perception"
"For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight."
"In the real world, there is no sickness, for there is no separation and no division."
"For you share the real world as you share Heaven"
"When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made. And then your Father will lean down to you, and take the last step for you, by raising you unto Himself."
"If only the loving thoughts of God’s Son ARE the world’s reality, the real world MUST be IN HIS MIND"
"God DOES love the real world, and those who perceive its reality CANNOT see the world of death."
"For death is not OF the real world, in which everything is eternal." (eternal means something a bit different than "will be there forever", because the real world does end).
"God gave you the real world in exchange for the one you made, out of your split mind, and which IS the symbol of death."
"relinquish your investment in the world as YOU have projected it, allowing the Holy Spirit to project the real world TO you"
"Make the world real (loving, innocent etc) unto YOURSELF, for the real world is the gift of the Holy Spirit"
"In His sight, the Son of God is perfect" "He will SHOW you the real world"
"The awakening of His Son begins with his investment in the REAL world"
"And then the real world will spring to your sight, for Christ has never slept. He is waiting to be seen" "He looks quietly on the real world, which He would SHARE with you"
"we will look upon the world as God "created" it together. Through the eyes of Christ, ONLY the real world exists, and can BE seen"
"The real world was given you by God, in loving exchange for the world YOU made, and which you SEE. But take it from the hand of Christ, and look upon it. ITS reality will make everything ELSE invisible, for beholding it is TOTAL perception"
"And perception has never been. Being corrected, it gives place to knowledge, which is forever the ONLY reality."
"as His from Love. And He sees FOR you, as your witness to the real world. "
"Even in sleep has Christ protected you, ensuring the real world FOR you when you wake" (sleep means false perception, waking is true perception, but is not the FINAL awakening FROM sleep)
"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "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 is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."
"YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other.
"The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance"
"You will first DREAM of peace (the real world), and THEN awaken to it (heaven)."
"This loveliness is NOT a fantasy. It is the real world, bright, and clean and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the truth. The bridge between that world and this is SO little and SO easy to cross that you could not believe it is the meeting-place of worlds so different. Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world at all. This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time into eternity, and beyond all ugliness, into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection."
"The real world, in its loveliness, YOU learn to reach. Fantasies are all undone"
"by YOUR OWN forgiveness, you are FREE TO SEE. And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it."
"the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose."
"The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."
"The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness"
"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the T(634) - 461 - past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God’s perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home (heaven). "
"For salvation IS the end of dreams, and, with the closing of the dream, will have no meaning. Who, awake in Heaven, COULD dream that there could ever be NEED of salvation? "
"The spark of beauty, or the veil of ugliness (the veil is the unreal world seen in false perception only!); the real world, or the world of guilt and fear; truth or illusion; freedom or slavery"
"The holy relationship, a MAJOR step toward the perception of the real world, is LEARNED. It is the old, unholy relationship, transformed and seen anew."
"In your relationship, the Holy Spirit has gently laid the real world; the world of happy dreams, from which awaking is so easy and so natural."
"The dream of waking is easily transferred to its reality. For this dream comes from your will, JOINED with the Will of God."
"This world of light, this circle of brightness, is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here, the world OUTSIDE is seen anew, WITHOUT the shadow of guilt upon it."
"There is a borderland of thought that stands between this world and Heaven. It is not a place, and WHEN you reach it is APART from time. Here is the meeting place where thoughts are brought TOGETHER; where conflicting values MEET, and ALL illusions are laid down beside the truth, where they are judged to be untrue. This borderland is just beyond the gate of Heaven. Here is every thought made pure and wholly simple. Here is sin denied, and everything that IS, received instead.
This is the journey’s end. We have referred to it as the "real world.""
"Salvation IS a borderland"
"Salvation (real world/forgiven world) stops just short of Heaven, for only perception NEEDS salvation. Heaven was never lost, and so can not be saved. "
"The real world is the second part of the hallucination time and death are real, and have existence which can be perceived. This terrible illusion was denied in but the time it took for God to give His Answer to illusion"
"The real world still is but a dream. Except the figures have been changed. They are not seen as idols which betray (idols are part of false perception)"
"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."
"The real world is the state of mind in which the ONLY purpose of the world is seen to be forgiveness. "
"No-one outside of Heaven knows how this can be. For understanding this is Heaven itself. Even the real world has a purpose still beneath creation and eternity. But fear is gone, because its purpose is forgiveness, NOT idolatry."
"The real world is a state in which the mind has learned how easily do idols go when they are still perceived, but wanted not."
"Thus is the real world’s purpose gently brought into awareness, to REPLACE the goal of sin and guilt. "
"Here is the real world given in exchange for dreams of terror"
"This understanding is the ONLY change that lets the real world rise to take the place of dreams of terror."
"The real world is achieved when you perceive the basis of FORGIVENESS is quite real and fully justified."
"As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected. "
"Today the real world rises before us in gladness, to be seen at last. Sight is given us, now that the light has come. We do not see the ego's shadow on the world today. We see the light, and in it we see Heaven's reflection lie across the world."
"and the sight of the real world which has come to replace the unforgiven world you thought was real."
"Healing might thus be called a counter-dream which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth"
"Just as forgiveness shines away all sin, and the real world will occupy the place of what you made, so healing must replace the fantasies of sickness which you hold before the simple truth. When sickness has been seen to disappear in spite of all the laws which hold it cannot but be real, then questions have been answered."
"Christ's vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven that what God created perfect can be mirrored there. The darkened glass the world presents can show but twisted images in broken parts. The real world pictures Heaven's innocence."
"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made. Your world is seen through eyes of fear (world you made without hs, false perception), and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind. The real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness blesses, so they see a world where terror is impossible, and witnesses to fear can not be found."
"The real world holds a counterpart for each unhappy thought reflected in your world"
"The real world shows a world seen differently, through quiet eyes and with a mind at peace. "
"There are no cries of pain and sorrow heard, for nothing here remains outside forgiveness. And the sights are gentle. Only happy sights and sounds can reach the mind that has forgiven itself."
"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love; the certain promise that he is redeemed. The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless."
"hymns of gratitude the world is singing underneath the sounds of fear. There is a real world which the present holds safe from all past mistakes. "
"How surely, therefore, must the real world come to greet the holy sight of anyone who takes the Holy Spirit's purpose as his goal for seeing. And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ's love for what he looks upon."
"There is no point at which the contrast between the perception of the real world and that of the world of illusions becomes more sharply evident."
"RIGHT-MINDEDNESS listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ's vision sees the real world in its place. This is the final vision, the last perception, the condition in which God takes the final step Himself. "
"Both this world and the real world are illusions because right-mindedness merely overlooks, or forgives, what never happened. Therefore it is not the ONE-MINDEDNESS of the Christ Mind"
"Consciousness has levels and awareness can shift quite dramatically, but it cannot transcend the perceptual realm. At its highest it becomes aware of the real world, and can be trained to do so increasingly. "
"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality."
"THE FACE OF CHRIST has to be seen before the memory of God can return. The reason is obvious. Seeing the Face of Christ is perception"
"But the Face of Christ is[5] the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world."
"Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate. Yet from this gate it is no more than just a step inside. It is the final step. And this we leave to God. "
The ego is extremely sneaky and insistent that things are true which are not true.
Here you are, created by God to be absolutely immortal and innocent and invulnerable forever, and yet in spite of this, there's the ego saying "oh, that's not true, you're actually mortal and you need to be concerned that something's gone wrong".
Even though this is IMPOSSIBLE. Even though it can't be true.
So to the ego it's not really that it comes up with stuff because it has a basis in reality, but that it comes up with stuff to try to deliberately defy the truth and insist on its falseness. Even in the face of truth and obvious evidence the ego will refuse to believe it's true.
The ego just wants to believe stuff is happening that isn't happening, that things have gone wrong in ways that they haven't, that there are reasons to be afraid which are completely unfounded, etc. It's basically having a nightmare and trying to prove that it's real when it isn't.
It doesn't matter how many times you tell the ego that it is mistaken, it does not want to believe it.
It could actually be possible right now that you are absolutely 100% safe and everything is absolutely fine in every way. And yet at the same time, the ego will try to insist that there are all kinds of problems and issues and reasons to be afraid.
You could even be standing right in front of a brilliant white light which is showering you with unconditional love, and the ego would be saying "what light, there is no light, I don't deserve love". Even if it's right in front of its face!
The ego HAS to insist that its lies are the truth otherwise it could not exist. And the ego NEVER will have a different story. It will always be trying to insist things have gone wrong. It will always be trying to claim you should be afraid and guilty. Regardless. It isn't based on whether it's true or not, the ego has a one-track mind with a one-track story. It isn't objective, it doesn't make rational decisions, and it isn't in any way interested in ever turning around and telling you "you know what, I was mistaken, there actually is a God of love and you actually are unconditionally loved and perfectly innocent and safe and holy forever." It will NEVER say this.
So why listen to a totally biased, one-track pony, which pretends to be objective, and which pretends to have considered all the possibilities and come up with some 'rational' truth, when in fact it NEVER comes up with truth. It cannot. It cannot see the truth. It does not want to see the truth. It is an attack on truth. And it will ONLY tell you the same answer over and over and over again. It's "yes or no" switch has gotten stuck in the "no" position and it literally is incapable of telling you that God is real or that you are loved and safe or that nothing has gone wrong.
Why listen to a broken record? How many times will you listen to the same old same old same old story of disaster and tragedy, once you know that the storyteller (the ego) has nothing new to say? It is not on your side. It is not telling you objective, rational, truth-based conclusions. It can only lie and it can only make you afraid.
Turn to the Holy Spirit for the only source of real rational truth and real sanity and real objectivity. In His light you can see that, in fact, there is another answer and another way, a better way, because the Holy Spirit is OPEN MINDED enough to be able to DISCERN what is true and what is false. The ego cannot do this.
All physical forms, all appearances, all physical conditions, all sicknesses, every illness, all disease, even physical death, ..... are all al lie. A MASSIVE lie.
To be a miracle worker requires that you stop believing in sickness. In yourself, in others, in the world. Physical sickness is TEMPTATION. If we for a second believe it is real or true, we are lost and powerless. Seeing this AND believing it is real, is a state of false perception.
In truth, in reality, no one is sick. Everyone is IMMORTAL. SICKNESS IS IMPOSSIBLE.
When something we call sickness "shows up", and our physical eyes show it to us as if it's there, we are blinded by it. Don't underestimate this for a second. Believing it even a little bit is blindness and deception. The sickness is not really THERE.
How can an IMMORTAL BEING be sick? Ever?!!
In order to be a HEALING FORCE, your mind has to get to the point where it ASSERTS LIFE. This is what resurrection means. The assertion of life. You ASSERT LIFE towards everyone. Which means you denounce sickness, death, damage, malfunction, disease, and death. You shine it away. You push past it. You ignore it. It's all a lie.
"The resurrection is the denial of death, being ***the assertion of life***. Thus is ***all the thinking of the world reversed entirely***. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared, but gladly welcomed. Idols have disappeared, and the remembrance of God shines unimpeded across the world. Christ's face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness, apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it."
Imagine if you will what it will be like to approach everyone from a TRULY FORGIVING attitude which does not see ANY TRUTH in sickness. Which looks beyond all physical forms, all appearances, all matter, no matter what form it takes, how severe it looks, what people think of it, what seemed to cause it, or any other justification for its seriousness.
Imagine what it will be like to be so SURE and CERTAIN that only life is true, that you laugh in the face of even the NOTION that sickness even EXISTS. You laugh in the face of death. You take nothing physical seriously. And you utterly recognize the complete LIE that all sickness represents.
You don't buy into it for a second. You don't believe ANYONE that claims to be sick. And you completely disagree with ALL assertions supporting the idea that sickness is EVEN THERE, yet alone an explanation of what it is or how it came about.
THERE IS NO SICKNESS. This is what our attitude has to be IN ORDER TO HEAL. Healing obliterates sickness. It's a LIGHT, which shines away darkness. Light says to the darkness, YOU ARE NOT THERE. And it SHINES it away.
It removes it. Sickness, in all its forms, all its behaviors, even the concept of sickness, has to be DENIED correctly. This denial doesn't mean turning a blind eye, it means giving absolutely no support to it, no belief in it, giving it no power, and stripping it of every illusion. Rejecting sickness completely as utter bullshit!
This I am sure is how JESUS saw people. He looked completely past all physical forms. He looked beyond bodies. He was joyously loving and certain of the truth that nothing real can be threatened. He laughed in the face of death. He cancelled every manifestation of illness. Even in the face of the death of another he didn't believe for a SECOND that death was occurring.
And this ultimately leads to an attitude of THERE IS NO DEATH. Because death is sickness. And death and sickness are absolute lies. There is no death because ONLY LIFE is real. And asserting, enforcing, powerfully expressing, that THERE IS ONLY LIFE, completely obliterates and undoes and reverses and heals all sickness and all death. This is how the dead are raised. This is how the sick are healed.
The resurrection is the assertion of life. The recognition that life is real and true. The recognition that anything that IS NOT LIFE, which is all forms, all bodies, all galaxies, all illusions of matter, is exactly that - NOT ANYTHING. Nothing at all. It holds no truth. Not one single ATOM has any truth to it. Not one single quantum flux is even remotely real. Even space and time are fictional beliefs!
To heal others, one must adopt this completely "stern", powerful attitude. This utter REFUSAL to ACCEPT that sickness is real. Because what you accept you will accept into YOUR MIND, and this will make your mind sick and dream of real sickness. Sickness has to BE DENIED. This is the whole thing with false perception and the seeing of two worlds.
"The world you see must be denied for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."
"You cannot see both worlds." "Sight of one denies the other."
When you are in false perception you are dreaming of hell and suffering and sickness and death in a dark nightmare of despair. This is a failure to overlook illusions. It's falling for temptation. What is the opposite? The opposite is not believing a SINGLE THING your body says is really happening, not believing it's true that ANY appearance of sickness has ANY validity. Recognizing clearly that illusions of sickness hold NO TRUTH AND NO POWER TO RESIST HEALING. And looking PAST all forms to the light of Christ.
As miracle workers we are to BRUSH OFF sickness and all notions that there EVEN IS such a thing as sickness. We are to UTTERLY DENY it in every way. The entire system of magical solutions. The entire institution of "treatment". The entire thought system of suffering. The entire IDEA, the tiny mad idea, that impossible sickness is possible. Immortal beings can never be sick or die. So what is a sick body trying to claim, that sickness and death CAN happen because you are NOT immortal? It's a LIE.
Completely withdrawing ALL BELIEF in sickness similarly entails the TOTAL RELINQUISHMENT of all temptation to believe that ANYONE is truly sick. You cannot heal someone by believing they are sick! You are useless to them when you join in false empathy and make their dreams of sin real. You have to actually NOT CONSENT to join them in their suffering.
Otherwise you are NOT supporting them, you are weakening them AND contributing to their sickness through attack. Believing someone is sick is a DESIRE TO SEE THEM SICK. Believing in real sickness and real death is an attack thought. It's an attempt to MAKE TRUE and make real, that your brother is LESS THAN HOLY. It's an attack on his health.
You compound his own sickness and ADD TO it, holding him in a psychological PRISON, by AGREEING with him that he is not immortal in any way. That he is affected, suffering, weakened and vulnerable, able to be threatened by death. Not only does he suffer by his own self attack and pretend sickness, but he suffers even further because you won't ACKNOWLEDGE the immortality and safety and wholeness that is true of him.
Seeing your brother AS whole, and recognizing his wholeness, is required to HEAL him. You have to see WITH wholeness, which means NOT seeing or believing sickness, attack, suffering or death.
"Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles."
This requires that you not even believe what your physical senses are showing you, because they are lies. "To sense is not to know". The body's senses were designed as LIE AGREEMENT DEVICES, to MAKE the world seem real. "Only the body makes the world seem real." And yet "the body is a dream." So even if you SEE physical sickness, even if you HEAR the pain, even if you FEEL the wound, even if you SMELL the rotting flesh, these are all LIES posed by the ego to TEMPT YOU TO BELIEVE THAT HELL IS REAL.
The correct attitude of a miracle worker is the perspective that THERE IS NO DEATH. There is no sickness or suffering. There is no sin or guilt. There is no fear. There is no attack or damage. None of this is happening. The miracle worker recognizes THE TRUTH, God's truth, as THE ONLY TRUTH, and NOTHING ELSE IS TRUE. Meaning that anything which even HINTS at suggesting something else is true, MUST be completely denied, rejected, disbelieved, not invested in, not trusted, not had faith in, not wanted, not desired, and not fallen for.
The miracle worker approaches another with TOTAL CORRECTED PERCEPTION. This perception frames ALL physical illusions AS FALSE. Utterly false. 100% false. Not a single shred of truth to them. Illusions cannot be real BECAUSE they can be changed. They can be made to appear sick, or well, and so they CAN be "healed", and can be changed. Miracles prove this.
"That the mind can heal the body but the body cannot heal the mind shows the mind must be STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this."
Our attitude towards "the sick" should be. ... well... YOU believe you are sick, I DO NOT. I do NOT join you in sickness. I will not validate it. I will not add to it. I will not give it any reality. You are deceived in believing you are sick. You are MISTAKEN. You cannot be sick and you are not sick. This supposed sickness is totally illusion and IS NO THERE. It's a bullshit lie. There is no sickness IN YOU. Get up and walk motherfucker!!! Of course, in a loving way.
By seeing only life in another, they are resurrected. You give life to them through miracles.
"Miracles mean LIFE and God is the giver of life."
You can only GIVE life to another by NOT giving death to them. If you ASSIGN "that's death" or "that's sickness" to someone, you are GIVING them death. You are giving them a diagnosis. You are making it real. In fact you are CURSING them.
"Curse God and die, but not by Him Who made not death, but only in the dreams."
""Casting spells" merely means "affirming error", and error is lack of love. When man ***projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them***, but only ****to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made.**** This distortion ***makes them vulnerable to the curse of others***, since ****they have already cursed themselves****. ********The miracle worker can only bless********, and this undoes the curse and frees the soul from prison."
When someone curses themselves, it accuses themselves of sin in some way, becoming guilty and IN NEED OF punishment, they set up a psycho-energetic state of seeming vulnerability in which they ACCEPT make-believe "laws of causality", forms of victimhood, in which they weaken themselves and become "sensitive to" or susceptible to certain forms of external causes. And thus they "allow" or rather, do not resist, and in fact AGREE WITH, the seeming external attacks of others. So when someone else tries to "curse them" (any kind of attack), they RECEIVE it and take it upon themselves, using their self-attack as a weapon to INCREASE their own suffering. They use others to hurt themselves more by trying to GET punishment from other people's expressions.
NOT cursing, but rather setting your brother free and UNDOING their curse, is miracle working. If we make someone's sickness real and BELIEVE IN SICKNESS AT ALL, we are directly CURSING people. We are MAKING THEM sick. We are CAUSING sickness. We are projecting sickness. If someone has made themselves sick through their own mistake and judgement, this makes them BELIEVE the are vulnerable. And this now OPENS them to forms of attack which SEEM capable of attacking that vulnerability. ie, that someone can COMPOUND their self attack by ADDING TO their sickness. Amplifying it.
Your fear about another's sickness is murderous. It is an attack. Anything that is not loving is an attack and fear is the opposite of, or lack of love. Either you heal, or you hurt. Either you love or you hate. You are doing one or the other at all times. If you teach love you will heal others and UNDO THEIR CURSE! If you teach cursing, you will HARM others and imprison them in their cursed state and make it WORSE. Feeling bad about someone being sick MAKES them sicker.
Ultimately we have to weed out all the reasons and beliefs as to why we believe sickness is real, bodies are real, suffering is real, guilt is real. This includes NOT BELIEVING a dam thing that the world seems to contain. ALL BODIES ARE ILLUSIONS. And everything the BODY sees is an illusion. "The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen." The body is LITERALLY incapable of seeing reality. It does not look at a REAL world, it looks at A WORLD OF LIES. And to lie is to sin.
"The world of bodies is the world of sin (lies)."
And then we become purified, prepared, to be able to SEE ONLY LOVE, GIVE ONLY LIFE, TEACH ONLY RESURRECTION, and completely OVERRIDE all manifestations of sickness and death. We have to flat out REFUSE to participate in anyone's belief OR proof that they are sick.
Even if they are CONVINCED. Even if they have 100 medical records and have seen 50 doctors. Even if they were at the emergency room or in the ICU. Even if they almost died. It is ALL AL LIE. And if we BUY INTO IT, FALL FOR IT, ARE DECEIVED BY IT, we will be of NO use in helping or healing, left only to commiserate and sympathize in weakness and mutual sadness.
We have to purge ourselves of ALL belief in death in ALL its forms. And "Sickness is but a little death." Even UNHAPPINESS is a form of death. Anything short of TOTAL JOY AND LOVE is a form of death. And all of it has to be REJECTED AS FALSE.
You do not know anyone who is really sick.
You have never met a sick person.
All hospitals are filled with liars.
No-one can ever die.
THERE IS NO SICKNESS AND THERE IS NO DEATH! That is what you must teach! That is how you HEAL!
"There is no death. The son of God is free."
What if you lived in a world, where everyone was permanently dressed in costume. So much so that you had never actually looked at a person, but had only ever seen their disguise. You hadn't EVER seen a real face, or even real eyes. An entire world filled with make-believe characters, and no-one had ever set eyes on the actors that played them. All of it was hidden behind a thick wall of masks and covers.
That's the world we are living in here. The body is exactly this. It is a disguise and a physical wall surrounding a person's mind, so that you DO NOT SEE the person. When you look at a body you are not looking at a person. You're looking at a costume designed to completely disguise and HIDE from sight the real person within it.
As we learn that we are not our costumes, ie are not our bodies, we have to actually separate out the body from the person. As you look at a person you have to remind yourself you are not really looking at a person. You're looking at a body costume. A kind of vehicle, which is being piloted by an unseen person. By a spirit-mind. And the flesh you see doesn't even look like them.
I am constantly being reminded, corrected, by Jesus, each time I'm looking upon bodies and thinking of them as people, and forgetting that I am just looking at bodies. He tells me, "body", in place of whatever I was thinking about "person". Because I have to learn that flesh and bones are not really people. Bodies with faces and eyeballs are not really people. They are all disguises.
So we live in a VERY strange world, where in fact no-one is really seen by the human senses, and every body you look upon is a costume disgusing and hiding someone from sight. And even as you stare at their face and look them deep in the eye and think someone is peering back at you, even then you are looking at an illusion made to hide the person.
You have in fact likely NEVER looked upon a real person in your whole life here on Earth, because to see real beings requires a radically different kind of spiritual vision. It's VERY strange when you think about it, that the world is populated by costumes and vehicles and not by direct sight of beings. It's all a giant pantomime. An act like on the stage of a play. And you haven't ever feasted your eyes upon any of the actors.
It's so strange simply because this IS a VERY strange world. We have to learn that we ourselves are not bodies AT ALL, and other people are NOT bodies at all. And sight of bodies is not sight of people. And there are no people in the world of bodies, because they are all behind the scenes. Practice recognizing that the bodies you look at are JUST bodies, disguises, HIDING what lies unseen, trapped within.
"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured." "The REAL beauty of the Temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision."
"How can man "come close" to others through the parts of him which are really invisible? The word "invisible" means "cannot be seen or perceived."What cannot be perceived is hardly the right means for improving perception."
"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."
"In this strange world which you have made, the Son of God HAS sinned. How could you SEE him, then? "
"LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."
"The body's eyes see ONLY form (matter, objects, bodies). They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and **not see past it**. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for ***they can see only illusions*** (matter is an illusion - ANYTHING SEEN WITH PHYSICAL SIGHT IS AN ILLUSION), unable to look beyond the granite block of sin (solid matter is sin), and stopping at the outside form of nothing (surfaces of objects). To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything (all objects), the wall (matter) that stands between you and the truth (physical matter stands between you and reality), is wholly true."
"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness (the surface of objects), as if it were a solid wall (solid objects), see truly? It is HELD BACK by form (all objects, bodies, planets), having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form (matter) will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see." (cannot see reality or light ever - is permanently FIXED in false perception).
"What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means. But not for seeing (can't see reality ever). See how the body's eyes rest on externals (the surface of physical objects), and ***cannot go beyond*** (seeing a surface means photons bounced OFF the solid surface and BLOCKED YOUR VISION of what is beyond the surface!). Watch how they stop at nothingness (the physical world is an illusion and is nothing), unable to go beyond the form (shape, appearance, solidity etc) to meaning."
"(There is) nothing so blinding as perception of form (matter). For sight of form (objects, bodies) means understanding has been obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms (objects are forms of error/sin), and so they can deceive. You can change form (matter, bodies etc), BECAUSE it is not true. It could not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is not reality, it must be an illusion, and is not THERE to see (all physical objects are illusions). And, if you see it, you must be mistaken (using body-based false perception), for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it were (believing the world is real is false perception because it's an illusion of a world). What cannot see beyond what is not there (cannot see past the physical universe), MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions as the truth (blinded by perception of form). Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?"
"Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see (body cannot see it). Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. (look PAST the body, past matter, past form, past error, past sin, past the solid universe)."
"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen (fact, you cannot use the body's sight to see reality ever), for the illusions that they look upon (all planets are illusions) must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last (proven by decay, entropy, death), but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt (he did not create this world and the world he created cannot be seen by the body ever)."
"The world you see is an illusion of a world (seen with the body, it is illusory, and cannot be seen by the spiritual eye). God did not create it (fact! God did not create ANYTHING that the body looks upon!), for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see (with the body) that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end." (anything visible to the body has an end, including this planet - that's why it's an illusion not an eternal reality).
"The world stands like a block before Christ's face (solid matter blocks your vision of christ). But true perception (through the spiritual eye, NOT the body's eyes) looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant (the world is an illusion and can be OVERLOOKED - to forgive is to overlook - to NOT SEE). It is seen at last for only what it is (it is ONLY an illusion). And now it cannot fail to disappear ("illusions recognized must disappear"), for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived (body world) the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot*** (earth, illusory universe, go bye bye), with time forever ended as the world spins ***into nothingness*** from where it came. (world of matter is NOTHING - there is no world)"
"A world forgiven cannot last (forgive Earth, it will disappear, forgiving it OVERLOOKS it - stops seeing it). It was the home of bodies (forgiven world is the illusory world). But forgiveness looks past bodies (christ vision). This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin (matter is sin - "the body is the idea of sin made flesh"), for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone ***what more remains to keep a separated world in place***? For place (space) has gone as well, along with time (spacetime ends). ***Only the body makes the world seem real*** (blinded by perception of form, world of matter/form is an illusion), for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible (no bodies in heaven). Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not (christ vision does NOT SEE the world of bodies). And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."
"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. 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***. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has ***shone away time's final instant*** (and spacetime and all three-dimensionality), and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause (the "real world" is not the goal, its a stepping stone). For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls (no material universe), no bodies (no planets, no stars), and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
While in Heaven, before the fall of man, everything that existed was of God. And it still is. Creation is the presence of something real. It exists. It has substance. It lives.
At this point, all things which DO NOT exist, simply did not exist at all. They were not anywhere. They had no substance, no reality, no life. They did not happen. They simply weren't anywhere. Nothingness was nothing. And nowhere was nowhere.
Non-existence simply does not exist. It is not somewhere you can go and exist. It is not a realm or a dimension. It has no presence or location. It is simply, logically, absolutely nowhere at all, is nothing, does nothing, and cannot be.
In the separation, the tiny mad idea suggested that in ADDITION to Heaven, the nothingness actually was SOMETHING. And that Heaven, God and His Son did not exist. It was a complete reversal of the truth.
This was a completely ridiculous idea and we should have laughed at its nonsense. Nothingness cannot possibly exist. It can't BE something. It has no presence. But we believed it could.
This was our mistake. It was a mistake because it is patently impossible and illogical and nonsense. Nothing cannot exist. Which is a similar thing as saying, only what CAN exist DOES. And that is only of God's creation. Anything other than God's creation simply isn't anywhere. There isn't anything else. But we believed there was.
By forming this belief in nothingness being SOMETHINGNESS, we basically were becoming confused. Confusing levels. Confusing the truth with what is false. Confusing possibility with impossibility. Confusing reality with unreality. We wanted to GIVE nothingness all the attributes of God's creation so that we could BELIEVE that it was in fact SOMETHING POSSIBLE, and something that has existence.
This of course was an insane notion and totally wishful thinking, because it still remains impossible. And even in believing that it IS possible this does not cause it to be possible. Nothing can never be something. Non existence cannot suddenly come into existing. Even the idea that non-existence could exist is to confuse existence and non-existence to the point or ludicrous nonsense.... how can non-existence STILL BE non-existent at the same time as claiming it exists? But this is what we insisted was true.
In attempting to MAKE non-existent things EXIST, we dreamed, imagined, wished for, wanted, and tried to MAKE HAPPEN, "a world" on the basis of non-existence. A world where everything opposite to God's creation is manifest. A world where life does not exist. Where love is blotted out by fear. Where death has come to replace life, and time to replace eternity. Where space opposes omnipresence and where evil substitutes for the good.
Even in doing this, in our imagination, essentially, we still were not ACTUALLY doing this, because it is patently impossible to make non-existent things have reality. But we still BELIEVED that we could, that we did, that we have, and that we continue to do so. And so we hallucinated a fictional world which IS NOT THERE, and CANNOT EXIST, as if it were existing.
And so here we are, on planet Earth, jewel of the solar system, a completely make-believe, false, unreal, non-existent world, which in our minds we BELIEVE IN, and want to exist, and try to make happen. Which nevertheless, at no time ACTUALLY exists, and is nothing but imagined - images in the mind, attempting to DREAM OF what it MIGHT be like IF non-existence could exist.
So we haven't even really made non-existence exist. Non-existence CANNOT be made to exist. But we have BELIEVED that it is possible, which is an insane and completely mistaken belief. And we persist stubbornly to DENY the facts, and AVOID the truth, and HIDE FROM reality, in an effort to keep the truth in the dark so that you won't ADMIT that a non-existent world isn't here. And meanwhile we dream of space and time and happenings and sickness and death as if they are possible.
"it (mind) merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere."
What ultimately happens when we reach atonement, which is the total willingness to admit to the truth and come to our senses, a return to SANITY, and a correct recognition of the facts, is that we come to RECOGNIZE that non-existent things DO NOT EXIST. What we thought existed, or what we thought happened, IS NOT THERE. This literally culminates in the awareness and accurate perception that THERE IS NO WORLD.
"Forgiveness recognizes that what you think your brother did has not OCCURRED."
Quite literally, the world, which is based on the idea of nothingness, IS NOTHING. It cannot be. It is not. It does not. It cannot. It doesn't. It hasn't. It isn't. It won't. The world is merely a fictional fairytale fantasy, trying to believe that impossible things are possible, and trying to PROVE it through fictional stories and images and deceptions, smoke and mirrors, illusions and lies. The world is nothing but confusion.
There quite literally is no world here. Only the Kingdom of God exists. The world is nothingness. The body is nothingness. And true perception recognizes that the world is nothing. This is why christ vision cannot SEE the world, because it MUST VANISH when recognized as NOT EXISTING. The body is not alive or dead. It is not even THERE.
"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. It merely became what it always was. And that is what "rolling the stone away" means. The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body’s nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."
"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."
"At no time does the body exist."
"There is no world."
"There is no world apart from what you wish."
"He does not realize that he MAKES this world, for there IS no world outside him."
"Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so."
"Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions."
"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again."
"But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now."
Recognizing there is no world, is like FORGETTING the world. Paying no attention to it. Becoming unable to SEE it. Erasing it from memory. Like it was nothing. Like it never happened. Like not one single thing occurred. And then ONLY the Kingdom of God is accepted as real, existing, present, possible, and happening. And upon accepting that ONLY the truth is true and nothing ELSE is true, you awaken to the recognition of the real truth in God.
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream."
"The world you see must be denied."
"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. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."
"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish."
"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. 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. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
In ACIM the term "solid" or "solidity" obviously refers to what we recognize it to mean..... things which seem solid to us. Physical matter, heavy objects, solid materials, walls, bodies, planets, all things which science would tell us are in a solid state of matter. Hard, tangible, measurable, biological, chemical, physical. Planet earth.
The course goes on to tell us that these things which appear to be solid will eventually be seen as transparent, like a shadow, or a smoke-screen, or a veil of illusions. And that these solid things stand in front of the face of Christ, initially blocking its view entirely but later moving aside and fading away to reveal the true light of the real world. That the "world", ie the solid earth, is nothing but a wall of illusions standing in the way of reality.
Christ vision becomes able to "see through" solid matter, kind of like x-ray vision. This is because it is forgiving, and "to forgive is to overlook." To overlook something is to not see it, which is why what you forgive must disappear. By forgiving the physical material solid world, therefore, you become able to see through and past and beyond it to the light of another world. A world which is not earth and is not the physical solid material plane.
In fact, Jesus says that it is the guilt in our minds which makes the veil of illusions - earth and spacetime - appear to have solidity. It is guilt which drags our mind down into false perceptions, blinded by perception of form, looking through and believing the body's eyesight which is completely incapable of forgiving or looking past the solidity of matter.
It is our belief in guilt and sin and fear and death which locks us in to the prison of solid matter and makes it appear opaque to our minds. It is only because we are not forgiving that the world appears to show up at all as "solid". And once we forgive completely, the whole world must disappear, and that does mean the solid physical world will fade into nothingness, leaving behind only the light of heaven, because the world IS nothing but a veil of illusions we made to cover up reality.
The physical material solid world literally was made as a kind of curtain or screen or wall to come "between" you and yourself, between you and God, to hide God and block out heaven. It is like a layer of dirt covering over what should be bright and obvious, a stain upon the creation of God, a shadow of darkness. Belief in it causes the body to be lit up and made to seem real and solid, emphasizing the rift of the gap of separation which contains the entire separation from God in the split mind.
Christ vision looks past this world to the light. It does not mistake the body for the son of God. It does not fixate on physical forms. It does not believe the world of separate objects is real. It doesn't merely look upon and regard it as unified, it looks fully beyond it entirely. It glances at the disappearing thin veil of nothingness as it leave the mind's awareness and opens up fully to perceiving only the light of reality. Then it is game over for the world, which was nothing to begin with.
This is then the end of solidity, the end of matter, the end of the physical, the end of the world of shadows, the end of darkness, the end of separation, and the end of death. The world is at first forgiven, seen past, overlooked, and ignored, and then ultimately returns to nothing at all which it is. There is no world, and only heaven remains.
"It can indeed be said the ego MADE its world on sin. Only in such a world COULD everything be upside down. This IS the strange illusion which makes the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness this world's foundation SEEMS to have is FOUND in this. For sin HAS changed creation from an Idea of God to an IDEAL the EGO wants; a world IT rules, made up of bodies, mindless, and capable of COMPLETE corruption and decay."
"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. "
"Sin is impossible, and on this fact forgiveness rests upon a certain base more solid than the shadow world we see."
"And so you stand, here in this holy place, before the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ. LET it be lifted! 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."
"Standing BEFORE the veil, it still seems difficult. But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share."
"The mechanisms of illusion have been born instead. And now they go to find what has been given them to seek. Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies. Yet everything which they report is but illusion which is kept apart from truth."
"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and WITHOUT a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would TRY to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to ATTEMPT to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily BECAUSE it is an error. The FORM it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from REASON's eyes."
"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."
"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."
"For anti-Christ becomes more powerful than Christ to those who dream the world is real. The body seems to be more solid and more stable than the mind. And love becomes a dream, while fear remains the one reality which can be seen and justified and fully understood."
"This heavy-seeming barrier, this artificial floor that looks like rock, is like a bank of low, dark clouds that seem to be a solid wall before the sun. Its impenetrable appearance is WHOLLY an illusion."
"Yet in this cloud bank it is easy to see a whole world rising. A solid mountain range, a lake, a city, all arise in your imagination, and FROM the clouds, the messengers of your perception return to you, assuring you that it is all THERE. Figures stand out and move about, actions seem real, and forms appear and shift from loveliness to the grotesque. And back and forth they go, as long as you would play the game of children's "make believe.""
"Christ's vision is the bridge between the worlds, and in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world into one made holy by forgiveness. Things which seem quite solid here are merely shadows there, transparent, faintly seen, at times forgot, and never able to obscure the light that shines beyond them. Holiness has been restored to vision, and the blind can see."
"If you are not a body, what are you? You need to be aware of what the Holy Spirit uses to replace the image of a body in your mind. You need to feel something to put your faith in, as you lift it from the body. You need a real experience of something else, something more solid and more sure; more worthy of your faith, and really there."
"The world you see is based on SACRIFICE of oneness. It is a picture of a COMPLETE disunity and total LACK of joining. Around each entity is built a wall so seeming solid that it looks as if what is inside can never reach without, and what is out can never reach and join with what is locked away within the wall."
"The final one, the hardest to believe is nothing, and a seeming obstacle with the appearance of a solid block, impenetrable, fearful and beyond surmounting, is the fear of God Himself."
"You who believe you walk in sanity, with feet on solid ground, and through a world where meaning CAN be found, consider this: These ARE the laws on which your "sanity" appears to rest. These ARE the principles which makes the ground beneath your feet seem solid. And it IS here you look for meaning. These are the laws YOU made for your salvation. They hold in place the substitute for Heaven that you prefer."
"This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real. Yet those who think it real must still believe there is another will, and one which leads to opposite effects from those He wills. Impossible indeed; but every mind which looks upon the world and judges it as certain, solid, trustworthy and true believes in two creators; or in one, himself alone. But never in One God."
"The actions of the body are perceived as coming from the "baser" part of you, and thus of him as well. By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."
"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."
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
"Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past EVERYTHING you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes."
"Such is your resurrection, for your life is not a part of anything you see. It stands beyond the body and the world, past every witness for unholiness, within the Holy, holy as Itself."
"Desiring to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of belief and faith goes far BEYOND the body, SUPPORTING vision, NOT obstructing it."
"Grace is not given to a BODY, but to a MIND. And the mind that RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT was healed."
"And now God's KNOWLEDGE, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its Kingdom. 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. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the ***two types or levels of perception*** is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."
Since starting to do ACIM almost 2 decades ago, what has NOT changed, is my ability to see physical objects.
What some people believe is that you have one mode of perception, and as you become more spiritual you're supposed to "shift your perception", and no longer see what you saw before. And therefore you are supposed to become kind of BLIND to the world. This DOES NOT HAPPEN.
People also claim that because you have ONE way of perceiving, when you shift perception you can NO LONGER SEE what you saw before. This is obviously NOT TRUE, otherwise everyone's course books would be disappearing from sight and no-one would finish reading them.
Another GIANT fallacy is the belief that "if you see it, it's yours", which is not true. It would be true if you only had ONE WAY of perceiving, but you don't. You have two. And they function SIMULTANEOUSLY until one completely overrides the other.
Everyone doing ACIM, me included, is still perfectly capable of reading the words on the pages of the book, and still just as able to do workbook lessons, and still just as able to see and respond to facebook posts. None of that changed. Why?
Because the physical sight IS STILL IN USE for anyone who has a body, REGARDLESS of changes that are taking place in the mind. And that's because the mind decides on THE MEANING that it gives to the incoming signals from the eyeballs.
While initially the mind categorizes physical sensations as REALITY, it learns through spiritual application that the sensory inputs are FALSE and what you see with the body is UNREAL. This doesn't in any way mean you DO NOT see it anymore, only that what it MEANS to you has changed.
This is also because you have a second mechanism for sight, which is the spiritual eye. The spiritual eye is direct mind-based seeing, which does not depend on the physical eyes. It allows you to see anywhere and at any time without limits of physical form, boundaries, distances, materials or conditions.
But while this spiritual eye is reawakening, and while the mind becomes able to see PAST the body sensory inputs, the body still continues to function as before, it still senses the world and sends signals to the brain, and it's still up to the MIND to INTERPRET those signals. To regard them either as TRUE, or as FALSE.
Once the mind learns that the incoming bodily signals are FALSE, this doesn't necessarily STOP the mind from USING the body to sense the world, or to see physical objects. This includes the fact that the mind STILL sees physical sickness, war and death. It's just that the mind has to learn to RECOGNIZE that these inputs are MISLEADING, are false and unreal. Recognition that an illusion is an illusion, is sanity. And this is not the same thing as becoming "unable to see it".
"They (God's teachers) ****watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die.**** Yet they are not deceived by what they see."
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the ****body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before****. But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal."
Jesus in fact was perfectly capable of physically seeing people in bodies with physical problems, and talking to them, and interacting with them physically, because despite the advancement of his mind and his recognition of truth, he STILL was able to use the physical body senses to interact with the physical world. And so can you. And anyone who disputes this is really in denial because you can easily look at the fact that you can STILL SEE the physical world, no matter how long you've been doing the course.
As the mind progresses in its healing, it learns that the physical world is unreal, and so it REINTERPRETS the signals coming to the mind from the senses. And so it learns to categorize them as UNREALITY, rather than reality. And now the MEANING of what it senses through the body has changed.
What you PROJECT onto the world, is MEANING. "I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me." It is FALSE MEANING that you attack the world with. Or rather, you receive sensory inputs and then you give them meaning. And when you give them FALSE meaning, you think you see a world shrouded in hell and darkness. Because your mind is filtering out the truth.
When your mind is more awake and does not fall for the temptation of the sensory inputs, it now PROJECTS a meaning of truth, which frames the world as FALSE, because it recognizes what is true and what isn't. And the world simply is false. So when you are SANE, you recognize that your body inputs are always FALSE, but that doesn't stop you still being able to sense them.
This is why the experience of the TWO types of simultaneous perception can become ACUTELY CONTRASTED, because on the one hand you've got your mind telling you that nothing you see is real, while still seeing it. So now you are perceiving a FALSE world, an AWARENESS OF DREAMING, which you still nevertheless see fully, and this can be a very acute contrast to the mind. That everything you see is a lie.
At least, not until your mind is so purified that you see THROUGH and PAST and BEYOND all sensory inputs, which is equivalent to being past physical matter. And you see the light of the real world, the face of christ, beyond all form. The reinterpreted physical inputs become "the forgiven world", and the light seen BY THE MIND DIRECTLY beyond them, overlooking (forgiving) them, is the "real world".
Once the mind is SO fully focused on the real world, the face of Christ, the "veil of illusions" parts, becoming so thin and transparent the mind sees through it so much it can no longer dwell on it at at all. AT THAT POINT, the mind is ready to leave the body and return to heaven. Because it is now at that point that the mind COMPLETELY FORGIVES or overlooks the physical inputs, and thus the whole world, and looks ONLY at the face of christ. Just for a short time, while God whisks you off to heaven.
Until you get there, and until you are confronted with ONLY seeing with the spiritual eye, which is VERY advanced, you WILL still register the presence of the images and senses from the body, of a physical world, and you will STILL be in a position of being a teacher of God that helps others. Someone who is in the world but not of it. Someone who recognizes this is a DREAM, not a reality. But can still function within its parameters physically.
"To forgive is to OVERLOOK"
"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven."
"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven"
"A forgiven world cannot last."
"He who would not forgive must judge, to justify his failure to forgive."
The function of forgiveness, is to look beyond error from the start, as pro-active "fore-giving", a giving of love which recognizes innocence and does not allow the mind to MAKE an error. Forgiveness is the perception in which errors are not seen at all, because the mind is not making or projecting errors itself, and so this "pro-active" attitude sustains a state where there is no error, ie there is no sin, and so long as you stay focused on this you will not produce any.
If you slip up and fail to forgive, you will make an error. You will go into the belief in "sin is real". And by going into it, you will use judgement to try to explain (justify) why you couldn't be forgiving. e.g. that someone "really did this or that", calling for you to "have to" be justified in judging due to what you think happened. But what you think "happened" is an error in judgement, an error in your own perception. An error that your own mind made-up, as a result of leaving the state of forgiveness.
The Holy Spirit therefore does not MAKE errors, or produce perception of sin, and so perceives only that there is no sin. He looks past errors to the truth, using reason. This form of sight literally "overlooks", as in, DOES NOT SEE, errors anywhere, as if the errors (if they were to exist) have become totally transparent and have disappeared. He looks only to the face of Christ and innocence and recognizes that there literally IS no ego, because there IS no error or sin, and the "forms of error" which the body's eyes look at and can't see past (physical objects) are overlooked entirely.
The world, as referred to in "the forgiven world", that being simply Earth and the rest of this universe, IS AN ILLUSION, and it is the form of error. To look at it is to be blinded by perception of form. To look past it is to overlook it and see beyond it. In this way, forgiveness literally overlooks the world entirely, forgets the world, ignores physical objects, and looks past it to the face of Christ. This is "forgiving the world" doesn't entail keeping it and looking AT it in a forgiving way, it entails OVERLOOKING it, recognizing it is NOT THERE, and realizing that it - being made of the idea of sin - DOES NOT EXIST AND HAS NOT HAPPENED. In this way forgiveness overlooks the world itself, not just misperceptions of it, and looks beyond this world to another - Heaven.
As such, "a forgiven world cannot last" because if it IS forgiven, it WAS an illusion, and IS NOT real, and therefore CAN be overlooked, not seen, regarded as nothing, and forgotten entirely. A "forgiven world" is an OVERLOOKED world, a world NOT SEEN, and NOT THERE. A world that never existed in the first place. And so forgiveness recognizes the world is an illusion, not a reality. A forgiven world is an undone world, and it disappears. This is why it cannot last. If you forgive it, you will make it disappear, because there is no sin and the world is the idea of sin. "Without the idea of death there is no world." "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."
Do not mistake effect for cause, nor think that sickness is apart and separate from what its cause must be. It is a sign, a shadow of an evil thought that seems to have reality and to be just, according to the usage of the world. It is external proof of inner "sin," and witnesses to unforgiving thoughts that injure and would hurt the Son of God. Healing the body is impossible, and this is shown by the brief nature of the "cure." The body yet must die, and healing it is but a brief delay in its return to dust, where it was born and will go back.
The body's source is unforgiveness of the Son of God. It has not left its source, and in its pain and aging and the mark of death upon it this is clearly shown. Fearful and frail it seems to be to those who think their life is tied to its command and linked to its unstable, tiny breath. Death stares at them as every moment goes irrevocably past their grasping hands, which cannot hold them back. And they feel fear as bodies change and sicken. For they sense the heavy scent of death upon their hearts.
The body can be healed as an effect of true forgiveness. Only that can give remembrance of immortality, which is the gift of holiness and love. Forgiveness must be given by a mind which understands that it must overlook all shadows on the holy face of Christ, among which sickness should be seen as one. Nothing but that; the sign of judgment made by brother upon brother, and the Son of God upon himself. For he has damned his body as his prison, and forgot that it is he who gave this role to it.
What he has done now must God's Son undo. But not alone. For he has thrown away the prison's key; his holy sinlessness and the remembrance of his Father's Love. Yet Help is given to him in the Voice his Father placed in him. The power to heal is now his Father's gift, for through His Voice He still can reach His Son, reminding him the body may become his chosen home, but it will never be his home in truth.
"The world was made as an attack on God." "The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible." "The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it" "The world is the picture of the crucifixion of God's Son". "The world was made as a place where God could enter not." "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way." "The hell you made".
Okay so, apparently, we MADE some kind of a world, which was designed to attack God, is made of illusions, tries to shut God out, depicts the death of God's Son, and is totally opposite to heaven as a form of hell, where bodies sin and try to prove death can happen.
So now we're in a position where we can ask a really interesting question. What do we do about this? How is this resolved? What's the Holy Spirit's solution? How should we be regarding or viewing this hellish realm of sin and attack and death that we made? What is the way to return to Heaven? How does God deal with this situation?
There are many significant parts of the Course which talk about the fact of what this world IS. It's nature. As described above, an illusory hellish dream of sin and death. In some of the perspectives Jesus gives, he reminds us of how meaningless, pointless, non-existent, purposeless, substanceless this world is.
This seems to be a very important aspect of how we overcome it. A recognition of what it is and what it is not. No rose tinted glasses, no fluffy romantic language, no trying to make it out to BE Heaven or to BE God's creation. Just a simple recognition of its illusory nature, a picture of impossibilities and nonsenser. Just a straight forward honest appraisal of what we made and why it is not real. For example:
"(mind) ... it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."
"There is no world" "The world sill spin into the nothingness from which it came." "Eternity will shine away the world." "A world forgiven cannot last."
"Without the idea of death there is no world."
"There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body’s eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal."
"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while." ... "The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?" ... "Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers." ... "Yet they are not deceived by what they see." ... Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."
So in this perspective, Jesus teaches us that this world we made, is an illusion of a world, which we mistakenly think is REAL. And we're supposed to recognize it's an illusion/dream and not believe in it, we're supposed to recognize it holds nothing that we want, that it is unreal, that we are not of it, the body is not who we are, and really that none of it is happening. "All events are nowhere." It has no consequences, nothing that happens causes anything real, there is no real sin. "All changes wrought are substance-less." And this proceeds all the way to the world disappearing. "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."
There is no particular love-loss for the world in this view. It's just simple honest recognition of the fact that it is a world made from the denial of the Kingdom, dreamed in an attempt to attack God and His Son, it is illusory and has no real effects, no part of it is valuable or permanent, and it doesn't really exist.
There is, however, also an additional component to coming to recognize "awareness of dreaming of hell". To realize the world is not the real world. And this has to do with the Holy Spirit's reinterpretation of what we made.
The world we made, was made in total "false perception". The body was made to be fixed in a state of false perception, where it does not overlook/forgive ANYTHING. It is blinded by perception of forms. Its vision stops at the outside surface of nothing. It "sees" only what BLOCKS vision. "These eyes made not to see will never see."
The body's eyes can only report that "the world seems real" "it seems to exist" "it seems to be happening." They only see "sin is real" "bodies are sinful". We jumped all the way from perfect Heaven to total hell. We designed the world to be a total opposite to reality. "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way." But what does the Holy Spirit do with this hell that we made?
What he represents and makes possible, is an alternative way of looking at the hell we made. A re-interpretation of it. This doesn't really CHANGE IT, because it can't BE anything other than an illusion. You can't make it BE Heaven - God already accomplished Heaven's creation. But you can learn not to be deceived by it, so that when you see it, you don't BUY INTO IT. You don't MAKE it real to you.
"the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETER of what the ego made".
"This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream's ALTERNATIVE, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. They are the glad effects of taking BACK the consequence of sickness to its cause. The body is released, because the mind acknowledges "this is not DONE TO me, but I am doing this." And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and ALL the dreaming of the world undone."
His goal is to UNDO the dreaming of the world. To take back the cause of it. To stop the making of it. To cancel it, reverse it, dissolve it, erase it, disappear it. To STOP DREAMING. This is His aim and guarantee. But before this happens, something happens to how you experience the world you made. We're introduced to this idea that the WAY YOU SEE, perception, can be modified and repurposed, so that you gradually invest in the dream less, believe it's illusions less, are convinced it is a picture of real sin and death less, and so learn to overlook/forgive/forget it.
This means that initially, it seems as if the world is really hell. Unforgiven, it is a "real nightmare". The body is designed to fixate on the nightmare and make it seem real. But we have the ability to change our mind, which changes our beliefs, which change our perceptions. We can choose again and NOT believe in what the world is showing us, and to regard the body as DECEIVING us. It's still a picture of hell. It's still "the strange world you made." It still seems to run by ego laws of death and everything in it still is limited and flawed, per the laws of illusions/death. But if you don't BELIEVE IN IT, you don't take these appearances at face value. You are not deceived. You are not tempted.
"Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach."
"Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His holy sight."
"Lead us not into Temptation" means "Do not let us deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or our brothers with ANYTHING external."
"And he will reinterpret ALL temptation as just another chance to bring him joy."
"I am the light of the world" "It is the perfect answer to all illusions, and therefore to all temptation. It brings all the images you have made about yourself to the truth, and helps you depart in peace, unburdened and certain of your purpose."
We're also told that God loves the world. Even though the world is an imaginary illusion of death, a picture of hell, somehow God still loves it so that He does NOT believe in it or mistake it for Reality. But let's be clear, that loving the world does not MAKE the world BE love. It doesn't MAKE it holy. It merely looks upon it WITH love and holiness, forgiving what is there, not believing in what it depicts. The picture of crucifixion turns into an empty MIRROR, in which you see YOUR reflection. In this, the world is meaningless in and of itself, so by taking away its meanings you reflect only Gods' meaning INTO it. This makes the world SEEM holy or heaven-like.
"The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world."
"What the world is, is but a fact. (it is a picture of hell) You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose **how** you would see it."
"God offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it. God says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life. God's Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right?"
What he's clearly saying here is that you have dreamed of hell, in an attempt to destroy God and His son. And Earth is still Heaven's opposite. But this hell only seems to have any reality while you believe it is real, while you are judging and deceiving. God does not believe in hell being real. He knows there is no real sin or death. So he looks UPON hell and does not make it real, does not see any proof of real sin in it, sees no evidence of real death happening, and so has no grounds for being anything other than loving. Laughing at it. Shining it away.
So now in the Holy Spirit's true perception, everything about the world is OVERLOOKED, ie not taken at face value. The world is regarded as a thin veil of nothingness hanging over the face of Christ. Substanceless, causeless, not doing anything, imaginary. An image of crucifixion still, but depicting nothing but a fantasy. An image of death and sin still, but depicting only an idle wish that sin and death can happen. It's not taken seriously. And so he does not see REAL sin in it. In this way, the picture of crucifixion is forgiven.
Here before your eyes is a vision of hell, a veil of death, which the body wants to report as real, but which the Spiritual Eye recognizes is entirely fictional and absurd. Not even worth paying attention to. But because the Holy Spirit does not see "real sin" in it, he does not project sin onto it, or judge it, or condemn it, or mistake it for reality. It is now a picture of death, interpreted as nothing, depicting fake sins, containing no real sin, and so it is forgiven. It is not seen as "full of sin". Nor is it sinless. It is a forgiven illusion, seen through and disregarded,.
And so instead it seems to symbolize innocence and holiness. If no attack or hate or judgement is laid UPON it, it's merely seen as a thin veil of illusions. It has lost its heaviness and darkness. It is now a very light picture of darkness. A thin picture of solidity. A loved picture of illusions of hatred. Because the world you made is always an illusion, always artificial, always not real, always false, always a depiction of impossibilities, and always nothing. Not taken seriously, it ends in laughter.
"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. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone ***what more remains to keep a separated world in place?*** For place has gone as well, along with time. (end of spacetime.) Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate **it could not remain where separation is impossible.** Forgiveness proves it is impossible ***because it sees it not.*** And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."
"Can what has no beginning really end? The world ***will end** in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, ***will cover it***, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ***ends the world*** that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone."
The illusion of forgiveness covers the evil world by not BELIEVING that it is real. By recognizing SIN does not exist. So this picture of sin is false. The perspective of the big picture reveals the world's illusion, and correctly perceives it as a deception. It REPLACES the world's meaninglessness. It SHINES AWAY the world because illusions recognized must disappear. A forgiven world is a world recognized as FALSE. A FALSE world, perceived WITH love, which overlooks and shines away the world. God erases the world with love. You cannot love it and keep it. A world forgiven cannot last.
"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world. But the REAL world (heaven) HAS the power to touch you even here, BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT (heaven). And what you call with love WILL come to you. Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made (Earth, illusion), ***and do not want.*** The only effort you need make, to give this world (Earth) away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make (heaven), is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."
"Until forgiveness is complete, the world does have a purpose. It becomes the home in which forgiveness is born, and where it grows and becomes stronger and more all-embracing. Here is it nourished, for here it is needed. A gentle Savior, born where sin was made and guilt seemed real."
"When not one thought of sin remains" appears to be a long-range goal indeed. But time stands still, and waits on the goal of God's teachers. Not one thought of sin will remain the instant any one of them accepts Atonement for himself."
"***The world will end*** when its thought system has been completely reversed. Until then, bits and pieces of its thinking will still seem sensible.The final lesson, which brings ***the ending of the world***, cannot be grasped by those not yet prepared *****to leave the world and go beyond its tiny reach.*****"
"The world will **end** in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will **end** in peace, because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will **end** in laughter, because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. **In blessing it departs**, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven (symbolically) is the function of God's teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is ***reflected*** (symbolic)."
To turn hell into heaven simply means, to learn to recognize that the world is not REALLY hell, it is not REALLY anything. It's claims are ignored. It's proof is thrown out. It's picture of death are laughed at. It's sins are not taken seriously. It's illusions do not deceive. The picture of crucifixion is SEEN WITH love, and a **reflection** of love and holiness is seen "in it". As if looking upon a picture of devastation and war in an extremely happy mood. What it claims to be is not what it is. You override it. And then the world disappears completely.
"**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. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time."
"Eternity will **shine away** the world."
"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. 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. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, **no walls, no bodies**, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"The world (Earth) 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.** (an illusion of a sin/attack/death world.) 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."
26) "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."
How can I know who I am when I see myself as under constant attack? Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me. My own real thoughts will teach me what it is.
27) "Above all else I want to see."
Recognizing that what I see reflects what I think I am, I realize that vision is my greatest need. The world I see attests to the fearful nature of the self-image I have made. If I would remember who I am, it is essential that I let this image of myself go. As it is replaced by truth, vision will surely be given me. And with this vision I will look upon the world and upon myself with charity and love.
28) "Above all else I want to see differently."
The world I see holds my fearful self-image in place, and guarantees its continuance. While I see the world as I see it now, truth cannot enter my awareness. I would let the door behind this world be opened for me, that I may look past it to the world that reflects the Love of God.
29) "God is in everything I see."
Behind every image I have made, the truth remains unchanged. Behind every veil I have drawn across the face of love, its light remains undimmed. Beyond all my insane wishes is my will united with the Will of my Father. God is still everywhere and in everything forever. And we who are part of Him will yet look past all appearances, and recognize the truth beyond them all.
30) "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind."
In my own mind, behind all my insane thoughts of separation and attack, is the knowledge that all is one forever. I have not lost the knowledge of who I am because I have forgotten it. It has been kept for me in the Mind of God, Who has not left His Thoughts. And I, who am among them, am one with them and with Him.
Have you done this? I know I have done it many times: "Who but yourself evaluates a threat, decides escape is necessary, and sets up a series of defenses to reduce the threat that has been judged as real?"
Something happens, typically something related to a body - something physical which the body reports as happening. Then I observe it and judge - THIS IS REAL - something's happening, something's going wrong.
Then there is a whole cascade of reactions, starting with immediate fear. There are defenses, attempts to escape, attempts to find cures, attempts to explain the causes. All attempts are me trying to defend against the "reality" of the problem, which, because it IS real to me, cannot BE escaped.
And always no matter what I do, what I think, how I approach it, there is still the fear response to something that seems unchangeable, fixed, stuck, irreversible, and deadly.
This is always because at the "core", I've given REALITY to something that the body showed me. I've decided this is real, and have interpreted it as totally real. By making it real, I locked it in place, turned it into an inescapable sin, gave it permanence, and set it up as the truth.
Now it cannot be questioned, undone, changed, healed, or corrected. Knowing this produces inevitable unresolvable fear. If it is real, there is nothing I can do about it. And this always leads to a feeling of powerlessness, hopelessness, weakness, incapability, inadequacy and shame. As if the thing is just dangling there in front of my face taunting me and haunting me with its threats of inevitable suffering.
"NOT because it has the power to hurt, but just because YOU have denied it is but an illusion, AND MADE IT REAL."
"Its plan is to have you SEE ERROR CLEARLY FIRST, and THEN overlook it. But how CAN you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you HAVE made it real, and CANNOT overlook it."
All of this begins the moment that I look at something and decide for myself, "this is real". This one act of reading reality into it, taking it seriously, forgetting to laugh, focusing on it like it's literally right there in front of my face as proof that it exists, is enough to cement it into my mind. As soon as it is locked in, nothing whatsoever can dislodge it and it looms over me like a constant threat.
The ego has counseled that I need to look clearly and closely at what is an error - an illusion of something going wrong - as if it is real, and examine it, and figure out what it is, and analyze it, and describe it, and find the cause of it. And that only by looking intensely at it as a real problem can I possibly find a solution to it. But this does not work because all it does it holds the problem in place.
The ONLY thing which can truly uproot and solve the problem, is the recognition that I am the one who decided it was real in the first place. I bought into the illusion. I fell for the temptation. I forgot to laugh at it. I thought it was serious. I gave it meaning. I decided what it was and why it meant. And only by this decision, based on inputs from the body senses, did I convince myself "this is really happening, holy shit, there is no escaping it."
I must then reverse this belief, this core key moment, realizing that since I gave it this reality, I can withdraw this power from it also. And I must do this is if I want to experience atonement and freedom.
"If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God."
It means I have given my power away to an illusory world, have set it up to have power over me, and now I see it as causing me. And now I am starting to experience the consequences and effects that it implies. And only by taking its power away can I free myself from my self-made imprisonment.
This problem has no power, it is not real, it is not happening, it is not true, it does not exist, it is not there, it is already gone, it never happened, it is an illusion and is nothing.
And then I can laugh and be free from the clutches of this tiny anchoring black-hole of despair and deception. It is truly nothing and I has no power over me.
When shitty stuff happens, you want it to stop.
But it's a lesson. It's trying to teach you something. Its motive of teaching is very much for you and supportive of you and helping you. It is not a motive of attack. At least, if you decide to use it this way.
What if this thing is trying to educate you, to give you training, so that you will learn something you didn't know, so that you can become able to help other people who you later encounter who are going through the same thing?
Perhaps then you will have transitioned from being a student to being able to teach what you have mastered.
Life will throw you first-hand challenges. Like, right in your face, when you don't want it. And your ego will claim it wants it to go away. Why does it want it to go away? Perhaps it doesn't want you to use it for forgiveness? Perhaps it doesn't want you to listen and learn and grow and wake up?
Would you welcome the lesson if you knew it was designed specifically, and solely, to help you, and through your willingness, end up helping others as well? What if it is for everyone's highest good? What if Holy Spirit wants you to be learning this and it isn't some kind of evil curriculum given you by the devil?
If this world is real, then it is a cruel world. And all its paths lead eventually to death. There is no escape in the world. "The world was made that problems could not be escaped."
In this world, when something goes wrong, it stays wrong. Unless you can find a physical solution which seems to solve the problem. But the problem does not really get cured, and the solution does not prevent more problems.
The ego's plan for this world is that everything ends in death. It does not matter how long it takes or what form it takes. All that is physical is inherently made of the idea of death.
If this world is true, then if someone becomes physically sick, there is no hope. There is no way to undo it. If something goes terribly wrong, there is no hope. No way to solve it. The world was made to be a place of hopelessness, and if you follow its laws and its rules there is literally no hope of escaping its death sentence.
This is why we are being asked in ACIM to rise above this battlefield, to awaken from it, to lift up and see it from a different vantage point. We're asked to forgive and overlook it, to not believe it is reality, and to not regard it as true. Only in this way, by recognizing there is ANOTHER world filled with hope, that you can have any hope at all.
Recognizing that this world is fundamentally cruel and insane, your ONLY hope is to learn to recognize that because of its insanity it cannot be real. The pain and hell that arise from its cruelty are seemingly tolerable up to a point, but produce hellish nightmarish experiences.
There comes a turning point where you can no longer accept that this world CAN be real, because of its utter cruelty and hell-bent focus on inevitable death and irreversible damage. There has to be a better way. There has to be some other world more true than this. There has to be some way to have hope.
This is where we begin to seek out the light, to leave the darkness of the desert and find a way to rise above the bullshit of the planet. This begins to open up what ACIM calls our spiritual eye. It's an attempt to liberate ourselves from suffering, to laugh in the face of death, and to even become miraculous.
"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."
This flies in the face of everything the world says is true. It requires you to DENY the world through a proper use of denial, such that you are not willing to accept what it shows you, what it tells you, or the plans it has for your demise. It goes totally against the grain and against everything the world believes is true and possible. Because "it is the world you see that is impossible."
The world, being as utterly insane as it is, cannot possibly be real. If it is real then we might as well give up and die, because it offers on way out.
"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."
Overcoming the world requires an ability to resurrect. It requires an ability to go against the laws of the world. It requires a movement into miraculousness, because only through a literal breaking of the laws of spacetime can you truly overcome death.
You have to fly in the face of everything that seems to be happening and defy it. You have to rise up above it and have a power over it. You have to be able and willing to undo it, reverse it, and demonstrate the cancellation of sin and death. Through miracles there is hope, but without the possibility of operating opposite to the world there is no hope at all.
We have to find a way, a path to the light, which the world does not support, which the world says is impossible, which the world actively tries to oppose. It requires the proper use of denial, the weakening of the investment in physical sight, the ignoring of physical sensory inputs which lie to you through the body, and to look beyond appearances. This means recognizing illusions as illusions and not being tempted or deceived by the world. This is a tough challenge. But the world must be denied, otherwise it is true.
"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "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 is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."
The ultimate pinnacle of this teaching is that there literally is no world here at all. "There is no world. This is the central lesson the course would attempt to teach". Only if there is NO world, and NOTHING has happened, and this is ONLY a dream, can there be hope of escape, and hope of liberation from its nightmare. Only through recognizing that it IS NOT REAL is there any way to laugh at its unbelievable bullshit, to find a way back to God, and to return to a state of happiness.
The only way out of hell is through forgiveness, the overlooking of illusions and the recognition of ACTUAL reality, which is the Kingdom of God and not the Earth.
"There is another advantage, - and a very important one, - in referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. Perhaps you have not thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. To follow the Holy Spirit's guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt.It is the essence of the Atonement.It is the core of the curriculum.The imagined usurping of functions not your own is the basis of fear. The whole world you see reflects the illusion that you have done so, making fear inevitable. To return the function to the One to Whom it belongs is thus the escape from fear. And it is this that lets the memory of love return to you. Do not, then, think that following the Holy Spirit's guidance is necessary merely because of your own inadequacies. It is the way out of hell for you."
"A miracle can offer nothing less to him than it has given unto you. So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did not do. And so is he convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you. Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never be undone. ***And hopelessness and death must disappear before the ancient clarion call of life.*** This call has power far beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto His Own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. 11 Yet it is given you to show him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."
Learning is change. Salvation does not seek to use a means as yet too alien to your thinking to be helpful, nor to make the kinds of change you could not recognize. Concepts are needed while perception lasts. And changing concepts IS salvation's task. For it must deal in contrasts, not in truth, which has no opposite and cannot change. In this world's concepts are the guilty "bad;" the "good" are innocent. And no-one here but holds a concept of himself in which he counts the "good" to pardon him the "bad." Nor does he trust the "good" in anyone, believing that the "bad" must lurk behind.
This concept emphasizes treachery, and trust becomes impossible. Nor could it change while you perceive the "bad" in you. You could not recognize your "evil" thoughts as long as you see value in attack. You WILL perceive them sometimes, but will NOT see them as meaningless. And so they come in fearful form, with content still concealed, to shake your sorry concept of yourself, and blacken it with still another "crime." YOU cannot give yourself your innocence, for you are too confused about yourself. But should ONE brother dawn upon your sight as wholly worthy of forgiveness, then your concept of yourself IS wholly changed.
YOUR "evil" thoughts have been forgiven with his, because you let them all effect YOU not. No longer did you choose that you should be the sign of "evil" and of guilt in him. And as you gave your trust to what is "good" in him, you gave it to the "good" in you. In terms of concepts, it is thus you see him MORE than just a body, for the "good" is NEVER what the body seems to be. The actions of the body are perceived as coming from the "baser" part of you, and thus of him as well. By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."
And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see. For you will not interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. And in His sight there IS another world. You live in that world just as much as this, for BOTH are concepts of yourself, which can be interchanged, but never jointly held. The contrast is far greater than you think, for you will love this concept of yourself, BECAUSE IT WAS NOT MADE FOR YOU ALONE. Born as a gift for someone NOT perceived to be yourself, it has been given YOU. For your forgiveness, offered unto him, has been accepted now for BOTH of you.
Have faith in him who walks with you, so that your fearful concept of yourself may change. And look upon the "good" in him, that you may not be fearful of your "evil" thoughts, because they do not cloud your view of him. And all this shift requires is that you be WILLING that this happy change occur. No more than this is asked. On its behalf, remember what the concept of yourself which now you hold has brought you in its wake, and welcome the glad contrast offered you. Hold out your hand, that you may have the gift of kind forgiveness, which you offer one whose need for it is just the same as yours. And let your cruel concept of yourself be changed to one which brings the peace of God.
The concept of yourself which now you hold would GUARANTEE your function here remain forever unaccomplished and undone. And thus it dooms you to a bitter sense of deep depression and futility. Yet it need not be fixed, unless you choose to hold it past the hope of change, and keep it static and concealed within your mind. Give it instead to Him Who understands the changes that it needs to let it SERVE the function given you to bring you peace, that you may offer peace to have it yours. Alternatives are in your mind to use, and you CAN see yourself another way. Would you not rather look upon yourself as NEEDED for salvation of the world, instead of as salvation's enemy?
The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images because you look on them as through a barrier which dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity. The light is kept from everything you see. At most, you glimpse a shadow of what lies beyond. At least you merely look on darkness, and perceive the terrified imaginings that come from guilty thoughts and concepts born of fear. And what you see is hell, for fear IS hell. All that is given you is for release; the sight, the vision and the inner Guide all lead you OUT of hell, with those you love beside you, and the universe with them.
Behold your role within the universe! To every part of true creation has the Lord of Love and Life entrusted ALL salvation from the misery of hell. And to each one has He allowed the grace to be a Savior to the holy ones especially entrusted to his care. And this he learns when first he looks upon ONE brother as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him. Thus is the CONCEPT of himself laid by, for nothing stands BETWEEN his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the Face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone, as he beholds this One. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight.
The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just ONE error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him. The sword of judgment is the weapon which you give to the illusion of yourself, that it may fight to keep the space that holds your brother off unoccupied by love. Yet while you hold this sword you MUST perceive the body as YOURSELF, for you are bound to separation from the sight of him who holds the mirror to another view of what HE is, and thus what YOU must be.
What is temptation but the WISH to stay in hell and misery? And what could this give rise to BUT an image of yourself that CAN be miserable, and remain in hell and torment? Who has learned to see his brother NOT as this HAS saved himself, and thus IS he a savior to the rest. To everyone has God entrusted all, because a PARTIAL savior would be one who is but partly saved. The holy ones whom God has given each of you to save are everyone you meet or look upon, not knowing who they are; all those you saw an instant and forgot, and those you knew a long while since, and those you will yet meet, the unremembered and the not yet born. For God has given you His Son to save from every concept that he ever held.
Yet while you wish to stay in hell, how COULD you be the savior of the Son of God? How would you know his holiness, while you see him apart from yours? For holiness is seen through holy eyes that look upon the innocence within, and thus EXPECT to see it everywhere. And so they call it forth in everyone they look upon, that he may be what they expect of him. This is the Savior's vision; that he see HIS innocence in all he looks upon, and sees his own salvation everywhere. He holds NO concept of himself between his calm and open eyes and what he sees. He BRINGS the light to what he looks upon, that he may see it as it really is.
Whatever form temptation seems to take, it ALWAYS but reflects a wish to be a self that you are not. And FROM that wish a concept rises, teaching you you ARE the thing you wish to be. It will remain your concept of yourself until the wish that fathered it no longer is held dear. And while you cherish it, you will behold your brother in the likeness of the self whose image has the wish begot of YOU. For vision CAN but represent a wish, because it has NO power to create. Yet it can look with love or look with hate, depending only on the simple choice of whether you would JOIN with what you see, or keep yourself apart and separate.
The Savior's vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself. It sees no past in anyone at all. And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts and prepared to look on ONLY what the present holds. It cannot judge because it does not know. And RECOGNIZING this, it merely asks, "What is the meaning of what I behold?" Then is the Answer given, and the door held open for the Face of Christ to shine upon the one who asks in innocence to see BEYOND the veil of old ideas and ancient concepts held so long and dear AGAINST the vision of the Christ in you.
Be vigilant against temptation, then, remembering that it is but a wish, insane and meaningless, to make yourself a thing which you are not. And think as well upon the thing that you would be instead. It is a thing of madness, pain, and death; a thing of treachery and black despair, of failing dreams and no remaining hope except to die and end the dream of fear. THIS is temptation; nothing MORE than this. CAN this be difficult to choose AGAINST? Consider what temptation is, and see the real alternatives you choose between. There ARE but two. Be not deceived by what appears as many choices. There is hell or Heaven. And of these you choose but ONE.
Let not the world's light, given unto you, be hidden from the world. It NEEDS the light, for it is dark indeed, and men despair because the Savior's vision is withheld, and what they see is death. Their Savior stands, unknowing and unknown, beholding them with eyes unopened. And THEY cannot see until he looks on them with seeing eyes, and offers them forgiveness with his own. Can you to whom God says, "Release My Son" be tempted NOT to listen, when you learn that it is YOU for whom He asks release? And what BUT this is what this course would teach? And what BUT this is there for you to learn?
1. Everything other than me is responsible for sin happening. Everyone else is responsible for my condition and happiness. Everyone else is doing everything to me. The world is causing me. I am not responsible for anything (face of innocence, victimhood, death). They need to change, not me. This is "forgiveness to destroy".
2. I am the one who caused sin to happen. I did this to myself. "The Secret of salvation is that you are doing this to yourself". "It can be but myself I crucify." Owning up to what you THINK you did. At first this induces ego guilt because it still regards the sin as real. "I did it" ... "to myself". You have to pass through this stage, you can't bypass it. You do have to recognize you *believe* you did sin, before you can recognize you did not. You HAVE made all sins real, and need to move towards NOT making them real.
3. No one caused any real sin, so no one is responsible for what hasn't occurred. "Forgiveness recognizes what you think your brother did has not occurred." No-one has sinned, including me. There is no sin. What I believed I did, did not happen. It has had no consequences. I am responsible for being innocent. I am responsible for owning up to the Christ self that has not sinned. I am responsible for accepting the atonement. This is true forgiveness. Recognizing there is no sin TO forgive. All is forgiven. "I am still as God created me." "Enlightenment is but a recognition".
I find very often that if I am not constantly "rebuking" everything the world seems to portray, I will fall into temptation and buy into problems. Then I'll have reactions based on ego and form and bodies and appearances, and will suffer, wondering how to get out of it.
The fact is that we're presented with a false word, right in our faces, 24/7, every single day. The body continuously reports on it as if it's real and makes it seem real. Every single sensory input is a lie to the mind, suggesting that something untrue is true, something impossible is possible, and something that can never happen in reality is happening.
It may seem completely casual, living our everyday lives, interacting with objects, doing household tasks, looking at things and commenting on them, seeing bodies, etc... as though this is totally normal and natural. We can just "live an ego life", a body life, functioning the same way we always have. Immersed in space and time and physicality. Interacting with the world as if it's just another day, things are just ticking over as they always do, as is this is totally normal.
But as we start trying to wake up to reality, we start to find that the world is absolutely opposite to reality. And now we're tasked with trying to peel ourselves away from absolutely everything the world throws at us. Every appearance is false, every body sickness is a lie, every picture of death is unnatural, every problem isn't really there. If we don't counteract these inputs, they become overwhelming and we just sink down into them like it's what everyone does.
It seems then that we have to constantly fight against illusions. Every second. The kind of life we live without even thinking about it, as if it's normal, is riddled with deception. If we drop our guard and just go through the motions acting like everything in the world is how things are supposed to be, within seconds we'll find ourselves thinking and speaking and acting based on what the body says is real. And now we're lost all over again. And every morning we wake up immersed back into the same dungeon of deception and darkness.
It sure as heck seems that if we aren't CONSTANTLY asserting God's truth, constantly denying what is not of God, constantly stating and affirming that body states are not fact, constantly PUSHING and broadcasting God's truth and light all the time, repelling sin and hell, then we will just once again fall for the next subtle trap. The next little everyday seemingly insignificant scrap of an illusory world which is just as deceptive and distorting as all the rest.
The impression I'm getting lately then is that we have to eventually get to a state where we are "professing christ" all the time. And I mean like, being on our guard at all times. In a sense, praying a higher prayer all the time. Giving off happier more loving vibes all the time. Teaching only love, all the time. Refusing to accept anything we see in the world, all the time. And that means being really heavily centered in God's truth and laws and mindset and just constantly vigilant for staying in that mindset as much as possible, even when the world is sandblasting you in the face with visual lies.
Jesus says in the course that atonement is our natural profession. That we should PROFESS christ. Which means to express, emit, teach, radiate, give christ at all times. To counteract and fly in the face of the world. To be coming from God at all times. To be healers at all times, in the world but not of it at all times. Under no worldly laws but God's at all times.
Because, quite frankly, what I've found is that if I DON'T attempt to do that, I will just sink right back down into ego land, body sensations, false perceptions, reactions to bodies and sicknesses appearing real. At every turn, someone's sick body is attempting to testify to them having been changed and corrupted against God's will. And it is our task to NOT believe that, to assert and SEE and claim the truth of the person that they are still as God created them. Which is in complete defiance of what their body looks like, staring you in the face with its fake suffering and temptation.
The degree of temptation is just so totally off the charts. It seems that if we don't rise above it and stay above it and continually REPEL it every minute of the day, we're just going to keep falling back into it. Maybe over time we can talk ourselves into such a state of conviction that we can more effortlessly remain in the light and the truth and not have to make such an effort of it. But meanwhile it seems like a constant fight, a constantly struggle, to get out of hell and get back into a more heavenly state. Day after day after day of the world trying to pull us back down.
"The Disciples were officially and specifically told to heal others, as Physicians of the Lord. They were also told to heal themselves, and were promised that I would never leave them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of the Children of God, because they have professed Me."
"In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness."
If we are to INSTANTLY meet every perception with forgiveness, that means we have to CONSTANTLY be in a state of forgiveness every single second. We have to be on our toes. We have to be totally ready and right minded at all times. As in keeping our mind right-side up at all times and sane in order to be ready to perform miracles.
"Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so you will ALWAYS be ready, willing, and able. These are the essentials for "listen, learn, and do. You must be READY to listen WILLING to learn and ABLE to do"
To stay OUT of deception and temptation and distraction is difficult. Everything the world believes is not true. Everything physical matter shows is false. We have to pierce the veil and push past the body and connect with the divine. To have "reality contact".
"Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it. This is what is meant by the point on "perspective adjustment."
It really seems to me that in order to be a consistent miracle worker we have to be practically from another world, a temporary visitor here, come to help and heal and uplift, siding entirely with God, falling for no temptation, buying into nothing the world suggests. As if we were briefed before we came, that the world was going to try to eat us alive, and that we had to stay on our toes and not for a second believe a single bit of it. To float above the battlefield constantly lest we fall off the wagon again and again and again. To clarify just how extremely difficult it can be, Jesus even says that the most advanced teachers still succumb to temptation at times.
The world can seem insurmountable in its immensity, its diversity of illusions, its deceptions. Gradually the mind HAS to be trained away from believing any of it. Has to learn to see through and past illusory things. Has to learn NOT to believe in what the body reports. And that takes time to reinforce the mind's attitude over and over and over and over again with affirmations and restatements and reframing.
"Even the most advanced of God's teachers will give way to temptation in this world."
Every day, every hour, every minute, every second, we have to be watchful for buying into the world. Over and over again we will keep slipping back down the slippery slope to hell, and have to keep pulling ourselves back out of the muck again and again and again until we can learn to fly enough that we stay out of it for good.
The ego has two parts to it, because the ego is a belief-system based on duality. Duality is based on separation. The ego mind is a 'split mind'. The ego mind is at war with itself and is in conflict. The ego mind pits one part of itself against another part of itself, attempting to make out that the two parts are not whole. It is a device for separation and self destruction.
The ego is therefore two-faced. It supports both sides of all arguments provided they are opposed to each other. It both attempts to protect itself and to hurt itself. It is a victimizer and simultaneously a victim. It exalts itself onto a pedestal of idol worship while at the same time loathing itself with hatred.
The first face of the ego is what psychology would call 'the persona'. This is a fake self-image, made as an attack on who you really are. It's a disguise. It's a veneer of positivity, attempting to focus exclusively on what you like, accept, allow, everything you deem special or valuable, all of your special/love relationships, your favorites, your preferences, and all forms of 'positive judgement'. The persona is the ego's surface facade, like the jewel-encrusted picture frame Jesus describes in ACIM, housing a dark twisted picture of hatred.
You can also see the persona manifesting in the world, for example in the design of many commercial objects, such as a car, whose exterior is made to look attractive and desirable and pleasing, while concealing all of the ugly, dirty, noisy, dangerous, icky 'inner workings' underneath. The persona focuses on a form of 'inclusion', and thus focuses on getting, wanting, desiring, taking, approving, and keeping. But, never to completion... always requiring that certain things are special because other things are not. It is also represented by our point of 'attention' or focus, which homes in on what we want to be aware of, and shuts out everything else.
The second face of the ego is the shadow. You can think of the shadow as the usually indirect implications of what the persona has given value to. So, if the persona is saying, this person is really special to me, as stated in many love songs, then this also means that 'everyone else' is less than special, i.e. in some way 'less than' or despised. So while we special-love some people, doing this automatically means that you special-hate others. That 'hate', seeming to be indirectly and less consciously focused on, goes 'into the shadows'. It gets stored and becomes part of the ego, just as much as the persona is part of the ego. The shadow is the part of the entire ego that has been rejected by the persona part.
So the shadow, albeit seemingly outside your awareness much of the time, becomes this storage place, or a 'room', in which you shove all of the bad, rejected, hated, feared, judged, condemned, unacceptable, wrong stuff that the persona directly or indirectly judges. The shadow houses everything the persona wants to get rid of. The ego persona loves to craft an 'idealistic life' where everything seems to be going smoothly and it includes only the stuff you seem to 'want'. And to achieve that, it has to suppress and repress and deny all of the other signs and symptoms of life sucking or not being what you want. So while you steadily build up a life of pleasantries and people-pleasing and denial and repression, you're secretly accumulating a huge shadow-full of destruction.
At some point that shadow content boils up into awareness, and attacks the persona-self. It attempts to destroy the persona self. So if you're identified with the persona-self, you'll experience it as though you are being attacked. This 'body of pain' (pain body) can come out of seeming unconsciousness and overwhelm the conscious mind, taking over the thoughts and producing total chaos in the person's life. And you will wonder where it came from. And this is also, btw, why 'bad things happen to good people'. Being 'good' is the persona, which generates 'hidden bad', which comes back to bite you in the butt.
So the ego has these two parts and both of them depend on and feed into each other. The shadow's rejection of 'the good' relegates the good stuff to the 'good room' of the persona, and the persona's denial of the bad relegates the bad stuff to a 'bad room' of shadows. It is self-conflict and self-abuse. Good and bad. Right and wrong. You can't believe one without believing the other.
Our challenge then is to stop using both of these. To learn when you are in the persona, which shifts and changes based on who you are with or what's happening and is thoroughly inconsistent. And to recognize when you might've shifted into the shadow-self, suddenly angered into a road-rage or filled with negative thoughts. We need to learn when we are in either the persona or the shadow, and learn not to choose either of these deceitful attitudes. They are both based in right/wrong, good/bad duality. You need to move instead to a point of view of, what is TRUE, and what is FALSE.
The truth shall set you free. Truth means, am I being completely honest and authentic by being in my persona-self, pleasing everyone and not showing anyone how I really feel, or censoring myself? Am I being really honest and authentic when I go into a rage and accuse others and speak hurtful words or attack myself with negativity? Is it TRUE and genuine that I am 'this fake self'? Is it true and genuine that I am an unworthy, hated, fearful victim? Is it true and genuine that I am an inconsistent, unreliable, fickle two-faced liar? We need to learn how to notice when we're in EITHER of the two ego faces, which particular facade we're putting on, and to decide to say NO to both.
When we say not to the persona and the shadow, we are saying yes to God. When we say no to dualistic thinking, we say yes to the mind of God. When we say no to the self-conflict that projects outwardly as parts of the world we like and parts of the world we don't like, we come into acceptance of the totality - what is. When we say no to the separation and split in our own mind, which we see outside of ourselves, we can come to an awareness of wholeness and presence. This is the way out.
But we have to always be careful, to stop feeding and building our shadow-self, an unconscious hidden face of the ego, by trying to be so perfect and ideal in the persona. They are both false. They are both lies. Who are you really? Where is your real personality? What is your genuine self? How will accept ALL of you, and not just a part of you? Each time you choose one thing and reject another, you are choosing one part of yourself and rejecting another. We need to learn to stop doing that. To use denial in a helpful way, to deny the ego entirely - to deny the persona and the shadow the ability to run our lives. To choose to be in the Holy Spirit.
Getting rid of our shadow stuff, all the stuff which our persona self thinks is the 'stuff that is wrong with us', that we 'need to get rid of', in order to 'become more spiritual', is a trap of the persona. It would have you get rid of all of the shadow, by shoving it into the shadow more, so that it is more unconscious, so that you can pretend to only be aware of the 'good stuff'. And then your focus on the good stuff will actually create even more bad stuff, because you can't sit on one end of the see-saw without the other end being affected.
The only way out is truth, honesty, awareness, responsibility, acceptance, wholeness, and the various other properties of a WHOLE mind, i.e. the right-mind, which becomes the one mind, united with God.
The course appears to say that christ vision (true perception) isn't simply a state in which you "do not see the world". It's a state in which you see the forgiven world - the physical world - the world of bodies still, but through christ's eyes. And at the same time, that this vision is so open and inclusive that it sees ALSO beyond the physical, it sees the real world.
I used to think the course was saying we had to simply "look past bodies" ie not see them at all in order to see christ in people. But here it is saying clearly that we are to use christ vision to still look upon the physical world, while also seeing past it.
Christ vision CAN still see bodies, events, happenings, and the whole world as the forgiven world. It is forgiven because it is overlooked or "looked past", to the light beyond, which christ vision does see, but it also still sees the world below. We see the world as a thin veil which we see mostly THROUGH to a light beyond, but still see the veil - until the final instant in which the veil lifts completely.
I think this tells us that essentially your goal isn't to try "not to see" bodies. As per the quote about how it's almost impossible to deny the body, and trying to do so is an unworthy form of denial. Instead, we are trying to find a way to see that is more inclusive and open that can see the light that is beyond the bodies while ALSO translating the bodies into the forgiven world.
I see this as a vision which goes out and acts sort of like an x-ray vision, which is causing the view of this world to become somewhat "transparent" like an x-ray of a body, where you can see through and beyond it to the light shining behind the x-ray, but this also allows you to see the x-ray image properly. Christ vision is fixated on the light beyond but INDIRECTLY still can see and INCLUDE the physical things in its sight, in a forgiven way.
Only at the very very end of the road might we perhaps completely overlook bodies and physicality to such an extent where the veil LIFTS entirely, we see the face of christ ONLY, and then return to heaven. At this final moment the world is forgotten entirely and not seen. We pierce the veil and go beyond. But this NOT going to happen until the very end of the road.
Before we get there, we definitely are meant to be using christ vision to see THIS world in a forgiven way. What this means is that christ vision INCLUDES EVERYTHING in sight, while strictly false-perception body-like perceptions see EXCLUSIVELY and ONLY see the physical, believing it to be real and all there is. Spiritual sight open up awareness to detect and see the subtler light "between the lines" and "beyond the forms", which physical-only sight cannot see.
"Christ's vision ...has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world."
For a long time I think I bought into the idea of an either/or exclusive approach to this, in which as some people say - if we see the body at all we're not being forgiving. But we're not supposed to not see the body at all until the very end. We are MEANT to see the body, and MEANT to see the forgiven world, THROUGH the eyes of Christ, BEFORE the world disappears from sight. Otherwise we're skipping ahead.
This means that seeing the christ in someone DOES NOT MEAN that we do not still see the body, only that the body is translated in its meaning as a part of the reflection of heaven WHILE also being past it to a light which is growing ever brighter. Seeing with Christ is an expanded more inclusive full-spectrum vision, while seeing through "eyes of fear" ie ego exclusive narrow vision shuts out some of the signal.
This alleviates the rather awkward and seemingly insurmountable "issue" of trying NOT to see bodies at all, or to see only beyond them while excluding them. I don't think Jesus is asking us to NOT see the physical world - until the final moment of ascension. he's asking us to see something ADDITIONAL permeating it and transcending it, in which the physical becomes like a thin veil - still seen but given much less emphasis and belief.
We don't need to be rushing to try to DENY the physical world from our sight. We need to be focusing on seeing it in a different way so that we can arrive at the FORGIVEN WORLD first, which is a more inclusive and whole way of perceiving, prior to the world disappearing from sight entirely.
Trying to "not see the body at all" is an unworthy and unnecessary form of denial, spiritually bypassing the required step of seeing the world forgiven "in another light" first. To just try to "not see bodies" isn't very effective. We need to learn that bodies aren't all there is to see, first, and the strengthen our seeing of the light beyond, AS bodies begin to fade out.
All the bodies ... that the body's eyes see .... are translated into a forgiven world ..... by christ vision ..... seeing the body in a different way.
"Christ's vision ... has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world."
And yet christ vision also overlooks and sees beyond the body, to a light beyond it, at the same time.
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created (yet it just got done saying christ's vision sees bodies differently). It beholds a light beyond the body (as well); an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation (does not dwell on making out that each separate object is truly separated). And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events (all physical bodily things!), without the slightest fading of the light it sees (beyond those things)."
"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."
"Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."
"Today I let Christ's vision look upon all things for me and judge them not, but give each one a miracle of love instead."
"Christ's vision looks on everything with love (including this world). Yet even Christ's vision is not His reality. The golden ASPECTS of reality, which spring to light under His loving gaze, are partial glimpses of the Heaven that lies beyond them."
"For light must come into the darkened world, to make Christ's vision possible even here. (even in the physical)"
"Christ's vision is a miracle. It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never dies, but has been kept obscure. Christ's vision pictures Heaven, for it sees a world so like to Heaven (the physical world forgiven) that what God created perfect can be mirrored there."
"Christ's vision is the bridge between the worlds (false and true perceptions), and in its power can you safely trust to carry you from this world (physical seen exclusively) into one made holy by forgiveness (forgiven world)."
"For forgiveness is the only means whereby Christ's vision comes to me."
"Christ's vision looks through me today. His sight shows me all things forgiven and at peace, and offers this same vision to the world."
"Ours are the eyes through which Christ's vision sees a world redeemed from every thought of sin (the forgiven world)."
"RIGHT-MINDEDNESS listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world, and through Christ's vision sees the real world in its place."
"Christ's vision does not use your eyes, but you can look through His and learn to see like Him."
"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it (still sees it) as nothing more than just a fragile veil (transparent), so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant (at the end). It is seen at last for only what it is (a veil of illusions). And now it cannot fail to disappear (AT the end when the physical is faded OUT and christ is faded IN), 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 (the veil lifts, you see ONLY christ, the physical world disappears), with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."
The meaning of the Son of God lies solely in his relationship with his Creator. If it were elsewhere, it WOULD rest upon contingency. But there IS nothing else. And this is wholly loving and forever. Yet has the Son of God invented an unholy relationship between him and his Father. His REAL relationship is one of perfect union, and unbroken continuity. The one he made is partial, self-centered, broken into fragments and full of fear. The one created by his Father is wholly self-encompassing and self-EXTENDING. The one he made is wholly self-DESTRUCTIVE and self-LIMITING.
Nothing can show the contrast better than the experience of both a holy and an unholy relationship. The first is based on love, and rests on it serene and undisturbed. THE BODY DOES NOT INTRUDE UPON IT. Any relationship in which the body enters is based, NOT on love, but on idolatry. Love wishes to be known, COMPLETELY understood, and shared. IT HAS NO SECRETS; nothing that it would keep apart and hide. It walks in sunlight, open-eyed and calm, in smiling welcome, and in sincerity so simple and so obvious it cannot BE misunderstood.
But idols do not share. Idols ACCEPT, but never make return. They can BE loved, but cannot love. They do not understand what they are offered, and any relationship in which they enter, has LOST its meaning. The love of THEM has MADE love meaningless. They live in secrecy, hating the sunlight, and happy in the body's darkness, where they can hide, and keep their secrets hidden, along with them. And they have NO relationships, for no-one else is welcome there. They smile on no-one, and those who smile on them they do not see.
Love has no darkened temples, where mysteries are kept obscure and hidden from the sun. IT DOES NOT SEEK FOR POWER, but for RELATIONSHIPS. The body is the ego's chosen weapon for seeking power THROUGH relationships. And its relationships MUST be unholy, for what they ARE, it does not even SEE. It wants them solely for the offerings on which its idols thrive. The rest it merely throws away, for all that IT could offer, is seen as valueless. Homeless, the ego seeks as many bodies as it can collect, to place its idols in, and so establish them as temples to itself.
The Holy Spirit's temple is NOT a body, but a RELATIONSHIP. The body is an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spot of senseless mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet hiding nothing. Here, the unholy relationship escapes reality, and seeks for crumbs to keep itself alive. Here it would drag its brothers, holding them here in its idolatry. Here it is "safe," for here love CANNOT enter. The Holy Spirit does not build His temples where love can never be. Would He Who SEES the face of Christ choose as His home the only place in all the universe where it can NOT be seen?
You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit's temple, and it will NEVER be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love's CONDEMNATION. For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept APART from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return. Here is the "mystery" of separation perceived in awe and held in reverence. What God would have NOT be, is here kept "safe" from Him. But what you do NOT realize is what you fear within your brother, and would not SEE in HIM, is what makes God seem fearful and kept unknown.
Idolaters will ALWAYS be afraid of love. For nothing so severely threatens them as love's approach. Let love draw near them and OVERLOOK the body, as it will surely do, and they retreat in fear, feeling the seeming firm foundation of their temple begin to shake and loosen. Brothers, you tremble with them. But what you fear is but the herald of escape. This place of darkness is NOT your home. Your temple is NOT threatened. You are idolaters no longer. The Holy Spirit's purpose lies safe in your RELATIONSHIP, and NOT your bodies. You have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the BODY cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set HIS temple there.
There is no order in relationships. They either ARE, or not. An unholy relationship is NO relationship. It is a state of isolation, which SEEMS to be what it is NOT. No more than that. The instant that the mad idea of making your relationship with God unholy seemed to be possible, ALL relationships were made meaningless. In that unholy instant time was born, and bodies made to house the mad idea, and give it the ILLUSION of reality. And so it SEEMED to have a home, that held together for a little while in time, and vanished. For what could house this mad idea AGAINST reality, but for an instant?
Idols MUST disappear, and leave no trace behind their going. The unholy instant of their seeming power is frail as is a snowflake, but without its loveliness. Is this the substitute you WANT, for the eternal blessing of the holy instant, and its unlimited beneficence? Is the malevolence of the unholy relationship, so seeming powerful and so bitterly misunderstood, and so invested in FALSE attraction, your preference to the holy instant, which offers peace and understanding? Then lay aside the body and quietly TRANSCEND it, rising to welcome what you REALLY want. And from His holy temple look you not back on what you have awakened FROM. For no illusions CAN attract the minds that have TRANSCENDED them, and left them far behind.
The holy relationship reflects the TRUE relationship the Son of God has with his Father in reality. The Holy Spirit rests within it, in the certainty it will endure forever. Its firm foundation is eternally upheld by truth, and love shines on it with the gentle smile and tender blessing it offers to its own. Here the unholy instant is exchanged in gladness for the holy one of safe return. Here is the way to true relationships held gently open, through which you walk together, leaving the body thankfully behind, and resting in the Everlasting Arms. Love's arms are open to receive you, and give you peace forever.
The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. And this unholy instant SEEMS to be life. An instant of despair, a tiny island of dry sand, bereft of water, and set uncertainly upon oblivion. Here does the Son of God stop briefly by, to offer his devotion to death's idols, and then pass on.
And here he is more dead than living. But it is also here he makes his choice again, between idolatry and love. Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute to the body, or LET himself be given freedom from it. Here he can ACCEPT the holy instant, offered him to REPLACE the unholy one he chose before. And here can he learn relationships are his SALVATION, NOT his doom. You who ARE learning this may still be fearful, but you are NOT immobilized. The holy instant IS of greater value now to you than its unholy seeming counterpart, and you HAVE learned you REALLY want but one.
This is no time for sadness. Perhaps confusion, but hardly discouragement. YOU HAVE A REAL RELATIONSHIP. And it HAS meaning. It is as like your real relationship with God, as equal things are like themselves. Idolatry is past and meaningless. Perhaps you fear each other a little yet; perhaps a shadow of the fear of God remains with you. But what is that to those who have been given one TRUE relationship, BEYOND the body? Can they be long held back from looking on the face of Christ? And can they long withhold the memory of their relationship with their Father FROM themselves, and keep remembrance of His Love APART from their awareness?
All sense of loss arises from believing that a changing world is real. If it is real, and if something goes away, a part of reality has been lost. If it is real, there has been a real separation. And if that's true, you absolutely must be in a state of deprivation. Time itself induces loss every second, and time is death.
"The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end."
Something that you thought was real and valuable has been taken away. A part of reality or God itself has been destroyed and kept apart. The mind reasons that, because it's real and because it's not there, there is an absence, and a part of yourself has been ripped away.
The feelings of grief then rise up to correspond to that belief that something real is lost. The mind invents them to make sense of the situation. Then people in the world who believe in bodies will tell you that it's completely normal and natural to grieve. It does make perfect logical sense, given the premise that this world is real and loss has happened, but it is not natural at all.
In God's immortal reality nothing real can ever be lost, suffer attack, be ripped away or destroyed, forgotten about or separated from. No-one can suffer or be sick or die. Everyone is a part of everyone forever, by God's will. Impermanence of any kind is impossible, and nothing real can be threatened.
"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die. I am not a body. I would recognize my reality today."
What it then boils down to is, that if you to any degree believe this world or bodies is reality, you will be constantly in varying degrees of loss. If anything at all so much as moves an inch, it implies a separation. If something bigger and more important seems to go away, you will miss it. If a body person dies off and stops being around, you'll notice it intensely. And then there will be the logical conclusion of a loss of something real - a real loss and a real grief.
The problem we have is that we're still working on waking up to God's truth and we still believe in bodies. We still confuse people for their physical bodies and still regard this world as reality. And that sets us up for the consequences of our wrong decision. It means that we're primed to experience losses before they even happen. We've set ourselves up for a fall, by choosing to believe that something temporary can be depended upon forever.
It's our attachment to bodies, our valuing of bodies, and our confusion of bodies with souls/minds, that lays the foundation for devastation and despair and grief. If and when they do go away, which everything in the world of form does eventually, its cruelty will induce all manner of egoic reactions.
"They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."
An important dynamic that I've experienced is the belief that the person dying is causing you to be upset. If they have gone way, they have attacked you and caused you to grieve. How dare they die. And how dare they stop being there. This will produce anger and resentment. And of course this means you will scapegoat the dead person and project guilt onto them to blame them for causing a loss, which will have nothing to do with them at all and everything to do with you trying to get rid of your own guilt.
Then even further, underneath the anger will be a sense of hurt, as though you have been hurt by the death. And of course that boils down to a belief that the death of anything can infect you and cause you to die along with it. And so now the person who has left the body has returned to life in heaven, and you are left behind in a state of death and suffering, and you are the one who is dead.
"The black-draped "sinners," the ego's mournful chorus, plodding so heavily AWAY from life, dragging their chains and marching in the slow procession that honors their grim master, lord of death."
Death isn't real and doesn't really exist. It doesn't do anything to anything real and nothing real can ever die. But if you believe in a world that dies all the time, you can be sure you'll be upset before long. This is why the world is a constant disappointment, because you expect it to last forever. You'll be torn between efforts to wake up and acknowledge God's truth, and the continued belief that death is real which constantly pulls you back into hell like an anchor.
To try to forgive death really means forgiving the entire world of space and time and everything in it. To focus on the reality that a person has not really died, still lives on, and is still a part of me in communication and sharing is of course helpful. But at the same time, the other part of me which is ego aligned and trusts death, is continually pulled into the consequences of that belief. And that means the constant nagging reminder of "yes she really is dead isn't she!"
Feelings of grief, loss, absence, deprivation, anger, etc arise. The seeming "fact" that a person has died slaps you in the face, telling you that you have "suffered" a serious loss. As if the serious loss has happened to you against your will. You might be in grief and feeling like a victim, but at the same time it's true that nothing has really happened. And how can you have been caused to grieve against you will?
But this focus on truth can cause a hurdle to the grieving, because while you try to align yourself with God's truth of immortality, the rest of you is pulled horribly into a dark place of sadness and hopelessness and loss. You can't properly deal with the loss, in a typically dysfunctional way at best, because trying to be holy and perfect all the time makes it seem like a guilty sin to give it any time and attention. And yet it calls to you constantly to deal with it.
At some point then, if you're going to persist in believing in the world, you have left yourself with little choice but to go through a grieving process. If you are not yet ready to completely eradicate all belief in death and thus spacetime ("without the idea of death there is no world"), you're probably going to have to settle at least in part for second-best, failure, impossible struggle, and forced grief that seems pointless. If the world is real and the body is real and the body is lost, your ego is going to suffer about it.
So then at some point you have to turn to the grief and just go through it and feel the horrible shit, acknowledge it and be terribly upset. And this is the part that people call natural, but it is far from it. It's like being stuck in a state that you're not supposed to be in and having to deal with it in a totally conflicted way. And even when you egoically have a total spaz about it, which seems to make it go away for a while, it still doesn't solve it completely.
You can't possibly find peace and acceptance about the situation if the situation is real. There is no atonement there, so there is no cure. Grief will keep regurgitating and producing more upset emotions. There is no freedom while the world is still a reality. So then you're in a situation where you can't find peace and are forced face-to-face with a horrible loss, and all you can do is cry and feel unhappy and be a victim.
People will tell you that you then must allow yourself to grieve - embrace the victimhood, as though this is healthy, and perhaps it is at least better than bottling it up or going into less healthy forms of handling it. You are just going to have to feel it, grieve, and go through the loss. And that does indeed totally suck because it's not really a sane solution. And that means turning away from the constant barrage of God-truths and forgiveness statements and just letting yourself feel the horror for a while. Sometimes you just have to do something even if it's bullshit.
So then you cry, and you cry again, and you do some more and you have a huge catharsis. And somehow this is what the world calls healing. And supposedly you adjust and adapt, as though that's some kind of transformation or coming to terms with it, but that really isn't an awakening either.
It's more like a putting up with and a tolerating and a gradually undoing of the special relationship dynamics, attachments and so on. It's more like learning to let the person be ripped away and trying to just tolerate the pain of that until it stops hurting so much. And until the separation is truly undone it will keep coming back and haunting you for years to come.
It then seems like you pretty much have to grieve and be miserable and mourn and all that, which is a total course failure given that it means you're now part of the "black draped mourners" who are in the funeral procession and not doing God's will, per ACIM's teaching. But since you are where you are with this whole thing, and are not ready to totally surrender into atonement, you just have to go through the bumpy road rollercoaster of despair until it eases up somehow. Hopefully you can use all this as an opportunity to forgive and let go of the belief in death and the world.
"One thing is sure; God, Who created neither sin nor death, wills not that you be bound by them. He knows of neither sin NOR its result. The shrouded figures in the funeral procession march not in honor of their Creator, Whose Will it is they LIVE. They are not FOLLOWING it; they are OPPOSING it. And what is the black-draped body they would bury? A body THEY dedicated to death, a symbol of corruption, a sacrifice to sin, OFFERED to sin to feed upon, and keep ITSELF alive. A thing condemned, damned by its maker, and lamented by every mourner who looks upon it as himself."
I'd like to say I personally am beyond all this but I'm definitely not. Last week was horrendous, entering into states of victimhood and terrible strong emotions and crying and being bedridden for several days trying to avoid vertigo and sinus stress. The body wasn't too happy about the grieving process either - feel the feelings and it becomes stressed out - don't feel the feelings and it develops physical symptoms instead. It's a lose-lose situation until you somehow just get through it. And it keeps coming.
Moral of the story is, if you're not enlightened it's going to suck. And that's your fault because you chose it, and you're not ready to stop choosing it, so get ready to suck. And then hopefully after some severe sucking you can free yourself from death's nipple and actually find some sense of happiness again.
You'll have to just deal with an impossible situation as best you can until it sucks less. And meanwhile do your forgiveness shit and hopefully someday you'll find true salvation about it all. You can't avoid the inevitable production of grief feelings if you believe there has really been a loss, and until you can face the fact that you do believe there's been a loss and feel through it, you'll just be in denial.
At least something we have to look forward to is the day when we remember to laugh at all this and realize that none of it was ever true anyway.
Nothing can hurt you, unless you give it the power to do so. For YOU give power as the laws of this world INTERPRET giving; as you give, you LOSE. It is not up to you to give power at all. Power is of God, GIVEN by Him, and RE-AWAKENED by the Holy Spirit, Who knows that, as you give you GAIN. He gives NO power to sin, and therefore it HAS none. Nor to its results, as this world sees them; sickness and death and misery and pain. These things have not occurred, because the Holy Spirit sees them not, and gives no power to their seeming source. Thus would He keep you free of them.
Being without illusion of what you are, the Holy Spirit merely gives EVERYTHING to God, Who has already given AND RECEIVED all that is true. The UNtrue He has neither received NOR given. Sin has no place in Heaven, where its results are alien, and can no more enter than can their source. And therein lies your need to see your brother sinless. In him is Heaven. See sin in him INSTEAD, and Heaven is lost to YOU. But see him as he IS, and what is yours shines from him to you.
Your Savior gives you ONLY love. But what you would RECEIVE of him, is up to you. It lies in him to overlook ALL your mistakes, and therein lies his OWN salvation. And so it is with YOURS. Salvation is a lesson in giving, as the Holy Spirit interprets it. It is the re-awakening of the laws of God in minds that have established OTHER laws, and given them power to enforce what God created not. Your insane laws were made to GUARANTEE that you would make mistakes, and give them power over you by ACCEPTING their results as your just due.
What COULD this be but madness? And is it THIS that you would see within your Savior FROM insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in the freedom that you see in HIM, you see your own. For this you SHARE. What God has given follows HIS laws, and His alone. Nor is it possible for those who follow them to suffer the results of any other source. Those who choose freedom will experience only ITS results. Their power is of God. And they will give it only to what GOD has given, to SHARE with them.
Nothing but this can touch them, for they see ONLY this, sharing their power according to the Will of God. And thus their freedom is established AND MAINTAINED. It is upheld through ALL temptations to imprison and to BE imprisoned. It is THEM, who learned of freedom, that you should ask what freedom IS. Ask not the sparrow how the eagle soars, for those with little wings have not accepted for THEMSELVES the power to share with you. The sinless give as they received. See, then, the power of sinlessness within your brother, and share with him the power of the RELEASE from sin you offered HIM.
To each who walks this earth in seeming solitude is a Savior given, whose special function here is to release him, and so to free himself. In the world of separation, each is appointed separately, though they are all the same. But those who KNOW that they are all the same, need not salvation. And each one FINDS his Savior, when he is ready to look upon the face of Christ, and see Him sinless. The plan is not of you, nor need you be concerned with anything except the part that has been given YOU to learn. For He Who knows the rest will see to it WITHOUT your help. But think not that He does not need your part, to help Him with the rest. For in your part lies ALL of it, without which is no part complete, nor is the whole completed WITHOUT your part. The ark of peace is entered two by two, yet the beginning of another world goes with them. Each holy relationship must enter here, to learn its special function in the Holy Spirit's plan, now that it SHARES His purpose. And, as this purpose is fulfilled, a new world rises, in which sin can enter not, and where the Son of God can enter WITHOUT fear. And where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment, and to remember freedom.
How can he enter, to rest and to remember, without YOU? Except you be there, he is NOT complete, and it is his COMPLETION that he remembers there. This is the purpose GIVEN you. Think not that your forgiveness of each other serves but you two alone. For the whole new world rests in the hands of every two who enter here, to rest. And as they rest, the face of Christ shines on them, and they remember the laws of God, forgetting all the rest, and yearning only to have His laws perfectly fulfilled in them and all their brothers.
Think you, when this has been achieved, that you will rest WITHOUT them? You could no more leave one of them outside than I could leave you, and forget part of myself. You may wonder how you can BE at peace when, while you are in time, there is so much that must be done BEFORE the way to peace is open. Perhaps this seems impossible to YOU. But ask yourself if it is possible that GOD would have a plan for your salvation that does NOT work. Once you accept HIS plan as the ONE function that you would fulfill, there WILL be nothing else the Holy Spirit will not ARRANGE for you, WITHOUT your effort.
He will go before you, making straight your path, and leaving in your way no stones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. NOTHING you need will be denied you. Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away BEFORE you reach it. You need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except the only purpose that you would fulfill. As THAT was given you, so will its fulfillment be. God's guarantee will hold against ALL obstacles, for it rests on certainty, and NOT contingency. IT RESTS ON YOU. And what can be more certain than the Son of God?
If a person is a body, and the body dies, there is no denying the fact that the body is gone. If it is buried or cremated, it's gone. it's not coming back.
It does not matter how much forgiveness you do, how you look at it, how you frame it, how you justify it or anything. The physical fact still remains that the body is gone.
The body is absent. The body will stay absent. It is not coming back. Where is the body? It's dead forever.
So regardless then of what your state of mind or perception is, the body is NOT THERE. And this is now the PROOF that death HAS happened. This is what the Course calls "the proof of sin." ie, the physical presence or absence of something PROVES that sin occurred.
If I spill milk on the floor, the fact that there IS milk on the floor testifies that milk was spilled on the floor. This is undeniable. It doesn't matter whether you laugh or cry at it. If the milk IS STILL THERE, it proves there was a "sin" of spilling it. The sin is STILL proven so long as the PROOF remains. In course terms, if there is an "effect", THERE MUST STILL BE AN ONGOING CAUSE. And you cannot have effects without causes.
Similarly if the body is attacked and loses a limb, and now has an arm missing, the very physical fact that the arm is missing PROVES that the arm WAS LOST. This is undeniable. It doesn't matter how you forgive it or whether you love it or hate it. If the arm is not there, it PROVES there was a sin.
The presence of "the evidence" shows that something has happened. And so long as the evidence remains, the sin remains. This also leads to the conclusion that when ANYTHING happens in this world, it is a sin, and it is IRREVERSIBLE. Which is why ANYTHING that happens becomes locked in as the PROOF that sin occurred. The evidence is there permanently. And the idea that it CANNOT BE UNDONE is precisely what sin means.
"But sin, were it possible, WOULD be irreversible."
If the body is dead and gone, the fact that it is NOT HERE, acts as proof. It is utterly undeniable. And the world would say there is nothing you can do to change it. Death is locked in. Once it all goes to shit there is no turning back.
So it can't be that you just have to find a way to look at shit in the physical world differently in order to be happy. No amount of looking at it differently is going to bring the body back. Not unless you're going to go gather up all the little pieces and stick them back together at a molecular level. Or - the only exception to this - is if you perform a miracle of resurrection that UNDOES THE PROOF.
However, if the physical proof of sin is TRUE AND REAL, there is NO ESCAPE from the fact of it. It cannot be denied if it is reality. If it is the truth, there is no escape. and no hope and no peace.
It is impossible therefore for anyone to ever be at peace with someone dying if the person was their body. And now the body is gone and it's not coming back, and that slaps you in the face over and over again.
You will never be at peace if this is the truth because the absence of the body will always be there, and the loss of a "real thing" cannot be denied. If the person HAS DIED, you will FOREVER SUFFER LOSS. That means there is permanent suffering and loss with no escape. And on top of that, if the world is real, you'd be INSANE to ever even contemplate "getting over it", because for as long as you live the fact of the death is still undeniably real.
If this physical world is reality or God's creation, and if it is accorded truth, and if the truth is that a person is a body, and the body is dead, the person is dead, and there HAS to be loss because in all honesty there HAS been a loss. There is PROOF of it.
No amount of smiling at it will change the fact. Which means if this world in its physical configurations is ultimate reality, there is absolutely no hope and no escape from hell. You can look at it askew, think about it in various ways, but you cannot deny that IT HAS HAPPENED. And the physical fact of it will haunt you forever.
ONLY IF this world is unreal and untrue, and ONLY IF the evidence - as slapping you in the face as it is - is still NOT true, ONLY then is there any hope of peace. There is no escape from a world whose evidence and proof testifies constantly to supposed "facts."
ONLY IF Earth is NOT REAL, do you ever psychologically have any hope of freedom or peace of mind. Because that now means that if you can not simply have a direct experience of this world's facts and instead are seeking to experience "a different reality", you would be considered as though going into denial or escapism. Avoiding the facts. And that means forgiveness is now an act of denial and AVOIDANCE of reality.
Only if Earth is not reality is there any hope of peace ever. Because the PHYSICAL facts of what happens proves over and over again that there has been loss and death. People have been obliterated from existence. Only if this is NOT REAL, can there be any hope of happiness about this situation.
Therefore the world must be questioned and its reality brought under scrutiny. Its proof, even its physical testimony, even the presence or absence of the flesh and bones matter, has to be questioned. Even if it's glaring you in the face, it has to not mean that it is God's given truth. Even the proof of sin has to NOT MEAN that there has been a death.
But obviously if the physical testimony is that the body is destroyed and is no longer here, that still is PROOF that death has happened ... UNLESS none of it is real. Even the physical absence of the body says "death has happened." The only way for it to NOT be true, is if this ENTIRE WORLD is not true.
If peace even exists at all, there has to be another world that is more real than this one, and in comparison this world must be completely unreal. That is the ONLY WAY that anyone can ever find peace and escape from the proof of sin. The physical testimony of stuff having "happened", has to be written off as NOT TRUE.
A dead body on the ground, must be regarded as NOT TRUE. It must NOT prove that death has occurred. A sick body with malfunctioning parts has to be regarded as NOT TRUE. Otherwise if there is any truth to any of this, you SHOULD be terribly upset forever.
If mind believes a person is a physical body and the body is then gone, mind HAS to believe there has been a loss of something real. And it MUST feel a loss and grieve it. It has no choice. Its own belief in the reality of the thing makes it suffer. ONLY IF the death has NO reality at all, can the mind be happy.
So it doesn't even matter that you're forgiving the world or the sights you see or trying to see the world in a happier way. If there is still physical proof of death staring you in the face, and you accost it REALITY, you are in DENIAL to pretend that you're okay with it. You cannot be okay with it.
You cannot be okay with hell being real. You cannot be okay with death having really occurred. You cannot be okay with real loss. The ONLY hope you have is that this entire world of such things, the world of sin, is utterly unreal and just a dream. Just a nightmare, an illusion of a world. A spacetime that doesn't even exist, in which even the physical objects pretending to be proof are TOTALLY FAKE. An illusion of a world, an illusion of evidence.
Only in recognising its utter unreality can you find peace and freedom from it. Which is why planet Earth CANNOT BE reality if there is a God at all. And unless it is utterly false there is no grounds for peace anywhere. Earth is a world of constantly PROVEN DEATH, with physical undeniable facts that what once was "alive" is now dead. And what seemed healthy is now a rotten corpse.
And you can't deny that it does this all the time. So either it's real and you are locked into hell, or there must be a heaven that is NOT this world and is opposite in nature. A heaven where death is IMPOSSIBLE. Where everything is immortal, attack cannot happen, problems don't exist, suffering is impossible, and there is never even a possibility of a PROOF that sin or death has occurred.
Only by recognising that this world is FALSE and UNREAL can you allow an idea of peace to enter. And then you can be at peace IN SPITE OF the proof of sin, in denial of the death, and ignoring the visual-lies of matter. Only by admitting that the world of bodies is NOT TRUE, can the proof of sin become void and irrelevant, allowing heaven's peace to descend upon it.
The ONLY way you can be at peace is to recognize heaven's reality and this world's total unreality. You can only find peace here, be being not from here. You can only see this world with peace, by knowing it is not of God. That in truth, there is no death, and all the physical lies which say otherwise cannot be believed.
"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 is a body is sin possible."
"The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."
"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life."
"Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped. It is not the world which makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see that is impossible. Yet has God's Judgment on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace. And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace now belongs here, because a Thought of God has entered. What else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what It is? The earth bows down before Its gracious Presence, and It leans down in answer to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It is no longer, "Can peace be possible in this world?" but instead, "Is it not impossible that peace be absent here?"
"The world will end in joy because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven is the function of God's teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected."
Maybe it's your hair, the shape of your face, or some other body part. Maybe it's how you speak. Maybe it's the way you walk or where you came from.
In one way or another, you probably walk around with layer upon layer of not being what someone somewhere thinks you should be.
You might think you are dysfunctional, or broken, or defective, or incapable, or somehow just fundamentally flawed. People might treat you like you're disabled, less than them, or inferior.
The problem isn't so much that other people are constantly bombarding you with these judgements, but that you've accepted them for yourself as though they are true of you. You believe in them and make them your identity, even if it hurts.
But this also means you have the choice, whether to let go of this false sense of worth and identity, or whether to hold on a while longer.
What if these views that you have of yourself are not really true about you? What if there's really nothing wrong with you at all? What if everyone has been mistaken about you, but even moreso, you've been mistaken about yourself?
What if you're still just as worthy and valuable to God as you always have been, and you just forgot for a while, thinking you were no longer acceptable?
Love loves you unconditionally forever and ever and ever. You are worthy of God's love, right now. You don't have to earn it. It's being offered unconditionally and freely without any strings attached.
Let yourself be loved.
As an extension of that, it pertains to "events" which physical objects bring about, or "problems" that they represent.
It is seemingly a bigger illusion to stop a flood from happening, than to stop the tap from running.
It is seemingly a bigger problem when a volcano erupts than when someone's saucepan boils over.
Form ITSELF, the physical shape and properties of matter, is that way in which ILLUSIONS ARE IMPLEMENTED.
They are not objects. They are illusions. And they are in a mind. And they are blocks to awareness.
Even though these objects are "outside of you" that does NOT mean they are not inside a mind, and it does not mean they aren't part of PERCEPTION, and it does not mean you don't need to or cannot correct them.
It should be no more difficult to stop a volcano from erupting than to stop a saucepan from boiling over. The ILLUSION that one is harder or bigger than the other is just that, NOT REAL, and should NOT pose any kind of more difficult challenge to a miracle worker.
But while the illusions presented by their FORM are taken at face value and believed, and not seen through, the volcano will seem totally impossible to stop, because of YOUR misperception that it is a really big serious problem.
Such massive miracles are no harder than small easy ones, provided the mind IS miraculous because it recognizes an illusion when it sees one. That volcano is literally nothing, so why should changing it be hard?
God and his Kingdom are a perfect hologram, in which the whole is in every part, and every part is the whole.
But then there was a separation. The separation was an event where we tried to deny the wholeness but keep the parts.
If another name for the wholeness is "non-duality" (or oneness), and another name for the parts is "duality", we tried to keep the duality and reject the non-duality. To "separate off" our selves from God, retaining only our separate selves without sharing anything.
This resulted in what we call seemingly spacetime - the dream of separation - which depicts "exclusive duality" as though it's ONLY duality with no oneness.
In spacetime we have perception. Perception can go to extremes of denial and acceptance of God. In false perception it rejects the oneness entirely, while in true perception it accepts it.
True perception shows you "the real world", which is another way of saying "the world as it is without the distortions of your insanity projected onto it".
This "real world"... has a quality of WHOLENESS. This wholeness is sort of like a dream version of oneness. It is also called the face of Christ. It's like the wholeness aspect of God's divine hologram but in dream form - as a "picture".
So as you reach the real-world level of perception, you're entering into a sort of holographic experience of spacetime. That is, you are accessing a sense of oneness and wholeness and unlimitedness, in which you expand to the size of the universe and seem to contain all of it within you.
In this view, you see that the whole is in every part. Every object's separateness no longer "means" or "tells you" that separation is true. Instead, you see the WHOLE reflected in every part. As though, all of the PICTURE of wholeness is present in every individual object.
This isn't merely the same as waking up and being more alert and seeing the same separate objects head-on with some kind of enhanced alertness. It's a mindset in which you have this greatly expanded wholeness, a sort of reflection of oneness, which is seen to TRANSCEND all boundaries and separations.
This transcendental experience shows you that the REFLECTION of God is in every part and speck of matter ("God is in everything I see"). All of God is pictured "in" every grain of sand. Not simply that God has squeezed himself into one grain, but that he is simultaneously in each and every individual grain, and not in any kind of compromising way either. ALL of him is in EVERY part.
Note however the main difference between the holographic experience of spacetime and heaven, is that heaven is an ACTUAL perfect hologram, whereas spacetime is an IMAGE OF a perfect hologram - a PICTURE. This is why it's also called the FACE of Christ and not Christ itself.
So in our waking up here in/from this world, we should expect to find that the seeming separate differences of objects matter less and mean less. Their forms don't tell us of a hierarchy. All differences become equal and irrelevant. We overlook them, which is forgiveness. And instead of focusing on letting the forms BLIND us to a oneness, we instead see a transcendental oneness pervading the forms and showing that the forms are a way of OBSCURING the hologram.
I have had an experience of God some years ago in which I came to this experience and saw very clearly this exact dynamic, in which the WHOLE was seen in every object, and each part contained ALL of God. And this revealed to me the way that when you focus on the separate objects and forms they OBSCURE the fact that God is all-in-all, and instead present a "broken picture" in which there is NO WHOLE IN ANY PART. And that's the difference between true perception and false perception.
I found a couple of segments in ACIM that speak to this sort of "holographic experience" of the world. Note here when it talks of a "picture" it is saying an image, not the ACTUAL thing but a PICTURE OF it - once removed from it.
"The Holy Spirit's Function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God, and put the pieces into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture IN ITSELF. To each he offers his identity, which the WHOLE picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit, which he insisted was himself. And when he sees THIS picture, he will RECOGNIZE himself. If you share not your brother's evil dreams, this IS the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. And here the Father will receive His Son, because His Son was gracious to himself." URT28E7
"I thank you, Father, knowing you will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your Holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they ARE joined, because what is in one IS in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God's Son. The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the Whole is in each one. And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part. Join not your brother's dream, but join with HIM, and where you join His Son, the Father IS." UrT28E8
There is no need for help to enter Heaven for you never left. But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs about your Identity, Which God alone established in reality. Helpers are given you in many forms, although upon the altar They are one. Beyond each one there is a Thought of God, and this will never change. But they have names which differ for a time, for time needs symbols, being itself unreal. Their names are legion, but we will not go beyond the names the course itself employs. God does not help because He knows no need. But He creates all Helpers of His Son while he believes his fantasies are true. Thank God for them for they will lead you home.
The Name of Jesus is the Name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. So he became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God. The man was an illusion, for he seemed to be a separate being, walking by himself, within a body that appeared to hold his self from Self, as all illusions do. Yet who can save unless he sees illusions and then identifies them as what they are? Jesus remains a Savior because he saw the false without accepting it as true. And Christ needed his form that He might appear to men and save them from their own illusions.
In his complete identification with the Christ--the perfect Son of God, His one creation and His happiness, forever like Himself and One with Him - Jesus became what all of us must be. He led the way for us to follow him. He leads us back to God because he saw the road before him, and he followed it. He made a clean distinction, still obscure to us, between the false and true. He offered us all a final demonstration that it is impossible to kill God's Son; nor can his life in any way be changed by sin and evil, malice, fear or death.
And therefore all your sins have been forgiven because they carried no effects at all. And so they were but dreams. Arise with him who showed you this because you owe him this who shared your dreams that they might be dispelled. And shares them still, to be at one with you.
Is he the Christ? Oh yes, along with you. His little life on earth was not enough to teach the mighty lesson that he learned for all of us. He will remain with you to lead you from the hell you made to God. And when you join your will with his, your sight will be his vision, for the eyes of Christ are shared. Walking with him is just as natural as walking with a brother whom you knew since you were born, for such indeed he is. Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a brother he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God.
Is he God's only Helper? No, indeed. For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognized. But Jesus is for you the bearer of Christ's single message of the Love of God. You need no other. It is possible to read his words and benefit from them without accepting him into your life. Yet he would help you yet a little more if you will share your pains and joys with him, and leave them both to find the peace of God. Yet still it is his lesson most of all that he would have you learn, and it is this:
"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love. Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to share the resurrection of God's Son. And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you."
In Lesson 128 Jesus clearly outlines that this world has nothing that you 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."
"Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world, and it will serve no other end but this."
He is clearly saying in this passage and many others that the physical world we made, is nothing, is worth nothing, has no value, and no meaning. It can do nothing for you, it can add nothing to God's creation, and you do not want it.
UrT8F2 "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."
When you really closely look at the nature and functioning of this world, which is devouring and destroying, the picture can become very bleak and pointless. After all, if everything eventually dies in the end, this invalidates the point of doing anything at all.
Why bother when everything you build will crumble and be destroyed, when everything is futile and nothing lasts? Indeed it is a world of utter hopelessness and empty promises and lost causes. We are asked to look at this and accept that this is its nature so that we can save ourselves a great deal is misery expecting it to turn out differently, because the world has disappointed us even since time began. We need to recognize it is NOT what God wills for us and it is NOT what we want.
However, Jesus goes onto say in the next lesson that we cannot stop there, because if we make the world seem like it's all that exists and we point out its utter bleakness and the shit-show that it is, we will become depressed. If we really are willing to recognize there is NO hope in the world at all, and it has NOTHING to offer, we need something else of greater merit and real hope to choose instead. ie there MUST be a better way, and reality HAS to be better than this.
Lesson 129 "You cannot stop with the idea the world is worthless, for unless you see that there is something else to hope for you will only be depressed."
Many of us do not want to look at the worthlessness of the world and we still have "false hopes" that it can be redeemed. Some of us even want to turn it into a heaven-on-earth scenario. But perhaps we don't realize that the laws of physics will always be the determiner of the way it functions, and is the direct cause of all its deathly ways and cruel scenarios and chaotic outcomes. Because it is governed by laws of death.
UrT1B37AE "The thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE."
Jesus therefore tells us in Lesson 129 that there is ANOTHER WORLD that we do want, a world where there is permanent happiness and peace and love and light and joy forever. A world in which there is no sickness or death. A living world of light in which we have our home in God, safe from all attack and from death itself. That is a world that we can truly have hope for and want and choose instead of the sorry world we made. But why would you WANT to go there if you think THIS world has something worth keeping you bound?
In Lesson 130 we then go on to be informed that we cannot see both of these worlds. When you see one of them it is precisely because you are denying the other. Since they are opposites, the ability to see one of them derives from the "projection makes perception" rule, meaning that you can only see the light while you're not seeing the darkness, and vice versa. Either you see the world of form or the world of spirit. Reality or unreality are your only options.
So that now tells us that if we want to truly find hope of freedom and escape from the hell that is planet Earth, prison planet of death and murder and hatred, then we need to change what we value. We need to want and value and desire to see another world that is sane and true and holy. A world God created instead of a dead-end of suffering and death that we tried to make without him. If we want to see that other world we're going to have to DENY this one.
W130 "It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there is to choose between, and nothing more than these."
"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other." UrT12G1
Note that it says it depends on what you cherish, which means what you value and want and find to be your heart's treasure. What is meaningful to you, what is important to you, what you prioritize and want to see more of. If your focus is on vigilance for the Kingdom of God, then it means you love the Kingdom and want it and become one with it, making it a part of you and immersing yourself into it. And by doing so you turn your back on the world and forget it and no longer see it.
W306 "What but Christ's vision would I use today, when it can offer me a day in which I see a world so like to Heaven that an ancient memory returns to me? Today I can forget the world I made."
W198 "Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. "
So basically right now the only reason you are seeing planet earth is because you are still convinced that you WANT TO. You still value something about it. You still therefore think it HAS value, is important, is worthwhile, has meaning, is true, is to be cherished, has something you want, serves you, provides for you, gives you stuff you like, and is filled with your idols. All of this has to be surrendered and recognized as false and nothing if you are to choose another world.
The course therefore is really asking us to turn around and move back towards heaven, back to reality, to the light, to the truth of God and his world. The Kingdom he created to be permanent and loving forever. A Kingdom so unlike this world that at first it may seem alien to you, and yet familiar as your true home. But to see it, we have to learn to develop "vision" and open the mind's eye. And to do that you have to value it and want it.
UrT18B3 "That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth."
We're asked therefore to change our focus and fix our sight on God. To try to pierce the veil of illusions that hangs heavily between you and reality. To find a way with your mind and with the Holy Spirit to overlook (forgive) the world, NOT see it, see through and BEYOND it to the light, and therefore look upon reality/the real world.
UrW158L7 "Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
This is what the course is driving at - restoring the ability to see reality again to the sheer extent that the world of illusions, of form and bodies and sin and death, is no longer seen at all. And heaven is all that remains in our sight. Right before you melt back into God, infuse back into heaven, and immerse yourself back into communion with the Sonship.
UrU5A4 "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."
Here's something that is very radical to many people. And this will sound crazy and ridiculous. But here is a fact.
Anything that seems to happen in this world is taking place in a dream, has NO REAL CONSEQUENCES, and does not cause anything to really happen. Ever!
Mind... "It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen (ANYTHING YOU DO) never has occurred, the changes wrought (sins you commit) are substance-less, and all events (every consequence you seem to cause, ANYTHING that occurs) are nowhere."
Sin occurs in this world, through the body. "The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."
And this means, any SIN that you committed here, through your body, anything you DID TO SOMEONE, anything that you "hurt", any damage you inflicted, anything you CAUSED here, any mistakes you made, any names you called people, any arguments you had, any attacks you perpetrated, anything murderous you committed, any crime, any hateful relationship, any accusation, ALL OF IT... HAS NOT HAPPENED IN REALITY.
This leads to a simple fact, relating to your HEALING. A REQUIREMENT for healing, remembering that only the ATONEMENT can be said to truly CURE you of this sense of "I sinned"....
YOU WILL NOT be able to LET GO of WHAT YOU DID IN SPACETIME, UNTIL you are able to recognize, believe, and accept, that you DID NOT DO what you think you did.
This truth flies in the face of everything that your senses are telling you. It flies in the face of all evidence, all proof, all consequences. It flies in the face of the ramifications, fallout, consequences, chain reactions, effects, and all outcomes that seemed to be set in motion "because of what you did".
It literally means that you MUST DENY, WITH TRUTH, that you DID what you think you did. You MUST DENY all of the consequences and all "proof". This is where it becomes radical and seemingly ridiculously crazy, because in order to accept the ATONEMENT truth that THERE IS NO SIN, or that NOTHING HAPPENED, you HAVE to IGNORE all of this so-called "evidence".
In fact, you have to get your mind to the point where you recognize that "what you did" (sin) in space and time, in the past, or what you are doing now, IS NOT HAPPENING and DID NOT HAPPEN IN REALITY. Because this world IS NOT REALITY. This world has to BE not reality, IN ORDER FOR the atonement to be true. Because you can't be accepting that what bodies do is REAL and expect to escape from sin. It's impossible!
You MUST not believe in anything that has happened in this world otherwise EVERYTHING that "has happened" is the literal unquestionable, irreversible sinful truth. If bodies and what bodies DO is real or has any truth in it, it CANNOT be undone. If bodily activities have REAL consequences, real effects, the body is CAUSAL. Which makes sin real. Anything the body does is effectively sin, even breathing. It must be recognized as NOT REAL otherwise sin becomes real.
The body and its sins were the entire device by which we TRIED TO MAKE SIN REAL. We made bodies in order to have something to attack WITH. Bodies attacking bodies, sinning against bodies. We made bodies in order to try to prove that SINS HAPPEN. That sins produce PROOF and EVIDENCE that "something happened". Something you can look at with the body, and point to with the body's finger, and label as "THAT EVIDENCE PROVES THERE WAS A SIN". The world's entire "legal" system is based on this lie.
So it's very radical but until you can get to the point where you recognize and correctly frame your DEEDS as "DID NOT OCCUR IN REALITY"... that NOTHING REAL was threatened, that reality has not been hurt or damaged or caused BY you, you will find that you CANNOT LET GO. You won't be able to let go of a feeling of guilt, inferiority, unworthiness, shame, fear etc. In fact, until this is accepted fully and completely we cannot let go of death.
The atonement CURES. FULLY! It literally ERASES all trace of sin and death and makes them IMPOSSIBLE. And "only atonement can be said to cure." It is a REAL CURE, because it uproots the ENTIRE "event" that you think happened. It recognized, AS FORGIVENESS, that what you think you did YOU DID NOT DO, IT DID NOT HAPPEN, IT WAS NOT REAL, IT DID NOT TAKE PLACE IN REALITY, YOU DID NOT SIN AND THERE ARE NO CONSEQUENCES. And therefore, you MUST STILL BE INNOCENT.
This leads to the recognition, and acceptance, and allowance, that GOD STILL FINDS YOU INNOCENT, and therefore that God still loves you! That you ACCEPT GOD'S TRUTH. You will ONLY be able accept the love of God by accepting that you have NEVER DONE ANYTHING WRONG. Any belief that you sinned, you will hold as PROOF that you CANNOT BE LOVED because you find yourself unworthy of love, because you are not innocent enough. You will reason that God DOES NOT, SHOULD NOT, AND CANNOT love you, because you "really did sin". And "real sin" IS a belief in unforgiveness. Not merely the belief that you DID something, but also the belief that IT CANNOT BE UNDONE.
**MIRACLES** are the movement towards forgiveness, as atonement, which UNDOES what the world of sin testifies can never be undone. This DIRECTLY ties into the fact that you MUST DEMONSTRATE THE ABSENCE OF PROOF OF SIN in order to TRULY believe and live the truth that you did not cause sinful effects. TRUE forgiveness heals the mind, AND ERASES THE EVIDENCE. Proof that "it happened" cannot remain. In the acceptance that you DID NOT DO what you think you did, you are setting in motion the UNDOING of the consequences. The Holy Spirit HAS the power to undo ALL the consequences of your sinful decisions if you will let him.
To set yourself free from GUILT, you MUST accept the CURE of the atonement. You must accept that you DID NOT SIN. Not that you "did something but it wasn't sinful". But rather that you WERE MISTAKEN TO BELIEVE THAT YOU DID IT AT ALL! Yes, this means you must accept that it did not really OCCUR. That any "occurrence" was A DREAM. It was an ILLUSION of a sin "happening". It did NOT HAPPEN in reality and so did not really happen at all. What your BODY told you HAPPENED was a LIE! This requires you to QUESTION even your OWN EVIDENCE, even your MEMORY, even lingering "physical proof", that seems to "tell you" that you really DID do something that you can't deny.
YOU MUST DENY THAT SIN HAPPENED. Sin is impossible! You must deny that you ever DID anything here at all. We are ONLY dreaming of a made up fantasy world in which MADE UP FANTASY STUFF seems to happen. NONE of it is really happening. NO ONE IS GUILTY. NO ONE HAS **EVER** SINNED. All sin is an illusion and a lie. EVERYONE IS PERMANENTLY INNOCENT. Accepting that is the ONLY way to become WILLING TO LET THE SIN GO, because only by recognizing it WAS NOT REALLY SIN will you ALLOW yourself to forgive yourself.
Accepting your innocence is your goal and it will HEAL YOU and set you FREE FROM ALL SUFFERING. This is why accepting atonement is your number one responsibility. It is the only act that FINALLY WORKS. ONLY accepting atonement can truly CURE YOU! It has the power to undo sin and death and restore your IMMORTALITY.
YOU ARE INNOCENT AND HOLY FOREVER. GOD CREATED YOU INNOCENT AND HOLY FOREVER. Accepting that this is TRUE, CURES the separation.
"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone (anything you DID!). And ***hopelessness and death MUST disappear*** before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to ***show your brother that you had no hurt of him***. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to ***SHOW him, by your healing***, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."
"***Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred*** (HAS NOT OCCURRED!!!). It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees ***there was no sin*** (YOU DID NOT DO ANYTHING EVEN IF YOU THINK YOU DID!!!) And in this view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God."
"I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
I do not feel guilty, because ***the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him***.
I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me."
The truth is, there is no real sin. Sin, the idea that you can attack something real, is literally impossible. Reality cannot BE attacked because it is permanent. Therefore sin is 100% impossible.
The question then is, what is this "sin" thing? It must be a fake sin, some kind of artificial sin. It can't be a real one. But in this world there for sure seem to be "sins" happening.
"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible." "To the ego the body is to attack with". "The body is the idea of sin made flesh" etc
Even when there seems to be a sin taking place, let's say someone is murdering another person, the truth is that this cannot be a real sin. Real sin doesn't exist. So what is it?
It has to be some kind of illusion of sin, like a fake sin. It has to be a kind of camouflage or disguise. Something which SEEMS to be one thing but is actually something else.
Sin, being untrue and false, has to be a lie. It cannot be a true something because sinlessness is true. Innocence is permanent, per the will of God that you be forever innocent. So whatever sin is, it must be a lie. It's some kind of pretend sin.
Recognizing this is forgiveness because it means you're not taking the appearance of sin at face value and believing it's really what it seems to be. It means you're seeing beyond its ILLUSION of sin, and are recognizing that it IS NOT really sin. It's something else.
The illusion of sin, is just kind of an assertion, a lie, a story being told, a portrayal of a seeming attack, which is impossible, upon something which is unreal, as if it were real. That it is even seeming to happen is a lie. That the events seem to be taking place is a lie. They aren't actually happening.
Sin is therefore an assertion of evil, or an attempt to "make possible" something that is not possible. It's an attempt to assert that something real can be destroyed. This was the whole purpose of the world we made.
"Not in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions built on sin."
"Sickness would prove that lies must be the truth."
"It can indeed be said the ego made its world on sin."
This world, the world of sin, was made as a lie, to depict something untrue (that God's son is crucified), and that attacking God (or reality/truth) is possible.
"The world is a PICTURE OF the crucifixion of God's Son."
"The world was made as an attack on God."
But it's no more really an attack on God, than it is an actual crucifixion of God's son. It's an illusion of this. It's a NON attack, appearing as an attack. It's a NON-crucifixion, seeming to look like a crucifixion.
This is why sin is an ILLUSION. And this is why illusions are DECEPTIVE. And if you believe the appearance of the illusion without realizing HOW it is deceiving you, you are being TEMPTED by it and fall for that temptation. And then all you SEE is the surface appearance, like seeing a puzzle that you can't solve.
Falling for temptation is buying into sin as though it is real and possible. It is the belief in real sin and therefore real evil and death.
Even what APPEARS to be a physical murder, with the seeming "proof of sin" staring you in the face, CANNOT BE that. To take that at face vale is to fall for temptation. To just "buy it" based on how it appears, is delusional. Believing it is the temptation to believe in sin and thus be sinful yourself.
Nothing real can BE murdered. So how can the murdered thing even BE real in the first place, if it SEEMS to have been murdered? And how can there even seem to be a depiction of murder, when real murder (the destruction of reality) is IMPOSSIBLE?
Whatever the situation SEEMS to be, whatever it looks like, if you look only to its physical appearance, you are "blinded by perception of form". The form, the shape, the evidence, the colors, the smells, the proof, all tell your body senses a LIE, that actual real sin has taken place. And it seems undeniable, if you believe it.
"Only the body makes the world seem real."
"The body's eyes see ONLY form."
"ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not recognize, and does not know if it is there or not."But a a dead body cannot be true. And a sick body cannot make any sense. And illusions of suffering cannot be real suffering.
"A sick body makes no sense."
Even suffering which you supposedly inflict upon yourself, cannot ACTUALLY be real suffering. In fact, even suffering is actually impossible. Nothing real can ever suffer.
"There is no pain in God, and therefore none in me."
"I am not a body I am free, for I am still as God created me."
"You are immortal and you cannot die."
So what does it mean if I SEEM to be suffering? It can only mean that I SEEM to be temporarily experiencing an ILLUSION of suffering, which seems LIKE suffering, or a PICTURE OF sickness, but IS NOT THAT. It can't really be that. It has to be something else, pretending to be suffering. Even unhappiness is fake unhappiness, covering up your happiness.
So what this tells you is that ALL illusions, incuding sickness, death, pain, unhappines, any kind of suffering at all, MUST NOT BE what they appear to be. And in fact that means there are TWO possible interpretations of the thing. Because you can either be DECEIVED BY an illusion or not.
"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see."
The false interpretation - "false perception" - looks at an illusion and falls for temptation to believe it is verbatim first-hand reality and therefore true. This is completely delusional and a total failure to be aware of the big picture. This is naive and irresponsible "spiritual blindness."
The true interpretation - "true perception" - looks at the same illusion and SEES THROUGH ("to forgive is to overlook") the LIE, does not fall for the temptation, sees DEEPER and BEYOND the surface appearance, and does not STOP its vision at the physical form.True perception or "accurate perception" is what we use in SANITY, to correctly evaluate "what this thing is". And a correct evaluation of anything that looks like a sin, is that IT IS NOT REALLY THAT. It CANNOT BE what it appears to be. It cannot be AT ALL.
A correct evaluation of any illusion is that you can see the "workings" of its DECEPTION, and you are not deceived by it. You can RECOGNIZE how and why it SEEMS to present a picture of sin and death and suffering, but is in fact simultaneously SOMETHING ELSE. This means recognizing that it is FALSE and UNREAL and UNTRUE.
What it IS, is NOT a reality, but a fiction. What it IS, is a lie. An audiovisual lie. Like an hallucination. A mistake in perception and understanding.
All illusions are two-faced because the ego is two-faced. It is never just what it appears to be on the surface. Murder is not "actual" murder, or "just murder". It is a deceitful lie about something happening which CANNOT possibly happen in reality, IS NOT happening now, and CANNOT BE what it appears to be.
"There is no death, the Son of God is free."
A dead body CANNOT BE a real dead body. It can only be a LIE of a dead body, appearing like a dead body, AS IF dead bodies were possible, when they're not. Bodies don't even exist yet alone dead ones. All death is fake.
So sin, everything physical ("the granite block of sin"), is an ILLUSION which APPEARS to be something - an entire world, but is not REALLY that. The whole physical world, Earth, the sun, the stars and galaxies, it is all a deception. The world is a lie.
"The body is what you made in attempting to deceive yourself."
"There is no world."
"There is no sin."
It's all an attempt to dream up what "real sin" MIGHT be like, IF it were possible, and to try to make it SEEM not only possible but completely real. To make sin believable. But sin is unbelievable, and not believable, to one who sees through its bullshit.
This world is not really a world. This body is not really a body. Sin is not really sin and guilt is not really guilt. Sickness is not really sickness. Death is not really death. Nothing in this world is what it seems, because this world is an ILUSION of a world and NOT REALLY A WORLD.
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not created it, for what He creates must be eternal as himself. And the time will come when everything you see will have an end."
At times I get this sense that when "life lessons" come along, they are not so much "optional lessons" or just painfully difficult trails and struggles,, but rather, that situations and circumstances happen "on purpose" as a kind of "conditioning". A kind of reprogramming.
You are exposed to these conditions and the conditions change you. Rather than that, like, you have to learn by making decisions and picking up facts and figuring something out mentally. You kind of inevitably end up learning something almost as if the situation "forced" you to. But of course, you have free will still.
It seems at times these lessons are more like... corrections... in the form of three dimensional spatial scenarios and interactions and happenings .... as if, some larger being is putting stuff in front of us that it knows will change us in a certain direction. That it is in fact, a form of healing? That you can't really fail to "learn the lesson", you just "go through it" and come out the other side changed.
It seems also that whenever Holy Spirit tells me some difficult situation is a lesson, before I would've thought of that as annoying as hell, and confused about what I have to learn. But lately when He says this, I almost get that this is a clue telling me "it is educating you" "it is correcting you" "it is steering you" "it is prompting you to change your mind in a good way"... almost "it's happening to you, choose God".
Like, this situation and your way of dealing with it and so on WILL lead to you discovering new things and developing more trust and opening up to new truths. Sometimes when I get through a lesson I might've learned something new about working miracles or had some deep insight or it produced a major catharsis or something.... and so when the lesson is "happening", I might more easily consider, "somehow, this is leading to growth and making me better off".
Like, the lesson is a "nudge in the right direction" regardless of how it appears, and you always come out the other end "better off". Because what I see and know now versus what I didn't know at the beginning of a recent "trial" I could never have imagined would be the outcome or insights gained as a result of going through the difficulties.
You could almost think of life situations as little "scenarios", little holographic 3D classrooms, into which you enter and are exposed to, and the classroom itself molds and shapes you and steers you in a certain direction. And generally speaking you will learn whatever you are ready to learn, freely, while passing "through" that chamber of conversion.
It really reminds me of the dream I had just recently where I was going through all kinds of trials, obstacles, escape acts, problems and people chasing after me, running through different rooms and stuff, ending up in an open area where the "host" of a game show (Holy Spirit) showed up as this woman... who asked, "what is it that is so valuable to you that you would be willing to go through all this to attain it"? And the instant answer in my mind was HOME... Heaven... I would be willing go through all these trials and life events IF it would in the very long term picture actually POINT me in the direction of home.
This also ties in with what I've heard about writing our life scripts before we incarnate... we literally choose to go through various things, those who are to meet will meet, we choose our family and major life events etc, even our enemies and people we will clash with. Even our serious illnesses and accidents etc. Even when we are likely to "die" ie leave the classroom. And then we come in and "go through it all" like it's a real "pain in the ass you wish wasn't happening", but in the big picture, somehow, using these difficult scenarios as a way to guide us home to love.
And the only reason the life events SEEM like trials, or difficult, or stressful, or upsetting etc.. is because of our ego. Our egotism and "what we need to learn" or unlearn is what makes the situations into a challenge. It's why we sort of "need" these lessons. So that we can move closer to love and way from ego choices. To that we will will surrender. And sometimes the lessons are so annoyingly fucked up that the only thing you are left able to do is surrender and give up and let go. And that's a good thing. lol
This makes me think of this...
"W-pI.135.18. What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? 2 Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. 3 But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. 4 While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life."
and
"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created alters unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you."
Eternity, Heaven, is the living world of light, our home in God. It is reality. It is a "world" of light, in which there is only light. There is no darkness, no shadows, no blockages to resist the light. "Nothing there but shines and shines forever."
The separation is an attempt to deny that this is so, by trying to resist the light. It's an attempt to block awareness of the pervasiveness of light by being unwilling to accept it into the mind. We put up walls that block the light, and this SEEMS to produce states of darkness.
An extremely important thing to realize here is that the seeming presence of the darkness ENTIRELY DEPENDS on the light being absent. It is a direct consequence or "effect" of the light being blocked. When the block is removed or the light is allowed to shine and pervade, what happens to "the darkness"? It doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't displace, it doesn't hide. Darkness cannot make light go away. Light completely overpowers it and cancels it. It simply vanishes.
Where is the darkness, in the light? There isn't any. In perfect light, infinite light, there is no darkness anywhere. So what happens to the darkness when the light shines? The light SHINES AWAY the darkness. How does it do it? Because darkness isn't really a THING in its own right, it is ONLY the temporary, illusory result of blocking the light.
The darkness's entire "existence" is 100% dependent on the light remaining blocked. The darkness is like a shadow. The shadow doesn't determine for itself what it is, it is a consequence or result of the way the light is blocked. It acquires all of its properties, shapes and forms, from the blockage, and can only symbolize the blockage. Having no inherent qualities, properties, behaviors, characteristics, life, or existence of ITS OWN, it is merely a side-effect of the appearance that "light is absent."
When you block the light of Heaven's reality, the world God created (the Sonship, not the Earth), you seem to produce in your mind a blockage to the light, which produces shadows or "darkness". Or to put it another way, darkness SEEMS to come out of nowhere, when the light is blocked. It just sort of "appears", like a mirage or hallucination. It isn't caused by anything real, it is "caused by" the illusion that reality is not present.
Darkness is sort of like a "hole" in the light. And the darkness seems to take on various shapes, forms, sizes, appearances. It may seem to represent objects. It may even seem to take on the shape of a human body, a tree, a planet or a galaxy. It may even SEEM as if these "objects" are actually alive or moving and thinking for themselves, as if they have an actual existence or identity, which none of them have. Shadows have no inherent properties of their own, no mind, no will and no life. These "life" FORMS are the illusion of what *separateness* looks like - the absence of Heaven's light. Shadows are always fragmented and conflicted.
All of spacetime is a bubble of darkness, like a hole in Heaven, where light seems "shut out". The "world you made" to block the light, the world which is "an attack on God", the world which is a "picture of the crucifixion of God's son", the world of "death" or the "dream of death", are all this same one thing - the illusion of the absence of God/Light.
The entire "physical universe" is this appearance of a non-existent, lifeless, unreal, illusory world, which houses and includes the Earth and all bodies and objects. All of these things can ONLY seem to exist, WITHIN the absence of light, AS the absence of light, and only so long as the light is absent. They are "made of darkness", lack, emptiness, absence, NOTHINGNESS. They are not made of light. And darkness is only an illusion. It's a strange hallucinated imagined appearance of what it would look like IF light could be made to be absent.
When you are in a dark room, and you switch on the light, what happens to the darkness? Does it go somewhere? Does it turn into light? Is it retained? Does a chunk of it still persist in the light? Are its dark forms and shapes kept? No. The light DISPELLS them. They simply vanish. They "cease to seem to be." They don't transform into light. They just disappear. They are the OPPOSITE of the light and do not really exist. When the light is allowed to shine, the darkness or "lights absence" is corrected, light is supplied, and there is nowhere - no gap or hole - in which the darkness could SEEM to exist.
The world, including the Earth, all its forms, creatures, oceans, forests, the moon, the sun, the entire galaxy and all the thousands of galaxies, the void of space and all of time, are all symptoms or side-effects of what it seems to look like when light is absent. They are HELD in place by minds who are resisting the light and trying to enforce a blockage or denial of the light. When these minds come around and are healed, they will no longer desire that light be absent, and so there will be nothing "to keep a separated world in place." Without an active resistance to the light, there is nothing to prevent light/love from entering and dismissing the illusion that darkness exists. OR the illusion that the world exists.
It does not matter in the big picture whether you view this world through false perception or true perception. It does not matter whether you glimpse the real world or see the world as wholly forgiven and benevolent. "A forgiven world cannot last" because the world is nothing but "a thin veil over the face of Christ." When the light shines brightly enough, the dark veil that LOOKS LIKE a planet, will become transparent, thin, like a puff of smoke which can easily be dispelled. The entire universe, all forms of matter, all objects and bodies, will become increasingly invisible. As though you are pushing past a thick heavy curtain which is finally parting to reveal the LIGHT behind it which it was BLOCKING.
The world, including Earth, IS nothing but a blockage to the light. It DEPENDS ON the light remaining blocked in order to SEEM to exist at all. It is MADE OF and exists only WITHIN the illusion of darkness. Nothing about it is real. Nothing about it is light or life. It's a shadow. What happens to shadows when the light shines? They do not exist. They are REPLACED with light. The ego is where the darkness WAS. The world is where the darkness WAS. Bodies are where the darkness WAS. And they absolutely DO NOT EXIST in the light.
Being MADE OF darkness, if you take them to the light they will be dissolved, shone away. "Illusions recognized must disappear." "The body cannot remain without illusions." Try taking an illusion of light's absence INTO the light, and it cannot remain. Its nature, which is light's absence, IS INCOMPATIBLE WITH HEAVEN'S LIGHT. It is THE OPPOSITE of Heaven's light. Never the two shall meet. "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way."
The closer you approach the light which is BEYOND the body and BEYOND the world, behind them, the world will become less and less of an obstacle. It will seem less and less heavy or serious. It will seem to become lighter, itself, as its transparency begins to allow the light BEYOND it to shine through. As you begin to "see God in everything you see" because God is BEHIND the things you see. The things you see are BLOCKS to God. To forgive them is to OVERLOOK them (NOT SEE THEM) and to see PAST the "granite block of sin" (the veil of matter) TO reality.
"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams (not Earth). And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as **behind the dream**, **beyond all seeming** (behind the world) and yet surely theirs." It is the light BEYOND hell/dream/darkness/Earth that appeals to you, it is that light which you WANT to see, it is that light which is coming from ANOTHER WORLD (Heaven), and it is that light which is God which you see "in" or "through" or "behind" the things you see, while you are traveling TOWARDS the light.
As you move closer and closer to the light BEYOND the veil of matter (wall of sin), the veil dissolves. The veil ITSELF (the world you made - including Earth) thins out, stops seeming so solid, stops seeming to represent "real sin" or "real guilt", and it in a sense will seem to stop looking like "hell". It may even seem to become lovely or holy. But the loveliness is not there AS the world which is still made of darkness, it is there because there is increasingly LESS darkness (world) and increasingly more light (Heaven), revealed through spiritual sight/vision in parallel to the darkness that the body's eyes see.
The FORGIVEN WORLD is the thinnest, lightest, least dense, least heavy view of the SHADOW WORLD that's possible, while still seeing it. It's a perception of the ILLUSION of light's ABSENCE, in which the light is barely absent at all, such that the illusion seems to slightly remain as a THIN VEIL over Christ's face, and Christ's face is almost fully seen.
The forgiven world, Earth and spacetime, grows lovelier ONLY because it is DIMINISHING, and only because a loveliness is shining FROM BEYOND IT, coming from behind it, as the veil of matter dissolves. It is the SOURCE of the light that you want to get to. Just because the forgiven world seems illuminated BY this holy light, does not MAKE IT holy. It is NOTHING. It merely becomes like a spotless mirror in which you see a *reflection* of the light of Heaven, where it is obscuring the light the LEAST while still seeming to slightly exist. Once the light of Heaven beyond the world world/veil shines FULLY, the veil LIFTS, the face of Christ is seen, the WORLD IS FORGOTTEN, there IS NO WORLD, and Heaven is uncovered at last. And it is Heaven that you want.
Here, all the things made of death and darkness are shone away into oblivion, the "world spins into the NOTHINGNESS from which it came", the stars disappear in light, the dark world of shadows vanishes, the world is consumed by the light, shone away because the world is nothing but an ILLUSION of light's absence, and light's presence forces the impossible world to cease to exist and "Heaven is all that remains."
Not one single FORM of darkness (matter, energy or otherwise) remains in Heaven because ONLY LIGHT can remain in Heaven. "Gone are bodies in the blazing light of the Son of God." "Gone is perception". "Gone are walls" (objects, planets). "Nothing there is seen, only known." The Kingdom of God in all its glory. It was merely HIDDEN behind the blocks to love, the illusion of sin, which took the temporary illusory form of worlds and planets and bodies, made "as a place where God could enter not". These walls must go. Matter is an illusion. Spacetime is an illusion. Death is an illusion.
THERE IS NO WORLD. THIS IS THE CENTRAL LESSON THE COURSE WOULD ATTEMPT TO TEACH. Means simply... there is no shadow, no darkness, nothing OPPOSING the light. There is ONLY the Light of the Kingdom of God.
"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world (physical) 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." ... "Nothing so blinding as perception of form" (objects, bodies, planets).
To behold (see) the world (Earth and space) in ANY way, is to be blinded to God. Not one single FORM, object, body, or planet, can remain in your vision if you are to experience God. You cannot keep the world, or the body, and be with God. "God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there." "To be without a body is to be in your natural state." To be in/with/having a body is unnatural because the body is darkness (" in the body's darkness"). "The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes."
Light is natural. Light is eternal life. Light is your home. Light is what you are. "Eternity will shine away the world."
Let's clear this up.
For the entire time that you have a physical body with working eyeballs, you will physically see the physical world based on the laws of physics. The body functions biologically based on photons of light entering the retina etc and sending messages to the brain and mind.
THIS WILL NOT CHANGE NO MATTER HOW MUCH FORGIVENESS YOU DO, how many workbook lessons, or how much you've read. Your physical eyes will continue to report the same exact differences, conflicts, problems, wars, destruction, sickness and death. This will NOT change. If you point your eyeballs at the physical world, of which they are a part, they will SHOW YOU exactly the same PHYSICAL world.
Meanwhile, you are working on forgiveness, and on changing your mind in order to change your perception. But this is to do with your MIND in terms of what it believes. What it believes determines what it projects in terms of MEANING, and thus how it categorizes the true and the false, the real and the unreal. It puts everything into a category, and so as the body SENDS IT physical messages of physical sights, the mind INTERPRETS those signals.
It is then up to the mind to decide what to DO WITH those signals that are coming in from the physical eyes. Initially, realize that the body is LOCKED IN to false perception. It CANNOT SEE reality and it never will. The body can ONLY look upon illusions and GIVE them reality, regarding them as equally of the same material and nature as ITSELF, and therefore one with them, and thus regarding them as REAL.
"These eyes made not to see will never see."
"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."
Consider also then that if your mind BELIEVES everything it is shown by the body's eyes, it will categorize all illusions as reality, which is "false perception". A failure to recognize that illusions are illusions, that dreams are dreams, and that the world is not real. Taking the body "at its word" is false perception and unconsciousness.
The mind therefore has to open up to another WAY of seeing, which is the spiritual eye, or the mind's eye. The mind can see directly without photons and does not rely on the body's eyeballs to do this. True vision can see anywhere and everywhere at any time without limit, even the other side of the universe in the past or future. The mind, as it begins to OPEN UP to reality, which requires transcending the physical world, starts to IGNORE the physical sight messages and tunes into another world.
As it does this, the mind is going to start categorizing everything the BODY claims is real, as unreal. It has to in order to awaken and move into true perception. Everything the body reports is a lie because the body is blind to reality. So the mind starts to open up to seeing without the body, and seeing beyond the body, and beyond form, and beyond the world, and beyond space and time. This means it is opening up to seeing light and reality, at the same time as DENYING AND CLOSING DOWN to the physical signals coming in from the body.
However, so long as you have a body, you will STILL CONTINUE to receive signals from the physical sensory equipment. You will STILL be shown images of a broken world, images of faulty bodies, images of war and death and sickness and suffering. The body CANNOT HELP IT but keep showing this to you all the time. As soon as you open your eyelids you're going to be shown this, every single day for as long as you have a body.
So the interesting thing is then that mind is changing but the body is not. Mind is still USING a body, at the same time as learning to see WITHOUT a body. And this means that the mind is going to have to deal with TWO CHANNELS OF INPUT at the same time, in parallel. The physical sight is being phased out, so to speak, while the spiritual sight is phased in, but until you reach total atonement and awakening to heaven's reality you're going to see BOTH AT ONCE. As Jesus confirms:
"Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."
So this now means that you as mind are going to be getting inputs from a physical and FALSE sensory apparatus, which is going to KEEP remaining fixated on the PHYSICAL world for as long as it persists, while simultaneously it's going to get inputs from BEYOND the physical which the physical body CANNOT see. The mind is closing off to unreality and opening up to reality's at the same time. So you have a kind of DOUBLE VISION, at least for as long as the body persists.
If you think this is not true then you should consider the fact that you are STILL perfectly capable of reading every single workbook lesson no matter how many of them you've done or for how long. The words on the page have not changed, the color of the text has not changed, nothing about it has changed. It is PHYSICALLY THE SAME BOOK as when you started reading. This is because the physical sight has not changed. But your MIND'S SEEING HAS changed.
So what this means in worldly terms is, you're going to have to deal with the fact that you're going to STILL get input from the unreal physical world, claiming all kinds of things to be true which aren't, while at the same time opening up to a new reality BEYOND the physical world which the body can't even see.
This means that if you see a physical body with your physical eyes and your eyes report an image of that body which has a broken leg and skin cancer and bad hair and a limp and some blubber, you're going to KEEP ON SEEING THAT for as long as it's there physically, REGARLDESS of whether you are more spiritual or not. 10 years from now you will still look upon that same physical body and see the same physical symptoms. But what it MEANS to you will be different and what you make of it will be different, as well as your mind will be opening up to OTHER sights and sounds from beyond the world. Jesus again confirms twice:
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal."
"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see."
They use PHYSICAL SIGHT to watch the dream figures suffer and die, BUT their MINDS ARE HEALED. They have done forgiveness work. Their mind is opening up to unlimited spiritual vision and seeing BEYOND physical bodies, but the physical body is STILL reporting the same shit as before. This is not going to change just because you're waking up.
So if you see someone with your physical eyes and they report a certain condition or state, that's because your physical eyes are still functioning true to their design. Just because your MIND is different and is seeing from a more inclusive loving vantage point does NOT mean that you will no longer see the same physical sights! It does not mean that graveyards are going to disappear, or that the wars will be gone, or that people aren't writhing in agony and screaming for help. They will still physically do this and your body will STILL physically report it. But your mind will INTERPRET it different because it will OVERLOOK it and look PAST it, beyond it to the light of truth.
So you see, you can't say that "if you see it it's' yours". And you can't say that if you see someone doing something you are judging them. And you can't say that just because you're seeing it your mind is not healed. That's all bullshit. That's a denial of the mechanisms of perception. Many people think that perception is ONE THING and that you change this ONE perceptual mechanism and EVERYTHING you see will just transform and shift away from suffering towards some kind of beautiful world where nothing ever dies. That's SORT of true in that the mind opens up vision to seeing the real world, but it's NOT true in the sense that this causes you to NOT SEE the physical world UNTIL THE VERY END.
That's because you're in a state of transition BETWEEN the two ways of seeing, which will continue for as long as you have a body, and until you see the face of christ, and forget the world entirely, as the veil of illusions lifts from your sight and you see ONLY with vision, and completely VANISH the body from your existence. ONLY THEN will you no longer see the physical, and only then do the physical signals stop bombarding your mind. UNTIL then, until you are DONE, you're going to have to continue dealing with FALSE MESSAGES coming to you from a false world, at the same time as tying to look past them psychologically.
So no, if you see bad physical stuff happening, it's NOT because you are projecting bad stuff. It's not because you are not healed or are guilty. It's NOT YOUR STUFF. Your stuff isn't physical, it's mental. Your baggage of stuff to be healed in your false perceptions, which you project ONTO THE PHYSICAL SIGNALS, is an added layer of meaning which you GIVE TO the signals coming from the physical world. It's how you INTERPRET them. You can read into them and put hate and guilt and sin onto them, or you can OVERLOOK them and diminish their power and see them as false and sinless and nothing.
If I see a person walking past with a broken leg, that's because their leg is broken physically and it will carry on being broken physically whether I'm in a good mood or not, whether I'm lining up with the holy spirit or not, and regardless of anything else I do. OTHER than to say that if I move towards the light I WILL extend healing and this will INFLUENCE the other person, and may indeed miraculously heal their broken leg, but that's a whole other story. If I have physical eyeballs I WILL SEE the physical world. And I will keep seeing it until my mind is 100% totally committed to seeing ONLY reality. That's why you can still find your way to the toilet!
This is the point at which the physical stops showing you pictures of impossible worlds:
"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."
Note then that spiritual sight only very "lightly" touches upon the physical "veil of illusions", the world, earth, as it LOOKS PAST it and beyond it to the light of heaven or the real world. It sort of lightly sees the forgiven world (to forgive is to overlook) as a result of not looking heavily AT it, and instead looking THROUGH it and past it. This makes the world gradually more transparent until eventually the veil of spacetime lifts entirely, revealing christ's face. ONLY THEN will you stop seeing the physical (forgiven OR unforgiven) world. And then you will use ONLY vision and see ONLY reality.
"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."
So can we please try to stop saying that everything you see is because of how you're seeing, and stop saying that if you see something you're judging, and stop saying that every single claim is a projection, and stop saying that seeing a broken body means your mind is not healed, and stop being CONFUSED about the fact that there are TWO PARALLEL CHANNELS OF INPUT coming into your mind. One of them is true, and one of them is false. And the false channel can and will show you earth EXACTLY AS BEFORE, until you no longer have a body to look at it with. And this has NO BEARING on how healed your mind is other than to say that only in TOTAL healing will you stop USING the body at all.
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
If someone is being completely loving toward you, responding with unconditional love, then they can see who you really are.
If they fail to respond with love, this means they can't really see who you are. So what they're looking at isn't so much 'you' as it is how you might appear in a certain way, based on what the person is hallucinating.
So then every time someone doesn't treat you with love, they're not really treating YOU with unlove, they're treating a projected sinful guilty idea of a person with unlove.
The catch is that it usually looks like the person is making their unlove about YOU, and that they target it at you, even using your name, referring to you, pointing in your direction, getting in your face with it, but it's still not about you.
When you think it's about you, you have also joined with them in illusions and have taken it personally. You've failed to overlook the illusion that the person is actually attacking themselves, and that they're interacting with their own projected sinful self. It's easy to be mistaken about this and to think that they're doing it to you when they're really not.
So long as you are clear about who you are, that you are love, you will realize their call for love is clearly their own call and need for love, and love is the only response. But if you fail to see your own identity and confuse yourself with ego, then you will take their attack personally and will think it's about you.
You will make it be about you, even though it isn't. And as such you will hurt yourself with it. And then you will feel upset, not because they attacked you or because it was about you, but because you used it to attack yourself.
Gradually over time as you recognize more clearly who is responsible for doing what to whom, and that all attack is self-attack, you will start noticing that other people's attacks are not really attacks.
Their attack, is not really something which connects to you, bridges a gap between you, or leaves the other person to come into you.
Instead, you will start to get this idea, or simply to notice, to recognize, that although they are TRYING to attack you, it isn't actually attacking you.
If you recognize the person is the one "under attack", and that it's not really about you, you can choose not to USE IT to attack yourself. You can choose not to participate.
Deciding not to participate in their attempted madness makes it possible for you to be present and loving in spite of their attack, to see them as innocent and guiltless, and to offer healing.
Someone could be ranting and raving right in front of your face and, somehow, it's not about you. They're the one who is in pain or calling out for love. It's their expression. And their attempted attack doesn't necessarily have to have any effect on you.
When you are more in-tune with being causal, taking responsibility for what you experience, and knowing that you can only be hurt by yourself, this just becomes clearer and clearer.
This is the beginning of invulnerability and a step towards your immortality and permanent peace.
A selection of quotes (with mostly my emphasis) talking about how this world ends and how you move beyond it to Heaven...
"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 BUTthe Truth to be Itself. That instant is our goal, for it contains the memory of God."
"And as we look upon a world forgiven, it is He Who calls to us and COMES TO TAKE US HOME, reminding us of our Identity Which our forgiveness has restored to us."
"You dwell NOT HERE, BUT IN ETERNITY. You TRAVEL BUT IN DREAMS, while safe at home."
"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. GONE IS PERCEPTION, false and true alike. GONE IS FORGIVENESS, for its task is done. And GONE ARE BODIES s in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the LAST PERCEPTION OF THE WORLD WITHOUT A PURPOSE AND WITHOUT A CAUSE. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, NO WALLS, NO BODIES, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"Across the bridge, it is so different! For a time the BODY is still seen, but NOT exclusively, as it is seen here. For the little spark that holds the Great Rays within it, is ALSO visible, and this spark CANNOT BE LONG LIMITED TO LITTLENESS. Once you have crossed the bridge, the VALUE OF THE BODY IS SO DIMINISHED in YOUR sight, that you will see no need at all to MAGNIFY it. For you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER there."
"The WORLD WILL END when its thought system has been completely reversed."
"And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. IN BLESSING IT DEPARTS, for it will not end as it began."
"The WORLD WILL END when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment.The WORLD WILL END with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, THE WORLD IS OVER. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely CEASE to seem to be."
"And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And, with this final blessing of God's Son UPON HIMSELF, the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.
The STARS WILL DISAPPEAR IN LIGHT, and the SUN, which opened up the world to beauty, WILL VANISH. PERCEPTION WILL BE MEANINGLESS, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will HAVE NO FUNCTION. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The PERCEPTION OF THE REAL WORLD WILL BE SO SHORT, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."
"From the FORGIVEN WORLD, the Son of God is LIFTED easily TO HIS HOME. And THERE he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."
"Even SALVATION WILL BECOME A DREAM, and VANISH from his mind. For SALVATION IS THE END OF DREAMS, and, with the CLOSING OF THE DREAM, will have NO MEANING. Who, AWAKE IN HEAVEN, COULD DREAM that there could ever be NEED of salvation?"
"BEYOND THE BODY, BEYOND THE SUN AND STARS, PAST EVERYTHING YOU SEE, and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes.
The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it no longer is contained at all. The light expands and covers everything (not earth), extending to infinity, forever shining, and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it, everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside. For there is nowhere that this light is not. This is the VISION of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you are; a part of this, with all of it within you, and joined to all of it as surely as all is joined to you.
Accept the vision that can show you this, AND NOT THE BODY."
"When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, WHERE ALL THE WORLD MUST DISAPPEAR and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and ITS EFFECTS HAVE GONE AS WELL."
"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his MISCREATIONS CAN DISAPPEAR in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because IT IS A VISUAL MISPERCEPTION. "
"No one remains in HELL, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. 2 You will find Heaven. 3 Everything you seek but this WILL FALL AWAY. 4 Yet not because it has been taken from you. 5 It will go because you DO NOT WANT IT. 6 You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness."
"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. 2 God made no contradictions. 3 What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. 4 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."
"Put out your hand, and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. 2 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. (not earth) 3 A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light (heaven) reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in DREAMS."
"He offers thanks to you as well as him for you arose with him when he began to save the world. And you will be with him when TIME IS OVER AND NO TRACE REMAINS OF DREAMS of spite in which you dance to death's thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the ETERNAL FORMLESSNESS of God."
"LIKE ALL THINGS IN THE WORLD, ITS MEANING IS TEMPORARY AND WILL FADE INTO THE NOTHINGNESS FROM WHICH IT CAME when there is no more use for it. Now its real meaning is a lesson. Like all lessons IT IS AN ILLUSION, for in REALITY there is nothing to learn. Yet this illusion must be replaced by a corrective device; ***ANOTHER ILLUSION*** that replaces the first, SO BOTH CAN FINALLY DISAPPEAR. The first illusion, which must be displaced before another thought system can take hold, is that it is a sacrifice to give up the things of this world. What could this be but an illusion, since this world itself is NOTHING MORE THAN THAT?
It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that THE WORLD HAS NOTHING TO GIVE. What can the sacrifice of NOTHING mean?"
"God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No one who has escaped the world AND ALL ITS ILLS looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice its values would demand of him. To them he sacrifices all his peace. To them he sacrifices all his freedom. And to possess them must he sacrifice his hope of Heaven and remembrance of his Father's Love. Who in his sane mind chooses NOTHING as a substitute for everything?"
"Today the lights of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest BEYOND THE WORLD OF DARKNESS. Here is light YOUR EYES CANNOT BEHOLD. And yet your MIND CAN SEE it plainly, and can understand. "
"When the light comes, and you have said, "God's Will is mine," you will see such beauty that you will KNOW it is not of you. Out of your joy, you will create beauty in His Name, for YOUR joy could no more be contained than His. THE BLEAK LITTLE WORLD WILL VANISH INTO NOTHINGNESS, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will LEAP INTO HEAVEN and into the presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. But I CAN tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Himself He wills for YOU, and what He wills for you IS yours. "
"THE WORLD YOU SEE IS AN ILLUSION OF A WORLD. GOD DID NOT CREATE IT, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is NOTHING IN THE WORLD you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when ALL THINGS VISIBLE WILL HAVE AN END.
The BODY'S EYES are therefore ***NOT THE MEANS BY WHICH THE REAL WORLD CAN BE SEEN***, for the ILLUSIONS THEY LOOK UPON must lead to more ILLUSIONS of reality. And so they do. For EVERYTHING THEY SEE not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."
"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 THE NOTHINGNESS FROM WHICH 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 A WORLD OF SIN***, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains TO KEEP A SEPARATED WORLD IN PLACE? For PLACE HAS GONE as well, ALONG WITH TIME. ONLY THE BODY MAKES THE WORLD SEEM REAL, for BEING SEPARATE IT COULD NOT REMAIN WHERE SEPARATION IS IMPOSSIBLE. Forgiveness proves it is impossible BECAUSE IT SEES IT NOT. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."
"O my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, OUT OF ILLUSIONS INTO HOLINESS; OUT OF THE WORLD AND INTO ETERNITY; out of all fear and given back to love."
"Real choice is no illusion. BUT THE WORLD HAS NONE TO OFFER. All its roads but lead to DISAPPOINTMENT, NOTHINGNESS AND DEATH. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. THE WORLD WAS MADE SO THAT PROBLEMS COULD NOT BE ESCAPED. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes. "
"There is nothing you CAN hold against REALITY. All that must be forgiven are the ILLUSIONS you have held against your brothers. Their reality HAS no past, and ONLY illusions can BE forgiven. God holds nothing against ANYONE, for He is INCAPABLE of ILLUSIONS of ANY kind. Release your brothers from the slavery of THEIR illusions, by forgiving them for the illusions which YOU perceive in them. Thus will you learn that YOU have been forgiven, for it is YOU who offered THEM illusions. In the holy instant, this is done for you IN TIME, to bring to you the true condition of Heaven."
(in true perception) "The BODY'S EYES WILL CONTINUE TO SEE DIFFERENCES. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will NO LONGER ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the BODY'S EYES WILL REPORT THEIR CHANGED APPEARANCES AS BEFORE. 4 But the healed mind will put them ALL IN ONE CATEGORY; ***THEY ARE UNREAL*** 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives FROM WHAT APPEARS TO BE THE OUTSIDE WORLD. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as REALITY IS WHOLLY REAL, APART FROM SIZE AND SHAPE AND TIME AND PLACE—FOR DIFFERENCES CANNOT EXIST WITHIN IT—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all ILLUSIONS is truth."
Everything in the ego's mindset looks like one thing but is actually something completely opposite.
e.g.
What we call attack, is actually retreat.
God cannot be attacked. When you try to attack God, if you were to go punch God in the face, guess what happens? Every effort you make to throw your fist forward, it's as though your fist goes nowhere, and instead the rest of your body is pushed backwards. I'm just using this as a 'visual' to make my point.
Metaphysically, energetically, mentally, any form of attack is really a withdrawal of cowardice and fear, a recoil into darkness and AWAY from love.
How can love be attacked when attack is a movement away from love?
This is why we are immortal.
Immortality cannot be attacked. Nothing real can be threatened. Illusions cannot assail the Kingdom of Heaven.
This isn' just information. This is the composition of reality.
Love is, and ego is not.
Love is, and attack is not.
Viciousness and terror goes hand in hand with being terrified. Torrorism IS fear.
Everything the ego does looks like one thing - attack - outward expression and forward motion towards harm - but is in fact the exact opposite - recoil away from and withdrawal from love.
Love is therefore always perfectly protected.
"The Kingdom is perfectly united and perfectly protected, and the ego will not prevail against it. Amen" - ACIM
This is why you cannot be really hurt. This is why nobody else can do anything to you. This is why you are permanently invulnerable. This is why you have IMMORTALITY and can never die.
There is no death, silly.
There are aspects of the Truth that are just so mind-blowing in how they completely fly in the face of conventional truth. It's like, what they claim is so opposite to what we've been raised to believe, that it just seems so radical and almost difficult to grasp ahold of. A massive weight of contrary opinion seems to scream from all the mouths of the world that it can't be true. Yet it is, and it peeks out from behind the clouds of confusion with a boldness and rightness that just begs for someone to grab ahold of it, side with it and represent it.
The truth is...
The ego does not exist at all.
The physical world does not exist at all.
Nothing has really happened here, it's an illusion of things happening.
There is no such thing as real sin.
There is no such thing as real sickness or death.
Nobody has ever really died because bodies are not real.
You are permanently innocent in God's eyes.
God does not even believe in sin whatsoever.
The entirety of the history of the universe is a made-up story with absolutely no truth to it.
There is no truth in the world whatsoever because it is not real.
You are not a body because the body does not exist at all.
You are immortal and permanently real.
So many voices chime in to claim things which are contrary to this, to sing a song of dire endings and false beginnings. So many are joined in the chorus of death's dirge, exalting the body and worshipping the death of God and His Son. Believing in sickness, perpetuating suffering, making sin real and judging it. And mental illness in everyone who believes in the ego. What a crazy world, if it were real!
Lift yourself up to the light of truth and claim it no matter what the world says and no matter what anyone else believes. Your allegiance must be wholly unto God with no other authority can take His place.
Is it not evident that what the body's eyes perceive FILLS YOU WITH FEAR? Perhaps you think you find a hope of satisfaction there. Perhaps you fancy to attain some peace and satisfaction in the world as YOU perceive it. Yet it MUST be evident the outcome DOES NOT CHANGE. Despite your hopes and fancies, ALWAYS does despair result. And there is NO exception, nor will there ever be. The ONLY value that the past can hold is that you learn it gave you NO rewards that you would WANT to keep, for only thus will you be WILLING to relinquish it, and have it gone forever.
Is it not strange that you should cherish still some hope of satisfaction from the world you see? In NO respect, at ANY time or place, has ANYTHING but fear and guilt been your reward. How long is needed for you to realize the chance of CHANGE in this regard is hardly worth delaying change that might result in better outcome? For one thing is sure; the way YOU see, and long HAVE seen, gives NO support to base your future hopes, and NO suggestions of success at all. To place your hopes where no hope lies MUST make you hopeless. Yet is this hopelessness your choice, while you would seek for hope where none is EVER found.
Is it not ALSO true that you have found some hope APART from this; some glimmering, inconstant, wavering, yet dimly seen, that hopefulness IS warranted, on grounds that are NOT in this world? And yet your hope that they may STILL lie here prevents you still from giving up the hopeless and unrewarding task you set YOURSELF. Can it make sense to hold the fixed belief that there IS reason to uphold pursuit of what has ALWAYS failed, on grounds that it will suddenly succeed, and bring what it has NEVER brought before?
Its past HAS failed. Be glad that it is gone within your mind to darken what IS there. Take not the form for content, for the form is but a MEANS for content. And the frame is but a means to hold the picture up, so that it can be seen. A frame that HIDES the picture HAS no purpose. It cannot BE a frame if IT is what you see. WITHOUT the picture is the frame without its meaning. Its PURPOSE is to set the PICTURE off, and NOT itself. Who hangs an empty frame upon a wall, and stands before it, deep in reverence, as if a masterpiece were there to see?
Yet, if you see your brother as a body, it IS but this you do. The masterpiece that God has set within this frame is all there IS to see. The body holds it, for a while, without obscuring it in any way. But what God has created NEEDS no frame, for what He has created HE supports, and frames within Himself. His masterpiece He offers YOU to see. And would you rather see the frame INSTEAD of this? And see the picture not at all? The Holy Spirit is the frame God set around the part of Him that YOU would see as separate. Yet its frame is JOINED to its Creator, One with Him AND with His masterpiece.
This IS its purpose, and you do NOT make the frame INTO the picture, when you choose to see it in its place. The frame that God has given it but serves HIS purpose, not yours APART from His. It is your SEPARATE purpose that OBSCURES the picture, and cherishes the frame INSTEAD of it. But God has set His masterpiece within a frame that will endure forever, when yours has crumbled into dust. But think you not the picture is destroyed in ANY way. What God creates is safe from ALL corruption, unchanged and perfect in eternity.
Accept HIS frame instead of yours, and you WILL see the masterpiece. Look at its loveliness, and understand the Mind that thought it, NOT in flesh and bones, but in a frame as lovely as Itself. Its holiness lights up the sinlessness the frame of darkness hides, and casts a veil of light across the picture's face, which but reflects the light which shines from it to its Creator. Think not this face was ever darkened because YOU saw it in a frame of death. God kept it safe that YOU might look on it, and SEE the holiness that He has given it. Within the darkness see the Savior FROM the dark, and understand your brother as his Father's Mind shows him to you.
He will step forth from darkness as you look on him, and YOU will see the dark no more. The darkness touched him not, nor you who BROUGHT him forth for YOU to look upon. His sinlessness but pictures YOURS. His gentleness becomes YOUR strength, and BOTH will gladly look within and see the holiness that MUST be there BECAUSE of what you looked upon in him. HE is the frame in which YOUR holiness is set, and what God gave him MUST be given you. However much he overlooks the masterpiece in him, and sees only a frame of darkness, it is still YOUR only function to behold in him what he sees not. And, in this seeing, is the vision SHARED that looks on Christ INSTEAD of seeing death.
How could the Lord of Heaven NOT be glad if you appreciate His masterpiece? What COULD He do but offer thanks to you, who love His Son as He does? Would He not make KNOWN to you His Love, if you but SHARE His praise of what He loves? God cherishes creation as the perfect Father that He is. And so His joy is made complete when any part of Him JOINS in His praise, to SHARE His joy. This brother is His perfect gift to you. And He is glad and thankful when you thank His perfect Son for being what he IS. And ALL His thanks and gladness shine on you who would COMPLETE His joy, along with Him.
And thus is YOURS completed. Not one ray of darkness can be seen by those who will to make their Father's happiness complete, and theirs along with His. The gratitude of God Himself is freely offered to everyone who shares His Purpose. It was not His Will to be alone. And neither is it YOURS. Forgive your brother, and you CANNOT separate yourself from him, nor from his Father. YOU need NO forgiveness, for the wholly pure have never sinned. Give, then, what He has given you, that YOU may see His Son as one, and thank his Father, as He thanks YOU. Nor believe that all His praise is given not to you. For what you give is HIS, and giving it, you learn to understand His gift to you. And give the Holy Spirit what He offers unto the Father AND the Son alike.
Nothing has power over you EXCEPT His Will AND yours, who but EXTEND His Will. It was for this YOU were created, and your brother WITH you, and ONE with you. YOU are the same, as God Himself is One, and NOT divided in His Will. And YOU must have one purpose, since He gave the same to BOTH of you. His Will is brought together as you join in will that you be made complete by offering completion to your brother. See not in him the sinfulness HE sees, but give him honor that you may esteem yourself AND him. To each of you is given the power of salvation, that escape from darkness into light be yours to share, that you may see as one what never HAS been separate, nor apart from ALL His Love as given equally.
1) Whatever God creates must EXTEND who and what he is and be LIKE him in every way. Whatever comes from him must be God-like, and eternal, and immortal. Anything that does not last FOREVER, cannot come out of an immortal creator.
2) Whatever God creates is PART OF HIM, and so he IS his creation. Which means that if you suggest that dogshit and explosions and machine guns and atomic bombs and supernova are God's creation, you are saying that GOD IS all of these murderous things.
3) Whatever God creates is REALITY. If this world is reality, God has to BE it, live it, will it, condone it. He literally has to PERSONALLY cause it. And he has to BE that which IT IS. So now any form of attack is God attacking himself, any murder is God killing himself, any death is God punishing himself and making himself suffer to try to kill himself, which makes God suicidal and insane.
4) God can only create that which extends himself and he endows his creations with the ability to extend themselves. They are co-creators. The line of creation MUST NOT STOP. There must be no dead ends, or a lack of inheritance of ability to create forever. Every creation must be a powerful creator. Cars and machine guns and gravestones and dirt and bricks CANNOT CREATE. They are dead ends and cannot be of God because they CANNOT EXTEND. Failing to extend eternal life is DEATH.
5) Whatever God creates shares his immortality and cannot be attacked or hurt or ever die. "Nothing real can be threatened. If it can be threatened, IT IS NOT REAL. Threats include attack, damage, decay, murder, aging, explosions, war, etc. None of these things can be God's creation otherwise he has created MORTALITY. Mortality cannot come from an immortal creator who can only share his own immortality with his creations.
6) God is absolute perfection without a single flaw or thing missing or malfunction or breakage. Anything that is NOT perfect is NOT of God and cannot come out of him in creation. That includes broken down rusted cars, crashed airplanes, sick bodies, warzones, rotten food and corpses. God could not even think of such things yet alone make them.
7) God can ONLY conceive of that which is innocent, holy, pure, good, happy, loving, peaceful, gentle, beautiful, permanent, immortal, joyful and alive forever. If anything does not have these properties it is NOT created by God. A gentle benevolent God cannot even THINK OF or imagine or dream up machine guns, tanks, dangerous crevices, barren dry deserts, frozen tundras, black holes, or supernova that destroy entire solar systems.
8 ) God being of one nature can only produce one kind of outcome because he always gives everything fully and excludes nothing. This means he can only create ONE KIND of creation, not two. Given that Earth is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to heaven in EVERY way, as the course clearly states, it would REQUIRE God to be split minded and have a divided will and be indecisive in fear and unsure whether he would have one kind or output or another. God cannot contradict himself or produce contradictory worlds. Earth and heaven are OPPOSITES.
9) God only causes and condones and wills POSSIBILITIES that are in total alignment with his loving gentle happy nature. His kingdom is HIS MIND. He creates WITHIN himself. He does not allow there to be even the POSSIBILITY of "bad things happening", murder, death, suffering of any kind, things that break down, decay and rot, bad smells, separations and walls, weapons, or any such thing which could IN ANY WAY suggest it's even POSSIBLE for such things to exist. His laws DO NOT ALLOW there to be even the slightest real possibility that a "real weapon" could ever exist whatsoever. Any such things, any world that supports such things, IS NOT POSSIBLE.
10) God is one, and is oneness, and is unified and whole. He has absolutely no separation in him. No ego. No walls. No divisions. No things which are opposite to each other, or against each other, or hidden from each other, or different to each other. It is all one nature. He cannot even IMAGINE bodies separating off his creations. He cannot even imagine walls, solid objects, space or time. All physical objects ABSOLUTELY REQUIRE SEPARATION in order for there to even be SPACE whatsoever. Space in which some things exist over here, and some things exist over there, and nothing is everywhere. Space in which the very idea of physical matter is an attempt to SEPARATE OFF, and without the idea of separation IT IS IMPOSSIBLE FOR THERE TO BE SPATIAL OBJECTS. All bodies, all planets, all galaxies, all matter entirely, with any label attached or not, perceived in ANY way, is a form of an idea of separation and DOES NOT exist in God's creation.
"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"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 is a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."
"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."
I was watching a little bug crawling along the edge of the floor. I noticed how its "design" was going to mean it had a certain short amount of time to live, to crawl around trying to find food, likely to eventually starve, and die. It seemed obvious that death is built into things in this world, into the forms, into the growth and death cycle. And then a spider noticed the bug and approached and killed it and ate it.
Obviously the life of the bug is not exactly rewarding. It's demise is more or less programmed into its body. It's life duration is only mildly flexible and definitely short. It is born and it grows and suffers and dies. Like a guarantee. Like a destiny or fate. The bug was going to die, right from the start. It could not escape this. And how completely closed and cruel and insane that is.
This is the "nature" of this world. This is the fundamental way of space and time. Of separation. Of a world made in false perception, as an attack on God and life, and as an attempt to reject reality. The world we made is fundamentally cruel and insane and everything in it is made to die.
It is ridiculous that such a system, which on the physical level no bodies can seemingly escape, guarantees that death will happen to everything. And if you think that your body will escape this as well, you are mistaken, unless you can become miraculous. For most, death will take its toll sooner or late. Not if, but when.
The fate of the bug is the fate of every body. How ridiculous that we should think it natural that this is what happens, or what is going to happen. And who would still be insane to deny that this too is likely to happen to them. You can pretend a while, but eventually it will bite you in the ass.
If this is true, and if this is real, there is no way out. There is then essentially no hope. Sooner or later death will strike. Sooner or later, no matter what you try, the body will end. It is inevitable, unless you are a miracle worker. The only way for there to BE hope, to BE a way out, to BE sanity and sense, is if the world is not true or real. If this isn't the ONLY way. If this perpetual prison is in fact somehow transcend-able then you have a way out of hell. But otherwise you are stuck, and denying you are is pointless.
This is why "there must be a better way". A way that is better than the world itself. A way that is light and free and outside of the confines of the laws of this world, the laws of death and the laws of suffering. Only if there is an alternative, another world, another reality, another set of laws to live by, can there be any hope at all. And fortunately there is, because the laws of God and the nature of HIS Kingdom is nothing like this hellish place.
The task then becomes to learn to rise above the prison sentence, beyond the destiny of death, and to overcome the hell you made. To find a way to exist that is nothing like the existence of the body. To rejoin a thread of hope and life and power and miraculousness. Because it literally will take a miracle to free you from death. It will literally require you to break the laws of space and time, to set yourself free from the cycle of birth.
Fortunately God has a plan and it is the atonement, the way home. There IS a way out of hell, through forgiveness. And this requires un-learning everything the world told you is true, rejecting all notions of limitation and lack and suffering and death. And accepting the FREEDOM that God has given you in your creation.
You are free from hell because you are not of this world. You are free from death because God who created you gave you eternal life. And you are free from the nightmare of inevitable suffering, because in God there is only perfect peace. There is no world, there is no suffering, and there is no death. And only through acceptance of life without opposite can you set yourself free.
"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."
"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?"
"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. All its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not escape from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to gain that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."
"You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it."
"The world 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."
God speaks to us. Shall we not speak to Him? He is not distant. He makes no attempt to hide from us. We try to hide from Him, and suffer from deception. He remains entirely accessible. He loves His Son. There is no certainty but this, yet this suffices. He will love His Son forever. When his mind remains asleep, He loves him still. And when his mind awakes, He loves him with a never-changing Love.
If you but knew the meaning of His Love, hope and despair would be impossible, for hope would be forever satisfied; despair of any kind unthinkable. His grace His answer is to all despair, for in it lies remembrance of His Love. Would He not gladly give the means by which His Will is recognized? His grace is yours by your acknowledgment. And memory of Him awakens in the mind which asks the means of Him whereby its sleep is done.
Today we ask of God the gift He has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged. This the gift by which God leans to us and lifts us up, taking salvation's final step Himself. All steps but this we learn, instructed by His Voice. But finally He comes Himself and takes us in His arms, and sweeps away the cobwebs of our sleep. His gift of grace is more than just an answer. It restores all memories the sleeping mind forgot; all certainty of what love's meaning is.
God loves His Son. Request Him now to give the means by which this world will disappear, and vision first will come, with knowledge but an instant later. For in grace you see a light that covers all the world in love, and watch fear disappear from every face as hearts rise up and claim the light as theirs. What now remains that Heaven be delayed an instant longer? What remains undone when your forgiveness rests on everything?
It is a new and holy day today, for we receive what has been given us. Our faith lies in the Giver, not our own acceptance. We acknowledge our mistakes, but He to Whom all error is unknown is yet the One Who answers our mistakes by giving us the means to lay them down, and rise to Him in gratitude and love.
And He descends to meet us as we come to Him, for what he has prepared for us He gives and we receive. Such is His Will because He loves His Son. To Him we pray today, returning but the words He gave to us through His Own Voice, His Word, His Love:
"Your grace is given me. I claim it now.
Father, I come to You. And You will come
To me who asks. I am the Son You love."
I want to tell you about a way in which I used my persona to destroy myself, and how I am learning to overcome it. This was actually a very very painful long-term lesson, so it is hard to write about.
I grew up as a highly sensitive person, who experienced everything in an intense, overwhelming, overpowering way. In order to try to cope with this, I developed the use of my persona. The persona is the side of the ego split-mind that focuses on specialness, goodness, success, social acceptability, favoritism, pleasantness, etc. So I went very strongly into 'people pleasing'.
What I'd do, quite automatically/unconsciously, was I'd put on this facade, literally a 'false face', where I'd smile a lot, become very quiet, try to appear pleasant, try not to upset anyone, look unthreatening and harmless, as though 'showing this' to people would deflect them and therefore protect me. It was my attempt to be invisible. This included a really intense repression of myself. Basically I was using this to hide my Self.
In any public situation I would put on this persona mask and make it appear that nothing was wrong, that everything was good and normal, nothing to see here, being nice to everyone and don't say a single word, and not get hurt. But there were many times this blew up in my face.
Once I was on a bus heading into town and it stopped at the hospital. A man got on the bus and sat nearby. He said that he had just gotten out of the hospital from his 3rd heart attack. This alone was enough to trigger me to hide myself even more than I already was. So I smiled a lot. He, having just gone through life-changing events, started up a conversation with me, which was horrifying. He saw I was smiling and thought that it meant I was happy, and therefore wanted to know what my 'secret to a happy life' was. This put tremendous extra pressure on me (as I saw it) and I just wanted to get the hell out of there. To do this, I intensified even more this persona of hiding myself, which was an attempt to reject him, smiling even more, being very tight-lipped, and just wanting the ordeal to end. I just became more and more quiet. For some reason I seemed to just do this as an automatic defense that I'd learned.
Once I got off the bus, I was just about ready to hurl. I put so much effort into psychologically rejecting the man, and hiding myself, that I felt literally sick. I reached/retched uncontrollably for several minutes before I could calm down. This put a huge damper on my day and was somewhat traumatic. But this wasn't the only effect of this.
See, when I used my persona to hide my real Self, this wouldn't just mean rejecting the other person, it would mean rejecting me. The more I tried to shut them out, the more I shut myself out. I had no idea I was doing this. But what I did know was how it felt. Absolutely horrible. I would come away from bad experiences like this, which occurred many many times in all kinds of public scenarios, with a feeling of tremendous tension in my head from intense embarrassment/shame/humiliation. I'd get a horrible headache, but even worse, I would feel deeply, deeply, deeply hurt. This hurt was more intense and horrible than ANY other emotion I have ever felt for any reason. Psychologically it was like I had experienced every single form of rejection, abandonment, hurt and pain all at once. The absolute only way to move past this was to have a huge cry.
So, as a result of putting on a persona and pretending to be someone I was not, regardless of whether that fake self seemed to be 'nice' or 'kind' or anything anyone values, the only way I could appear to be literally 'someone else' was to horrendously suppress, deny, reject and abandon myself. I thought I was using separation 'against' other people to separate myself from them in order to protect myself, but this separation did nothing but hurt me.
I also had a huge fear of other people judging me, and a fear of rejection. What I didn't realize was that each time that I tried to put on a persona mask of nice, likable, happy-smiley, quiet or whatever, I was buying into an ego thought system. And by doing that, I was taking a gamble. Either I would 'get' the result I wanted which was that people would be deflected and ignore me and I would pass by 'safely', OR other people would attack me or pressure me in some way and I'd end up suffering. By believing in the potential of being seen to be accepted or liked or pleasing to others, I was also simultaneously believing in the 'potential' that others would judge me. I wanted them to judge me favorably, which would feed my 'goodie goodie' persona, which meant I had to believe in judgement. And because I believed in judgement, I lived in fear of it.
So I thought I had an issue of being afraid of judgement from others. A fear of rejection. And this fear of rejection cycled around in a vicious cycle, compelling me to want to NOT be rejected, and therefore to put on a smiley persona face in order to get other people to not reject or hurt me. But of course that merely put me closer in touch with rejection and judgement, if not by others then much moreso by myself. The amount of rejection I experienced from myself TO myself as a result of self-suppression, was far worse than anything anyone else did. So this strategy really didn't actually work, even though I kept trying to use it, and each time it got worse. Over time I just became more and more uptight and quiet and withdrawn from society, eventually jobless and depressed and deeply unhappy and unable to see a way to be different.
Over time, through various avenues of healing, not least of which was the support by my wife who showed up right when I was at my worst, I gradually have learned about the dynamics of what I do to myself versus what I thought other people were going to do to me. I learned painfully and slowly to see that I only saw other people as 'attacking judging strangers' because *I* had already attacked them first. Through the years of working with A Course in Miracles and various other things I've come to very gradually realize exactly why my use of the persona is completely self-defeating and does not help at all. All the persona does is section off everything I think is wrong with me into a tidy little box and shove it away into the dark recesses of my mind, later to surface as pain and suffering.
Yet, over time I've still held onto a belief that I am mainly afraid of rejection or judgement, rather than realizing that my attempt to use the persona is what actually causes the problem. Every time I try to do what other people would want, or make myself like able, or appease others, or focus on what other people like or would buy, or whether I'd get approval, or showing only the parts of myself that I think are acceptable to others, this AUTOMATICALLY creates a fear of rejection and judgement. Because really, by using the persona (i.e. wanting to feed it by creating a self-image/persona of being pleasing) I am actually already rejecting myself and judging myself. Why would I want to put a facade on myself to cover up my True Self? Why would I want to soften the blow of someone else's attitude by abandoning myself first, so that I then need a defense?
The truth that is starting to reveal itself to me now, is that if I actually just be true to myself, and completely drop all need to use the persona to be 'likable' or 'acceptable to others' or 'what they want' etc, I actually stay in a STRENGTH and a authenticity that empowers me and completely overrides the apparent need, either for a fake persona self, or for a defense against rejection. And so this reveals what really is underneath all this.
If I reject myself FIRST, I will then believe I have to use a false self-image-persona to show other people a version of me that they will like, so that they won't point out how shitty I am. Once i'm in persona mode, I cannot escape the fear of rejection because I've already rejected myself and more will be forthcoming through the projection of it.
So the task in front of me now is, to learn to accept myself fully, to be true to the truth in me, to open up to reveal and expose who I really am, to 'let loose' without any shame or censorship, to stop trying to hide myself for any reason, and to basically 'be myself'. But it also HAS to mean, a willingness to stop putting on a show, to stop presenting myself in a fake way, to stop trying to 'appear' likable, to stop people-pleasing, to stop trying to feed my persona image, to stop trying to get everyone to approve of me, and to just drop that whole pile of horseshit. I only enter into a perception that I need 'protection' when I have already judged myself and have seen myself as vulnerable. I am not vulnerable if I am truth-filled. And I don't need to please anyone.
So the key to FREEDOM in all this, is awakening into Holy Spirit's view of me, in acceptance of the truth of me, and in completely surrendering BOTH the fear of rejection AND the attempt to 'win approval' through the persona. By stopping using a persona this solves every problem that ever arose out of its use. What I thought was helping me was hurting me deeply. And stopping the use of the persona stops the creation of the shadow (pain) as well.
Standing firmly in who I AM, brings all of the certainty, strength, assertiveness, disregard for other's opinions, invulnerability, and empowerment, that seemed to be MISSING when I chose to use the ego. And which could never be fulfilled by using the ego. Because once again, it's a case of seek and do not find. "I don't have to worry about what to say or what to do knowing He goes there with me" - ACIM, i.e. I am in my true self and my true self is completely uninterested in pretense or rejection.
Who knew - trying to please people makes you rejected!!!
Learning to love myself more. Learning to drop the ego more. Learning to be what I am, instead of trying to be something I'm not. And in that, there is no fear.
"To forgive is to OVERLOOK"
"Everything the body sees is an illusion."
Years ago when I began the course, I thought I understood forgiveness. I thought it basically meant not blaming people, and trying to learn that everyone is innocent. It's kind of that. But over time and with deeper study my grasp of forgiveness kept expanding.
I realized at some point forgiveness is a state, a high state of mind, in concert with true perception, and that our efforts "to forgive" move us in the direction of that state. At some point we would achieve a truly forgiving state of mind as an end result or goal. And this state recognizes there is no real sin.
And so then "doing forgiveness" to me was more to do with purification, healing, release, not judging, taking responsibility, embracing the secret of salvation etc. I made effort to forgive myself and others through various means and to move out of fear into guilt, out of guilt into sin, and out of sin into innocence. But this still wasn't the whole story.
It gradually became clearer that the entire world needs to be overlooked. Particularly because the world itself is an illusion, it wasn't enough to undo my mistaken ideas and beliefs about it, somehow I had to learn to "see past" the world to a light or reality beyond it. And this is significantly challenging. The world hangs like a veil before the face of Christ, a granite block of sin, designed to tempt you to believe everything you see.
It became clearer that the entire physical universe, all forms of matter, all bodies and planets and objects, are there as temptations, appearances and deceptions. That seeing something seem to happen in the flesh was in fact untrue and unreal. That people are not bodies, but something beyond their physical form that I'm meant to see. And so my efforts shifted toward trying not to be deceived by the world in general.
This is where things seem to become quite difficult. When you consider that we've lived in a physical body for many years, assuming the world is real, reacting to everything the body senses as if it's happening as proof, there is a lot of conditioning to undo. And it starts to go into a territory where you have to literally question fundamental reality, whether events are even really happening, whether sick bodies even exist, whether all of the hierarchy of illusions really testifies to bad things happening or if it's just some awful dream. And that means questioning even what your body senses say is happening.
For me lately the challenge has been intensified because I've been presented with some very difficult "physical" scenarios with my wife that present powerful temptations. Temptations to believe that awful things are happening, that there is physical loss, that body parts are malfunctioning, that there is seriousness and heaviness and fear-inducing problems. I've been extremely pushed and impressed upon by the apparent reality of these horrors.
Just the mere act of seeing something physically "wrong" and believing it is truthful, real, happening, or a danger, is enough to incite fear and reactions. When the world is dangling "proof" that sin is happening, attack is happening, that bodies seem to be real, in front of your face, proving that sin is real, what do you do? Because this is where we really get into some major need for forgiveness.
It has become more and more apparent that everything physical is an illusion. All body states are fictional. The ego uses forms to hold the idea of death in front of our noses, asking us to believe that it's really happening. It asks us to regard people as bodies as though, when parts of the body are threatened or lost, the person is threatened or lost. And if you buy it, you will be very upset. And this is why the world is so unhappy.
Presented with a torrent of nightmarish happenings, my challenge has been to try to learn to disbelieve them. To not buy the appearance. To trust a bigger plan. To see beyond the short-term nonsense. To not believe it means something. To not go into fear as a reaction to my own belief that something is very wrong. From what I've been shown through these trials and lessons, not only that our immortal reality the only truth, but also everything bodies testify to is an illusion.
My wife had to have an amputation of her left foot. At first this was horrifying. Just the idea of it made me guilty and afraid. I feared the "loss of her" because if her foot was gone, part of her was really gone. That's what the ego teaches through form. Physical loss means something real has been destroyed, which automatically leads to loss and grief. And so I entered into loss and grief and had to struggle to get out of it. It was induced by the belief that what the body was showing was true of her. That a) she was a body, a b) she was attacked and really suffering and c) it was an irreversible sin.
This is where forgiveness really meets the road. I've had to learn to try to see past and disbelieve all physical events, happenings, states, conditions, people's expert opinions about how serious it is, the physical testimony that "it really is happening", all proof, and all suggestion by the ego world that something is terribly wrong. It is not easy. The level of temptation has been so high and so frequent that I've been thrown far off-center and struggling to get back a sense of truth.
But I do realize through all of this that the opportunity has presented me with a "test", a way to find out if I will be willing to not buy into this problem and laugh it off with love, perhaps to even become miraculous and healing through that love, or whether I will sink into fear and forgetfulness. To say that the road has been extremely bumpy is an understatement. And so the challenge to forgive is to NOT BELIEVE that any of this is even happening at all. To disregard it as illusions and as lies.
Somehow through the clearing smoke, it seems I disbelieve the physical with more certainty now. And as I see other people's sick bodies, somehow I now see them with the same attitude that I see my wife's body with. Her example has changed my perception. Whatever the education has been, it now applies to a transformation in my vision. I can't by any means claim this is total or even halfway to where it needs to be, but it's clear that forgiveness has evolved way past what I thought it was, and now onto a more living experience of not being deceived by form. Even the suggestion of physical death now seems like a ridiculous lie.
It's no small undertaking. We literally are being asked to not believe ANYTHING in this world. That all forms, appearances, bodies, objects, are mere illusory appearances designed to tempt us, causing us to have to learn NOT to be deceived by them. It's very difficult to not buy illusions when someone close to you is seriously ill with visible and "serious" physical symptoms. But this is what we have to do. The body is a denial of the truth. We have to deny the denial of the truth. We have to learn not to buy a single thing the world says is happening, and look beyond the world to the light. We are safe in God, merely dreaming of exile.
In this view, our task is to overlook the world, which transforms it into the forgiven world. And a forgiven world cannot last. "A forgiven world cannot last. It was the home of bodies but forgiveness looks past bodies." We look beyond the forgiven world, beyond the real world, to the Kingdom of God. We regard the Kingdom as the only reality. We are vigilant only for its truth and immortality. We are not deceived by lies of mortal death or suffering. Nothing that the body senses can distract us from an unwavering fixation on God's truth. We are under no laws buy God's, and only the truth is true and this world is not true.
This is what we are asked to do. This is how we forgive. We overlook the false world we made and see it not. We ask to see only the reality of the Kingdom. Nothing else is real. Nothing else has value. Nothing else attracts us. Nothing else satisfies. Only in the forgetting of the world and the complete overlooking of its transparent veil of lies can we look upon the face of Christ and finally move beyond to our True Home.
"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.
Consider the Kingdom which you have made (Earth), and judge its worth fairly. Is it worthy to be a home for a Child of God? Does it protect his peace, and shine love upon him? Does it keep his heart untouched by fear, and allow him to give always without any sense of loss? Does it teach him that this giving is his joy, and that God Himself thanks him for his giving?
That is the only environment in which you can be happy. You cannot make it, anymore than you can make yourselves. But it has been created for you (Heaven), as you were created for it. God watches over His children and denies them nothing."
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
"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. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty.
This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear."
In this world, "forgiveness is an earthly form of love". What that means is that REAL love is of Heaven, and on earth the best we can do is a REFLECTION of love projected into the mirror of the world. This reflection is heaven-LIKE, but is not heaven itself.
"Earth can reflect heaven or hell" means that the mirror of the world can reflect an IMAGE of heaven or hell in it. Images are not the real thing, but they REPRESENT the real thing and point to it. They act as symbols, and ALL images are symbolic.
Forgiveness itself is therefore an 'image' or reflection of heaven, and therefore is SYMBOLIC OF HEAVEN. It is a representation of heaven within this world, and POINTS TO the real heaven that it symbolizes.
We can then say that, the state of forgiveness, atonement, true-perception, salvation, right-mindedness, miracle-mindedness, sanity, the face of christ, the real world etc..... this is all one SYMBOL of heaven. And being a symbol, it must be heaven LIKE.
To be heaven like is to be SIMILAR to how you are in heaven. Holy Relationships reflect our real relationships in heaven, in which you are in unconditional love with EVERY member of the sonship. Miracles reflect your interpersonal relations, in which you are united with your brother. And forgiveness corresponds to a harmless attitude, devoid of sin and attack.
So what we can simply say is, you are supposed to be heaven-like, while on the earth. So if being heaven like is to be IMMORTAL, then you are to be immortal-like while on the earth. In your real immortality you are invulnerable to suffering, nothing can affect you against your will, you cannot be hurt or made to be sick or dead, and you have permanent life. You must therefore REFLECT this symbolically on earth by demonstrating that you are invulnerable to the world.
This is why in "forgiveness" we try to take an approach that "I am not at the effect of the world" and "no one is doing this to me, I'm doing it to myself" and "I can be hurt by nothing" and "nothing in the world can bring oppression or make me sick" and all these other various forms of being CAUSE, NOT EFFECT.
The whole reason we're trying not to accuse others of sinning against us, is because in truth we cannot BE sinned against, because we are immortal. Other's can't be to blame for hurting you, because you cannot BE hurt. The world cannot be sinful or the cause of your suffering, because you CANNOT really suffer. No-one else can have power over you, because you are ALL POWERFUL. And not even sickness or death can "happen to you" because YOU ARE IMMORTAL.
So it's not just that we're trying not to accuse others, it's that in truth we have absolutely no grounds for believing that we can even BE attacked or be caused against our will. We are immortal beings, and when we're getting into "something's wrong with me" or "you did this to me" we're lying to ourselves and pretending to be MORTAL. Only those who are mortal can be vulnerable, suffer, be attacked, be weakened, be made sick, or be caused to die.
Forgiveness therefore is a SYMBOL OF IMMORTALITY and is a state in which you are as close to your actual immortality as possible. It's a state of invulnerability, where even the body can no longer be sick or die, and where you are completely free from all attack. You do not attack yourself, and you have no belief in sin. You see sinlessness in yourself and in the world and in everyone, because immortal beings HAVE to be sinless. And immortality is innocence.
You can't BE hurt. You can't really suffer. You can't really BE sick. And the Son of God certainly can NEVER die. So what's the point with all this fake suffering and fake sickness and fake death? "Sickness is an attempt to prove you can be hurt" .... but you CAN'T be hurt. Even when you seem to hurt yourself it does NOTHING to your soul. You have NEVER BEEN HURT and you CANNOT BE HURT. Adopting that attitude is in alignment with your immortal soul.
"But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate. Yet from this gate it is no more than just a step inside. It is the final step. And this we leave to God.
It is a symbol, too, but as the symbol of His Will alone it cannot be divided. And so the Unity that it reflects becomes His Will. It is the only thing still in the world in part, and yet the bridge to Heaven."
"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made."
"But a RISEN Christ becomes the symbol of the Son of God's forgiveness upon HIMSELF; the sign he looks upon himself as healed and whole."
"The "spiritual eye" is symbolic, and therefore NOT a device for knowing. It IS, however, a means of right perception, which brings it into the proper domain of the miracle, but NOT of revelation."
"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is not a reflection, but rather the ACTUAL CONDITION of what was but reflected TO them here. God is no image, and His creations, as part of Him, hold Him in them in truth. They do not merely REFLECT the truth, for THEY ARE truth."
"But eternity ITSELF is beyond ALL time. Reach out of time and touch it, with the help of its reflection IN you, and you will turn FROM time to holiness, as surely as the reflection of holiness calls everyone to lay all guilt aside. Reflect the peace of Heaven HERE, and bring this world to Heaven. For the REFLECTION of truth draws everyone TO truth. And as they enter INTO it, they leave ALL reflections behind. In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected. By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts. And thus, remembrance of His Father dawns on him, and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own reality."
The truth is plain and clear. It can be presented in a perfectly clear manner. It can be spelled out with such logical clarity that anyone in their right mind would have absolutely no problem accepting it makes sense and is true. "No-one can argue with a fact" IF they are in their right mind.
However, when someone is not in their right mind and has an ego, something very weird happens.
It doesn't even matter how clear the truth is. It doesn't even matter that we are surrounded by and immersed in the absolute truth of God in Heaven RIGHT NOW. We still for some reason do not see it, recognize it, accept it, or want it. What is up with that?
Presenting the truth to someone extremely clearly, with maximal black and white clarity, leaving no room for confusion, STILL is not enough to get someone to accept it. This is why Jesus said he took every measure to make the course as clear as possible, but that people CAN AND WILL find controversy in it IF they look for it (with ego).
The problem boils down to.... the ego IS NOT WILLING to accept it.
We could be shown plain and simple what the truth IS. And yet we could still DENY it by being UNWILLING to accept it is true. This reminds me of Helen S saying that she knew the course was the truth but she could not believe it.
The ego has this very weird thing it does, a kind of blindness, an insanity, a sort of vibe it gets, even if something is totally plain and simple truth, that it will STILL persist with a sense of "I don't believe this", "It's not true". To have that kind of stubbornness in the face of the facts, is nothing less than an act of denial.
For example.
"The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite." (so now we know any opposite to love does not exist)
"Your Love is Heaven" (so now we know heaven is love - and expressed in many other phrases)
"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." (so now we know, heaven and earth are opposites in EVERY way)
And because of this, logically, 100% bulletproof logic, earth therefore DOES NOT EXIST. Because love, which is the same as heaven, has no opposite that exists.
This is a FACT.
However, you can put this fact down in a post or put it in front of someone's face in big letters, saying:
HEAVEN IS LOVE AND HAS NO OPPOSITE, EARTH IS OPPOSITE TO HEAVEN, THEREFORE EARTH DOES NOT EXIST.
You can even put flashing lights around it if you like. And big giant arrows pointing to it. Even a sign that says "this is the truth, learn it well." And maybe even have it make big loud sounds so as many people come to look at it as possible.
But if someone is IN DENIAL... they will not be WILLING to accept this. They may in more extreme cases bawlk at it like some kind of horrendous lie was just told. Or launch into some kind of tirade trying to find holes or redefine words or come up with SOME RATIONALIZATION that seems to suggest, maybe this is not the truth. It is nothing short of the ego defending itself against the truth.
That denial is utterly insane. It is an unwillingness, nothing else. It's got nothing to do with whether the facts are true or not. The facts are true. They are solid. God established them forever. The only problem is, some people will see these facts and STILL, over and over again, DENY that they are true. There is an UNWILLINGNESS TO ACCEPT IT.
That can only mean, the person (their ego) believes something ELSE is true, which they do not want to accept is FALSE. The unwillingness to accept something is FALSE, that you believe is truth, is the whole problem the ego poses for us. It thinks it knows what's true already. It's already decided, because IT wants to decide what ALL truth is instead of accepting it from God. ITS will to CHOOSE what the truth means, the authority problem, is its UNWILLINGNESS to accept God's Will. The facts. And so the ego WILL DENY the truth, until a person chooses to stop being IN DENIAL, and to become WILLING to accept that the truth is true.
The truth is, there is no Earth. Period. This is the meaning of "there is no world". Period. This isn't opinion. The logic of the metaphysics is utterly irrefutable. Jesus agrees with it. Jesus has expressed it. WE are the ones who WANT to deny it.
Denial of the truth really is the only problem we seem to have. It is an UNWILLINGNESS.
And what that means is, we are WILLING AGAINST GOD's WILL, willing with the ego, willing to have a separate will. Our separate will blocks us from accepting God's Will.
So if someone cannot accept this truth, that there is no world, and Earth does not exist AT ALL, it is because they are still rejecting God's Will.
When we become willing, we will be willing to accept. We have to be willing to accept truth in order to accept the atonement. This requires the willingness to put aside willing against God, and to will WITH Him. To carry out His will. Because his will for us is perfect happiness and eternal life. If we will against it, we will be in denial and choosing suffering and unhappiness and mortality's illusion.
We can stay in denial as long as we like. This is how we delay the curriculum. The time you take it is VOLUNTARY because you have FREE WILL. You need to be willing, to accept the truth as IT defines itself, and to align yourself with it, by being willing to let go of your belief that something else is true. No-one can enter heaven without accepting the truth as it is.
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."
It may seem at first that all events in this world are random, sometimes negative, difficult, cruel and should not be happening. We try to avoid some events and promote others. We want the bad stuff to go away and escape into only the good stuff, to prolong the good stuff as long as possible and have some sense of control.
But one thing that has become glaringly obvious to me in recent weeks of turmoil and trust-development, is that there absolutely is a higher plan whose reach spans everything that happens here, including the timing of meetings between individuals and groups and everything that occurs.
The plan of atonement, or the universal curriculum, orchestrates all events, encounters and occurrences. "Those who are to meet will meet". The Holy Spirit has laid out this plan, and it includes both what seem to be positive and negative events, or rather, the re-purposing of them for awakening.
"What could you not accept, if you but knew that ***everything which happens***, ***all events***, past, present and to come, ***are gently planned by One*** Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal life."
We are willing to endure "trials" and "lessons" only because, in the much bigger long-term picture, we know that the outcome of these, when we elect to learn the curriculum of truth, brings us closer to God. No one in their right mind would deliberately choose to endure suffering and difficulty, except if they knew that such things would educate them and eventually persuade them towards a better way.
"***Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn*** presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. ***In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face***, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created alters unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you."
This world is not a collection of random occurrences. I see it now more as a winding, twisting dream sequence, with threads of stories and encounters and happenings, where designated people are supposed to be exactly where they are, where environments and events transpire on purpose to present lessons, in the hope that we will use these situations with the Holy Spirit towards the goal of awakening rather than as a way to strengthen our belief in hell. The world is just one big school of classrooms in which to unlearn the lies of the ego. And all of this is planned, somewhat like a form of voluntary destiny.
Before our lifetime we consent to various such classrooms. We may agree upon a body, a family, a location, a lifestyle. We may even agree that certain physical problems arise at certain times, seemingly triggered by certain events. But we have to realize that behind these seemingly random events, such as a car-crash for example, there is orchestration. There is purpose. It is meant to happen, because these trials need to be revisited so that certain stimuli will be presented to offer an opportunity for spiritual growth. And we sign on the dotted line to say, ok, I will be willing to go through all this if it will lead me closer home to God.
Sometimes really awful stuff happens. If a person is in a car crash and even perhaps dies for a while, perhaps this is to facilitate that they can visit Heaven, be healed, be restored and enlightened to some degree, so that upon returning they are a new person and live in a new way, making possible new avenues of expression and help. We might think some things happening are horrendous and cruel but when it's part of a much bigger plan, even the most awful of occurrences might well be divinely intended, not to cause suffering but to create circumstances and consequences that are ultimately beneficial spiritually.
In the really big picture, everything that happens here is entirely designed and repurposed as a tool to bring you home. The whole world is one big rescue mission, gently trying to get us to become willing to see sense and let go of our ego toys. God has protected us and is using space and time to present a curriculum that applies to all entities here, using scripts and events to present lessons that we agree to, so that we will gradually learn of the truth and awaken from our sleep.
We would only be willing to go through difficulties if we knew that it was in fact a purposeful lesson, and one which would point us eventually in the direction of love and happiness. Lessons that make us grow and present opportunities for forgiveness. We learn by applying the truth and forgiving what seems to occur, which in turn collapses periods of time and scripts that we no longer need.
The appearance that events and encounters and meetings are entirely at random is complete fiction. The Holy Spirit has control over all of this, with his plan for salvation. As you atune to this plan and trust it rather than fight against events, it becomes more obvious that He speaks through a variety of persons, He works through a variety of happenings, and that regardless of surface chance, some things simply are meant to happen a certain way, and will, by His will.
How else could we develop trust than if it were true that there is a plan to trust in, an ability of the Holy Spirit and God to guide and direct what transpires, and not just some chaotic random mishmash of cruelty and crime that we keep trying to escape. To trust in the plan is to learn the curriculum. To overlook the chaos and see the order is forgiveness. Everything happening here is an intricate symphony of education and opportunities to choose once again. And all of it continually points us towards reunion with God.
If you're going through a loss, it can be hard to deal with the feelings.
At first I felt that the feelings were just overpowering and I was a victim of them, unable to control or stop them, albeit that I tried.
Gradually over time and after a lot of crying, I've somehow become more honest about it and more acknowledging of the feelings.
Or I should reword that, I've been pushed by the feelings so much to have to feel them no matter whether I want to or not, that I've had to surrender to it and go with it.
More recently that seems to be turning more into a kind of willingness to grieve. I think I had a lot of spiritual bypass crap from ACIM that was getting in the way of just being human about it.
I've been starting to see that there are places in me where I simply, ego or not, "want" something. At the core of loss there is always a sense of love or identification or some kind of valuing.
Within me, there is a place, it's even in the heart, that simply says, "I want to be with my wife." And there is another part that says "I want to go home".
This is because I lived in America and have let there now to live in the UK and have a lot of loss around the end of that entire chapter of life.
What I've been seeing lately is that although it sounds like some kind of backwards step, or going in the wrong direction, I have to be willing to acknowledge much more fully that I DO WANT these things.
It's as though up till now everything was sort of circling around it like a cloud of emotion and I just couldn't see clearly. As I home in on the "core" of this "suffering", its like it's coming into focus more, and revealing that at the centre there is this human bonding and love and caring and so on, which drives the loss.
It's not in my opinion "worse" or a regression to just own and admit and feel the "I want". Even if it's ego. Even if it's bullshit or not in line with God's truth. The wanting is there. Nor can I try to force myself to just "not want it", because that's brutal and not healing.
I'm making it okay to acknowledge how I feel and okay to feel it and to even throw myself into feeling it. Being more open and honest with the feeling rather than avoiding it, judging it, trying to get rid of it.
What I am finding is that, when I am willing to admit that I just want to be with her, or that I want to go home, it doesn't entail any denial. And this reveals something, it sheds a light on it.
Only by admitting that I want it and letting myself feel the wanting, does it make room for some "reality" to come in. The reality says, well.... even though you want this, the truth is, in practical terms, you can't actually have this. This thing that you want, isn't available any more.
It's a bit of a harsh truth, but if there FIRST isn't the willingness to admit to having the wanting - the yearning, the expectation - you can't get to the point where you can face reality.
You have to face the suffering head-on first before any light can be shed on it. And that means absolutely no spiritual bypasses, no denial, no avoidance, no judging, no defences, no making it wrong.
Upon looking more squarely and being "in" the wanting, it has made me realize that all the clouds of loss and confusion were disguising a rather simple AND limited thing - that this is about one person, and about a home that is gone.
It's not about the whole world, or my whole life. By bringing it into focus it's narrowed it down and now it seems perhaps more manageable. It's not the end of the whole world. It's just specifically about these two areas, two things that I want to be with. Regardless of whether that seems popular with other people or socially normal or anything else.
Once it's admitted that I really want these things, the situational truth starts to enter - it's not possible to have these things. This fact, this truth, starts to shed a light on the wanting, and reframes it. That, yes, I want something I can't have, but perhaps I should let go of that wanting because it's not a possibility. The reality of the "it's not possible" starts to come in, and in a way that starts to counteract and act upon the wanting.
Ultimately it's a sort of recognition or realisation, that I might as well let go, because what I want just isn't realistic or feasible. It's not like a defeat or some kind of horrible disappointment, it's just sort of facing facts, and as the course says "no one can argue with a fact." And "the truth shall set you free."
I'm still sort of. . squirming a bit about this insight, and with trying to acknowledge this "fact" of the impossibility of what I want, and thus the need to let it go due to it being "pointless". But as a step forward at least it's providing some sense of an ending being in sight, or a sort of "solution" to the problem.
I want to be with my wife, but I can't. It's okay to acknowledge that. I want to go home to America and be with what's been familiar for 25 years, but I can't. My ego cries out with "it's all gone" and "I want it" but that will change. Somehow at least admitting to the wanting of it is bringing it into the light to see it clearly, and to thus shed light upon it, and it is that light which perhaps is the source of liberation.
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.
The ONLY way to heal is to be healed. The miracle extends WITHOUT your help. But you ARE needed that it can BEGIN. ACCEPT the miracle of healing, and it WILL go forth, because of what it IS. It is its NATURE to extend itself the instant it is born. And it is born the instant it is offered and RECEIVED. No-one can ask ANOTHER to be healed. But he can let HIMSELF be healed, and thus offer the other what he has received. Who can bestow upon another what he does not HAVE? And who can SHARE what he denies HIMSELF? The Holy Spirit speaks to YOU. He does not speak to someone ELSE. Yet BY your listening, His Voice extends, BECAUSE you have accepted what He says.
Health is the witness unto health. As long as it is unattested, it remains without conviction. Only when DEMONSTRATED has it BEEN proved, and MUST compel belief. No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible. But if you are AFRAID of healing, then it cannot come through you. The ONLY thing that is required for a healing is a lack of fear. The fearful are NOT healed, and cannot heal. This does NOT mean the conflict must be gone forever from your mind. For if it were, there were no NEED for healing any more. But it DOES mean, if only for an instant, you love without attack. An instant is sufficient. Miracles wait not on time.
The holy instant is the miracle's abiding-place. From there, each one is born into this world, as witness to a state of mind which has TRANSCENDED conflict, and has reached to peace. It carries comfort from the place of peace into the battleground, and DEMONSTRATES that war has no effects. For all the hurt that war has sought to bring; the broken bodies and the shattered limbs, the screaming dying and the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted. There IS no sadness, where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just ONE instant of your love WITHOUT attack is necessary, that all this occur.
In that ONE instant are YOU healed, and in that single instant is ALL healing done. What stands APART from you, when you accept the blessing that the holy instant brings? Be not afraid of blessing for the One Who blesses you loves all the world, and leaves nothing within the world that COULD be feared. But if you SHRINK from blessing, will the world indeed seem fearful, for you have WITHHELD its peace and comfort, leaving it to die. Would not a world so bitterly bereft be looked on as a condemnation by the one who COULD have saved it, but stepped back, because he was AFRAID of being healed? The eyes of all the dying bring reproach, and suffering whispers, "What is there to fear?"
Consider well its question. It is asked of you on YOUR behalf. A dying world asks only that you rest an instant from attack upon YOURSELF, that it be healed. Come to the holy instant and be healed, for nothing that is there received is left behind, on your returning to the world. And BEING blessed, you will bring blessing. Life is given you, to give the dying world. And suffering eyes no longer will accuse, but shine in thanks to you who blessing gave. The holy instant's radiance will light YOUR eyes, and give them sight to see beyond ALL suffering, and see Christ's Face INSTEAD. Healing REPLACES suffering. Who looks on one cannot PERCEIVE the other, for they CANNOT both be there. And what YOU see the world will witness, and will witness TO.
Thus is YOUR healing everything the world requires, that it may be healed. It needs ONE lesson that has perfectly been learned. And then, when YOU forget it, will the world remind you gently of what you have taught. No reinforcement will its thanks withhold from you who let yourselves be healed, that it might live. It will call forth its witnesses to show the Face of Christ to you who brought the sight to THEM, by which THEY witnessed it. The world of accusation is replaced by one in which all eyes look lovingly upon the friend who brought them their release. And happily your brother will perceive the many friends he thought were enemies.
Problems are not specific, but they take specific forms, and these specific shapes make up the world. And no-one understands the nature of his problem. If he DID, it would be there no more for him to see. Its very NATURE is that it is NOT. And thus, WHILE he perceives it, he can NOT perceive it as it is. But HEALING is apparent in specific instances, and generalizes to include them all. This is because they really ARE the same, DESPITE their different forms. All learning aims at transfer, which becomes complete within two situations which are seen as one. For ONLY common elements are there. But this can only be attained by One Who does not see the DIFFERENCES you see.
The total transfer of your learning is NOT made by you. But that it HAS been made, IN SPITE of all the differences you see, convinces YOU that they could not be real. Your healing WILL extend, and WILL be brought to problems that you thought were NOT your own. And it will ALSO be apparent that your many DIFFERENT problems will be solved, as any ONE of them has been escaped. It CANNOT be their differences which made this possible, for learning does not jump from situations to their opposites, and bring the SAME effects. All healing MUST proceed in lawful manner, in accord with laws that have been properly perceived, but NEVER violated. Fear you not the way that YOU perceive them. You ARE wrong, but there is One within you Who is RIGHT.
Leave, then, the transfer of your learning to the One Who REALLY understands its laws, and Who will GUARANTEE that they remain unviolated and unlimited. Your part is merely to apply what He has taught you TO YOURSELF, and He will do the rest. And thus the power of your learning will be PROVED to you, by all the many DIFFERENT witnesses it finds. Your brother FIRST among them will be seen, but thousands stand behind him, and beyond each one of them there are a thousand more. Each one may SEEM to have a problem which is DIFFERENT from the rest. Yet they are solved TOGETHER. And their common Answer shows the QUESTIONS could not have been separate.
Peace be to you whom is healing offered. And you will learn that peace is given you, when you accept the healing for yourself. Its TOTAL value need not be appraised by YOU, to let you understand that you have benefited from it. What occurred within the instant which love entered in WITHOUT attack, will stay with you forever. YOUR healing will be ONE of its effects, as will your brother's. Everywhere you go, will you behold its multiplied effects. Yet all the witnesses that you behold will be FAR less than all there really ARE. Infinity cannot be understood by merely counting up the separate parts. God thanks you for your healing, for He knows it is a gift of love unto His Son, and therefore is it given unto Him.
Space and time are nothing but beliefs. This doesn't mean that we merely have beliefs "about" space and time, as if they really exist separate from our beliefs. They exist ONLY WITHIN our believing in them, and without believing in them they DO NOT exist at all.
"There is no world (spacetime) apart from what you wish."
If you have a good grasp of what space and time ARE, it becomes very obvious that they are not the same as reality. In fact they are totally opposite to reality. This also then tells you that anything WITHIN spacetime is opposite to reality as well. And it also further tells you that WITHOUT spacetime, nothing whose nature COMES FROM spacetime can exist, because it depends on spacetime for its entire existence.
In reality, God is omnipresent which means all of God is in all parts of God/existence simultaneously. God is everywhere. When we made the idea of "space", we attempted something COMPLETELY OPPOSITE to this.
Space is the idea of separated-out locations, in which each location is kept apart and is exclusive of the other locations. What is in one location is not in another location. There is no sharing of locations. The contents of one location cannot touch or overlap the contents of another. There is no true joining or sharing of any kind. All locations repel all others and hold them apart through what science calls atomic forces, but really is the idea of trying to put distance between yourself and God.
Space therefore invented the idea of a gap, separation, distance, avoidance, exclusion, repulsion, rejection, dissociation, and isolation. It gave rise to the seeming possibility that something can exist in one location and NOT exist in the others. Which in turn seems to make it possible for atoms and particles to exist separately and without touching each other. So long as there is the idea of spatial separation, "matter" is possible.
Matter requires that all its parts be kept SEPARATE otherwise not only could there not even be a three-dimensional object that "takes up space" or "spans across locations", but all objects would attempt to share the same space and cause a massive nuclear explosion. This is basic stuff supported by science. Atomic overlap causes atomic explosions. The seemingly physical material universe is therefore dependent on the idea of MAINTAINING SEPARATION at all costs.
Space also is the assertion that anything which exists only exists in PART of the space, and that what exists in that part is only a PART of existence. Therefore anything that exists does not WHOLLY exist and is NOT whole. This in turn implies that nothing is everywhere. Which also implies that everything is nowhere. Which is the entire idea that "God, whose nature is to be everywhere, does not exist anywhere". This is because "the world was made as an attack on God." "A place where God could enter not."
Just as space is UTTERLY upposite to God's nature, so too is time. Eternity means that what exists always exists. It is eternal, never-ending, permanent, immortal. It cannot ever stop existing. The idea of stopping existing is the idea of interruption, change, alteration, decay, modification, etc. This is totally incompatible with eternity. Nothing eternal can EVER change otherwise we introduce the potential for an END, and for death.
Time is the notion TOTALLY OPPOSITE to eternity, that whatever existed no longer exists, having died. And what exists now, is not the same as what used to exist, having changed. And what exists now will not always exist, because death or change is inevitable. Even the idea of change ITSELF is the idea of time, producing a "dream of death." SPACETIME IS DEATH! It's the very idea of bringing an END to what is endless, and making temporary what is permanent, and making mortal what is immortal.
"When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. ***It dreams of time***; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere."
Time was made as a total attack on God's nature. It is the suggestion that God and his creation, which are eternal and changeless, are in a state of total constant change, decay, suffering, alteration, interruption, attackability, impermanece and death. Just the idea that everything is always changing is the idea that "everything is always dying". The laws of nature such as that flowers bloom and die and human bodies bloom and die and planets bloom and die and so on, is INHERENT to the nature of time itself.
Time is really the idea that God is dead, once again in support of space's idea that God is nowhere. It says God is no-when, did not exist before, does not exist now, and will not exist in future. It is an attempt to eradicate eternity. Time was made in the separation in an attempt to DENY eternity. And everything that changes, grows, withers, dies, is born, transforms, modifies, interferes, attacks, can be hurt or damaged, etc... is entirely goverened by and DEPENDENT upon time.
"It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time. "
"It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die"
Therefore space-time is an attack on God, it is in TOTAL OPPOSITION to God's nature, it is ENTIRELY UNLIKE reality, and NOTHING like heaven. And everything which has arisen WITHIN the confines of spacetime, is similarly TOTALLY OPPOSITE to reality. "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way." And everything within spacetime COMPLETELY depends on space and time "existing" in order to "exist."
Without space you CANNOT HAVE OBJECTS. Of any kind. Planets, bodies, cake, houses, cars, galaxies, all depend on spatial separation of particles. They all REQUIRE an ongoing assertion that God is dead. "The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son." If space or time were to END, which they MUST because they are not permanent in any way, ALL THINGS which are based on space and time must end as well. They CANNOT REMAIN.
You cannot have a three dimensional physical object without the atoms being held apart by space, and time governing their constant chemical and physical interactions. There is no motion without time. There is no growth without time. There is no birth and death of bodies without time. There are no planets without space. There is no world of spacetime without space or time. And both space and time are entirely illusions of an attempt to deny the reality of God.
It is a mistake to think that there is a way to KEEP the physical world while being IN reality, or that the world IS heaven, or that three dimensionality can remain WITHOUT spacetime. Sorry but this is impossible. This is why the world will eventually end and all the stars will disappear in light and all the galaxies will vanish. They MUST go if spacetime goes. You cannot have any of it without the belief in separation.
"Without the idea of death there is no world."
"Perception is temporary. It is an attribute of the space-time belief, and is therefore subject to fear or love."
"Ultimately, of course, space is as meaningless as time. The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF. The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. As long as man KNEW he did not need anything, the whole device was unnecessary."
"Like all aspects of the space-time belief, healing ability is temporary."
"Acts were not necessary before the Separation, because the time-space belief did not exist."
"The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief, and ultimately to make learning complete."
"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what seems to be a wall of flesh around the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master. "
"The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked."
"Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."
"And those who serve the lord of death have come to worship in a separated world"
"And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible."
"And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant."
"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"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."
"Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, out of illusions into holiness; out of the world and to eternity; out of all fear and given back to love."
There are two types of prayer. One works miracles, the other doesn't.
1) Pray for someone because you believe they need praying for.
2) Pray for someone to acknowledge that they don't need praying for.
The first kind is very common and it's because our ego first of all shows us that something is wrong with someone. This means we have made the problem seem real. The person could have a serious disease or disability, some financial crisis, just lost a job, is having relationship issues, or whatever. Particularly if this so-called "problem" can be seen visually, we especially believe in it.
But the problem is, just the mere act of believing that someone is ACTUALLY having a problem, that they "really are" sick, that something is happening that's "bad", or something has gone wrong... . just that basic assumption that this is REALITY, or truth, is actually an attack on that person.
This is what ACIM calls false empathy. It means you've actually entered into believing in and are agreeing with what seems to be happening, as though it is true and real. You take this for granted, because you are so incredibly accustomed to perceiving with the ego this way. You have been extremely fooled by appearances and keep buying into them like they are facts. In this world there is temptation and trickery EVERYWHERE.
If someone breaks a leg, you immediately just accept that their leg is broken. If something goes wrong, you immediately accept that it really has gone wrong. If someone becomes sick, you totally believe that the person has become sick. And whatever it is, if it seems to be 'happening', you just assume that it has to be this way.
Then you get stuck in what basically is a belief in SIN, which is the idea that something has really happened already, there's been a real serious consequence, and it cannot be undone. Sin is the idea of irreversability of separation, so as you just idly accept that stuff has gone wrong and nobody can really do anything about it, you're really buying into the illusion and have fallen for its trickery.
So then having made the problem seem real to you, and maybe even you yourself have become upset about it, maybe even afraid about what will happen to the person, you will then feel COMPELLED to try to do something about it. And then you will turn to God and you will pray. And you'll do this because you are making mistakes. It is a mistake to believe that God has not already given you the answer to all problems. It is a mistake to believe that this person has a real problem at all. And it is a mistake to think that you need to get God to do something about this real-seeming problem.
But you'll do it anyway. This is then praying with the ego.
You might say something like... dear God, Holy Father, please send lots of love and light to this person, help them to overcome their fear/sickness/problem, give them strength and courage and help them to not have this problem. Thanks.
Well.... there is some amount of recognition of truth in that, in that you're at least attempting to connect to a higher love and send that love and focus on a possible outcome or state of being which is less problematic, less corrupted. But you're also confused because you're only asking for this because you think the person has a dire problem. And in fact, the worse you believe in the person's problem, the more compelled you will be to think you have to pray extra extra much, because this really big problem calls for you to pull out all the stops and do a really great big prayer. Well.... thanks for attacking the person with everything that's already happening to them, right along with your prayer.
There is another kind of prayer which is a prayer of forgiveness which doesn't seek to DO something to or about the problem, but instead seeks to UNDO your faulty perception about the problem and the person's faulty perception about the problem. This is a prayer that you do WITH Holy Spirit, instead of with the ego. When I did one of these prayers last night, Holy Spirit said to me "it's about time!", lol
So what you need to do, is realize that everything in front of your face, every body that you see, every problem that you think someone has, no matter how much it appears to be true and real, no matter how serious it is... ITS AN ILLUSION. And it is your job in your forgiveness prayer to completely IGNORE that illusion. You should not even be addressing or giving energy to all the reasons why the person has a problem, or making it more real, or reacting to it out of fear or desperation or seriousness.
Instead, you need to be acknowledging, recognizing, remembering and affirming, all the ways in which the person DOES NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM. You don't go saying, well this person has xyz problem, please fix it. You need to instead say, this person DOES NOT HAVE this problem, this person IS NOT SICK, this person DOES NOT have reason to be afraid, this person is HOLY AND INNOCENT, this person HAS NOT SINNED, this person is CHRIST, this person is a picture of TOTAL HEALTH, this person IS NOT REALLY DISEASED, this person CANNOT be guilty, etc.
You need to focus on who the person REALLY IS in Christ, as Christ. You need to affirm and see and clarify the REAL TRUTH about the person, not the fake truths which masquerade as things that you see or sense with your body's senses. And this means, that as you do this prayer/forgiveness, you need to OVERLOOK ALL APPEARANCES, not take them seriously, and make statements which fly in the face of what *seems* to be happening. This is how you cancel out the problem. This is how you make the problem NOT EXIST.
This is where it can be a real challenge, because in the ego we are really really used to seeing the world in such a way that we constantly are making problems real, are believing appearances, totally buying into illusions that victims are really victims and not willing participants, etc. We keep falling for these illusions and each time we do, it PREVENTS us from looking to the real truth.
What you need to learn to do, and this WILL take lots of time, is that no matter how things seem or appear to be, or what seems to be happening, no matter how serious it seems to be, YOU IGNORE THAT, and you FIXATE your vision only on the absolute TRUTH about the person/situation. You hold fast to a single, core truth, aligned with God's will. You affirm what HE has created and its absolute purity and innocence.
You believe strongly in what He has provided and the FACT that He has already created perfection. And therefore, no matter how it seems, and no matter how stubborn the symptoms are, and no matter how many people are telling you to give up, and no matter how much you are telling you to stop trying to kid yourself, you keep on ignoring all appearances and continue to affirm the single one truth. You HOLD YOUR GROUND.
This is one of the vital steps in miracle working. You must believe what is true of God, and not what is true of the ego/illusion/dream, and DO NOT WAVER. If you waver, if you go into fear, if you start buying into how things look, if you go along with appearances, or are fooled by the appearance of failure or "its not working" or "I might as well give up" or "this can't be healed" or whatever... its bullshit. It's ego. You will have to learn to ignore all of that. You have to learn to OVERLOOK/forgive every single appearance of every piece of this entire world. Because it's going to keep trying to convince you that God's will is false and irrelevant. God DOES want permanent healing and he IS READY to provide it right now AND ALREADY HAS.
If you waver from that, especially if the situation seems really serious or even if the person DIES, and if you think well... it looks like we failed and we might as well give up forgiving and stop praying or affirming the truth, then yes, that person will STAY DEAD. But what happens if EVEN in the face of death, you continue to affirm the truth of eternal life? What if you IGNORE appearances and do not take no for an answer and you get really certain and firm that this problem is NOT reality, it is NOT the truth, and the truth is with God? Maybe then with determination and persistence, that person is going to raise from the dead.
So this is how miracles work. Four fairly straightforward steps:
1) Believe in God's truth, and do not be tempted by illusions to waver or fear or doubt or be deceived by how things currently appear.
2) Bring in Holy Spirit and express and extend His Power, his consistency, his absoluteness, such that you are filled with God and are extending only love, not beliefs in attack.
3) Recognize the oneness between you and your brother, He is you, therefore you must recognize you are both One, are both Christ, and all other appearances are illusions that aren't real. Acknowledge only the absolute truth about the person.
4) Command authoritatively and assertively, even aggressively, for the problem to leave right now. Speak directly to it, not about it. Do not ask God about what to do. Do not ask God to do it. God has already set you up with a perfect connection to Him to funnel his power. It's just waiting on you to give the command and extend the authority of His Truth.
You are a miracle worker.
When your mind is whole, you are in your right mind, and not in two minds. Being in two minds is what happens when your mind is split in half. What happens in the state of split mindedness is quite interesting.
It's not merely that you split off a part of your mind. As you introduce a split, ie a belief in separation, you lose sight of wholeness completely. What then happens is you actually form TWO artificial identities, and neither one of them is the whole of you. It's almost like having two egos or personalities, and both are fake.
One of these identities, let's call it the persona, is retained in awareness as more of a conscious self. This self is the part of your mind that is steering away from darkness and sin and tries to be "good". It uses denial of "the rest of you" in order to hide its sense of sin and guilt in the darkness. It blocks it out of awareness through this denial, which is attack, which buries it and projects it.
The part of your mind which has also split - the other 50% of you - becomes a dumping ground for sin and guilt, hidden behind denial and repressed. You project this dark shit outward through disassociation, to try to disown it. It's part of further trying to disown part of your mind that your persona-self thinks is evil. Recognize the persona appears good but ultimately is judgmental and wants to destroy the sinful self.
So the "goody two shoes" part of your mind which is always trying to focus on a fake sense of idealism, positivity, looking good, saving face, being popular, seeming to be perfect etc, actually has a murderous attitude towards the other part of your mind. It basically sections off this other part of your mind, hates it, judges it, and shoves everything it does not "approve of" onto it. That includes sin and guilt, so now this "shadow self" is formed and relegated to death.
So in your mind, if your mind is split, you have this conscious persona self and this much less conscious shadow self. The shadow self is kept in the dark because, as Jesus says in the course, if you were to bring these two selves in close contact with each other they could not long remain separate.
The persona self fears the shadow self and tries to constantly judge and attack in on order to keep its distance, to maintain its own sense of autonomy. The persona sees itself as what the course calls "the face of innocence", aka the victim. And it views ithe shadow portion as a victimizer, or an enemy, which it wants nothing to do with and pushes away. This pushing away produces separation, disowning and projection onto others and the world, to try to "attach" the sin to something other than your own mind or sense of self. As the course says, separation means disassociation, or coming "between".
But we have to realize here that being split minded does not mean you are being the whole of your real self while you're in your persona self, or that your real self is under attack by the shadow self or its projections. Instead, recognize that the persona self is only a partial ego self, and it not whole, and it is not real, and it is not you. It's an artificial sense of identity formed from illusions of preference and avoidance, illusions of innocence and pretending to be perfect.
So as you consider how to forgive and take back projections and so on, you have to also realize that the "you" that is trying not to judge or project, is actually part of the judgement. It's part of the split mindedness. That persona self, wants as best it can to be completely free from the repressed shadow crap. So beware that as IT tries to take back projections, it is really not that interested in UNDOING the sense of sin, to begin with, because it needs it in order to maintain the split. And note that this persona self is "trying to wake up and be more spiritual" - the spiritual ego, and it can't - you have to wake up FROM it.
Without the split in the mind, without maintaining a sense of separation, both the shadow self and the persona self cannot exist. They rely on keeping the war going. The inner conflict has to be perpetuated, denial and blocks to awareness have to be maintained, otherwise it blows up the whole dynamic of you having a split minded relationship with another part of yourself.
For example in terms of victims and victimizers, usually the shadow crap is projected and seen as an external victimizer, while the innocent victim role is assigned to your persona self ie conscious self. But in order to "heal" this situation, it's not enough to just "take back the victimizing". It's not enough to simply own that you are the one attacking yourself from the outside in, or that you are vicariously using others to do this. The victimizer is only one HALF of the problem.
The victim role is also part of the split, and being a victim has to go as well. You can't maintain this ideal of "getting rid of attackers" while keeping the "innocent victim" intact. So what that's going to have to mean is, if you want to wake up, is that you're going to have to not only dis-identify from the victimizer, but also from being a victim. You have to recognize that your mind - the larger container of this drama - is actually playing both sides. Your mind is being both a victim and a victimizer of itself. And NEITHER of those roles is your real identity.
When you can bring both of these parts of your mind into awareness and see them together, AND then recognize that you are the ONE MIND who is pulling all the strings and making the victimizer victimize "you", plus making the victim "be a victim", you can no longer maintain the ILUSION that they are separate identities. When you own that you are both of them, you will own that you cannot be EITHER of them. It's been a lie, all along, that either of these two identities were you.
You were pretending they were DIFFERENT to each other, by means of splitting off some attributes to assign to one and some to another, to maek them seem to be opposites. But the opposition is entirely a deception and in truth, the two identities are not really opposite at all. They are both being run by one "larger" mind - your real self - who temporarily is the actor behind the scenes who has lost sight of itself while pretending to be having a multiple-personality disorder.
Because we so heavily identify with the conscious persona and not with unconscious hidden projected stuff, largely because we are not aware of it, you "as the conscious self" might think that you merely need to deal with the harmful attackers outside of you who are making your life miserable. But it's not just them. It's also you, in denial, with rose-tinted glasses, pretending to be special and perfect, who are also part of the murderous dynamic of sectioning off parts of yourself and relegating them to hell. So that sense of identity also has to be brought into question.
You are not a victim, or a victimizer. You are not the persona or the shadow. You being the persona is not you being the whole of yourself, even though this split off part of a sunbeam thinks it's the whole sun. You are bigger than both. Which means your sense of identity has to let go of these illusory selves and expand to a larger reality. As Jesus says in the course, as you awaken your sense of self expands. Because what you are really waking up from is being stuck inside little boxes and compartments, walled off from each other as if you have multiple selves that live in isolation.
Your enemy is yourself. The perpetrator is you. The victim is you. The fake innocence is just a "face" you put on to hide the pain and maintain the shadows. To take back your projection means only to reel in the projection of the shadow content, the sin and guilt, to try to bring it closer to its source. But it must also meet with your persona and cause the two of them to cancel each other out. You are larger than both aspects of the split mind, because you are the whole of mind. And only whole-mindedness, without the split condition, is a state of sanity.
The ego is always about taking sides, emphasizing differences, being special, having enemies, being offended, being at war with something. But what is this "opponent", except MORE EGO? It takes both sides of every conflict, it does not care who wins or loses. It does not care who is the victim and who is the victimizer. It is both, in a state of self attack. It doesn't even care if you live or die because it knows that someone will die, when you play its games.
So you have to realize that your "conscious ego self" is really only PART OF the problem and your sense of having a spiritualized ego is just as much part of the problem as the projected sin. Being holier than thou goes hand in hand with becoming highly judgmental and condemning other parts of yourself as unworthy and defective. If you feel unworthy it's because your conscious self believes it is superior. Inferiority and superiority go hand in hand.
The conscious ego self cannot wake up. Much of its efforts are to make its life better by continuing to repressed, reject, accuse, condemn, project, disown and kill off anything resembling "unacceptable and unlovable". And yet all the while, judging you are unlovable from the outside so that it is never satisfied with trying to make you more perfect through self mutilation. The ego is in two minds. It is not in its right mind. And it is not your mind. There is more to you than any of these roles or fantasies or illusions of being one thing and not another. You are everything.
WHAT IS TIME? IS IT ETERNITY? IS TIME REALITY? GOD's CREATION?
There have been a couple of posts here talking about time, and speculating with wishful-thinking that time is eternal or a creation of God. This is not true. The course is very clear on this.
"Time and Eternity cannot both be real, because they contradict each other." - ACIM
"For place (space) has gone as well, along with time." - ACIM
"It is this fact which demonstrates that time is an illusion." -ACIM
So what is time anyway? And what is eternity? And why does Jesus state that they CONTRADICT each other?
Eternity means, everything always exists forever. There is no beginning, there is no end. There is also no change. There are not temporary one-off events. There is no transition, no adjustment, no becoming, no growth, nothing gradually progressing. There is no decay, no distortion, and no death. Eternity is a PERMANENT state of PERPETUAL SAMENESS.
"Nothing there but shines and shines forever."
"Reality is a constant state."
"And what He knows exists forever, changelessly."
Now, in this state of eternity, prior to the separation, there was NO SUCH THING as time or space. Reason being that both time and space are illusions which COMPLETELY OPPOSE the idea of eternal life. Not just a little. They are diametrically opposite and completely contradictory.
In eternity, everything exists everywhere. Everything is shared by everything. Every son of God shares all of himself with every other son of God. God is one with everyone. You are united with your brothers. But not only this, but in "spatial terms", what exists in one location exists fully in all locations. This is the idea of omnipresence and is the divine nature of everything that exists in God.
In the separation idea, we wanted to DENY eternity, and to DENY that everything is everywhere, and DENY that everything is shared by everyone, and DENY omnipresence. We wanted a TOTAL OPPOSITE to this condition of abstract unity. The result of this was SPACE.
Space is a false belief, based entirely on the notion of an opposite to spacelessness, ie an opposite to omnipresence. It's the idea that God, who is everywhere, does not exist anywhere. By virtue of the fact that in space, no two things share the same space, and by virtue of the fact that in space any particular location contains only PART OF what exists and not the whole, space is literally the idea that "nothing exists everywhere" and "everything exists nowhere." This could not be more of an attack on God's nature.
"The world was made as a place where God could enter not."
"The world was made as an attack on God."
Time is similarly blasphemous. In eternity, where everything is always the same, everything has eternal immortal life, nothing changes, and everything is permanent. What exists has always existed and always will, without the need for time.
Time is nothing short of the idea of a TOTAL OPPOSITE to eternity. It's founded on the false belief that everything changes, nothing is EVER the same as it was, what exists now DID NOT exist before, and what exists now WILL CEASE to exist in the near future. It is the idea of IMpermanence, the idea of MORTALITY, and the idea of DEATH. Time, is the symbolic notion that *everything always changes* and therefore *nothing exists forever*. This could BE MORE opposed to the nature of God and the divine continuity of reality.
"Without the idea of death there is no world."
So make no mistake, both space and time were EGO FABRICATIONS based in the tiny made idea, made as ATTACKS upon God, designed to SHUT OUT God's nature, to depict a world or state so completely opposite to the omnipresent everlasting nature of God, that if you behold the world you are BLINDED to God.
"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."
Space was an attack on God's nature. Time was an attack on God's nature. NEITHER of them are holy, spiritual, virtuous, constant, permanent, truthful, or real. Space and time, all of "space time", the entire "space time continuum", is A LIE. It is fiction. Everything within it is AN ILLUSION. The world, the planets, the galaxies, all of it, ANYTHING that RELIES UPON three dimensional spatial relations is an illusion. You cannot have a three dimensional planet earth WITHOUT space, and it cannot "evolve" WITHOUT time. And every moment of "evolution" is a moment of DEVOLUTION, a proof that eternity has ended and something has come to replace it. Change is only possible in hell, not heaven.
Without space or time, the world that we made CANNOT EXIST. Without space, there is no way to have 3D physical objects, yet alone planets. JEsus says this here:
"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. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone ****what more remains to keep a separated world in place?**** ****For place has gone as well, along with time.**** Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."
Without place and time, ie spacetime, it is NOT POSSIBLE to have planet earth. In any form. And without guilt, there is no belief in spacetime. So when guilt is gone, the world MUST vanish.
"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."****
The fact is, space and time are ego illusions. They do not really exist. They are NOT God's creations. And they absolutely are not holy or real or spiritual. They are literally nothing, mere illusions, a thin veil of smoke and mirrors, designed to deceive. And as Jesus says in the quote I opened with, time and eternity are CONTRADICTORY. Totally opposites to each other. Time is not a "misinterpretation" of eternity. It's a total fiction. We have not "misunderstood time's reality". Time is NOT reality. Ever. Never. If time has ANY reality, God would have an end.
Do not fall for the wishful level-confused thinking of some ACIM students who want to keep the world and find ways to spiritualize it. They are not ready to accept that this world is not real, or that space and time aren't even real at all. You don't NEED space or time to exist, any more than you need a fictional body.
Time is an illusion. There is no time. Only eternity is real.
Here's the common fact for most of us right now. We VALUE something about this world and do not want to leave it. That's why we're here. That's why we SEE it.
We have a long list of reasons to STAY. We therefore do not actually RECOGNIZE what the world is, or its nature. Instead, we have blinded ourselves and have convinced ourselves that it is something is it NOT. We have overlaid upon it meanings that seem to give credit where it is not due, give value where it is unworthy, and even idolizes aspects of it in a state of worship.
If we did truly recognize what the world IS, we would not want it. In fact, this is why we need to be willing to take a good hard look at its nature without flinching or denial. This is part of sorting out what is true and what is false. We need to learn that we DO NOT WANT anything in the world. Not because we hate it, but because it simple is so false and unnatural and actually offers nothing at all, and therefore there IS nothing there to have.
We only want the world because we have decided to value something about it, and have therefor GIVEN it value. What if the world is completely and utterly valueless, worthless, meaningless, pointless, futile, ridiculous and unbelievable? What if it can add absolutely nothing whatsoever to God's creation?
What if in and of itself it is so utterly devoid of meaning that it isn't even really anything at all? And what if all it has to offer are choiceless roads which ALL leads to death? Would you want it if you recognize it as a slaughterhouse?
UrM14A4 "Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the Face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No-one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice which its values would demand of him."
If we are not willing to recognize the world's true nature, which is part of true (accurate) perception, distinguishing clearly that it is NOT the incredible amazing thing that we thought it was, then we will also NOT be willing to leave it. Who would want to leave a castle that they cherish and value and adore and think of as their home? Who would want to leave a place they think is valuable and worthy and loyal and true?
"Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world," UrW128L2
This tells you that you have to learn to NOT VALUE ANYTHING in the world. And this actually doesn't require you to attack or hate the world in any way, all it requires is for you to RECOGNIZE it. Because in truth, in actual fact, it HAS no value because it is really nothing. The truth that there is not even really a world here has to dawn upon your mind by recognizing its NOTHINGNESS.
If you are willing to really push your mind to recognize the worlds total valuelessness, the worthelssness of the body, and the complete unimportance of everything here, it will simultaneously give ample justification and motivation for seeking out ANOTHER world. There MUST be a better way. There MUST be a world devoid of pain. There MUST be a higher reality and a greater truth than the complete failure that the world has to offer.
So long as you do not clearly see the world's worthless nothingness, you will not WANT to go back to heaven. So long as you do not recognize its insanity, you will think it's not so bad. So long as you think pleasure is not pain, and you can do things here without a cost, you will carry on doing them. So long as you think you are gaining something real and valuable here, you will sacrifice your soul and lose sight of reality.
It doesn't require for you to attack or condemn or accuse the world in order to find the clarity that you DO NOT WANT IT. You didn't want it when you made it. It was projected out of your mind because you did not want what was in your mind.
UrT11D10 "You still could not will against Him, and that is why you have no control over the world you made. It is NOT a world of will, because it is governed by the desire to be unlike Him. And this desire IS NOT WILL. The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."
T11G3 "YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD."
T12G2 "You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began."
If you value the world you are giving it a value it does not have. And if you value it you will anchor yourself to it. And by valuing it you will see it. And it will become your reality. Yet if you recognize it as unwanted, undesirable, valueless, worthless and nothing, then you will naturally be in a position to want something else. You will want the Kingdom because you will value it and recognize its inherent worth. It is worth having because it is real and true and meaningful.
UrT9E8 "In your open mind are YOUR creations, in perfect communication, born of perfect understanding. Could you but accept one of them, you would not want ANYTHING the world has to offer. Everything else would be totally meaningless. God's meaning is incomplete without you, and you are incomplete without your creations."
UrT12G3 "The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."
UrT12G14 "My peace I GIVE you. TAKE it of me, in glad exchange for all the world has offered but to TAKE AWAY. And we will spread it, like a veil of light, across the world's sad face, in which we hide our brothers FROM the world, and it from them."
The one and only real thought system is the system of God's thinking in his mind in reality. There is really no other system of thought or function that makes sense or that is wholly sane.
If there were to be another system of thought, it would have to be completely different to God's system. So much so it would have to oppose and reject and deny and attack God's system in every way possible, in order to be different. "The world was made as an attack on God."
In the separation, we attempted to produce a second thought system. We wanted to think unlike God. We tried to oppose his will and to function in a way he did not design. We wanted to be opposite and different and dream of things that he would never think of.
What basically happened is, in our total freedom, we were able to use our freedom to try to stop being free. This is entirely within the laws of God. However, even though we're capable of trying to do this, what we find out is that it makes no sense to do it.
Trying to use will to will not to will anything, is obviously a circular logic. You need to use the very thing you are trying not to use, in order to try not to use it. At some point you'll realize that it's impossible to completely switch off will while still willing to be unwilling.
It should be obvious to us that even attempting to will against will is completely futile and pointless and cannot really produce any real effects. It's not that God prevents us from attempting this, only that when we do attempt it we are basically not making any sense. This causes us to produce what seems like a second system of thought which is based on insanity and self deception and denial.
This second system of thought, which we call the ego thought system, is a rejection of reality and truth. So it also rejects immortality and eternity and permanence and every attribute of God. This is what has produced the world of space and time and death and suffering, which are utterly impossible in God's reality.
So we invented, or tried to invent, a secondary system or way of thinking, which is referred to as a "lower order reality". It seems to have reality only in that we attempt to believe it is real, when it isn't. Or that we believe it is possible when it isn't. Or that we think it makes total sense when it doesn't. It is the ego thought system, and everything in it is contradictory and a lie.
These are the only two thought systems that are possible, and only one of them is ultimately possible. The second thought system is really an attempt to believe that something completely impossible is possible. Notions of living without God, of suffering, of mortality, or impermanence, are all impossible in God. Believing in them and trying to produce proof of them is self deception.
The only task then is the undoing of the second thought system entirely, which is the atonement. It is the cancelling out of the ego and the entire lower order reality, so that minds return to sanity and the acceptance of only God's thought system.
Only in God's system is it accepted as obvious that there is no point whatsoever in even attempting to oppose free will. Only in his light is it evident that when you try to use creation to not create, or to will nothingness, or to be something you can never be, you are trying to do something that you will never really do. And only in make-believe and wishful thinking could you ever believe that you are doing it.
To return your awareness to the one and only higher order reality, which is the only true and self-consistent reality, you first go through a phase of correction and purification. This means learning to admit that the false world is false, and that unreality is not possible. It's the process of exchanging the laws of spacetime for the laws of God. And of re-aligning yourself with the one and only truth.
At the pinnacle of this process, the mind is at the heights of consciousness and perception, which becomes inclusive and closely reflecting the way God thinks. It is still within the realm of illusions and unreality, but the system of thought is exposing itself to the light of heaven.
Eventually when this is complete, and a person is fully willing to accept that only thinking like God makes any sense, only his truth is true, only his laws are applicable, and nothing else is possible, atonement is fully accepted. In accepting it, the mind wakes up to the one thought system of God and the second thought system completely vanishes.
No-one can truly believe in both thought systems at once. That is why when you enter into belief in the lower order reality you become blinded to heaven. "You cannot behold the world and know God." "You cannot see two worlds." "The world you see must be denied because sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."
Upon awakening to reality, that which seemed visible in the lower order becomes invisible to you. And that which seemed invisible in heaven becomes fully seen. Awareness returns as the knowledge of total reality returns to the mind, and the illusory world of contradictions disappears from sight.
"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."
"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."
This is a MAJOR axis in the course, transitioning from false perception to true perception. Learning to overlook the world of bodies and see beyond it to the light of the real world, so that you are ready to move on to Heaven. It is VERY CLEAR that the physical world of bodies is ONLY SEEN through the body's eyes, and learning to OVERLOOK it and not believe any of it is forgiveness.
"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."
"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would try to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, BECAUSE it is an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."
"ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not recognize, and does not know if it is there or not. Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole, without the meaning that the whole would give. And yet mistakes, regardless of their form, can be corrected. Sin is but error in a special form the ego venerates. It would preserve all errors, and make them sins. For here is its own stability, its heavy anchor in the shifting world it made; the rock on which its church is built, and where its worshippers are bound to bodies, and believe the body's freedom is their own."
"If you but recognized how little stands between you and your awareness of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist. This body only seems to be immovable. This force is irresistible in truth. What, then, must happen when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for what is quietly passed through and gone beyond?"
"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and not see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."
"It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL."
"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."
"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."
"This world you see (with the body's eyes) MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision (christ vision). YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."
"You do not really want the world you see (with the body), for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it."
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."
"The purpose of these exercises (workbook intro) is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world. The workbook is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the undoing of what you see now, and the second with the restoration of sight."
"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
"Corrective learning always begins with awakening the spiritual eye, and turning away from belief in physical sight. The reason this entails fear is because man is afraid of what his spiritual eye will see, which was why he closed it in the first place. We said before that the spiritual eye cannot see error, and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement. There is no doubt that the spiritual eye does produce extreme discomfort by what it sees. The thing that man forgets is that the discomfort is not the final outcome of its perception. When the spiritual eye is permitted to look upon the defilement of the altar, it also looks immediately toward Atonement. Nothing which the spiritual eye perceives can induce fear. Everything that results from accurate spiritual awareness merely is channelized toward correction. Discomfort is aroused only to bring the need to correct forcibly into awareness.
What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can it be corrected by any device which can be physically seen. As long as a man believes in what his physical sight tells him, all his corrective behavior will be misdirected. The reason why the real vision is obscured is because man cannot endure to see his own defiled altar. But since the altar has BEEN defiled, this fact becomes doubly dangerous unless it IS perceived. This perception is totally not-threatening because of the Atonement. The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what man has done to himself."
"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."
"But the outcome is as certain as God. The spiritual eye literally CANNOT SEE error, and merely looks for Atonement. All the solutions which the physical eyes seek, dissolve in its sight. The spiritual eye, which looks within, recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled, and needs to be repaired and protected."
"The REAL beauty of the Temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision."
"Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."
"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good".
"The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images because you look on them as through a barrier which dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity. The light is kept from everything you see. At most, you glimpse a shadow of what lies beyond. At least you merely look on darkness, and perceive the terrified imaginings that come from guilty thoughts and concepts born of fear. And what you see is hell, for fear IS hell. All that is given you is for release; the sight, the vision and the inner Guide all lead you out of hell with those you love beside you, and the universe with them."
"And this he learns when first he looks upon ONE brother as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him. Thus is the concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the Face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this One. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight.
The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him. The sword of judgment is the weapon which you give to the illusion of yourself, that it may fight to keep the space that holds your brother off unoccupied by love. Yet while you hold this sword, you must perceive the body as yourself, for you are bound to separation from the sight of him who holds the mirror to another view of what he is, and thus what YOU must be."
"Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used only as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds need not the body to communicate. The sight that sees the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon each other thus, the means and end have not been brought in line."
"If you send forth ONLY the messengers the Holy Spirit gave you, WANTING no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt, and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear that you laid not upon it. And none you cannot ask love's messengers to REMOVE from it, and see it still. The Holy Spirit has given you HIS messengers, to send each other, and return to each with what love sees. They have been given to REPLACE the hungry dogs of fear you sent instead. And they go forth to signify the END of fear."
"My holy vision sees all things as pure" - "And while we still remain outside the gate of Heaven, let us look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of Christ. Let all appearances seem pure to us, that we may pass them by in innocence, and walk together to our Father's house as brothers and the holy Sons of God."
"Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision and give you joy. And place no value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is."
"Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him."
"There is no problem, no event or situation, no perplexity, that vision will not solve. All is redeemed, when looked upon with vision. For this is not YOUR sight, and brings with it the laws beloved of Him Whose sight it IS. Everything looked upon with vision falls gently into place, according to the laws brought to it by His calm and certain sight. The end, for everything He looks upon, is always sure. For it will meet His purpose, seen in unadjusted form, and suited perfectly to meet it. Destructiveness becomes benign, and sin is turned to blessing under His gentle gaze.
What can the body's eyes perceive, with power to CORRECT? Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and seeing it everywhere, in everything. Look through its eyes, and everything will stand condemned before you. All that could save you, you will never see. Your holy relationship, the source of your salvation, will be deprived of meaning, and its most holy purpose bereft of means for its accomplishment. Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination. But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway of Heaven's laws."
"The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you."
"Anger but screeches, "Guilt is real!" Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God's Word. The body's eyes now "see"; its ears alone can "hear." Its little space and tiny breath become the measure of reality. And truth becomes diminutive and meaningless."
"Reason would tell you that the world you see through eyes that are not yours, MUST make no sense to you. To whom would vision such as this send back its messages? Surely not you, whose sight is wholly independent of the eyes which look upon the world. If this is not your vision, what can it show to you? The brain can not interpret what YOUR vision sees. This you would understand. The brain interprets to the body, of which it is a part. But what it says, YOU cannot understand.
Yet you have listened to it. And long and hard you tried to understand its messages. You did not realize it is impossible to understand what fails entirely to reach you. You have received no messages at all you understood. For you have listened to what can never communicate at all. Think, then, what happened. Denying what you are, and firm in faith that you are something else, this something else, which you have made to be yourself, BECAME your sight. Yet it must be the SOMETHING ELSE which sees, and, as NOT you, explains its sight to you.
YOUR vision would, of course, render this quite unnecessary. But, if your eyes are closed, and you have called upon this thing to lead you, asking it to explain to you the world it sees, you have no reason not to listen, nor to suspect that what it tells you is not true. Reason would tell you that it can't be true, BECAUSE you do not understand it. God has no secrets. He does not lead you through a world of misery, waiting to tell you, at the journey's end, why He did this to you. What could be secret from His Will? Yet you believe that YOU have secrets. What could your secrets be except ANOTHER will, that is your own, APART from His? "
"Your sight was given you, along with everything that you can understand. You will perceive no difficulty in understanding what this vision tells you. For everyone sees only what he thinks he IS. And what your sight will show you, you will understand BECAUSE it is the truth. Only your vision can convey to you what YOU can see. It reaches you directly, without a need to be interpreted to you. What needs interpretation MUST be alien. Nor will it ever be made understandable, by an interpreter you cannot understand. Of all the messages you have received and failed to understand, this course alone is OPEN to your understanding, and CAN be understood."
"Reason will tell you that they must have seen each other through a vision not of the body, and communicated in a language the body does not speak"
"My condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my sightless eyes I cannot see the vision of my glory."
"The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another. That is because the real vision is still so dim."
"Miracles are seen in light" "It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system and the perception which it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see it in the light; you will not see it in the dark."
"Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body's eyes."
"To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent you will perceive attack cannot BE justified. This is in strict accord with vision's FUNDAMENTAL law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this."
"But on His Vision sin can NOT encroach, for sin HAS BEEN corrected by His sight."
"What is the resurrection?" "Here the curriculum ends. From here on, no directions are needed. Vision is wholly corrected and all mistakes undone."
"Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. What further sight is needed? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love behind all forms, beyond all purposes."
"These things await us all, but we are not prepared as yet to welcome them with joy. As long as any mind remains possessed of evil dreams, the thought of hell is real. God's teachers have the goal of wakening the minds of those asleep, and seeing there the vision of Christ's face to take the place of what they dream. The thought of murder is replaced with blessing."
"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."
"These are among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see. You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea." " Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain can know."
"It is your weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes which cannot see and cannot bless. Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there."
"The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances."
"You can SEE reason. This is not a play on words, for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. Vision is sense, quite literally. If it is not the body's sight, it MUST be understood. For it is PLAIN, and what is obvious is not ambiguous. It CAN be understood. And here do reason and the ego separate, to go their different ways."
"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means. But not for seeing. See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning."
"Let not the FORM of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is yours. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. What is there in him that you would attack, except what you associate with his body, which YOU believe can sin? Beyond his errors is his holiness, and YOUR salvation. You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him, to save yourself. And yet his holiness IS your forgiveness. Can YOU be saved by making sinful the one whose holiness is your salvation?"
"There has been some controversy (in human terms) as to whether seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all." " The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything." "Only the mind sees".
"Your world is seen through eyes of fear, and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind. The real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness"
"I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ."
"You keep an ancient memory before your eyes. And he who lives in memories alone is unaware of where he IS."
"The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.
All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."
"Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God upon the universal altar to Creator and creation, in the Light of perfect purity and endless joy."
"Seen through understanding eyes the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself."
"Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are His substitutes for all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego's purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They step away from sin, reminding you that it is not reality that frightens you, and that the errors which you made CAN be corrected.
When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after vision, who is there who could refuse what MUST come after? Think but an instant just on this. You can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see."
"This is your purpose now, and the vision that makes it yours is ready to be given. You have the vision that enables you to see the body not. And as you look upon each other, you will see an altar to your Father, holy as Heaven, glowing with radiant purity, and sparkling with the shining lilies you laid upon it."
And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see. For you will not interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. And in His sight there IS another world. You live in that world just as much as this, for both are concepts of yourself, which can be interchanged, but never jointly held. The contrast is far greater than you think, for you will love this concept of yourself, because it was not made for you alone. Born as a gift for someone not perceived to be yourself, it has been given YOU. For your forgiveness, offered unto him, has been accepted now for BOTH of you."
"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."
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."
"Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."
"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. 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. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"The stars will disappear, and night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the seasons, and the lives of men; all things that change with time and bloom and fade, will not return."
"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."
False perception is not merely a state in which you have illusions ABOUT the world. It’s a state in which TWO things are happening:
1) Things which are illusions, false, unreal, are MISTAKEN for things that are real and true.
2) Things which are actually real and true, are MISTAKEN for things which are illusions.
BOTH of these are happening in false perception. Which means it’s a state where you do not RECOGNIZE what is actually real, OR what is actually unreal. You are confused about BOTH illusions and reality. You have them both mixed up and swapped around. This is why the course entails a prolonged period of SORTING OUT, the difference between what is REALLY true, and what is ACTUALLY false, which develops true perception. True perception means RECOGNITION of BOTH, the true and the false.
What you then have to realize about true perception, is it ALSO is a state in which TWO things are happening:
1) Things which are illusions are RECOGNIZED as illusions, they clearly and obviously are unreal, and there is no confusion about them being true. They are recognized as false. Ie Only the false is false.
2) Things which are ACTUALLY true, are RECOGNIZED as true, clearly ACCEPTED as true, and regarded as real. For example accepting the Atonement. ie Only the truth is true.
That state of true perception arises when you have become ACCURATE and CORRECT in your evaluation of what is REALLY true, and what is actually false. This state entails BOTH the clarity about the truth, AND the clarity about the false.
Now, it’s not possible to have absolutely false perception. You would have to be dead. You can only be relatively confused. It is also not possible to have absolutely true perception. You would have to be having NO perception because perception is ALWAYS fundamentally a little removed from the absolute. (There is no perception in Heaven, etc). "Perception is a separated state" "Those who perceive still need healing" "To perceive the truth is not the same as knowing it."
So here’s what’s going to happen, as you transition from false perception to true perception.
You will bring into question things which you thought were true and real, things which in the biggest picture are actually illusions, and you will learn to discern the FACT that they actually ARE NOT true or real. You will discover that what you thought was true, IS NOT, and that what you thought was untrue/unreal is in fact trustworthy. Of course, this transition requires a little WILLINGNESS to admit to the real truth, to RECOGNIZE lies as false, and a willingness to LET THEM GO in favor of ACCEPTING the real truth.
Gradually, as you sort out and clarify what is really true and what is really false, you develop true perception ie christ vision. Here you can still SEE what is true AND what is false, but you can tell them apart.
Now, as this is happening, as you are "in between" and partly sane or saner than you were, you will start to SEE more truth clearly distinguished from the things which are false. However, in this period you will STILL SEE ALSO things which are false. It’s just that now they are starting to be RECOGNIZED as false, but still seen. You don’t see truth IN them, because the truth has been clearly discerned and kept apart from what’s false, which is correct.
Actually Jesus talks about the difference between using the body’s eyes and using christ vision or the spiritual eye. The body’s eyes are PHYSICALLY fixed in how they function. They can ONLY see falsely, and they acually CANNOT see truly. "These eyes, made not to see, will NEVER see." And Christ Vision does not even USE the body’s eyes at all. IT is a direct mind-to-mind vision. Just as the body cannot see the real world, christ vision, once complete, CANNOT see the world of bodies or forms or planets.
Jesus also talks about this in terms of "you cannot see two worlds" and "sight of one is costing you sight of the other" because each WAY of seeing DENIES the other. Christ vision DENIES the world. Body sight DENIES heaven. Body sight (via photons) is locked into false perception. And the body keeps showing images of falsety to the mind. And the body ONLY looks upon illusions, meaning THE WORLD is an illusion BECAUSE the body can see it.
But what happens as you’re sorting out the true from the false, is you‘re gradually "fading in" true perception, and gradually "fading out" false perception. This transition is happening in your mind, in your belief system, but it IS NOT happening physically. The body cannot help but always look at illusions as if they are real. And so as you develop true perception, the ILLUSIONS (the world, Earth), which the body is showing to your mind, starts to be RECOGNIZED as FALSE. As unreal. As untrue. The illusions are still SHOWN to you by the eyeballs, but the MIND (which sees) is learning to categorize ALL of those image as UNREAL. As Jesus states here:
"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. 4 ***But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal.*** 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. 6 And of these two, but one is real"
Note three important points:
1) The body still reports ILLUSIONS to the mind even when christ vision has developed because you now have TWO types of seeing occuring simultaneously - body physical sight and spiritual sight.
2) ALL images the body sees will be categorized as unreal, because true perception RECOGNIZES that ALL illusions are unreal and EVERYTHING the body sees is ILLUSION - the world is an illusion recognized as UNREAL.
3) There are TWO categorizes into which the mind sorts all messages - messages from body vision AND messages from christ vision, either they are REAL or unreal. Everything the body sees, which is THIS PLANET, and all bodies, and all objects and physical things, all matter, is RECOGNIZED AS UNREAL. And everything Christ Vision sees which is BEYOND MATTER and beyond what the BODY can see, is recognized as REAL. ONLY the face of christ is real. ONLY perception of the real world, BEYOND the world of form, is real.
What’s happening here is that true perception , which is FORGIVENESS, and atonement, is OVERLOOKING everything the body’s vision presents to the mind and LOOKS PAST IT, THROUGH IT, to a truth, a light, a reality, WHICH IS BEYOND THE PHYSICAL. Beyond the world of bodies. "The world of bodies is the world of sin." "Forgiveness DOES NOT LOOK UPON BODIES." The world of bodies is the world of sin which is drawn as a thin veil over the face of Christ, and true perception SEES IT NOT.
"The forgiven world", therefore, IS NOT merely you looking AT the REAL world and recognizing its innocence, it is also looking PAST, OVERLOOKING, everything physical and all of spacetime. It does not look AT spacetime in a forgiving way, it IGNORES IT and looks BEYOND it to the reality of Heaven that spacetime was made to HIDE. The physical world is THE VEIL that was made to BLOCK THE TRUTH. The world is a block to awareness (made as an attack on God).
A forgiven world is not only a world that you look at in a friendly way, it is a world that you no longer look at at all! If you shine enough light onto a world made of darkness, the world disappears. This is why "a forgiven world cannot last", why eternity will shine away the world", and why "the world will spin into the nothingness from whih which it came." You don’t forgive a REAL world! You only forgive ILLUSORY worlds, and arriving at a forgiven world is going to be very brief before it disappears in light completely!
You don’t forgive a world and keep it. That would only be true if the world was fundamentally real. IT IS NOT. "The world you see is an ILLUSION OF A WORLD." You turn it into a forgiven world BECAUSE IT IS OVERLOOKED. Which means, forgotten! The forgiven world is not a reference to reality or seeing reality truly, it’s an reference to the ILLUSORY WORLD which you RECOGNIZE AS FALSE and realize is NOTHING, because you need to recognize illusory things ARE illusions. True perception RECOGNIZES this illusory world IS NOT REAL. Reality is beyond this world. Heaven is another world entirely. A world which spacetime was made to OBSCURE.
Only when true perception is perfected and the face of christ is seen, and the veil of physical matter completely disappears, only then do you see ONLY the truth. Because the FALSE WORLD has been completely vanished from your mind. And now perception ends, because perception cannot exist without its TWO categories of what is true and what is false. The false vanishes, the wrong mind vanishes, and the right mind transfers into the ONE mind of Heaven. In the kingdom, there IS only truth, nothing unreal exists, and there is no illusory forgiven world at all. The forgiven world vanishes. Truth has no opposite. There is no world!
Yes, while you are "forgiving the world", which really means learning NOT TO SEE IT, NOT TO BELIEVE IT, NOT TO MISTAKE IT FOR REALITY, you may experience increased truth and thus increase love. And it may seem you love the world more. But you love more IN SPITE OF the world. Not because the world is love but because it is nothing and it is GETTING OUT OF YOUR WAY and allowing you to see that which IS LOVABLE BEYOND IT. The real world is lovable. At first perceived, then entered. And who cares about the imaginary planet you made when it’s recognized as NOTHING and has been replaced with EVERYTHING REAL?
"Only the creations of light are real." "There is no life outside of heaven."
Here's something that may be very difficult to own up to. If you are upset by anything in the world, it is because you have attacked the world. And usually when you are upset, it is because you perceive someone else did the attacking. And then you recoil and despise the attack, and it affects you, and you become upset. And this all covers up the fact that you are attacking. Sin seems outside of you, not in your mind.
You see, you cannot see attack unless you attack. If someone seems to murder someone in front of your face, most people would be horrified. But that's the ego being horrified, about what the ego has done. The reaction has to be fake, because if you knew the truth you'd know nothing has really happened, would laugh at it, and raise the dead. Nothing real can be threatened. There is no death. You're just seeing a dream.
What's very hard to confess to or even be aware of, is that the only reason you are upset by a murder is because there is part of your mind that believes in murder, and is murderous. It reminds you of that, and triggers that in you. You are horrified by your OWN belief about YOURSELF. It reflects what you think is going to happen to you, and what you are doing to yourself. Otherwise you would dismiss it in an instant.
You might say, well, I'm a really loving person and I absolutely would never want to hurt anyone. I advocate for love and can only love. BUT, when someone gets murdered in front of my face, I may freak out. Why? How is that possible? It's only possible because I make it real, I believe it's true, and I value it. I see what I value, and value what I believe in. So I believe in the murder, and its horrors just reflect what I believe I deserve, because of my belief in sin being real, which I am perceiving outside of me.
There HAS TO BE something in my mind that is made of sin, in order for me to react to the "sinful behavior" of others. Otherwise I would be absolutely unmoved by this illusion. So on the one hand I'm claiming to be love/loving, but these events prove my love is conditional, and that means I MUST be in denial. Invulnerability is a characteristic of innocence and holiness, not reacting with ego emotional trauma. A peace that passes all understanding. The immovable rock of sanity.
So we have to be really, REALLY honest with ourselves. Are we REALLY loving, if we are so easily shaken by sin? Are we really awake, if we are still affected by the world we see? Something is incomplete if there is even a slight trace of upset. If we have any reaction other than love, we are in the ego. To the Holy Spirit, all things call for love, not fear.
Yet sometimes we split the world into two things. There are perceived behaviors which are "okay and loving" and other behaviors "which are evil". This is the result of a split mind looking at the world. And when the loving things happen we think, ok, that's love, I'm doing that, so I'm loving. Then when the unholy things happen we think, that's NOT love. But instead of recognizing it as a meaningless illusion we recoil in horror and pass blame and point a finger and make the person wrong. Because we're not really whole in our love. It's not unconditional.
If I derive my sense of happiness from what happens "to me" or what happens "in the world", then I am easily robbed of happiness when anything goes wrong. And there are plenty of things that will go wrong. Invulnerability and love can only come about by becoming CAUSE, not effect. By recognizing that you are NOT at the effect of the world, in ANY of its forms, any events, or when anything happens. If I want to be actively loving in this world, it can't be that I ditch love at a moment's notice when something alarming seems to occur. That's special love, and too much fear. Fear does not enter where it is not welcome, and fear is its denial.
And so it's possible to have special love for the world, which means that you value bodies and the planet and want to keep it and want to have "loving behavior" and so on, but without overlooking these illusions and without being consistent. Some actions are then considered acceptable, others are considered evil and are despised. That is not love. That's judgementalism. That's fake spirituality. That's the ego trying to spiritualize an illusion and make it real. It takes many forms, sometimes things such as "not eating meat", or "hating murderers", or trying to focus solely on "the positive", or wearing "spiritual clothes".
That is denial. It is the two-facedness of the ego. The ego is especially good at taking sides and making out that one "way" is right and one way is wrong. Still continuing to be affected by the world is a certain sign of unforgiveness. Forgiveness overlooks the world which is why it causes you not to take anything seriously in it, recognizing it is not real. This can be difficult to learn because many things in the world SEEM evil or unloving. But you can't have a life where you are "loving sometimes" and call it loving. You have to learn to realize that the unloving, hateful, vengeful things are NOT THAT, and see through them to the truth.
This is a course in Cause, not effect. The world is not a cause. Believing it causes anything produces effects in you and makes you sick. To suffer with upset or horror when bad things happen is sickness. To blame the bad things for causing it is sickness. To not realize what you did to yourself to make yourself experience upset, is sickness. A Course in Miracles isn't about putting on a nice facade of persona all the time and "looking loving", and then taking off the love and going into fear or judgement when the situation changes.
Beware of illusions of love. Real, genuine, deep love is unconditional in its application, sees ALL things in this world as unreal, recognizing NOTHING can change what it is, and has NO effects from worldly events. To love is not to take sides or to judge or to hate sinners. To love is to recognize the Christ in each is the only truth and all the rest is bullshit. "For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew YOU were dreaming."
"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."
"Only the mind sees". "Minds do not need bodies to communicate."
Mind by itself has awareness and SEES in the light. It needs nothing else for this seeing to work. This seeing is not perception at all. But when we went into the separation, we invented a separated state where we do NOT see only with the mind, and instead INTERPRET. "Perception is fundamentally judgemental". This interpretative mechanism is like a filter, which is a layer over the mind. Another term for this mechanism is the belief system.
The mind, in a sense, is now looking UPON or "through" the belief system, through perception. At the same time, the body is now sending signals into the mind from outside to report on an illusory world. The body is set up to only see the world with false perception, permanently, and to "see objects" as if they are real. It shows images of these objects to the perceptual mechanism. These are images of hell, an inability to see reality and a blindness by perception of form, regarding physical matter as "really there".
The belief system then INTERPRETS what the body is showing it. The belief system/perception now categorizes various things into separate boxes and labels them per the meaning it gives things, and assigns meanings to them. The mind, looking at these boxes, then "sees" the meaning that perception gave TO what the body's eyes were looking at.
Additionally when the belief system is not one of wholeness, certain images are spiritualized and others are ignored. Fear is used to shut out from awareness whatever the perceptual system does not want to see or believe in, and "acceptance" into the mind is permitted to the things it does want to see and believe in. Jesus says that whatever you VALUE, you will BELIEVE IN, and whatever you BELIEVE IN, you will WANT TO SEE, and because you want to see it, you will make yourself see it IN whatever the body is showing you. Projection makes perception, and obviously that is a state of hallucination.
So the belief system is now giving meaning to what is seen in the world and is interpreting it and hallucinating that it is something it's not. This means the perceptual SYSTEM is now a system/filter based in false perception, the body's eyes are also based in false perception, and so now the belief system is "lined up with" or in accord with/believing what the body reports without questioning it. That is unconsciousness, in which you take whatever the body shows you as "real".
In order to move away from this, the body's eyes continue to report the same photon-based false perceptions of fake objects as before, an illusory world seen as real, but the perceptual mechanism/belief system now REINTERPRETS the meaning and purpose of what is being sent to it. This leads to "true perception", which is a REINTERPRATION of the world "The Holy Spirit is the great re-interpreter of the world you made."
In true perception the belief system has been purified and equalized and all the meaning you gave to a meaningless world has been ironed out. Instead of a fragmented interpretation, there is now an interpretation/filter based in a reflection of the laws of God, which is wholeness. The belief system is still being bombarded with body-world-is real images but it now categorizes them all as UNREAL. It has to, in order to see with love, because the body can ONLY show you pictures of hell seeming to exist (solid objects) and so the mind has to learn NOT to believe what it is being shown. It has to recognize that this picture of crucifixion is actually not true, not real, not really there, and not happening. It looks PAST those illusory images and OVERLOOKS them, which is forgiveness
The mind's belief system now is a system of forgiveness which doesn't fixate on the surface of objects that the body is trying to report still, but instead overlooks those images entirely and sees the face of Christ BEYOND them, because it is now having mind-to-mind perception, BYPASSING the body's sight and practically ignoring the images the body presents. The body's images become like a "thin veil" before the face of Christ, because their LIES are SEEN THROUGH (REASON sees THROUGH the forms of error) so much that they become transparent. The light of Heaven is seen as being BEYOND what the images report, and the forms of matter are recognized as nothing.
All of these REINTERPRETATIONS of "the world you made" and "the world you see" (with the body) that the body is fixated on, with its false perception, are now "seen truly", with true perception, and recognize the illusion AS an illusion, not as reality. It looks past it to the light of Heaven. But what's happening now is the MIND, which is the only thing which SEES, is now looking AT the "reinterpreted images", while also looking through them TO SEE ITSELF, to see Christ. The belief system becomes transparent. The body images become transparent. The light of God is shining through the whole "system" of mind/perception/body and providing a REFLECTION of Heaven in the world. A symbolic representation of "light within darkness". The mind having true perception is looking a this fake world "in quite another light."
At this point though, the mind still is having perception, albeit true perception, and it is still in two minds. It is still having a separated state, perception, with a belief system. It's just that the belief system now is more or less empty, and God's truth is seen truly as true. Only the truth is true. The mind doesn't NEED the perceptual mechanism in order to SEE with Christ Vision, and the body and its signals have now been overlooked ENTIRELY. The whole "world" that the body was reporting as "there" has been SEEN THROUGH. And Christ has been glimpsed beyond the images.
The images of the world disappear, the body disappears, the mind stops having a belief system, perception comes to an end, the "filter" is removed, the separation is undone, and the mind now returns to a state of PURE MIND, in which there is no body and no world and no perceiving. In this state, sight is KNOWING, and knowledge of the Kingdom of God has been restored. This is the "sight of the Son of God." It is being IN Heaven. Recognizing where you really are and who you really are as Christ. And communing with God in fullness, which wasn't possible while the separated state of perception was lasting. Now perception is gone, the world is gone, the body is gone, and all that remains is your natural state of being. The entire world of bodies has literally become TOTALLY INVISIBLE to you and does not exist.
In summary, the mind sees, and while there is body/perception, the mind sees what the perception/belief system SHOWS it, which is an INTERPRETATION of what the BODY shows the perception/belief system. And as the mind sees BEYOND the body and perception, it sees itself as Christ and sees nothing else. This is all supported in various ACIM statements about seeing, vision, perception, sight, body's eyes etc.
The world, Earth, this universe, was made as an EXACT LOGICAL OPPOSITE to God's Kingdom. It was made on purpose to OPPOSE every possible quality of God's nature, so as to ATTACK God's nature and suggest that since this world is ABSENT of God's nature, God is absent here entirely. And so the world proclaims that God and His son have been crucified, and the world has come to replace immortal reality with a dream of death.
God's Kingdom says, "God is everywhere."
Spacetime says, "God is nowhere."
God's Kingdom says, "Everything is everything."
Spacetime says, "Nothing is everything and everything is nothing."
God's Kingdom says, "Everything is shared."
Spacetime says, "Nothing is shared, everything is separate."
God's Kingdom says, "Everything is always the same."
Spacetime says, "Nothing is ever the same."
God's Kingdom says, "Everything is equal."
Spacetime says, "Nothing is equal, everything is different."
God's Kingdom says, "What existed still exists and exists forever."
Spacetime says, "What used to exist no longer exists and nothing will continue to exist."
God's Kingdom says, "All things are fully everything."
Spacetime says, "Nothing is fully anything."
God's Kingdom says, "Every part is whole and holy."
Spacetime says, "Every part is unwhole, a-part and partial."
God's Kingdom says, "All of God is in all places at once."
Spacetime says, "None of God is in any place ever."
God's Kingdom says, "Everything has eternal life."
Spacetime says, "Nothing lives forever."
God's Kingdom says, "Nothing can be threatened."
Spacetime says, "Everything can be threatened."
God's Kingdom says, "Everything is permanent."
Spacetime says, "Nothing is permanent."
God's Kingdom says, "Everything exists forever."
Spacetime says, "Everything is nothing."
God's Kingdom says, "Self is accepted and loved."
Spacetime says, "Self is denied and hated."
God's Kingdom says, "All things must live forever."
Spacetime says, "All things are dead."
And so you can see that in EVERY way imaginable, the properties and qualities of God's reality were utterly OPPOSED in the making of space and time. Both space and time were ATTACKS on God's nature. They were assertions of a world UN LIKE GOD and not of Him, against His will and made to sin.
Even death is built into spacetime because of how time asserts "nothing lives forever" and "whatever exists will not always exist", in its protest against eternal life. In EVERY WAY, Earth, being fundamentally DEPENDENT ON and MADE WITHIN spacetime, is HEAVEN'S OPPOSITE. It was made to attack God and His Kingdom. And yet it is nothing because there is no world.
Earth is an ILLUSION OF A WORLD, opposite in its NATURE to Heaven in every way. It denies its own existence and contradicts itself. The planet is a lie.
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"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."
"This is the "natural" condition of the separation, and those who learn that it is not natural at all seem to be the unnatural ones. For this world is the opposite of Heaven, being made to be its opposite, and everything here takes a direction exactly opposite of what is true. In Heaven, where the meaning of love is known, love is the same as union. Here, where the illusion of love is accepted in love's place, love is perceived as separation and exclusion."
"The world is false perception. 2 It is born of error, and it has not left its source."
"The world was made as an attack on God."
"Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him."
"This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."
"If this were the real world, God would be cruel."
"It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time."
"They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant"
"For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"Without the idea of death there is no world."
"For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws that seem to govern it are the laws of death."
"Only the creations of Light are real."
"Like all aspects of the belief in space and time, it is temporary."
"This produces what seems to be a wall of flesh around the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death"
"Acts were not necessary before the separation, because belief in space and time did not exist. 5 It was only after the separation that the Atonement and the conditions necessary for its fulfillment were planned."
"The Atonement was built into the space-time belief to set a limit on the need for the belief itself, and ultimately to make learning complete."
"So do the parts of God's Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of timebrought nearer."
"The Holy Spirit stands at the end of time, where you must be because He is with you."
"The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless."
"Today the light has come. And you will see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is the end of time ensured."
"Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic"
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.
The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."
"And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."
"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."
The physical world we live in was deliberately designed by the ego mind to create the ILLUSION that separation is real. It is meant to, on purpose, deceive your awareness so that you believe how it APPEARS to be. Taking it to be REAL is an absolutely huge mistake.
One of the most powerful parts of this illusion is the appearance that we are SEPARATE PEOPLE, because we appear to be 'in' separate bodies. Separate bodies are a gross deception, which shows you through your 5 senses that you are isolated and cut off from so-called 'others', and that this is 'proven' by the body itself and the way it interacts with the environment.
In fact, the only purpose of the 'environment', is to create a separate SPACE of separation in between you and others, to reinforce the idea that you are not joined or connected or shared in any way.
But let's keep in mind, this world is made, on purpose, with the INTENTION of fooling you, and of fooling everyone. It very deliberately and purposefully was set up to make it look like we're all separate, nothing is shared, nobody is the same as anyone else, and that we are all housed in separate forms.
The result of this, IF you believe the illusion, is that we believe we are a limited to, confined to, and isolated within, our physical bodies, which seems to form a wall around our minds and limits our awareness.
The physical body is setup such that IF you believe the illusion, you will have a very restricted sense of awareness. Your awareness will seem to be 'stopped' at the perimeter of the body form itself, such that it seems that anything outside of the body is not something you have direct experience of. You can receive signals and sensations through the 5 senses that tell you, indirectly, what is 'out there', but generally speaking you will not be able to DIRECTLY experience it with your inner awareness. And for sure, you will not be able to experience it with a sense that it is part of YOURSELF.
This is how it was all set up. It's a tremendously powerful illusion that shows us everything that is UNTRUE, and everything that is false, in a very convincing way. And guess what.... almost everyone has fallen for it, hook line and sinker. Bigtime.
Most of us believe we are not other people. Most of us do not experience other people as ourselves. We've bought the entire lie that human beings are separate creatures. We even have laws set up about how when one person's body does something to another person's body, that person was responsible for the crime but not the person who was victimized. The entire gamut of ego illusory thoughts and perceptions are tied into perceiving this 'as real'.
And so this world is a huge trick. And if you've fallen for this trick, you will have all kinds of beliefs going on in your mind that tell you how the "ego" thought system is true. Such as that something can happen to one person and not another. Such as that someone can do something to someone else and have absolutely no effects from it. Such as that something can happen to you that you did not ask for in any way, and that therefore you are justified in being angry. Victims, victimizers, these ALL arise from the ILLUSION that we are all separate. And it is not the TRUTH.
This is why we have to learn to 'forgive', i.e. undo belief in, everything in front of our face. Because everything to do with 'form' IS a deliberate lie, a deliberate deception, a deliberate illusion, which has been put in place in a very INTENTIONAL way to bring about this deception. As Jesus says, "nothing is so blinding as sight of form". Form is the exact OPPOSITE of the truth. Yes, a conspiracy, to undermine the truth and to shut out awareness and to render everyone separate and unconscious. This is the ego's conspiracy against God, and this entire physical universe was made by it in order to COVER UP THE TRUTH.
So don't think this world is real, or that it's showing you truth, or that people are really bodies, or that we're all really separate, or that there really are victims and victimizers, or that anything is unfair, or that things happen that people don't choose,... those are ALL illusions and MISTAKES that you believe because you believe the ILLUSION that's in front of your face. The illusion that you seem to 'live in'. Its a huge trick. A massive con. It is not the truth, it is not REALITY, and it is not what God intends for His Son. As ACIM says, God could not submit His Son to a world such as this and BE loving.
This whole world and everything in it is an illusion. So we have a very big challenge in front of us, to learn NOT to believe in it, even while we're in it. To work our way out of it, back to an awareness of what the TRUTH really is. An awareness of God. An awareness of how these illusions operate and what they attempt to deceive in us. Our awareness is isolated and locked up in these little bodies imagining that this is all we are, or this is all there is. No, this is not all there is. This world is not all there is, not at all. In fact, this world is all that there is NOT, because it's not even real at all!
And if you will go as far as Jesus asks us to go with Him in the Course, in his radical truth.... "there is no world, this is the central thought the course would attempt to teach" - ACIM
Do we believe it? Can we see past the ILLUSION? Are we deceived? Have we come to believe it? Is it real? Why do we think we are separate people? Why do we think there are multiple identities in the world AND multiple identities inside what is left of your own self? It's not true. There is only ONENESS.
So welcome to the world. Welcome to the insane theater production of 'does not exist'', where nothing is as it seems, and there in no truth in it anywhere, and yet it is so deceptive and real-seeming that all who come here are caught in its web for a very long time.
It's a DREAM. But it's time to wake up.
For many years I have thought that there are kind of 3 states. There is false perception, then true perception, then heaven. And this is kind of true, and some aspects of ACIM support this.
However, what there really is are just two states. Heaven and hell, reality and illusions. Life and death. Knowledge and Perception.When we think about true perception it's easy to think of it as a state in and of itself. But we need to remember we're talking about PERCEIVING. And that means it's much more to do with "looking at" something.
If you ask yourself, what does false perception LOOK AT, it really kind of looks AT itself. Because false perception IS an internalized, isolated, exclusive state, where perception feeds upon itself and is blinded by form. It does not really see anything, and it cannot see reality. It is selfish and self-deceptive. It's like an obsession with itself, a closed perception that does not see.
When you then look at what the course says about true perception, it's much more to do with NOT dwelling on itself. NOT dwelling on the body. Looking BEYOND illusion. Overlooking. Seeing past. And there is a great deal of evidence that it entails an ability to literally SEE reality. To see God, Christ, the Sonship, perfection, etc, which are IN heaven.
The more I look into it the more it makes sense. Perception is about "what you look at" or how you look at it. Yes you have states of mind - for example wrong mindendess (or closed mindedness) produces false perception. While open mindedness or miracle/right mindedness produces true perception. But from these seeming "states" or the states from which perception EMITS, perception itself LOOKS and is a form of vision. So it needs something to look AT. So let's say...
False perception LOOKS AT HELL.
True perception LOOKS AT HEAVEN.
While there seem to be two "states of mind" within dreaming, ie wrong-mindedness and right-mindedness, really when it comes to perception there is either "the inability to see reality' (per the body which cannot really see reality), and the vision of christ which can see christ. "Love looks upon love" etc.
If wrong mindedness CAUSES perceptual blindness and an inability to see PAST the illusions of falseness itself, right mindedness CAUSES vision and an ability to see PAST illusions. The only thing that is BEYOND illusions, is GODS KINGDOM.
This seems to in many cases line up with what the course says and in its wording, as to how "the real world" is a PERCEPTION OF THE KINGDOM. That the innocence can see God. That perception can even see "the real world" (heaven) under the holy spirit's guidance. That you can see the face of christ, who is in heaven. etc.
So again I come back to, false perception being like living in a prison cell inside a room with no windows. And true perception is like living in a glass greenhouse where you can see THROUGH the walls and see the outside environment (heaven). The PERCEPTION OF the real world - the perception OF heaven, using perception TO see, is still an illusion. "The real world still is but a dream"... BUT, it IS a perception ABOUT heaven - reality. And it is so close to true sight that it makes crossing over to reality easy. It's like window-shopping then going inside the store.
I don't really see anything that contradicts this model. In fact I see MORE contradictions in the model that true perception is "cut off from heaven" completely. As though, we're hiding inside a completely dark room the whole time with NO ACCESS whatsoever to reality, and only upon leaving the room AFTER true perception do we experience even a hint of God. This seems to fly in the face of so much of what the course says, about you bringing light to the world, a reflection of heaven on earth, how earth can reflect heaven's light, how the light of heaven can shine into the world, how love of God can shine into the world, etc. Heaven clearly LEAKS INTO the dream realm through its radiance. That's how you be the light of the world.
I am finding that this simpler model of "two states", heaven and hell, or reality and illusions, makes things a lot SIMPLER to deal with. We can just look to "what is true in reality" versus "illusions which are false". Or look to God's laws and the nature of the soul, versus the laws of the world and the nature of the ego. It's a much easier comparison, between opposites.
We can also then see that forgiveness really is about overlooking illusions entirely, looking BEYOND them, and there's nothing beyond them but reality. So forgiveness, ie atonement as acceptance of truth, is really about reaching out to heaven from WITHIN the dream. Sitting in the dream with goggles on, looking out beyond the walls of spacetime, to heaven... which is truly "the real world". A reality.
This also then makes more sense in terms of how the course says that God gave the real world to his son.... if the real world is a state in the middle of two other states, it would imply god created the real world to be a permanent creation, which it cannot be.
The quesiton then becomes much easier to think about. Are you aligning with God, or with ego? With life or with death? With light or darkness? With truth or lies? And as you APPRAOCH total alignment with truth you are still within the realm of perception, up until the end, when you cross over into heaven completely. This is akin to walking towards the transparent walls, then passing through the door into the reality of the kingdom beyond.
It's then not so much to do with trying to aim to enter a state of forgiveness or atonement, but that you want to become ABLE TO SEE REALITY, to see past this world to the Kingdom. This also reveals that "it its impossible to see two worlds" and "beyond this world there is a world I want" ties into wanting the Kingdom, or at least a perception of it, NOT some kind of pretend "in-between" state. An inbetween state has no meaning of its own and is logically unsupported. It means nothing other than to say it LOOKS AT one of two opposites. There is either the Kingdom or not the Kingdom, there is nothing else.
Jesus said a curious thing to me last night, after I was pondering how I seemed to be here and was uncertain if he was present. He said:
"I'm not invisible, you are."
There is quite a lot of truth to this. This world we live in that we think is visible, is really invisibility. It is the attempt to hide from God, in darkness, and be unseen. It's a world of a lack of recognition. Of unawareness. Of not seeing. "I cannot see in darkness but in light".
And then there is a world, Heaven, where Jesus is, which is completely exposed, absolutely obvious, totally visible, where everything is seen in the light and nothing is hidden. How can that be called invisibility? Yet it seems invisible to our BODY.
The body was made specifically to feast its 'eyes' upon form and be blinded by it. It was made to shut out VISION, and to replace it with 'sight'. But that sight was designed to ONLY show you illusions and errors and projections and dreams, and not reality. It was in fact made to cover up reality and shut out vision.
So here we are walking around thinking everything is oh-so visible and yet this is a movement into invisibility. And we think that we're the ones who are 'showing up' and 'being present', through physical means, but physical means is the OPPOSITE of showing up and being present.
Jesus is therefore saying, he is right here in front of our face and we don't see Him. He is not hiding. We are. And he is totally visible, and we are not.
Beings who have gone before us and are of a 'higher vibration' and who are ascended etc seem to leave the field of frequency of our body's ability to perceive, but it's not actually that they stop being with us or around us, it's just that WE stay in too low of a frequency and we think that visibility is invisibility, and vice versa. They actually enter into visibility, and we stay invisible, and then think we can't see them any more.
So what Jesus is saying to me and to you is, he is with you, all the time, fully and completely, 'in person', and he is even more present than you are and it's you that needs to wake up and become aware of 'sights' that you are missing and things that you are not seeing. To join the heavenly party.
Jesus is waiting for us to show up!
"The final judgement on the world contains no condemnation. For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin and ***wholly purposeless***. Without a cause, and now ***without a function in Christ's sight, it merely slips away to nothingness.**** There it was born, and there it ends as well. And all the figures in the dream in which the world began go with it. ***Bodies now are useless, and will therefore fade away***, because the Son of God is limitless."
"The ultimate purpose of the body is to ***render itself unnecessary.*** Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation."
"And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the ***last perception of the world without a purpose*** and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"The ego made the world as IT perceives it, but the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETER of what the ego made, sees it ***only as a teaching device for bringing you home.***"
"God created (Holy Spirit made) time so that man could use it creatively, and convince himself of his own ability to create. Time is a teaching device, and ***a means to an end. It will cease when it is no longer useful*** for facilitating learning."
"Acts were not necessary before the Separation, because the time-space belief did not exist." "The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to ***set a limit on the need for the belief***, and ultimately to make learning complete. The Atonement IS the final lesson."
Simply, everything you made, the world, all bodies, perception, time, under the USE of the Holy Spirit, has the ONLY PURPOSE of being used to BRING YOU HOME, rendering all of these things eventually TOTALLY UNNECESSARY. The ONLY purpose of the world is to END THE WORLD. The only purpose of the body is to NOT NEED BODIES. The only purpose of perception is to OVERCOME PERCEPTION ENTIRELY. The only purpose of time is to NOT NEED TIME. The only purpose of SPACETIME is to use it for the curriculum to bring you home so that the SPACE-TIME BELIEF CAN END.
Once the purpose of these things is reached, per the Holy Spirit's use of them, THEY HAVE NO MORE USE, and simply are let go, vanish, disappear, end. They disappear into the NOTHINGNESS from which they came.
"The present is the only time there is."
"Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything."
"Lesson 308: This instant is the only time there is."
The ego uses our memories to constantly drag up unhappy experiences and relive them. This is a trap. Effectively, everything that ever seemed to happen before, here, is gone. It's over. All you have in spacetime is what's in front of your face right now.
"The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end, believes that the past is the ONLY aspect of time that is meaningful."
If you remain in the past you'll also remain in grievances because you can't hold something against something unless you're dragging up something they did in the past. If they are not sinning now, they have never sinned. And there is no sin without the past.
The past IS the idea of spacetime, because it is the idea that what has always existed in eternity no longer exists and has been changed into something else. ie it has died. Time is the idea that God is dead. It is opposite to reality and not of God. To God there is only presence, no time, no space, no past, and no future.
"To you who still believe you live in time, and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone. You think you live in what is past."
"The past is over. It can touch me not."
"Unless the past is over in my mind, the real world must escape my sight."
"Forgiveness is the great release from time. It is the key to learning that the past is over."
"For NOW is the closest approximation of eternity that this world offers. And it is in the REALITY of now, without past OR future, that the beginning of the appreciation of eternity lies. For only now is HERE, and IT presents the opportunities for the holy encounters, in which salvation can be found.""The only aspect of time which is really eternal is NOW. That is what we REALLY mean when we say that now is the only time."
"For what can be forgiven but the past, and if it is forgiven it is gone."
"Forgiveness does not aim at KEEPING time, but at its ending, when it has no use. Its purpose ended, it is gone."
"Forgive the past and let it go, for it IS gone."
It may be easier to understand the differences in perception, when you consider inanimate objects. Objects which appear to just sit there and do nothing at all.
A good example is a rock. It just sits there. It has no will or mind and isn't particularly alive. At the subatomic level maybe it wiggles around but over time it generally does nothing but vegetate. It cannot move itself, it cannot articulate an attack, it cannot think, it cannot cause of its own will. It has no power and is just a lump of stuff, inert and unmoving.
If you a walking by and you stub your toe on the rock, you might yell at the rock for seeming to attack you. In pain your anger projects and you find the rock to be an enemy. This is your perception of the rock. In your mind, you are giving meaning to the rock. You now believe the rock is a sinful enemy, a guilty attacker. And as you look at it with hate you see it as real and threatening.
But the rock is just sitting there. And if you come to your senses you have to admit that really the rock didn't do anything at all. It was all you. Your own movement caused you to stub your toe. The rock just sat uninvolved and uncausing. So is it really the rock's fault? No. It's something you did to yourself.
So then you admit ok, I am only thinking the rock is an evil sinner because I am choosing to project guilt and sin onto it. I'm framing it as sinful and believing it is an attacker. That's happening in my own mind. I'm projecting stuff onto it and it's making me perceive it as hated and unwanted.
Then you have to realize that since the rock isn't really the cause of the upset, that you are the one who actually attacked the rock with your toe, it's really your own doing. And now you take back your accusation. The rock isn't a person, so there's no point yelling at it and calling it names. It can't hear your swear-words.
You shift "your perception" from false to true. You decide to believe that the rock is innocent and harmless, not an attacker or an evil sinner. You recognize the rock as incapable of hurting you against your will. You realize it has no will or mind or power to do anything on its own. So it cannot have wanted to hurt you. It must be innocent. So now you're willing to believe the rock is not sinful, or guilty, or an attacker. The inverse of which is a belief that it is innocent, loveable, beautiful even.
Your mind is able to decide what it sees in the rock, ie what meaning it projects onto it. When the mind is deciding to project from love, it sees the rock in a loving way, which makes it appear as though the rock is lovable rather than hatable. And so now you love the rock, because you are projecting love, in spite of the rock's own nature.
But the rock isn't changing. The rock isnt inherently sinful, nor is it sinless. It doesn't really have its own meaning. In a way it's kind of like a neutral mirror. You actually see yourself in it. Whatever you think is true you visualize in it. You see refleted back to you what you put there to see. So the rock is doing its own thing, and you are having varying types of beliefs about it, seemingly independent of it.
It's possible to project a mental state of hell onto the world of rocks, just as it is possible to project a mental state of heaven's reflection onto the rocks. True perception can be very close to heaven's nature. You reach within and find love and peace and joy and light and shine it outward and light up the world with it. What appeared to be a harmful rock is now a healing rock. What used to be an attacking rock is an innocent rock.
This is the translation, in your mind, of earth into heaven's reflection. A translation is an interpretative process which evaluates the meaning of something. It gives meaning to it, based on what you believe or WANT it to mean. This is in spite of any seemingly inherent properties that the thing has. Because it has none.
Earth, the world, the galaxies, space time, rocks and plants and animals, human bodies, cities and forests etc, is all essentially a neutral mirror. It's a veil of images which the mind is making and inventing. It holds pictures of forms and illusions of life and death. And yet it is a meaningless world. And so it only has the meaning that you GIVE to it. "The world is what you gave it, nothing more." "There is no world apart from what you wish." "Projection makes perception and makes the world you see."
So on the one hand, we made a world in an attack on God, which was made to be completely opposite to heaven, and which is therefore hell. Or at least, we came up with it in a state of false perception, ie misperception. In that state it appears to be hell because we see it in a hellish way. So we project hell and fragmentation and separation and attack and guilt onto it. And so it appears to be a hellish world. But this view of it (this projected world) only exists while you are having false perception (false projection).
What the course is saying is that you can change your vantage point. But the change in vantage point is huge. It's a 180-degree total opposition to false perception. It's a way of seeing totally alien to the world and to how the body functions. It flies in the face of every seeming law of physics and reality, and completely denies the apparently separated world. It's a lofty, heaven-based perception, which does not buy into anything the world appears to be.
It is in fact difficult for minds to comprehend how it's possible to see the world through loving eyes. The mind has trouble breaking through its own defenses against love. It can't sense or feel or experience what it is like to see from the vantage point of the Holy Spirit, without a whole lot of purificaiton and correction. And so most of the time, it seems impossible to love the world. Or indeed it seems as if the world is inherently sinful and wrong and bad.
The hell seen in false perception motivates a person to not want to love the world. Indeed the course says that such a world "cannot be the world God loves". Yet also that "God does love the world". He does not love the world seen in false perception, where rocks are separated and death seems real and attack seems commonplace. He does not love that world. No one can love such a thing and still behold it. No one can love death. "You cannot behold the world and know God."
But God does love the "real" world. The real world is a world seen in true perception, in which reality's love is projected onto it. And it does not show you separations of forms, or illusions of meaning. It is an accurate view of what the world IS, and the world is nothing but a flat image. It is a neutral inert meaningless lifeless powerless willless uncausal incapable valueluess veil of illusions. It has nothing of its own because it is nothing, and so at best it is symbolic. It can symbolize heaven or hell, but it cannot ever really be either.
If you look upon war you see war and you hate it. But if you see war as war, it is because you are giving war. If you give love and peace and extend and express these higher vantage points, then what you see comes from what you GIVE, not from what is THERE. You project the real world and see it as forgiven and holy because that's what you're projecting, and so it's all that you can see because you can ONLY see what you project.
You give love to the image of a world and the image reflects the love you are giving, and now you see the reflection of love in it. But this reflection also completely ignores anything the image itself possesses as its own properties. It overlooks forms, ignores shapes and sizes and distance or delay, and sees no orders of hierarchy anywhere. It doesn't distinguish individual bodies or places or times. And it sees no orders of difficulty.
If you extend love toward the world, it makes you blind to the world seen in false perception. It causes the dark twisted world to not be seen, and for this layer of interpretation to be lifted from what the world is. In a sense, the world of false perception is a world of specifics, and the world of true perception is abstract and transcendental. This doesn't necessarily mean the world stops having the form of attack. In fact it cannot ever have anything BUT forms. And it is this the body's eyes always and only see.
Even as the mind is healed and views love from love, the forms of the world remain much unchanged. The dogs still bark, the trees still lose their leaves, murderers still kill, and the graveyards are still populated. But they are translated, re-interpreted, overlooked, ignored, and do not stand out as different. All the differences are ignored, all properties of appearances are ignored, all ways that the objects could compete with one another for attention are ignored. The world becomes flattened and regarded as a singular unreal image. A veil of illusions, in which none of it is true.
As the veil is seen with love, in which its own nature is recognized as false, and yet which simultaneously acts like a mirror for your own meaning to be clearly projected, the veil is also losing its solidity. It becomes transparent before the light. And ultimately the reflection of God is seen. But to see God's reflection you cannot see bodies and spacetime, vying for attention. When "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind", God becomes ALL that you see, and you see nothing else. "A world forgiven cannot last." "Forgiveness sees it not."
And so the veil of a world lifts from sight, as all differences become ignored. And the face of Christ is revealed as heaven's reflection reaching across what still remains as a world of chaos. And all forms and differences are no longer seen. And to such an extent is the mind in the holy instant, fully present, that things of past and future such as bodies cannot be seen at all. The world is forgotten, and disappears. It is as though it has become so deflated and equalized and transcended that it does not exist at all. And all that remains is the face of Christ, which once seen leads to the immediate return to heaven. And "heaven is all that remains."
The happy truth behind every seeming disasterous illusion in this world, is that nothing has gone wrong at all and we are still with God.
The happy truth is also that it is actually possible to be immortal, as spirit, and to even manifest a seemingly incorruptible body if you so choose. Doing so is nothing compared to your real power.
All things that could ever go wrong to hurt you, come from you, and are a choice, and therefore not choosing them renders you invulnerable. If you do not see this clearly it's because you believe the *illusion* that people don't do things to themselves.
Nothing happens to anyone without not only their consent but without them actually literally orchestrating and doing it to themselves. So this myth of vulnerability, that you can be affected, or that death can come along and attack you without having the power to stop it, is a complete lie that has been perpetuated for millennia.
The happy truth is that all the things that you're concerned about, are not true. And nothing is really wrong. And nobody is really getting hurt. Of course that flies in the face of what *appears* to be happening, because that's us falling for the illusion that people aren't choosing.
If we could recognize and see the choices everyone is making and expose the entire back-story of how everyone has deliberately chosen every single thing they have ever experienced, we would not be able to believe for a second that something can happen to us against our will. And our belief in death would be totally blown out of the water.
It's only because the truth seems to be hidden, i.e. your are unaware of it, that it seems plausible that things are happening to you that you did not ask for. And this also means that once you are aware, you will no longer make yourself suffer and die, and lo-and-behold will find that nothing beyond you has the power to make you die either.
As such you are completely protected, perfectly safe, only love is real, and really this is all just a big joke. The Son of God is playing with illusions and toying with death as part of His little fantasy story-telling adventure, and one day we will wake up to experience this truth and know that nothing ever really happened to anyone.
And then we'll remember to laugh
The things that happen in the world don't really matter. All the efforts to build things, reach goals, assemble cities, improve governments, it's not really the point. It's not why we're here. We're here because we're stubborning refusing to live with God. We have lessons to learn and the purpose is to get to a point where we leave the world permanently. It's not about building a wonderful human civilization on the planet. There is no real benefit to doing that. We're not really supposed to be here. We belong in heaven. This world is just a temporary outpost, a corner in which we're hiding, while we delay being with God. Don't get too comfortable, because it was never meant to last.
"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is NOT your home; its laws are NOT imposed on you, its values are NOT yours. And nothing that you THINK you see in it is REALLY there at all."
"Yet who can build his home upon a straw, and count on it as shelter from the wind? The body can be made a home like this BECAUSE it lacks foundation in the truth. And yet, BECAUSE it does, it can be seen as NOT your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the home where God abides."
"The world I see has nothing that I want."
"God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the Face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No-one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice which its values would demand of him."
"It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give."
"I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world."
"The body is hardly worth the least defense."
"The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?"
There is part of you which is already in heaven with God. It never left.
That means your spirit-self is already awake and one with God.
Jesus says that like you, He has everything that God gave Him. The only difference between Him and us, is that He has nothing else.
So there is a part of who we think we are, which is "foreign" and not *actually* who we are.
Our only job is to clear away the illusion of that "extra self", a second self, which pretends to be the only self, to reveal the True Self that you are already.
There is already a "second self" - your higher self, which exists already, in "addition" to your ego self. It seems like it does not exist at all, or that it is separate from "you". But you are it, and the "rest of you" that is ego is not.
You cannot make yourself become spirit, or therefore cannot "become" spiritual. You also can’t turn your ego into spirit. You can only stop trying to be something you are not. What is left after the fight against God is surrendered as not necessary, is who you always have been.
You are already immortal spirit. Your confused identity which thinks it is either partly or entirely something else, could in fact communicate with your spirit-self (or higher self) right now, here in the dream. I have even seen an apparition of someone’s "spirit" a couple of times.
Your awakened self already is awake and already exists. Holy Spirit loves to look upon the face of Christ. You as Christ can already communicate with "you as ego", in terms you might accept.
I’ve spoken with my own ‘higher self’ on occasion. I’ve also spoken with the higher self of other people on occasion. It’s interesting that they respond when I am thinking about or talking to some person who is ‘in a body’ and their already-awakened self steps in and says something.
Strange dynamic isn’t it, that the awakened self we are trying to "become" already exists. We are just waking up TO it, not building it from scratch for the first time.
This is also why God/Holy Spirit can communicate with you even while you are in the dream. You don’t have to "make" a Holy Spirit in order to do this.
You are already as God created you, and you are still as God created you. This real self is simply a bit covered up with some illusions which pretend that you are something else. You cannot remove or change what God created, you can only deny it.
This is also why you cannot make yourself die, in the biggest picture. What God has created, no man can put asunder. You cannot change God’s will, thank God.
Become who you already are.
There is part of you which is already in heaven with God. It never left.
That means your spirit-self is already awake and one with God.
Jesus says that like you, He has everything that God gave Him. The only difference between Him and us, is that He has nothing else.
So there is a part of who we think we are, which is "foreign" and not *actually* who we are.
Our only job is to clear away the illusion of that "extra self", a second self, which pretends to be the only self, to reveal the True Self that you are already.
There is already a "second self" - your higher self, which exists already, in "addition" to your ego self. It seems like it does not exist at all, or that it is separate from "you". But you are it, and the "rest of you" that is ego is not.
You cannot make yourself become spirit, or therefore cannot "become" spiritual. You also can’t turn your ego into spirit. You can only stop trying to be something you are not. What is left after the fight against God is surrendered as not necessary, is who you always have been.
You are already immortal spirit. Your confused identity which thinks it is either partly or entirely something else, could in fact communicate with your spirit-self (or higher self) right now, here in the dream. I have even seen an apparition of someone’s "spirit" a couple of times.
Your awakened self already is awake and already exists. Holy Spirit loves to look upon the face of Christ. You as Christ can already communicate with "you as ego", in terms you might accept.
I’ve spoken with my own ‘higher self’ on occasion. I’ve also spoken with the higher self of other people on occasion. It’s interesting that they respond when I am thinking about or talking to some person who is ‘in a body’ and their already-awakened self steps in and says something.
Strange dynamic isn’t it, that the awakened self we are trying to "become" already exists. We are just waking up TO it, not building it from scratch for the first time.
This is also why God/Holy Spirit can communicate with you even while you are in the dream. You don’t have to "make" a Holy Spirit in order to do this.
You are already as God created you, and you are still as God created you. This real self is simply a bit covered up with some illusions which pretend that you are something else. You cannot remove or change what God created, you can only deny it.
This is also why you cannot make yourself die, in the biggest picture. What God has created, no man can put asunder. You cannot change God’s will, thank God.
Become who you already are.
Sometimes, although we don't want anyone to suffer, and God does not will anyone suffer, ... .sometimes someone going through a "thing", a hardship, a suffering, is actually consentual and beneficial to the person.
There can be a great compulsion to stop it, solve it, take it away, make it better, avoid it, etc.... we are VERY avoidant of any threat to us. But in the big picture, these "trials" as they say are actually "lessons", which we've sort of agreed to go through in order to grow spiritually.
If we are in the business of just taking away everyone's troubles all the time, we might actually be denying them a tremendous opportunity for advancement.
How do we know that, perhaps a person becoming an alcoholic and hitting rock bottom could actually lead to them becoming a powerful advocate for healthy living and helping others to escape from it?
Or that, someone going through a horrible nightmarish experience of sickness might actually lead to new perspectives and opportunities and maybe even a new future career that ends up helping a lot of people? We have to be careful not to think always in such short-term aims, and look instead to what the purpose is in the LONG TERM plan of atonement.
Very often the things you go through give you a lot of wisdom and insight and personal experience, which "equips you" in a sense with perspectives and abilities and compassion for others who might go through something similar. And then you might find yourself using that to be helpful to them down the line.
You might for example have elected to be a really great therapist or something and, in order to do so, wanted to first-hand go through some horrible abuse situation which you had to experience and work through and heal, in order to find a way out, in order to become able to help others to find a way out. And without that, you might not have been able to be useful in that way, for the higher purposes of the atonement plan.
On an earthly level we often interpret any bad thing as bad and wrong and to make it stop. We insulate ourselves from problems and sufferings. We label all unpleasant things as unwanted. We try to make an idyllic life, comfortable and controlled, to shut out the chaos.
But in the big picture of the soul we come here to learn lessons, to grow, to advance towards God. The importance of returning to God in the long term, across even lifetimes, may be so significant that we would be willing to even go through hell and back if it meant we would find a way to rise above it when pushed to our limits.
A person might actually on a higher level be willing to go through tremendously difficult lessons because, in the big picture, they know what it is leading to. The potential for major spiritual growth. An opportunity to see the other side of a situation. The purpose of finding a different way to relate to others etc.
It's not like, God is there saying, you must suffer and I want you to go have a horrible disfigurement just so that you can learn, or some kind of cruel karmic punishment scenario. But because we have chosen to go away from God and into ego, we "need" lessons to help us to return to him. And that means we have beliefs that need undoing, and attitudes that need correction.
So we then find that the atonement plan is set up to use our "faults" and our unwillingness and our biases and blind spots and so on, as "lessons", which may appear at first like horrible trials and difficult challenges, in order to try to find a "better way". To find a way to make a better choice in that scenario so that in future we don't need to go through something like that. Or rather, that we stop making those kinds of forms of suffering because we've learned that they are ultimately not in our best interests.
So in general we can't be quick to judge whether something is a good thing or not. The most horrible looking through could well be very much consensual and very much asked for. If the soul knows that there is the POTENTIAL for massive growth and learning, it may in fact be WILLING on a deep level to suffer the most horrendous difficult challenges, because it knows that the payoff may be really really worth it.
So hats off to all you people who are and have gone through horrible states of hell and nightmares and abuses and victimhood and all manner of pain and misery. Because it may well indicate not that it was just some thing that "was not meant to happen" but rather, something that you consented to and were WILLING to experience because it would potentially have tremendous spiritual benefits.
No sane person in their right mind would want to choose any such trial or difficulty, but it's because we're NOT in our right minds that we DO choose these things, and the holy spirit REPURPOSES these things, in an effort to use them productively and constructively, to help us to make the best of it, so that it isn't all for nothing and a waste of time.
This is a more FORGIVING view of suffering, because it reframes it as potentially beneficial when used for a higher purpose. Instead of focusing on the thing itself through false perception, labelling it a dark and wrong and unwanted. We can USE anything for the purpose of becoming closer to God, and that's what all these "trials" are all about.
"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life." UrW139L19
"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you." UrT31H2
"The misuse of will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point." UrT2B69
"In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created altars unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you. His holiness is yours because He is the ONLY power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His ONLY Son. The images you make can not prevail against what God Himself would have you be." UrT31H3
"Some of your greatest advances YOU have judged as failures, and some of your deepest retreats YOU have evaluated as success." UrT18F1
"There IS no choice where every end is sure. Perhaps you would prefer to try them all, before you REALLY learn they are but one. The roads this world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. Men have died on seeing this, because they saw no way EXCEPT the pathways offered by the world. And, learning THEY led nowhere, lost their hope. And yet this was the time they COULD have learned their greatest lesson. All must reach this point, and go BEYOND it. It is true indeed there is no choice at all within the world. But this is NOT the lesson in itself. The lesson has a PURPOSE, and in THIS you come to understand what it is FOR." UrT31D3
This is an important point. When you are being forgiving, you do not continue to LOOK AT the thing that you were forgiving. Sight of it was the result of NOT forgiving.
Forgiveness is NOT ABOUT looking "at" bodies and at the world and regarding them as sinless and holy. This is not how forgiveness functions. Forgiveness does not make something real and then try to look past it, nor does it make something real and then attempt to endow it with qualities of love and perfection.
To forgive the world does NOT MEAN to keep looking AT the world in a loving way. To forgive the world does NOT MEAN to love the world and believe it is God's creation. To forgive does not mean that your SIGHT stops at the outside surface of material objects and still regards them as reality. I'm sorry but that is NOT forgiveness.
To forgive means to OVERLOOK. It means to SEE PAST. It means to NOT FIXATE ON. It means to NOT BE DECEIVED BY. It means to GIVE NO REALITY TO. It means to CANCEL illusions. It means to DIMINISH illusions in your sight so that you can see THROUGH THEM and PAST THEM to the truth (Christ) that was being hidden BY them.
The world stands like a block of sin before the face of Christ. So does all bodies. You have to OVERLOOK THEM if you want to see Christ in your brother. The Christ in him is BEYOND HIS BODY.
"It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body to LET yourselves be joined."
"Beyond the bodies that you interposed between you, and shining in the golden light"
"And place no value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is."
You have to OVERLOOK PHYSICAL OBJECTS. Your sight, your spiritual sight, has to take the place of your body's vision (which lies to you and only looks at bodies). To be forgiving, to forgive your brother, and to forgive the world, does not mean you're still SEEING THE WORLD or seeing bodies. Nor does it mean you still see exactly the same stuff you saw before but with a sense of innocence and loveliness. You are NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SEEING THIS WORLD.
Those of you who believe that God created this planet, are particularly apt to be mistaken about this. It is an error to say that your aim is to "love the world". Your love would dispel the world. "Eternity shines away the world." You cannot love what isn't really there. You can only love the reality and truth which is BEYOND the world. To want to keep the world and the bodies and keep SEEING them, and keep being BLINDED by sight of form, while trying to simultaneously reach a state of love and forgiveness, is IMPOSSIBLE. You have to let the world go. You are NOT being forgiving if you keep fixating on it.
All things in this world are the form of sin and error. You must learn to OVERLOOK these errors and see PAST them with reason. Only this way can you "see God in everything you see". It's not because you keep seeing the world AS God. You see God IN PLACE OF the world. Behind the world. He was hidden BY the world. That was why you made it, to shut him out. To forgive is to recognize that this illusory world IS NOT THERE, HAS NOT HAPPENED, AND DOES NOT REALLY EXIST. Only by looking PAST forms to the Christ BEYOND can you recognize God's Son.
When your mind stops at the outer surface of objects, you are blinded and the extension of your mind has been arrested. If you arrest the extension of the mind you foster separation and induce illness. It is unnatural to see this world and bad for your health. You need to see PAST its illusion in order for your mind to JOIN with the Christ that is hidden BEYOND the world and beyond bodies. It is the only way you can communicate and it is the only way you can love. Love shines PAST illusions and renders them unreal and irrelevant. The world is irrelevant. The body is irrelevant.
It's like in the Matrix movies... you have to learn to see the 'matrix code' instead of being deceived by illusions of a world that doesn't exist. Then you can get out of hell and get back to being in Heaven.
Only love is real and "love was never in the world". Love wants the world to end.
"Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins..."
"...brought to its forgiveness is gently overlooked, and disappears"
"He overlooks the mind and body, seeing only the face of Christ"
"Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances."
"By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth"
"To forgive is to OVERLOOK."
"You can overlook your brother's dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions"
"For you are asked but to forgive all things that no-one ever did; to overlook what is not there; and not to look upon the unreal as reality."
"For it is your unwillingness to overlook what seems to stand between you that makes it look impenetrable"
"(body)... Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and seeing it everywhere, in everything."
"Let love draw near them and overlook the body, as it will surely do"
"Thus are his sins forgiven him, for Christ has vision which has power to overlook them all. In His forgiveness they are gone. Unseen by One, they merely disappear because a vision of the holiness which lies beyond them comes to take their place."
"When you have looked upon each other with complete forgiveness, from which no error is excluded and nothing kept hidden, what mistake can there be anywhere you can not overlook? What form of suffering could block your sight, preventing you from seeing past it?"
"In your madness, you OVERLOOK REALITY COMPLETELY, and you see ONLY YOUR SPLIT MIND everywhere you look."
"To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT GO."
"See him as guiltless as I look on you, and OVERLOOK the sins he THINKS he sees within himself. "
"Condemn your Savior not because he thinks he is a body. Far beyond his dreams is his reality"
"But what is that to those who have been given one true relationship, BEYOND the body?"
"He holds not the proof of sin before his brother's eyes."
"This separating off is symbolized, in your perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. "
"To see a brother in ANOTHER body, SEPARATE from yours, is the expression of a wish to see a little PART of him, and sacrifice the rest."
"And while you see your brother as a body, APART from you and separate in his cell, you are demanding sacrifice of him AND you. "
"What witness to the wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is INVISIBLE in such a world."
"In Heaven God's Son is NOT imprisoned in a body, nor is sacrificed in solitude to sin."
"If you but recognized how little stands between you and your awareness of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist. This body only seems to be immovable. This force is irresistible in truth. What, then, must happen when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for what is quietly passed through and gone beyond?"
Our opinions don't mean anything at all. They are absolutely worthless. It doesn't matter what your truth is or what my truth is or what anyone's truth is. It's all bullshit. An opinion is the delusional voice of the ego.
In attempting to express what we think is right or true, we actually are covering up the truth. We are replacing the truth with a viewpoint of what we want the truth to be. These expressions of "my truth", which come across as "this is what the truth is", are actually censorship of real truth.
Then there are those who say that everyone's truth is different or unique and to have your own truth. That's insanity. And then there are those who say no-one knows or can know the truth - not quite true - you CAN know the truth, it's just that hardly anyone is willing and we've become expert at obscuring it.
More and more I see that the truth - as God - simply 'is'. There is absolutely nothing we can do to change or define what it is. It can either be accepted, or denied, but nothing else.
We don't get to decide what God is. We don't get to decide what reality is. We don't get to decide what is true or false. We don't get to decide who we are. We don't get to decide where we came from or what our characteristics are. We don't get to decide God's will for Him. And we don't get to change God in any way. We also don't really get to be separate from God or have our own separate existence or "my life" that I've taken possession and control over.
"There is no life outside of Heaven" - ACIM
"I am as God Created me." - ACIM
"Only the truth is true." - ACIM
Fortunately for us, the gift that God has given us is so perfect and amazing that we couldn't really want for anything else, and nothing else is better for us. It is an absolute blessing and an act of grace. We should be overjoyed to accept what He has deemed us worthy of.
The truth is fixed. It is permanent. It doesn't change. God doesn't change. And no matter what anyone's opinion is, no matter what my opinion is, it's not going to change the truth.
It is actually insane to insist that I or anyone knows what the truth is IF it is not actually aligned with what the truth is. It is, however, sane to know the truth when it is clear and correct and in full acceptance of what the truth actually is.
The more that I allow Jesus and Holy Spirit to express through me, with less censorship and less desire to change what they say, the more "raw" their message becomes. The more completely blunt and unhidden and direct and factual it becomes. I see myself wanting to cover things up and not say some things and not be so brutally honest but they urge me to stop saving face and let the raw truth out.
I expect Jesus to have some kind of persona or way of softening the blow, but He is just like.... in your face! This is what the truth is, boom... take it or leave it. Totally exposed and out in the open with nothing to hide and no attempt to cover anything up.
If something is true and we try to avoid it or deny it or reject it or cover it up or disbelieve it or try to make something else true in order to claim it is false, we're being nothing but arrogant and we have an authority problem.
It's not going to matter whatsoever whether someone claims to know the true version of ACIM or any other teaching, or not. The truth is true. It can only be what it is and it can only be experienced "as-is". The truth itself will be the true measure of who is correct or not - you could call that "judgement day" in a symbolic kind of way. The truth knows what the truth is. The rest of us just get to accept it or attempt to block it and pretend we know better.
But this at least means that the truth is accessible, and you can accept it, and if you are willing to accept it you can align with it and it can be shared with God. Truth is sharing. But you can't have an isolated truth of your own. Isolation is not sharing and puts you into a private world where your own opinion seems to mean something. Your opinion doesn't mean anything at all.
God knows.
God just is, like it or not.
God has given His Creation. He has created us. He has shared everything with us. He has defined what we are forever. The course says something like - think not that you can improve upon Heaven, you cannot add anything to the truth that is more valuable than what it already contains.
We literally therefore must SURRENDER to the truth, lay down everything we want to believe that opposes or blocks or changes it, and simply allow it, accept it.
Related to this, when A Course in Miracles begins it says "This is A Course in Miracles, it is a REQUIRED COURSE." Do you think Jesus is being factual, literal, and absolutely truthful? It is a required course because it is part of God's plan for awakening, and what God says goes. It is inescapable. We have a curriculum for awakening and we must take it and we will take it. It is God's will. you can't avoid it. You can't pretend there is some other completely separate path that doesn't include the curriculum somehow.
The metaphysics of the truth as laid out in the Course is completely true. There are steps in awakening. There are things you have to admit to. You have to learn to admit to the real truth - not a truth that one book says or another argues with. The experiential factual real LIVING truth. You can deny it all you want but you cannot change it or define it. Other pathways may also lead to God but only if they include the same factual real truth.
This is why the "only" path to God is really A Course in Miracles, or to put it another way, it's not the form of the Course but.. "the course" is the "divine curriculum" which is "required" no matter what form your path takes or what materials you use or what books or what teachers. All paths - all forms of paths - lead to God, but some obscure it more than others. You cannot wake up without taking the one curriculum, either directly or inadvertently. And you can be an ACIM student and avoid the curriculum for a long time. ;;-)
This leads me to a different but related point.
I was asking Jesus about how I can possibly accept that someone is sick. If acceptance of the truth is so important, surely I would be better off not resisting the fact that someone is sick? Surely I would be more at peace if I stop fighting with the sickness? Can it be possible that I can come to a complete acceptance of and allowance of that sickness?
Jesus said no. How can I accept something that is false? Jesus speaks of His inability to tolerate the absence of truth in himself or others, and asks us to join Him in the great crusade to correct error in everyone. "As you share my unwillingness to accept error in yourself and others, you must join the great crusade to correct it; listen to my voice, learn to undo error and act to correct it. The power to work miracles belongs to you." - ACIM
I cannot accept someone being sick because the sickness isn't real. I can't simultaneously believe that it is real and be at peace. I can accept that they really DO NOT have sickness. I can accept that they are NOT sick. I can accept that they are One with the truth, in truth. But the sickness, the illusion of sickness, it is intolerable IF it is real. Fortunately it is not real, and that is what can be accepted. But then ... Love compels a desire to perform miracles.
"How can I help?"
The world was made to die. It is hell. Bad shit happens, sooner or later. Everything breaks down, suffers, dies in the end. It's an insane world.
However.
When a whole shit ton of bad shite happens, and it keeps coming, at first it seems to attack all the defenses you made against its nature. All your safeties are called into question. All your values are turned upside down. Everything you held dear is threatened. All your expectations that the world can be a great place are shattered. All the bodies that you valued highly are threatened.
You don't realize it at the time but this is a transformation and it's leading somewhere quite useful.
Later when the dust settles, the world has left a very bad taste in your mouth. You think perhaps that you should heal from this by undoing everything that the world did to you, except that you start to notice something.
By turning to vengeance and brutality and cruelty and despair the world (ego) revealed its true nature. It shoved its deadliness in your face. It taunted you with its unfairness and harmfulness. It opened up a chasm of hell and all the voices of sin roared up in front of you. While temptation tried to lead you deeper still into its suffering dirge.
And so now, you got a really good look at the shit hole that it is. It stopped being so hidden and all its fucked-up shite just flew out in the open. And it was hell, but then you noticed.
This is how the world is. Not just "this time". Not just "because it has a grudge against you personally". It's how it ALWAYS is.
And through its destruction of your defenses against this fact, and though its deterioration of the ways this is usually hidden from view, you see the world now more squarely. It's more obvious that it simply, fundamentally, sucks ass. Because it was designed to.
And now a new awareness starts to dawn on you.
While you might've tried to escape from hell's onslaught and veer off into coping mechanisms and avoidance and denial, grasping desperately at the rose-tinted glasses in attempting to scrape together some kind of normality, all of this was brought into question.
And now instead of moving in the direction of trying to dress up the world again, to make it home again, to repair the breakdown, to create another illusion of safety in the midst of turmoil, you instead shift direction.
You notice that you've been doing this your whole life. Building up defenses against death. Believing the world can be a great place to be. Trying to assemble a home to shut out the brutality and attacks of the outside world. Forming special relationships and allegiances to defend against the enemies. All this hiding. All this defending. All this avoiding. It comes to a halt.
And now you realize it wasn't just that the world COULD be a great place, and you just weren't very good at making it one, it's actually that there's a much bigger thing going on here. The world is DESIGNED TO FAIL. Over and over again. It is HELL BENT on death and destruction. It WANTS to end and it wants to end you. This is is NATURE. But no-one told you that, and everyone taught you of its illusory virtues and hopeful outcomes and partial loveliness.
It wasn't you. It wasn't just your efforts and your denials. It's the world. It's not just something you did wrong that kept making things fail. All the times you hoped that things would be better. All the wishful thinking. It was all pointless given that the world, itself, was ALWAYS going to end in the dirt.
And now the disguise has been taken off. The world's bullshit has slapped your face rather too openly, and now you are no longer in the business of defending IT, or dressing IT up to be something pretty, or imagining that ITS nature is fundamentally good. No more trying to turn the world into heaven or expecting that it CAN be that.
There is now a willingness to recognize, to accept, this world just wants to die. And it's always dying. And everything in it dies. It's not you, it's not even personal. It's just how the world is. It's it's nature. Kill or be killed, and kill anyway. This whole planet is going to turn to dust someday, or the sun will explode and destroy it. That's a fact. This is the inevitability of the wages of sin, in a world driven by laws of death.
In a way, the world's onslaught has done you a favor. It's brought into question all your little home-making defenses and all your special values and things you liked about it. It's ripped your life apart and destroyed your idol worship. It's shown itself it be cruel, desperate, unfair, brutal, vicious and deadly. And it cares not. Because it can't do anything but make everything die.
So now you know. Your eyes have been opened. No more denial about this world being a pretty bundle of icecream and kittens. This is the recognition that the world IS hell. It's NOT your home. It's designed to make you suffer and all things in it are cruel and tempt sin and guilt.
"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. "
You had taught yourself that this world was your home. You taught yourself it could be heaven. You taught yourself things in it didn't have to die. You taught yourself you could avoid and resist and deny all you want, but eventually it still turns to shit, and there seems to be nothing you can do about it.
Form, flesh, appearances, bodies, animals, nature, planets, galaxies, it's all part of a system of death. Take the veil off. Lift away the lies. See through the temptation to believe otherwise. Undo the confusion, in which you thought this world was heaven. Reverse the lies, in which you thought there was truth and reality and holiness to something which is just a dream of nothingness. See the world for what it IS.
The world is just an illusion of a world, the hell you made, an opposite to life, and designed to do nothing but destroy God's son. There is no way out of it except through forgiveness. There are no roads made of its hellish substrate that lead out of it. Everything dies here. It's what it does. Spacetime makes sure of that.
Recognizing this is seeing through illusions, not being deceived and learning. While hell came to take the truth from you, all it ended up doing was exposing itself. And now that you've had a good hard look at its desperate sucky ness, you can see it's not the dressed-up doll you thought it was. And that's a good thing. You now recognize it's made to die, so you can stop trying to run away from this, or expect otherwise for its forms.
You can indeed certainly become miraculous and overthrow all this, demonstrating that all this can be changed BECAUSE its an illusion. You can show that you are under the laws of ANOTHER world. You can demonstrate this world's fundamental bullshit by reversing its bullshit. But the world is what it is. And it will end because it never really began.
Perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel, or the "gift" that has come of this passage through darkness, is that you can now see, without the blinders on, what this world really is like. And seeing that sets you free, because only denial keeps you bound to the lies. And recognizing the world's nature gives you power over it. It is ONLY what it is, and nothing else. It is ONLY an illusion, not a reality. It is ONLY a dream of death, NOT real life. There is nothing in it worth having or that you want, because everything you really want and value is of God. And that lives in another world.
The vital truth of forgiveness, is to recognize that what you thought happened, DID NOT HAPPEN.
"Forgiveness is the recognition that what you think your brother did has not OCCURRED."
This doesn't mean that it happened and then you forget about it. It doesn't mean you remember it and trust your memory of it. It doesn't mean there are real consequences that continually PROVE that it happened.
It means it literally DID NOT OCCUR. EVER.
Jesus says of the separation and the world:
"The changes wrought are substanceless. All events are nowhere."
This is a central idea. Not simply that the world exists or existed and we need to deal with it. But that the world DOES NOT exist, IS NOT happening, and NEVER DID happen. Essentially, that there IS NO WORLD.
I am not sure if many of us are willing to take our forgiveness to this extreme. Because we can recall "doing things" in the world. We can remember "sins", attacks, happenings. But even the slightest hint of the idea that "you did it" or "they did it" IS the belief that sin is real.
No one ever really DID anything, because of the CONTEXT of this entire world.
This world is nothing but A DREAM. It is an imaginary world. It has NO real consequences UPON anything real. It IS UNREALITY. It is the unreal world. Not one single thing in it is really happening. Not one single appearance is really there. It is an ILLUSION of a world.
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it. For what He creates must be eternal as Himself."
Forgiveness isn't merely the overlooking of what "is there". It is the recognition that, literally, IT IS NOT THERE. This requires that you remember the entire CONTEXT of what you are INSIDE OF when you think that stuff is happening.
IF this world were reality, then yes, everything it is would REALLY be happening. And all sins would be real. And all attack is real. And all damage, suffering and death is real. IF the world is real, then it is ALL VALID, and it is all of God.
But if this world IS NOT real, if it is ONLY a dream and nothing more, then this COMPLETELY INVALIDATES absolutely everything within it. Not one single event is really happening. Not one single image is true. Not one single planet really exists. And NONE OF IT is real.
NONE OF IT!
The ultimate recognition of this fact, in its fullest possible capacity, is the recognition that THERE IS NO WORLD. AT ALL. It does not really exist. It is not there. Nothing is happening there. And no-one is living in it. There IS no history. There IS no past. There IS no planet.
"There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. ***Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere.*** Outside of Heaven, ***only the conflict of illusion stands***; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their content is never true."
So when you consider, indeed remember, that THIS IS A DREAM WORLD, not a REAL world, it completely reframes everything that happens. Or rather, it even brings into question WHETHER anything is happening, and indeed WHETHER there is EVEN a world here.
Space-time is 100% fiction! It is a BELIEF and nothing more. A mistaken idea of separation and delay. Space and time don't even really exist.
So any "sins" that seem to occur, any happenings, any events, any attacks, and sicknesses, any deaths, any day to day lives, any people going to jobs, any houses being inhabited, any lakes being swum in, any wars being waged, all of is JUST A DREAM, WITHIN an imaginary context. And so ALL OF IT IS A LIE.
IT IS NOT HAPPENING.
And it is ONLY when you can recognize that YOU DID NOT REALLY DO what you think you did, that you can RECEIVE THE CURE, which is the atonement. And atonement IS forgiveness. There is no sin because sin is impossible, and recognizing this is atonement. You HAVE NOT sinned because you CANNOT sin, because THERE IS NOWHERE TO SIN and sin is impossible everywhere. NOTHING CAN HAPPEN OUTSIDE OF GOD'S KINGDOM and THIS world, earth, and all the solar systems and galaxies, IS the illusion of exile outside of heaven.
The shit does not exist.
You know this deep down. And you KNOW that if there is even a SHRED of a notion that this world IS REAL, then EVERYTHING YOU HAVE EVER DONE IS A REAL SIN. And it cannot be forgiven. You can only forgive an illusion and cannot forgive real sin. Sin has to be UNREAL for you to forgive it. Only when your sins are recognized as NON EXISTENT are you aware of your innocence. And they are non-existent because they are IMPOSSIBLE.
You have never sinned. You never will. And no-one has ever sinned against you. Sin does not exist anywhere ever. Nothing has happened. All of spacetime is fiction. "The world of bodies is the world of sin." A world of sin cannot exist in God's world of innocence. You have NEVER sinned. You WILL never sin. YOU CANNOT SIN. You HAVE NOT sinned. You are just as holy and innocent as when God created you. And all the world will vanish.
THE WORLD IS NOTHING.
"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."
"God creates only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them. The thought of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life. Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere.
What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."
If you are upset for some reason, there is something in you already which is not at peace. Some part of your mind is identified with ego, having an emotional reaction, or perhaps something is coming up for release.
If you are then exposed to a person whose behavior seems to be in some way provocative, a potential attack, or something that your ego does not like, you are much more likely to experience that person as causing you to be upset.
Or rather, because you're not on a firm footing of certainty and peace, and your mind is unhappy, you are much more susceptible to your pre-existing upset coming up in your face.
When you are upset your ego sees itself as vulnerable, a victim, under threat, and being caused from outside. It is then very easy to slip into that kind of perceiving where you think the other person is doing something to you.
And since you're already upset, it will cause your pre-existing upset to come up even stronger. You'll think they are pushing your buttons. They sort of are, but the result of pushing the button is that YOUR stuff comes up inside you, not stuff that THEY put there.
When you are upset already, other people will seem upsetting, and you will react to them. When you are not upset already, you will be much more detached and it is far harder to be provoked.
Every time that I am already upset for some reason, if someone does or says something *potentially* upsetting, I am much more likely to have reactions of victimhood, where I'll start to quickly project my shit onto them, treat them poorly, and react to them like they're doing something to me.
But later, if I'm honest, I'll recognize that I wasn't really upset with that person... I was ALREADY upset. My upset wasn't their fault. I reacted poorly. I was not clear about the truth. I had slipped from a firm footing onto a slippery slope, and had become confused about who was doing what to whom.
I notice this again and again. If I am upset already, I seem to be more upsettable, and I'll think it's someone else that's wrong. Yet if I'm not upset, the person can do or say the same things and it has no effect.
It is the hurt ego which reacts. It's the hurt ego that sees itself as vulnerable. It's the hurt ego - the pain - that responds with attack, perceiving attack where there really is none.
If I had no upset whatsoever and were perfectly at peace, nothing would be ABLE to upset me, because I would have nothing that is already upset to react WITH. That is invulnerability.
How does one overcome illusions? Surely not by force or anger. Nor by OPPOSING them in ANY way. Merely by letting reason tell you that they CONTRADICT reality. They GO AGAINST what must be true. The opposition comes from THEM, and NOT reality. Reality opposes nothing. What merely is, NEEDS no defense, and offers none. Only illusions need defense, BECAUSE OF WEAKNESS. And how CAN it be difficult to walk the way of truth, when only WEAKNESS interferes? YOU are the strong ones in this seeming conflict. And you need NO defense. Everything that needs defense YOU DO NOT WANT. For anything that needs defense will WEAKEN you.
Consider what the ego wants defenses FOR. ALWAYS to justify what GOES AGAINST the truth, flies in the face of reason, AND MAKES NO SENSE. Can this BE justified? What can this be, except an invitation to insanity, to save you FROM the truth? And what would you be SAVED from, but what you FEAR? Belief in sin needs GREAT defense, and at ENORMOUS cost. All that the Holy Spirit offers must be DEFENDED AGAINST, and SACRIFICED. For sin is carved into a block out of YOUR peace, and laid BETWEEN you and its return. Yet how can peace BE so fragmented? It is STILL whole, and NOTHING has been TAKEN FROM it.
See how the means and the material of evil dreams are nothing! In truth, you stand together, with NOTHING in between. God holds your hands, and what can separate whom He has joined as one with Him? It is your Father Whom you would defend against. Yet it remains impossible to keep Love out. God rests with you in quiet, undefended and wholly undefending. For in this quiet state alone is strength and power. Here can NO weakness enter, for here is no attack, and therefore no illusions. Love rests in CERTAINTY. Only UNcertainty can BE defensive. And ALL uncertainty is doubt about YOURSELF.
How weak is fear; how little and how meaningless! How insignificant before the quiet strength of those whom Love has joined! This is your "enemy;" a frightened mouse which would attack the universe. How likely is it that it will SUCCEED? Can it be difficult to disregard its feeble squeaks that tell of its omnipotence, and would drown out the hymn of praise to its Creator that every heart throughout the universe forever sings as one? Which IS the stronger? Is it this tiny mouse, or everything that God created? You are NOT joined together by this mouse, but by the Will of God. And can a mouse BETRAY whom God has joined?
If you but RECOGNIZED how little stands between you and your AWARENESS of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within YOU, there is a force which NO illusions can resist. This body only SEEMS to be immovable. This force IS irresistible in truth. What, then, MUST happen when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for what is quietly PAST THROUGH, and GONE BEYOND?
Forget not, when you feel the need arise to be defensive about ANYTHING, you have identified YOUR SELF with an illusion. And therefore feel that you are weak, BECAUSE YOU ARE ALONE. This is the cost of ALL illusions. Not one but rests on the belief that you are separate. Not one that does not SEEM to stand, heavy and solid and unmovable, between you and your brother. And not one that truth can NOT pass over lightly, and so easily that you MUST be convinced, in spite of what you THOUGHT it was, that it was nothing. If you forgive each other, this MUST happen. For it IS your unwillingness to overlook what seems to stand between you that makes it look impenetrable, and DEFENDS the illusion of its immovability.
You can see this in stores, where people are standing looking at several shelves filled with basically the same product, wondering which one to pick. And this is also me ;-)
In ego metaphysical terms, what's happening is the ego presents a vast variety of FORMS, each of which presents the ILLUSION that these forms are unique and different. They distinguish themselves as being unrelated to and distinct from each other.
So instead of, you know, going to get the one headache pill, you go and have to wade through 5 different brands each of which has like 10 variations and subtleties, which you were not expecting.
So you enter into confusion. If it's true that these objects are unique and different, then this suggests a great degree of fragmentation. And in order to understand what you're faced with, your mind is going to be in so much conflict, trying to discern or balance the subtle differences as if they are important.
The more ego problems you are given, and the more they seem to present distinctly different options, the more you get lost in trying to find MEANING. Meaning only really comes from oneness, so the more fragmentation there is, the less sense it makes.
It's like being faced with a complicated puzzle, which your mind just doesn't know how to deal with. It scrambles your brain. You are completely befuddled trying to find 'clarity' or 'confidence' or 'certainty' in the face of so many conflicting viewpoints.
So commercialism, in this way, is the ego's way to get people to believe in separate problems. And the more options and choices and 'freedom of choice' there is, the LESS certain you become.
Stores are filled with thousands of brands, millions of products, all vying for attention, trying to prove to you that they are what you want and need, when you really need God. It is a huge ego distraction.
Commercialism and ever increasing choices builds up the ILLUSION that different forms have a different value, or different content. Like, exactly how many different varieties of something does anyone really need?
I work at a company that sells a certain type of product, and there are like over 30,000 products being sold, and honestly, for most people, you would've seen all the majorly 'unique' options within about 50 products.
Take a look at Amazon, millions upon millions of products. Each time I go on there, I can browse for ages and not find anything I want. I'm not too picky ;-)
Anyway, the whole point is, is not to get you to find exactly the perfect item that you really really want....it's to get you so conditioned to think that this is what you want that you end up NOT FINDING ANYTHING. It is another part of "seek and do not find".
Jesus is literally asking us to become spirit-identified rather than body-identified, to recognize that our body is merely an image being projected by our mind (which we can stop projecting at any time), and to learn to stop seeing ourselves AND others as bodies.
That's no small request either. We are so used to being bodies and seeing bodies, we think it is normal and natural.
One thing to realize is that a body is not a first-hand experience and it is not the origin or source of a person. It is a secondary layer placed OVER the inner spirit to try to hide it.
So when you are looking at a body and you see fish and bones and eyes and a face and you think that as you look at THAT, you are SEEING the person, you are not. You are seeing a wall of denial and separation. A disguise. It's designed to BLOCK you from seeing the person that is "trapped" inside, locked up in the body and unseen by anyone.
The body is a device for separation. And the golden rule always applies. What we see in others we see in ourselves. In order to become aware that we are not a body ourselves we have to overcome all forms of separation and all attack. And only when we can not see ourselves as a body will we be able to see past the bodies of others.
This is also the meaning of "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind".... ie, if you can get to where you have awareness of God in your mind, you will STOP seeing bodies entirely because God is not a body. If you are seeing God, you are not seeing form. You cannot see two worlds. So this does NOT mean that you see God "in the world", it means that God is ALL THERE IS and THERE IS NO WORLD.
It's a huge challenge to actually get to an experiential state where a) you do not believe you are a body at all (genuinely), b) you do not see your body as your self, c) your sense of identity is not attached to the body whatsoever, d) you do not see others as their bodies, e) you recognize that all bodies are fictional puppets that people dangle in front of them to pretend to interact, and f) that you do not need a body at all in order to exist as divine spirit.
Overcoming the body is the same thing as overcoming death. If you can become free of the body consciously and deliberately without using death to do so, you no longer need a body and can make it disappear. It will become transparent and will vanish.
If someone else is having a problem, and you feel concerned, there is something mistaken going on in your mind.
There is actually an ego reaction, based on the hierarchy of illusions, which says that based on the perceived severity of the situation, you should be having a certain amount of reaction.
Just even perceiving that someone ELSE is having a problem, seems to be enough of a belief in a "cause" happening outside of you, even if it not perceived as happening TO you, to produce a sense of "effects" showing up in your mind.
If it's you believing that someone else's body is under attack, this would seem not to be about you at all. But it is, because your mind is having the belief in attack. And even if it's someone "not me" seeming to be attacked, just the acceptance that it is occurring is enough to cause your mind to generate fear thoughts.
So then the question arises, is it possible when presented with situations in which other people are suffering, to be completely unmoved by it. Is it possible to not have a reaction, to not go into fear, or into diagnosis mode, or attempting to react to what seems very real.
And then this further leads to, is it OKAY to not react? Is it okay to remain calm and peaceful and seemingly "disconnected" from what is supposed to be a "normal reaction"? Is it okay to be happy when someone is upset, calm when someone is stressing out, peaceful when someone is in pain, etc. That basically, your inner state and emotion and mental condition becomes NOT DEPENDENT ON the external world.
Somehow this means transcending the hierarchy of illusions, orders of severity/difficulty, belief in seriousness, problems seeming to be real, other people's problems seeming to be real, and sinking into a kind of detached "insulation" or self-contained independently chosen state of being, that isn't always the EFFECT OF or a REACTION TO what's happening in the world. The idea of being in a state which the WORLD did not cause, is quite radically new.
Can I become not involved. Can I remain untangled from the illusions. In the face of dramas, can I not buy into them. Can I remain happy and peaceful at all times, which seems very very alien to the state of being constantly tossed around on the ocean waves like a rollercoaster of stressful reactions. Can I become independent of the world's causalities, immune to them, invulnerable to them, such that I am literally no longer AFFECTED by anything. And such that whatever state I experience *I* have chosen, and the world has not caused to happen in me.
"I am not at the effect of the world I see."
You can easily escape into concepts, theories, course quotes as defences, in order to avoid something you don't want to admit to.
Instead of being willing to accept something uncomfortable, you go into denial, and start fighting against the thing with dissociation and intellectual "rising above."
There are things about this world that can be quite unpleasant. Someone dying, the loss of a house, wars raging, people being mis-treated and all that.
We become upset about the thing, not really because of what it is, but because we refuse to accept it. We make something of it, and then we start reacting to what we made of it, and going off on a tangent of a whole new kind of suffering which is even worse than the thing we were avoiding.
Yes nasty things seem to occur. These are kind of like hard facts. In space and time, in physical terms, they happen. Spiritually-minded people love to bypass this and start "attacking it away" with spiritual quote fests, favourite phrases, comments about how its not real, how we're not at the effect of it, and all this. But what this then becomes is avoidance.
If we would stay with the thing and admit to it, stare it in the face, confront it head-on, and be willing to actually look at it, we would be remaining in the present. We would be being honest. We would be not going into denial or trying to cover it up or placate it or make it go away because we don't like it.
And, as it turns out, this present confrontation with the thing helps you to retain your sanity, helps you to not avoid or hide, and helps you to accept it. It's the acceptance of it that actually gives you freedom from it, rather than all these efforts to change it into something, to bypass it spiritually, to move into the intellect, or to sprit the fuck out of it to make it not be there.
For all the time I for example have been dealing with loss over the death of my wife, ACIM has offered a lot of high-level clarity about what it really is, what hasn't actually happened, and all this stuff about how its my belief in it that makes me suffer. A whole lot of metaphysical philosophising and trying to rise above it, to transcend it, to forgive it, to find some peace somehow. But in a way, this has all been a way of avoiding looking at it - a form of denial.
Acceptance is needed in order to be able to let something go and move on. You can't find acceptance by wanting something to change, to be different, to have not happened. You also can't find acceptance by not being willing to admit that the thing HAS happened. It's staring you in the face and practically screaming at you that "this has occurred." On a physical level, IT HAS.
If you avoid this fact, you are putting yourself out of touch with reality. Not that the world is real but the attitude towards this world also in turn becomes your attitude about God. If you avoid an illusion, you avoid God. If you can't look at the world, you can't look at your self. If you hide from changes, you can't embrace changelessness.
So it may be true actually that we find more peace and acceptance through allowing the world to be the way it is, accepting what HAS happened even if that seems to be "making sin real", and even if it seems somehow to be giving the ego a whole lot of credit. What's the alternative, hide from the ego and hurl abuse at it from the mountain top? Or should we own what we've done to ourselves?
ACIM on the one hand is saying things like, "its not real, it hasn't happened, it's not true, the world is a dream, it's all an illusion, nothing is wrong, there is no death" etc. But this is higher level truth. On the physical level there is much that is wrong, and there is death, and people are sick.
Jesus refers to avoiding the "facts" of the world as "a particularly unworthy form of denial." Such as trying to deny that bodies exist. Yes ultimately they don't, but that's not your experience right now. Death does appear to happen. If you deny that you will suffer MORE than if you had accepted it. The person that dies is dead, physically at least. And that has to be acknowledged. No amount of running away from it into the mind's fantasies will undo that fact.
While it is not pleasant, we do have to stop being in denial. We have to stop avoiding what's happened or happening. It's not spiritual, it's a bypass. A mis-use of ACIM's teachings has led me and many people to try living on a cloud in avoidance of the battleground, rather than to take a good hard look at the battleground. It takes some deep soul-searching to admit to this.
We can't get to the "forgiven world" without being willing to look at it through the eyes of Christ. And that does mean looking at it, not looking away from it. It means staring it down. Being aware of all the nasty shit that is happening. Looking at it with Christ so that we translate it into a more tolerable interpretation, NOT as a bypass or an avoidance or a defense or an attempt to put some distance between you and the facts.
"Let all things be exactly as they are."
"The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what man has done to himself."
"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay."
"Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no-one can be angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appear as facts."
"But it is true that the world must be looked at differently, if His promises are to be accepted. What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this."
"How can a fact be fearful, unless it DISAGREES with what you hold more dear than truth? Reason will tell you that this fact is your RELEASE."
"The body is merely a fact. Its ABILITIES can be, and frequently are, over-evaluated. However, it is almost impossible to deny its existence. Those who do are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial."
"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."
Trying to wake up from the ego while still having the ego is PAINFUL. We have identified ourselves AS the very ego that we're apparently trying to undo. And even as we take some small steps to undo it, we still retain much of it, and that means all the things we did 'to' it (as it perceives it), we will experience as being done to ourselves. That means we will take all of our attempts to wake up as slaps in the face, like being punched by the truth and attacked by the Holy Spirit.
I remember early on when working with the course especially, the feeling that the Course completely 'ignored' the existence of my ego self, and it sure as hell took that as a kind of huge slap in the face, like being ignored and unacknowledged. That produced suffering.
I also know that early on my understanding of course concepts was too ... unrefined, and full of holes, and too broad, so when I would apply some concepts I would grossly overshoot the mark and come to all kinds of conclusions which was not in alignment with the course. Those false conclusions and implications produced suffering. In particular I remember feeling like we had to 'give up' all of the things we have previously become interested in, like new-age stuff, a love of crystals, healing, various books etc, because - you know, if the world is not real then doesn't that mean we're not supposed to do any of this stuff? And so there was a lot of needless sacrifice, because we did not understand accurately enough.
It's kind of like we are attached to (identified with) this big lump of darkness and we're trying to rid ourselves of it, but at the same time, because we are doing basically both things at once - keeping it and tryin to remove it - we can't help but be in CONFLICT. Some people refer to it as "having feet in two canoes". One canoe seems to pull us one way, the other pulls us another. We want to wake up, but we sure as fuck don't. We want more truth, but we sure as fuck don't. We want to keep doing the Course, but we sure as fuck wish we would just stop the fucking thing. It's always like two steps forward, one step back, and we kind of can't help it.
If we could fully step out of the ego and stay out of it, we wouldn't have this problem. But the problem is we are very attached to it and still believe a lot of what it says. Push me, pull you. We yearn for truth in one direction, then the 'rest of us' pulls us in the other direction.
The ego interprets the truth as an attack. The ego sees the Holy Spirit as an enemy. It absolutely does not want to wake up, and the part of us aligned with it does not want to either. I mean, that's just honestly the case with most of us. We want it, but we don't. And every time we are exposed to some truth, part of us is like - oooo, ahhhh, I love this, I feel so light and happy, and then the other part of us which is holding on to ego is like. .. What the fuck are you doing man, that's totally bullshit, it's offensive, it's hurtful, there is no way you can accept that, you should get away from it.
This is the entire foundation for the 'ego rebound'. It is not just a simple backlash or retaliation. It is the parts of YOU that do not yet want to let go of the ego, even though there seem to be parts of you that do. It's the part of you that still believes you are a body. It's the part of you that truly believes that the ego is telling the truth and is your friend and savior. People DEFEND who they believe is their true savior with great vigor. The viciousness of the ego is entirely justified given how much it believes God is NOT the truth.
So as we take these steps toward awakening, we will continually experience that it is NOT what we want, and that exposing ourselves to light is literally killing us. And everything in us that believes the truth is NOT true, and that God is evil, and that Holy Spirit will destroy us (which can be a huge thing), will kick and scream and resist and run away and try to hide. It does this by RESISTING THE TRUTH. It is a resistance against awakening, but the ego sees it as a resistance against annihilation. To it, it is just self-preservation. It sees its motive as PROTECTION. It thinks it is completely justified and that stupid Holy Spirit should shut the hell up.
This resistance produces defenses, and its main defense is to try to make you even less awake by forcing extra unconsciousness onto you. It wants to dumb you down and numb you to the truth and pull you back into hell. It figures you are SAFER there. So the ego literally applies a kind of 'arrest' on the mind, a restraint, a contraction, a limitation, a blockage, as if you are literally trying to 'get away from' the truth and to withdraw from it into the body. These 'defenses' are what WE call 'sickness'. They are barricades against the truth. We think we NEED them because they are protecting us. We are just scared and confused and think that they serve us and that if we didn't have them, we'd be in danger. So there is no need to think of yourself as guilty for having sickness, it just means that you are confused about what the truth is and you currently are perceiving it as something you don't want. You could ONLY experience it as something you don't want if you are mistaken - ie still believing the ego's interpretation.
As the course says (quoted in earlier post) all sickness is the result of resisting awakening. We want to wake up, but we don't. And if we push ourselves to try to be awake too fast, i.e. before we are truly ready and willing (i.e. we can see clearly enough), we will dig in our heels and try to stop it from happening. That just means we need to take a break and go slower. It's ok to do so.
But the fact remains, trying to wake up is a minefield. We do not understand what it means, we resist it naturally, we think we need protection from it, we attack ourselves to defend ourselves from it, and we come to all kinds of misunderstandings which inflict pain and suffering in our lives. Waking up is therefore not exactly EASY, because we keep ping-ponging all over the place trying to settle on what the truth really is. It's a struggle. It's upsetting. It's painful. And we are bound to make a LOT of mistakes. But we will get there eventually.
When considering whether this world is really a fixed objective reality, and whether your mind has any power over anything, it's worth considering the case of people with multiple personality disorders.
97% of people with multiple personalities develop it following extreme abuse or trauma. They develop often several or even hundreds of personalities - minds - seemingly living in the same body, and they switch between them.
The really fascinating part is that when a new personality or mind comes into control of the body, the body changes in dramatic ways that defy all medical science.
While one personality may have diabetes for example, when another personality takes over the body no longer has diabetes. Or while one personality has a severe allergy, another does not. The shape of the face changes as well.
There are even cases where the color of the eyes changes based on the personality, the speech patterns change as though the vocal chords themselves are altered, scars on the skin appear and disappear, chronic conditions appear to switch on and off.
It shows that the mind has tremendous power over the body and influence over its state, conditions, and appearance. As the course says:
"The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions which are responsible for the body's condition."
It becomes apparent that the only reason we seem to not "notice" this happening with most people is because most people's minds are relatively stable - or shall we say, chronic and fixed in their belief patterns. So they continually project almost the same body states all the time. And since these don't often change, it makes it seem like there is no causation from mind to body at all.
We could re-word that to say that, when a person has a long-term ongoing belief or unhealed grievance, they project this onto the body over a long period of time, manifesting as chronic disease and lasting conditions.
It's only when significant changes take place in the mind, or different minds or personalities come through, that you see dramatic changes in the physical form. And this then reveals just how much mind is constantly in a state of projecting and altering the body image. If you could get the average person to switch on and off certain deeply held beliefs or 'identities', you'd be astonished at the changes it has on the body.
It also reveals that if you do change your mind and heal the mind in significant ways, the body will dramatically change as well. Symptoms of disease and sickness can switch off in an instant. We can even go so far as to say that limbs can regrow, body parts can regenerate, and profound miracles can occur. And when you change your mind, the whole world must change.
"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind MUST BE STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this."
"Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly."
Without that, every conclusion you make and every meaning you derive will be a bit 'off', because you don't have something to properly contrast it against.
The trouble with trying to 'wake up' from spiritual unconsciousness, is that you're pretty much in the dark. Even though the truth is completely open and available, even if someone tells you what it is, you still won't be able to fully accept it at first. It's like, it's right in front of your face but you are hallucinating so much that you don't even recognize it.
Gradually you flail around in the dark trying to put pieces of the puzzle together, but it's like assembling a puzzle without the cardboard box cover to see what the finished picture is supposed to look like.
Luckily, because the thought system is consistent, as you start to get some pieces of it clear enough, those pieces allude to the content of other pieces. A piece shaped like 'this' sort of implies a piece shaped like 'that', and isn't compatible with one of those other pieces. So gradually as the picture forms, you get a better sense of what the whole picture looks like. As each new piece comes along, it becomes easier to 'predict' what it's going to say, and it builds upon this overall sense of knowing and certainty.
Also over time you get things deeper. You might've been exposed to the simple truth a long time ago but at the time you only kind of digested it on the surface, it didn't really occur to you how far reaching it was or what it really implied about your life. You gradually realize, holy shit, this is mind blowing.
So if anything, if there are tools to help you wake up, they might be tools which helps you to contrast whatever it is your experiencing against a kind of 'template' or definition of what is true and correct, so you can at least gauge a sense of whether you're on the right track or not.
For example, God is the truth, so you can quite easily say, "God does not create xyz because God is love and love wouldn't xyz, therefore... xyz is not real." Keep comparing it to the ideal of God as unconditional love and you can't go far wrong.
But for me, one really big truth which is hitting me strongly at the moment is that this entire physical world is not real. There is a truth beyond it which is much more true and correct. So this isn't just a matter of intellectually making sense but I'm starting to live it, and to relate to the world in a very different way because of this truth. I'm developing increased strength in God and conviction of His ways, and that means becoming more miraculous as well.
It just blows me away how much I'd fallen for the ego dream and all the different places that I went searching for truth here, finding none at all. Truly if we can depend solely on God for the Answer, we'll be very happy indeed.
Condemn your Savior not because he thinks he is a body. Far beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a Savior first, before he can remember what he is. And he must save who would BE saved. On saving YOU depends his happiness. For who is Savior, but the one who GIVES salvation? Thus he learns it must be his to give. UNLESS he gives, he will not know he HAS, for giving is the proof of having. Only those who think that God is lessened by their strength could fail to understand this must be so. For who COULD give unless he has, and who could lose by giving what must be INCREASED thereby?
Think you the Father LOST Himself when He created you? Was HE made weak because He shared His Love? Was He made incomplete by YOUR perfection? Or are you the proof that He IS perfect and complete? Deny Him not His witness in the dream His Son prefers to his reality. He must be Savior FROM the dream he made, that he be free of it. He must see someone ELSE as NOT a body, one with him, without the wall the world has built to keep apart all living things who know not that they live. Within the dream of bodies and of death, is yet one theme of truth. No more, perhaps, than just a tiny spark, a space of light created in the dark, where God shines still.
You cannot wake yourself. But you can LET yourself be wakened. You can overlook your brother's dreams. So perfectly can you forgive him his illusions, he becomes your Savior from YOUR dreams. And as you see him shining in the space of light where God abides within the darkness, you will see that God Himself is where his body is. Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows MUST give way to light. The darkness cannot CHOOSE that it remain. The coming of the light MEANS it is gone. In glory will you see your brother then, and understand what REALLY fills the gap so long perceived as keeping you apart.
There, in its place, God's Witness has set forth the gentle way of kindness to God's Son. Whom you forgive is GIVEN power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto YOU. Make way for love which you did not create, but which you CAN extend. On earth this means forgive your brother, that the darkness may be lifted from YOUR mind. When light has come to him through your forgiveness, he will not forget his Savior, leaving him unsaved. For it was in YOUR face he saw the light that he would keep beside him, as he walks through darkness to the everlasting Light.
How holy are you, that the Son of God can be your Savior in the midst of dreams of desolation and disaster. See how eagerly he comes, and steps aside from heavy shadows that have hidden him, and shines on you in gratitude and love. He is himself, but not himself alone. And as his Father lost not part of Him in your creation, so the light in him is brighter still, because you gave your light to him, to save him from the dark. And now the light in you must be as bright as shines in him. This is the spark that shines within the dream; that you can help him waken, and be sure his waking eyes will rest upon you first, and in his glad salvation YOU are saved.
Bodies, the Earth, the Sun, all the stars, all the galaxies, will vanish, because they are an illusion and not of God. This will mark the "disappearance of the universe". And all that will remain is the Kingdom of God, which was there before spacetime was ever dreamed of. And not one single thing which appeared to come into existence will exist in any way, and will simply fade into nothing without a trace. No-one needs the world except to help us to leave it behind and go home.
"Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so." (Special messages 19)
"Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary, and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it." UrM14A1
"Let us today behold earth disappear, at first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God's holy Will." UrW326L4
"in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came." UrU5A4
"When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be." UrM15A2
"An unremembered world will leave no trace behind its going, when God's gifts have been accepted as the only thing you want." UrG1A8
"Idols MUST disappear, and leave no trace behind their going." UrT20G9
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end." UrU5A1
"To close all things of time, to end the sight
Of all things visible; and to undo
All things that change." UrM30A8
"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." UrW137L1
"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." UrU5A4
"The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all." UrW230W25
One thing that’s really becoming super clear for me lately, is that this world depicts things which are absolutely impossible. It’s enough of an idea that its a dream, which sometimes suggests it’s at least a something, that the stuff happening in it is somehow actually possible. But when you think about it and reason it out, this world shows things happening which CANNOT be happening. It depicts the IMPOSSIBLE.
For example in reality, I’m truth, we are immortal and can never die. But here you have a world, which depicts that things can die. It’s hard to find words to describe just how extremely impossible that is. Or to describe what the nature of this world IS - some kind of a fiction, a lie perhaps. An untruth. It represents something that absolutely can never happen in reality, is completely and utterly false, and is nothing like heaven.
How is it possible, even, that we are confronted with what appears to be a world, which shows impossible things happening, which testifies that sin is real, which presents death as if its natural, and shows suffering as commonplace. None of that is POSSIBLE in reality. In God’s Kingdom there is not even a possibility of suffering, or sickness, or sin, or death. It’s not even POSSIBLE.
So this world is showing us stuff which is TOTALLY, TOTALLY false. I don’t know if I can even put into words how utterly opposite to true this must be. How is it even possible that we’re even seeming to have an experience of a world in which impossible things seem to happen? What kind of a sick, twisted joke is this? It’s so "wrong".
Nothing real can be threatened because reality is permanent and constant and endless. You cannot attack anything real in any way because it is immortal. And yet the world constantly depicts attack, damage, harm, injury, suffering, vulnerability, unsafety and destruction. These depictions CANNOT BE REAL. They are SUCH A LIE. Incredibly, absolutely false. What is immortal can never die. It is death itself that MUST be impossible.
It cannot both be true that heaven is immortal and real, and earth is mortal and real. Eternal life cannot have an opposite. Love is all encompassing and has no opposite. Reality is permanent and has no opposite. You can’t have it be that immortality is true and death is also true. It HAS to be one or the other. And if death is not true, then death is UTTER BULLSHIT. And every single shred of this illusion of a world of death MUST be a COMPLETE LIE. It is A FALSE WORLD. It is not God’s creation and is nothing like it.
How can you believe such a world when it is lying to your face? How can you believe it even EXISTS?
"It is the world you see that is impossible."
"What COULD you choose between, but life or death, waking or sleeping, war or peace, your dream or your reality?"
There is only one choice in the world. Not a million choices. Not a million scenarios. Not a million conditions to judge and evaluate and decide upon. There is only one choice. You are always choosing either life or death.
Life here means eternal life, immortality, invulnerability, perfect health, wholeness, happiness, love, peace, joy, etc. The attributes of God and His Kingdom of creation.
Death here means the cessation of eternity, an attack on God, a rejection of health and wholeness, a desire for destruction and death, and an attempt to make God non-existent.
The physical world itself is set up such that everything in it tends to lead towards death. It is not in support of God because it was made as an attack on him. This is why everything in it seems to make death inevitable.
But just because the world says all things must die, it doesn't mean you don't have a choice. It doesn't mean you have to go along with it and just give up and drop dead. Nor does it mean you have to find a way to try to accept death and cozy up to it.
What many in the world do not know is that there IS an alternative to death and dying and destruction and degradation. To embrace it requires a recognition of two things.
1) The world is ONLY offering death and there is no hope of life. 2) There is ANOTHER world which is offering only life and no hope of death.
Only if you can recognize that there IS AN ALTERNATIVE to the world's ways, do you even have a real choice. If there is no better world, no God, no eternal life, no miracles, no healing, no resurrection, then you really DON'T have a choice. You are set on a rollercoaster ride to hell and death and will not get off it until you're worm food.
We might think there are choices be made along the way, electing for different states of dying, different kinds of sicknesses, different unhappinesses, trying to trade-off one thing for another to come out on top. But the world has news for you - it is not ever going to let you come out on top in the long run.
So you have no real choice at all, because death is looming and you have no way to stop it. Or do you? Only IF there is another option do you actually have any real choice in life at all. Otherwise you're destined to die. And you cannot be at peace with such a fate because it is utterly insane.
Only if there is another world, another way, another option, and only if you have some kind of power of decision to choose it and make it be your experience, is there any REAL HOPE at all. There is REAL HOPE if you can in fact CHOOSE not to suffer, be sick, or die. And there is REAL HOPE if you have in your mind the POWER to actually make that choice, to choose away from death, and actually CAUSE life and REVERSE death.
Only if you can surmount death and overcome the world, can you be free from the descent into hell. Only if you can resurrect and raise the dead and reverse sickness and perform miracles, can you head in the direction of God who is life. Only if you can demonstrate harmlessness and invulnerability can you prove your commitment to immortality.
The world does not think immortality is possible. It is seen as a silly idea thought by crazy people. It is seen as having had almost zero examples and certainly does not appear to be commonplace. It seems like no-one gets out of here alive. And everyone has just decided to try and accept this fate and "live with it". To then adjust to it and try to "make the most" of the little lot of life we have, begging death for scraps of time and asking for little gifts of nothingness before we're extinguished.
Unless you are open to God and open to immortality and open to resurrection and miracles and healing, you are NOT open to life. You are committed to dying. And that is the only reason it will happen. You are CHOOSING it by not choosing away from it. And you are free to make this choice. If you do not choose God, you are choosing destruction. If you do not choose resurrection and healing, you are choosing to die.
This is your responsibility because you actually have a power in you to decide what you want. You do not HAVE to die or go through sickness or suffering. You CAN in fact elect not to have any of these things happen, and make it so. This is not a fantasy. Your mind is just as capable of causing life as it is of causing death. But to choose eternal life IS going to require you to fly in the face of the entire world, all its supporters, all its believers, and all of its pathways.
Only with help from beyond the world can you be liberated from the world. Only with the Holy Spirit can you find a solution, an answer, a way, which breaks all the laws of physics and violates all the seeming laws of reality. Only with his power can you recover and heal and resurrect even in the face of what the world would say is an impossible irreversible situation.
You have to choose towards God and towards life, away from death and way from destruction, if you want to live. If you want to escape from death and from sickness and hell, you have to choose life. This is really a no-brainer. If you are choosing life you will have life, if you are choosing death you will have death. You are free to choose.
"You who fear salvation are WILLING death. Life and death, light and darkness, knowledge and perception are irreconcilable."
"Either you give each other life or death; either you are each other's Savior or his judge, offering him sanctuary or condemnation."
"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt. The ancient Calling of the Father to His Son, and of the Son unto his own, will yet be the last trumpet that the world will ever hear. Brother, there is no death. And this you learn when you but wish to show your brother that you had no hurt of him. He thinks your blood is on his hands, and so he stands condemned. But it is given you to SHOW him, by your healing, that his guilt is but the fabric of a senseless dream."
"I am in the likeness of my Creator. I cannot suffer, I cannot experience loss, and I cannot die."
"Either all things die, or else they live and cannot die. No compromise is possible."
"The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself. It is the reason you can heal. It is the cause of healing. It is why you cannot die. Its truth established you as one with God."
"Now do we live, for now we cannot die. The wish for death is answered, and the sight that looked upon it now has been replaced by vision which perceives that you are not what you pretend to be."
"Even in time you cannot live apart from Him, for sleep is not death. What He created can sleep, but it CANNOT die. Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF. Yet God's Son cannot will death for himself, because His Father is Life, and HIS SON IS LIKE HIM."
"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do."
"And BEING loving, they are like the Father, and therefore cannot die."
"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."
"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."
There is a reason why the Holy Spirit is invisible to the body's eyes. There is a reason why Heaven is invisible to the body's eyes. There is a reason why Christ is invisible to the body's eyes. The body's eyes CANNOT SEE REALITY and they never will. That which is invisible "to the Earth" is real. What has "become" visible - this planet, is FAKE VISIBILITY. It is a block to sight, crammed in front of your face so that you will be distracted by illusions and NOT SEE. The time will come when all things VISIBLE will end. That includes this planet. Christ Vision is how you see the invisible, which MUST ENTAIL no longer seeing that which you THOUGHT was visible, which is in fact non-existent.
"When you made what is NOT true visible, what is true became invisible. But it cannot be invisible in ITSELF, for the Holy Spirit sees it with perfect clarity."
"What witness to the wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? He is INVISIBLE in such a world. Nor can his song of union and of joy be heard at all. Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his song, and sight of him REPLACE the body's eyes."
"The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. But still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. There was no time it was not there; no instant when its light grew dimmer or less perfect ever was. Who knows the Father knows this light, for He is the eternal sky which holds it safe, forever lifted up and anchored sure. Its perfect purity does not depend on whether it is seen on earth or not. The sky embraces it, and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from earth as earth from Heaven. It is not the distance nor the time which keeps this star invisible to earth. But those who seek for idols cannot know this star is there. "
"How can man "come close" to others through the parts of him which are really invisible? The word "invisible" means "cannot be seen or perceived."
"By making him invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt which you accepted, and you hold it dear."
"Judge not what is invisible to you, or you will NEVER see it. But wait in patience for its coming. "
"What love would look upon is meaningless to fear, and quite invisible."
"For, in the NEW perception, the mind CORRECTS it when it SEEMS to be seen, and it becomes invisible."
"These might be called the Teachers of teachers because, although they are no longer visible, their image can yet be called upon."
"For the little spark that holds the Great Rays within it, is ALSO visible, and this spark cannot be limited long to littleness."
"But the time will come when all things visible will have an end. The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen"
"Here is what is really here made visible, while all the shadows which appeared to hide it sink to obscurity."
"Nor will what you saw before be even faintly visible to you. Today we are trying to use the new kind of projection."
WORLD IS STILL HELL EVEN WITH FORGIVING PERCEPTION - YOU HAVE TO RECOGNIZE IT AS A FORGIVEN ILLUSION OF HELL - AND LOOK PAST IT TO HEAVEN.
In the following statements, Jesus talks of how even in a state of true perception, or christ vision, this world is still seen as containing hellish things happening. Not that they are regarded as real, and in fact they are dismissed as unreal. But this doesn’t mean things aren’t still going wrong in the world. There are still sick bodies seen, there is still suffering and death happening, bodies are still attacking each other, murders are still happening.
The point is, just because you forgive the world it doesn’t mean it turns into a place where nothing bad happens. Nor do you become blind to people’s suffering. The important thing isn’t whether or not the world has "improved" in its events and happenings and problems, the important thing is realizing NONE OF IT IS REAL. Those who are expecting to see "heaven on earth" with everyone getting along, are in for a long wait. True perception and forgiveness cannot show you that. Perception is an effect, not a cause.
We will learn to recognize this world is an illusion. We will learn to disregard what seems to be happening in the world. We won’t dress it up in wishful thinking that everyone suddenly is getting along just because you are waking up. True perception is accurate perception, not rose colored glasses. The world, Earth, always remains as it is. Shit still happens in it. People don’t suddenly all start loving each other. Earth, a world of forms of error, cannot be but hell. It is illusion, a dream of everything going wrong.
Your corrected mind must OVERLOOK this world. Forgiveness means not believing this world is really happening. The forms in the world are still going to be in conflict, competition and attack. You can’t stop that. But you CAN come to see that it is NOT TRUE. Everything the body’s eyes report is a lie. Your mind has to learn to disregard these images. To not believe them. To not see the sin and think it real. A forgiven world, however, cannot last, because forgiveness UNDOES IT.
You have to look PAST the world of sin with forgiving eyes and not see "real sin" in it. You must see it as meaning innocence instead. But this DOES NOT stop it from having totally shit things happening in it. You will still see sickness and death, but reinterpret it as JUST A DREAM. Not real. Not heaven. Nothing. At the same time, you are to look PAST IT, through it practically ignoring it, to a LIGHT which is FAR BEYOND IT.
The light is where Heaven is. The light is where love is. It is BEYOND the illusory veil of matter that coves your sight. Your task here is to SEE THE WORLD LESS, and SEE HEAVEN MORE. To tune OUT of the world, and tune INTO Heaven. The aim is to no longer see the world AT ALL, and to ONLY see Heaven. You cannot see both worlds. Sight of one denies the other. More Heaven, less world.
Eventually the world disappears into the nothingness from which it came. All that remains is Heaven, and Earth has left no trace at all in its going. It was always just a dream, always an illusion. It could never be heaven. There is no world. Only Heaven is real. The world is barely even a thin veil across your sight as you look BEYOND it to the face of Christ. It may well seem forgiven and lovely but it is not the direction of your FOCUS. Your eyes are on Heaven, not on the world, and that is why you OVERLOOK it, and that is why you give it NO REALITY, and that is why it looks devoid of attack. That "holy world" is essentially NO WORLD. Only God’s creation has reality.
In summary, corrected perception/Christ Vision shows you:
1) the physical world is a thin veil illusion regarded as UNREAL and ILLUSORY, which appears to be a "beautiful illusion", a forgiven world that is, nevertheless, FAKE. "A forgiven world cannot last" because the forgiven world IS 100% DREAM ILLUSION, and so once the healed mind recognizes it, IT MUST DISAPPEAR. You cannot have your cake and eat it. You cannot keep the world AND SEE IT CORRECTLY. You cannot keep the world AND BE FORGIVING. You cannot keep the world and SEE GOD. "You cannot behold the world and know God."
2) sight of something BEYOND the image of the world, beyond forms and bodies and worlds, a light of Christ. The face of Christ, which shines BEHIND the appearance of physical matter. Seen shining behind the transparent veil. Sight of THAT is what makes you happy. It is because you are looking PAST the illusory world TO reality - a world of light - that you are at peace. Not because the world itself becomes heaven. If you believe what the body keeps showing you, you will NOT SEE the face of Christ. You cannot see two worlds. Sight of one (Earth) denies the other (Heaven). You have to choose one. Heaven is your home. It is the only sane choice. Earth is nothing, isn’t real, and doesn’t exist.
"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice.For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences.The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die.Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."
"...When he realizes they are all illusions they will disappear. 8 And so it is with healing. 9 The properties of illusions which seem to make them different are really irrelevant, for their properties are as illusory as they are.
M-8.6. The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. 4 But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."
"In this world, it is impossible to create."
"It is impossible to see two worlds." (And there are two)
"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. 2 Seek for the one; the other disappears. 3 But one remains. 4 They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. 5 The real and the unreal are all there are to choose between, and nothing more than these."
"It is impossible to see two worlds. 6 Let me accept the strength God offers me and see no value in this world, that I may find my freedom and deliverance."
"A mind and body cannot both exist. 5 Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. 6 If you are physical, your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. 7 If you are spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality."
"5 The body cannot see this, for the body arose from this for its protection, which depends on keeping it not seen . 6 The body's eyes will never look on it. "
"When you made visible what is not true, what is true became invisible to you. 2 Yet it cannot be invisible in itself, for the Holy Spirit sees it with perfect clarity. 3 It is invisible to you because you are looking at something else. 4 Yet it is no more up to you to decide what is visible and what is invisible, than it is up to you to decide what reality is. 5 What can be seen is what the Holy Spirit sees. 6 The definition of reality is God's, not yours. 7 He created it, and He knows what it is. 8 You who knew have forgotten, and unless He had given you a way to remember you would have condemned yourself to oblivion."
"For what you have made invisible is the only truth, and what you have not heard is the only Answer."
"Son of God, be not content with nothing! 2 What is not real cannot be seen and has no value. 3 God could not offer His Son what has no value, nor could His Son receive it. 4 You were redeemed the instant you thought you had deserted Him. 5 Everything you made has never been, and is invisible because the Holy Spirit does not see it. 6 Yet what He does see is yours to behold, and through His vision your perception is healed. 7 You have made invisible the only truth that this world holds. 8 Valuing nothing, you have sought nothing. 9 By making nothing real to you, you have seen it. 10 But it is not there . 11 And Christ is invisible to you because of what you have made visible to yourself."
"The real world was given you by God in loving exchange for the world you made and the world you see. 2 Only take it from the hand of Christ and look upon it. 3 Its reality will make everything else invisible, for beholding it is total perception. 4 And as you look upon it you will remember that it was always so. 5 Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly. "
"By making him invisible, the world of retribution rose in the black cloud of guilt that you accepted, and you hold it dear."
"What witness to the Wholeness of God's Son is seen within a world of separate bodies, however much he witnesses to truth? 8 He is invisible in such a world. 9 Nor can his song of union and of love be heard at all. 10 Yet is it given him to make the world recede before his song, and sight of him replace the body's eyes."
"Hear, then, the song your brother sings to you, and let the world recede, and take the rest his witness offers on behalf of peace. "
"The Thoughts of God are far beyond all change, and shine forever. 2 They await not birth. 3 They wait for welcome and remembering. 4 The Thought God holds of you is like a star, unchangeable in an eternal sky. 5 So high in Heaven is it set that those outside of Heaven know not it is there. 6 Yet still and white and lovely will it shine through all eternity. 7 There was no time it was not there; no instant when its light grew dimmer or less perfect ever was.
T-30.III.9. Who knows the Father knows this light, for He is the eternal sky that holds it safe, forever lifted up and anchored sure. 2 Its perfect purity does not depend on whether it is seen on earth or not. 3 The sky embraces it and softly holds it in its perfect place, which is as far from earth as earth from Heaven. 4 It is not the distance nor the time that keeps this star invisible to earth. 5 But those who seek for idols cannot know the star is there."
"Where could the Thought God holds of you exist but where you are? 2 Is your reality a thing apart from you, and in a world which your reality knows nothing of? 3 Outside you there is no eternal sky, no changeless star and no reality. 4 The mind of Heaven's Son in Heaven is, for there the Mind of Father and of Son joined in creation which can have no end. 5 You have not two realities, but one. 6 Nor can you be aware of more than one. 7 An idol or the Thought God holds of you is your reality. 8 Forget not, then, that idols must keep hidden what you are, not from the Mind of God, but from your own. 9 The star shines still; the sky has never changed. 10 But you, the holy Son of God Himself, are unaware of your reality."
"Forget what you have seen, and raise your eyes in faith to what you now can see. 6 The barriers to Heaven will disappear before your holy sight, for you who were sightless have been given vision, and you can see. 7 Look not for what has been removed, but for the glory that has been restored for you to see."
Sometimes Jesus will say that both your positive and your negative feelings about the body or the world are detrimental. This can seem confusing because you might think only the negative stuff is a problem. And most people focus on trying to undo only the negative.
But the real issue here is that the body and the world are nothing, which makes them in a sense neutral, or devoid of any inherent attributes. If they are nothing, and you start saying they are something, you are losing touch with reality.
If you start to say the body or world are anything at all, you are becoming confused. Even if that means that you're saying the world is positive, or you love it, or you value objects, or you want to keep possessions, or you value special relationships or whatever. Special love and special hate are both illusions.
We are deceived by ANY belief we have that this world is anything other than nothing at all. Its nothingness guarantees your freedom. Making it into ANYTHING, imprisons you. This is why both the positive and negative seeming attributes of the world have to be undone and disbelieved, if you are to not be deceived. Pain AND pleasure are both deceptive.
You're not dealing with a positive world, you're dealing with a nothingness that pretends to be a world, and that's a whole different matter than just seeing the good in it. ALL of your judgements about the world, good or bad, right or wrong, favorable or displeased, are ALL incorrect. The world is not anything at all, and only the recognition of its nothingness can free you from it.
"Include all of the ego-based attributes which you ascribe to yourself, positive or negative, desirable or undesirable, grandiose or debased. All of them are equally unreal because you do not look upon yourself through the eyes of holiness."
"As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE. And BOTH must be undone, for purposes of truth."
"God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the Face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house?"
"Pleasure and pain are EQUALLY unreal, because their purpose CANNOT be achieved. Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning."
"Empty your mind of everything it thinks is either true or false or good or bad; of every thought it judges worthy and all the ideas of which it is ashamed. Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."
We continually look for meaning outside of ourselves. We look for salvation outside of ourselves. We look for ourselves outside of ourselves. We look for love outside of ourselves. We look for happiness outside of ourselves.
And we do not find it.
Because it is not outside of ourselves.
And yet we are very very very used to having these thought processes where we start to hunt around for explanations, to find reasons and meanings, to justify things, to rationalize why something is right or wrong, all trying to lend some kind of credibility to the external world.
We're trying to bring a sense of "reality" or "truth" to what is actually an illusion that doesn't really exist.
We're looking in all the wrong places for meaning, and love, and salvation, and happiness. But we're so used to doing this that over and over again we'll just keep going through these same processes of trying to figure things out, trying to understand the world, trying to explain why stuff happens, trying to identify external causes, etc. None of it is true.
Nothing in the world is true. The world is not truth. Only God's Creation is truth. Everything you see in FORM is not true, no matter whether it looks like totally right or totally wrong, or completely convincing or not. Even things in the physical world which seem like proof or the best more reliable evidence is NOT created by God and it is NOT THE TRUTH.
So you'll keep looking out there, searching and not finding, trying to discover truth where it does not exist. Trying to identify why bad stuff is happening. Trying to justify why its better to do one thing or another. NONE OF THEM ARE THE ANSWER.
No matter how the physical world of form looks, no matter what it contains, no matter whether it appears favorable or unfavorable, regardless of whether it is glaring you in the face with "hard evidence", EVEN THAT is not the truth.
Even if you come up with a medical diagnosis which accurately seems to explain someone's sickness, EVEN THAT is not the truth. It's the ego's truth, and its a partial truth at best. Because nothing in the world is a CAUSE of anything.
God is the only Cause, and you as Son of God are equal Cause. And you are NOT at the effect of this world IN ANY WAY WHATSOEVER. Which means, there is absolutely nothing in this world which causes anything, no matter how it looks, and if it looks otherwise, IT IS AN ILLUSION.
"I am not at the effect of the world I see." - ACIM
Means... there are literally zero causes in the world. Zero answers. Zero explanations. Zero objective truths. Zero proof. Zero evidence.
God, and I as One with Him, are the only cause that is real.
There are two sets of tools. The ego has a set of tools, and the Holy Spirit has a set of tools.
When we are paying attention to the ego, in any given situation where we think something is a problem, we will reach into the ego's toolkit and pull out our favorite tools. We'll use them almost without question. For some reason, we think they will work, even though they usually don't. And we will apply them without even realizing we're doing so.
We might use denial, or rationalization, or justification, or aggression, or conflict, or attack, or projection, or scapegoating, or intellectualizing, or fear, or victimhood, or a guilt trip, or blame, or whatever it is, to try to find 'salvation' - to be saved from the problem.
The trouble is the ego's tools don't really work, and even though they say on the advertising they will solve the problem, they don't. They usually make the problem worse, in the big picture, while making it *seem* like they're working in the little picture. But they're very sneaky because the marketing hype is incredibly convincing and they're never what they appear to be.
We need another set of tools. We need the Holy Spirit's toolbox, and we need to be willing to reach for those tools when things are going to shit. But this might not seem easy. We are accustomed to almost habitually reaching for the ego, to 'use' it, to solve our problems. It's our trusty toolkit, we rely on it, we depend on it, we believe in it, we're attached to it like a favorite, and we don't want to part with it because we think it's valuable.
It's really up to you, do you want to use the ego, or use Holy Spirit?
Which one works?
Which one actually accomplishes a solution that you can live with and feel good about, which restores peace and brings a smile back to your face?
Part of the problem here is that we do not recognize what the tools are. We don't realize what tools we are using, yet alone whether they belong to the ego's toolkit or not, and yet alone knowing that there's a whole other set of tools at our disposal.
This is why we need to a) learn what the ego's tools are and how they operate, b) learn how we use them and why we use them and notice when we use them, c) look at whether they actually work - what the results are and whether we really want those results and why, d) what the Holy Spirit's tools are, e) what the results might be of using Holy Spirit's tools, and then f) actually learning to say no to the ego's tools and reach for the Holy Spirit's tools instead, especially in times of stress and upset.
We have allowed ourselves to LEARN what we think the truth is, based on how the physical world seems to function.
We think that there are causes out there which have effects on other things.
We think that the world is able to harm us, do things to us, and that events just happen to use against our will.
We've learned a great deal from the appearance of this world, and we think that this world is actually real and that, therefore, we need to learn the truth from it.
We have mis-learned. Our assumption that this world is reality has led us to take on board so many mistaken ideas, mistaken ways of functioning, mistaken ways of deciding how relationships should work, mistaken forms of idol worship and possession and loss and gain.
So many things we've taken away from our exposure to this world, thinking that it is showing us a world of truth. We think this world is actually objectively real and that how it appears is completely normal, natural, obvious and clear.
It is not.
This world is vast illusion. It is extremely deceptive. It is showing you something which is impossible. It is a depiction of an idea of being separate from God and what it would seem to be like if that were possible, even though it is not possible.
This world shows you people who are suffering, people who are sick, people who are affected, people who are victimized, and people who die. That isn't truth. There is no truth to learn from that, other than that it is not true.
So we've been hanging out in this place a lot and just taking for granted everything we see as though it is factual reality, that there is not any kind of illusion happening, that things are as they seem to be, and that we can take everything at face value.
Big mistake.
We need to therefore UNLEARN everything we have tough ourselves to be true based on what we've witnessed here, because it has been nothing but an exercise in opposition to truth.
There is a truth elsewhere, in God's reality, which is not of this world. It does not function as this world functions. The laws are not the same. The rules are different. There is no attack or sickness or victimhood or violence or death in God's world. Things are not born, only later to die. Things do not come and go. Stuff does not happen out of the blue. Events don't just happen to you. It's an entirely different 'world' from which to learn the nature of the truth.
So we have been taught extremely poorly in this world, made to believe that it contains all kinds of truth, made to digest vast volumes of information about how it "really works" and what it means and how it functions. Taught how to relate to it and what to see in it and how to use it. And yet, it is all an illusion. All of that education was a lie.
There is no world here. Hello!
When Jesus says that nothing can happen without our consent, and that nobody can die without their own consent, what he's saying seems pretty extreme.
We are so used to living in such a way that we constantly believe things happen by accident, or that something can "go wrong", or that there is unfairness and injustice, or that victims have nothing to do with asking to be victimized, or that war is a haphazard chaos.
Yes these are very common perceptions and this is what we're up against, these beliefs and ways of perceiving which fall for all kinds of illusions and trickery. On the surface it definitely appears that all of these things are true, that nobody wants to be victimized, that bad stuff just happens, that things go wrong, and that we don't want to die.
But that's the challenge, you see. That's the spiritual challenge, because what many do not know is that this entire world is a big trick, a set up, orchestrated by those to whom nothing happens by mistake, and who have such power of creation that if they so choose it, it will happen, and nothing else will happen. I know this sounds like some kind of 'God' pulling the strings. But in truth you are God-like.
So all these beliefs about having not chosen, about not having freedom, about being affected, about stuff happening that we don't want, and about the horrible idea that death is just going to happen to you against your will, ALL of these have to be questioned and undone completely. Because they are all false. They are all lies, that everyone is falling for 24/7. Yet as Jesus says in ACIM, you made sickness and death and you can abolish both.
This is why A Course in Miracles is so radical. The Truth flies in the face of how everything appears in this world. It goes against how everything is set up and how everything was deliberately designed to look like it proved we did not choose this. This entire world is a cover-up in which the Son of God is pretending to hide from a made-up enemy, and He very much is responsible for animating every single character and event in this dream regardless of whether He appears to suffer at His own hand.
Attempting to 'wake up' from the illusion of this world does not seem to be easy. It's a huge mind-fuck. As the Course says, we do not escape this illusion through death, but by TRUTH. Only the real Truth can set you free. And as a certain movie says, "you can't handle the truth".
Well, you can handle it... when you're ready to accept it. Because it's a pretty huge Truth that is not at all like what this world seems to suggest is true. And to go there, to be open to it, seems like a huge journey somewhat 'against' the world. But everyone is making this journey, and sooner or later everyone will come to realize what the Truth really is, and this entire universe will disappear.
"The ego is the idea of selfishness."
At the very foundation of the entire ego thought system is the idea of selfishness. But more accurately, it is the idea of not sharing. It's an idea of being exclusive, the ownership of something which is considered "yours alone", and inaccessible to others.
"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."
God's Kingdom was set up so that everyone has everything. And this goes way beyond the kind of sharing that you experience on a physical level. In Heaven, every being has literally 100% of everything. Everyone has full access, simultaneously, to the totality of all that exists. Even your SELF is shared with everyone, as are all your creations.
This is oneness. And just because one person has full access to everything it does not shut out access to anyone else, there is no limitation, no compromise, no partitioning, no need to only access part of everything, and there is no private ownership. In reality is it possible for everyone to have everything always. You ARE everything always.
The entire idea of the ego is the idea of not sharing in this way. It's the idea of exclusivity. It's an attempt to own some portion of reality that you can call "yours alone", protected and fenced off by some kind of wall (such as the body), so that not only is your prized possession kept isolated inside the walls (such as within the body), but everyone else is also kept outside the walls (such as outside the body).
The desire not to share, is the entire basis of the separation. The ego is built on it. And this means that any attempt to have something for yourself that you want others NOT to have, or anything which is true of you and not true of them, or any sense of inequality of any kind, produces egotism. And this egotism is essentially SELFISHNESS.
The result of this selfishness is that you experience yourself as being fenced into a prison, ie the body. You see yourself as though everything which is "yours" is inside the prison. And everything outside the prison is not yours. In turn, you see that you are the only one allowed access to what is inside the prison walls, meaning that you experience yourself as being entirely alone within its confines.
This leads to the perception of yourself as though you are inside a body, you are the only one inside the body, the body is your private property, no other mind shares your body with you, you are alone and lonely and trapped inside of it, and the body's walls defend your hoard from the rest of the sonship.
This is how most people experience their sense of identity. That they are a single isolated "separated self", living within prison walls, everyone else is "outside" the walls, and nothing is shared across this boundary. The body acts then as a separation device, keeping them out and keeping you in, so that what is yours within is yours alone and your private possession.
"The body is clearly a device for separation"
From here, of course, upon seeing oneself as special, with a deeply rooted selfishness, a desire to be given special favor by God, and seeing oneself as excluded (separated) from sharing the Kingdom (exiled), so-called "relationships" with others take on the form of what we call special relationships. Basically this means that relating to others is always tainted with elements of selfishness, elements of exclusivity, elements of ownership or possession, and attempts to control and manipulate.
You see, a selfish self, ie a self that is "being selfish", has to believe that something is owned by others that it does not have access to. By cutting itself off from sharing it is able to believe in something privately hoarded and exclusive to it, but to do this it MUST also believe that others own something that it is excluded from. So now others are seen as hoarding privately hidden secret "stuff" that the selfish self wants and is jealous of, and so begins the attempts to wrestle it from others through what ultimately becomes attempted control and murder.
This is outlined in the "laws of chaos". Having seen yourself as an excluded, exclusive self, whose value is special and whose importance and truth is unequal to others, you believe other people also have something "special" locked up inside their bodies. And now you will seek to enter into relationship of some manner with them, to try to steal from the inside of their body the secret treasure that you believe should be yours.
So long as you lack what they have, you will feel an emptiness and a compulsion to steal it from them - a sense of "need" or neediness, in which you will make demands of them and place conditions on the relationship. This of course leads to conditional love and various forms of bargaining and betrayal. It can even become violent and lethal if it is strongly perceived that the other has what you significantly lack, is therefore guilty of stealing it from you, that you are justified in any action to retrieve it, and being denied it is a slap in the face that compels revenge.
All elements of this special way of relating stem from the foundation of the whole system of thinking. It all starts with this deeply rooted sense of selfishness, leading to isolation, leading to specialness and special relationships, and ultimately death.
The fundamental ONLY problem therefore is the unwillingness to share. The unwillingness to be equal. The consideration of one's own selfish made-up needs above and beyond the freedom and wishes of others. As you become presented with your own selfishness staring you in the face, you will learn to move past it and to start considering what other people want, on their terms, per their own choice, regardless of any "special interests" that you have. Once their interests become untainted by your selfishness, your interests become shared.
I should comment briefly that being "not selfish" does not in any way mean having no self, nor does it mean self sacrifice, or putting others first and you last, or any other form of inequality. It does not mean getting rid of your identity or individuality. All it means is changing your attitude, so that you are now SHARING EQUALLY with everyone, rather than isolating, excluding, or seeing to "get" something of special value "just for yourself".
"You cannot enter into real relationship with any of God's Sons unless you are willing to love them all AND equally."
Essentially our entire journey to undo the ego is simply to undo our selfishness. We have to look at this. We may be far more selfish than we want to admit to, or in ways that we had not realized. We may be more controlling than we'd like to admit. We may be claiming to put the interests of others first while secretly having needs or wants that depend on others fulfilling us in order for us to be satisfied.
To be not selfish might be what some (with ego thinking) would call the opposite - selflessness - but this can be misleading. We are not aiming here to have no self. We are aiming to SHARE, which some would refer to as joining in holy relationship. To truly think of others interests is to acknowledge that you have no needs that are interfering with being of service to them.
It means allowing and letting go and giving up controlling them. It means seeing them free from the tyranny of your control, dominance, interference, manipulation, selfish neediness, inferiority, superiority, judgement and specialness. The relinquishment of specialness is the relinquishment of selfishness.
This actually restores you to the fullness of your self, because by sharing everything you also share in all of yourself, and share all of yourself with others. You literally tried to steal yourself from God and keep it hidden. We have to open back up to allow God in and to let ourselves be visible and accessible to others, sharing fully with them and extending love with them. This is essentially a reunion with your own soul, in which all God's children share.
"The soul is the idea of self fulness."
No one can give unless he has. In fact, giving is proof of having. We have made this point before. What seems to make it hard to credit is not this. No one can doubt that you must first possess what you would give. It is the second phase on which the world and true perception differ. Having had and given, then the world asserts that you have lost what you possessed. The truth maintains that giving will increase what you possess.
How is this possible? For it is sure that if you give a finite thing away, your body's eyes will not perceive it yours. Yet we have learned that things but represent the thoughts which make them. And you do not lack for proof that when you give ideas away, you strengthen them in your own mind. Perhaps the form in which the thought seems to appear is changed in giving. Yet it must return to him who gives. Nor can the form it takes be less acceptable. It must be more.
Ideas must first belong to you before you give them. If you are to save the world, you first accept salvation for yourself. But you will not believe that this is done until you see the miracles it brings to everyone you look upon. Herein is the idea of giving clarified and given meaning. Now you can perceive that by your giving is your store increased.
Protect all things you value by the act of giving them away, and you are sure that you will never lose them. What you thought you did not have is thereby proven yours. Yet value not its form. For this will change, and grow unrecognizable in time, however much you try to keep it safe. No form endures. It is the thought behind the form of things that lives unchangeable.
Give gladly. You can only gain thereby. The thought remains and grows in strength as it is reinforced by giving. Thoughts extend as they are shared, for they can not be lost. There is no giver and receiver in the sense the world conceives of them. There is a giver who retains; another who will give as well. And both must gain in this exchange, for each will have the thought in form most helpful to him. What he seems to lose is always something he will value less than what will surely be returned to him.
Never forget you give but to yourself. Who understands what giving means must laugh at the idea of sacrifice. Nor can he fail to recognize the many forms which sacrifice may take. He laughs as well at pain and loss, at sickness and at grief, at poverty, starvation and at death. He recognizes sacrifice remains the one idea that stands behind them all, and in his gentle laughter are they healed.
Illusion recognized must disappear. Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering. Your blessing lies on everyone who suffers when you choose to see all suffering as what it is. The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take. And sacrifice is an idea so mad that sanity dismisses it at once.
Never believe that you can sacrifice. There is no place for sacrifice in what has any value. If the thought occurs, its very presence proves that error has arisen, and correction must be made. Your blessing will correct it. Given first to you, it now is yours to give as well. No form of sacrifice and suffering can long endure before the face of one who has forgiven and has blessed himself.
The lilies that your brother offers you are laid upon your altar, with the ones you offer him beside them. Who could fear to look upon such lovely holiness? The great illusion of the fear of God diminishes to nothingness before the purity that you will look on here. Be not afraid to look. The blessedness you will behold will take away all thought of form, and leave instead the perfect gift forever there, forever to increase, forever yours, forever given away.
Now are we one in thought, for fear has gone. And here, before the altar to one God, one Father, one Creator and one Thought, we stand together as one Son of God. Not separate from Him Who is our Source; not distant from one brother who is part of our one Self Whose innocence has joined us all as one, we stand in blessedness and give as we received. The Name of God is on our lips. And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father's Love.
Now are we blessed, and now we bless the world. What we have looked upon we would extend, for we would see it everywhere. We would behold it shining with the grace of God in everyone. We would not have it be withheld from anything we look upon. And to ensure this holy sight is ours, we offer it to everything we see. For where we see it, it will be returned to us in form of lilies we can lay upon our altar, making it a home for Innocence Itself, Who dwells in us and offers us His Holiness as ours.
We can't really blame the world for being shit. It was designed on purpose to be shit. We wanted a shit world so that we could have a shit life and shit on God and pretend everything is shit. If we hold its shittiness against itself we're just failing to acknowledge that we wanted it to be shit in the first place.
We designed it to be shit and demanded it be shit, and now it's being shit, because that's its function. It was never meant to be shitless. It's just totally shit because we said to God, you are shit, and here's a great big shit world to prove it. And tried to cover up God's nice spotless porcelain reality with our shit streaks.
We put the shit there and made it shit. It is following our shitty design spec perfectly. We can't really blame it for being so shit when we're the ones that told it to be shit in the first place. By recognising that it can't be anything other than shit, and that its total shittiness isn't it's fault, due to being the result of having shit for brains on our part, then we can let it off the hook for its shitness and stop accusing it of hurling sins of shit all over the place.
All that happened is we shittily mis-used our shitless free will to make something shit and we did it on purpose and now we've got a shit world running on shit, behaving like shit and always being shit precisely because that's what we wanted. A nice big festering shit party to keep the nice clean God at arms length.
If we want a world that is not shit we need to first let go of the shit world and recognize its shittiness isn't its fault and it's not shitting on us. We need to realize we are doing the shit to ourselves cus we made the shit. We forgive the world for its shittiness merely by recognising how shit it is without adding to the shit or throwing more shit at it. We let it be free to be shit and free have its fetid stench be flushed down the cosmic toilet where it belongs.
Then we can realize its shitness isn't something we want because we are no longer willing to tolerate shit, and we want something less shit. So then we go off to the shitless land of God and let the shit world flush down the toilet like it's supposed to. We listen to the Holy Spirit Cosmic Plunger and let him do his scrubbing work to erase all sense of the world shitting on us, and make ourselves nice and clean on the inside, and then we can let the shit world gurgle down the drain. Bye bye shit world, hello sparkling fresh reality.
"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."
The ego loves to tell you that when such-and-such happens, you MUST have a reaction.
It acts like it's a given. This is because it believes that a 'cause' outside of you has the power to affect you. This so-called cause DEMANDS that you be affected by it.
This is also to do with the hierarchy of illusions, which means that apparently different severities of problems seem to demand different kinds of reactions.
The ego had this set up so that, for example, when you blow your nose you don't have a significant reaction, but when someone tells you you have a disease, you freak out. Or when someone stubs their toe you have a slight response but when they fall on their face and hurt themselves you have a much bigger response.
We've become conditioned by what seems to be 'called for' in different situations, largely based on how things *appear* physically, causing us to develop a conditional response. Situation A calls for response A. Situation B calls for response B. This way we have learned to be conditional and to be reactive and affected by what happens.
We need to BREAK this connection between external causes and given levels of reaction, if we are to become unconditional.
I was talking to Jesus last night and was imagining this scenario where a person might die and how I would feel, and already just with the imagining of it I noticed I felt upset, and Jesus stopped me. I looked at it and realized, I am actually giving energy to this idea and I'm the one who is imagining it. So really, it's nothing to do with the situation happening, I am literally doing it to myself right now. So I stopped, I stopped buying into my own prediction, and laughed.
What this showed me is that we do not HAVE to suffer. Just because something supposedly 'bad' might happen around us, it doesn't HAVE to mean that we have a given reaction. We don't HAVE to have a meltdown. We don't HAVE to completely lose it and become seriously upset.
What we have to learn to see is that it is our own perception that shows us a belief in external causes being real, in being powerless, threatened or victimized. It's our own mind that is CHOOSING to suffer. Suffering is a choice, brought on by a perceptual mistake. We can choose not to have this reaction by choosing not to to see the situation this way.
So this breaks the ego's strangle-hold and the hierarchy of illusions, by breaking the connection between external causes and internal reactions. We do not have to suffer. We do not have to be upset. We do not have to have reactions. We are literally choosing to suffer on our own by how we're using our mind and perception. If something 'bad' happens, if something 'serious' happens, those are judgements by ego, that seem to demand serious reactions. We don't have to play that game. We don't have to lose our peace.
All is choice.
You may not realize it but God has totally unlimited power. "With God all things are possible." This doesn't just mean "all ego things are possible" or "all worldly things are possible." It means literally, there is absolutely nothing you can conceive of that is impossible.
Having become accustomed to being limited by ego laws, we have a tough time with this. When for example there is a tsunami which floods an entire city, you might think, well, this is such a huge tragedy that we cannot possibly undo it.
Think again.
God can.
And so what this gives rise to is, realizing there is no order of difficulty in miracles BECAUSE God can do anything. And that means, in order to tap into that power that's in you, you're going to need to have ego-world-defying FAITH or TRUST in God's capabilities, even as they go way above and beyond what SEEMS to be possible.
So the world might be telling you, we can do nothing about this and cannot reverse it. Jesus says that these are mere appearances and that all appearances can be changed by miracles. That there needs to be not one part of the illusion that we consider capable of healing while another part is not. That even this huge seeming disaster can be completely corrected, because this TOO is possible.
Opening our minds up to these POSSIBILITIES, the freedom from all bondage and all ego laws and certainties and consequences, opens us up to having to put our FAITH in a source of power and freedom far beyond what the world suggests to us. This law-defying power is precisely what MIRACLES are for.
When someone dies and they're laying there, are we to think with the ego that "even this cannot be changed" or are we to think with God that "even this can be changed"?
To not believe the sense of limitation and difficulty and irreversibility of these `problems` IS the willingness to overlook their illusions and disregard them as having no order of difficulty at all. We need to learn that nothing is impossible with God, and to trust that, and to know this above all else, otherwise we simply will stay slave to the consequences of sin.
There is nothing God cannot do through you. There is nothing your holiness cannot do. And if that means raising the dead or completely reversing an entire tsunami, so be it. Moses parted an ocean. That's no small feat. If we simply "accept" worldly situations and bodily conditions and problems at face value as though written in stone and irreversible, we have NO FAITH at all.
Jesus is asking for us to develop not only some faith in God's capabilities, but TOTAL FAITH in Him. That means utterly world-defying, law-breaking, demonstrations that what seems IMPOSSIBLE is perfectly possible. Because to God, all things are possible. We are to put our trust in something that is UNLIMITED in its freedom, rather than putting our trust in the ego's sense of utter limitation and impossibility.
Wishful thinking. ... really a form of denial, wanting things to be other than how they are right now. Isn't that the same thing as attacking and judging?
Saying ... hey, I don't like how you are right now, you shouldn't be this way, you should be some other way. I can't accept you like this. How you are is wrong, so you are sinful and guilty, because you're now how I want you to be.
Wishing that things were different, is a lack of acceptance. An unwillingness to face how things actually are right now. It doesn't mean you have to put up with it or not make changes still, it just means at least being willing to look and see and accept how it is now.
Wishful thinking is also a form of resistance, which is a form of fear. It's also a form of dishonesty. It's not wanting to admit to the apparent truth of the situation or accept the facts. This again doesn't mean you have you see yourself as hemmed in by the "physical truth", but having an issue with "how it is" is an attempt to lie about it.
Wishing that things were not how they are, doesn't change anything. It's a form of complaint and victimhood. It's you having a temper tantrum believing that you can skew things towards how you would prefer them. But preferences are another form of denial.
To wish that things were different, without willing and causing them to be different, is a form of unwillingness. A desire to reject what has apparently been willed, to demand and require it be willed differently, but not actually doing anything constructive to will it yourself.
And so wishing is dreaming, and faking, and lying, and deceiving, and denying, and not accepting, and attacking, and judging, and being dishonest, and avoiding reality. It was wishing for something other than God that got us into this mess in the first place.
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real."
"We have already said that wishful thinking is how the ego deals with what it wants, to make it so."
"We once said that to will contrary to God is wishful thinking, and not real willing."
"You CAN wish for the impossible, but you can only WILL with God. This is the ego's weakness and YOUR strength."
"Now is vengeance all there is to wish for."
"But the WISH for other experience will block this, because God's Will CANNOT be forced upon you, being an experience of total WILLINGNESS."
"The Son of God could NEVER sin, but he CAN wish for what would hurt him. And he HAS the power to think he CAN BE hurt. What could this be EXCEPT a misperception of himself?"
"It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world."
"The tiniest of dreams, the smallest wish for values of the world is large enough to stand between you and the sweet release that God would offer you." "It is in the special relationship, born of the hidden wish for special love from God, that the ego's hatred triumphs."
"To wish for guilt in ANY way, in ANY form, will lose appreciation of the value of your guiltlessness, and push it from your sight."
I found this to be quite eye-opening. Recognizing first that the world IS a meaningless world. But that meaninglessness should not have any connotations of negative, depressing, sad, lost, etc. It actually has NO meaning of any kind, good or bad. That's because earth is in fact NOTHING AT ALL, ie "there is no world." We then GIVE the world meaning by projecting meaning onto it.
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly."
"What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be."
If you project the ego's meaning onto the world, which really is a depressing dark twisted kind of meaninglessness, it picks out aspects of the world and makes them seem like sin and attack. If you project God's meaning onto the world, it overlooks differences and sees a reflection of heaven in the world instead. You either WISH for hell or WISH for heaven, and what you wish for, you see, because you value it and believe in it and want it to be real. You project it ONTO the meaningless world to GIVE it whatever meaning you want it to have.
You use it like an EMPTY MIRROR, and can look at it through heavenly eyes (christ vision), where you've lifted AWAY the fales meanings you gave it, and project LOVE's meaningfulness onto it - your OWN face of christ. The world then can HOST A REFLECTION of heaven, seemingly harmless and safe and lovable. But this still is only because the world has no meaning of its OWN, and you are seeing reflected BACK to you the meaning you want to see, which is the meaning you PUT there. Seeing a reflection of heaven IN a mirror also doesn't change the fact Earth is still ONLY a meaningless world, in its own right. And being nothing, it will disappear.
"In the world you can become a spotless mirror, in which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you, to all around you. You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it."
I get this feeling that deciding on my own is not the right thing to do, given everything that's said about choosing not to decide, not doing it all on your own, etc. So then I feel torn.
But what I then see is that really, when I am in a state of indecision, fear, doubt, etc I am really not in a state of decisiveness. I probably am trying to decide, but I am not being decisive. And my attempts to decide are really delaying mechanisms to avoid the certainty of decision. In this state, I'm not really making any decisions at all anyway.
Pretty much every time Jesus says "decide", I am in a state of fear and self-doubt. I recognize then that staying in this state is not going to bring about any kind of decision, and if I want to become decisive, I have to get out of the fear.
Sometimes then, I will remark to Jesus that I don't know what to decide, and He will say, "you know". As I pull myself out of the fear and become more dynamic, more certain, more sure of myself, I then automatically feel more decisive and knowing and sure of what it is that I will do.
Then I have to even put aside this idea that I don't already know - that I even need to decide, and stop for a minute to become aware of what it is that I know already.
If I already know, a decision is not needed. If I already know, then I don't need to even get into the fearful drama of "not knowing" what to do. Then, somewhere deep inside, I tune into what it is that I know, and in this there is an acceptance, a peace and a clarity that makes it much more obvious what to do.
Usually knowing is covered up by all kinds of faffing about, doubting, fearing, drama, control, thinking, etc. None of it is really needed because it's actually all a distraction away from knowing. I can't know what to do when I'm choosing to be in a state of not-knowing. Seems so simple, but easy to get lost in.
As I go forward, and as I embark on new endeavors led by trusting Jesus etc, I find myself coming up against fears and concerns I didn't have to face before. Yet each step of the way He guides me to trust, to know, to put aside fear, and to recognize the ways that I am undermining my own certainty and decisiveness. In other words, learning to claim and work in a more empowered state of confidence.
I am finding that the more I am willing to put aside the dishonest toys of fear and self-sabotage, the more I am growing in confidence and strength and certainty. Also fear is reducing, people are growing ever-more approachable, and procrastination is melting.
This is how we gradually move into action. This is how we get off the fence and become truly helpful. And this is how we let go of the dependency on the ego as our guide as to how we should waste time.
We need to learn to be truly decisive, certain, knowing and trusting, before we might become actually willing to allow God to guide and direct us in all that we do. This somehow is tied into becoming willing to do His Will, and to follow Jesus's direction. But in a partnership of mutual agreement.
We would rather lay down and pretend to be dead than face what we think is the wrath of God.
We would hope to take over His duty of punishing us, by punishing ourselves in suffering and martyrdom so much that He might actually pass us by.
We tell ourselves, if we suffer enough and really put on a good show for how much we should suffer, then God might take 'pity' on us and, while laughing at ourpatheticness, decide to pass us by as being 'not worth the effort'.
Sickness is a defense against the truth, and this kind of behavior is a defense mechanism to try to defend ourselves from God.
We would worship sickness as an idol, by making sure that we suffer in silence. We would prefer to do it in isolation, and especially keep it hidden so that nobody knows about it.
We would also keep away from us all loved ones and friends and anyone who might offer signs of 'love' or 'joining' because those are outlawed when sickness is being worshipped.
Also when a person is in sickness, sickness will itself become 'all powerful' and overthrow all other rules and demand that it be obeyed and worshipped and give a special 'free pass' to get away with anything. All other normal modes of interaction are off and nothing that might bring healing is allowed in.
A fortress is erected around sickness to protect it and to keep it in the dark, just in case anyone might realize that it has no foundation or who might strip it of its false decorations. Only in the dark, behind closed doors, secretly suffered, can it maintain a sense of power or torture or truth.
Expose sickness to the light and it's crumbles and withers and disappears. Light, love, sharing, joining, oneness, all are antidotes for sickness. Openness and a willingness to reveal sick ideas of separation and punishment to the One Who Is Open (God) is sure to shine a healing light. And that is what the sick person does not want.
Lives of quiet desperation. Suffering in silence. Taking a hit for the team. Being the martyr who carries all the burden. Being the whipping boy or the one who keeps everything afloat, leeched off by everyone else. The poor sucker who gets to suffer in the dark, alone and quiet and abandoned. All of these are identities and roles that arise in the worship of sickness, put on the altar as an offering to the God of Death. Which, by the way, does not exist.
The ego's God is the God of sickness and punishment. The real God could not conceive of such things. The real God has no concept of sickness in Him, knowing it is forever impossible to separate from Himself or not be completely joined with His creation.
In truth there is no sickness and there is no death. All of the rest is just denial, a pretend play at acting as if you should suffer for some good reason. There is no good reason. There is no justification for separation because it is impossible.
You are not sick, you are just playing dead.
God still loves you.
When something dies, it fails. The body fails. Organs fails. Tissues fail. It depicts failure on a physical level. The final failure of the body is what we call death. It is when everything fails. Total failure is death.
Which means that if you go toward death of the body, you are going towards failure. Which means you are failing to accomplish something. And accomplishing death is really an act of doing nothing whatsoever. Which means there is something to SUCCEED at, which is NOT death, which you are supposed to be succeeding at.
So to die is to fail at the thing you are supposed to succeed at. And the thing you are supposed to succeed at is the surmounting of death, the overcoming of death, the total cancellation of death, and the demonstration of eternal life symbolically through the body.
ACIM does not end in death, it ends only in resurrection. In the resurrection our curriculum ends. Nowhere else does it end. It does not end in failure. Therefore it does not end when you attain death. Attaining death is achieving nothing worth anything. Only by achieving LIFE are you a living example of the resurrection and the life.
"Swear not to die you holy son of God. You've made a bargain that you cannot keep."
"A dream of death cannot be left by death but by truth."
"What is the resurrection?":
"The resurrection is the denial of death, being THE ASSERTION OF LIFE. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. **LIFE** IS NOW RECOGNIZED AS SALVATION, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared, but gladly welcomed. Idols have disappeared, and the remembrance of God shines unimpeded across the world. Christ's face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness, apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it."
"Here the curriculum ends. From here on, no directions are needed. Vision is wholly corrected and all mistakes undone. Attack is meaningless and peace has come. The goal of the curriculum has been achieved. Thoughts turn to Heaven and away from hell. All longings are satisfied, for what remains unanswered or incomplete? The last illusion spreads across the world, forgiving all things and replacing all attack. The whole reversal is accomplished. Nothing is left to contradict the Word of God. There is no opposition to the truth. And now the truth can come at last."
In the assertion of LIFE, all death is snuffed out. The attraction to death is ended. The desire for death is cancelled. The end of death has arrived, and it is blotted out by a decision to LIVE. The will to live represents the willingness to regain the total freedom of the will, which means the complete embracing of eternal life in God. Only through LIFE can this course be completed. Death is never an accomplishment of anything useful. Only through a realignment with your IMMORTALITY can to finally return home to the LIVING WORLD OF LIGHT, where everything lives forever. Heaven's doorway is made of life, and you must be alive to enter.
Another word for forgiveness is "honesty". It's to do with admitting to the truth and being clear about what the truth is. This entails surrendering of the ego's motivations and lies and owning up to responsibility and authenticity. But it's also an honesty that goes beyond appearances, physical events, what it looks like happened or who seemed to be the cause. Because, in all honesty, such "truth" is not the truth.
If you are in the middle of some ego tangle, upset emotions flying all over the place, believing that it's caused by someone or something other than yourself, then you're not really being honest. To be honest you'll have to really take a good look at what you're doing any why, and if you can discern and see what it is you're doing, you will have to admit to yourself that you've been deceiving yourself.
A big part of the problem of how to forgive, is that when you're in the middle of a dramatic story you're really quite lost. You've lost track of clarity. You've lost sight of what the truth is. You're deluded and distracted by something big and ominous which *seems* to be the problem but really isn't.
You've pinned the blame or cause for this story onto something that isn't the cause of it. You generally aren't seeing clearly. There's so much going on and so many things which seem to mean something, that it's just all very confusing. This confusion essentially is dishonesty because you've lost touch with the truth and are defending evidence of that which is false.
So really, if you have no other practice, it would be useful to remind yourself from time to time, that you need to get HONEST as quickly as you can. And this honesty involves questioning what you've been doing, how you've been perceiving, what you've been believing, and all the "truth" that you made up that hasn't come from God.
Honesty shines a light to help you see clearly and puts everything into its proper place. It's admitting to what's really happening, admitting to how you feel, admitting to what you're experiencing and admitting to what's really causing it.
When you're upset and its because someone else did something or didn't do something correctly, it's because you've disowned responsibility and are projecting guilt, which is a dishonest act. It's not the other person's guilt or sin. You're passing your sin off onto them and believing they're the cause of it. This is dishonest. It's deceptive.
The person who stands to gain from your honesty is yourself. Owning up to the truth sets you free, aligns your mind to the truth, clarifies what is happening in the situation and helps you to see correctly. When you can see correctly and clearly you get back in touch with the experience that, in truth, you are perfectly happy and at peace and free of all ego suffering.
Honesty is not good for the ego. It's not good for the part of you that wants to keep a story going. It's not good for the part that wants to control and blame and manipulate. It's not good for maintaining a cover or keeping up appearances or putting on a face/persona. It's means revealing what is real, and that means there can be no cover-up.
Where are you being dishonest with yourself, what do you need to own up to and admit to, and are you willing to surrender your support for maintaining lies that are only bringing you suffering?
It is not possible to see bodies as equal. I know there is a strong movement in society towards trying to see all body types, shapes, sizes, persuasions, as equal. However, this is insane.
If you take the attempt to see all bodies as equal to its logical conclusion, it MUST mean that ALL bodies, all body types, all shapes and sizes, BECOME COMPLETELY IRRELEVANT to who or what a person is. And that means recognizing that people ARE NOT BODIES AT ALL.
The body is ITSELF an attack, and a misrepresentation of a person. A person is a spirit, not a body. The body and its differences automatically conflict with the differences of other bodies. If my body is one shape or color and yours is another, this IS an attack. It is an attempt to assert that we are not the same.
You cannot keep the bodies and pretend there is equality. You cannot keep the differences and pretend there is no difference. It is denial to say that several different body types are all equally lovable. There would not BE different types in love. Love does not SEE differences. It looks past the differences entirely, and ignores them.
We are not meant to find yet another way to KEEP the body and make it "spiritual". This is our ego's attempt to spiritualize the body and pretend that it is holy and worthy and special. All that does is stroke the ego. While anyone is represented as NOT IDENTICAL, there is no equality. Physical bodies are automatically devices for separation. If you SEE ONE, you are separate.
You must learn to look past bodies entirely, because the body actually BLINDS YOU and hides from your sight what the person actually IS. Behind the body, which SEEMS like a picture of a "person" with a face, there is a hidden being, a spirit being, whose body BLOCKS you from seeing them. If you see the body SURFACE and do not see past it to the spiritual being inside, you are NOT seeing the person.
To be enamored with someone's body is NOT spirituality. To put the body on a pedestal, to defend it, or to worship it, is NOT spirituality. Bodies are not supposed to be there. People, children of God, are all absolutely perfectly equal in their mind and heart, as God created them ALL in his own likeness, and they are all identical. Identical children. Anything which looks like it is DIFFERENT, is NOT the person.
So we can't really say, a black person and a white person, or a male or a female, or a gay or a straight, or anything else that relates to THE BODY, and equate that with THE PERSON. If you do that, if you associate the person with their body, you are attacking them. To be identified with a body is to be confused about who you are, and about who other people are. People are not bodies. You are not a body. It is not your self. You are deceived by what your own body's eyes tell you about other people's bodies. Bodies do not SEE the spirit. They were made NOT to see the spirit. It's a trap.
Let's take a moment to remember our immortality. Forgiveness is based on immortality and symbolises it. If you are immortal nothing can change you in any way, nothing can happen to you, nothing can attack you or hurt you. If that's true, no-one is doing anything to you, nothing has ever been done to you, and sin is impossible.
If we claim ownership of our true nature - to know thyself as immortal spirit - then we are fully centered and holding the reins of our power. But this power and freedom requires total responsibility and ownership of our true identity as Christ.
When we slip and fall and start to displace our responsibility outside of ourselves, through dissociation (separation, split mind), we dis-associate from the immortality and the invulnerability it brings. We start to perceive that power and causation are outside of ourselves, that our own power has done a 180 and is now staring us in the face, doing things to us.
Except now we have disowned ourselves, we have disowned our power, and we have associated it with other people, external things, places and environments, so-called causes of suffering and death. We start believing we can be attacked, we can be caused to change, we can be made to feel one way or another, tossed around on the sea.
Before long this dis-ownership of responsibility has us believing that we are victims of the world, caused by other people, attacked and threatened, made to experience certain feelings against our will, upset "because of" this and that outside of us, things which we seem to have no control or power over.
This all entails a belief in being guilty, because immortality in its harmlessness is also innocence. If we move away from innocence we move into guilt, and you can't believe you are a mortal victim without it. This guilt arises from the self attack upon your own invulnerability, via your own self-attack thoughts. And then before you know it you're projecting it onto other people.
When you are guilty you will become lost and tangled up in what seems to be causes coming from other people. Whatever they do will seem to be about you in some way, causing you, influencing you, commenting on your nature, defining you, condemning you to some fate. A guilty person sees signs and proof of their guilt everywhere.
And this will appear to be actually about you because, in your guilt you become self conscious, with a sense of constant vulnerability. A sense of persecution and being judged, or being constantly under attack and safe nowhere. If someone says something inflammatory about you, you secretly believe it and agree with it. You already decided you're guilty so someone else pointing it out just triggers off your own self-hate. Except now you mistakenly think they're the ones who put the guilt in you.
Then it starts to seem as though what other people are doing is affecting you, that their attacks are really about you personally, that their projections of their own guilt is justified, and that you can be hurt by them. But all they're really doing is triggering off a pre-existing guilt that you put there on your own.
Failing to claim total responsibility for everything you experience, and seeing yourself as disempowered, you'll see others as having power over you to change you. And that means you see them as responsible for you. And that also means you do not recognize that they are responsible for themselves. Anything they choose or experience is their own doing, but in your attempt to disown yourself you also don't recognize they're attacking themselves.
Their self attack seems to bleed over into an attack on you, and vice versa, and before you know it you're all tangled up in a special relationship of mutual victimisation. They're doing stuff to you, you're doing stuff to them, and now it seems like no-one is responsible for anything.
What is needed is a relief from the inner guilt produced by your mistaken decision to try to be mortal. The denial and rejection of God has led to your attempt to make yourself his opposite, to suffer instead of be at peace, to be upset instead of happy, to be vulnerable and weak instead of immortal and powerful. Without the guilt you would not become confused about who is attacking who.
Ultimately we have to take back all of the power that we keep giving away, which requires a total ownership of who and what we are. We can't be playing the role of victim or victimiser - which are the same thing - if we are to be invulnerable. We can't be believing we're doing something to anyone, or that anyone is doing something to us. And that means we have to own up to being immortal, and no longer can claim to be guilty sinners.
In this recognition of your own innocence, you automatically cease to see yourself as a target for punishment. Having not targeted yourself, you are no longer self-conscious or self-absorbed. Having owned yourself and your God-given power, you can no longer see yourself as overpowered by anything in the world.
This recognition leads also to the recognition that other people are not attacking you, they are not talking about you in their attacks, they are not accusing you of anything, and are not doing anything to you at all. Instead, it is a recognition that - just as you were doing this all to yourself (the secret of salvation), they are doing it all to themselves. And this allows you to see that what they're doing is hurting themselves - as a call for love - rather than as hurting you.
This entails a positive "stepping back" or "separating" from the illusion that there is any kind of causation between you and other people, or you and the body, or you and the world. People and bodies and the world do nothing to you ever. What you are cannot be changed by anything or anyone. And your brother is not the cause of you - God is.
Ultimately, accepting that God is your creator, that you are his holy child, and that you are still permanently sustained by his mind and power as an innocent immortal being, is the key to salvation from all suffering. Owning it is total freedom and total responsibility.
Owning it makes suffering and guilt and murderous attack impossible. It is the end of the confusion that anything in the world is responsible for anything you experience. And it indeed marks the end of this world as well, because a world which has no causal power is not alive.
God created you to live forever, and you will never die.
"But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate."
"You are God's Son. In immortality you live forever. Would you not return your mind to this?"
"And immortality is the opposite of time, for time passes away, while immortality is constant. Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless."
"There IS no change in immortality, and Heaven knows it not."
"Immortality is His Will for His Son, and His Son's will for HIMSELF."
"Immortality is a constant state. It is as true now as it ever was or will be, because it implies NO CHANGE AT ALL. It is not a continuum, and it is NOT understood by comparing it with any opposite."
"The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed."
"Yet, for all the wild insanity inherent in the whole IDEA of sin, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. For the wages of sin IS death, and how can the immortal die?"
"You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now."
"What is immortal cannot BE attacked; what is but temporal HAS no effect."
The thing it realize about perception is this. The physical body itself has a form of sight. It can only see differences. Its sight is based on the reflection of photons of light, which seem to illuminate the surface of objects. This light enters the biological eyeballs and passes ”images” or sensory impressions on to the mind.
The physical body is actually permanently locked into FALSE perception. ”The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen.” It CANNOT SEE reality. Which in turn means EVERYTHING IT CAN SEE IS NOT REAL! What it is looking at is therefore NOT reality. Physical objects, photonic images, differences of form, shapes and sizes, colors and brightnesses, is not reality. These is ALL a part of false perception. “The world is false perception.”
It is not really seeing. It is in fact blindness. “Nothing so blinding as perception of form.” Since the body cannot see through or beyond physical surfaces, its seeing is in fact BLOCKED by objects. Objects blind it from seeing what is beyond. And therefore physical sight pretends to be seeing, but is in fact a lack of seeing.
These messages which the body seems to receive from the outside world, transmit into the mind, and the mind is sitting there EVALUATING THE MEANING of the messages. The mind is flexible in its beliefs, and can choose. It can decide what is true, and therefore what something MEANS.
The mind takes the ”physical images” provided by the body senses, and decides what they MEAN. It has perceptions ”about” the images, or projected ONTO the images. In a sense you could say the mind projects stuff ONTO the world or has perceptions ABOUT the world. But it’s really about the sensory signals being interpreted internally, once the body has received them.
The mind can decide whether these images represent the truth, or whether they are false. It can decide whether to believe in them or deny them. It can choose whether to regard them as real or as illusions. It can project sin and guilt ONTO these images and USE these images to mean attack, just as it can also project innocence and love ONTO these images which re-frames them as harmless. “I have given everything all the meaning it has for me.”
In and of themselves, the images actually have NO MEANING. They come from a world which itself HAS NO MEANING. This is why the course describes it as “a meaningless world”, and one which God DID NOT CREATE. The physical world is not merely meaningless ONLY when viewed in false perception, as if meaningful when perceived truly. It is in fact NEVER inherently meaningful. Meaning can be PROJECTED ONTO it, but in and of itself it is literally nothing. “The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it.”
So what actually happens is, the physical body provides a FIXED state of FALSE perception. And everything it sees is what we typically refer to as “the world” or planet Earth. Bodies, trees, houses, buildings, streets, the sky etc. Differences, changes, transitions, growth, decay, etc. This is all false perception and CAN ONLY been seen IN and WITH false perception.
Then at the same time, the MIND is sitting there INTERPRETING the physical signals. So the mind can ALIGN or IDENTIFY with the body, with physicality, and make the world seem real to it. When it does this, the MIND is now having false perception OF a false world - a false interpretation of a false image, at the same time as the physical body having false perception. They are in seeming agreement.
So what the falsely perceiving mind sees as coming from the body, it regards as TOTALLY REAL, because it is tempted anad DECEIVED BY the illusion. It totally agrees with and accepts it as true. That is what false perception means - not recognizing that an illusion is unreal. Just as true perception recognizes the world IS an illusion and not reality.
The mind can also move into a totally opposite state of TRUE perception, which is accurate perception. In this state, the BODY is actually STILL insisting on sending signals of physical unreality to the mind for interpretation. But the mind is not DECEIVED BY their falseness or their forms and appearances. Instead, the mind puts ALL of these physical signals into ONE category - THEY ARE ALL UNREAL. This is because it RECOGNIZES WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ARE, and is not deceived into thinking the physical world is reality. It recognizes these images ARE ILLUSIONS.
It regards them as UN real because it does not AGREE with or align or identify with the physical. It has identified with spirit, which is NON-physical and OPPOSITE to the physical world. Being fulled on the side of reality, everything unreal is now clearly and obviously unreal. And that means everything FALSE is ”truly seen” as false. As it is. And since the body can ONLY see falsely, and everything it sees IS FALSE, the sane mind now recognizes that the physical world is NOT REAL. Or even really there at all.
The body is trying to tell the mind that there is a world of differences and forms and attack and death ”out there”, BUT the mind is not BUYING INTO it at all. It does not fall for THE ILLUSION. It is not tempted. It RECOGNIZES what the physical really IS, which is that it is NOT TRUE. “The one you made is false.” It’s a false world which ONLY exists WITHIN false perception.
So now you’ve got FALSE signals of FALSE perception coming in from the body, and you’ve got a mind looking AT and USING these signals for a certain purpose. And its goal is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of the physical. So it does not believe in, accept, have faith in, nor is it deceived BY, anything the body is seeing. It’s a strange state, almost a paradox, where something UNREAL is recognized as an illusory physical world, while at the same time the mind is in a state of truth. “The world you see must be denied.”
True perception, christ vision, the spiritual eye, does not depend on, use, or rely upon, the physical sight mechanism. It is actually direct mind seeing. But this mind seeing does not SEE the physical world, because it regards it as FALSE, and what is false is shut out from awareness. This is why “It is impossible to see both worlds.” Either you see the false physical world AS IF it is real and true, or you see beyond it to reality. The mind’s eye also does not utilize physical photons for seeing, which is why in effect it cannot see the physical world. “Forgiveness sees it not.” It‘s sight is not based in space or time or distance or measure.
Truly, “To forgive is to OVERLOOK” and overlooking means ”forgetting to see”, or not seeing. You cannot look AT what you forgive. Looking AT it is unforgiveness. You look PAST it and fail to see it. That is what overlooking means. This is why “A world forgiven cannot last.” You cannot forgive the physical and still see the physical. When the mind is sane and healed, it categorizes ALL physical materials, worlds, energies, SPACE TIME, as entirely UNREAL. And this is the recognition of illusions which causes them to DISAPPEAR. And why “there is no world.”
The physical body is an illusion and sees ONLY illusions, in an agreein-with-illusions manner, which makes them seem real. “Only the body makes the world seem real.” All things physical are illusory and unreal. They are blindness. The blind body can only look upon the blind world, which was made to HIDE REALITY from your sight. “The world is drawn like a vail across the face of christ, but it can last no longer than an instant.” Only by recognizing that ALL body signals are FALSE AND UNREAL, can your spiritual eye rest upon the face of Christ, making you ready to return to God, ending perception forever.
Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him. The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or Spirit, is eternal and has never changed. He was "called down upon the earth" in the sense that it was now possible to accept Him and to hear His Voice. His is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form. This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him.
The Holy Spirit is described throughout the course as giving us the answer to the separation and bringing the plan of the Atonement to us, establishing our particular part in it and showing us exactly what it is. He has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out this plan since he was the first to complete his own part perfectly. All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours. The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit long before Jesus set it in motion.
The Holy Spirit is described as the remaining communication link between God and His separated sons. In order to fulfill this special function the Holy Spirit has assumed a dual function. He knows because He is part of God; He perceives because He was sent to save humanity. He is the great correction principle; the bringer of true perception, the inherent power of the vision of Christ. He is the light in which the forgiven world is perceived; in which the face of Christ alone is seen. He never forgets the Creator or His Creation. He never forgets the Son of God. He never forgets you. And He brings the Love of your Father to you in an eternal shining that will never be obliterated because God has put it there.
The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with both. And therefore it is He Who proves them One. He seems to be a Voice, for in that form He speaks God's Word to you. He seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help. He seems to be whatever meets the needs you think you have. But He is not deceived when you perceive your self entrapped in needs you do not have. It is from these He would deliver you. It is from these that He would make you safe.
You are His manifestation in this world. Your brother calls to you to be His Voice along with him. Alone he cannot be the Helper of God's Son for he alone is functionless. But joined with you he is the shining Savior of the world, Whose part in its redemption you have made complete. He offers thanks to you as well as him for you arose with him when he began to save the world. And you will be with him when time is over, and no trace remains of dreams of spite in which you dance to death's thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the eternal Formlessness of God.
God is a being of Spirit. God extends through Creation, producing the Sonship, and the Sonship in turn extends God's being as a co-creator. The Sonship is within God's being. The sonship's extension further creates more spirit beings, within each of the Sons's being, within God's being.
This creation of eternal life and extension of eternal life is spirit's ONLY function. All Spirit ever does is extend God's being. It never is involved with making worlds, planets, bodies, animals, forms, "life forms", sandwiches, or death. Spirit only creates spirit. It never creates objects or bodies.
"Being must be extended. That is how it retains the knowledge of itself. Spirit yearns to share its being as its Creator did. Created by sharing, its will is to create. It does not wish to contain God, but wills to extend His Being. ... The extension of God's Being is spirit's only function."
God creates only in the likeness of Himself according to His own nature, characteristics and laws. God is unlimited infinite being. God is omnipresent, meaning He is everywhere at once, and God has Eternal Life.
When God extends Himself in His Divine Application, He merely creates more like Himself. His Son is given spirit/being/soul, mind, eternal life, the ability to create, and omnipresence. Just like the Father. The Son has everything the Father has, lacks nothing, and is exactly identical in nature. This identically is what "Oneness" or "One With" means - being of like kind.
It is not possible for God to create something unlike Himself or unlike His nature. Nor is it possible for the Son to be unlike God's nature or to create something which is unlike God's nature. The son's creations are just as much like God as the Son is, following all the same characteristics of perfection and divinity and wholeness, and with just as much ability to extend creation.
Eternal life is eternal BECAUSE it is permanent and cannot be changed. Nothing real changes or wavers or fluctuates. Anything that changes is not real. "Reality is a constant state." Eternal life requires the total absence of anything that can change or be changed. Change itself is the idea of what exists no longer existing, and is the idea of death.
The idea of "spacetime" is exactly opposite to the nature of God's creation, and God could not, and did not, and cannot create it.
Space is in direct opposition to the nature of omnipresent creation. Omnipresence means everything that exists is everywhere at once. Space means whatever exists is NOT everywhere at once. Space goes on to assert that everything is not everywhere, nothing is fully anywhere, anything that is anywhere is not everywhere, nothing exists everywhere, and therefore everything does not exist anywhere. It is the ultimate statement that everything, God, does not exist anywhere. It is in total opposition and violation of God's will, God's laws, God's nature and God's creation.
Time is also in direct opposition to eternal life. In eternity everything is permanently the same, nothing changes, everything extends forever and there is no interruption or alteration to what is. In time, time suggests that nothing is EVER THE SAME, that all things are constantly changing, in a state of flux and uncertainty and fear, that what existed no longer exists, and what is to come will obliterate what is here now. Time is a direct attack on God's nature, Kingdom, laws and nature, just as space is. And together they form the foundation of the ego's manifestation of HELL - the exact OPPOSITE OF HEAVEN IN EVERY WAY.
Now, everything you see with the body's eyes, and the body itself, is directly and totally dependent on this system of space and time, which is totally and UTTERLY OPPOSED to God's nature and Kingdom. One part of the body is over here, but not over there. One part of the world is over here but not over there. This planet is not where the other planet is. My body is not occupying the same space as your body.
This is a system of the total ABSENCE OF SHARING of any kind. In God's Kingdom, everything is always shared everywhere by everyone simultaneously. With no ownership, no possession, no exclusivity, and no special rights. Within spacetime, there is no such thing as sharing. Space asserts that what is here, is not there, and so it is isolated, and in fact not whole, because wholeness means being everywhere and so nothing in space is whole. Time asserts that what just was, no longer is, and so it does not extend or share into the present or future, killing it off and turning it into history.
The planet Earth, is entirely dependent on space and time both for its apparent existence. In order to even be a three dimensional object made from particles which do not share space, and which are all spread out in different locations, and whereby England is not America and Australia is not the North Pole, nothing is everywhere and so everything is nowhere. It is an illusion of place and time, shift and change, destruction of reality, attack on God's Kingdom, and TOTAL DENIAL of the laws of God. This planet entirely goes against the nature of God and therefore is against YOUR nature. "The laws of this world go against your nature."
Without being separated out in "space", or changing over "time", there cannot be a three dimensional planet taking up space. Continents cannot be kept apart. Bodies cannot be maintained. Animals and plants cannot retain their shapes. Particles of matter cannot exist independent of each other. Drops of water cannot move as an ocean. And sunbeams have no capability of shining. All of this stuff is THE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM, made as an ATTACK ON GOD. "The world was made as an attack on God". "The world was made as a place where God could enter not." "Earth, which is HEAVEN'S OPPOSITE IN EVERY WAY."
If you can grasp the nature of God's Kingdom, God's law, and God's ways, you MUST recognize that everything in and of spacetime is absolutely bullshit. It is TOTALLY NOTHING LIKE GOD'S NATURE, it is absolutely utterly OPPOSED TO LIFE, and is a PICTURE OF CRUCIFIXION. "The world is a picture of the crucifixion of the Son of God." It is crucifixion simply because it is the idea of what God's Son is NOT LIKE, it is the idea of how God's Son would look if he were SPLIT APART, it is the idea of God's Son being in a state of constant change and insanity, and it is the idea of God's Son PERISHING AND DYING. It is NOT a pretty picture of God's creation, it is NOT EVEN REMOTELY HOLY, IT IS NOT GOD'S WILL, and it IS ***NOTHING LIKE GOD***.
Thankfully, God's ACTUAL creation, heaven, is not like this world. This world, is "the world you made" and "the world you see" with the body's eyes, which see nothing but illusions. God's creation is entirely a LIVING WORLD OF LIGHT, not even remotely in the shape of any kind of object or form or planet or body, FREE OF SPATIAL SEPARATIONS, FREE OF TIME AND CHANGE. It is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to the world you see.
Anyone here who is claiming that God COULD, WOULD, SHOULD, or DID create this world, is not comprehending why that is an utterly ridiculous idea. That means you do not RECOGNIZE exactly HOW this world is attacking God, HOW and WHY spacetime is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to Heaven's nature, why the laws of this world are entirely EGO LAWS OF CHAOS, and why God is NOT LIKE THIS AT ALL. If you really think God is LIKE THIS WORLD, you really, really, really do not know what God is like. To accuse Him of creating it, labelling it as sacred or holy, or regarding it are real, is nothing short of blasphemous.
God can only create LIFE. And that life MUST EXTEND LIFE. And so if that which God creates does not in turn CREATE LIFE OUT OF NOWHERE, through a MIRACULOUS CREATIVE ACT, then it is not life. Look now at the world YOU made, Earth, this universe, in which NOTHING extends life through miraculous creation, NOTHING creates in its exact image and likeness, NOTHING lives forever, NOTHING is permanent, NOTHING is free from threat because what is UNREAL CAN be threatened, and NOTHING is even remotely God-like. To believe this world is God's creation is to believe ILLUSIONS ARE REAL, which is FALSE PERCEPTION. It is delusional. And failure to recognize this is INSANITY.
C-4.1. "The world you see is an illusion of a world. 2 God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. 3 Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. 4 Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. 5 But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.
C-4.2. The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. 2 And so they do. 3 For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. 4 While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."
"C-4.4. The world stands like a block before Christ's face. 2 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. 3 It is seen at last for only what it is. 4 And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. 5 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 forgiven world cannot last."
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning." UrW132L4
Some people regard this world as something negative, some as something positive. But the course regards it as NOT SOMETHING AT ALL. It acknowledges that the world is NOTHING, and the body is NOTHING.
It also acknowledges that when we think that it is SOMETHING, we will give it attributes and meaning that it does NOT have, and believe that it does have them inherently. This means we are deceived, because we are PROJECTING things onto a nothingness and seeing the projection AS IF it is there.
It's important to understand what NOTHINGNESS means. It does not mean negative, or positive. It does not mean meaningful, or meaningless as in the sense of it being a something that is depressing. It is not good or evil. It is not holy or corrupt. It is not really anything. It has NO ATTRIBUTES, no labels, no categories, no types, nothing. Like a void.
"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct." UrW132L2
The world, the physical world, matter, spacetime, all flesh and bones bodies, the whole system, is NOTHINGNESS, pretending to be something. It's only seeming to be something because we keep projecting stuff onto it.
"What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something." UrU3A2
It is also true then that a "nothing world" acts like a mirror. A mirror is something which has NO ATTRIBUTES of its own. It has no inherent image, no inherent meaning, no inherent anything. It just REFLECTS, indirectly, seeming images and forms and meanings PROJECTED ONTO it from something once removed from it. In other words, what it seen in the mirror is not first hand reality, it is second-hand.
And then that projecting thing sees the REFLECTION of what was projected in the mirror, as feedback in consciousness, and thinks it is THERE. As if it is "in the mirror", part of the mirror. But confusing what is seen in a mirror for the THING that is reflected there, is a mistake.
"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego." UrE14E5
"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth." UrT18B3
Earth - spacetime, physical matter, bodies etc. ... can REFLECT, because these things are NOTHING IN THEMSELVES. They can reflect whatever you put ONTO them. You can project hellish ideas of sin and guilt onto them, and will then see that IN the mirror, as though part of the mirror. You can project heavenly ideas of love and peace onto them, and you will see that reflected in the mirror also, as though part of the mirror.
But when we confuse what is REFLECTED with the fact that we require a MIRROR in order to have a reflection, and the reflected thing is confused for BEING the mirror, we are lost in the mirror of perception. And now we think that the world IS this, or IS that. That if we project sin onto it is IS sinful. And if we project love onto it it IS love. And if we give it reality it IS real. This is a mistake. This is someone not recognising that they are looking in a mirror, and NOT at an objective reality. Whatever they PUT there to see, they see, and there is nothing else to see. If they walk away, the world is gone.
"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that." UrT21A1
"The world can give you ONLY what you gave it, for being nothing but your own projection, it HAS no meaning apart from what you found in it, and placed your faith in." UrT13C3
"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it." UrT11H10
"Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward." UrW304L1
So what we have to realize is, whether you're seeming to work with an evil hateful dangerous nasty world, or you're seeming to work with what seem like a benevolent lovely forgiven world, you are working with a REFLECTION IN A MIRROR, not an ACTUAL FACT.
The truth is, that there is no world there. There is ONLY your projection. You are seeing what you put there to see. That is hardly objective. In fact it is completely subjective, and the world has NO objective reality or truth of its own.
This means that in order to awaken from it, we have to learn to project "happier things" onto the mirror, so that it seems to reflect a "happier dream" to us, and we can seem to pull out of it aspects which seem to REFLECT heaven's nature. So that we'll be more prepared psychologically to move on to a realm of heaven where what we experience is NOT a reflection but an ACTUAL reality.
"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is not a reflection, but rather the ACTUAL CONDITION of what was but reflected TO them here." UrT14E8
So fundamentally, planet earth, every particle of matter, all energies, all of space and time, the whole galaxy and 'universe', is all part of a MIRROR. It is a mirror because it is NOTHING REAL and is a meaningless world. We PROJECT ONTO this world what we want to see IN it, and see it reflected. This is ONLY possible because the world HAS NOTHING OF ITS OWN, because it is nothing at all and doesn't really exist.
Recognising that the mirror reflects only what you put there to see, leads to the recognition that the world IS a mirror, and IS NOT a thing in its own right. That there is no world there other than your wishes projected outward from within. You are having a dream, making up a subjective "reality", hallucinating what you want to see, and are inventing meanings for a world that isn't there.
The ultimate teaching therefore is that THERE IS NO WORLD. Not that the world is transformed, or kept, or ascended, or turned into heaven, or made to be ANYTHING. IT cannot BE anything because it is a NOTHING. Mirrors don't have identities. Mirrors don't have their own nature. Mirrors have no substance of their own, no attributes, nothing. You thought you saw a world in a mirror for a while, and were deceived. It is not there. Only heaven exists.
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real. Perhaps you think you did not make the world, but came unwillingly to what was made already, hardly waiting for your thoughts to give it meaning. Yet in truth you found exactly what you looked for when you came. There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and all the world must change accordingly." UrW132L4
"To see a SINLESS body is impossible. For holiness is POSITIVE, and the body is merely neutral. It is NOT sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE. And BOTH must be undone, for purposes of truth." UrT20H4
"The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. And so it seems to be a thing with power IN ITSELF. As something, it CAN be perceived, and thought to feel and act, and hold you in its grasp as prisoner to itself. And it CAN fail to be what you demanded it to be. And you WILL hate it for its littleness, unmindful that the failure does not lie in that it is not MORE than it should be, but ONLY in YOUR failure to perceive that it is nothing. Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee." UrT29C9
"The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be." UrM15A2
"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." UrU5A4
Think but how holy you must be, from whom the Voice for God calls lovingly unto your brother, that you may awake in him the Voice that answers to YOUR call. And think how holy HE must be, when in him sleeps your OWN salvation, with HIS freedom joined. However much you wish he be condemned, God is in him. And never will you know He is in YOU as well, while you attack His chosen home, and battle with His host. Regard him gently. Look with loving eyes on him who carries Christ within him, that you may behold His glory, and rejoice that Heaven is NOT separate from you.
Is it too much to ask a little trust for him who carries Christ to you, that you may be forgiven ALL your sins, and left without a single one you cherish still. Forget not that a shadow held between your brother and yourself obscures the Face of Christ and memory of God. And would you trade Them for an ancient hate? The ground whereon you stand is holy ground BECAUSE of Them Who, standing there with you, have blessed it with THEIR innocence and peace. The blood of hatred fades, to let the grass grow green again, and let the flowers be all white and sparkling in the summer sun. What was a place of death has now become a living temple in a world of light.
Because of Them. It is Their Presence Which has lifted holiness again to take its ancient place upon an ancient throne. Because of Them have miracles sprung up as grass and flowers on the barren ground which hate had scorched and rendered desolate. What hate has wrought have They undone. And now you stand on ground so holy Heaven leans to join with it, and make it like Itself. The shadow of an ancient hate has gone, and all the blight and withering have passed forever from the land where They have come.
What is a hundred or a thousand years to Them, or tens of thousands? When They come, time's purpose is fulfilled. What never WAS passes to nothingness when They have come. What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home. The incomplete is made complete again. And Heaven's joy has been increased because what is its own has been restored to it. The bloodied earth is cleansed, and the insane have shed their garments of insanity, to join Them on the ground whereon you stand.
Heaven is grateful for this gift of what has been withheld so long. For They have come to gather in Their Own. What has been blocked is opened; what was held APART from light is given up that light may shine on it, and leave no space nor distance lingering between the light of Heaven and the world. The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love. And They come quickly to the living temple, where a home for Them has been set up. There is no place in Heaven holier. And They HAVE come to dwell within the temple offered them, to be THEIR resting place as well as YOURS.
What hatred has released to love becomes the brightest light in Heaven's radiance. And all the lights in Heaven brighter grow in gratitude for what has been restored. Around you angels hover lovingly, to keep away all darkened thoughts of sin, and KEEP the light where it has entered in. Your footprints lighten up the world, for where you walk forgiveness goes with you. No-one on earth but offers thanks to one who has restored his home, and sheltered him from bitter winter and the freezing cold. And shall the Lord of Heaven and His Son give LESS in gratitude for so much MORE?
Now is the temple of the living God rebuilt as host again to Him by Whom it was created. Where He dwells His Son dwells with Him, NEVER separate. And They give thanks that They are welcome made at last. Where stood a cross stands now the risen Christ, and ancient scars are healed within His sight. An ancient miracle has come to bless, and to REPLACE an ancient enmity that came to kill. In gentle gratitude do God the Father AND the Son return to what is Theirs, and will forever be. Now is the Holy Spirit's purpose done. For They have come! For They have come at last!
"Christ vision" ... "beholds a light beyond the body" ... "looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
Christ Vision is an all inclusive way to see. It's as if to say, you are able to see the entire picture without anything being hidden. You are able to look and recognize what is there, seeing everything as it is, without adding anything or denying anything. Nothing is blocked from view. It is perfect, accurate perception, showing you everything exactly as it is. Everything is included, and nothing is left out.
Let's say that the scene contains two rooms, connected by a door. The rooms have no windows and the door is locked. Inside each room there is a person. Neither person knows what is outside the room, because having been isolated they are unaware of the whole picture.
Now let's imagine that the scene depicts one person trying to open the door, and the person in the other room hears noises and starts freaking out. And now they wrestle with the doorhandle, from either side, in a state of fear and panic, imagining an evil enemy is trying to enter the room.
This would seem to be a valid experience for them given that their vision is blocked, they cannot see the whole picture, and they have been kept in the dark. But what if the ceiling of the rooms was suddenly lifted away, revealing the sky. And what if the floor raised up to position the two people above the walls, so that they can see each other. And what if then they look down and see they were both in the same boat, neither of them is an enemy, both are just afraid of each other, and there is no reason to be afraid any more? And then after a moment's shock, they laugh.
It was the exclusion of information from their awareness that resulted in fear and darkness. It was blocks to awareness which prevented them from recognizing that the person in the other room was their beloved brother. It was the inability to see, which resulted in hallucinations of panic and terror as if under attack by an unknown invader.
This is what happens with the body's eyes. This is what happens with body vision. Because the body's sight STOPS at the surface of objects. It shows you what seems to be there, but NOT what is also beyond it. The body's eyes cannot see past or through anything, and so cannot see the whole scene. This produces a narrower context in which everything is taken out of context. And on the basis of the illusions produced by a lack of information, they hallucinate insane conclusions.
Body sight excludes, as part of specialness and the isolation of identifying with the body. It confines, limits, narrows, restricts, blocks, denies, rejects, and does not see, aspects of the scene which NEED to be seen in order to realize things are not what they seem. That appearances are deceptive. That when you don't have the big picture in mind, illusions form, which seem to suggest things which are not true. The illusions seem true and real because the larger truth is unseen and you don't have all the facts.
So in this world, we start out in false perception (ego body perception) by regarding the world ITSELF, which is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son, as though its appearance is true and real. We fall for temptation. We believe in it, and so we see it this way. We believe physical objects really are there. We look upon bodies. We see sins occurring. We witness attack and are threatened.
This kind of perception is only happening because something has been excluded. Some information is blocked and missing. The whole scene is NOT being seen. There is something present which seems invisible, because it is being blocked out of awareness. There is something HERE, which the body is blind to. It cannot see the real world, and it cannot see Christ.
There is a "fuller" way to see, which is Christ Vision. It is aware of the whole picture. It does not arrive at false conclusions and it does not experience hallucinated beliefs that sin is happening. It sees the pictures of the forms, seeming to do what they do, but it is not deceived by them. It sees people seeming to have sick and dead bodies but it does not give them the meaning of "actually sick" or "real death". It doesn't recoil in horror at what is depicted. It has no reactions. It is not upset. The scene is not disturbing its peace.
You could say, the world you made, the physical world, which is a picture of crucifixion, is a lovely beautiful picture of crucifixion. You could say, it is like a painting, articulated beautifully be a professional artist. The brush strokes depicting the dead bodies are masterfully presented. The arrangement of the sick bodies is eloquent and delightful. Because really, seen in the proper light, this IS nothing but a PICTURE. It isn't an ACTUAL place where actual real bodies are actually suffering. It's all just an image. A flat image of a 3d world.
Christ Vision looks upon this world you made without judging it. Without being horrified by it. Without reacting to it. It does not go INTO the image, trying to "experience" what seems to be happening there. It does not IDENTIFY WITH the bodies that are depicted, or lose sight of identity as Christ. It just looks and judges not, and recognizes this FALSE picture, in which nothing is real or true, and is able to be unmoved by it. To even laugh it away.
It sees not only the writhing bodies and the suffering, it sees also the props and the costumes and the performance. Rather than buying that the "show", the pantomime, is actually a real story, it instead sees the actors, the robes, the lights, the audience, the fabricated scenery propped up by wooden beams, recognizing that this is nothing but a staged and entirely fabricated scenario. When the main character seems to die at the end, Christ Vision recognizes the death is fake. The reality of the actor is not dying. Nothing real is occurring.
It is not deceived by what is seeming to occur, because it does not see it in a way that makes it all seem like a giant cess pool of horrible vents. It does not go down into the battlefield, where walls and barriers seem to block your sight, where bodies are strewn and there are screams of suffering. It doesn't believe anything can be attacked or harmed, so it does not EXPERIENCE these things happening, even if the picture seems to show it.
On the battlefield is where the body's eyes are blinded by perceptions of forms, doing their business. There it appears, as a result of illusions, produced by a lack of perspective, that something is true which isn't really true. Where context has been lost, sight of the truth is missing, deception is happening, temptation has occurred, and things as being believed which are a mistake.
The body is noter showing you the whole picture. It claims to see the whole world, but it does not. It does not see the props back-stage. It does not see the real cause of what is happening. It does not see the mind writing the scripts. It does not see the actors electing to play roles to pretend they are suffering, victimizing or victims. It cannot see past the illusion of the end result of all the arranging of space and time as a deliberate attempt to distract, deceive and delude. It takes the final production-ready, carefully filmed movie verbatim at face value, totally deceived and totally delusional, hanging off every act as it it's happening to real people.
This is the same thing that happens when you watch a tv show or movie. If you are sane, you should recognize that there are no people on the screen, nothing is happening. Its just pixels, or projected light. There aren't any people inside the television set.
But as you watch with the body's eyes, and as you begin to "get into" or "get lost in" the show, which is a deliberately deceptive series of illusions, you lose sight of reality. Your mind literally halucinates and believes that real things are happening to real people. That you are LOOKING AT a person. You start having emotional reactions. You become angry at what's happening, then upset, then relieved. Because you are insane, lost inside a fictional story, believing it's happening to something real. Deceived by the television temptation.
A moment may come where you snap out of it and remember, you are sitting in a room just looking at the tv. Or that moment where you pull out of the movie and start looking at the audience and the surroundings. You remember where you are and what is actually happening. It's just a film. It was made to deceive. You bought into it for a while and went on a journey of suffering with it, where the whole room seemed not to exist. And while you forgot where you were, it seemed real and exciting or upsetting.
The return to sanity, the regaining of the ability to SEE what is really there, the recognition of what it IS and what it is NOT, without your delusions, without your believing that it is real, without taking it seriously, restores you to Christ Vision. This vision is forgiving. It overlooks the image. It does not BELIEVE what the image TRIES to depict. It does not fall for the temptation. It is not deceived. It recognizes the picture of the crucifixion of God's son, which is the world you made, Earth, is false. And really, it is nothing.
Having then withdrawn your false imagined meanings from it, it is now neutral. Just a picture. It doesn't mean anything. It is a meaningless world that God did not create. It is not hated. It is not attacked. It is not offensive. It is known not to be showing anything real. It is very strange, but it is not anything to be upset by. It depicts an opposite to heaven. It is an image of hell, but it is not an image of real hell. And in fact, it's a very lovely image of hell.
Seen correctly, this world of hell does not have qualities of drama. It does not have upset. It does not have guilt. The way you EXPERIENCE it is different. The way you perceive it is different. You don't have a body encounter-suit experience of it, like it's some kind of 3d virtual world, full of threats and dangers. The perception of threat is only experienced in the body's eyes as a result of believing that illusions (a lack of information) are showing you the WHOLE information.
Imagine someone in a dark maze of corridors. There is little light to see. Strange sounds come from nowhere. There are movements in the shadows. The person is screaming in fright and running for their life. They imagine there to be dark monsters lurking. Their life seems in danger. They are insane, because they have lost all sense of context, they cannot see, and they have no way to know what's really happening. They think things are what they are not, and hallucinate what they think is there.
But then suddenly the lights switch on. The whole place is illuminated. The darkness is gone. And they suddenly realize where they are. They can now recognize they were in a restaurant, it's a lovely place, with good food and pleasant decor. And the sounds in the shadows was merely the coffee dispenser. Now that they can SEE everything that is present, they laugh hilariously at having believed what seemed to be a nightmare. Now with all the information at hand, there is no call for terror or threat.
All is well. It's just a room.
The world we made, the physical universe, comprising matter and bodies and walls and blocks of sin, was made WITH the Holy Spirit as merely a harmless picture. A simple dream, an illusory world, where nothing real happens. And His influence made it not simply as a picture of hell but as a beautiful, healed, forgiven, sparkling, fresh, lovely picture, which INCLUDES both an IMAGE of THE LIGHT (symbolic reflection), and the dark. Because it is a picture of opposites. Your contribution in its making was ONLY the dark and narrow.
As if to say, the Holy Spirit supplied ALL of the paint colors, but you chose only to use the darkest ones. And you chose to only look at the darkest ones. And you wanted the darkest ones to be worshipped and emphasized, to blot out the rest. You didn't want to see the whole picture, because in the whole picture it's obvious that the dark parts are no different to the light parts. It's all just as illusion and there's nothing special about the dark colors. But you gave them extra meaning, you blew them out of proportion, and you excluded sight of the rest of the picture. And you made the body to fixate only on the darkness and not see the rest, SO THAT it would seem the world is dark.
The twisted VERSION OF, or false perception of, or exclusive ideas about, or excluding way of looking at the world, the world you made, renders it to you as hell. It causes you to misperceive it, to hallucinate and to experience it like a nightmarish hell. But this perception, these visions, this appearance, which takes on the form of error, which is physical matter being believed as real, is the result of NOT seeing everything that is present. And so it is not really seeing at all. Without seeing the light of Christ, something crucial is missing. Facts are obscure.
To move towards true perception ie christ vision, blocks to awareness have to be removed, false beliefs have to be undone, the belief in real sin has to be removed, and illusions have to be seen through. The world has to be NOT believed for how it appears in the dark, and reinterpreted and seen in the light. The temptation for vision to stop at physical matter has to be transcended. Sight has to go BEYOND the world to the light. To the big picture. Beyond bodies. Beyond surface appearances. Beyond form. Otherwise you cannot REALLY see what is here, and everything will appear to be hell.
Only by overlooking the illusory picture, can you SEE the illusory picture correctly. If vision STOPS AT the picture, it is blocked, and it will not see correctly, and will see hell. Only when vision can MOVE PAST the illusions of limitation, to move THROUGH the body, PAST the body, PAST matter, only then can it properly be IN THE LIGHT, and therefore see the whole picture as it really is. By looking beyond the physical world ("the world of bodies is the world of sin"), to INCLUDE the parts of the picture that were NOT seen in false perception, and without being deceived BY the picture, Christ Vision can recognize the picture of crucifixion as a beautiful artistic image of a fantasy world, and nothing more.
If in the picture there was a scene of utter cruelty, which was your intention in its making, it is now clear that because the cruelty is NOT REAL, it is not seen AS cruel. Love looks upon it and does not buy the temptation. It IS still a picture that contains portions which look like cruelty, with bodies suffering, but there is ALSO MORE besides this, and the MORE reveals that the cruelty is not "real cruelty". Because there isn't simply "one hellish world" here, there are two VIEWPOINTS looking at a single illusory IMAGE, and each SHOWS something different.
True perception shows the whole picture, while false perception only wants to see certain out-of-context aspects, which, taken out of context, appear to be horrors. True perception reveals that even the horrors have a touch of holiness to them, a slight sparkle, a tiny fleck of light which could not be entirely eradicated. And once this light becomes brighter, strange illusions of death begin to look like nothing more than "happy sights".
Blades of grass seem to take on a sheen as though reflecting heaven's perfection. Light begins to sparkle around the edges of objects. Hell starts to be transformed into a reflection of heaven as sights of murder are transformed into visions of harmlessness, due to the REVEALING of information previously unseen. Death is now not death, it is merely images surrounded with sparkles, and only loveliness is seen there.
To Christ Vision, a warzone does not appear in the way it would appear to a terrified soldier. The soldier is having a nightmare. Christ Vision does not see the causality in the bodies. It sees no real death. It recognizes there is simply a bunch of images of a fictional scene. And because it is free from all the baggage of ego interpretation, it isn't seeing the "real bodies" "really suffering". It sees just a transparent veil of illusions, seeming to hang in front of the face of christ. Barely there and easily dispelled. Just a light picture of death, sparkling and shining, free from sin and guilt and wholly unreal.
"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."
Christ vision is Christ, looking at Christ, overlooking that which seems to be IN BETWEEN Christ and itself. The veil of matter, the picture of hell, tries to come between Christ and itself. The veil is the gap of separation. If vision stops at the picture it does not see past it, and instead buys into the temptation that hellish things are happening. This makes the picture real. But as it looks beyond the picture, to the light of Itself, Christ Vision has forgiven the picture and does not fall for its temptations, illusions, or suggestions of what is real.
Christ Vision has to look PAST the veil, in order NOT to be deceived. If it buys into anything within the veil, and becomes distracted by it, it loses sight of the light beyond, which loses perspective, and the veil turns into hell, because light is obscure and a picture of harmlessness seems to take on nightmarish qualities. "To forgive is to OVERLOOK". It is by NOT SEEING or not going INTO or being lost in the veil of physical matter, that it is forgiven. Sight MUST see through it and past it, otherwise it is blocked BY it. Christ Vision is like x-ray vision, seeing THROUGH the forms of error (objects), seeing sense, with reason.
In this light, fixated on the light of Christ, with a vision which moves entirely past the world, this bigger context frames the picture correctly. Essentially, and ultimately, the picture is forgiven by NOT seeing it. By looking beyond it to something else. And only by looking beyond it is the mind perfectly clear about what is true and what is false. As soon as you attempt to look AT the world, which means to NOT SEE what lies beyond, temptation has set in, vision is blocked, context is lost, sanity is interrupted, sight has ended, and you will return to seeing the world of sin. And then you will see sinful bodies, which are the only kind of bodies there are.
"To see a sinless body is impossible."
"Forgiveness does not look upon bodies."
"A world forgiven cannot last."
As you see "the real world", which is the world you made without any judgement on it, you overlook it. Your dream world is seen WITH holiness and love. Holiness looks upon it and sees no sin there. Its differences and forms and appearances have so dissolved into nothing that there are no buildings, streets or bodies walking around. The WHOLE PICTURE is recognized as containing NOTHING of the illusions of hell that you made, and all its forms have vanished. The Holy Spirit has shown you that the forgiven world is UNDONE, and has no reality. All that's left are the sparkles of love that you added unto it.
To forgive it is to not see it. To forgive it is to forget it. The veil must part, to reveal the light of Christ. And when the face of Christ is seen at last, the world is FORGOTTEN. The veil is no more. This means you have not interposed ANYTHING in between Christ and Himself. When Christ is recognizing Christ, there is no world. Without a veil, without bodies, without space or time, Earth does not exist. "Only the body makes the world seem real." Nor is there any dream without it.This perfect vision is true perception, and when perfected it has no further purpose. Its purpose was to lead you home, to return to awarness of Christ as yourself. And now you stand at the gates of Heaven, and are ready to enter, to return to where you never left. Bodies cannot come with you, because they were the veil, and do not exist. The world cannot join you because it has no reality beyond the veil that depicts its picture. Space and time have ended. The world spins into the nothingness from which it came, as you awaken into the Kingdom of God, recognizing that noting has ever happened to anything real. You are safe in God, because you were just dreaming of exile.
The ego always has an ulterior motive, a secret agenda, and a hidden plan that it would hide from you while it lies to your face.
Or rather, while you lie to yourself.
When the ego says you are afraid, it makes out that you're not choosing to be afraid, and that someone else is the cause. This isn't true. Secretly it wants to be afraid so that it can scapegoat someone and displace its own guilt onto others.
When the ego says you are guilty, it makes out that someone else has found you guilty and that there's nothing you can do about it. This isn't true. Secretly this belief in guilt is a choice that you're doing to yourself, you're the one who decided to be guilty, and you are doing so that you might keep your plan to be a separate individual.
When the ego says you have sinned, it tries to claim that this is because of something you really did, but this isn't true. Secretly you know that you cannot sin and did not do anything wrong, but are making out that you did, because you want to be sinful, so that you can continue your plan to be separate from God. Even if being sinful seems like a horrible experience, this horrible experience is 'worth it' if it means you can inch closer to death.
Death is your ultimate goal because it's through deaths doorway that you imagine you can finally escape from God's wrath and be born into a new reality where you are completely independent of God and have no need for Him. You hold this in your sights at all times, regardless of what seems to be happening or why, secretly planning on death every step of the way. Even if it means seeming to have to suffer sinfulness, or guilt, or fear, or punishment. Because there is always this secret ego agenda of self-destruction.
These secrets are all a part of denial, which is your attempt to deny that you are deliberately trying to die, or that you deliberately want to be a separate identity. You use denial to disown the choice you keep making for death, and to pretend that you're inching along toward it against your will, and driven by forces outside your control. To suggest you are not doing this to yourself is denial, and you layer denial upon denial upon denial to try to bring about a complete suppression of yourself, so that you can pretend to be someone else.
All along the way, we maintain and keep these special secrets. They are the secret truth that we are really doing this all to ourselves. It's the secret that we don't want to be revealed, because if we were to own up to it and be responsible, the illusions we're making which create the appearance that we're unwillingly being dragged to the grave, would be totally blown. We wouldn't be able to believe our own self-deception if we were to admit that we were the one choosing every single part of this.
And so sin, and guilt, and fear, and punishment, and suffering, and death, are all things we're choosing on purpose, because we see death as the way to achieve independence from God. It's what we've wanted all along, and we constantly pretend that we DON'T want it, SO THAT we can have it. Choosing to appear to have no choice, is a choice to have no choice, which is a choice to choose to die. Choosing to be afraid, choosing to be guilty, choosing to suffer, but claiming and making the illusion that this is absolutely nothing to do with what we want. Bullshit.
Secrets and lies, secrets and lies. How about some honest owning up to being powerful, immortal, invulnerable and not a victim?
Someone in your life that you are angry with or upset about, is only there as a skapegoat so that you can cover up your secret plan.
Your secret plan is to find a way to prove why God can't love you.
So you hire people, even before you incarnate, and you ask them to do stuff to you, for you. You ask them to play a role. And then they come into life and you come into life and you both play the roles perfectly. They do you a great service, even if the role they play is one of attacker or victimizer or hater or abuser.
While you have forgotten this sense of responsibility for orchestrating everything that happens to you, you will experience yourself being a victim - unfairly treated. Only by remembering 100% responsibility for this 'deal' you made, can you be freed from this victim consciousness.
Then, whatever that attacking person looked like or what they did to you, IF it's recognized as being EXACTLY what you asked them to do FOR you, then you can hardly hold them accountable or blame them. You literally asked for it. And whatever they did was done perfectly exactly as you requested. This completely lets them off the hook. They are just doing their job. You should be grateful.
Only in seeing it this way can you view the person as completely devoid of any guilt or of having done something against your will. And if they haven't done anything against your will other than perfectly carry out YOUR plan of self-attack, then you will recognize they have not really done anything TO you. It's really you that did this to you by hiring them to do it for you in the first place.
Then you can recognize this person is innocent. They have been faithful to your request. They've done what you asked. And they did not do anything you didn't ask for. So now services have been rendered. And for that you are grateful and you can recognize them as INNOCENT. No longer can you blame them for doing something 'uncalled for', having owned up to being the one who chose it.
Having thus taken back responsibility and power for the decisions against yourself, which were designed to give you really good justifications for being UNLOVABLE BY GOD, you will recognize that the whole point of being attacked/abused/hurt etc is so you will become so preoccupied with how worthless it 'makes you' that you will not be able to accept God's love. You will have really great justifications for why you can't be loved. And you'll have all this evidence and you'll be able to point your finger at this person and blame them for causing it. And all the while this affirms - God can't love me because I'm not lovable because of what this person did.
It's pretty convenient to stay in that mindset. And staying there won't make you happy. What will make you happy is dropping all the projection of blame onto the person who served you, taking full responsibility for orchestrating your life's events, taking ownership of the plan to prove to God that you're unworthy, and then becoming willing to allow yourself to be loved again. You have to drop the game you're playing. You have to get out from under the 'prison sentence' that the victimizer seems to hold you under. It's you holding yourself there so that you can stay way from God.
Then you let God in. You surrender. You drop the self-defeating attitude. You own up and admit to the truth. And then a smile can return to your face as you allow yourself to stop hating yourself and let yourself be loved by God.
It’s not just a matter of something happening physically. It’s not just a matter of what is demonstrated. Since form can be changed EASILY by a miracle worker, sickness can be flipped on and off, and bodies made to appear and disappear in an instant, it is hardly that important to use miracles JUST to show off or to make stuff happen. If these things were second nature, miracles would be like an everyday occurrence, just something natural.
The important thing about miraculous demonstrations is that they PROVE that the ego is false. Even if the demonstration is taking place inside the dream world, witnessed by regular people who may not even be particularly aware spiritually, it is a *teaching device* because it shows in an obvious way that ego beliefs are false. This can have a profound effect on the mind that witnesses them.
If something were to happen according to the ego’s laws, some kind of "accident" perhaps where someone gets hurt, and if suddenly all of the effects and harm are completely undone in front of onlookers, what do you think that will do to their mind?
If you witness a miracle, it can really blow your mind. You might interpret it as a threat, as magic, as voodoo, witchcraft, some kind of demonic posession, or any number of things, because your EGO will not be able to deny it or comprehend it. The miracle will SHOW, demonstrate, that some aspect of your ego belief system is FALSE. Right in front of your eyes.
If you believed that the body is real, bad things happen, wounds can’t be healed, and then suddenly all of that is shown to be FALSE, something profound happens to your awareness. It’s like there is suddenly a LIGHT, you suddenly SEE something which you never saw before.
You see a possibility. You see OUTSIDE of the ego’s laws. Your thought system is thrown into question. Your entire world view is undermined. It’s been blatantly proven to you that the ego’s laws are false, and you can barely believe it, but you can’t deny it. The demonstration of the truth permanently changes your mind! It causes you to have an awakening! Something inside your dream has come to show you that it IS a dream and is not true.
This is the powerful TEACHING DEVICE of the miracle. It is not there to just show off that you can manipulate matter or raise people from the dead. They are used to show that the ego is FALSE, all of its laws are FALSE, laws of physics are FALSE, limitations are FALSE, even death is false. If this were shown to you right in front of your face, you would NEVER again be able to look at life the same way.
When Jesus resurrected and came back and showed up as a body, having just been made dead not so long ago, witnessed by many people, this DEMONSTRATED that death is an illusion, that the body has no power over the mind, and that you are IMMORTAL. If you experienced this first-hand, can you imagine the profound challenge this PROOF would pose to your thought system? All your world view and beliefs about what you thought the world and the body even ARE, as gross assumptions, would be brought into question. You would never be able to think of death or bodies the same way again!
It’s not the "form" the miracle took that is important, but what it TEACHES, by virtue of the mere fact that it is POSSIBLE. IF such things are possible, it renders many other things obviously UNTRUE - ie, the ego. It blows the doors off what you THOUGHT was true, and awakens you. This is how miracles SAVE TIME because they are such powerful learning experiences!
If Jesus could do it, so can you.
If someone were to whisper in your ear, the one key secret thing which allows you to overcome the world, overcome death, be happy forever, and experience eternal life with God, you'd take that to be a pretty important secret, right? The ONE THING that unlocks the universe, sets you free from all suffering, and gives you back your real identity? You'd want that, right? And in a sense, you'd want to uphold that at all costs lest you lose sight of the way out of hell, right?
Well the "secret of salvation" is that you are doing this all to yourself, you cannot be hurt or attacked by anyone or the world, nothing causes you to suffer but yourself, and if you could fully OWN this you would be free from all forms of suffering forever and ever.
But this also means, if you want the way out of hell, and you want to ensure that it is POSSIBLE for you to get out of hell, then you're going to have to allow this truth to be true at all times, in all situations, without exception. Because if you compromise, or make an exception, or believe in any way that this secret is NOT TRUE, then you've literally taken the ONLY WAY OUT off the table, have hidden salvation from yourself, have made yourself hopeless and have disempowered yourself.
No matter how controversial it is, no matter how it flies in the face of societal norms, no matter how radical or extreme it seems to be, if the secret of salvation EVER seems to be untrue, then you are stuck in the hell of your making. If it EVER seems like you did not choose something or did not cause something or aren't the reason why you are experiencing something, you are lost, and you've lost sight of salvation.
If you did not do this to you, all of a sudden this means there is a power and a cause separate from you which determines your fate and your suffering, against your will. It means the dream is choosing for you. It means the day of your death has been decided by some seemingly external will and there' nothing you can do about it. And that means you have no power or ability to get OUT of it or be free of it, because it can do something against your will. That belief is the end of hope and the end of freedom.
This is why it's so important to realize, that this ONE SECRET is THE WAY TO BE SAVED. It is the core exit strategy. It is the ONLY way to leave hell behind. So it's pretty darn important that you don't compromise it or undermine it or believe something contradictory more than this. As soon as you slip into victim roles, victimizer roles, or belief in external causes, you are losing sight of the way home. Only by taking full responsibility for the power of your choice and 100% owning your freedom from YOUR OWN TYRANNY, can you be free from all suffering forever.
"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."
"Thus is Christ's strength invited to prevail, replacing all your weakness with the strength that comes from God, and that can never fail. And thus are miracles as natural as fear and agony appeared to be before the choice for holiness was made."
"God is my strength."
This is a relatively "new" idea to me and perhaps to others. But this is a very powerful and significant component not only of miracle working but of fulfilling your function as a powerful Son of God.
There is a strength in you. The strength of Christ - the strength of the Holy Spirit - the strength of God. God put this strength IN you by giving it TO you in your creation. You HOST His strength. Therefore, what seems to be YOUR strength, is actually HIS strength. HE makes you strong. HE gives you power!
Whenever you attempt to do anything based on your OWN strength, you really are depending on littleness and weakness. And this little weakness is NOT very strong. It has not much power in it and is not very capable. Depending on your own strength makes you AFRAID, because your own strength is tiny and insufficient and not really capable of doing or dealign with much at all.
As you are developing trust, putting aside your authority problem, and coming to DEPEND ON God, opening up to the fact that God is in you, at your inner altar, and as you progress through the lessons etc, you'll encounter this idea that God is your strength. And that Christ lends you His strength. And it is their strength that makes miracles possible through you.
When you are trying to be a miracle worker, if you look at it like you're the one who has to muster the strength, courage, power, to accomplish a miracle, and you're going to have to be very brave and strong in order to "make something happen", not much is going to happen. Because really this is a state of fear and an attempt to be brave in the face of insurmountable difficulty and weakness.
A key element in miracle working has to be that you have opened up to recognize and allow and invite the power of God to be in you. Which means making room for the power of God/Holy Spirit/Christ IN you, to BE strong FOR you. To be your strength. Rather than relying on your own strength. Their strength is OFF THE CHARTS unlimited power. And it is their strength that gives miracles their unlimited power.
So your function isn't to be "strong on your own" or some kind of super hero. The hero is always attempting to be an amazing miracle worker with super powers. But really to ACTUALLY perform miracles you need to depend on the strength of God and allow HIM to have the strength to accomplish the task. He is the one who will supply your strength and make YOU strong. Without Him you are too weak to give anything or accomplish consistent healing.
So this idea that your strength is given you by God, that God SUPPORTS you, strengthens you, makes you powerful, but not OF yourself, is key in both miracle working and awakening.
An "appearance" is another term for something physical. It's what you see when you take the physical form at face value. You look at what it appears to be on the surface, on the face of it, without any seeming interpretation.
"There is nothing so blinding as perception of form."
When mind denies itself and denies God's reality, it tries to become one with a body. To become one with separation. It narrows itself and confines itself and aligns itself with the body. The closer it becomes to being "body like", the less difference there seems to be between them.
Eventually this lack of difference makes the body seem like an ally, as in "the ego's chosen home", a friend of sorts, and something you can "identify" with (agree with), because it seems to agree with your mind. The mind is then confused with the body and the two seem to become one. In this ***illusion of oneness***, the body's sight is believed completely to be total fact.
"Only the body makes the world seem real."
Actually, without a difference between mind and body, you will enter a state where it seems you are not even interpreting at all. Where the physical world is total fact. Where everything is physical proof. Where the form something takes is entirely what it means. And where there is no sense of questioning or a bigger picture or a different vantage point. Everything seems to be "exactly as it is".
In false perception, the mind trusts the body's senses and this produces an experience of being "convinced", that what you see happening really is happening. In fact, you move toward a state of "obviousness", where everything physical seems to "obviously" be there, doing what it's doing, irrefutable and undeniable. The more you are in false perception the more the physical world seems to be totally real to you.
The mind gets into a state of being so body-aligned that it is no longer questioning what the body senses. Everything physical becomes total reality. Everything that "happens" becomes actual life and real events. And without any difference between mind and body, other bodies and their activities are taken as absolute and irreversible, having all the qualities of God.
So our minds, by believing IN separation, actually get into a state of what SEEMS to be ***"no separation"*** between mind and body, where all sense of you interpreting anything is lost. There is a seemingly unified experience, a oneness with the world at the physical level, everything looks obvious and real, and you take everything to be exactly what it appears to be.
In this state you also form a "story", because now the story of what bodies are doing, what events transpire etc, is all taken to be actual real fact. If someone's body acts out, or someone attacks, or there's a conflict, or any kind of thing you don't agree with, it is taken as being totally real. Like they REALLY DID DO it, provable in a court of law. And then you will automatically and naturally and logically hold it against them, justified by the fact of it happening.
Holding something against someone happens as a result of the mind binding with the body and believing that physicality is true. It does not question or doubt the physical "reality", so if someone does something offensive it is now a SIN. And this sin has physical proof right in front of your eyes. And your eyesight cannot deny it sees it. And this sin is irreversible, unhealable, unfixable, and the person has definitely messed up in a way that is so actual that it has the property of permanence.
"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."
You will then find yourself accusing the person, justifiably, of having done some terrible thing, all on the basis of what things look like at the physical level only. You did this, and you didn't do that, and that's the fact of it. And you used to be like this, and now you're like that, and I don't like you like this anymore. And how dare you treat me this way, and why are you doing this to me etc. Why is your BODY doing this to me.
This of course gives rise to an experience in which you are a helpless victim. In which you seem to have no say, no influence, no interpretation or way out of anything. Because what happens physically is factual reality. So now there is real physical threat and danger, people really are physically attacking, and there are physical things wrong with "you".
This is all blindness. This is the state of perceiving falsely and being body-identified, mind seeing itself as a body, total unforgiveness, unconsciousness, special-relationship, ego identification, and self destruction. There is no "gap" between mind and body, so everything that happens seems to happen to you, hurting you and upsetting you.
"The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it, and sheltered by its presence. If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!"
So "appearances" really are form, ie physical form. They are how stuff looks when you don't question its reality. It's how the physical world appears to you, or what it seems to mean, when you are totally invested in it. All meaning seems to be taken from how the external world tells you it is, as though you are not giving anything any meaning. Whatever happens seems to be the only truth. If someone kills your cat, they sure as heck actually did do that, and the cat is in fact really dead to prove the sin.
In such a state, we have been tempted by form and have "fallen for" the temptation. We've believed that people are bodies, that we are having relationships with bodies, that the physical world is the only reality, that there is no other mind besides the body, that God doesn't exist, and your self is a physical object. In this state you are not aware of reality, but you THINK you are, and because you're so convinced the physical world is WHERE the reality is, you do not question it.
To get out of this requires the questioning of appearances. The questioning of the PHYSICAL. This is why Jesus in the course introduces ideas such as that you give everything all the meaning it has, that you are projecting something, that you are influencing what happens, that your thoughts are involved and are attacking you, that you need to dis-identify from the physical body, that the physical world is an illusion not to be believed, and that all the events are nothing. To not even believe what the body tells you.
Without this rising up above "the battlefield", you will just live a life of hell, of blame and accusation, or suffering and selfishness, of specialness and deprivation, or mis-treatment and attack, unfairness and regret and remorse and resentment.
Only by questioning the physical world can your mind begin to see that it is NOT one with the body. And that because mind and body are different, they DISAGREE. And therefore what the body shows you is not to be believed. And you are now starting to step outside the "story" of your little body life and seek for a higher life.
If you were to describe someone's life based purely on what appears to be happening at the physical level, that is false perception. Only when you begin to look for a larger purpose or meaning, an influence of mind over matter, a choice and a freedom of will, a way by which someone might be responsible for making the world be the way it is, and an identity beyond the physical, only then are you properly recognizing that there IS a separation between mind and body. And that mind does not HAVE TO believe in the separation.
The gap of separation was COVERED OVER by your attempt to be one with the body. It seemed to disappear entirely underneath your mind's identification with the physical. Trying to be one with the body and make the physical real HIDES the fact that the world is separate from God and is not heaven. Only by beginning to recognize that you are NOT a body, can you recognize that there IS a separation between mind and body, and the two are not the same. Nor is the world a part of God.
Then you will seek for a higher oneness, a oneness with something NOT physical, a oneness with God and with a true reality. And the whole transition towards that is the awakening process. Waking up from the dream of hell and death and suffering and murder. Only then are you being forgiving, and seeing a forgiven world, because the world must be seen in another light in order to overlook its illusions of form.And only through the forgiveness state can you be free from deception permanently.
"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear, and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."
Sometimes people try to put you down, condemn you, make you wrong, call you names, claim you sinned etc. They may have a strong opinion, be domineering or power hungry. They may even say something quite vicious designed to push you away, shut you up, or shut you off.
This is always evidence of someone who does not love themselves. They have entered into a split mind where they are projecting, and they believe always that something applies to you that does not apply to them. They point a finger as if it’s not pointing at themselves. It is a very one-sided state. You are wrong, they are right. All the accusation seems to be coming out of them into you. And this makes it seem it’s entirely you who is under attack.
People like this can be difficult to deal with. There is also tremendous temptation to take this at face value and believe it’s happening to you. Or that it even really is about you or has anything to do with you. If you yourself do not love yourself enough, those weak parts of you will be triggered, seemingly hurt, react, and erupt with emotion and upset. You may then believe your experience was caused by them, that they actually attacked you.
If you do love yourself you will be unmoved. If you do not believe about yourself what the person believes about you, you will not be triggered. You will be clear it is not about you. Your forgiveness of yourself makes you immune. It then becomes clear they are talking about themselves, hate themselves, and are in a state of self attack. It also becomes obvious that how the attack appears on the surface is not what it really is.
The person is in a state of not realizing they are actually attacking themselves. They have disassociated from their self condemnation. They are in denial that they are hurting themselves. They are being murderous and harmful because they really believe and perceive that their attack is having no effect on them. They are not in their right mind. Self hate has blinded them, and now they are accusing a brother of their own sins. And they believe they can get away with it. They are unloving toward you not because you deserve it, but because they don’t love themselves.
If you can not buy into this performance, recognizing this attack as a call for love, realizing the person has made several errors, you have an advantage. Their self attack is something you can use to diffuse their attempted projection. It’s now your function to heal them, to love them, by reminding them of what they are ACTUALLY doing to themselves. You can look out for their innocent, holy self. Look at what they are doing to themselves in the interaction, NOT what they are doing to you.
You can now diffuse it by presenting the fact of what they are doing to themselves. Lovingly. To make them aware of how they are not loving themselves. This puts all the attention back on them and makes it clear this has NOTHING to do with you. You therefore are protected by love, cannot be hurt, and no-one can make you lose your peace.
"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."
"When you CORRECT a brother, you are telling him that he is WRONG. He may be making no sense at the time, and it is certain that if he is speaking from the ego, he WILL be making no sense, but your task is still to tell him HE IS RIGHT. You do not tell him this verbally if he is SPEAKING foolishly, because he needs correction AT ANOTHER LEVEL, since his error IS at another level. HE is still right, because he is a Son of God. His ego is ALWAYS wrong, no matter WHAT it says or does."
When you see a person acting egoically, you will think this is all they are. Whatever they say and do, you point your finger at "that" and consider it the whole person. This is why its incredibly easy to judge and condemn people for their egoic behaviors. As if what you see them doing is what thy are in truth.
But what this really means is you are blinded by perception of form and lack vision, so you are not seeing THROUGH and BEYOND their ego. The fact is that the person simultaneously is a perfect soul, and yet they also have egoic beliefs in their mind. Kind of like having two selves.
If you only see the ego in them and do no look past it ("to forgive is to overlook"), you become blinded by it and do not see their real self. You then hold their ego against them as if that is all they are. In effect, there is more to people than meets the eye.
Jesus is saying we should try not to be deceived by people's mistakes, and recognize it as a call for love. To look past appearances to the holy child of God that everyone is in truth. If you could see past their ego to their holiness, you would recognize their ego as just mistaken, instead of sinful.
Remember everyone here has two selves so when you take everything people say at face value you're not being forgiving. You have to look deeper past the surface. Give your brother due credit and love or still being a perfect soul. Recognize his mistakes as only that, and hold nothing not of God against him. To fixate on a person's ego is to be believe the forms of error.
"To forgive is to OVERLOOK. Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS. Accept as true only what your brother IS, if you would know yourself. Perceive what he is NOT, and you CANNOT know what you are, BECAUSE you see HIM falsely. Remember always that your identity is shared, and that its sharing IS its reality."
"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."
"Before a holy relationship, there IS no sin. The FORM of error is no longer seen. And reason, joined with love, looks quietly on ALL confusion, observing merely, "this was a mistake." And then the same Atonement YOU accepted in YOUR relationship, CORRECTS the error, and lays a part of Heaven in its place. How blessed are you, who let this gift be given! Each part of Heaven that you bring, is given YOU. And every empty place in Heaven that you fill again with the Eternal Light YOU bring, shines now on YOU. The means of sinlessness can know no fear, because they carry ONLY love with them."
There is a clear teaching in ACIM that there are TWO worlds, and you can ONLY see one of the two in its entirety at any given time. Seeing one, REQUIRES you NOT TO SEE the other. You CANNOT see both of them in full simultaneously. And each of them uses a different KIND of vision, designed ONLY to see one kind of world.
One of these two worlds is Earth and its environment - all galaxies etc. The other is the real world/heaven - God's creation. You can ONLY see ONE of the two in full. If you shift your vision to true perception you can see God's world. If you shift your vision to false perception you can see the physical world. But you CANNOT DO BOTH AT ONCE.
So there is a dynamic, whereby the MORE that you see the real world, the LESS you see the physical world. As the real world "phases in", the physical world "fades out". You cannot see both at once, and in order to see one or the other you have to sacrifice the ability to see its opposite.
To the DEGREE that you value one of the worlds, that is how much you will see it, and inversely, this valuing of it causes you NOT TO VALUE the opposite world, which causes you to SEE IT LESS. This is a basic function of perception, that you see what you value, because you believe in it, and thus want to see it. You do NOT SEE what you DO NOT VALUE. And any world you consider "false" due to its opposite being "true", becomes invisible to you.
This is a very core teaching. You are choosing between heaven or hell.
"The world is false perception" and relies on physical sight of photons using the biological apparatus of the eyeballs an nerves etc.
The real world is true perception/christ vision and relies on the spiritual eye, which in turn DOES NOT rely on the body, and is direct mind-seeing.
Two types of perception. Two ways of seeing. Two worlds resulting. "The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."
"This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."
"Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear"
"Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."
""The real world can ACTUALLY BE PERCEIVED. All that is necessary is a willingness to perceive nothing ELSE. For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM."
"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten"
"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."
"When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear."
This is possibly the most threatening and mind-blowing teaching in A Course in Miracles. There is in fact NOT a world here! It's not even a matter of who made the world, it's the even higher truth that it DOES NOT EXIST. Earth is in fact NOTHING.
"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it"
"There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere?"
Everything that happened in the separation from God, involves a belief in something existing which does not exist, something being true which is false, something being real which is unreal.
For example, we made a separate self which seems to have free will to do as it pleases. However, this self is in fact the DENIAL of self, which is why it results in death. But it APPEARS to be the presence of a self. This is why it's an illusion - it seems to be showing you something which is not there, as if it is. It's supposed freedom of will is in fact an imprisoned will, which is not free, but SEEMS free.
Take a look at the body. "The body is the symbol of WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist." The body SEEMS to picture "you", presenting an appearance and form, it seems to positively exist and move and do stuff. But, the body is NOT you, it is a replacement for you, and is only an image of what you THINK you are. What it SEEMS to be, is the opposite of what it actually is. The body is the ABSENCE OF YOU. And you do not look like your body. "What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."
It is the same thing with regards the difference between light and darkness. Darkness is not possible. Where there seems to be an absence of light, there must be an ILLUSION of darkness. If you believe the darkness is real, you are giving it false reality and are claiming it "is a something." But a shadow on a wall is not the PRESENCE of darkness, it is the absence of light. It appears to be a something, but is really the lack of a something.
It is also the same with regards to sin and error. Error or mistakes are just illusions of impossibilities, recognized as false. In their "true form" it is clear they cannot be true. But if you invest belief in them, are deceived and tempted by them, and buy into them, they turn into sin. And now it seems that they assert that something has REALLY happened, and something is REALLY possible, that isn't. So sin is really a lie, depicting stuff happening that CANNOT happen, as though it is really happening. It is deceptive.
The same applies to this world. This world is in fact NOTHING. But by believing in it and investing it with reality, it turns from an illusion of a something to an ACTUAL something. It seems to exist. It seems to host events and happenings. Things in it seem possible. But the world is impossible, and the things which happen are impossible, and sin is not real. The world was made to try to prove that sin and guilt are real.
"Their aim is to fulfill the purpose which the world was made to witness and make real. They see in its illusions but a solid base where truth exists, upheld apart from lies."
"The world of bodies is the world of sin."
So basically, we have a world that SEEMS to be here, which is made of sin, which testifies and proves that impossible things are possible, which hosts the idea of the death and murder of reality, and SEEMS to have real consequences. But it has none. And it does nothing. And it causes nothing. And it has no power. And it isn't really there at all.
"It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere."
"The world does nothing to him."
"There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."
The really deep thing to realize is this. The world is in fact, the ABSENCE OF EXISTENCE. It is the antithesis of heaven. It is the LACK OF HEAVEN. It is a HOLE, which we call the spacetime bubble, in which are housed impossibilities and unrealities. It is an hallucinated world, because it seems to be there to see, but isn't. You are projecting it and making it up as you go along.
The idea that there is no world isn't simply that the world "exists" and it has to be "undone". It's really the RECOGNITION that the world you thought was here, does not exist. And this doesn't mean there's a better view of it. It means the WHOLE THING IS GONE. It has no reality at all. No presence. No life.
"There is no life outside of heaven."
"Without the idea of death there is no world."
"He does NOT realize that HE MAKES THIS WORLD, for there IS no world outside him."
Through unwillingness, we resisted God. We failed to create. We wanted not to shine. We tried to end eternal life. We wanted to stop reality. We opposed the Kingdom. We attacked will. We tried to deny our own existence. We blocked awareness. We tried to destroy. And ultimately this is all a matter of TRYING NOT TO EXIST.
In so doing, we seemed to make a world which SEEMS to exist, which is really actually the LACK OF A WORLD. It's like you took a part of heaven and DRAINED IT of all life. Held it back and prevented its extension. As though you could attack heaven and remove its presence. This world, which includes the Earth, is the ANTI-world. It is a mis-creation. It is empty and it is nothing.
We have GIVEN the world, the fake world, all manner of belief in trying to MAKE IT BE SIN, so that it is GIVEN reality, so that we can try to make it exist. It's our attempt to give it life and immortality. But we can't. We tried to make the world be a cause. We tried to make it have power. We gave our power to it to try to animate it. We tried to make it appear to be alive with "life forms", which are illusions of life. We tried to imagine it has a mind and alien will of its own. We tried to make ourselves subject to it and affected by it, to confirm its reality. We made bodies to sense it and to tell us that it is there.
"Only the body makes the world seem real."
"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."
Quite simply, this world, this planet, this galaxy, all the stars, all bodies, all animals and "life forms", are NOTHING. They are life's ABSENCE. They are the LACK OF LIFE. They are something that is really NOT there, appearing to be there. Like an hallucination. A lack of light, appearing to be the presence of a real darkness. And to believe in it is to believe that evil is real, asserting that the world has power OVER heaven. That the world CAN CAUSE immortal beings to die. Believing this world is real is level confusion.
Our task in forgiveness, then, is not to find a way to give EXTRA reality to the world, but to recognize ITS UNREALITY, and see finally that it SO NOTHING, that it disappears and fades into nothingness. All it is is a veil of illusions, a block, hanging in front of the face of christ, pretending to exist. Our guilt makes it seem solid. Our fear gives it reality. Our belief in sin anchors it in our minds. But it is not there at all. It is an empty shell.
"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within YOU, there is a force which NO illusions can resist."
"What can the causeless BE but nothingness. The picture of your brother that you see is wholly absent, and has never been."
"Sickness is a demand the body be a thing that it is not. Its NOTHINGNESS is guarantee that it can NOT be sick."
"The body that is asked to be a god WILL be attacked, because its nothingness has not been recognized. "
"Yet its nothingness IS your salvation, from which you would flee."
"His body's nothingness releases yours from sickness and from death."
"For here is nothingness, where neither birth nor death is real"
"The final judgment on ****the world**** contains no condemnation. For it sees the world as totally forgiven, without sin, and wholly purposeless. Without a cause, and now without a function in Christ's sight, ****it merely slips away to nothingness.****"
"Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, "protective" clothing, "influence," "prestige," being liked, knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness which you endow with magical powers."
"To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it. As such, it is the prerequisite for vision."
"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see."
"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."
"But if you refuse to worship him, in whatever form he may appear to you, and wherever you think you see him, he will disappear into the nothingness out of which he was made."
"To overlook nothingness is merely to judge it correctly, and because of your ability to evaluate it truly, to LET IT GO."
"The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."
"The "changes" the ego seeks to make are not really changes. They are but deeper shadows, or perhaps different cloud patterns. Yet what is made of nothingness cannot be called new or different."
"We can but go from nothingness to everything; from hell to Heaven." "What loss can be for you in choosing not to value nothingness? This world holds nothing that you really want, but what you choose instead you want indeed!"
"***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."
"What is the ego? Nothingness, but in a form that seems like something. In a world of form the ego cannot be denied for it alone seems real. How could God's Son as He created him abide in form or in a world of form?"
"What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions which remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because without belief they have no life, and so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains."
"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will leap into Heaven and into the presence of God."
"God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you."
"Nothingness will become invisible, for you will at last have seen truly." "Like all things in the world its meaning is temporary, and will ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came when there is no more use for it."
"All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding to be judged again, this time with Heaven's help, and all mistakes in judgment which the mind had made before are open to correction as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized."
"How can a battle be perceived as nothingness, when you ENGAGE in it?" "There is a silence covering the world that was an ancient dream so long ago no one remembers now. Its time is done, and in the little space it seemed to have is nothingness. The dream has gone, and all its dreams of gifts have disappeared as well."
"Pursuit of the imagined leads to death because it is the search for nothingness, and while you seek for life you ask for death.
"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death."
"The more complicated the results become, the harder it may be to recognize their nothingness, but it is not necessary to examine ALL possible outcomes to which premises give rise to judge the PREMISES truly."
"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth.""
"EVERY illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness."
"And so is ALL time past, and everything EXACTLY as it was before the way to nothingness was made. The tiny tick of time, in which the first mistake was made, and ALL of them within that ONE mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and ALL of them that came within the first. And in that tiny instant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. What God gave Answer to IS answered, and IS gone."
"Specialness is the idea of sin MADE REAL. Sin is impossible even to imagine, without this base. For sin rose from it, out of nothingness, an evil flower with no roots at all."
"In the Divine psyche, the Father and the Holy Spirit are not incomplete at all. The Sonship has the unique faculty of believing in error, or incompleteness, if he so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement."
Our traditional definitions of what the ego IS, may need a rethink, based on what it ACTUALLY says in the course.
Interestingly, the course tells us that we have a SPLIT mind.... and that this division - which IS THE SEPARATION - has produced what seems like TWO selves. And yet it does not say that either of these two selves is the ego.
"And these two halves appear to represent a split within a self perceived as two."
"In a split mind, identity MUST seem to be divided."
"It reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and its ONLY purpose is to KEEP THE SEPARATION GOING."
"***The Separation is merely another term for a split mind.***"In a way, it more accurately uses "ego" to describe the effort WITHIN the split itself, to perpetuate and increase the separation.
Kind of like an "agent of separation" working to magnify the division or increase the gap between the two halves.It also tells us that the split ITSELF needs to be undone, so that the two parts of mind REUNITE as one mind. Because BOTH parts of mind MUST BE REINTEGRATED.
"They had already split their minds, and were bent on further dividing, rather than reintegrating. ****The levels they introduced into their minds turned against each other****, and they established differences, divisions, cleavages, dispersions, and all the other concepts related to the increasing splits which they produced."
This has absolutely nothing to do with getting rid of the second portion of mind in order to "heal it", and in fact destroying part of mind is the GOAL of the separation. Healing is entirely to do with undoing the SEPARATION BETWEEN the parts of mind.
So the question then arises, where does the EGO come into it, or the idea of a false self?
Because in truth, the separated off second part of mind, IS NOT the ego. That second portion of mind is to be KEPT AND HEALED and REINTEGRATED with the first part. So we can't say that this second portion IS the ego.
We could more accurately say, that it is the DIVISION ITSELF which is ego. The division is what seems to arise, when there is a SEPARATION, which means there is an INEQUALITY. You can only have a seeming separation, in which there seem to be "two things", when there is something DIFFERENT about each of those things.
This difference, a kind of rift or inequality, produces a kind of "territory" in-between the two parts, a fence around a part of the mind, where we could say that it is "in between" the two parts, or is what defines the two parts as being distinct from each other. And we could call this inner seeming territory the GAP or the SEPARATION. Indeed, we can accurately call it SPACE TIME!
This separation GAP, which is kind of like the "pit of hell", seems to come in BETWEEN the parts of minds, which now appears to be inner and outer, or associated and dissociated parts of mind.
In fact, one part of mind then seems to be on "this side" of physical matter (e.g. inside the brain), while the OTHER HALF of mind seems to be BEYOND "the granite block of sin" or "the veil" that is physical matter - the illusion of separation. This is why you have to overlook (forgive) physical matter and see the face of christ BEYOND it, in order to REJOIN WITH the other half of yourself.
The part of mind you associate WITH, you believe is your whole self, which is the sunbeam believing it is the sun. While the sun is the metaphor for the REST of the mind, or the whole of mind.
The body, for example, becomes a SEPARTION DEVICE, which comes BETWEEN the associated part of mind, and the dissociated part of mind. It stands between you and your brothers, as do all forms and bodies, like a literal physical wall. It symbolizes our separateness, or rather, the separation between you and the rest of you.
But then the question then arises, where or what is the EGO?The course says that the WORLD is the symbol of the separation, and the BODY is the symbol of the ego. This almost suggests, and perhaps it does, that separation in general is not quite the same thing as EGO.
Through separation, we split the part of the mind which is in heaven from a part which seems to be in hell, just as we split the part that seems to be housed in a body from the part that seems outside of it. You could say that separation is a vertical split, while ego/body is a horizontal split. It's almost like saying that the ego is a symbol of separation INSIDE the world, which is itself a symbol of separation. Making the ego twice removed or "within" the realm of separation.
Either way, ego or egotism, is defined in the course as SELFISHNESS. It is synonymous with specialness, uniqueness, differences, favoritism and inequality. Why would we say that this places ego INSIDE the portion of mind that is in the body, and not the part outside? Perhaps because as ego condenses and possesses and claims exclusive ownership for itself, it tends to partition itself off and contract into a specific location in spacetime. Thus ending up AS or IN a body.
We can also though say that the WORLD, is the ego thought SYSTEM. That the whole system of ego thinking, based on differences, visualizes the physical universe. This would associate ego with the entire "realm" of separation ie separateness.
It's important to realize though, that ego is really something that comes BETWEEN, and emphasizes SEPARATION. It tries to INCREASE separation. It also thus increases inequality. So regardless of "where" we try to locate it, it is very much tied to the notion of separating. It might even be valid and useful to relate ego to the idea of "the devil", an attitude WITHIN THE SPLIT, that operates as active thought WITHIN the idea of separation, to lend reality and value to the separation.
Similarly the body, when it is made to be sick, doesn't simply testify that its host is sick, but that the body is trying to attack BOTH the host AND its brothers. "Sick bodies remain accusers". They are attempts to be contagious and to destroy others. So the sickness is bi-directional. Or in other words, the sickness is acting like a SEPARATION. And this happens when the body is being used AS a separation device. ie the more you emphasize the body as a SEPARATING WALL BETWEEN you and others, the sicker it becomes.Either way, for me, I'm finding it makes a lot more sense to think of ego simply as the same thing as SEPARATION in general, rather than thinking of it as ONE SIDE of a separation, or ONE PART of mind, or ONE OF the two "selves" which are formed BY separation.
Ego will in fact play BOTH SIDES of the separation. It takes positions on both sides of every conflict. Because ego is the idea of SELF DENIAL, and therefore self destruction. So it is literally against itself and is the idea of suicide. It has no interest in who WINS any kind of fight or competition, only that both sides are attacking and increasing the inequality and separation between them. It doesn't care how the game of death is played so long as you're playing it.
The thing to realize then is that if ego IS separation, and separation entirely depends on INEQUALITY, then the restoration of perfect equality causes ego to vanish. In fact, since ego is illusion or a shadow, a fake appearance, or a sense of a LACK OF light as in darkness, this lack is based on inequality. ie that one thing lacks what another has. And without this lack, there can be no ILLUSION OF the ABSENCE OF what the other part has. And so as you approach equality, you simply phase out separateness and erase differences, thereby completely undoing ego. And there is no ego AT ALL in an equal state.
To me this makes metaphysical and logical sense. It makes less sense to me, and perhaps is not even supported by the course, to say that ego is some kind of separate person, or ONLY the separate person, or one half of mind, or a made-up self.
The course does refer to a false self and a false self image, but this false sense of self is kind of a side effect of the division BETWEEN parts of mind. This separation - the split mind - results in both parts of mind being seemingly lacking or diminished. The half you associate with maybe takes on more of a sense of "artificial identity" - artificial identification or association. While the other half seems to become unconscious.
But really in the big picture, when you look at it, Jesus essentially just describes "the separation from God" and its undoing through atonement. It describes separation as synonymous with dissociation and the splitting of mind into two parts. So the undoing of this split, the removal of separation BETWEEN the parts, undoes the separation and restores the WHOLENESS of the mind. The unification or oneness of the mind.
One thing to bear in mind though is that in fact, in a split minded state, we do tend to DISSOCIATE a large portion of mind. The part of mind we DO associate with, which seems to be experienced as WITHIN us or inside the body or inside the bounds of its container, looks upon the other split-off part as "outside" of itself.
And this tends to project it and place it external to the body, which it identifies as symbolizing the "perimeter" of itself, making it easy to ASSOCIATE the second half of mind with other bodies. This leads to the effortless CONFUSION WITH other bodies, associating this other half of mind WITH other bodies, and thus believing other people are "where the sin is" or are "who the enemy is".
This then leads to our continued efforts to DESTROY this other half of mind, labeling it as the home of sin and guilt, projected externally, bound to others, as if accusing THEM of our own sin. "You but accuse your brother of your own sins". You then attempt to correct what seems to you to be "them", when in fact it is the OTHER PART OF YOURSELF that you are attacking.
This is especially true on another level as well, in that your brothers ARE you, in a oneness kind of way, and attacking them DOES also attack you. So as you split off part of your mind and label it "not me", by DISSOCIATING from it, you tend to split off the part that is IN YOUR BROTHER or one with Him. And so you then tend to target YOUR BROTHER as the home of sin and guilt.
But all the while, this is all still happening INSIDE the totality of your whole mind. One part of your mind is at war with the other part. And it is by INTEGRATING BOTH PARTS, which results by UNDOING THE SEPARATION BETWEEN THEM, that restores the mind to health and wholeness. In addition to reawakening your awareness of the whole of your identity. Kind of like large "dormant" parts of mind coming online - coming into awareness, because they are no longer hidden behind walls.
What this tells you ultimately is that your egotism is an attempt to REJECT. And ACIM confirms that the separation was an act of REJECTION. And through rejection you rejected God's will and your self and your brothers, simultaneously rejecting the part of your mind which is ONE with and IN them. So it is through acceptance, the undoing of denial, that you are restored to awareness of the whole of yourself, one with your brothers and God.
Ego, or egotism, or selfishness, or specialness, or idol worship, or special relationships, or valuing illusory treasures, or elevating the body etc, is all different ways of EMPHASIZING DIFFERENCE, which is a primary ego function of INCREASING SEPARATIONS. Its only goal is to INTENSIFY the separation, to make you believe you are MORE separate, and to SPLIT your mind further.
All of the egos activities are so fully fixated on this "increase in separation", that you really can equate the two things. Ego is far less some kind of sneaky little devil entity hiding in the mind, and more of a SABATEUR, coming BETWEEN you and your brothers, interfering with relationship, breaking down communication, and trying to SPLIT YOU IN HALF.
You become more split as you REJECT. You become less split as you INTEGRATE. You become more split as you attack. You become less split as you JOIN. You become more split as you hate and hurt. You become less split as you love and heal. And it is really the RIFT between YOUR OWN PARTS OF MIND, that you are working on healing.
One part of your mind you see as an EXTERNAL VICTIMIZER, and another part as an INTERNAL VICTIM. The internal victim puts on "the face of innocence", while the external victimizer puts on the face of evil and sin and death. The secret of salvation tells you thus that your DISSOCIATED part of mind SEEMS to be attacking the ASSOCIATED part of mind. The "outer" self, is attacking the "inner self". And this takes place by backward perception ie the reversal of cause and effect - being at the effect of the "world."
But the truth is you are NOT at the effect of THE WORLD, you are at the effect of the part of your MIND that you have ASSOCIATED WITH the world, projected onto it. It is not some other person who is willing against you, it is YOU using your will AGAINST your own will, in a war against yourself. And this is all happening WITHIN YOU. Inside your mind.
So now you have to realize that the externalized "not me", really IS YOU. It is part of your mind ACTING AGAINST the rest of your mind. And this happens because you have a divided will, due to the SPLIT. It's like having two heads or two conflicting opinions in the same mind. You have to find a way to bring these two parts together into the light. And there you have to see the SEPARATION BETWEEN THEM disappear, so that the two parts are reintegrated as ONE.
This never involves the destruction of MIND or any part of mind. Mind is permanent. All it involves it the removal of EGOIC ATTITUDES,, which produce SEPARATION. The undoing of the separation from God is what atonement and forgiveness is all about. And once YOUR MIND is no longer split, you CANNOT BE ATTACKED.
In fact, it is SO clear that you need to reintegrate the dissociated parts of mind, and that these parts of mind are YOUR ONLY ENEMY, that once you realize that EVERY form of attack against you IS COMING FROM YOURSELF.... playing the part of an INDIRECT victimizer, you realize that you can be FREE from suffering forever if you will stop attacking yourself.
"I can be attacked by nothing but my thoughts."
"It is but myself I crucify."
"Secret of salvation" .... "you are doing this to yourself."In this realization, that the externalized part of mind is WITHIN your mind, and the OVERLOOKING of the "differences" between the parts of mind, which results in UNIFICATION or reunion, you heal the mind's SPLIT and restore its sanity. And this means taking full responsibility for being the one who has been doing everything to you.
This sets you free because it acknowledges you have NEVER suffered except by YOUR OWN hand. No one, nor the world, has EVER attacked you. Every form of suffering has been self inflicted. And it has only EVER been YOUR MIND'S DIVIDED STATE that has produced illusions of suffering. You CANNOT suffer, without a split mind. This is also why it's true that everyone is SELF-destructive in this world.
"The guiltless mind cannot suffer." Nor can it be sick, or attack, and NOR does it use the body FOR attack, OR as a separation device. And this heals the body and guarantees its health. So the healing of the SPLIT in YOUR mind is ALL you have to do. This is what it means by accepting atonement FOR YOURSELF. Which has NOTHING to do with other people, until you share and express it. And in the atonement, the ego - the SEPARATION - is erased.
I've seen that many people think we're supposed to "forgive the world", in that we find ways to "see it differently." Because this is PART of what the course says. Change your mind about the world etc.
But this tends to lead us to a sort of assumption that the world is the TARGET of the forgiveness, such that we're trying to be nicer to IT. As though we'll end up with a better, happier relationship WITH it.
But I see this as short-sighted. Because in fact the way forgiveness works, we have to actually overlook bodies, and look beyond form, and see past the veil of matter. The aim is to see the light of Christ, the face of Christ, which is HIDDEN BY the world.
It's by overlooking the world that we look TO the light, and find the real world. Which is not the physical world. And then INDIRECTLY, the physical world becomes forgiven or seen in another light.
I think when we consider the purpose or functionality of forgiving the world as looking squarely AT the world in a different way, we're missing the point. We're not really supposed to be prioritising finding a better way to look at bodies and planets. The purpose of forgiveness is to NOT SEE them, so that we are restored to being able to seen heaven.
In fact we're told that we will awaken to the Kingdom when we put our full attention on it, essentially forgetting the physical world entirely.
We have to be careful then with this idea of forgiving "things", or bodies or places or stuff in the world. Our aim isn't really to first and foremost cosy up to matter and snuggle into bed with it. It's to find a way to rise up OUT of and BEYOND, to recognize it as nothing and see it diminish in our sight. Its undoing is the atonement - the cancellation of the dream.
It's easy to think that we do a forgiveness, for example, by "forgiving that person for what they did" or whatever. But what's the end result, keeping the person in a body and seeing the body and trying to be nicer to it? This can't really work because to see the body requires guilt and grievances. The aim should be to see their body LESS and to see their spiritual self MORE.
I see that some people have become lost in this, thinking spacetime is God's murderous creation, and seek to "forgive the world" DIRECTLY instead of indirectly, thus holding it up in front of their faces and screaming love at it to try to make it be something it's not. This is not going to work, because the world isn't real and isn't capable of reciprocating or creating.
We're not here to have a special relationship with an illusory fictional planet. We're here to undo the story and collapse space and time and watch the world spin back into nothingness. Because we don't need it. God already gave us a Kingdom.
"Forget not the Kingdom of God (heaven) for anything the world (spacetime, earth) has to offer. The world (of bodies) 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 (if you see it, your view of God is blocked). You cannot behold the world (see matter) and know God. Only one is true." UrT8F2
"To forgive is to OVERLOOK (not see the world). Look, then, BEYOND error (beyond spacetime), and do not let your perception rest UPON it (upon the physical), for you will believe what your perception HOLDS. Accept as true only what your brother IS (spirit), if you would know yourself. Perceive what he is NOT (bodies), and you CANNOT know what you are, BECAUSE you see HIM falsely (as matter)." UrT9C1
The body's eyes do not forgive. They do not overlook any illusions. All they see is the forms of error, and everything they look upon is an illusion. They literally are incapable of seeing past illusions at all. Which means they cannot forgive, at all.
The body's eyes are completely unforgiving. They are blinded by perception of form. They are not designed to see beyond physical objects, and rely entirely on photons of light for vision. Without photons they see only darkness and they are literally incapable of ever seeing even the slightest glimmer of the light of reality.
The body's eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. They are devices designed for fixating on the images of physical form, which is made of sin, and do not see anything else. They are literally blinded by sight of forms and we call this "seeing" - where vision is blocked by objects rather than seeing through or past them.
The eyeballs are permanently hardwired into the physical level of perception. As sensory devices, they can only sense illusions. Since they cannot see past illusions, they cannot forgive, because to forgive is to overlook illusions. And so physically sight is really permanent false perception. And the body will constantly send false perceptions to the mind for interpretation, where the mind gives them either the meaning of reality or unreality.
This is why you need another kind of vision, entirely free from dependency on the eyeballs, in order to see reality. To be forgiving, at the mind level, must entail you somehow looking past what your body's eyes see. The body sees only the outside surface of nothingness, pretending to be somethingness. To see REAL somethingness, you cannot use the body.
Forgiveness is of the mind, in the mind, for the mind, moving beyond the body, overlooking all of the forms of physical chaos, and seeing a light beyond them. What lies beyond all physical forms is the real world. This cannot be seen with the eyeballs, but it can be seen with True Vision. True Vision is direct mind seeing, based not on photons or artificial light.
In order to shift into true perception, you have to shift away from dependency on physical sight. Which also means learning to categorize everything the physical eyes sees as an illusion - false, unreal, and not happening. While fixating on the physical world, and believing what the eyes see, you are blinded from seeing the real world.
Forgiveness, ie true perception (atonement, salvation, the miracle, etc), occurs when the mind recognizes that all of the images of physical forms coming in through the physical eyeball sensors are illusions, not to be believed. The mind overlooks the sensory input and looks past it. In effect it bypasses the world and every signal coming from the world. It looks past it all to the light of the face of Christ.
Christ looks upon christ, love looks upon itself. Forgiveness does not look upon bodies, mistaking them for the son of God. It looks past bodies to the light. In effect, everything the body sees must be overlooked. In other words, you need to see past what you see. Look beyond the flesh and bones to reality.
"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen , for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality."
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body, and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
At all times you perceive ONLY what you believe is true. This can be a trap when you're not ACTUALLY believing the Real Truth.
What it does, is it makes you think that you are seeing everything there is to see, when in fact you are only seeing a 'version' of reality that has your idea of truth/reality projected onto it.
So then you get stuck, because you think, well, today I feel afraid because the world is scary. Or, today I am happy and everyone seems happy too. Or, today I am terrorized and the world is full of terrorists, etc.
What I've noticed is, that the kind of world I see totally depends on what is going on inside of me. And I'll be convinced that I'm seeing OBJECTIVELY, as though I'm not having anything to do with why the world appears to me the way it does. And so then I don't see any way out of it - my only choice is to try to 'cope' with it.
So if you think of the world as being like a mirror, in which you see reflected your own mind's content, you'll be basically looking at yourself everywhere you go. And by yourself I mean, your belief in whatever you think is true. Because whatever is 'true' for you, you take that as your identity and as your reality, regardless of whether it is actually true.
So your perception of the world is usually SUBJECTIVE, and limited, BUT you do not realize that you are being subjective and limiting in the way you're looking at what's there. You don't realize you're filtering OUT stuff because of the way that your idea of truth filters IN stuff. You select some attitudes or beliefs as 'correct' and others as 'incorrect' and all of that incorrect stuff ends up outside of your awareness - you make it unconscious through rejection and denial.
For example, if I choose to be loving, it is extraordinary that, all of a sudden, it seems like there aren't any reasons to be afraid. People seem less threatening. Life seems more fun. But if I don't be loving, I feel more afraid, and more threatened, and it really seems like other people are the cause of the threat - like they 'really are' being threatening. But them seeming to be that way and me experiencing fear go hand in hand... they go together.
What you experience in your perception is ALWAYS matched up to/aligned with what kind of a world you will see. If you are in fear, you can ONLY see a fear-inducing world. If you are in love, you can ONLY see a love-inducing world. And so if the world seems to suck, it's because you believe that you suck. Or rather, you believe in some things which suck but you think they don't suck.
And that's part of the trap. You can get lost in your narrow filtered perception, thinking you're really seeing everything there is to see, and that you're seeing correctly and clearly, when in fact you are majorly distorting and blocking out many parts of 'what is out there', because you're blocking it in your mind. When there are no blocks, you'll see 'the forgiven world', because you will have forgiven yourself. But when you haven't forgiven yourself, you will see a condemned world, because you have condemned yourself.
You'll notice then that whatever experience you're having of the world 'out there', it seems to 'call for' or directly map to certain 'reactions' of a given amount of severity. And when the world 'out there' seems to be intense and serious, you seem compelled to also have an intense serious reaction, because you always connect what you perceive out there with what's going on inside of you.
If the world out there seems to 'make a move' and do something to 'make' situations worse, your ego self is pulled right along with the story and down into the story, where YOU become the mirror of what's happened. And you have a severe reaction. Whereas when YOU decide to make a move, realizing that you are NOT seeing everything there is to see, that you are only seeing the past, and that everything that's happening right now is because of PAST decisions and the future DOES NOT have to be the same, now you are starting to step outside of your own 'reality bubble'. You can deliberately choose to accept more love into yourself, within, and therefore REVEAL to yourself more love without - which, by the way, was always there, just hidden.
The way that the out-there maps to the in-here is what sets up the "hierarchy of illusions". ie, varying kinds of inner and outer statements of truth cause reactions of equivalent amounts. It's almost like in the law of physics where each action has an equal and opposite reaction. Each external-seeming event produces an equal response in the ego within - because secretly, that's where it CAME FROM.
So be careful not to get stuck in thinking that you are being objective. The only objectivity is PURE LOVE. If you are not in pure total love, you are filtering reality and have blocked yourself from being aware that LOVE IS PRESENT. You do not see God because you think he is not there, and you think this is an objective fact, but the only reason you don't see God is because you do not believe God is in your mind. Your mental blocks to love cause the world outside of you to seem like a blocked, insane place.
It is extremely easy to get stuck in this, for example if you are afraid, you will perceive that the whole world 'really is' a fearful place, and that fear is JUSTIFIED because of the kind of world you see. But you don't realize that the fearful world you see is fearful BECAUSE you are being afraid. It did not cause the fear, it is a PROJECTION of the fear. A mirror. A reflection. So while you're having your insane nightmare, and really believe that bad stuff is happening outside you, it's because bad stuff is happening inside you. They go together hand in hand.
So you have to be willing to make a kind of leap of faith. The leap of faith says, maybe there is a greater reality, a greater truth, outside of what I currently believe, outside of my self-imposed prison, and outside of the condition of the world as I currently see it. Maybe there is are hidden parts to what's out there, that I don't currently see, because I am blocking it. And maybe, maybe God is out there, and maybe God is love, and maybe I am just not seeing and experiencing God's presence because I'm blocking it. Maybe BEHIND and BEYOND my blocks, love is still there, with me.
This is what faith is about... hurdling over the obstacles to peace and trusting that God is still love and you are still love regardless of how your perception CURRENTLY looks. It isn't about staying IN your current subjective perception and believing that it is objective reality or that you have to stay there, because in order to BECOME aware of God's love you must actually GO past those blocks and OPEN UP to the awareness that God really is present. And for that, you have to remove those blocks and filters from your mind, otherwise you simply cannot see Him right in front of your face.
God is right with you right now, smiling and happy. If you're not experiencing that, you've got some healing to do. The forgiven world is right in front of your face right now, filled with love and light, and if you're not seeing that, you've got some forgiving to do. Ultimately, you are still with God right now and the separation hasn't happened, and if you're not seeing that, you've got some undoing to do.
Be willing to be mistaken about how the world looks to you. You're not seeing it clearly unless you're seeing love.
So ultimately, when you are afraid, or you're struggling with the world in the way that the world 'is' (seems to be). .pause a moment and ask yourself, is it possible I am not seeing all of reality? Is it possible that my justification for being afraid or upset is actually CAUSING myself to see the world incorrectly and PRODUCING the justification? What if ... what if I choose instead to be more loving or truthful or authentic, and maybe keep my mind open to the possibility that WHEN I CHOOSE LOVE, I WILL SEE LOVE.
And when you do choose love, that love in you will shine away all of the fear and all of the seeming 'reasons' to be afraid. And all problems will melt. And you'll have no way to justify the ego, because all of its justifications only seem true from WITHIN it. Once you step outside of your private reality bubble, the ego is gone and there is NO REASON to be afraid or upset, because all that's left is God's love. When there is only love, and that is true for you, there is no reason to be afraid. Literally. There only seems to be reasons to be afraid when you are afraid. If you CHOOSE not to be afraid and to be love instead, all of the 'reasons' for fear will completely disappear from your awareness. They were just illusions.
So it takes a willingness to go beyond yourself, beyond your blocks and self-made limits, and to realize YOU ARE NOT STUCK because you have a CHOICE and if you exercise that choice and stop believing your own HALLUCINATIONS, and your own filtered version of reality, and realize that all your reactions TO it are PART OF you MAKING IT seem to be the way it is, you can make a LEAP into a more truthful, loving experience, in which you are absolutely safe because there is only love there.
There is no fear or danger or death in reality. There is no cause for alarm. There is only safety and love and peace. How else can God be constantly at peace if there were ever reasons to threaten that? God is the peace that God experiences. Herein lies the peace of God.
What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?
All this forgiveness offers you, and more. It sparkles in your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more.
Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up which hides the Face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind. What would you want forgiveness cannot give? What gifts but these are worthy to be sought? What fancied value, trivial effect, or transient promise never to be kept, can hold more hope than what forgiveness brings?
Why would you seek an answer other than the answer that will answer everything? Here is the perfect answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, half-hearted willingness to hear, and less than halfway diligence and partial trust. Here is the answer! Seek for it no more. You will not find another one instead.
God's plan for your salvation cannot change, nor can it fail. Be thankful it remains exactly as He planned it. Changelessly it stands before you, like an open door with warmth and welcome calling from beyond the doorway, bidding you to enter in, and make yourself at home where you belong.
Here is the answer! Would you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within? Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive. There is no plan but this for the salvation of the Son of God. Let us today rejoice that this is so, for here we have an answer, clear and plain, beyond deceit in its simplicity.
All of the complexities the world has spun of fragile cobwebs disappear before the power and the majesty of this extremely simple statement of the truth. Here is the answer! Do not turn away in aimless wandering again. Accept salvation now. It is the gift of God and not the world. The world can give no gifts of any value to a mind which has received what God has given as its own.
God wills salvation be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you. Open your eyes today, and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace. Forgiveness is the means by which it comes to take the place of hell. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. What you will remember then can never be described. Yet your forgiveness offers it to you.
Remembering the gifts forgiveness gives, we undertake our practicing today with hope and faith that this will be the day salvation will be ours. Earnestly and gladly will we seek for it today, aware we hold the key within our hands, accepting Heaven's answer to the hell we made, but where we would remain no more.
Morning and evening do we gladly give a quarter of an hour to the search in which the end of hell is guaranteed. Begin in hopefulness, for we have reached the turning point at which the road becomes far easier. And now the way is short that yet we travel. We are close indeed to the appointed ending of the dream.
Sink into happiness as you begin these practice periods, for they hold out the sure rewards of questions answered, and what your acceptance of the answer brings. Today it will be given you to feel the peace forgiveness offers, and the joy the lifting of the veil holds out to you.
Before the light you will receive today the world will fade until it disappears, and you will see another world arise you have no words to picture. Now we walk directly into light, and we receive the gifts which have been held in store for us since time began, kept waiting for today.
Forgiveness offers everything you want. Today all things you want are given you. Let not your gifts recede throughout the day, as you return again to meet a world of shifting change and bleak appearances. Retain your gifts in clear awareness as you see the changeless in the heart of change; the light of truth behind appearances.
Be tempted not to let your gifts slip by, and drift into forgetfulness but hold them firmly in your mind by your attempts to think of them at least a minute as each quarter of an hour passes by. Remind yourself how precious are these gifts with this reminder, which has power to hold your gifts in your awareness through the day:
"Forgiveness offers everything I want.
Today I have accepted this as true.
Today I have received the gifts of God."
When you are having true perception.... "M-8.6. The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be ***HEALED*** will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There ***will be those who seem to be "sicker"*** than others, and the *******body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before*******. 4 But ***the healed mind*** will put them all in one category; they are unreal.
5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories (false and true) are meaningful in ***sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world.*** (through the body's eyes) 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."
As you begin your journey towards truth and are using the body's eyes, which SEEM to see the physical world, but isn't REAL sight, and is actually a state of not seeing anything real, you start to open the spiritual eye and develop christ vision. The whole workbook is designed for the purpose of developing christ vision, which, by the way, entails the simultaneous use of the body's eyes to READ the workbook lessons ;-)
The body's eyes, made not to see, are always functioning as biological machinery in the same way. They are sense organs, which pick up photons of light which are DENIED by surfaces of objects, and bounce into your retina, sending "signals" of "images" into your mind. The eyeballs obviously do not see at all even at the physical level, they are just relays or sensors, which pick up light and transmit it to the brain, where the mind then "sees" the images. Only the mind really sees.
The thing is that, if you BELIEVE these images depict truth or reality, that you are seeing reality when you see physical objects, you are deluded IN your mind, and your MIND is having false perception. That is, your mind is believing in, investing in, and "making real", the images coming from the body's eyes. So now the body is fixed having false perceptions of an unreal world, it's trying to send these pictures to the mind and the mind is deciding one thing: "are these images real, or are they unreal?" "are they true, or false?".
So yes, you can continue to SEE THIS WORLD.... EITHER as "it is real" or as "it is unreal". It's not a matter of "do I see the world or not", at the level of perception. Perception EITHER sees the ILLUSORY WORLD and BELIEVES it is true (false perception), or it SEES the SAME illusory world and BELIEVES it is false (true perception). In both cases, the world IS SEEN STILL!! It's a dream! Either you are seeing the nightmare dream of false perception or the HAPPY DREAM. A happy dream is the illusory world RECOGNIZED as being UNREAL!!! You are happy BECAUSE You know it is BULLSHIT!!! How else COULD you be happy but to recognize that images of hell are NOT TRUE?
In order to come to realize that these images are false and unreal, that the physical world is an illusion, the mind has to learn to FORGIVE. "To forgive is to OVERLOOK". Through forgiveness, you train the mind to recognize illusions as illusions, to NOT believe they are real, and to NOT see value or truth in them. This results in the continual transmission of images into the mind by the body's eyes but when the mind looks AT these images, it learns to OVERLOOK the ILLUSIONS they are trying to present, the temptation, and the mind learns to CATEGORIZE ALL of these images as UNREAL. Yet, the mind STILL IS SEEING THEM. It simply shifts its vantage point and sense of TRUTH, to be able to discern that NONE of these images depict truth or reality.
Therefore Christ Vision is gradually developed in parallel to having body eyesight, and the more that you progress in forgiveness of ILLUSIONS, which means THE WORLD, the more your mind is able to recognize the world is FALSE, and the world now registers with you experientially as something false. You still SEE IT, but it doesn't seem believable. It doesn't strike you as "really happening". In this state, your mind can be SIGNIFICANTLY HEALED, and very very close to awakening, while STILL seeing simultaneously with the body's eyes.
So what now is happening is, your mind is being STILL presented with images of hell - physical world - which it can still see, but these images become so OVERLOOKED, that they start to become transparent as if you are literally looking THROUGH them rather than stopping at the surfaces. You start to glimpse the face of christ BEYOND the physical images, beyond the universe, beyond the body. And so now you are starting to see God "in everything you see" because you are seeing God BEYOND the physical illusion of objects.
In this state, you are a teacher of God, who is still in the world, having a body, SEEING WITH the body's eyes, AND simultaneously seeing with Christ Vision which OVERLOOKS what the body sees. In this state, it is TOTALLY NORMAL to be able to still see the bodies of other people, moving around, doing things in the physical world, while ALSO overlooking them and recognizing them as unreal. Since the body's eyes do not "Switch off" at this point, it's kind of like you're getting bombarded with images of hell at the same time as trying to approach heaven. And so you have to learn to NOT BELIEVE what the eyes are showing you. BUT YOU DO STILL SEE IT "mixed in" with your Christ vision.
Jesus speaks of this again in this statement:
"M-12.6. Oneness and sickness cannot coexist. 2 God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. 3 It is a conscious choice. 4 For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. 5 The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? 6 Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. 7 They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. 8 Yet they are not deceived by what they see. 9 They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. 10 Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. 11 And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."
Notice how it says that such persons are AWARE of dreaming, which means they can SEE the dream world - the physical world. Notice how it says THEY WATCH DREAM FIGURES come and go, shift and change, AND ... SUFFER AND DIE! All seen from A HEALED MIND!!! They CAN SEE bodies being sick, they CAN SEE "people" suffering, they CAN SEE DEATH, EVEN THOUGH they themselves are having a very healed mind, a very "sick free" mind, which does NOT BELIEVE IN sickness, and IS NOT PROJECTING SICKNESS ONTO OTHERS. And this is because the body is still dangling in front of the mind picking up signals from the dream world. The body will continue showing the mind pictures of sickness and death EVEN IF the mind does not believe in sickness and death. The result is that the images are SEEN, but they are NOT BELIEVED. They register as UNREAL, FALSE, NOT TRUE. It's a shift in vantage point which makes the whole world be RECOGNIZED as an illusion, instead of BELIEVED to be real.
In this state, it is perfectly possible for a teacher of God to be "in the world but not of it". To walk around the Earth, seeing bodies still, but overlooking them as well. Seeing people with broken legs, severe diseases, missing organs and so on, or even states of death. But the miracle worker in their right mind DOES NOT BELIEVE any of these things are true of any brothers, and they do not AGREE WITH what those brothers ARE BELIEVING about themselves and their bodies. The brothers ARE recognized as calling for love, since it is forgiving to recognize this and not that punishment is real, and as such there is EFFORTLESS perception of the "need" that people SEEM to have. And that means, you recognize who is viable as a recipient of A MIRACLE. It means you CAN SEE A CALL FOR HELP.
This combination of body vision and christ vision is precisely why JESUS was able to walk the Earth, SEE people sick and dying, and DO SOMETHING. He could tell that someone's body was showing up to his mind as "it is in the form of sickness", EVEN THOUGH he did not BELIEVE in sickness being TRUE. He did not merely "switch off" the ability to SEE the body at all, at that point. He did not have a state of "if I see sickness, I am sick". You have to remember there are TWO functions of seeing happening at once. In His mind, in his Christ Vision, he OVERLOOKED the sick body and it registered to him as NOT REAL. But in his body vision he could still SEE the state the body was in. And this is how he was able to SEE, those who were suffering and sick, even though HIS MIND did not believe the images he was seeing. HE was not sick. HE was not projecting sickness. HE was not MAKING people be sick. He knew the were not REALLY sick. But he also knew he could SEE that THEY believed they were suffering. So he HELPED THEM!
This is precisely the scenario that sets up a foundation for being a MIRACLE WORKER. Because now a teacher of God is HEALED, and yet CAN SEE those who are NOT healed. The teacher of God now has an abundance of love, while recognizing that those whose dream bodies still seem to suffer, are SEEMING to LACK love, and are "in need". That they are, from their own perspectives as individuals, suffering. Their minds are sick, their bodies are sick. And this establishes the dynamic where the miracle worker IS HEALED, but OTHERS ARE NOT. Thus, "Miracles supply a lack". and "Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more, to those who temporarily have less." It would be absolutely impossible to EVER be in a situation where you HAVE MORE, while others HAVE LESS, if the commonly-held mistaken view of how perception works were correct. And it would VIOLATE numerous miracle principles.
See, this is how most people think of perception, and it's wrong... the idea that "I have perception", it's one thing, it looks upon the world, and "I need to shift it". And the idea that projection makes perception, implying that whatever I see, I am putting there. So now it's like, my perception was aiming at hell, because I was putting hell there, and I need to redirect it towards heaven, so that I will perceive heaven and NOT SEE HELL at all. This is a big problem. Because if that's your model of perception, it means you become BLIND TO what is happening in the world as soon as you no longer believe in it. So like, if you stop believing sickness is real, in this model, you would literally expect to not be able to SEE anything that is sick, ever again. And this would imply, if you see sickness, YOU are sick, or you are attacking, or you are trying to make your brother be sick. That their sickness is your sickness. And this essentially makes you TOTALLY INCAPABLE of seeing whether or not your brother is in need of help.
Also in this broken model, it results in a situation where there is total inner and outer equality between what you believe and what you see. Therefore, you will assert that the outward picture (equated also with what the body sees) matches my inner condition and the world is like a mirror. So I see only myself. I'm all that exists (narcissistic, selfish). And thus you can never be in a position where "you have more" and someone else "has less". It means thus you never see any reason to help or heal or supply a lack for others, because you think "their sickness" is just a reflection of "your sickness." You think if you see sickness at all (e.g. broken leg), YOU must be making it be broken, and you need the healing, and no-one else needs anything. This is in TOTAL DENIAL of the way the body's sight functions continually in parallel to spiritual sight.
This is a very prevalent belief about how perception works, and it is totally bullshit. Or rather, it's only one half of the picture. It leads to a justification for NOT PERFORMING ANY MIRACLES FOR OTHERS. It completely WIPES OUT, the entire situation where miracles given to others could EVER be seen as "needed" or "making sense" to "called for", because the person now thinks that all they see is themselves. That the whole world is their own self. This thus becomes SELFISH. And it cancels the entire practice of miracle working in the world. It completely obliterates any reason why you would be able to SEE the "call for love" of another, yet alone giving a reason to respond to it. And this model of perception is treasured by those who do not want to work any miracles ever. It is a miracle-fearing, course denying paradigm of a mistaken understanding of how perception functions.
There is SOME truth to this false model, in the sense that it IS describing the transition from false perception to true perception. It is describing the healing of the BELIEF IN sickness being real or true. It IS a movement towards healed perception and christ vision. It IS the opening up to forgiveness and the overlooking of illusions and lies. It is recognizing the you DO project stuff onto others and see it. And it recognizes that YOUR MIND DOES need healing when you see illusions AS REAL. But that's a far cry from believing that you must not see the world AT ALL in order to be healed, which denies what the body's eyes are doing. It is taken in isolation to mean, THE BODY STOPS SEEING ANYTHING, or that, you will see through the body's eyes and NOT SEE AND BROKEN BODIES, with is totally a level confusion. It completely IGNORES and shuts out the FACT, that the body's eyes CONTINUE to send images from the physical world into the mind, right up until the atonement is accepted and you leave the world behind.
The result is that the body still sees "the veil", which is the physical world, while the mind is overlooking those images and seeing THROUGH them to the light of heaven BEYOND the physical. In that state, let's say the veil/body images are registering with 1% visibility and perception of heaven is registering at 99% visibility. You DO transition from one to the other, but body vision does NOT END until christ vision is TOTALLY 100% PERFECTED. seen.9
The result is that the body still sees "the veil", which is the physical world, while the mind is overlooking those images and seeing THROUGH them to the light of heaven BEYOND the physical. In that state, let's say the veil/body images are registering with 1% visibility and perception of heaven is registering at 99% visibility. You DO transition from one to the other proportionately, linearly, because "you cannot see two worlds", but body vision does NOT END until christ vision is TOTALLY 100% PERFECTED. Meaning you're going to HAVE TO still keep seeing the physical world UNTIL you are practically ready to ascend to heaven.
WHEN Christ vision is absolutely complete, the face of Christ appears. That means, heaven becomes "visible". And it also means, Earth become "invisible." Literally. If you look upon the face of christ it should last merely an instant before God takes you to Heaven. The forgiven world has disappeared from your sight. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." And then perception ends entirely, the body's vision ceases to send anything to the mind, because the mind is now free of bodies forever. And that's what it means to be 100% spirit identified. And ONLY THEN, when you no longer HAVE A BODY AT ALL, ONLY then do you no longer have a PERCEPTION with which to see the illusory world of hell and death.
UNTIL THAT HAPPENS, you WILL continue receiving images from the body's vision! You WILL continue being able to see bodies in various states of health. YOU WILL be able to discern "who" is calling out for love and who isn't. Who is SICK, and who isn't. Who is DEAD, and who isn't. Who is mistaken and delusional and who isn't. But your mind will recognize these things are not REAL. The people BEING sick DO think it is real, but you do not agree with them. And this is how you are able to set them free and weaken their belief. This is how you are able to PERFORM MIRACLES IN THE WORLD. To help others, to heal the sick, to raise the dead. To let the Holy Spirit USE YOUR BODY'S EYES for HIS PURPOSES! Because he is very much ready and willing and desiring to PERFORM MIRACLES IN THE WORLD TO HEAL THOSE WHO ARE IN THE WORLD. And that DOES include healing of sickness in mind AND body!!
Only when you ascend to heaven and leave the body entirely will you cease to be able to see the suffering of others in this world. And until then, you are to be a miracle worker. And if you're not doing that, you're in denial and being selfish.
Should you change the world?
There are many parts of ACIM which SEEM to suggest you should not. Such as:
"Seek not to change the world, but seek to change your mind about the world."
Also Jesus tells us we need to correct the real cause of suffering in our mind, in our perception, in order to truly heal it.
Some say that this might possibly lead to a "side effect" of the body being healed, or it might not. Which is wishy-washy bullshit.
Let's break it down.
If you believe this world is reality, and as a world it sucks big time, and you hate it, and its insane, and you think it's "really insane" as in, it actually IS, then YOU have a problem in your mind because you're not seeing correctly. The world is an ILLUSION!
If the world is real to you, then you've mistaken illusions for the truth. You've given reality to illusions. And now when you see an illusion of a "bad world", you're going to react to it with despair, depression and hopelessness, only because you think it is REAL and not because of its form.
If you then seek to change the world to "look better" AS a real world, which is what happens when most people try to change the world, you're actually going to KEEP the belief you have that this world is reality. You will move the furniture around, maybe to some configuration you prefer temporarily, with tradeoffs, but it's not necessarily going to give you real lasting happiness. It will give you a temporary illusion of happiness which is dependent on the world, and it will change on you.
There is a different way to change the world. Perhaps we should say, to TRANSLATE or TRANSFORM the world.
When you withdraw your belief that this illusory world is reality, and you stop taking it seriously, and stop reacting to errors, sins and sickness as though they're real, you will be much happier. You will know there is not REALLY any reason to be upset, that the world is not REALLY bad, and it's not REALLY anything. This will alleviate all possible reasons for upset.
From that vantage point you will see the "forgiven world", which you will be OVERLOOKING, to Christ's face which is beyond form.
You will also be miraculous, and with the power of God, you WILL have access to be able to "change the world" in any way that is appropriate. Albeit that perhaps it would need to be a) inspired by love, b) in alignment with Jesus's plan of atonement/awakening, and c) for the good of all.
Just as Jesus performs intercessions/interventions by way of MIRACLES, so can you, and you may well bring about "changes" in the world as a result. You may well seem to make the world a happier place, not because its FORM is better, but because there is healing taking place. People are waking up to the truth, miracles are educating about God's reality, and belief is shifting away from illusions. That's a helpful way to change the world.
Thus it's not then so much about to staying IN the world and fixing it up and making it all pretty and real, but more to do with you converting it to an illusory yet more tolerable "happy dream", which smooths the way to awakening and eases suffering and gently helps you and others to return to God. This "use of the world" for awakening is a better purpose than to try to "use the world" to produce a "real world" that is considered better than the old one.
There's nothing wrong with you changing the illusion. Jesus did it many times. Every miracle does it. Miracles rearrange space and time. Jesus tells us its a device for the manipulation of time (and space)! Why not ease the nightmare and lift some burdens lovingly so that people can see EXAMPLES and DEMONSTRATIONS of right-minded thinking, the truth of God's kingdom, the POTENTIAL of awakening, and the FREEDOM that is everyone's right!
The purpose then isn't to change the world for the world's sake, but to change the world to help people wake up from the world and return to reality.
As you attempt to get rid of parts of yourself that you do not like, such as parts that you have condemned as sinful and guilty, you will gradually be running out of Self to get rid of.
Yet, trying to keep only the good parts and get rid of the bad parts appears to make you seem like an increasingly good person. And that's because you're progressively denying more and more that there is any bad stuff in you.
If your strategy is to become more innocent by denying your own belief that there's unlovability in you, and if the only way to get rid of those unlovable parts is to unlove them even more, pretty soon you're going to be perfecting your innocence. And that really means, you will find that there is none of you left to BE innocent.
This attempt at denial and suppression of your belief in your sinfulness, will eventually put so much self-hate into your unconscious that it will erupt into consciousness and be perceived as an attack. You won't be able to keep it concealed forever, and the more you censor yourself the more you'll feel threatened by anything that lets the hate leak out.
This is the ego's strategy for finding a way to prove that you're innocent. It logically concludes that if it can isolate outside conscious awareness all of the stuff about you which is less than innocent and good, and if nobody (including you) ever sees the bad parts, then you'll finally be recognized as innocent.
And conveniently you'll find lots of opportunities to project and blame the relegated self-hatred in yourself onto others, giving you yet another way to displace your sinfulness and get rid of it. Or at least you believe you're getting rid of it, when in fact you are just lost in a private world where your unloved parts are at war with your acceptable parts.
Eventually the end of the war will only happen when you run out of goodness, because the ego suspiciousness will always undermine the potential for you to be truly good. Good is never good enough, and your efforts to people-please will always make you suffer. Your attempt to wear a mask of innocence is actually an attempt to destroy you, because it creates in your mind the very toxic enemy - your own hated self - which will haunt you incessantly.
There is no real escape in this arrangement. There is no real way to be free of guilt without self-sacrifice. There is no way you can truly be free of it without dying. And this is why you see death as a logical and worthwhile conclusion to your efforts at being "good" all the time. Being good, in denial of being bad, leads to death and is a choice to die.
It is a choice to die because feeding your persona and trying to *pretend* that you don't believe in your own guilt is diminishing what's left of you. Pretty soon you'll run out of anything that's good enough about you, and meanwhile your hated self will be making plans for your funeral.
While sin and guilt are real, or true of you, there is no escape. While you believe in them, you will try to cut off parts of yourself that you deem the locations of that sinfulness, and attack it to try to get rid of it. You will attack it with denial and disassociation as well as hate.
The only true escape for you is to learn that you have not really sinned and that guilt is therefore never justified. When you can see that you must be innocent because you did not sin "in reality", you no longer need to try to make yourself be innocent in the face of sin being real. Instead, you are simply innocent because there is no real sin. And this is forgiveness, and it is also the atonement.
So either you will use the ego's strategy to make you innocent, which will kill you, or you will use the Holy Spirit's strategy to make you innocent, which will save your life.
Sometimes in the heat of conversations, people throw forth the "you'd rather be right than happy" quote. Funnily enough this quote is usually given by someone trying to be right. ;-)
Anyway, what is this "being right" thing? It begins when someone believes they are wrong, ie guilty of something. The wrongfulness is projected. You accuse your brother of your own belief in your own sinfulness. And before you know it, you're trying to defend yourself against what appears to be something wrong outside of you. Being right "against" another is actually your split mind trying to be right against itself, by making itself wrong.
There is lack of a desire to admit to doing this, because the "righteousness" is a form of denial, actually an attempt to suppress and cover up the sense of guilt and sin or "wrongfulness" within. To admit that you believe you are wrong seems hurtful. Trying to cover this over with "the face of innocence" seems to allow you to portray yourself as not wrong. And of course this requires finding someone else to put the sin onto. If you look you'll notice you more often project wrongfulness when you're feeling unhappy to begin with.
Those who are right, therefore, believe they are wrong, and are projecting their wrongfulness. When a person admits to this, and goes deeper to realize they are not truly wrong, ie not guilty or sinful, it alleviates the need to project the wrongfulness onto others. And thus the need to be seen as the one who is right or "not guilty" disappears also.
The interesting thing is that when someone is not believing they are wrong, genuinely, they have no problem admitting to being mistaken or wrong. It doesn't matter, because they know they are not wrong, in the psychological sense. They know they are innocent. They don't have any guilt to hide or project. And so there's no need to "be right" to cover it up. They laugh at suggestions they are wrong because they know they are not wrong. But the opposite of being wrong isn't bright right, it's being correct.
When you are correct, you are accurate in your acceptance of what is true. When you are correct, you are not mistaken. In your correctness you are not deceived or in denial or needing to be right or wrong. You are above both righteousness and wrongfulness. In this state, it is possible to be correct on a matter, without necessarily being "right" about it. You can be correct without ego attachment. You can be correct without it entailing some form of guilt projection. And you can be correct without feeling a need to defend an ego position.
Someone pointing out that you are seeming to be right by putting forth something which is correct, is mistaken in their evaluation of what you're doing. There's a distinct difference between presenting something which is truthful and correct, versus presenting it at the same time as having a need to project wrongfulness, or as part of an attack, or to use it as a weapon of guilt. You can be very correct without it entailing any kind of righteousness at all. And of course that means you are not really "attached" to whether this correctness is recognized by or accepted by others at all. It has nothing to do with others, because the inner peace is being projected, not sin.
You can be happy and be correct. You can be happy and assert correctness. You can also be happy and defend a position. It has nothing to do with whether you are psychologically having a bad day or feeling irritable or wanting to blame someone. There is a difference between what is true and what's happening in the mind simultaneous to that truth being presented. You can also be happy and incorrect, without it in any way meaning you are sinful or wrong.
Is this entire post an attempt to be right? Hmmmm. Maybe.
I've come up with a new model of ACIM which promises to resolve numerous contradictions and potentially unite the two major camps: those who believe they can experience heaven while in the dream, and those who believe heaven is elsewhere.
In this model, think of "the world you made" as a room with no windows, like a prison cell. You are currently in the room, perceiving the inside walls of the room. This is "false perception". Everything inside that room is false. "The world is false perception." You are blinded by perception of form and cannot see past the walls.
As you develop true perception, the walls start to become TRANSPARENT, and you start to see BEYOND them. You are IN the world, SEEING THROUGH IT, to something OUTSIDE it. This is what it means to OVERLOOK ie forgive the world. By forgiving the FALSE world, you become able to SEE the TRUE world. The true world is Heaven. Heaven is outside of the room. But you can SEE IT, from inside the room, using perception. True perception/christ vision is CAPABLE OF SEEING REALITY.
This is backed up by statements such as "God is in everything I see", that you can "see the son of God", having a "vision of God", "see the face of Christ", etc. To be able to SEE these things, you MUST be seeing reality directly with perception. Which means you are inside the dream, peering OUTSIDE OF IT from the inside out.
This also entails a major adjustment to older models. "The real world" is a synonym for HEAVEN. It is correctly labelled as REAL because it is real. When you PERCEIVE "the real world" you are literally perceiving heaven. This is also backed up by statements saying it is only possible to SEE what REALLY EXISTS, which MUST mean it is reality you are seeing.
Perception CAN SEE REALITY. But you have to also remember that "perception is a separated state". Therefore perception is happening FROM INSIDE the dream of separation, LOOKING AT WHAT'S OUTSIDE OF IT. When you are NOT blinded by the WALLS of the dream world, you have true perception. When you cannot see PAST the illusions of form, you have false perception.
We also have to remember a couple of key facts.
1. Perception of the truth is not the same as knowledge. That means you can perceive heaven, but this perception is kind of an "image" of heaven. A vision. This perception is not the same thing as being IN heaven. It is not cognition or knowledge or certainty or communion. But, it's kind of like window shopping. You are on the street (in the false physical world of false perception), looking through the window of the Kingdom of God (overlooking the world, forgiving the world, seeing beyond the veil), and are looking INTO or AT the contents of the Kingdom (seeing the face of Christ).
2. It is necessary to still accept that the FALSE world IS AN ILLUSION. The physical world. "The world of bodies is the world of sin" "The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it" "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came" "There is no world" etc are all STILL TRUE of this world of forms, bodies, planets. "The world is false perception" means that if you LOOK AT THIS WORLD, you are having false perception. And that means you have to LOOK AWAY FROM this world, and look AT HEAVEN.
This is also totally backed up by statements about not being able to see two worlds. There ARE two worlds. Heaven/reality, and the illusory world. Sight of one costs you sight of the other because they deny each other. This does not mean TWO VIEWS OF THIS WORLD. It means if you see this world in ANY way you are having false perception, and sight of THIS world is costing you sight OF HEAVEN. Heaven is ANOTHER WORLD. And in order for this world to disappear from your sight, heaven must BECOME VISIBLE.
This is also totally backed up by the fact that The Holy Spirit loves to LOOK UPON CHRIST. He is using PERCEPTION, to look AT CHRIST. Christ in IN HEAVEN! The Holy Spirit is having true perception OF CHRIST IN HEAVEN. That proves that true perception MUST be capable of breaking out of the physical world, looking beyond the veil of forms (wall of sin), and must be cable of looking direct AT REALITY. At Christ. Who is in heaven.
There are a number of statements in the course which previously alluded to being able to perceive holiness, reality, christ, god etc from INSIDE the dream. And some people latched on this since it correlated to their experience and much of what happens in the workbook, and it SEEMED to imply that God must somehow be able to be SEEN from within this world. There is validity in those statements (e.g. God is in everything I see etc), BUT the conclusion drawn from that is a polarized ego conclusion based on thinking of THE ROOM (the world you made) as being REAL. AS if to say, perception ABOUT the inside of the room can change from false to true, in order to try to make sense of the seeming references to SEEING real stuff. But that was a false conclusion based on exclusive boxes.
Also in the old models people often thought of "the real world" as a reference to some kind of in-between state, still illusory (thus inappropriately named) and NOT the same thing as reality itself. I suggest that is wrong, and that HEAVEN is a the actual "real world". When we have perceptions OF "the real world", we are seeing HEAVEN ITSELF. We are looking OUTSIDE OF the dream, from the inside. This is also backed up by the fact there is a quote about the real world which speaks of there being no bodies, no streets and stores, no day and night (no sun) etc... which is accurate of HEAVEN. The IMAGE of the real world that perception SEES, is SEEING heaven, and the IMAGE is an illusion, but the world it is looking AT is reality!
This is also then helps us to see that not only can you LOOK OUTSIDE OF THE DREAM from the inside, but also the LIGHT OF HEAVEN can shine INTO or upon the dream from the outside in. And that TOO is backed up by various quotes. Heaven is spread across the world but you do not see it etc. The world seems to become holy. You shine your light upon the world by "reflecting it here" within yourself, etc. Because the CEILING on top of the room, is only SOLID when you have false perception. The ceiling becomes TRANSPARENT when you have true perception, allowing you to SEE OUT (like a window onto reality), AND allowing the light to PENETRATE the world. This is part of how "eternity will shine away the world." When we think of the separation between heaven and earth as SOLID we arrive at a false conclusion that you cannot experience God AT ALL in the world, which is incorrect.
A forgiven world, similarly, must be correctly understood. "To forgive is to overlook" Overlooking THE FALSE WORLD, "the world is false perception", means overlooking the PHYSICAL WORLD, overlooking bodies ("you're brother's reality is beyond his body"), "forgiveness does not look upon bodies" etc... and therefore to FORGIVE the world, does not mean keep LOOKING AT IT in a more loving way. It means to OVERLOOK it, see PAST it, and LOOK AT HEAVEN. The reality of heaven is what true perception (spiritual sight) sees. It is a perception of SPIRIT. And this means the physical veil of illusions, wall of sin, wall of flesh etc all has to VANISH from your sight. This happens when you SEE CHRIST (face of christ). The world is FORGOTTEN.
That's what it means to forgive the world. It means to RECOGNIZE the WORLD IS FALSE. And to put ALL of your attention ON REALITY. To look AT reality, bypassing this world and seeing the truth which is BEYOND IT. And that means what you are "falling in love with" as you wake up, isn't the FALSE world, it's HEAVEN! You are starting to become able to SEE REALITY, and it is WHERE the beauty, light, and love are. Your ability to SEE IT, "in" the world, overlaid on the world, is what makes the world seem lovely. But it is HEAVEN that you are in love with, not an illusory world of forms. Proven here:
"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while (the false world/physical world)...The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are?...Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die.Yet they are ***not deceived by what they see*** (not tempted, not believing in the world)....Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as ***behind the dream***, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."
Unity, is reality. Unity, is heaven. Unity is the ACTUALLY REAL WORLD of Heaven. The Kingdom of God. Which is BEHIND the dream world. The dream world is FALSE, as in there is no world. EVERYTHING in the physical world is false. It is all illusion. You are not supposed to try to make it real and keep it and dress it up and turn it into heaven. It is a veil of illusions. It is NOTHING. You are meant to learn to STOP BEING DISTRACTED BY IT, and LOOK AT SOMETHING ELSE. Look at ANOTHER WORLD entirely. You are in THIS world, and have to learn to SEE ANOTHER WORLD BEYOND IT.
So the model is quite simple. You're in a seemingly solid room with no windows. You gradually learn to LOOK THROUGH THE WALLS, and start to see ANOTHER WORLD outside of the room. When the walls become totally transparent you will SEE CHRIST and will SEE GOD "in" everything you see (beyond it, not hidden by it), and then ..... when you are ready, you will GET OUT OF THE ROOM. Leaving the room is what takes you BEYOND THE WALLS, and immerses you directly in the REAL WORLD OF HEAVEN that you were SEEING WITH PERCEPTION prior to awakening. You first window shop and SEE reality, then you go BE IN IT. "Gone is perception". And of course there is no real "going" because you simply realize YOU ARE EVERYWHERE and have always BEEN in heaven, and THE ROOM DOES NOT EXIST. The world is gone, reality is your home.
I believe this far more accurately encapsulates what ACIM is saying. I believe there is not one single quote which speaks against this from any perspective. Especially, this BRINGS HEAVEN CLOSER to those who are IN the dream (room), because it means even while you are dreaming, you can to some degree EXPERIENCE heaven through perception. You can SEE HEAVEN while in a body. BUT.... if you want to be totally immersed in it, you have to leave the body, leave the false world, leave the room, and become expanded everywhere. "Heaven is the dwelling place of the son of God." "There is no world."
It still accounts for the two levels which are Reality and Unreality, true and false, light and dark, heaven and hell, God's world and the world you made. These ARE the two levels, not "two ways to perceive a false world." It still incorporates all aspects of perceiving in recognizing that false perception is an inability to see past walls, while true perception overlooks walls and sees what is beyond them. It supports everything said about the ability to SEE REAL STUFF. "Perception can reach everywhere under the guidance of the holy spirit" (even to reality).
It also supports the EXPERIENCES people have had (me included) IN this world such as having visions of God, seeing Christ in others, SEEING love everywhere, etc. AND it still supports the larger model that we are to WAKE UP FROM some kind of dream world to a reality that were were becoming gradually aware of prior to awakening. You can essentially PERCEIVE or "perceptually experience" reality while in a body in this world. BUT if you want the TOTAL communion with God, knowledge, absolute wakening, total reality, WITHOUT perception (because "those who perceive still need healing"), you have to TRANSCEND THE ROOM, and wake up in infinite reality. "Nothing seen, only know." Because then, you no longer have perception, nor do you need it.
Have a think about it. Open your mind. Put aside "traditional" ACIM models. Consider this. I think it unites the two camps quite a lot and it also is wholly inclusive of ALL ACIM STATEMENTS, something which could not be said for the older models. It has to be possible to SEE reality (God/Christ). It HAS to be possible to see what is ACTUALLY the REAL world (heaven). And it HAS to be possible that the world of false perception disappear when ANOTHER world becomes visible. And it has to be possible that there IS another world entirely BEYOND the one that false perception sees. And that means the world you see with true perception is BEYOND this world. It is heaven. It is the Kingdom of God. And "you cannot remain in this world (false world), with this knowledge."
I know this shakes up a LOT of what people have become accustomed to thinking. And I've had to let go of many of my own conclusions in order to get to this. I had made adjustments, justifications, and false conclusions in order to try to make things "fit" before and I see now where that was flawed because it omitted too many quotes and ways of perceiving love and reality while still in a body. I encourage everyone to think about this and see if you feel that it fits and works for you. If not, that's fine. But for me I feel this is the most accurate model of the course I've ever seen. It is so clear-cut and makes so much sense and supports everything.
Time and eternity are opposites. The eternal is always existing, always is here and now, and is forever. There is no beginning or end. There is never a possibility of change, or of what has always existed ceasing to exist. There is no death, and only eternal life is real.
Time is an attack on eternity. It is the idea that what has always existed no longer exists, what is here now is not eternal, and what is here now will end. It is the idea of change, and of the idea of loss and therefore death. It is an attempt to insert a delay in eternity and to crease a distance from the here and now. It is avoidance of presence and avoidance of God.
Spacetime is a completely artificial construct and is completely false and unreal. It is nothing like eternity and has no permanent reality. It had a seeming beginning and it absolutely will have a seeming end. Endless time is an impossibility. Infinite time is an impossibility. Time is not real, and neither is space. Delay or distance from the ever-present unceasing and forever permanence of God is nothing more than denial.
Space is an attack on the ever-present existence of God. It suggests that God who is everywhere always, is nowhere ever. That nothing is ever whole, or wholly existing. That what is here is not there, and what is there is not here. That everything is limited and nothing is unlimited. That everything is separate and nothing shares anything.
Given that God is everywhere always, space attacks God by suggesting that there is nowhere that everything exists. And nothing exists everywhere. Meaning the everything exists nowhere, and God therefore does not exist. This is why in spacetime it appears that God has no existence whatsoever. It is false and untrue and completely opposite to reality. Both space and time are nothing but a false belief, believed by insane minds, dreaming of exile from the eternity of truth.
"Ultimately, of course, space is as meaningless as time. The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF. The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. As long as man KNEW he did not need anything, the whole device was unnecessary." UrT1B41AR
"Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time. A timelessness in which is time made real; a Part of God Which can attack Itself; a separate brother as an enemy; a mind WITHIN a body; all are forms of circularity, whose ending starts at its beginning, ending at its cause." UrT27I6
"Today the light has come. And you will see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is the end of time ensured." UrW75L7
"So do the parts of God's Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of time brought nearer." UrT2F1 "And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time." UrU5A5
"the Holy Spirit KNOWS it is not true. He stands at the end of time, where YOU must be, because He is WITH you." UrT11J8 "And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever." UrU5A7
We need to learn to stop treating fear like it's just some kind of natural phenomenon, or a normal response, or some aspect of a biological flight-or-fight mechanism, or something that protects us from danger, or any of the other bullshit explanations for fear.
We actually need to question what fear is doing and why it is doing it, and where it's really coming from. It's all too easy to simply "be afraid", to experience the fear, without any kind of questioning of whether the fear is natural or needed or well founded.
Fear is the opposite of love. You can't be loving when you're afraid. Which would you rather be, loving or afraid? Which one is a more truth-filled experience?
It's one thing to become afraid and to think, well, I'm afraid "because of" a big long random list of outside influences that you think cause the fear. And to then be locked inside that perception with no apparent way out of it, since you believe that you are not the one who is choosing the fear at all.
But we can't do that. We have to bring fear into question, because fear is actually untruth. It is always a lie. There is never any good reason to be afraid. Fear is never justified. And fear is always a deceptive ego mechanism for making your situation worse.
We have to look at our "fearing" and take some responsibility for generating this condition. We have to be willing to admit that we are the ones who have actually created fear. We keep making it. We keep putting it in our experience. We keep choosing it. And we keep using it ON PURPOSE to play the part of victim so that we can get some side-benefits.
Fear allows us to disown responsibility. It allows us to seemingly shield ourselves from guilt. It lets us pretend that someone else is at fault. It allows us to label others as enemies and project guilt onto them. It lets us hide from God. It lets us have a separate identity that God did not create. And it allows us to pursue our 'dream' of being an individual. These are quite significant reasons for fear that we need to look at and own up to if we're to live a life without fear.
Is it possible to live with no fear? To be 100% fearless? Not like, some idiot that is over-confident and reckless and putting on a show of bravado while being secretly insecure... but the complete absence of all fear, and therefore, only the presence of unconditional love at all times? A love that is so certain and so secure that within it there can be no reason for fear? And no desire to choose it. Of course it is possible, as Jesus has demonstrated.
So don't think fear is just some natural biological or human thing. It's not. It's a state of mental illness. It is insanity. And it is a game that we keep playing with ourselves to pretend we're not who we are. There are some very sneaky reasons for having fear, and none of them are honest or truthful.
So when Jesus says "be not afraid", he isn't just saying, don't freak out when I appear out of nowhere, He's saying, stop choosing fear and recognize that love is the only reality. He's not telling us to be brave in the face of danger, he's telling us there IS no danger. And that any efforts we're making to go into fear without questioning it, are really a deception on our part. We don' need to be afraid because only love is real.
Through struggles with being shy and sensitive and antisocial and so on, I gradually have realized that there is something fundamentally "estranging" about people's bodies.
When I go out and I see people's physical bodies, there is a fundamental disconnect. There's my body over here and this big gap between and their body over there - it is just experienced when taken at face value as a separation - a gaping divide between individuals, making us seem remote and distant and unlike each other.
Just the mere fact that their body has "differences" or seems like a wall of solid flesh, all by itself, IS a "form" of MAKING it seem as though the person is different to me and therefore IS NOT ME, and therefore there is some kind of separation or rift between us.
People in bodies seem confined and isolated and cut off from each other. It's as if we are supposed to be joined and sharing in the same place together, but instead, there is a huge distance physically between us, yet alone the fact that they are imprisoned in a physical form which they wear like a suit of isolation, which keeps them in and keeps me out.
I always thought there was something majorly wrong with me that I could not relate or connect with people. That communication was fundamentally difficult. That I feared strangers and was put off by appearances. I thought that I just wasn't good at it or there was something I just wasn't cut out to do.
But now I see that in fact, bodies are part of the ego's DEVICE to try to ENFORCE separation, by identifying brothers as strangers, with significant illusions of differences in appearance, in order to portray us as UNRELATED and isolated from each other. It's written into the physical form ITSELF. This was the purpose of the body.
So now I can cut myself a bit of slack, that my difficulty connecting with people isn't just about me as such. The physicality of bodies is a severe limit imposed on communication by the belief in separation.
Brothers/souls are supposed to commune with each other fully and share space and overlap each other in unity. Bodies were made to isolate and to stop us from connecting with each other.
The challenge as I see it now isn't so much learning how to relate to bodies better, but how to see PAST bodies to the person WITHIN, to the soul, the christ, the real person hidden underneath the illusion of form, to connect with their MIND, and to share love with them that BYPASSES the physical in order to bring about healing and the UNDOING of bodies.
It entails learning that people are not bodies. Bodies are fundamentally AGAINST communication unless used PURELY for communication mind-to-mind (temporarily), and therefore I need to learn to interact with brothers/souls with love and really thoroughly learn to look PAST (forgive) all illusory appearances of body forms. To relate soul-to-soul and heart-to-heart and mind-to-mind, not form-to-form.
Bodies are illusions. They are not people. They are also not sick on their own. They are not the thing that needs healing as such. The body does seem sick but it's a *secondary* sickness - the "original" sickness (in mind) is hidden behind appearances. I had been targeting healing at body parts only for Jesus to remind me that the person is not a body... making me realize I was aiming the healing at entirely the wrong target, lol. People are not bodies. "I am not a body, I am free". Tough lesson. Long lesson. But I'm getting there.
What appears to be strangers, are in fact brothers in disguise.
The holy spirit is not a metaphor, or an idea, or a concept, or a fiction, or just part of your own mind. He is an eternal, immortal spirit being. He is also a creator. Just as much real as you are.
"The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is eternal and has never changed."
In fact, Jesus tells us that we are part of the Holy Spirit, as much as He is part of us. He shares himself with each of us just as much as we each share ourselves with each other. This does not make him literally "our own self".
"This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him."
The holy spirit existed before Jesus accepted atonement and exists forever.
"He has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out His plan."
"The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit long before Jesus set it in motion."
The holy spirit is a bridge across the gap of separation who remains permanently aware of God and permanently aware of your connection to him. He is the answer to separation and the bringer of salvation.
"The Holy Spirit is described as the remaining Communication Link between God and His separated Sons. In order to fulfill this special function the Holy Spirit has assumed a dual function. He knows because He is part of God; He perceives because He was sent to save humanity. He is the great correction principle; the bringer of true perception, the inherent power of the vision of Christ. He is the light in which the forgiven world is perceived; in which the face of Christ alone is seen. He never forgets the Creator or His creation. He never forgets the Son of God. He never forgets you. And He brings the Love of your Father to you in an eternal shining that will never be obliterated because God has put it there."
Jesus further clarifies that the Holy Spirit "abides" in your mind, but this does not mean he is literally you or "your right mind". He is IN your right mind and the right minds of all souls, and yet has his own being or spirit and his own mind. He *represents* your self - that doesn't mean He IS your self. He is alike your self, and alike God. He proves you and your father are one, ie, of like kind. The part of your mind that joins with the whole sonship in "christ" is where He lives.
"The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with Both. And therefore it is He Who proves Them One."
After the atonement plan is complete, and after resurrection of all sons, Holy Spirit will remain as a permanent real creation of God. His function of perception will disappear and He will remain holy. His return to the formlessness of God does not mean He ceases to exist.
"And you will be with him when time is over and no trace remains of dreams of spite in which you dance to death's thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the eternal formlessness of God."
"When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless THEIR creations and keep them in the light of joy."
As far as I grasp it now, our task is to overlook and sort of "gloss over" the various separations of the physical world of form. To be in a state of mind - right mindedness - which is symbolic of the one mind of oneness - which is centred in wholeness and unconditionality, looking out upon the separated world and basically "ignoring" the separations. Not buying into appearances of form or differences or the ways that things seem to be separated off.
The mind in this state doesn't pay much attention to the form that anything takes because it's recognised as not meaning anything different to anything else. The mind here is looking toward Christ, and the physical is only seen sort of indirectly on the side.
Everything about the physical is immediately met with forgiveness, like a deflector shield, which bounces off all illusions and temptations and is dismissed as false and nothing and not important. This is sort of like transcending the illusion while keeping the illusion - still in a dream state (happy dream) but not buying into it. In the world but not of it.
A reflection of heaven is thus seen across the chaos, while the chaos is still there. Sort of like a symbolic state of oneness underlying the forms, but while still keeping the forms. Almost complete transcendence of the world. This is the real world state which doesn't 'contain' physical objects at the transcendental level, but the forgiven world still has them. The seeming formlessness of the real world seems to be lightly covered by the forms of the world, as though a second layer, but the real world isn't the same as the state of heaven.
This would be akin to the old model suggesting that everything in this world is real and yet is unified in a oneness at a deeper level. It's just that the forms are a dream and the underlying oneness is a DREAM of oneness. Then when we go beyond the real world, which is the symbol of forgiveness/face of christ, we enter into heaven proper. This completely takes you out of the world, out of the dream, beyond the real world entirely, and into God's Kingdom.
That's a movement totally out of dreaming and of spacetime and beyond the 'dream of oneness' into what would seem to be practically a whole other dimension - the great and shining circle of God's kingdom.
"This world of light, this circle of brightness, is the real world, where guilt meets with forgiveness. Here, the world OUTSIDE is seen anew, WITHOUT the shadow of guilt upon it."
"Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness. Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind, where it MUST be, and light the BODY up INSTEAD of it"
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
"You will first DREAM of peace, and THEN awaken to it. Your first exchange of what you made for what, you want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love. In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams, where ALL perception is. Knowledge needs NO correction. Yet the dreams of love lead UNTO knowledge."
"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing all illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there, he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there in peace."
I really like this term - "sinlessness". It feels good. It feels the way "there is no sin" feels when I say it. That my sinlessness is guaranteed by God, is right up with there "I am still as God created me." It specifies not only what I AM, it also specifies what I am NOT. I am not sinful, because I am sinless. I am free from the sinfulness that I am not.
Sinlessness is more than merely the absence of sin, as well. It is the presence of immortality. It is strength and innocence. It is invulnerability and fearlessness. Where there is sinlessness there is no reason to be afraid. If your brother is sinless, he is not threatening you. If the world is sinless, it is doing nothing to you. Sinlessness is safety. Sinlessness is your purity as Christ!
Sinlessness is also the end result of forgiveness. When forgiveness is completely, you are in sinlessness. When you have forgiven your brother, you recognize and can see his sinlessness. The sinlessness in him is your own. It is the light of Christ. It is the guaranteed purity of God, which was given you in your permanent creation. You are sinless because God created you sinless forever.
The juicy quotes...
"Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated until it is accepted. It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing can touch it, nor can change what God created as eternal. The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you."
"Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought; you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself. Whatever evil you may think you did, you are as God created you. Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is unchanged. Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created. Light and joy and peace abide in you because God put them there."
"If a situation arises which seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:
"Light and joy and peace abide in you. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.""
"Brother, come and let me look on you. Your loveliness reflects my own. Your sinlessness is mine. You stand forgiven, and I stand with you."
"If you but knew how much your Father yearns to have you recognize your sinlessness, you would not let His Voice appeal in vain, nor turn away from His replacement for the fearful images and dreams you made. "
"True light is strength, and strength is sinlessness. If you remain as God created you, you must be strong, and light must be in you. He Who ensured your sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God created you. Darkness cannot obscure the glory of the Son of God. You stand in light, strong in the sinlessness in which you were created, and in which you will remain throughout eternity."
"How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so."
"The state of sinlessness is merely this: The WHOLE desire to attack is gone, and so there is no reason to perceive the Son of God as other than he is."
"And so you walk toward Heaven or toward hell, but NOT alone. How beautiful his sinlessness will be, when you perceive it! And how great will be YOUR joy when he is free to offer you the gift of sight God gave to him for you."
"Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him. For peace will come to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, SHARED with the Holy Spirit, and at one with Him on what salvation IS."
"Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision, and give you joy. And place NO value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is. It is HIS desire to see his sinlessness, as it is YOURS. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor see in him what you have MADE of him. The Holy Spirit GUARANTEES that what"God has willed and given shall be yours."
"My sinlessness protects me from all harm."
"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me. What must I do to know all this is mine? I must accept Atonement for myself, and nothing more. God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine, to feel God's Love protecting me from harm, to understand my Father loves His Son; to know I am the Son my Father loves."
""You who created me in sinlessness are not mistaken about what I am. I was mistaken when I thought I sinned, but I accept Atonement for myself. Father, my dream is ended now. Amen.""
"I choose to see my brother's sinlessness."
"I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother's sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light."
""What could restore Your memory to me except to see my brother's sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well.""
"I can attack but my own sinlessness, and it is only that which keeps me safe."
""Father, Your Son is holy. I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so deep and dear and still the universe smiles back on You, and shares Your holiness. How pure, how safe, how sacred, then, are we, abiding in Your smile, with all Your love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing Him.""
"Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness. For it contains the Word of God to us, and in its kind reflection we are saved."
"Remove your focus on your brother's sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. And you will not transcend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond."
"Therefore, in practicing today, we first let all such little focuses give way to our great need to let our sinlessness become apparent."
"We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within."
"And we will also use these thoughts to keep us safe throughout the day. We do not seek for long-range goals. As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain."
"The world which once proclaimed our sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self Which knows no sin, and never could conceive of anything without Its sinlessness."
"Our sinlessness is but the Will of God. This instant is our willing one with His."
"The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the Son of God. It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace. It has not changed creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin and love to hate."
"I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, "God wills that I be saved from this," and merely watch them disappear. I need but keep in mind my Father's Will for me is only happiness, to find that only happiness has come to me. And I need but remember that His Love surrounds His Son and keeps his sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I am saved and safe forever in His arms. I am the Son He loves. And I am saved because God in His mercy wills it so."
"Father, Your holiness is mine. Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness forever part of You. I have no guilt nor sin in me, for there is none in You."
"Behold his sinlessness and be you healed"
"Father, today I would let all things be as You created them, and give Your Sons the honor due their sinlessness; the love of brother to his brother and his friend. Through this I am redeemed."
"I will forgive all things today, that I
May learn how to accept the truth in me,
And come to recognize my sinlessness."
"In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to You in perfect sinlessness, and with this thought we gladly say 'Amen'."
"And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear."
"Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again." "Surrounding me is perfect safety. Can I be afraid, when Your eternal promise goes with me? Surrounding me is perfect sinlessness. What can I fear, when You created me in holiness as perfect as Your own?"
"In quiet may forgiveness wipe away my dreams of separation and of sin. Then let me, Father, look within and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart."
"Today I would behold my brother sinless. This Your Will for me, for thus will I behold my sinlessness."
"I am the means by which God's Son is saved, because salvation's purpose is to find the sinlessness which God has placed in me. I was created as the thing I seek. I am the goal the world is searching for. I am God's Son, His one Eternal Love. I am salvation's means and end as well."
"Our Father, let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes. For we who are Your holy Son, are sinless."
"Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of guilt and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with Which I would identify."
"And we, God's children, rise up from the dust and look upon our perfect sinlessness. The song of Heaven sounds around the world, as it is lifted up and brought to truth."
"Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. What further sight is needed? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love behind all forms, beyond all purposes."
"Their patients can but be seen as the bringers of forgiveness, for it is they who come to demonstrate their sinlessness to eyes that still believe that sin is there to look upon. Yet will the proof of sinlessness, seen in the patient and accepted in the therapist, offer the mind of both a covenant in which they meet and join and are as one."
"The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom. Now it is no longer a contradiction in terms. Rather it is a statement of the unity of Christ and a recognition of His sinlessness. And now it has become holy, for it acknowledges the Son of God as he was created."
"Now, without needs of any kind, and clad forever in the pure sinlessness which is the gift of God to you, His Son, prayer can again become what it was meant to be."
"Creation is the opposite of all illusions, for Creation is the truth. Creation is the holy Son of God, for in Creation is His Will complete in every aspect, making every part container of the whole. Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held within His holy Will, beyond all possibility of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness."
"What he has done now must God's Son undo. But not alone. For he has thrown away the prison's key; his holy sinlessness and the remembrance of his Father's Love."
"I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His own."
"Now prayer is lifted from the world of things, of bodies, and of gods of every kind, and you can rest in holiness at last. Humility has taught you how to understand your glory as God's Son, and recognize the arrogance of sin. A dream has veiled the face of Christ from you. Now can you look upon His sinlessness."
"He will hear his sinlessness proclaimed around and around the world, setting it free as God's final judgment on him is received. This is the judgment in which salvation lies. This is the judgment that will set him free. This is the judgment in which all things are freed with him."
"In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness. Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind, where it MUST be, and light the BODY up INSTEAD of it."
"Now He can remind the world of sinlessness, the one unchanged, unchangeable condition of all that God created. Now He can speak the Word of God to listening ears, and bring Christ's vision to eyes that see. Now is He free to teach all minds the truth of what they are, so they will gladly be returned to Him. And now is guilt forgiven, overlooked completely in His sight and in God's Word."
"All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All that is false proclaims his sins as real."
"Do you not see the OPPOSITE of frailty and weakness is sinlessness? INNOCENCE IS STRENGTH, and nothing else is strong. The sinless cannot fear. And fear of any kind is weakness."
"It is HIS sinlessness that eyes that see can look upon. It is HIS loveliness they see in everything. And it is HE they look for everywhere, and find no sight or place or time where He is NOT. Within your brother's holiness, the perfect frame for YOUR salvation and the world's, is set the shining memory of Him in Whom your brother lives, and you along with him." "In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality."
"Your special function is a call to Him, that He may smile on you whose sinlessness He shares. HIS understanding will be YOURS. And so the Holy Spirit's Special Function has been fulfilled. God's Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness, and NOT his sin. "
"To serve THIS end, the body MUST be perceived as sinless, BECAUSE the goal is sinlessness."
"The means of sinlessness can know no fear, because they carry ONLY love with them."
"Your home is built upon your brother's health; upon his happiness, his sinlessness, and everything his Father promised him. No secret promise you have made INSTEAD has shaken the Foundation of his home."
"His holiness gives life to you, who CANNOT die because his sinlessness is known to God, and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not."
"And as we see the sinlessness in him come shining through the veil of guilt that shrouds the Son of God, we will behold in him the Face of Christ, and understand that it is but our own."
"Give me your blessing, holy Son of God,
I would behold you with the eyes of Christ,
And see my perfect sinlessness in you."
"Consider once again your special function. ONE is given you to see in him his perfect sinlessness."
"You still are holy with the Holiness which fathered you in perfect sinlessness, and still surrounds you in the arms of peace. Dream now of healing. Then arise and lay all dreaming down forever. You are he your Father loves, who never left his home, nor wandered in a savage world with feet that bleed, and with a heavy heart made hard against the Love that is the truth in you. Give all your dreams to Christ and let Him be your Guide to healing, leading you in prayer beyond the sorry reaches of the world."
"Only Christ forgives, knowing His sinlessness. His vision heals perception and sickness disappears. Nor will it return again, once its cause has been removed."
"Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe."
"Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the body?" Ask only, "Do I REALLY wish to see him sinless?" And, as you ask, forget not that HIS sinlessness is YOUR escape from fear. Salvation is the Holy Spirit's goal. The means is vision. For what the seeing look upon IS sinless. No-one who loves can judge, and what he sees is FREE of condemnation. And what he sees he did NOT make, for it was GIVEN him to see, as was the vision which made his seeing possible."
"The sinless give as they received. See, then, the power of sinlessness within your brother, and share with him the power of the RELEASE from sin you offered HIM."
"What danger can assail the wholly innocent? What can attack the guiltless? What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness?"
"No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. You will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away, yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it. You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness."
"Christ cannot doubt Himself. The Voice of God can only honor Him, rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness."
"Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness."
True perception is the ability to discern clearly, the *difference* between what is TRUE, and what is FALSE. To discern BOTH of these correctly is a state of RECOGNIZING what something is, and what something is not.
It contains BOTH these properties of a) seeing the truth and recognizing it AS true, and b) seeing the false and recognizing it AS false.
True perception does not mean ONLY seeing "truth". It means seeing the what is true ABOUT what is showing up. And the illusory world of earth is still going to be showing up with people in various states of awakening. True perception will show you what about those things is TRUE, and what about those things is FALSE.
True perception means CORRECT perception, not a perception which sees nothing but truth. CORRECT perception perceives CORRECTLY. It RECOGNIZES that the truth is true, AND that what is false is false. It does not fail to PERCEIVE what is false (people in sick bodies, disasters, wars raging still, people fighting etc), it simply knows THAT IS FALSE AND UNREAL.
This is why, in true perception, you NOT ONLY see the truth and recognize it as true (real world/reflection of heaven/face of christ), you ALSO *SEE* the false and recognize it as false (other people still choosing to pretend to suffer, the earth itself AND the real world being ILLUSIONS that don’t really exist).
This is why, it was perfectly logical and possible for Jesus to SEE that people were calling out for help and asking for healing, even though *HE* knew that only the truth was true. HE knew that sickness was FALSE. He was able to PERCEIVE AND DISCERN that sickness was FALSE - that even though it was showing up, it was FAKE SICKNESS. This does not in any way mean that he did not SEE that "people were sick". He simply recognized it as NOT TRUTH, and so was able to HEAL IT. It means he RECOGNIZED it for what it was and what it was not.
It is not true that you will become blind to all suffering when you are in true perception. You will become LOVING, and you will see the CALL FOR LOVE in all those who "temporarily have less". And you will give miracles of healing BECAUSE there is a need and because you RECOGNIZE that other people are asking for HELP, because they believe they’re having a nightmare that YOU know cannot be real, by which they are not bound.
Perceiving what is true MUST logically also show you what is false. That which is false will be recognized AS false. This is only because perception still sees a "fake world" that we made - earth and this universe. It recognizes it as false, while still seeing it. It does not BELEIVE it. And so, while in that state, you can BE HELPFUL, because OTHER PEOPLE are not currently willing to share your perception.
This means, other people and how they are and whether they are sick or not, IS NOT PART OF YOUR PERCEPTION. They are not inside your perception. Their sickness is NOT your sickness. You recognize that "their sickness" is what THEY are responsible for choosing.
Believing that other people’s sickness is your sickness, that you share a mind WHILE YOU PERCEIVE, that they are just part of your projection, IS LEVEL CONFUSION, because it is confusing the properties of a mind that is ONE, with the realm of PERCEPTION which is an entirely separate level. Within perception, other people DO NOT SHARE your perception, and they are NOT part of your mind, and their sickness IS NOT your sickness.
Your willingness to undo their fake sickness is a SERVICE. A miracle. If they will not accept it, or are not ready for it, or do not want help, they will NOT become free of their fake sickness no matter how much YOU perceive correctly that they are not really sick. That’s because they have their own free will, because each is an independant son of God.
This segment spells it out plain and clear. YOU are 100% responsible for EVERYTHING you experience, you CHOOSE everything that happens, and nothing happens to you against your free will.
"This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:
"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."
Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear.
It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident. No accident or chance is possible within the universe as God created it, outside of which is nothing. Suffer, and you decided sin was your goal. Be happy, and you gave the power of decision to Him Who must decide for God for you. This is the little gift you offer to the Holy Spirit, and even this He gave to you to give YOURSELF. For, by this gift, is given you the power to release your Savior, that he may give salvation unto you."
This is also further reflected here:
"My self is ruler of the universe.
It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept. For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me.
You are the Self Whom You created Son, creating like Yourself and one with You. My Self, Which rules the universe, is but Your Will in perfect union with my own, Which can but offer glad assent to Yours, that It may be extended to Itself."
And also reflected here:
"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No-one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness.
My holy brothers, think of this awhile; the world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. It merely represents your thoughts. And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want. Your Self is radiant in this holy joy, unchanged, unchanging and unchangeable forever and forever. And would you deny a little corner of your mind its own inheritance, and keep it as a hospital for pain, a sickly place where living things must come at last to die?
The world may seem to cause you pain. And yet the world, as causeless, has no power to cause. As an effect it cannot make effects. As an illusion it is what you will. Your idle wishes represent its pains. Your strange desires bring it evil dreams. Your thoughts of death envelop it in fear, while in your kind forgiveness does it live."
Jesus's redefinition of terms continues to amaze me. When you suddenly realize that he has a whole different MEANING to a term, it suddenly opens up a whole box of insights.
For example "The world of bodies is the world of sin. For only if there were a body is sin possible." Jesus says that bodies are needed for sin. But you might think, sin came before guilt and made the world. But no. He's saying that sin is more like an all encompassing term describing ALL illusions and the ENTIRE ego world of death. Wherein everything was designed to BE sin. ie, sin is like a way of proving that illusions are real. And ALL illusions, by their seeming reality, proven by laws of physics and by "evidence", testify against reality.
A better definition of SIN might be, that "twisting" or "distorting" of reality and truth, which results in what is true and false being swapped, and what is real and unreal being confused. It is "the evil" that seems to turn reality into illusions, and make illusions seem real.
"Sin is insanity. It is the means by which the mind is driven mad, and seeks to let illusions take the place of truth. And being mad, it sees illusions where truth should be, and where it really is."
Here he says that sin is insanity, and so the whole ego thought system can be said to be sin. It's the way by which there is a distortion in what is true, where true and false are confused, and real and unreal are confused. So it's not just that you commit a crime and call it a sin, it's actually that the entire physical world is deeply rooted in sin - the attempt to prove that illusion are real. The whole world is an attempt to do this. Even the rocks and grains of sand. This is because:
"The world is false perception"
And all false perception, ie distortion of mind, inaccurate perception, believing that illusions are real, thinking that death is life, thinking that what is false is true, is what the physical world is composed of. It's laws are literally the laws of sin and death.
"Sin is the home of all illusions, which but stand for things imagined, issuing from thoughts which are untrue. They are the "proof " that what has no reality is real."
Here he tells us that ALL illusions are rooted in sin. And so "the world of bodies (the illusory world) is the world of sin." The WHOLE thing is sin. Which is why Jesus refers to the physical world, the veil across the face of Christ, as "the granite block of sin". By its laws, it acts as a mechanism for manufacturing "proof", through "physical evidence", which is maintained in order to testify that sin is real and has happened. All of the worlds happenings, seen through unforgiving eyes and insanity, are sin.
"Sin "proves" God's Son is evil; timelessness must have an end; Eternal life must die."
What this means is that, the fact that ANYTHING can seem to die, is A SIN. It's sin embodied as proof of death. Dead carcasses, dead flies, dead humans, dead planets. It was all made to try to make sin, ie "separation from God", or "that hell is real and heaven is not" be the new truth.
"A madman's dreams are frightening, and sin appears indeed to terrify. And yet what sin perceives is but a childish game."
So all dreams, the whole dream world, is made of sin.
"The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards."
"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold?"
Sin, or, the physicalized material laws of the ego thought system, resulted in the eyeballs.
"Except for God's teachers there would be little hope of salvation, for the world of sin would seem forever real."
"And FROM this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise. This world is an attempt to prove your innocence, while cherishing attack."
"It translates the world of sin into a simple world, where justice can be reflected from BEYOND the gate behind which total lack of limits lies."
"ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely."
In ACIM there is a simple idea. You made the world in attempting to oppose God. The world embodies all evil and sin and death. It had the PURPOSE of proving that God's son is dead. Really this was a meaningless world in which there WAS no real purpose, since its purpose was to prove that there is no purpose.
"He came WITHOUT a purpose. But he will not remain before the shining light the Holy Spirit offered, and you accepted."
"A journey without a purpose is still meaningless."
You then repurpose this world and temporarily view it from a more forgiving perspective. The PURPOSE now is to prove that the world has not done anything to God's son. And now when this purpose is accomplished, the world in fact HAS NO PURPOSE, and being without a purpose, it ends, because you have no more use for it.
The purpose of forgiveness is not to KEEP the world and love it forever, it is to render it NOTHING so that you no longer believe you need it. In forgiveness it is recognized AS nothing, and as serving no further function. Without a function it is purposeless and meaningless and is discarded. As such it disappears.
"For only then can guilt and sin be seen WITHOUT a purpose, and as meaningless. Thus is the real world's purpose gently brought into awareness, to REPLACE the goal of sin and guilt."
"Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no-one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone."
"He brings the ending of the world with Him. It is His Call God's teachers answer, turning to Him in silence to receive His Word. The world will end when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment. The world will end with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, the world is over. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely cease to seem to be."
"The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed."
"The final lesson which brings the ending of the world cannot be grasped by those not yet prepared to leave the world and go beyond its tiny reach."
"The world will end in joy because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began."
"And afterwards, without a purpose, it is laid aside. It is not sick or old or hurt. It is but functionless, unneeded and cast off."
"And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."
"Time remains only to let the last embrace of prayer rest on the earth an instant, as the world is shined away. This instant is the goal of all true healers, whom the Christ has taught to see His likeness and to teach like Him."
The ego is the idea of the TOTAL opposite of God. It is vile bitter hatred and death and darkness.
Usually, however, we are not really aware of just how vicious it is, because it hides most of its viciousness behind the persona, which covers up most of the "special hate" with "special love" and other illusions of things being okay.
The world we live in is largely populated by personas and fake identities all colluding together to repress and hide and reject everything that they deem unacceptable. They shove all of this hatred and darkness into the 'shadow' which is the more unconscious, more opposed-to-God aspect of the ego.
Sometimes, when you work on becoming more authentic, you are dissolving the persona and undoing the fake sense of identity it contains. As you do this, however, it's going to 'unmask' the ego. It's taking the covers off the repressed vicious darkness that lurks under the surface.
Now, in regular day-to-day interactions most people are quite fake and they will not genuinely, authentically or fully express how they 'really feel', regardless of what that feeling is. So a lot of actually genuine feelings become heavily repressed and stuck in the unconscious layers of the ego. These feelings might actually be more genuine than you realize, because they might express how someone actually DID betray you, or how someone actually WAS being dishonest, or how you really DID feel victimized... given that you probably instead covered up these 'genuine' awarenesses for the sake of saving face or not confronting people or people-pleasing or whatever other persona-tactic you were using.
So then when the ego persona mask comes off, even temporarily, it can sometimes trigger the exposure of and 'release of', or shine a light upon, the darker hidden repressed expressions of yourself. The shadow self. This is where the vicious ego experiences a much more immediate and unfiltered engagement with every form of negativity. So all of those repressed feelings, regardless of their subject matter or justification, start to flood out. They flood into the conscious mind and take it over and make the mind become unconscious, meaning that you are put into the dark, cannot see, cannot think clearly, lose sight of what is real, become lost in intense negative delusions and can't see past these strong feelings.
So these strong negative feelings arise, as all the feelings you repressed and didn't experience due to the persona saying it was not 'appropriate' or 'allowed' or 'acceptable' at the time, or due to you holding onto them for some reason. And so then the person experiencing this might start to point out much more bluntly how other people suck, how other people are deceptive, how other people are liars, how other people are haters, how other people are victimizers, etc... all the repressed feelings which might actually have had a basis in 'reality' of some kind, start to flood out. And it can be extremely negative. But these are, if you like, genuine feelings, which really are trying to be released and fully processed.
So what we then have to do is become willing to find ways to actually be more authentic, to be more real, and to make it okay and acceptable and allowed to have these negative feelings, at least so that you can fully feel and process them and release them. Fuck society if they don't like it or its not appropriate, society is completely fake anyway. So this release of 'darkness' is really a release that's asking for healing and light and forgiveness and acknowledgement. When seen as such we can become willing to let go and allow and accept this darkness of the furthest extremes of the ego, and instead of fighting with or trying to repress or get away from it, find instead ways to transcend it and transmute it and transform because of it. And this can produce awakening.
What appears to be the physical world is not actually "direct reality". It is in fact once removed. It is an effect of an entirely other layer of causality which seems hidden. Just as in the holographic model, the underlying "source" of the appearances you see, is obscured by "sight of form" and you end up believing that this physical world is "verbatim", ie this is all there is.
In understanding why miracles are supernatural, it is very important to recognize this. In order to be supernatural there has to be an order or layer of reality deeper or higher than what appears to be the physical surface of this universe. We have to recognize that bodies and objects are not "immediate reality", they are once removed, and are EFFECTS caused by some other hidden level of causality. There is a whole other layer of causality, and everything in this world is "coming from" that hidden realm, making this world entirely an secondary effect.
When observing just the appearances of the surface of this world, there is a tremendous vast illusion before your eyes, which seems to operate in terms of "horizontal cause and effect". It seems as if some parts of the world cause and effect other parts. But this IS entirely an illusion. It's not what is happening. Anything which looks like being "different" in this world, ie one thing is a cause and another thing is an effect, is an illusion.
What secretly is happening is a higher, hidden level, a more immediate level of reality, is causing this entire universe all at once. Causality moves in a "vertical" direction from above, downwards, projecting the universe below. This means that there is a realm where you are "outside of" or above the entire field of horizontal illusions, outside the dream, where you are under absolutely none of the illusory horizontal laws and free of ALL limitations.
In that realm, you essentially are like a movie editor, someone who can reach into the movie and rearrange parts of it, orchestrate what goes where, and make significant changes. While within the movie itself it seems there is this consistent "story" playing, which utterly depends on the existence of many limitations and props and illusions of things which "must" happen according to certain rules or laws, realize that all of these stories of causality are entirely a fiction, where nothing seems to betray the illusion, nothing hints at this not being all there is, and nothing "blows the illusion" of horizontal or linear causality.
An example is a movie that you go to the cinema to watch. When you watch the movie you believe it is a single seamless story, in which certain limits and rules have been put in place in order to paint a seemingly "consistent" picture. But the fact is, if you could've been in the studio when the movie was being created, you would realize it was simply a bunch of people "acting" and a bunch of computers producing CGI special effects, working "behind the scenes". You as as a miracle worker as a BEHIND THE SCENES OPERATOR who orchestrates and produces the second-hand "effects" or "results" of a creative process. We used this same process initially when FORMING the physical universe, which is an entire order of reality removed from those who pull the strings.
When expression is made from the higher level, the more immediate level of causality, that expression is able to cause changes to the expressed world below. Just as an editor would make changes to a movie sequence from outside the movie which has the potentially to "break the illusion" of linear consistency within the movie itself. And when it DOES "perform a miracle", it literally BREAKS the illusion of linear cause and effect - the horizontal consistency or predictability of one thing leading only to another specific consequence. It's like someone editing the movie, and to those observing from WITHIN the movie, it will look like reality just did something "impossible".
If you seem to be living in the movie and you think that all that can happen is what's inside the movie, then suddenly a spaceship appears out of nowhere because the movie director decided to insert one, you will "witness" what appears to be a miracle. Something happening that seems impossible based on the linear laws. If you think of The Truman Show - a great movie, the same laws and rules and limitations had to happen day after day to maintain an illusion that nothing could happen outside the law, but when the main character started to "wake up" and see through the limitations, the world around him started to "break" and he eventually stepped outside of the whole illusion, coming face to face with the "directory" of the movie. You as a miracle worker are a director of the physical movie.
Or similarly, if it appears that there is a law of gravity where, over time, objects are attracted towards the center of the earth, and therefore human bodies are almost glued to the surface (you can jump, but only so high before you are attracted back down), and if suddenly a human body were to fly up in the air or walk on water, this would BREAK the illusion of horizontal laws. That means, the laws "within" the linear dream, within appearances of horizontal causality, could not have "resulted in" this effect, and it must have required someone to reach in from OUTSIDE of the laws and make an adjustment that the laws themselves are incapable of producing.
The key point to realize is that all of the linear laws are VERY LIMITING. We are confined by them. We are trapped by them. They seem to play out as if having a force or power over us. We don't seem able to escape gravity, time seems to proceed in one direction, one object seems to collide with another, no objects share the same space, very large heavy objects like mountains seem completely immovable, even sickness seems to have a causality in the body or due to external forces. These are all very limiting illusions of things on the SAME LEVEL causing other things on the SAME LEVEL to change.
From the point of view of the miracle worker, who is under no laws but God's, there are NO LIMITS. And so when the miracle worker manipulates the limitations in ways which defy and BREAK the linear laws, this appears to those in the horizontal dream as SUPERNATURAL MIRACLES. Things which should technically be "impossible" according to the limits we have accepted, suddenly become possible. Things we have assumed to be "normal" or "natural" are shown to be ARTIFICIAL LIMITATIONS.
Since we don't generally recognize that we LIVE IN WORLD OF LIMITATIONS, we don't realize that there are additional FREEDOMS and flexibilities that we have decided are off-limits or impossible. Miracles are capable of exercising that freedom and of PROVING that you are NOT BOUND by the horizontal laws of the ego's illusory world. This is why miracles are super-natural, they have a freedom of potential way beyond what any physical law in this second-hand universe suggests is possible.
There is therefore literally NOTHING that they cannot do. We have to open our minds to see past the limitations of physical illusion and realize that even the things we think are impossible are perfectly possible. There is NO REASON why you cannot do anything you can imagine. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."
So the main keys to this are:
1) This physical world is once removed from true cause, it is not immediate reality
2) This world has no real causes in it, they are all effects of a higher reality
3) Cause-and-effect in this world are totally fictional illusions designed BY a higher level causer, to create a "story" in which limited things happen according to limited rules
4) Miracles wield a freedom way beyond the limitations of this world and express and demonstrate that ANYTHING is possible because they originate in the FIRST ORDER of causal reality, and therefore can BREAK and OVERRIDE any of the limitations or laws present on the physical level, since those laws are limitations PUT IN PLACE BY someone from the more primal level of reality. This is why Jesus says "you made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."
Here's what ACIM says:
"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."
"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator. Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do."
"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence."
"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."
Perhaps worse than guilt, shame is self destructive and a form of self imprisonment. There is not much spoken of this in ACIM. But shame is very prevalent and heavy and harmful.
I looked up psychology definitions of how shame and guilt are different. A loose summary goes like this...
GUILT - A kind of internal judgement that you feel, based on what you did outside of yourself. Like attacking another person or breaking some moral or social code. It's not too far removed from remorse or regret, and somewhat "feels sorry for" the person. It to some degree recognizes that your behavior was wrong but it doesn't condemn your entire self.
SHAME - A kind of external judgement upon your entire inner self, based on what seems to be true of you. This can be based on something you did that you're guilty of, or just on some condition that you have. It can be based on your body's state or life situation or relationship status or whatever.
It's a condemnation that you are not deserving of love, you're lacking, deficient, inadequate, not good enough, weak, decrepit, insufficient, inferior, bad, sinful, evil, unlovable. Somehow that your SELF is fundamentally judged as "of lesser or no value". That you are not equal to others, you're beneath them.
When you apply shame to yourself, it's like a form of self punishment and imprisonment. ACIM does say that when you attack in any way, it induces guilt. But what it doesn't go into is that once you've found yourself to be guilty, you now decide that BECAUSE OF your guilt, you do not deserve forgiveness. To be found guilty is to sin and NOT forgive it. Having found yourself guilty, you've decided you are UNFORGIVABLE. And that also means you should not be loved, you are unworthy, and you should be ashamed. That you should feel deeply bad about yourself as if you've "become a permanent sinner".
Feeling ashamed is feeling really bad about who you are, as if you are inherently flawed. It causes you to withdraw and separate and hide and shrivel up. It's a disempowered state. Shame can also be fairly closely tied to embarassment. E.g. if you get pulled over by the cops for speeding for you might feel guilty for breaking the law, and then feel ashamed at having to "face the judgement" and be found guilty, for it to be proven that you were deficient and flawed. And if that's taking place in public with a crowd watching, you're going to feel shameful.
Shame is very self destructive. It's one thing to feel guilty, and the course talks a lot about guilt. But once you've found yourself guilty, you start to punish yourself. You agree you do not deserve forgiveness, which relegates you to being some kind of inferior creature. Something that does not DESERVE to be treated well. Like some caged animal that has no rights.
Because surely there is something inherently WRONG with you, that you did this. And this puts a major dent in your sense of worthiness. You feel unworthy of love and forgiveness. You feel unworthy of happiness. You feel unworthy of having relationships. You feel unworthy of existing, because you're not valuable enough to "qualify".
Within that state, a person moves further towards suicide. It's like they are bringing a ton of bricks down upon their own head. It's self condemnation. A desire to hurt and destroy oneself. And it's rooted in this belief that you don't deserve to live or be happy, therefore you deserve to DIE and be unhappy. And if death were to come to punish you, you'd practically welcome it, unwilling to choose against it, because you yourself think it would be justified, based on your self loathing.
You can become ashamed even just through simple mistakes. You can mistakenly accidentally hurt someone. And then you might feel ashamed of yourself that you were so incapable of avoiding it that there must be something wrong with you. You can also take on shame through public judgement by others, peer pressure, social pressures and so on.
You can feel ashamed from not fitting in, being different, looking and moving differently, not matching up to some kind of ideal standard. Shame is always a discrepancy between what you are "meant" to be like ideally, and what you are actually like (due to ego). You can feel ashamed for having an uncommon trait or body shape or being "too this" or "not enough of that." Not measuring up. Shame evaluates that you are simply LACKING, which places you below everyone else in the pits of hell.
Feeling ashamed makes you feel like you are some kind of lesser creature. That you don't have the same rights as others. That you can be used and stepped upon and mistreated, and you have no right to stand up to it. It's welcomed as though you think you deserve it, like you're this hideous unlovable ugly wart of inhumanity that everyone hates. And because you then believe you do not deserve love or respect or freedom, your only seeming remaining option is to seek out distorted forms of affection and attention - little conditional scraps here and there, from those who typically want highly special relationships and to take from you. Which feeds right into becoming a martyr, a slave, a victim and a punching bag for others.
Perhaps the worst part about shame is that it's really an attempt to destroy your very self, and your identity. To de-value and de-humanize you. It strips you of your freedom, your rights, your validity, your sacredness. It labels you and puts you in a box. It cuts you down and diminishes you and stomps all over your dignity.
It puts you out of touch with who you really are. It's a major loss of power and a state of weakness and fear. It makes you live in a little darkened cage like an animal, with no friends and no allies. It puts you into isolation, separates you off, portrays you as worth nothing, and seeks your destruction. Shame is like being eaten alive from the inside out.
When you have shame, therefore... through "secret sins", this HAS to be healed. You have to find forgiveness. And you have to find a way to regain your "self worth" - to recognize your value. You have to get your power back and become able to stand up to those who might try to diminish your light or limit you. In particular you have to find a way to forgive YOURSELF, in order to approach a sense of being valuable to God, to regain acceptance of your innocence.
In shame, it will always seem like everyone else has power over you, that you are not good enough, strong enough, capable enough, powerful enough, smart enough, creative enough, good enough, loveable enough etc.... just not enough... for anything or anyone. And this will make you feel limited and like a constant failure.
You'll avoid doing things because you believe you'll fail at it because you're already a failure. You'll fear the judgement and rejection and punishment of what you think is others, for an inevitable insufficiency and heaps of mistakes that you are destined to make, because you believe you are fundamentally flawed. And this will turn you away from expressing and creating and playing and enjoying simply on the basis that it threatens to expose you. It threatens to put you in the spotlight in the arena where you are much more likely to be called out for being unworthy.
The only way though that this can seem to affect you is by you yourself agreeing to it. Which means its your own harsh judgement of yourself that you have to get past. It's really not other people holding you down or making you inferior, it's you. It's your decision that you are unworthy because of your guilt. That has to go, so that you're not constantly second-guessing everything you do. You cannot feel confident about anything while you're riddled with self-sacrificing martyrdom and making yourself small and playing the part of weak and helpless.
Then you'll find that what was really holding you back was YOUR shame, which you imposed upon yourself. And it wasn't really that other people were keeping you locked in a tiny corner of the world, but your own unwillingness to be seen, to be heard, to stand up, to own yourself, to be authentically you, or to stand firm in the face of un-called-for criticism. You have to grow in your strength and power and your imperviousness to judgement.
Ultimately the fact is that all mistakes are forgivable, everyone is worthy to God, no-one ever needs to feel guilty or ashamed, and everyone is loveable. Whatever you did that you feel so bad about, that you're dragging along the ground like a ball and chain around your ankle, you don't deserve that. And because you don't deserve punishment, you don't deserve to die. And that means you deserve to live and resurrect and enjoy your life. You deserve freedom and power and health and joy and relationships.
Below are some of the very brief things ACIM says about shame...
"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."
"The seeds of sickness and the shame of guilt He cannot bridge,..."
"For specialness is triumph, and its victory is his defeat and shame. 9 How can he live, with all your sins upon him?"
"Let not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others."
If you have a body, you are not in Heaven. Sight of a body is sight of sin - an illusion of sin but really a forgivable mistake, which must be overlooked. You cannot have a body and be free of sin. If you see a body you are seeing sin as if it's real. It's not possible to simultaneously see a body and not see sin. If God created the body, God created sin and sin would be real forever. Your sinlessness lies in your immortal spirit.
"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what seems to be a wall of flesh around the mind"
"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold?"
"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would try to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it."
"Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake" ... "Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing."
"Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body."
"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."
"Forget not that the ego has DEDICATED the body to the goal of sin, and places in it ALL its faith that this can be accomplished."
"Sins are in bodies. They are not perceived in minds. They are not seen as purposes, but ACTIONS. Bodies act, and minds do not."
"It is only the awareness of the body that makes love seem limited. For the body IS a limit on love."
"Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake"
"The body is ITSELF a sacrifice"
"When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that YOU will last forever. "
"The body will not stay. Yet this he sees as double safety. For the Son of God's impermanence is "proof " his fences work"
"For what you think is sin is LIMITATION; and whom you try to limit to the body you hate because you fear."
"And so you stand, here in this holy place, before the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ. LET it be lifted!"
"The special relationship is totally without meaning WITHOUT A BODY."
"What can the body's eyes perceive, with power to CORRECT? Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and seeing it everywhere, in everything."
"To see a sinless body is impossible."
"You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell. "
"This world you bring with you to all the weary eyes and tired hearts that look on sin and beat its sad refrain."
"But sin is equally insane within the sight of love, whose gentle eyes would look BEYOND the madness, and rest peacefully on truth"
"What can it behold except the proof that all its sins are real? The unforgiving mind sees no mistakes, but only sins. It looks upon the world with sightless eyes"
"Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead"
"God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there."
"A mind and body cannot both exist."
"The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you."
"Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist. "
"God did not create the body."
In the Kingdom of God, His creations and all of their creations are fully open to each other and share everything lovingly. Each of these beings is made of love and it is through love the they have full access to each other, to join and commune intimately.
In this way, communication is sharing and joining and oneness or kinship, whereby you can merge with others, overlap with them, share space with them, and directly connect with what they are. To communicate soul-to-soul or mind-to-mind is full communication.
Love is required in order to accomplish this communication or communion, because only in love is there a full openness to communicate fully. Only by communicating lovingly can you communicate at all.
When love is lacking, which occurs through an attempt to attack rather than love, communication breaks down. What would appear to be an outward attack is actually a withdrawal away from others and away from God and from yourself. This is what happens when you become "selfish".
Jesus says this of your soul, in contrast to your ego:
"Selfishness is of the ego but self-fullness is of the Soul because that is how He created it."
God therefore created souls/sons to be FULL of Self, meaning expressing fully as a being in an unlimited way, and therefore able to be open to and gain access to the rest of Creation, to connect with it and intimately share with it.
Therefore when you are not being fully loving, you actually are attempting to withdraw yourself from creation, to isolate yourself from Heaven, to contract yourself down in fear to a single point in space, to put a wall between you and everyone else (the body), and to confine yourself to the body. This is how you become body-identified instead of spirit-identified.
Attack and withdrawal are the same thing. As soon as you have an attack thought you are having a "withdrawal thought". It's a thought of no longer sharing everything openly with everyone. It's an attempt to shut yourself off and be excluded. The ego is all about being exclusive and therefore special. It focuses on SELFISHNESS, which means prioritizing your own self OVER or in a different way to other selves.
Ego is an emphasizing of how you seem to be not equal to others and how you therefore have something that they do not have. And by emphasizing that you have something they do not, you also simultaneously emphasize that they have something that YOU do not, and therefore you are automatically lacking. Moving into exclusivity you move into isolation, lack, limitation, partiality, and not having everything. The promise that an exclusive PART of existence is more desirable than ALL of it, is the ego's game, through which it robs you of all joy.
So basically this is an automatic law that the only way you can actually communicate with anyone or anything else, is to be fully open in a loving way. Since other beings ARE love, you can only communicate with them through the LANGUAGE of love, at their level. If love is absent, communication breaks down, you arrest the extension of your mind through the arresting of love, and therefore hold yourself back. This holding back isolates you to a point in space and binds you to the body. This is withdrawal away from wholeness, and is you not allowing yourself to express.
Therefore when you isolate into the egotism of selfishness or specialness, you are taking yourself away from life and from others. You are trying to steal yourself from God. This withdrawal guarantees that no matter how attacking you think you are, your attack IS withdrawal and therefore you have NOT advanced TOWARDS God in your attacking efforts, it is caused you to go AWAY from God and away from your brothers.
Either you communicate with other beings through openness and love, or you will withdraw away into a breakdown in communication, a failure to express, a giving up of life, a cessation of extension, and basically you become paralyzed. That IS mental illness because in order to withdraw from others, given that your SELF is IN them sharing with them, you must split yourself off from the part of you that is in them and now you have a split mind.
A split mind is an insane mind at war with itself, and now it is attacking itself. And in this SELF-ATTACK, it will harm only itself. It is not POSSIBLE to attack another because another person is LOVE. Love can only be accessed THROUGH love. Lack of love stops communication and denies access. Indeed, denial of your brother's love DENIES YOU your own abilities, and thus shuts down any ability for you to join or connect TO them, preventing your unloving attacks to REACH them in any way.
This is why you cannot sin. It is literally 100% impossible to hurt anyone. It is literally impossible to hurt God. Any attempts to do so result in a self-imposed imprisonment and isolation away from the thing you are trying to attack. THEY do not suffer as a result, YOU do. You have hurt your own self, and it is then ONLY YOU who needs to forgive yourself.
Nothing real can be threatened. God and His Sons cannot be threatened. They are perfectly safe because they are wholeness and love, and anything that is not wholeness or love CANNOT COMMUNICATE with them, and therefore cannot ACCESS them, and therefore cannot transfer anything TO them, and therefore CANNOT ATTACK THEM.
The idea of there being an ABILITY TO ATTACK LOVE, is the notion that communication channels can remain OPEN, while transferring a message of BEING CLOSED through the channel. This is an obvious contradiction and impossibility. You cannot communicate "lack of communication". You cannot transfer attack to another, because attack causes the communication channel ITSELF to become closed off. Either you express love to your brother which He CAN receive, OR you isolate yourself and are fighting your way out of paper bag. YOU CANNOT ATTACK.
The kingdom of God is PERFECTLY PROTECTED and does not even NEED a defense. If you try to defend yourself you are attacking yourself, proving you are vulnerable and in need of the defense, and therefore affirming that you are under attack. Defenses do what they would defend against. God's Kingdom - you in reality - do not need to be defended at all. Love is automatically invulnerable! No illusion can do anything to reality.
No part of the ego can wage war against God in any real way. You need ONLY to be real, to be love, and you are immediately off-limits to the ego. The ego can only attack itself. This is evident in all wars where one side seems different to another and they attack each other. This is the ego on BOTH sides, attacking itself, as evidence of a split mind. The ego is NOT attacking God. The ego is attacking the ego.
The ego cannot leave its own domain. It cannot leave the state of mind that is lives in. It HAS to remain in darkness otherwise it will disappear. If it were to try to step into the light to reach where the light IS, in order to attack the light, it would disappear instantly because light dispels darkness. Light shines darkness away. Light thus is perfectly protected FROM darkness because it has power OVER darkness and cannot be "made dark" by it.
The belief that darkness can hide is an ego belief that darkness can cause light to be blocked, and therefore can conceal the light. This is the ego's belief. This is how we try to hide from the light of God by pretending we CAN be in darkness and therefore that darkness has power over light to stop it from reaching us. In the ego, darkness can attack light and only through darkness can there be communication. In truth this is completely backwards. Only in light is there communication of any kind and darkness will NEVER be able to approach light or do anything to it at all.
Therefore you do not need defenses because, as love, you simply cannot be appraoched by darknesss or attack. This may seem counter-intuitive at first but each time you defend yourself or resist another or try to make something go away or use withdrawal to attack, you WILL notice that you become worse off and it doesn't help - in fact it makes you sicker.
Only by ALLOWING in the face of what appears to be attack, can you have the strength that comes from UN-ARRESTED EXTENSION, because only through extending love does it confirm you HAVE love and are therefore invulnerable. It is in your innocence that you are invulerable and strong, not weak. The ego says innocence is vulnerability and proves it with every bodily child. But this is 100% fiction. Innocence is powerful and cannot be hurt. It needs no defenses to keep it safe. What does it need to be kept safe from? An illusion of darkness?
You cannot be threatened. Only if you identify yourself with the ego, meaning you HAVE attacked yourself, and have withdrawn from your brother, does it indicate that you are trying to USE separation as a defense. Separation will always hurt you, it cannot defend you. It is the lack of defenses that makes you invulnerable. Standing in the strength of light and truth in the face of "danger" dispells the danger and makes you impervious.
Defenses lead to death. Death is nothing other than an attempt to withdraw from life and imprison yourself in darkness. It is the ultimate sacrifice of yourself. It arises from a complete breakdown in communication, using the body for attack instead of for communication and joining. Without withdrawing from life there can be no death. Death becomes IMPOSSIBLE when you are fully open to love and have identified with SPIRIT - with the fullness of sharing, the openness to all brothers, the lack of attack and the presence of love.
In love, there is no death. In love, death does not exist. In love, death is impossible. It must be, otherwise God would die. Life does not die. Life has eternal life. Only through the illusion of being able to sin, or the attempt to sin, which is really a failure to sin, can you produce a state of what seems like death. And yet as Jesus says, swear not to die, because you have made a bargain you cannot keep. The bargain is that you WILL be able to die because of having been able to sin. This is actually literally impossible. Even in dying it is only denial and illusion, and your spirit is utterly unaffected.
You cannot die, any more than you can sin. Sin and death are IMPOSSIBLE AT ALL TIMES. Even those who seem to sin and die ARE NOT DOING SO. No-one can die because it is not God's will. You can only have eternal life. Attack and death are only attempts to DENY that you have eternal life, and denial can only HIDE the truth, not change it.
You cannot be attacked any more than you have attacked God. Nothing real can be threatened. You are safe forever in God's love. "Spirit is in a state of grace forever."
It's "pride month" which is a sort of pro-queer celebration and revenge-quest rolled into one. People should be happy to be who they really are, without the need for any validation from anyone. It's not necessary to have other people treat us in a certain way or agree with us or even respect us. Insecure people depend on others for making themselves okay. Immortal beings laugh in the face of all judgements and opinions. The world doesn't do anything to us and other people do not define who or what we are.
Often I hear things along the lines of - the straight heteronormative people have told us this, done that to us, treated us this way, and so now we're going to be extremely "loud and proud" as a kind of counter-protest. That isn't really pride, it's an ego thing pretending to be pride. If people were really proud of who they are they wouldn't feel a need to go to war over it because they'd know that no-one and nothing can take it away from them. The pride must be pretty fragile and NOT pride if it depends on other people to reinforce it.
So as usual like most things in the world there's a whole lot of special-relationship bullshit and ego dynamics around this. Many of the pride posts I've seen are nothing short of seeking revenge against perceived persecutors. People trying to insist on their 'right to exist' as a special kind of person. People 'fighting' for something. Nothing natural has to be fought for, it's given by God with no strings attached.
If we get into any kind of need to have other people change to see us, accept us, recognize us, validate us, respect us, treat us well, stop abusing us, etc... anything at all, we're saying that we do not want to be fully ourselves, do not not accept ourselves, and are shifting responsibility for that onto someone else. We don't want that, it's not an improvement. We should all be happy and proud of who and what we are on the basis that we are perfect in God and have no need to get love and appreciation from anything outside of us.
I know there has been a lot of history and conflict surrounding this, and yes still a lot of people are horrendous and murderous in their attitudes about queer people. But ultimately we have to be responsible for our own choice of whether to be happy or not. If we give anyone the power to determine that for us then we give power away and are asking to be victimized. And then going on a sassy middle-finger quest to try to pretend not to care, isn't exactly a solid foundation.
We should not be wanting or needing other people to 'treat us well' in order for us to be happy and who we really are. This is the problem with the world, everyone's expecting everyone else to "do to them" what they want, to "make them happy", to "cause them" to be this way or that way, which is "positive victimhood". It's a way of giving away power and hoping that the world will treat you nice. If you need the world to treat you a certain way your entire mental health is pretty fragile.
You are an immortal being, you do not NEED anyone to treat you nice. You are invulnerable, you do not NEED people to validate you or be respectful toward you. Let them be as vicious as they want, it's not supposed to affect you in any way if you are owning who you are. There is no strength in surrounding yourself with only the people that treat you well. You are not 'treated' well or not well. You are the one who chooses everything you experience.
"Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."
"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way. There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. No one but yourself affects you. There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail. But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are."
You are either innocent or guilty. These are the only options. If sin is real, you are guilty, and guilt is real. If sin is not real, you are innocent, and guilt is not real. You can also say that if you are guilty, you must be sinful. And if you are not guilty, you cannot have sinned.
When sin is recognized as an illusion or dream, without giving it any reality or truth, it is nothing. When you start to give it reality and truth it begins to seem like a cause with power, leading to consequences or effects. The effect of sin is guilt. If you did in truth sin, then you should indeed be guilty of having done so. It is simply cause and effect.
But if there is no guilt, there cannot have been sin, and you are in a state of forgiveness. Forgiveness therefore is the recognition that there is no sin, which produces the effect of guilt's absence. Either way, when guilt is absent, sin is cancelled.
If the belief in sin being real is mental illness ie insanity, since "sin is insanity", and given that "the ego" is another name for this insane thought system, then depriving sin of its effects undoes the ego. The insanity goes away when there is no guilt there. Sin without its effects has no causal power or reality or truth, and so insanity is gone.
If you refuse to go into guilt, you are denying that sin is real. If you deprive sin of its consequences, you are working a miracle. A miracle undoes the seeming consequences of sin. Sin, if it were real, is the idea of irreversible permanent truth, mixed with something impossible. Any consequence that comes from sin can be undone by recognizing that sin has no validity.
"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt."
If sin is merely a mistaken idea that's false, and if you give it no truth or reality, then nothing can come from it. Guilt cannot arise, ego cannot manifest, and sickness and suffering cannot happen. Without the presence of the guilt, derived from the premise of real sin, there cannot be any ego or any suffering. In effect, the ego IS the guilt, and the more you reinforce and increase guilt the more you are buying into the insanity.
Without guilt you must be sane. To be without guilt IS sanity because it deprives sin of any reality. To be without sin is forgiveness. You are either guilty or guiltless, unforgiven or forgiven.
"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body."
"Release from guilt is the ego's whole undoing."
"The holy spirit knows that all salvation is the escape from guilt."
"Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God's Son IS without guilt."
"WITHOUT guilt, attack is impossible."
"Without guilt there is no scarcity."
"When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD'S SON."
"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed."
"Where can guilt be, when the belief in sin is gone? And where is death, when its great advocate is heard no more?" "As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty, you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death." "For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."
"From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in OPPOSITION to life and innocence, and to the Will of God Himself." "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."
"The light of guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are BROUGHT TOGETHER, the truth of one MUST make the falsity of its OPPOSITE perfectly clear."
"The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just ONE error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him."
Special Message:
When you come to the place where the branch in the road is quite apparent, you cannot go ahead. You MUST go one way or the other. For now, if you go straight ahead, the way you were going before you came to the branch, YOU WILL GO NOWHERE. The whole purpose of coming this far is to decide WHICH BRANCH YOU WILL TAKE FROM HERE ON. The way you came no longer matters. IT CAN NO LONGER SERVE.
No-one who reaches this far CAN make the wrong decision. But he CAN delay. And there is no part of the journey that seems more hopeless and futile than standing where the road branches, and not deciding which way to go. It is only the first few steps along the right way that seem hard, because you HAVE chosen, but you still think you can go back and make the other choice.
This is not so. A choice made with the power of Heaven to uphold it cannot BE undone. Your way IS decided.
There will be nothing you will NOT be told, if you acknowledge this.
And so you stand, here in this holy place, before the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ. LET it be lifted! 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. Yes, it IS almost over, IN YOUR AWARENESS. And peace has reached you even here, BEFORE the veil. Think what will happen after! The love of Christ will light YOUR faces, and shine from them into a darkened world that NEEDS the light. And, from this holy place, He will return with you, not leaving it or you.
YOU will become His messengers, returning Him unto Himself. Think of the loveliness that YOU will see, who walk with Him! And think how beautiful will each of you look to the other! How happy you will be to be TOGETHER, after such a long and lonely journey where you walked alone. The gates of Heaven, open now for you, will you now open to the sorrowful. And none who looks upon the Christ in you but will rejoice. How beautiful the sight you saw beyond the veil, which you will bring to light the tired eyes of those as weary now as once you were. How thankful will they be to see you come among them, offering Christ's forgiveness to dispel their faith in sin.
Every mistake you make the other will gently have corrected FOR you. For, in his sight, your loveliness is HIS salvation, which he would PROTECT from harm. And each will be the other's strong protector from EVERYTHING that seems to rise between you. So shall you walk the world with me, whose message has not yet been given everyone. For you are here to let it be RECEIVED. God's offer still is open; yet it waits acceptance. From you who have accepted it, is it received. Into your joined hands is it safely given. For you who SHARE it have become its willing guardians and protectors.
To all who share the love of God the grace is given to be the givers of what they have received. And so they learn that it is theirs forever. All barriers disappear before their coming, as every obstacle was finally surmounted that seemed to rise and block THEIR way before. This veil you lift together opens the way to truth to more than you. Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's Saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and RELEASE from suffering to everyone who NEEDS a miracle to save him.
How EASY is it to offer this miracle to everyone! No-one who has received it for himself COULD find it difficult. For, BY receiving it, he learned it was not given him alone. Such is the function of a holy relationship; to RECEIVE together, and give as you received. Standing BEFORE the veil, it still seems difficult. But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share.
A few years ago when I was having a profound spiritual experience, I had so much love and joy inside of me.
It was just pouring out, shining outwards. I felt like I was just 'beaming' it out of me like an intense flashlight, shining onto everyone.
I felt that I had no needs, and no lack.
I just felt tremendously loving, tremendously broadcasting, just all this joy was shining outward so brightly.
It shone so brightly that I became able to look people directly in the face without flinching, so intensely that they were always the first to look away.
The love in me shone so brilliantly, and was like an intense radiation outwards, extending outward and flowing only outward.
In this state, there was no sense of anything coming into me. I did not feel that I had any needs whatsoever. Nothing was coming in from outside, it was only extending from within.
In fact, that day I did not feel like I needed to eat food. I tried to put food in my mouth but it felt completely alien, like I was just shoving these lumps of stuff into my body for absolutely no reason, that it was not going to do anything to me or for me that I needed at all.
I didn't see myself as needing to get anything from outside of myself for any reason. I didn't need anyone's help, I didn't need anyone's advice or opinion, I didn't need food or water, I didn't need sleep, I didn't need anything.
The love was in me. All it could seem to do was shine brilliantly and to go outward. This simultaneously gave me a perception that absolutely nothing COULD come into me, and that therefore I was very safe and protected. The light was so bright that it shone away all darkness and kept all ego illusions away from me. I could not take anything from anyone and did not want to, and as a result did not perceive that anyone could do anything to me whatsoever.
Not only did I not want to get anything from anyone, I could not. There was such intensity in what was going outward that it was impossible to bring anything in from the outside. Ego illusions, fears, whatever it was, could not come into me. I had everything I needed. I had the love and presence of God.
To some degree, because I was in a very different state of mind, people thought that I needed help. And they started trying to help me. But their help was, from my point of view, completely unnecessary. They thought I needed help, and were offing all kinds of advice and shit, but not one single bit of it was needed, or wanted, or necessary. There was nothing wrong with me. They were the ones who were upset and afraid.
Love has to be in you, coming from God, first, in order for you to extend love outward. And when God is in your mind, FIRST, you will see God in the world. You can't see God in the world unless God is in your mind. You can't see Christ in others unless Christ is in your awareness, first.
When it's in you, you will not need love from anyone because you will have no needs. Because you will have no lack. When there is no lack of love in you, you become invulnerable and strong and fearless. You become fulfilled. You want for nothing and need nothing. You are sustained by the love of God, literally, to all degrees on all levels. Even physically.
You cannot get this from another person. No-one can make up for a lack that you believe is in you which you put there and think is real. The only lack you need correct is the absence of God. The only need you really have is His love, without which you will see yourself as in need and go trying to steal what you lack from other people. This turns you into a psychic vampire. Everyone is doing this, feeding off each other.
Love is all you need. You have to undo whatever it is that has come between you and God, whatever it is that made you believe you lacked His presence, and whatever it is that blocks you from having Him in your awareness. Whatever that block is, it is the sole foundation of all neediness, all ego seeking, and all vulnerability. Lack is a state of victimhood. You cannot be a victim when have God in you. You are invulnerable. You are literally immortal. Nothing can assail the Kingdom of Heaven.
ALL of your ego's functioning stems from a very very simple premise. Once you start to realize what this foundation is, it frames everything the ego does as just another example of this one thing.
The foundation of the ego is simply the suggestion that you are not love - the love is not in you or what you are - so you are deprived of it - so now you need to go restore the sense of lack by finding it somewhere ELSE other than in you. You go off hunting for a way to fill the emptiness, which reinforces your belief in the emptiness. And even if you find something, it won't heal the sense of LACK, and you won't accept it, because it's not really what you want. You want yourself back. You want God's love.
The separation of your identity from God's Son leads to:
Seeking outside yourself
Creating sickness
All idol worship
Creating fear
All attack
All victimhood
All loss and grief and loneliness
All sense of abandonment and rejection
Seeing yourself as separate from God and others
Having nothing to depend on ("independence")
Insanity
Not being true to yourself
Seeking for what you lost where it does not exist and not finding it
Losing even more of what you are by being compelled to replace it
A belief that you can die
All vulnerability and sense of threat
Mistrust (in yourself)
All paths efforting to 'find yourself' but remain separate
The spiritualized ego
The inability to share or join
Condemnation and judgement and blame (of yourself)
Shame and guilt for who you are
Unworthiness and unloveability
Suffering and suicide and war (with yourself)
All anger and upset and disasters and terrible events
...And on and on.
Just this one thing. This one idea of - I'm not myself - where am I - who am I - I am separate from what I am - I am not as God created me - leads to all of these other dynamics and activities and perceptions.
You can't have any of them without this one foundation - this sense of separation from yourself. And since you and God are one, it is simultaneously a sense of separation from God.
"A sense of separation from God is the only lack you really need correct." - ACIM
And here's the clincher. Every single one of those things on that list above that you currently believe are caused by all kinds of things OTHER than the ego's foundation, are NOT caused by anything other than the ego's foundation. And so it is the sheer 'fact' of 'being' an ego - separate from the love you are - that causes every single problem you face. All hell comes from it. Being separate from God and your True Self is the ONLY problem that needs correction. All other problems are illusory problems masking the one problem so that you will not correct it.
So each time I am in the ego, in some way I must be believing that I am separate from God and myself. I must be going down some path which tells me it's going to help me RESTORE who I am and what I lost, BUT which will NOT restore it, because the entire NEED for that path comes from believing I LACK what I'm looking to restore, and until I stop beleiving that I won't ever be able to ACCEPT that I HAVE WHAT I REALLY HAVE ALREADY.
You ARE as God Created you. You ARE love already. This you need to accept, and let go of all these other ego pursuits that trick you and lead you away from it. Everyone is being deceived by the ego's suggestions of everything you need to do to 'fix' the separation, which seem to lead you to resolution but in fact lead you to an EVEN WORSE situation. Seek and do not find. Fix and do not correct. Pursue and fail. Search and lose. Try to have and do not have at all. Hold on and lose everything. This is all the ego's deceit.
One error, one correction. Holy Spirit's is the Answer from God because He Knows the solution to this problem - that the problem really IS NOT REAL. You are NOT separate from God or Your Self and the separation NEVER HAPPENED. So you are love. And that is why you need do nothing.
Jesus redefines the meaning of fear. It is not some mere feeling that you have. In fact, He teaches that fear is the opposite of love. Love is essentially equated with the entire Kingdom of God and the nature of Creation. So fear really is another word for "the entire ego thought system."
Fear is the idea of love's opposite. If you are slightly unhappy, if you are sick, if you are dead, if you are at war, if you are suffering in any way less than experiencing eternal life, there must be fear present. The entire dream of death is a dream of fear. Fear is death. Fear is unwillingness.
I bump into this all the time. It just seems that I keep encountering some form of fear, over and over and over again. It doesn't always seem like fear, unless I look at it carefully and notice that it seems less than loving and has some kind of fearful resistance or reluctance or uncertainty running through it. All stresses, all upsets, all are based in fearful perceptions.
All of my efforts to awaken or be spiritual etc all seem to be this constant "battle" with fear coming and going, sometimes stronger than other times. It feels like trying to stay afloat or even to approach the surface where the light shines, only to be dragged down by these fearful anchors. If I could be released from fear, I would be in a state of love, therefore, and would be happy.
If happiness and love is what I want, and to be miraculous you must be expressing love, then it makes sense that all fear has to be undone. Fear is really the big problem. And fear is nothing but the illusion of the absence of love. It's the idea of darkness. Fear is seriousness. Fear is hell. Fear paralyzes. Fear is attack. And fear stops life.
All forms of hate and vengeance, all grievances, all self attack, all projections, it's all rooted in fear. All attempts to fix and solve and figure out and plan are based in the fear that something is wrong. All ego motivations and seeking to not find, is based on the fearful idea of loss and lack. Without fear there can only be love.
We must seek out and remove all traces of fear and the cause of this fear. Undoing fear allows you to relax. Undoing fear re-establishes trust. Undoing fear lightens you up. Undoing fear makes you happy and corrects your perception. Without fear you will see the shining face of Christ and be glad.
"All healing is essentially the release from fear."
"The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite."
"T-1.VI.5. All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level, and therefore do not exist at all. 2 To whatever extent you are willing to submit your beliefs to this test, to that extent are your perceptions corrected. 3 In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along these lines:
4 Perfect love casts out fear.
5 If fear exists, then there is not perfect love.
6 But:
7 Only perfect love exists.
8 If there is fear,
It produces a state that does not exist.
9 ****Believe this and you will be free.**** 10 Only God can establish this solution, and this faith is His gift."
"We have said that you have but two emotions, love and fear. One is changeless but continually exchanged, being offered BY the eternal TO the eternal. In this exchange it is extended, for it INCREASES as it is given. The other has many forms, for the content of INDIVIDUAL delusions differs greatly. But they have one thing in common; they are all insane. They are made of sights which are NOT seen, and sounds which are NOT heard. They make up a PRIVATE world, which CANNOT be shared. For they are meaningful ONLY to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only HE perceives them."
The body is supposed to be used as a communication device. This is much misundestood. What it means is that the body is to be used in a way that reflects our function of extension in heaven. We (mind/soul) are a MEDIUM or "communication channel" of extension, through which God is hosted and extends. We are to pass on what we receive. And this produces a continuous outward expansion and increase of creation. This is also communication - the outward expression of love.
"Creation and communication are synonymous. God created every mind by communicating His Mind to it, thus establishing it forever as a channel for the reception of His Mind and Will." That means, the body is supposed to, from a higher repurposing perspective, be used solely to extend and join and communicate, like a medium that you express THROUGH and BEYOND. Whereby you use it solely like a tool to give to others, placing no focus ON the body itself, or on the bodies of others. Because bodies become a LIMIT on communication if you make them real. They turn into brick walls.
The entire problem comes when you begin to focus ON the body, making it an idol, worshipping it, mistaking it for a THING in its own right, considering it an entity, dwelling on its form and function, and identifying with it as if it is your self. This converts the "channel" from being a channel, to being a roadblock in the channel. It turns the body into a blockage of separation instead of extension.
All of the minds attention is put ON the MEDIUM ITSELF, as if the medium itself is important. This separates the mind off because it now stops at the body's limits and does not go past it to join with other minds beyond their bodies. This increases the rift in the mind and induces all forms of sickness including death. It's a mis-use of the body - trying to use what's supposed to be a PIPE, as though it's a brick wall.
This is also why holy relationship is important because you're supposed to USE the body to relate BEYOND the body. It's only supposed to be used temporarily as a device for this purpose, and is not supposed to be used to exalt itself or to act as a prison or barrier. When you become body focused, you literally "lose sight" of your brother and yourself. It means we're turning a device for learning into the FOCUS of learning, as if trying to make the body BE something in its own right, which it isn't. The body is used for communication when the body ITSELF becomes NOTHING and invisible in the equasion.
"Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not IN it. If the mind believes the body is its GOAL, it WILL distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot BUT foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else."
"To confuse a learning device with a curriculum GOAL is a fundamental confusion. Learning can hardly be meaningfully arrested at its own aids, and hope to understand them OR its real purpose. Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY."
"The Holy Spirit's purpose lies safe in your RELATIONSHIP, and NOT your bodies. You have ESCAPED the body. Where you are now, the BODY cannot enter, for the Holy Spirit has set HIS temple there."
"You CANNOT make the body the Holy Spirit's temple, and it will NEVER be the seat of love. It is the home of the idolater, and of love's CONDEMNATION. For here is love made fearful, and hope abandoned. Even the idols that are worshipped here are shrouded deep in mystery, and kept APART from those who worship them. This is the temple dedicated to no relationships, and no return."
"The Holy Spirit's temple is NOT a body, but a RELATIONSHIP. The body is an isolated speck of darkness; a hidden secret room, a tiny spot of senseless mystery, a meaningless enclosure carefully protected, yet hiding nothing. Here, the unholy relationship escapes reality, and seeks for crumbs to keep itself alive. Here it would drag its brothers, holding them here in its idolatry. Here it is "safe," for here love CANNOT enter. The Holy Spirit does not build His temples where love can never be. Would He Who SEES the face of Christ choose as His home the only place in all the universe where it can NOT be seen?"
Come visit planet Earth (death), it's a really great place to be. Rated "zero stars", it's a popular attraction. Wouldn't you like to stay here for ever and ever? It's got bacon. ;-)
Hear what previous visitors had to say about their stay...
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"You do not want the world. "
"The world provides no safety. "
"This world was over long ago. "
"The world you see does not exist. "
"Nothing the world believes is true. "
"Love was never in the world of dreams. "
"There are no satisfactions in the world. "
"It is the world you see that is impossible. "
"You are the dreamer of the world of dreams. "
"Without the idea of death there is no world. "
"All the "pleasures" of the world are nothing. "
"If this were the real world, God would be cruel. "
"The world you see is but a judgment on yourself."
"The world you see has nothing to do with reality. "
"The bleak little world will vanish into nothingness. "
"The world was made that problems could not be escaped. "
"This world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. "
"This world of idols is a veil across the face of Christ. "
"The world you see does nothing. It has no effects at all. "
"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. "
"The unreal world is a thing of despair, for it can never be. "
"Only in the world is the idea of an authority problem meaningful. "
"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is not your home. "
"There is a place in you where this whole world has been forgotten. "
"The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state. "
"In the world of scarcity, love has no meaning and peace is impossible. "
"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. "
"There is nothing in the world that has the power to make you ill or sad. "
"God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. "
"Learning that stops with what the world would teach stops short of meaning. "
"There is no world! This is the central thought the Course attempts to teach. "
"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never be undone. "
"This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity. "
"On confusion has this world been based, and there is nothing else it rests upon. "
"It is not will for life but wish for death that is the motivation for this world. "
"For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart. "
"The world is only in the mind of its maker. Do not believe it is outside of yourself. "
"The world believes in sin, but the belief that made it as you see it is not outside you. "
"Injustice is the basis for all the judgments of the world. "
"Where is the world, and where is sorrow now? "
"You cannot understand how much your Father loves you, for there is no parallel in your experience of the world to help you understand it. "
"You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it"
"How could you walk the world alone and separate from your Source? "
"If you are fearful, it is certain that you will endow the world with attributes that it does not possess, and crowd it with images that do not exist. "
"Judgment and love are opposites. From one comes all the sorrows of the world. From the other comes the peace of God."
"The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. Such a rebirth is impossible as long as you continue to project or miscreate. "
"The world uses its special relationships as a final weapon of exclusion and a demonstration of separateness."
"Everything in this world is little because it is a world made out of littleness."
"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. "
"There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release."
"The world that you see is what you have put there to see; nothing more and nothing less and so it is important to you."
"What profiteth it a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?"
"The world has never been at all. Eternity remains a constant state."
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it. "
"Earth sucks. It's a shit hole. I'm never going back." (haha)
"Your sleeping and waking dreams have different forms, and that is all. THEIR CONTENT IS THE SAME. They are your protest AGAINST reality, and your fixed and insane wish to CHANGE it."
We are in a state of denial where we are attacking reality. We are blocking truth, we do not want to see what is really there to see, we're trying to hide from God, we don't want to own up to being who we really are, we're trying to bind ourselves to something we're not, and we see ourselves as separate from what is real.
When Jesus talks about vision, he's talking about your willingness to see reality. When we say "above all else I want to see", we're saying that above all else, we're willing to pierce through illusions and walls and denials and take a good hard look at what is actually there. This is also what the course calls "reality contact" .Physical sight cannot see it, so we need to open the mind.
"Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct delineation of intra- and interpersonal boundaries. As a result, the doer sees the truth as God created it."
For example, God right now knows you exactly as you really are. He is aware of your perfect permanent innocence. But you are not. You are blocking your awareness of the truth about yourself. You do not know yourself as you really are, because you do not want to. You think things about yourself which you prefer, but which are not true. God therefore knows you better than you know yourself right now, and your job is to come to know what is really true of you again.
Similarly the acceptance of the atonement is really the acceptance of what is actually true. It's a willingness to see everything as it is, to recognize what it is, and therefore to no longer be deceived. It means no longer being in denial and no longer resisting the truth. We quite literally are hiding from reality, trying to identify with bodies in order to keep ourselves away from God.
It's like we're protesting against reality. We're fighting with it, we don't want it, we constantly attack it, and want to be separate from it. So we're out of touch with reality, which means we are confused and lost. It means we do not recognize what is real or not real, true or false, and are mistaken. This also means we are temporarily insane.
The desire to SEE, is the desire to KNOW, and the desire to BE. To see the real world is to be open and inclusive enough that you want to directly experience what actually is real. You can only experience this by not attacking reality, not separating from God, and not denying your soul. We basically are part of a rebellion, which began in the fall of man, and is ongoing. An ancient war against the truth.
If we are "the resistance" against the truth, which is also sickness and death, then we have to lay down our arms and put away our sharp-edged toys and be willing to be exposed to God again. To be open to sharing, to union and to oneness. If we want to be awake we're going to have to be willing to take the blindfold off and open the spiritual eye.
To see closer to reality will show us the real world, and the unreal world of Earth will be forgiven. In "reality" it will only be seen for what it is, before it fades away into nothingness. The closer we come to intimate contact with reality, the more we will see the light of the real world, and see God's reflection in the Earth.
Full reality exposure will reveal God to you, and your true self as Christ will reveal itself as Christ's face finally appears. And then you are ready to penetrate through the gates of heaven into total immersion and communion with all that is. To be in reality is to be in heaven.
"Every adjustment is therefore a DISTORTION, and calls upon defenses to uphold it AGAINST reality."
"For what could house this mad idea AGAINST reality, but for an instant?"
"WILLING AGAINST reality, though impossible, can be MADE into a very persistent goal, EVEN THOUGH YOU DO NOT WANT IT. But consider the result of this strange decision. You are DEVOTING your mind to what you DO NOT WANT. How real can this devotion be?"
"To be alone IS to be guilty. For to experience yourself AS alone, is to deny the Oneness of the Father and His Son, and thus to ATTACK REALITY. You cannot love PARTS of reality, and understand what love MEANS."
"You ATTACK the real world every day and every hour and every minute, and yet you are surprised that you cannot SEE it."
"Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite, and everywhere without all limit. Only Love creates, and only like Itself. There was no time when all that It created was not there. Nor will there be a time when anything that It created suffers any pain. Forever and forever are God's Thoughts exactly as They were and as They are, unchanged through time and after time is done." W320W111 urtext.
Many people have an idea in their head, before they even come to ACIM, that reality must be some kind of "oneness". It's based on their idea of God as "one great big giant thing". But A Course in Miracles has a very different definition of God and reality, so this idea of oneness has to be thrown in the trash if you want to do ACIM.
ACIM's model is that God is a creator. God is a cause. God creates many things. God has children. God has created an entire sonship comprising many sons. God's children are also creators who cause the creation of living beings. And God has also created a permanent Holy Spirit, and angels.
Without the idea of God as a creator of many things, there is no notion of God having ANY sons. There is no way to explain the authority problem or its undoing. God is now the one who separates and has to atone. There is no way for mind to be in the service of spirit. There is no way for you to be as God created you. There is no way for you to have permanent brothers to share with so that you're not alone forever. And without God as cause, you cannot have an inheritance.
ACIM's model is very very fundamental on this. God HAS to be thought of as your creator, the source, out of whom not only you but also others are created. God has to be acknowledged as your father otherwise you cannot share his power or give his gifts. God has to be seen as the cause of you and of everyone else, otherwise you are at the effect of your brothers. God has to be fundamentally acknowledged as having created A FAMILY.
This flies in the face of the idea that reality is just one thing, or its one giant expanse of energy, or there is only God being alone, or God doesn't cause anything, or that there is a kind of oneness that is all just a great big "one" without anything in it or any parts or anything to share with.
If you like, A Course in Miracles is a kind of "creationist" teaching, not that God created the Earth and bodies but God IS a creator of something. And that makes it impossible that reality just be one big blob or some void or some kind of giant emptiness or expanse of singularity. This fundamental idea of reality being "a oneness with nothing in it" IS NOT what ACIM teaches.
If someone wants a path that teaches that God is just sitting there on his own and that you are him in his entirety, then you really are barking up the wrong tree by taking this course. ACIM is not for you if you want to believe that God has no family. Or that YOU in turn are not a co-creator with your own creations. Your mind HAS TO EXTEND in order to live and to be healthy, just as God's does, which automatically implies that creation is the only true nature of anything real. Without it God is dead.
ACIM is a teaching on cause and effect, with God as cause of his effects, who inherit everything from him, and in turn become causes with effects. Reality has to be accepted as a very large "place" within which God hosts a great many things he has created. And which is forever increasing. An entire Kingdom of souls and beings and life. A Kingdom of unlimited thoughts and power and creation.
If that's not what you "like" or you think reality is not like that, then you probably should chose a different path which frames God as an inert blob. Trying to force ACIM to BE that path is just mangling its teaching, creating denial in your mind, splitting you away from the truth and producing a fairytale about not existing with no brothers to relate to. It's a shame that some people consistently assert that they have no self and there is no one else. If that were true, God has no creative power whatsoever.
God has a mind. God has awareness. God has many thoughts. God has creations. God has a Kingdom. God has power. God has a will. God has love. God feels. God knows. God be's. Gid us an author. God causes. God shares himself. God communicates. God has relationships. God is far more than just some expanse of existence.
"The idea for today is, of course, the reason why a meaningless world is impossible. What God did not create does not exist. And everything that does exist exists as He created it. The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making, and it does not exist."
Meaningfulness is of God. Meaning is reality. Love is meaningful. What God creates has meaning. It shares God's purpose. It's meaningful because it's full of genuine authentic value. It's what you really want because it means a lot to you. It's worth having. It what you were meant to have. It correlates to reality because it means what it really is without deception.
We're told in the course that this is a meaningless world - that we made a meaningless world. This means the world in and of itself has no value. We're also told that we have given it all the meaning it has by projecting meaning onto it. We're also told that we can extend God's meaning onto the world instead of the meanings we were giving it, which changes the meaning of the world.
When events transpire in the world, you might use the evidence the body provides to explain what is happening and what it means. You decide that it means something. This symptoms means this, those occurrences mean that. You come to conclusions in order to derive meaning from what you see. You then give what's happening this meaning. But you don't have to. The meaning isn't inherent to what's happening. Meaning is given it by you.
Jesus tells us that we've given the world all the meaning it has, and that if we will change our mind about what we value and believe, then it's going to change the meaning of the world. Meaning relates to what you value. What you value is what you want. What you want, you want to see. You then proceed to see it. What is it you are seeing? You are seeing meaning, projected onto the world, based on what value you want it to have. In other words, what you want it to mean to you.
In and of itself, the world has no meaning. We give it meaning. We can give it negative meaning, or we can give it love and see love in place of it. The love is meaningful. Love has within it God's meaningfulness. By giving love to what was made in hate, you change the world from a meaningless world into a meaningful world. Or at least, the love that you see in it is meaningful, because the world in and of itself is nothing.
What you want in life is meaning. You want meaningfulness. You want something of true value. You want worth. You want acknowledgement and heartfelt deep connection with genuine love. You want a purpose of love and joining. You want God.
""God did not create that war, and so it is not real."
"God did not create that airplane crash, and so it is not real."
"God did not create that disaster [specify], and so it is not real.""
""God did not create a meaningless world. He did not create [specify the situation which is disturbing you], and so it is not real.""
"WHAT IS THE RESURRECTION?
Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the world's purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of misery, and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit's final dream. It is the recognition of the gifts of God. It is the dream in which the body functions perfectly, having no function except communication. It is the lesson in which learning ends, for it is consummated and surpassed with this. It is the invitation to God to take His final step. It is the relinquishment of all other purposes, all other interests, all other wishes and all other concerns. It is the single desire of the Son for the Father.
The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared, but gladly welcomed. Idols have disappeared, and the remembrance of God shines unimpeded across the world. Christ's face is seen in every living thing, and nothing is held in darkness, apart from the light of forgiveness. There is no sorrow still upon the earth. The joy of Heaven has come upon it.
Here the curriculum ends."
"Your plan I follow here, and at the end I know that You will gather Your Effects into the tranquil Heaven of Your Love, WHERE EARTH WILL DISAPPEAR, and separate thoughts unite in glory as the Son of God. ... Let us today BEHOLD EARTH DISAPPEAR, at first transformed, and then, forgiven, fade entirely into God's holy Will."
"There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release."
"Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one."
"He does not realize that he MAKES this world, for there IS no world outside him."
""Heaven & Earth shall pass away" means that they will not always exist as separate states. My Word, which is the Resurrection and the Light, shall not pass away, because Life is Eternal."
"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 is no life outside of heaven."
"From here we give salvation to the world, for it is here salvation was received. The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all."
"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. ... Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world."
"There is no world because it is a thought apart from God, and made to separate the Father and the Son, and break away a part of God Himself and thus destroy His wholeness. Can a world which comes from this idea be real? Can it be anywhere? Deny illusions, but accept the truth."
"The idea for today is, of course, the reason why a meaningless world is impossible. What God did not create does not exist."
"How can a meaningless world exist if God did not create it?"
"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."
"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."
"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. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not."
"Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there any time you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does. And then-and then-I cannot speak of that. A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death."
In ACIM, we're told that we made a world, which is really spacetime, and a part of this spacetime is planet Earth. This didn't exist before the separation from God, and DEPENDS on the continuation of separation in order to take on "form".
The world itself was the idea of the opposite to everything-ness, which is the idea of nothingness. Thus the world was made as an empty shell symbolizing nothingness or a "lack of God", onto which we project meaning.
"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth." (the world Earth comes between you and the truth as "emptiness" and "nothingness", and we then project ONTO the Earth)
The Earth itself is meaningless, and is nothing. Being devoid of any inherent properties of its own, like a dark shadow, it acts like a mirror, reflecting meaning given to it. You have to give it meaning because it has none. And even when you give it meaning, it still has no INHERENT meaning of its own.
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning."
Because Earth is meaningless, you can project good or bad thought onto it. Thus it can REFLECT an IMAGE projected onto it. It can reflect ideas of heaven or hell, and you can see these IN it, as though a reflection once removed from the thing projected. This doesn't mean the Earth IS heaven or hell, it is neutral, but it can be INTERPRETED as REFLECTING either.
"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego."
"If a mind creates without love, it can create an empty shell (spacetime/Earth). This CAN be possessed by evil."
Having projected an "empty screen" AS EARTH, our egos rushed in and attempted to project ego meaning onto the Earth. It tried to focus on form and separations and differences to emphasize the separation, projecting this onto the Earth so that Earth "reflects hell."
"It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality."
Earth, and spacetime, are a "void" of nothingness, onto which we project God or the ego. Our task then becomes to recognize that we are projecting ego/hell onto a neutral/nothing/meaningless world, and that we can instead project God/heaven onto it. This seems to project meaning and reality onto it, as well as love and peace and holiness. It then becomes possible to see IN the world, a REFLECTION of heaven.
As in "God is in everything I see". This doesn't mean the thing reflect IS LITERALLY the world or AS it, but is reflected IN it. Just as an image of your body is seen IN a mirror. This reflection is an image, and is also referred to as forgiveness. It is SYMBOLIC. It represents something once removed from itself. Just as a reflected IMAGE in a mirror is once removed from the actual object. The reflection of heaven on earth is NOT heaven ITSELF, but it appears to be LIKE heaven. And it is what you PUT THERE that is "the only reality it has."
"The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it YOU look upon with love. This GIVES it the only reality it will ever have. ITS value is NOT in itself" (it has no inherent love/value/reality) A mind which is healed translates the neutral nothingness of Earth into something that resembles heaven, interpreted with ideas of wholeness and healing, with love and peace, with light and happiness etc. This "converts" in a sense, through an inner translation, the form of the world into something that seems to mean heavenly things. Thus Earth appears to the mind to become heaven-LIKE. A REFLECTION of heaven, a symbolic DREAM of heaven. A "real world."
However, we need to be clear that this reflection of heaven on Earth IS NOT the same thing as heaven ITSELF. Heaven Itself, which is reflected ONTO the Earth through projection, is still a distinct dimensional reality created by God. Earth, as a veil of illusions, as an illusory world, as an empty screen, as a void, as a nothingness, must disappear. Part of seeing heaven in it ALSO entails seeing that the world has no attributes of its own, otherwise the reflection cannot be seen. And having no attributes, Earth is recognized as NOT REALLY THERE.
As the veil thins, the mirror dissipates, the reflection in perception (forgiven world) gives way, and parts. And now it disappears and is forgotten. Everything that entailed "the Earth" fades into the nothingness from which it came. The reflection of heaven, the real world, is gone.
"The real world still is but a dream." "Even the real world will vanish from your sight."
With the disappearing of Earth and space and time and the sun and stars, shone away BY light, because they are darkness, REPLACED by heaven, all that then remains is heaven ITSELF. An actual real created "world", not Earth in any way, not space or time, or any other such form, but the living world of light, the creations of light, the true Kingdom of God, which the nothing Earth was all this time made to CONCEAL and hide.
Heaven is first reflected in the world, seen "in the world" here, as Earth is "translated" into heaven. But then Earth ends. A translation IS once removed from the original form of something, and although our minds can see the translation the thing BEING translated is still a void of nothingness and illusions. Earth cannot remain as part of the Kingdom, it is not ACTUAL holiness, the body cannot BE holy, and all other divine attributes cannot be fused into the planet.
"As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE. And BOTH must be undone, for purposes of truth."
As the world, Earth, spacetime, disappears, heaven itself, a condition of ACTUAL holiness and BEING holy, is all that remains. This is A Course in Miracles.
"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."
"YOU DO NOT WANT THE WORLD. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it YOU look upon with love. This GIVES it the only reality it will ever have. ITS value is NOT in itself" (notice how you GIVE it reality/love, it does not HAVE it itself)
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real." (wishes can be unholy or holy, but they're still GIVEN and not inherent)
"This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE."
"But what is truth to him must be brought to the last comparison that he will ever make; the last evaluation that will be possible, the final judgment upon this world. It is the judgment of the truth upon illusion, of knowledge on perception; IT HAS NO MEANING AND DOES NOT EXIST." (the Earth mirror does not exist, spacetime has no meaning of its own)
"Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth." (forgiveness is an earthly symbolic form of heaven's love)
"The body no more dies than it can feel. IT DOES NOTHING. Of itself, it is neither corruptible nor incorruptible. IT IS NOTHING." (this is literal, the physical body is nothing at all, it has no reality).
"It is still true that the body has no function of itself."
"The test of EVERYTHING on earth is simply this: "What is it FOR?" The answer makes it what it IS for you. It has NO meaning of itself, yet you can GIVE reality to it, according to the purpose which YOU serve." (it has NO MEANING of itself, Earth has NO MEANING of itself. You have to GIVE it TEMPORARY meaning)
"Darkness is lack of light. It does not have unique properties of its own." (Earth is like a shadow, a lack of light, the absence of God - world made as an attack on God/light etc)
"All these attributes are given it by you. The world is meaningless in itself." (Earth has no inherent attributes)
"In the world you, can become a spotless mirror, in which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you, to all around you. You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego." (Just the fact Earth can reflect VARIABLE things means NEITHER is permanent)
"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them, are ready at last for Heaven. There, holiness is not a reflection, but rather the ACTUAL CONDITION of what was but reflected TO them here. God is no image, and His creations, as part of Him, hold Him in them in truth. They do not merely REFLECT the truth, for THEY ARE truth." (notice how reflecting holiness on earth makes you READY to go to heaven, cus you're not there yet. IN heaven, holiness is a condition not a reflected image)
"Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God's Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me to my home." (again, bringing heaven to earth to REFLECT here, gets you ready to LEAVE)
"As I begin to see, I recognize His reflection on earth."
"Forgiveness, truth's reflection, tells me how to offer miracles, and thus escape the prison house in which I think I live."
"All the world shines in reflection of its holy light, and I perceive a world forgiven at last."
"Reflect the peace of Heaven HERE, and bring this world to Heaven. For the REFLECTION of truth draws everyone TO truth. And as they enter INTO it, they leave ALL reflections behind. In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected" (again a distinction between reality being shared (communion) in heaven, vs reality being REFLECTED on earth (communication))
"What they have felt in them they look upon, and see Its sure reflection everywhere."
"A sleeping mind must waken as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of Life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there. And now it is no more a mere reflection. It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. No vision now is needed. For the wakened mind is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness." (again moving out of the reflected heaven on earth, INTO heaven proper, leaving the world behind)
"We do not see the ego's shadow on the world today. We see the light, and in it we see Heaven's reflection lie across the world." (heaven's REFLECTION, not heaven itself)
"the world he made. In error it began. But it will end in the reflection of his holiness." (the world ENDS when heaven is reflected in it, it doesn't go any further or enter INTO heaven)
"Where this Child shall go is holy ground. It is His holiness that lights up Heaven, and that brings to earth the pure reflection of the light above, wherein are earth and Heaven joined as one." (one means similar, not singular. also heaven is above the earth and they are not the same thing)
"God's laws do not obtain directly to a world perception rules, for such a world could not have been created by the Mind to which perception has no meaning. Yet are His laws reflected everywhere. ******NOT that the world where this reflection is, is real at all.*******" (The place where heaven is reflected on earth IS NOT REAL AT ALL - Earth is not real at all!! The reflection appears to be a real-like IMAGE, but is not heaven itself. Earth is never heaven but can appear heaven-like through translation.)
Today we will again give thanks for our identity in God. Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings. We can fail in nothing. Everything we touch takes on a shining light which blesses and which heals. At one with God and with the universe, we go our way rejoicing, with the thought that God Himself goes everywhere with us.
How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself. How easily do errors disappear, and death give place to everlasting life. Our shining footprints point the way to truth, for God is our Companion as we walk the world a little while. And those who come to follow us will recognize the way because the light we carry stays behind, yet still remains with us as we walk on.
What we receive is our eternal gift to those who follow after, and to those who went before or stayed with us a while. And God, Who loves us with the equal love in which we were created, smiles on us and offers us the happiness we gave.
Today we will not doubt His Love for us, nor question His protection and His care. No meaningless anxieties can come between our faith and our awareness of His Presence. We are one with Him today in recognition and remembrance. We feel Him in our hearts. Our minds contain His Thoughts, our eyes behold His loveliness in all we look upon. Today we see only the loving and the loveable.
We see it in appearances of pain, and pain gives way to peace. We see it in the frantic, in the sad and the distressed, the lonely and afraid, who are restored to the tranquility and peace of mind in which they were created. And we see it in the dying and the dead as well, restoring them to life. All this we see because we saw it first within ourselves.
No miracle can ever be denied to those who know that they are one with God. No thought of theirs but has the power to heal all forms of suffering in anyone in times gone by and times as yet to come as easily as in the ones who walk beside them now. Their thoughts are timeless, and apart from distance as apart from time.
We join in this awareness as we say that we are one with God. For in these words we say as well that we are saved and healed; that we can save and heal accordingly. We have accepted and we now would give, for we would keep the gifts our Father gave. Today we would experience ourselves at one with Him, so that the world may share our recognition of reality. In our experience the world is freed. As we deny our separation from our Father, it is healed along with us.
Peace be to you today. Secure your peace by practicing awareness you are one with your Creator, as He is with you. Sometime today, whenever it seems best, devote a half an hour to the thought that you are one with God. This is our first attempt at an extended period for which we give no rules nor special words to guide your meditation. We will trust God's Voice to speak as He sees fit today, certain He will not fail. Abide with Him this half an hour. He will do the rest.
Your benefit will not be less if you believe that nothing happened. You may not be ready to accept the gain today. Yet sometime, somewhere, it will come to you, nor will you fail to recognize it when it dawns with certainty upon your mind. This half an hour will be framed in gold, with every minute like a diamond set around the mirror that this exercise will offer you. And you will see Christ's Face upon it, in reflection of your own.
Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will see your own transfiguration in the glass this holy half an hour will hold out to you, to look upon yourself. When you are ready; you will find it there, within your mind and waiting to be found. You will remember then the Thought to which you gave this half an hour, thankfully aware no time was ever better spent. Perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will look into this glass, and understand the sinless light you see belongs to you; the loveliness you look on is your own.
Count this half hour as your gift to God, in certainty that His return will be a sense of love you cannot understand, a joy too deep for you to comprehend, a sight too holy for the body's eyes to see, and yet you can be sure some day, perhaps today, perhaps tomorrow, you will understand and comprehend and see. Add further jewels to the golden frame that holds the mirror offered you today by hourly repeating to yourself:
"Let me remember I am one with God,
At one with all my brothers and my Self,
In everlasting holiness and peace."
What can correct illusions but the truth? And what are errors but illusions which remain unrecognized for what they are? Where truth has entered errors disappear. They merely vanish, leaving not a trace by which to be remembered. They are gone because without belief they have no life, and so they disappear to nothingness, returning whence they came. From dust to dust they come and go, for only truth remains.
Can you imagine what a state of mind without illusions is? How it would feel? Try to remember when there was a time, - perhaps a minute, maybe even less, - when nothing came to interrupt your peace; when you were certain you were loved and safe. Then try to picture what it would be like to have that moment be extended to the end of time and to eternity. Then let the sense of quiet that you felt be multiplied a hundred times, and then be multiplied another hundred more.
And now you have a hint, not more than just the faintest intimation of the state your mind will rest in when the truth has come. Without illusions there could be no fear, no doubt and no attack. When truth has come all pain is over, for there is no room for transitory thoughts and dead ideas to linger in your mind. Truth occupies your mind completely, liberating you from all beliefs in the ephemeral. They have no place because the truth has come, and they are nowhere. They cannot be found, for truth is everywhere forever now.
When truth has come it does not stay a while, to disappear, or change to something else. It does not shift and alter in its form, nor come and go and go and come again. It stays exactly as it always was, to be depended on in every need, and trusted with a perfect trust in all the seeming difficulties and the doubts which the appearances the world presents engender. They will merely blow away when truth corrects the errors in your mind.
When truth has come it harbors in its wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain but looks beyond it, steadily and sure. Here is the gift of healing, for the truth needs no defense, and therefore no attack is possible. Illusions can be brought to truth to be corrected. But the truth stands far beyond illusions, and can not be brought to them to turn them into truth.
Truth does not come and go nor shift nor change, in this appearance now and then in that, evading capture and escaping grasp. It does not hide. It stands in open light, in obvious accessibility. It is impossible that anyone could seek it truly and would not succeed. Today belongs to truth. Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams be gone. Let truth correct them all.
We do not ask for what we do not have. We merely ask for what belongs to us, that we may recognize it as our own. Today we practice on the happy note of certainty which has been born of truth. The shaky and unsteady footsteps of illusion is not our approach today. We are as certain of success as we are sure we live and hope and breathe and think. We do not doubt we walk with truth today, and count on it to enter into all the exercises that we do this day.
Begin by asking Him Who goes with you upon this undertaking that He be in your awareness as you go with Him. You are not made of flesh and blood and bone, but were created by the self-same Thought Which gave the gift of life to Him as well. He is your Brother, and so like to you your Father knows that you are both the same. It is your Self you ask to go with you, and how could He be absent where you are?
Truth will correct all errors in your mind which tell you you could be apart from Him. You speak to Him today, and make your pledge to let His function be fulfilled through you. To share His function is to share His joy. His confidence is with you as you say:
"Truth will correct all errors in my mind,
And I will rest in Him who is my Self."
Then let Him lead you gently to the truth which will envelop you and give you peace so deep and tranquil that you will return to the familiar world reluctantly.
And yet you will be glad to look again upon this world. For you will bring with you the promise of the changes which the truth that goes with you will carry to the world. They will increase with every gift you give of five small minutes, and the errors which surround the world will be corrected as you let them be corrected in your mind.
Do not forget your function for today. Each time you tell yourself with confidence, "Truth will correct all errors in my mind," you speak for all the world, and Him Who would release the world as He would set you free.