The very first level confusion occurs when we as Sons of God attempt to "cause God".

Whenever an effect, or a lower level, attempts to cause effects in the very cause that caused it, ie a higher level, that is level confusion.

The first level confusion was the separation from God itself.

God is cause. God creates and produces effects. We are his creations/effects.

As effects, effects do not cause the thing that caused them.

Sons of God do not have the ability to cause God. If they did, and this is what the whole separation is about, this would mean that we can produce effects in God and therefore change God. If they were to do that, they would be capable of destroying the very causal power which maintains their own existence, which is impossible.

There is a cause-effect distinction between what is God and what is a Son of God. God is "first cause". Sons of God are His effect. His Sons have been given the ability to cause ie create in God's likeness and their own, but they do not have the ability to actually cause anything other than this.

When Sons of God attempt to cause something unlike God, or something which goes against the freedom of will granted by God to extend love, "fiction" happens. A dream of impossibilities. Make-believe worlds and pretend bodies. That all comes from wishful thinking. And it's all a level confusion.

The attempt by the Son of God to cause His Father, to produce effects in the father, is the idea of sin. To make God change and be attackable/hurtable/modifyable is the very idea of sin. It is also the same thing as the authority problem - believing we have power to will against God's will.

So the very moment we entertained this tiny mad idea of being separate from God, it was an idea of being able to cause effects in God and therefore usurp his will. This was the first act of level confusion.

Every single thing that takes place inside the egoic dream of impossibilities and death, is also level confused. Absolutely every part of the ego is level confused. It is all entirely an attempt to reverse cause and effect. It is all a belief in magic and victimhood. And it is all impossible.

They say the ego is the first to speak, and usually people interpret this to mean that it speaks in an actual voice or thought, before Holy Spirit gets a word in. But clearly this isn't true because it's entirely possible to carry out a conversation with Holy Spirit without any ego interference.

How I like to think of it, is that the ego *responds* first. Its response may be on the emotional level, in a reaction, based on something happening that you see. You could say the ego is the 'automatic response' to a world of separation. If unchecked, and if not undone, the ego does generally tend to be the filter through which you see everything, and so in that sense it is always first. It comes between you and reality.

But this also doesn't necessarily mean the Holy Spirit cannot communicate with you clearly. It's our challenge to not use automatic ego reactions 'first' and to instead choose to stand in a greater truth - love, detachment, peace, etc. This way we prevent the ego from 'speaking' at all.. i.e. it doesn't have a say, it doesn't interfere with our perception of what's happening.

ACIM: "Miracle Principle 7

Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

DICITIONARY: "the process of making something spiritually or ceremonially clean."

What is purification? It is the process of removing "impurities", so that you end up with something that is "pure" and has no impurities in it.

What is it we are purifying? Our minds. We are removing "impure thoughts", beliefs, values and attitudes, so that we can be pure. Or rather, aware of our purity in God.

What are examples of impurities? All of the ego stuff, including evil thoughts, attack thoughts, grievances, unforgiveness, blame, anger, murderousness, all forms of sickness and death, separation ideas, body identification, guilt, fear, a sense of sinfulness, unworthiness, etc.

Heaven is a state of perfect purity. Another word for purity is innocence. It's a state completely devoid of any kind of sin or evil. It's so pure, that there isn't even a tiny trace of desire to attack or hurt, there isn't the slightest hint of anger or resentment, and absolutely no sense of fear resulting from seeing others as attackers.

Heaven is SO pure, it is very likely far more pure than you can imagine. And in order to enter awareness of heaven, you have to purify yourself of all states and attitudes that are impure. This actually entails being willing to give up a whole bucketload of ego things, which you may not be currently totally happy about giving up.

You have to give up ALL anger. You have to give up ALL attacking. You have to give up ALL guilt. You have to give up ALL sin. You have to give up ALL temptation to see yourself as victimized. You have to give up ALL desire to hurt other people. You have to give up ALL guilt, shame, and sense of not being good enough. You have to give up ALL motives relating to trying to get stuff. You have to give up all specialness, all selfishness, and all trace of conditional love. You have to give up unhappiness, sickness, suffering and death. And you have to give up the entire ego thought system.

The end result of this relinquishment, is a state of PERFECT PURITY. It is a purity SO pure that it is utterly immaculate, undefiled, and completely holy. The degree of holiness is off the charts in the extreme. You cannot enter such a state with any trace of malice in your heart or any amount of unforgiveness. You have to have forgiven absolutely everyone and everything, and hold nothing against anyone, and see yourself as utterly absolutely sinless.

Only through the complete removal of the belief in sin can you achieve this, because it is the atonement. It is the recognition that there is no sin anywhere, not in you, and not in anyone or anything. It is a state of TOTAL SINLESSNESS. That doesn't mean like, sin is real and evil is real and you have to stop being that through repentance, but more like, the recognition that these things are NOT real and you CANNOT BE them. That sin does not exist for you. There is only total harmlessness, gentleness, softness and love.

The most holy and pure, the most innocent and harmless, the most gentle and clean, the most unwilling to hurt, the most beautiful and new, are those who have purified themselves of the ego, of temptation and of death. It is the purity of the angels. It is absolute allegiance to God. It is a complete and total surrender of all control and egotism and all false ideas of self. It is the complete letting go of all false goals and made-up laws and artificial identities, and any attempt to be other than God created you.

So ACIM is saying that in order to become miraculous, to access the miracle-minded state in which you can PERFORM MIRACLES, which is a very loving state of sinlessness and holiness, you have to FIRST purify yourself. Your mind has to be decluttered and washed out with the spirit and ALL ego in you has to be utterly removed. You have to be cleansed and spiritually renewed. Jesus refers to this in ACIM also as a "rebirth", like becoming new again, as if nothing had ever happened to turn you into an evil monster.

You purify through whatever process works for you. But let's also realize that forgiveness is really the state OF purity, of atonement and of true perception. We are trying to reach that state. Because "only christ forgives" and that means we need total acceptance and alignment and awareness of Christ, TOTAL, MAXIMAL LOVE, in order to be in a state of forgiveness. Anything we do towards that goal is our "practice" or "application" of course principles in which we are trying to move ourselves CLOSER to that state.

This is why ultimately our entire work with the course up to its end goal of resurrection, is really a process of PURIFICATION, which RESULTS IN a state of total forgiveness. In which you have completely forgiven yourself, ie, have recognized that there is absolutely zero ego or sin or death in you. Where your mind is completely open and clear and in the service of spirit. Where Christ can now move through you, and Jesus can perform miracles through your hands.

To purify, you do whatever works, provided it entails the successful progress of moving closer toward total purity. Closer towards God, who is utterly pure, sinless and innocent. You can't be having attitudes of ego, attack, anger, blame, guilt, shaming, destruction etc, if you are to be pure. You can't be a keyboard warrior on facebook. This is the part the ego in you does not like or want, because it means giving up the things the ego CHERISHES and wants. Its way of relating to others through murderous attitudes. It does not WANT purity or holiness, it wants to be evil and wrong and bad, vulnerable and unhappy and destructive.

You can use catharsis, letting go, surrendering, development of trust, opening your mind, trusting God, various modalities of healing, practicing performing miracles, tuning into the love and light in you, prayer, asking for help, receiving love and healing, inviting the Holy Spirit to operate on you (mind/body/emotions), affirmations, cancelling error, reprogramming yourself, convincing yourself, reminding yourself, doing workbook lessons.

You can purify by forgiving people, polishing up your relationships to make them holy and equal and sharing, learning to be more unconditionally loving, working with the angels, giving the day to the Holy Spirit, seeking out blocks to love and removing them, digging out old hurts and unforgivenesses, getting rid of secret sins and hidden hates in the light, handing stuff over to the Holy Spirit, receiving guidance, doing Christ's work etc.

Whatever works. However you purify, however it is you can get yourself into a state of PURITY, of innocence and holiness. A state where you no longer WANT to hurt yourself, or others. A state where you see your TOTAL SINLESSNESS, and therefore project sinlessness onto others and the world, seeing them as sinless, and therefore having no grounds for fear or blame. Purity gives you harmlessness, just as it also puts your mind into a supernatural state of being invulnerable and IMMORTAL.

The innocent are strong and powerful. They are protected by God. They cannot BE hurt and DO not hurt themselves. "You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself." "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability" etc. They feel safe and secure and protected and guided. They cannot be attacked and are above the battleground. Nothing can intrude upon them because of the strength of spirit. And they can bestow healing and miracles and life upon those who are not yet purified - those who believe they are the living dead.

Once purification is reached, in part or in whole, you will have access to miraculous power. You will have the innocence with which to love, and the light with which to see. You will have the purity of heart and the total angelic harmlessness and gentleness with which to heal others. "Those who are healed become instruments of healing." You will become a miracle worker, able to raise the dead and resurrect the impure.

You will be able to actually purify others for them. "It is the privilege of the forgiven (pure) to forgive (purify)." And now you are doing God's work, until you go home to heaven, to the state of total and utter purity and innocence forever.

"Forgiveness is the only gift I give because it is the only gift I want, and everything I give I give myself. This is salvation s simple formula."

"Only the self-accused condemn."

"It can be but myself I crucify."

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF."

"You but accuse your brother of your own sins."

As I learn that any upset I feel is entirely self created and internal and nothing to do with anything else, I begin to experience a strangely unexpected disconnection between what seems to happen and how I react.

I can see that things happen externally, and perhaps they trigger internal reactions initially, but if I work on those reactions or realize they are just some old unhealed junk surfacing in my awareness, and I heal it, I am then restored to a more peaceful happy state even in spite of the fact that the external situation may still be the same.

And so this shows me that there are kind of two things running simultaneously. There's the external story, the world, showing pictures of things happening. And then there's this internal story or dialog, this inner reactive ego response, which runs alongside it. The ways that I am attacking myself, and then USING the world as a scapegoat.

As I practice ownership of my inner experience and see myself responsible for choosing and causing it, rather than making a false ego causal connection between "what I feel" and "what is happening outside", the two previously merged stories are peeling away from each other. Whereas before I thought that my upset goes hand in hand with a given situation, it is suddenly evidence that the two are not connected.

They no longer completely coincide and I now see myself sometimes moving outward to join with the external story but then flowing back inward again to pull away from it. If I identify with the "what's happening out there" story, I lose myself and react to it. But if I recall that I'm doing this all to myself internally, and ideas leave not their source, and any reaction in me I have chosen to reinvent myself, the whole sense of being "caused by" the world diminishes.

Where there used to be simply a total confusion and distraction and immersion and absorption into the hierarchy of illusions, all of the effects the ego dream would suggest I have, and its entire script for what I "should" be experiencing as a result, there is now an intermittent but increasingly wide divide between "what the dream is doing" and "what I am doing to myself."

If I am being triggered a lot by some situation that is ongoing, but then I recognize the triggered reaction is a re-emergence of a prior condition of self attack in my mind, my own accusation of myself as sinful, and I work on that and undo it, and it goes away, and the external situation just continues in its normal form but without triggering me, I see that there is a definite difference between me and "it".

It's as if, we don't just become body identified, we become world identified. We believe that *everything* external to the mind, which includes the body, has become the storage place and cause of all the stuff we are experiencing. We bind with it, just as we bind with the body in pain. We fail to separate out what is the dream and who is doing the dreaming. It's like an attempt to be one with the dream, to merge with it, and to fail to recognize it is not dreaming you.

If I think the world is dreaming me and causing me, I'm going to go out of my mind and connect my sense of who and what I am to whatever the world suggests I should be, based on that causality. If I let the dream dictate everything I experience, I am now in a constant victim role. As I continue to believe that I'm at the effect of the world, I cannot separate out what is happening within me versus what is really causing it. Because the world is not really the cause at all, and I'm doing this all to myself from within, to within.

I have to learn to recognize that whatever is going on inside me, whatever feelings or upsets or experiences or beliefs I'm having, not one single one of them is the result of the external dream world. There is not a single cause in the world with the power to do anything to me, as an invulnerable, immortal being. And that means learning to stop having this symbiotic merging of identity with the world, where I plug myself into the external illusion and allow it to trample all over me under the belief that it CAN and IS doing so.

I have to learn that nothing I experience is caused by anything but my innermost self. And if I am upset, I must address what I am doing to myself. And if someone *seems* to trigger me, I have to not accuse them of causing what comes up because they did not put it there, I did. And I would then thank them for bringing it to my attention. And so I must then recognize, if it weren't for me hurting myself, accusing myself, upsetting myself, I would NEVER be hurt, accused, or upset. An in fact as Jesus says, "you cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

It actually isn't really so much a matter of what the world has been doing TO ME. It's more in fact a matter of what I have been doing TO THE WORLD. I have been putting MY self-accused sins ONTO the world and have been attacking it and using it as a scapegoat to blame for causing the very things *I* have been doing to myself! The world has not been guilty at all, it's been innocent the whole time. And it's my own inner conflict that has been playing out projected and disassociated externally, to make it SEEM as if it's not part of me or in my mind or anything to do with me. I then get away with blaming the world for everything I do not like about myself.

MY task now is to step back, out of the drama I am causing, out of the rollercoaster of reactions and suffering that I'm producing based on what I've done to myself and tried to accuse others of, and constantly correct the "spilling over" of my inner wounds onto the world. Indeed I am to take off of the world all of the shite that I have been dumping onto it through my egoic projections of self attack.

All the guilt, sin, fear, unworthiness, shame, whatever.... if I address it as an internal scenario that I am doing to myself, NOT caused by anything or anyone else, and it is addressed honestly and correctly within my mind, then gradually I'm lifting off of the world all of this inner baggage that I was associating or attaching to it. And that means the world itself, the dream, is going to be recognized more as not really the cause of anything.

In this way, gradually the world becomes forgiven, in the sense that it is seen WITHOUT my inner content projections. As I stop seeing inner junk "out there", what was behind the junk - the illusory world onto which I projected more illusions - the illusory world is "revealed" more for simply what it is and not what I was making of it. Without my sins being projected, and without having any sins, I cannot see sin IN it.

The guilty meanings I was projecting onto it, the causality I was accusing it of, the sense of vulnerability and stress and suffering that I thought IT was responsible for causing but which I was doing to myself backwards, are no longer seen as "coming from" the world or from anyone else, but myself. It's all an inside job. And it's really me that needs the forgiveness, having accused myself of things that are untrue of my perfect divine holiness.

If I am wounded, by my self attack, I will project my wounds all over the place, bleeding out onto the world a blackness of self hatred. This will cloud my perception of the world and render it dark. As I heal the inner wounds, within, where the problem really is, in my mind, I can no longer have anything TO leak out onto the world. The world simply becomes automatically "forgiven", not because it did anything, but through simply being able to SEE what is there as the world, through self-forgiven eyes, rather than seeing THROUGH the old lens of sin and guilt.

As such, the world becomes uncovered, released, "saved" from me, from my projected self attack. And without a log in my own eye, I no longer HAVE sin in my mind TO attempt to displace onto external figures. And without this sin blocking my vision, I become more able to simply see the world for what it is, without all of the sin guilt and fear dumped onto it or filtering it. And without this angry dark content, perhaps the world is filled with light.

We're told that as we progress with this, the "real world" will become more visible to us. That is, the world we made, but without judgement, projection, disassociation, displacement, or all the other forms of disowned self attack masking it. Without this content, its forms seem less inherently meaningful. Without putting these dark meanings onto the world, the world IS meaningless. It is also neutral, and in a way pure, because it is nothing.

The world, in its "reality", or rather, seen "as is", is just a picture, without sin or guilt or fear or death projected onto it. It just stands like a thin veil before the face of Christ. It has no meaning of its own, because God only creates meaningful worlds and He did not create this. It is not dark. Or alive. Or dead. Or holy. Or sinful. In fact it can become more seemingly beautiful, as the inner beauty begins to look upon itself and shine outwards, illuminating the picture rather than attacking it. And as such the "real world", the forgiven world, begins to show up in awareness as a reflection of your OWN holiness projected onto a NEUTRAL canvas.

While the world in its physicality and form is "false perception", in which the forms are only focused on as part of seeing falsely and dwelling on separations, guilt and death, as perception rises toward the light within, looking first within and then looking outward, the forms are overlooked. They don't define anything quite so strongly as before. They don't separate off with harsh boundaries and walls. They become less solid, less heavy, less dark. They loom with less weight and seem to have less substance or meaning. As if they are not there, because they aren't, being just illusions.

The world becomes lighter, within, and seen without, as the dream seems to turn to a happier dream, where the unhappiness that was in you is no longer added to it. Where happiness returns to the mind and the world is seen as not containing any real sin or guilt - because the mind has none to project onto it. You can only look upon yourself. If you are love you see love in everything because the world is not real or evil. If you are guilty, you see guilt in everything and the world seems like hell. By forgiving yourself and restoring heaven to your mind, the world can be but a reflection of heaven to you.

The world without your guilt is the forgiven world, shining and sparkly and new. Still an illusion, yes. Still neutral and meaningless, yes. It is still nothing at all. But now the meaningfulness of love - God's will - is projected and seen within it, rather than darkness. This makes the world seem "lovable". Not because it is love or made of love, but because you can see only the love BEYOND it and can do nothing else. And God does love the world we made. This love, seen in it, is its only reality, and in the intensity of this love, all of the forms melt and disappear. Because the love is deeper than the forms and lives between the lines.

When eternity finally shines away the world, all its forms have vanished, everything has fused into oneness, love has erased death and the nothingness of the world of bodies ceases to exist. Without separation there are no forms. In light, there is no darkness. And in love there is no fear. All that remains beyond this disappearing world is heaven. Love looks upon itself. Christ looks upon Himself. And then God is known in completion.

"When you think you are projecting what you do NOT want, it is still because you DO want it. This leads directly to dissociation"

"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. You cannot really give anything but love to anyone or anything, nor can you really receive anything else from them. If you think you have received anything else, it is because you have looked within, and thought you saw the power to give something else WITHIN YOURSELF. It was only this decision that determined what you found, for it was the decision of what you SOUGHT."

"You are afraid of me because you looked within, and are afraid of what you saw. But you could not have seen reality, for the reality of your mind is the loveliest of God's Creations. Coming only from God, its power and grandeur could only bring you peace, IF YOU REALLY LOOKED UPON IT. If you are afraid, it is because you saw something THAT IS NOT THERE. Yet in this same place you could have looked upon me and all your brothers, in the perfect safety of the Mind that created us. For we are there in the peace of the Father, Who wills to project His peace through YOU."

"When you have accepted your mission to PROJECT peace, you will FIND it. For by MAKING IT MANIFEST you will SEE it. Its holy witnesses will surround you, because you CALLED upon them, and they will come to you. I have heard your call, and I have answered it, but you will not look upon me, nor hear the answer which you sought. But that is only because you do not yet want ONLY that. Yet as I become more real to you, you will learn that you DO want only that. And you will see me as you look within, and 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."

"As you decide, so will you see. And all that you see but witnesses to your decision. When you look within and see me, it will be because you have decided to manifest truth. And as you manifest it, you will see it both without AND within, for you will see it without BECAUSE you saw it first within. Everything you behold without is a judgment of what you beheld within. If it is YOUR judgment, it will be wrong, for judgment is not your function. If it is the judgment of the Holy Spirit, it will be right, for judgment IS His function. You share His function only by judging as HE does, reserving no judgment at all unto yourselves. For you will judge AGAINST yourselves, but He will judge FOR you."

Remember, then, that whenever you look without and react unfavorably to what you see, you have judged yourself unworthy, and have condemned yourself to death. The death penalty is the ego's ultimate goal, for it fully believes that you are a criminal, as deserving of death as God knows you are deserving of life. The death penalty never leaves the ego's mind, for that is what it always reserves for you in the end. Wanting to kill you, as the final expression of its feeling for you, it lets you live but to await death. It will torment you while you live, but its hatred is not satisfied until you die. For your destruction is the one end toward which it works, and the only one with which it will be satisfied."

YOU HAVE TO GIVE LOVE FIRST TO RECEIVE LOVE

Love is in you, it is you, it is God given. God put love and light and power into you. You did not put it there and cannot produce it on your own. But if you believe love is not in you, you are unlovable, unworthy, are denying your real self, etc, love will be blocked. Love does not enter where it is not welcome.

Believing the love is not in you, you will see yourself as lacking love, and "in need". You will believe the love is separate from you and external to you. So you will go seeking for it. You will try to GET IT from anywhere other than inside yourself. That is, you'll try to acquire it, without undoing your belief that you don't have it.

The problem is even IF people give it, you will not allow yourself to truly receive it. Openness to receiving love requires that you NOT believe you're lacking it, and requires to TO believe that love IS IN YOU ALREADY.

It's not that you need to find a way to get the love you are lacking, it's that you need to learn that unless you GIVE or EXTEND it, you WILL NOT receive it. And this also means, no-one else can give you the love that you are unwilling to give yourself or to others.

If you fail to give love to others, ie you deny them love, what happens is you deny yourself love. In other words, if you find that you cannot love or aren't willing to, your "unloving attitude" towards others will also be experienced by yourself. You will find yourself lacking and needy and dependent on external sources.

How love really works, is that it must extend. It must be given. In order to have the love, you have to give the love. In order to receive the love, you must express the love. You must flow it, extend it. It's given to you BY GOD, and your natural function (when sane) is to extend it or "pass it on" to everyone else (and God).

When you do that, you acknowledge the love is in you, it's already being supplied to you, you are NOT lacking it, and therefore you HAVE it to give. If you feel like you're lacking it, you will also feel like you cannot give any more. The remedy for that is not to try to get more love from others, but to become more willing TO love. To give more love.

When you give more love, YOUR lack is supplied from within, and by giving your love away to others you RECEIVE it from God. This is the only way it works. This is how you love naturally. And that also means you MUST acknowledge that God loves you in order for you to be willing and able to love yourself and others. If you can't acknowledge God as the source of ALL love, it is impossible to experience real love at all. Sorry atheists but if you deny God you deny love.

Unless you are choosing to express love, you will not receive it. What applies to you applies to others. This is the Golden Rule in action. Love others to love yourself. If you unlove them you will unlove yourself. If you attack them you will attack yourself. If you are unforgiving in your attitude towards them you will find yourself guilty. If you love them you will love yourself. It's a rule of equality.

This also does not mean sacrifice. By giving love, you should not aim to only cause others to receive love, and omit yourself from receiving it. That too is egocentric. It's a form of sacrifice in which you believe others deserve love and you do not, so you try to give love but only in a way or form that ensures you do not receive or experience it yourself. You "burn out" that way because you are not getting fresh love input from God. You're trying to give yourself away and actually get rid of yourself. It's suicidal.

People who SEEM very giving and selfless can be the most denying of self love and unwilling to receive. This is the ego's illusion of love. Appearing to be loving or sacrificial in an attempt to look loving, when in fact all you're doing is creating a hole in yourself and denying yourself what little you have. This happens when you try to be the SOURCE of love, as an ego, rather than getting the love from God. Sacrificial selflessness is NOT unconditionally loving.

Similarly, if you are afraid, it is because you are failing to love. You are not fulfilling your function of extending God's being. Fear is what you experience as the absence of love. All suffering comes from that sense of lack or denial. You'll think, you are too afraid to love, you have nothing to give, you are empty, and this is terrifying you because you have no strength, nothing to stand up to others with, people are walking all over you and you have no confidence.

But what happens is, surprisingly, if you can will yourself to love, to express and extend genuine love, unconditional love, it immediately dissolves that fear. It gives you strength, it empowers you, it sets you up in the correct arrangement of being an extender of God's power in which He takes care of you, it protects you, it makes you sane, and it shines away all darkness. The ONLY way to make that happen is to extend love.

By giving it, even if you don't THINK you have it TO give, you INCREASE how much you HAVE and find yourself in a better position. It seems counterintuitive because you think you can only give what you seem to have already. But if you give and extend willingly, it simultaneously instantly increases your supply. You can ride that wave and become much "higher" on that love. But you must initiate the giving of the love in order to break out of the sense of lacking it. As soon as you get into the flowing of it, your situation improves.

To love everyone equally and fully is the goal. EVERYONE. And that means no exceptions. And that is not easy for us ego people. People who are conditional in their love. Who don't want to love everyone. And who find some people to be sinful. This also indicates that you are unwilling to love because you are unwilling to love yourself. If you reach the limits of how much you can love someone and you feel like you just can't love them anymore, or enough, it's because you do not love yourself. You are blocking love from being received because you don't think you deserve or want it. And that makes it impossible to give it.

Yet you have to move past those blocks, those beliefs in negativity towards yourself, so that you can come to recognize that you DESERVE God's love. And this is what forgiveness and the atonement are around. Learning to recognize the truth about you, that you never sinned and all is forgiven, such that you utterly deserve God's total undivided love forever. Accepting that you are innocent and there is no reason NOT to love yourself. Or others.

You can only give the love you have received. You can only give the miracles you have received. But once you receive it and accept it as true of you, you accept it as true of others, and become willing to love BOTH you and others all the more. Which also means willing to give miracles to others. That's the path towards enlightenment. Towards the recognition that there is only love. And that nothing else exists to block it. Nor would you want to. In your right mind, there is no reason to do anything other than love fully and maximally. All expressions of true love are maximal.

Give to receive. Give first, receive next. If you receive first before giving, that is conditional and blocks the receiving, leaving you empty handed, especially if you fail to get it from someone. You must "give away" the love that you want to keep, then it will increase, and you will not lose it. This breaks all the ego's laws of lack. Ideas are increased by being given away. Miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver. If you want more love, love more. Find out the barriers you've placed against love and remove them. Become willing to love everyone, all the time, without exception. Then you're ready for God.

When everyone is willing to extend God's love, they share in that love together, but you don't give love due to other people lacking it, nor do you seek for people to love you on the basis that you lack the love yourself. Imagine if everyone already is full of love and everyone is extending love to everyone. The extension isn't done at this point in order to uplift those who are lacking (which is what miracles are for) but simply as a communication, an expression, a natural way of existing. You love the love that is already in everyone, not because it's not there, but because you acknowledge everyone is already love. Love then moves beyond its healing function and become simply a way of relating forever.

It is not your task to necessarily learn to "love more", however, because God has already in fact created you WITH love and AS love. Extending love is totally natural to you as a son of God and you are unlimited in your ability to do so. The only issue are your blocks to the awareness of love, your denial, which stops you from receiving unlimited love and stops you from expressing it. You should not be trying to KEEP your blocks and INCREASE the love. That will not really work. Keeping blocks while "trying to love more" will reach a limit fast. Instead, your job is to seek out the blocks you've made AGAINST love, remove them, and then love NATURALLY will flow at an increased rate. Effortlessly.

Because the fact is, if you didn't have insanity or blocks or denials, love would NATURALLY go out on its own because of what it is. "Love goes out because of what it is, but you are needed that it can begin." If you don't interfere with it, love maximally extends through you all the time and its so natural and joyful that it's all you want to do. But when you erect barriers against it, in preventing yourself from being loved by God, you block the receipt, and try to cut off your mind from spirit. That SEEMS to reduce the love. It doesn't reduce love at its SOURCE (God), it only reduces your willingness to RECEIVE and flow it.

That's similar to the idea that you have a pipe, and God is flowing maximum love through the pipe, through you, and your tap is fully switched on so that the love just flows right through you and on to others (extension of creation). But when you turn the tap OFF, you reduce the flow to a trickle. Not because the source is limited but because YOU are limiting it. All you have to do is OPEN UP the flow and let love in and through you and be willing to love. Because actually it takes effort to not love. It takes effort to be unwilling. To resist. To deny. It takes deliberate belief and energy to PREVENT love. So when you stop all that effort (ego doing), you open up and the love just flows full-force on its own and it is effortless and very natural.

Be a channel for God, basically. Let him move through you. Let the Holy Spirit perform miracles through you. "What the holy spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world" "Do his works". Obviously you cannot do his works on your own, you do his works by working with him to extend HIS healing power THROUGH you TO others. Which means cooperating in not resisting, not getting in the way of, not putting up blocks against, His power through you. This is a miracle working principle. This doesn't mean you become uninvolved and "sit on the sidelines" in your ego. It means you become an EXTENDER OF LOVE, a relay, a device which forwards the love through WILL, and in that you and the Holy Spirit team up and you become part of the machinery of miracle working. You MUST ACTIVELY EXPRESS LOVE YOURSELF in order to perform miracles, but you get that love from God.

You're basically learning to plug yourself back into God. Plug yourself into love. Allow yourself to depend on God as the SOURCE of everything you are and have. By being willing to extend what you are given (your inheritance) to others, to share it equally with everyone. This entails learning to TRUST the Holy Spirit, learning to DEPEND on God, learning to make decisions WITH him (not just him, and not just you). Letting go and letting God. And fulfilling your function as spirit. "The only function of spirit is to extend God's being." Then you are being your natural self. You're being as God created you. And God created you to be an extender and expresser of miraculous powerful unconditional love all the time.

"The ego, then, raised the first question that was ever asked, but it can never answer it. That question, which was "What are you?" was the beginning of doubt. The ego has never answered ANY questions since, though it has raised a great many." UrT6E3

Here Jesus tells us that the 'problem' of the separation really stems from a single question. What are you? This is a questioning of your SELF. Your identity.

It's not really a question that actually wants to FIND OUT what you are, or what you are like. It's actually a form of doubt in which it is UNSURE of what you are, and does not KNOW what you are, and is not really interested in knowing what you are.

It's actually an insinuation, an accusation, a way to say, YOU ARE NOT YOUR SELF. A way of saying, "I doubt you" or "I don't believe you." It's a sort of uncertainty, as in fearful outlook, where the ego mind is not sure at all and has a SUSPICION that you are not what you say you are.

And so at this point the ego is actually insinuating that YOU ARE NOT YOUR SELF, and that there is something true of you which is not really true, and that you're actually something ELSE. Because the ego wants to consider that IT is you, and wants you to believe that you are IT. So this is the beginning of a shift in identity.

There has not really been anything new or different that has happened since that moment. We have just gone further into the same doubt and fear, the same questioning and mistrust, the same desire NOT TO KNOW who we are.

So the entire separation could sum up as being, an attack on your identity. A state of mind that is in DENIAL of who you are, and is reading into your identity some properties or qualities that are not there. A state that does not want to ACCEPT what you are, but instead rejects it.

So the whole problem we have really is always about our SELF. The big question of, who are you? Because the true solution to the questioning is to KNOW THYSELF. To accept the atonement which means to accept fully WHAT YOU ARE. To accept the truth of you.

This all significantly hinges around your identity, because your mind has all the power and the ego needs your mind-power to support itself. If you were to withdraw power from this mis-belief about yourself it would undo the ego thought system entirely.

The big aim of the course then is the REVERSAL OF THE FIRST QUESTION, or rather, the ANSWER to the question. The true answer, which the Holy Spirit helps to remind you of, is .... I AM CHRIST. Or... I am still as God created me, I have not changed, and I am still perfectly innocent in God.

This response UNDOES the ego because it actually answers the question. And so it brings an end to the questioning, which was never an attempt to get the answer in the first place.

The only reason you can feel afraid is because, being guilty, the guilt implies that you must be punished. You're afraid that the punishment is going to come.

Punishment is perceived as anything that happens to you, like someone saying something, judgements, perceived attack, physical attack, sickness, loss, whatever.

So certain is that that you will feel afraid if you first feel guilty, that you absolutely MUST experience fear if you believe that your guilt is real. Sooner or later fear is going to come from it.

If you're then in fear and struggling to try to battle the fear or do something about the fear, you're not going to get anywhere unless you can realize WHY you are really afraid.

You are not really afraid because of the potential that punishment is going to come (or has come). You are afraid because you are guilty. That's all. Period.

Guilt is the cause of fear. All the things you think fear is caused by are just the "sources of punishment" which you perceive as being the WAY by which punishment is going to happen. You are seemingly afraid that xyz will happen to you, i.e. that you'll be punished BY these things, and that therefore that's why you are afraid.

That's not WHY you are afraid, it's WHAT you are afraid of. You're only afraid because you're guilty and that therefore you deserve punishment.

What if you admit that you felt guilty first, and then undid that guilt, and then ask yourself where the basis for fear is? How can you be afraid if you don't believe you are guilty?

If you are guiltless, you have nothing to worry about. You're innocent.

The root of fear is guilt. And the root of guilt is sin. And the root of sin is separation. You have to look at the level that came before it, which has been made unconscious.

If you're predominantly experiencing fear, you have probably made your guilt unconscious, which is why you don't suspect that that's why you are afraid. You then think the cause of the fear is something else.

You must make the guilt conscious by realizing why you felt guilty. Really the reason you felt guilty ultimately is because you believed you really sinned, because you perceived a separation.

Always trace it back to its roots. Each level of experience is the EFFECT of a cause the happened on the level before it.

Fear is the EFFECT of believing in guilt. Guilt causes fear.

Guilt is the EFFECT of believing in sin. Sin causes guilt.

Sin is the EFFECT of believing in separation. Separation causes sin.

Death is the EFFECT of believing in punishment. Punishment causes death.

"I am never upset for the reason I think" - ACIM

There was a definite time when it first occurred to me that I am not a body. I was sitting at a bus-stop waiting for the bus ride to or from college. I was probably 19 or so. I was there alone and was looking across a field at some traffic passing by, pondering perhaps symbolically from a detached perspective what all these people were doing in their lives. That's when it suddenly hit me, like, oh my God, I'm not a body!

It wasn't a complete awakening as such, I didn't suddenly relinquish every single way in which I think of others and myself as bodies, but just the idea of it was given birth, perhaps marking the beginning of a spiritual adventure in self exploration. It was like a first step through a doorway into a whole new way of relating to myself.

Jesus knew fully that he was not a body. He was capable of manifesting and dematerializing his body, and in fact was capable of re-manifesting different bodies depending on who he was with. That's what becomes possible when you are completely free of all confusion about what you are - that you or others are not a body at all. That's what it means to have mastery over it and freedom from it. It no longer limits you or defines your identity.

"The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone. Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is separate, and has a different set of thoughts which sets him off from others. This principle evolves from the belief there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are more valuable, and therefore true. And each establishes this for himself, and MAKES it true by his attack on what another values. This is justified because the values differ, and those who hold them seem to be unlike, and therefore enemies."

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The truth is not something that we make up, decide upon, invent, have to "believe in", or have as a kind of personal preference. The truth does not come in a billion forms. There is only one truth, and that truth is set in stone forever by God. God is the creator of actual reality and no-one else. Not even His creations, his souls/sons, have the ability to change reality or to define what the truth is.

This means that when we are in the business of accepting the truth, we must also be in the business of putting aside personal opinion, a desire for a special or different or exclusive viewpoint, and in fact even the ownership of "this is my view". Beliefs only take you so far and are too personalized.

In this ego world, we are very accustomed to everyone seeming to have their own opinion. This is because everyone with an ego stands like a gatekeeper in between the truth, acting like a filter or go-between or authority, with a need to "approve" of anything being claimed. This is because the false ego authority wants to constantly define the truth, invent it, change it, decide what it is, author it, distort it and basically make-believe whatever it wants to.

As we move towards atonement, what HAS to happen is the relinquishment of this egocentric ownership of opinion making. The truth is true all by itself. We cannot define it, our only options are to either a) accept it or b) deny it. When we deny it we attempt to invent the truth ourselves, to reinforce it through beliefs, and to play at being God. This is egotism. But as we SURRENDER the ego, we are also becoming willing to give up on being the AUTHOR of the truth.

What this then leads to is that you become wiling to "take on" the "off the shelf" truth that God has established, to accept it, to allow it, to align with it, and to integrate it as "your own". Without changing it, we give up trying to fight with reality and instead settle in to accepting it. The reality as God has defined it, that is - the nature of the Kingdom.

This absolutely means that as we become more attuned with the real truth, the entire idea of "having an opinion" is being dissolved. Personalized, "everyone has their own truth" bullshit is dissolved. We become representatives of a truth that we did not invent. We become spokespersons for a truth that isn't an "interpretation". We allow the one truth to function through us and to organize our mind.

That means that over time, as we continue to awaken, the things that we express, the words we use, the statements we make, the documents we write, the various expressions that we perform, cannot be logically attributed to ourselves. When we express something we can no longer say that this is our own opinion. The truth, God's truth, is ONE truth, and it is FACTUAL REALITY. It cannot be argued with, it cannot be changed. As this truth becomes our truth, we stop being the "sole owner" of truth, of a personal opinion, and we instead become a reflection of God's truth.

So we then start to express things which are factually true, which are not an opinion, and which others can also either accept or deny. In many cases people will mistake your expressions for you having an opinion, it being just your beliefs, just your interpretations. They will argue that you are trying to be ego or right just because you have a sense of certainty. But the fact is that when you get with the facts, which HAS to be possible, and you are in accord with God's truth, you ARE CORRECT. Because you have accepted correction.

Some people will not like this especially when they have an ego and especially when they do not understand how any kind of truth could be "impersonal". The truth is something to be shared and joined with, not something to possess and control. As representatives of God, teachers of God act almost in the same way as the Holy Spirit who is the Voice for God. He speaks FOR God because He is "the same" as God and has no "different" opinion of His own. We listen to Him because we trust that the truth for Him matches God's truth. As a corrected individual, we too become voices for God, correctly representative of what is true.

It's important to then realize that because we are surrendering artificial truths, interpretations, opinions, beliefs, playing God, authority problems, false exclusive ownership etc, being spiritual does not remain a "personal" exercise. Moreso it means that you are becoming a salesperson for God, peddling His wares, sharing His contributions, relaying His messages, being His eyes and ears. You take on the eyes of Christ and cease to have "your own" separate viewpoint.

So when we are evaluating whether someone is just having a belief, or whether to listen to them, or whether it's all just opinion, or whether everyone's truth is different, we should remember also that those who DO have alignment with ACTUAL TRUTH, will appear to the ego to be egos claiming total righteousness, when in fact all they are doing is being a medium through which a truth BEYOND themselves is being expressed.

In the factual truth there ARE no opinions. There is no wiggle room. There are no exceptions. There are no loopholes. There is no uncertainty. There is nowhere that some kind of "maybe" comes into it. There's no room for interpretation or opinion. The truth is either true or it's not.

The entire realm of having opinions is founded on the idea that something is open ended and doesn't make sense and is not factual. Which leaves everything open to interpretation. And where there is interpretation, there is hallucination and insanity and a complete breakdown of any kind of factual consistency.

There is no room for having a different viewpoint in God's Kingdom. We are to accept the truth that God has GIVEN and to make it our own, and to then express that same truth without distortion. This erases the ego and leaves no doors through which it can mangle and distort and personalize the facts. In God's logical system of thought there is no error and everyone is in perfect agreement. There is one truth, and we are to accept the Holy Spirit's message, in accord with it, without question.

It is obvious that in this world there is very little agreement. Everyone sees to still have an ego and an opinion. We can barely agree to what the course says and means. Each person has their own interpretation and viewpoint. There is a tremendous amount of mistakenness. Yet Jesus states that teachers of God truly should all share ONE truth and agree on EVERYTHING. There should be a single reflection coming through all such persons which is the same in all of them, not thousands of different versions. One truth, one voice.

"God's teachers appear to be many, for that is what is the world's need.Yet being joined in one purpose, and one they share with God, how could they be separate from each other? "

"As they advance in their profession, they become more and more certain that the body's function is but to let God's Voice speak through it to human ears. And these ears will carry to the mind of the hearer messages that are not of this world, and the mind will understand because of their Source."

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and your way will be made straight" - this is the ULTIMATE FORM OF FORGIVENESS.

I will explain.

There is only one problem. Not many. Not multiple layers. One problem: separation from God. We are simply too caught up in being distant from God that we keep trying to forgive stuff within a layer of mind that is still quite far from the origin of all problems, cleaning up the mess, dealing with what appear as multiple fragmented issues. But as we 'home in' on God and on the real CORE of EVERY problem, it all boils down to this one totally simple thing: You believe that you did somethig to separate yourself from God.

So now in your forgiving you attempt to address the 'fallout' of this separation in various layers. Maybe you try to let other people off the hook, maybe you attempt to withdraw your projections, maybe you try to withhold judgement and just observe, maybe you monitor your thoughts and try to have 'the right ones', maybe you go to Holy Spirit and ask Him to do something. But let's be clear now. All of these remedies attempt to address the real cause of all problems somewhat distant from that cause, hidden behind multiple layers of psychological fragmentation. Where is the ROOT CAUSE?

Behind all these worldly distractions and needing to forgive individual people and needing to deal with specific body issues and needing to correct thoughts and so on, there is ONE PROBLEM and it is that you believe you are separate from God. It is very abstract and very primary. It underlies EVERYTHING else that seems to have gone wrong.

So what you need to ultimately do, whether you do this now or soon or in future or whenever, when you are ready, at some point you are going to have to GO TO GOD. Your relationship with God appears to have suffered. You believe you attacked Him and rejected Him and now he seems distant from you. How do you suppose this is going to get HEALED by you pussyfooting around the real elephant in the living room, avoiding this one fundamental issue?

Imagine you had a big fight with someone you love or a best friend and you feel terrible about it, but it caused you to be at odds and now you're not talking. You've gone off on your separate ways and you feel alone and guilty and angry etc. How exactly do you suppose you're going to repair this relationship? It's not going to be enough for you to focus on withdrawing projections or questioning judgements or all this kind of stuff that happens `down the pipeline`. You're likely avoiding that person. You don't want to go near them. But how are you going to get to what you really WANT, which is a REUNION with them? How are you going to get to where the two of you are standing there in a moment of rapture and love, letting go of every single sense of grievance and upset, utterly overjoyed at accepting each other back into your lives and completely dismissing everything that ever came between you?

At some point your'e going to have to GO TO GOD. Ok. So, God is the Kingdom of Heaven - that's His creation which He is One with. The more you AVOID Him the more you will orbit around and make silly noises and try to explain why your relationship is getting repaired from a distance. But what you really want is to reunite with God completely. You want to go up to Him, reaaaaaly close and personal, and have a confrontation of sorts (which you are terrified of), and 'apologize', so to speak, and move PAST all of the hurt and sense of separation that has kept you apart. You want to really get in there and commune deeply with Him, letting go of aaaaal accusations and fears and worries and all the guilt that stemmed from your falling-out. And you want to get past all of that and get to where you are beaming at each other with love in your eyes and joy in your heart at the absolute beauty and RELIEF that the love you thought you'd lost IS STILL THERE. It hasn't been hurt, nothing serious has transpired, and all is forgiven. Now your'e back to being 'best friends' and the whole separation bullshit has just disappeared.

That's what it would be like to seek first the Kingdom of Heaven. If you're going to totally undo all your problems, you need to UNDO THE SEPARATION. So as you apply forgiveness, instead of focussing on the distant levels, go straight for the jugular. Recognize that whatever your problem is, it's because you believe you are separate from God. There is no other reason. You don't need to blame it on the projection or the judgement or the thoughts or wahtever. It's all because you and God had a falling out and now you want Him back. Period.

"Holy Spirit, correct my belief in separation and help me to reunite with God". How about that?

"Holy Spirit, undo the guilt I feel because I separated from God and help me reunite with His Love."

"Holy Spirit, my body is sick because I am separate from God, please remove this evidence of separation."

"Holy Spirit, heal the separation between me and God"

Or even better, sometimes addressing Holy Spirit can be a way to avoid God ;-) ..... I don't see many people including GOD in their forgiveness words....

"God, please forgive me for trying to separate from you and help me to be with you again."

"God, please heal this separation now"

"God, I rejoin with you in peace"

"God, we are One"

Try this... Try skipping all the other levels of forgiveness and go straight for the repair of your sense of separation. ALL your problems stem from it so if you fix that one thing, everything else should take care of itself and "your way will be made straight."

All you really want is to heal the separation between you and God and return to a loving relationship. It's no more complicated than that.