One of the really tricky things about A Course in Miracles, is the way that Jesus writes in certain contexts and sometimes it SOUNDS AS IF He is saying something which is totally opposite to what He says somewhere else. He is very "extreme" in his writing, in order to be very clear and black-and-white in his impeccable reasoning. And this can lead people to become confused as to what he really means.

For example, he could be talking in one part about how the world can be forgiven, it becomes lovely and beautiful and a reflection of holiness, then in another passage, turn around and say, from a different context, that the world is entirely a dream of death and is totally illusory and will never make you happy. It seems totally opposite.

For example, he could talk about using the body as a communication device and to help others. But then in another passage he can turn around and say, the body doesn't exist and it's the idea of sin, totally an illusion made to attack the son of God. It seems like a totally opposite attitude.

For example, he could say that the meaning of love cannot be taught, then tell you to "teach only love". Seems like a contradiction.

For example, he could be saying in one place, that God only has one son. But then in another passage, is talking about all the children of God who are co-creators with you and are your brothers. Seems like a totally opposite contradictory statement.

So what happens is, people will read the course and will tend to see these contradictions. And then they will be confused. And then to try to "fix" the contradiction, they will select WHICH of the two things are "true", and will reframe the other thing and change its meaning to "fit". This is usually fairly random but mostly people will "side with" whichever statement SEEMS more true or "bigger" or "higher".

So then for example, "one brother is all brothers" would turn into "all brothers are one self and there aren't really many brothers", as an attempt to rectify the seeming contradiction. But this is INCORRECT. It's a mistake to change what IT means in order to fit with YOUR thinking. It is YOUR thinking that needs to change to accommodate and ACCEPT what He is saying. That it is literally true, there are MANY brothers, who are one. And that means you're going to have to learn an entirely different way of thinking in order to see WHY it makes SENSE the way it is, without having to change it.

See, Jesus is not contradictory, and to claim he is really is an attack on his uniformity and consistency. He is not confused. He is an awakened being. He knows everything. He doesn't teach conflicting messages. He even says "no one can learn through double messages." He doesn't give contradictory statements. He gives statements at various LEVELS and CONTEXTS, and within one context, it can seem to be saying one thing, while in another larger context, it can blow that out of the water. Or he can talk about aspects of creation where ego laws are broken entirely, and be TELLING THE TRUTH when he says God has many children who are "all one". It does not erase the many, it doesn't result in "only one". IT IS BOTH.

We are supposed to learn to open our minds and accept ALL OF THE COURSE and EVERYTHING JESUS SAYS in it, not just the parts we like, and not just the parts that seem to make sense, and we're definitely not supposed to be hacking it apart to try to MAKE IT FIT into a thought system that is, itself, broken. God is a creator. He has many children. They are all one. Such is the truth.

"Everything God created (many things) KNOWS its Creator (individually). For this is how creation (as one thing) is accomplished, by (producing many, who are one) the Creator, and by His creations (many). In the holy meeting-place are joined the Father and His creations (many direct creations/sons), and the creations of His Son (their many creations, as one), with them together (as one, yet many). "

When you are not aware and are in an unconscious ego state, projecting blame and finding other people wrong, you start trying to make "sense" out of what you're seeing.

You start trying to figure out how or why a person is doing what they're doing, as if there's an explanation for it within the context of them being really wrong.

You try to "understand" what is wrong with them. You try to put the pieces together and make sense of why this person is "obviously being ego".

We can get really adamant about this, trying to explain, justify, rationalize.

What we're trying to do is to maintain a consistent sense of what is true. We see something and we believe it's the truth but something about it doesn't add-up and we don't know why. Something doesn't fit. But we don't know that its our own projection that is mistaken, we just think the other person doesn't fit into the truth. They must be wrong because they aren't doing what your truth is saying they should be doing.

The thing is, they might not be fitting in with what you think the truth should be, because your idea of what the truth should be is mistaken. Maybe they are in fact being aligned with the truth, and you are not, and because you're not, you cannot recognize that they are.

So we find other people to be wrong when they are not wrong, because we are wrong. And we only see people as wrong because we're trying to make the truth be something it isn't. We're not seeing straight. We're misinterpreting reality. We're misinterpreting God.

It can be convincing, but we have to realize at some point, maybe this... which seems to be totally true, is not actually the whole truth. Maybe what I think is real and true is actually false, and I'm not seeing correctly. I need correction. Holy Spirit help!

In A Course in Miracles there are at least TWO levels on which Jesus speaks, because there are TWO stages in awakening.

There is the level that you relate to as an individual self, waking up to your higher self.

Then there is the level of the entire sonship waking up to the Christ self.

The individual self projects illusions ONTO the dream world which the Christ self is dreaming.

That means, the individual self undoes itself by taking back its projections onto or about others, and forgiving itself. This leads to awakening as the Higher Self. One son in the sonship. People wakening to this level generally do not express many miracles and will still die in a body. Examples: Eckhart Tolle, Byron Katie, Mooji, various Hindu yogis etc

But then there is more. Christ is beyond this. Christ is the dreamer of the physical world and is the maker of it. And Christ has full power over all of it. At this level the body is completely dissolved and disappears, which Jesus demonstrated.

These two levels have led to a rift in the ACIM community. Those who relate only to the individual awakening try to shove everything Jesus teaches into that box and make it fit. This results in the complete disempowering of supernatural miracles and a redefinition of them as just corrections in perception. That's not what Jesus means by miracles at all.

Miracles are at the level of the Christ mind overriding the dream that the Christ mind is dreaming. And that means, overriding all of the physical laws that the Christ mind is sustaining as the way this world operates. Such miracles are beyond the nature of the physical world (dream), they are SUPER-NATURAL. Everything Jesus says about miracles relates to the mind of Christ, not to the mind of the sonship.

These two levels in awakening (sonship vs christ) are the entire reason why there is a community rift, why some people believe that the Course is only asking us to change our misperceptions about a pre-existing world, to accept peace in the presence of sickness, to become peaceful or have true perception "about" the world. And the Course DOES want us to do this - it's the first stage in awakening. BUT THERE IS MORE.

Stage 2 entails waking up as Christ and demonstrating supernatural miracles all over the place, knowing that you made sickness and death and can abolish both. This is also the level on which Jesus teaches "there is no world" - this is the level where this is LITERAL, because the physical world is a dream.

Those who attempt to smash all of Jesus's teachings from all levels onto ONE level, result in a tremendous amount of confusion and delusion and limitation and closed-mindedness about what the Course is teaching and what it means. This produces a "sanitized" course, void of real miracles, void of anything supernatural, and void of the power to change anything or to stop or reverse death.

Certain statements Jesus makes are directed at the second phase of awakening to Christ, and make no sense at the first stage. Assuming there is only one stage or only one awakening is a huge mistake.

This is something I was very confused by for a loooooong time because so many people are also confused by this and just assume the Course has a single truth pertaining to a single level of experience. Jesus is speaking of at least 3 levels - the false ego self projecting ONTO the world, the Higher Self which is awake IN the world, and the Christ self which has awakened FROM the world.

Knowing when Jesus is talking about a specific CONTEXT or a level of AWARENESS or IDENTITY, is very important in properly discerning what He means, what He is referring to, and how it makes sense in the bigger picture. Most ACIM students are lost in believing that the Course has 1 level, that you should just change your mind about the world and find some way to be at peace with it, and then stay in the world and die and be hurt like all the rest of the world. That's WAAAY falling short of what ACIM is teaching and is a bastardization of the Course (by the ego, no doubt).

For example:

"The world you see does not exist." "There is no world"

This is at the level of CHRIST. It is LITERAL at this level. The physical universe does not exist and it has no power over you and you can change it in any way you see fit because it is your dream. You have that power.

If you interpret this at the level of an individual Son in the sonship, as an individual self, in a body, you will interpret this to mean that the "world" is your interpretation of the world, about the world, projected onto the world, and that you need to correct that "perception" in order to wake up. Well, NO! This is wrong. You need to correct perception but this only leads to the undoing of perception, NOT the undoing of the making of the world. This belief is a level confusion.

Another example:

"Seek not to change the world but seek to change your mind about the world"

At the level of CHRIST, this means your mind has power over the world and CAN change the world any way that it sees fit for any reason, because the Christ mind is the one that is dreaming it and LITERALLY can perform "physical miracles".

At the level of the personal mind, this is MIS-UNDERSTOOD (because it's being applied at the wrong LEVEL and it thus level confusion) to mean that you should only change your mis-perceptions of the world, self and others, in order to come to awakening to truth, and that's it... no power over the world, no power over physical matter, no ability to stop the dream or change it, really a form of resigning oneself to a state of "accepting the world as it is", which is a state of POWERLESSNESS AND VICTIMHOOD. It is a TRAP!

Recognizing the levels is very important to avoid these mistakes, but because these mistakes are made prolifically, MANY MANY MANY course students are very confused about what Jesus teaches and what the Course is teaching.

I should be focusing on how we are all the same, deep down, all one, all perfect. But at the moment I'm finding it quite useful to look at our differences in a more accepting way.

Mainly because we actually have a lot of faulty beliefs surrounding differences - different bodies and personalities - which need to be "cleaned up".

In particular, in our denial of God we have attempted to endow the physical world with all kinds of properties of God. Such as that physical things are perfect, or equal, or eternal, or permanent, or reality, or the truth, or one etc.

For example, in this world, we've given everything all the meaning it has, because it's really a meaningless world. So we have looked at objects and have decided that some objects are sort of similar in some ways - vague ways, and have categorised them.

We've given the categories labels, such as based on materials, or genders, or hair colors, or whatever. All kinds of boxes which are made up. But in truth, on the physical level, NOTHING is exactly alike, nothing is purely equal, nothing is entirely identical.

Even atoms of the same material like gold or silver are not the same. Their subatomic particles are all over the place, their quantum states are fluctuating in different positions, the energy fields and forces are bouncing all over the place. When you get down to it, not a single speck of this world is TRULY identical to any other. Because it is a world of separation, differences and fundamental inequality.

So then that tells us that all these categories and labels we've made up are artificial, and often they serve to hurt people. We keep trying to squeeze everyone into a cookie-cutter box. So now we have all kinds of things like peer pressures and social pressures to fit into boxes. You have to label yourself to 'fit in'.

You have to be a this or a that, you're not allowed or supposed to do this or that, plus there is a huge expectation that we're "all humans" and therefore there is a "standard normal human" and we're all supposed to be like that. And if you're not, there's judgement and hate and insecurities.

So at the very least, if we TRULY acknowledge that all physical things ARE DIFFERENT in every way, including personalities, we might then start to let ourselves off the hook trying to be things that we can't be, to fit into boxes that we don't quite fit into at the physical or personality level.

For example there's a huge myth that everyone is the same. Sameness is a property of God, not a property of matter. Nothing physical is the same. Personalities are not the same. Men are not the same as women. Races and genders and sexualities are not the same. Nothing is the same here.

That means that although humans might be sort of similar in some major ways, sometimes, fundamentally the human being is TOTALLY UNIQUE in every instance. We are ALL INCOMPATIBLE on the physical and personality level in at least some if not a lot of areas. We are ALL fundamentally at war and contradictory, and your best bet usually is to find people who are "the least incompatible" - your besties and special chosen ones.

When you look at that, it's really surprising that anyone can communicate at all, that anyone ever has any common ground, that anyone can stay at peace, and that anyone can have a relationship. When it's based on the body and the personality, where people are identified with and AS those things, we're constantly all stepping on each other's toes. And we must not deny this. We're like square pegs going into round holes all the time, and the world is a minefield of crazy-shaped holes.

If we want to find TRUE equality and true communion and true relationship with anyone, we have to find it above and beyond the level of the physical and of the personality. We have to be operating at the mind level, and beyond. This is what holy relationships are for, with the goal of transcending the superficiality and incompatibilities of the human being - the flesh and bones and its personality traits.

This is also FUNDAMENTAL TO FORGIVENESS, in which we want to find a way to unconditionally love IN SPITE OF differences, in spite of everyone having clunky incompatible bodies, in spite of everyone's personalities rubbing each other the wrong way day and night, in spite of disagreement and conflict and contradiction. To see each other as spiritually equal in Christ.

And perhaps instead of trying to force people to get along, at the physical or personality levels, it would be healthier to acknowledge WE ARE NOT THE SAME on these levels. Perhaps we should be allowing each other to be different on these levels, because we ARE. And expecting people to BE LIKE US AT THIS LEVEL, is unhealthy.

It's indeed fun and wonderful when two or more individuals come together and do share what appear to be superficial "common grounds", can relate, can communicate, can share, can experience something similar together, go through things together, share a common history etc, all of those senses of being on the same page, of being equals and equally important etc. Even though most of this is an illusion of sameness.

But at the physical and personality level this is pretty much never perfect or complete. Even the best marriages have pitfalls and areas where the couple annoys each other. This is not "just you", it is INHERENT to the SYSTEM of space and time. It's part of the laws of physics. All physical things are incompatible at least some of the time, and nothing is ever fully compatible on this level.

Sometimes we might develop an artificial idea that we are all supposed to "love each other" ON this level, as in... gloss over our differences, denying that we have preferences, avoiding the fact that sometimes we like different things, and trying to produce a sort of artificial sense of relationship. A relationship of control and expectation, of demands and dependencies, of special love and special hate, where we try to force our differences to be not different.

This very much happens in special relationships where the two try to force each other to be like themselves, requiring sacrifices and compromises and self repression. This isn't really healthy. People are SO different, sometimes in very dramatic ways.

We can't expect everyone to be on the same page, interested in the same things, having the same values, same beliefs and all this, ticking boxes in every department. We are all kind of mutants at the physical and personality level, sort of distorted disfigured beings, special and lacking, clashing and incomplete.

What would be healthy would be to sort of - give unto caesar what is ceasars - allowing our physical and personality differences to BE different, because they are. ... while giving unto God what is God's - allowing our SOULS and MINDS to join in oneness, transcendent of the physical and personality conflicts.

As the course says, even advanced teachers of God have much the same physical appearance and superficial personalities they had before they even started the course. They may operate their bodies with greater love and gentleness, they might smile and be more relaxed, and have clearer minds, but their physicality and personality traits largely remain the same. Teachers of God still go to the toilet as needed.

We should stop this constant straightjacketing of trying to force everyone to fucking "get along" all the time at the physical and personality levels, and make it okay to NOT WANT TO. This is a form of level confusion otherwise. NO ONE is equal or alike at this level. But we should also focus on FINDING ways to recognize our sameness, our unity, our oneness, AT the level where it is actually possible - in the mind and soul.

This requires FORGIVENESS, precisely because the physical/personality level is somewhat "locked into a war", so has to be overlooked, transcended, given a wide berth, and not used against each other. Physical and personality traits have to be not "held against" people. Forgiveness tries to look PAST the physical and personality levels to find common psychological and spiritual ground, instead of artificially forced forms of fake relationship.

Through forgiveness - rising above the LIMITS of the physical and the personality/human levels, we can move beyond the battlefield, beyond the warzone, beyond the level at which there IS conflict and where conflict CANNOT be resolved except through pretence and sacrifice and discomfort.

People do not really want to be forced to "go along with" things they do not feel compatible with. To do things that clash with their body types, their nervous systems, their brain conditions. People don't want to be forced to experience everything the same, go everywhere, do everything others want to do.

We are NOT compatible beings at this level. We Are compatible beings mentally and spiritually, beyond the fake ego persona and the body and everything that comes with it. One in mind and soul, different in personality and flesh.

"The surface traits of God's teachers are not at all alike. They do not look alike to the body's eyes, they come from vastly different backgrounds, their experiences of the world vary greatly, and their superficial "personalities" are quite distinct." UrM5A1

"The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything. A pure mind knows the truth, and this IS its strength. It cannot attack the body, because it knows EXACTLY what the body IS. This is what "a sane mind in a sane body" really means." UrT3C20

"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. 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." UrM9A6

We come to the Course with our ego's and we are then exposed to all this very high spiritual truth. And we have ego reactions to this without even realizing that we're having reactions.

The main ego reaction is that we perceive the Course's truth to be very highly truthful, powerful and authoritative. We start to set Jesus up as an authority over us. We get this sense of how the Course is 'right'and how we are 'wrong', because our ego is so accustomed to making right and wrong out of everything.

We put the Course up on a pedestal and worship it. And if you think you're not religious or prefer ACIM over Christianity or whatever, think again - your ego is quite prepared to be religious about the course, to worship its leader, to be subservient to its power and authority, and to use it as a way to amplify guilt by pointing out all the ways that you seem to be inferior and wrong in comparison to Jesus's truth.

We then take on all of these things which the Course says and all of these high concepts, and we build up this picture of attainability. We believe the Course is telling the truth but we use it to tell ourselves why WE are not being this truthful. We find ourselves guilty and shameful in the mirror reflection and this starts compelling us to 'become better' and 'match up' and 'be more spiritual' and 'have more mental discipline' and all these ego motivations that aim for this new lofty perfection.

Trouble is all of this takes us away from where we actually ARE right now, which is the ego's favorite trick to deny what you already are. And you just end up feeling like you can't do the Course properly and you're guilty and wrong and incapable, and you will try really hard and feel shitty about it because you just can't seem to do it or get it. Because your ego keeps using it to reinforce itself, to prove why you are not truthful and why you are not good enough and why you should put even more effort into people-pleasing Jesus's authority. And so you prostrate yourself at the feet of the Course and give power over you and end up feeling like a worthless idiot, riddled with fear and shame and not being Good enough for God.

What also happens here is that you then read things which are very high-level, like, in terms of the 'levels' it's stuff from level 3, 4, 5 - levels of higher self, levels of christ consciousness, which really are waaaaay outside the scope of where you are at right now. But this huge GAP between where you are AT and where it seems like you're supposed to BE, in comparison, just breeds guilt and loathing.

You start to believe that you believe the course, by trying to DENY what you really believe and trying to AVOID what you really feel and trying to NOT BE who you actually are. You try to become something else. This is your PERSONA, putting on a spiritual facade and trying to measure up to what you generally experience as a very highly advanced spiritual state that you barely comprehend. And the result of amplifying your persona is that you shove all kinds of shit into your 'shadow'/unconscious which comes back to attack you. So now you say what you're "supposed" to say, and you try to feel only what you're "supposed" to feel. And you modify your behavior. And you feel like a big fat failure.

This is because you're out of touch with what you are actually EXPERIENCING, you don't think it's OK to be where you're at, and you keep beating yourself up with or trying to FIT INTO what you THINK you SHOULD be like, or should be experiencing. The Course's goals seem so far beyond what you can experience that it leads you to bypass and to pretend and to become MORE out of touch with your inner power and strength and certainty than you probably were even before you started the dam thing!

This isn't the Course's fault. It's your ego's fault. Its the ego's interference and interpretation and conclusion-making that leads you into all this pressure to measure up, rather than making it ok to remain in-touch with where you are at, or even all the spiritual growth that you already had before you came to the Course. Maybe you need to kick some of the course to the kerb for now, or at least let go of trying to fit into shoes that are too big based on where you're at or what you're learning. Get back in touch with what's true for you right now and what you can realistically achieve, rather than trying to measure up to some standard that is so advanced it's barely conceivable.

Much of the course community is doing this at this time, and is rife with 'trying' to be spiritual, 'trying' to attain higher-levels of truth without actually experiencing it. Talking about it, spewing out quotes and statements about it, using it as 'pleasantries', making posters out of it, recalling quips about it like some kind of parrot, and generally going into all the intellectualizing about it, out of touch with FEELING, out of touch with EXPERIENCING. We all need to get ourselves back down to earth and in touch with what's going on with us, rather than what we're trying to become.

Most people have an idea of what duality means. Usually a world of many separate things. Separate objects, separate bodies. A count beyond one.

This however isn't a full enough definition. Duality is also a matter of NOT SHARING. It's a state of mind in which you do not want to be joined with, share with, or have relationship with, anything or anyone. It's also a state of selfishness, therefore, because it opposes sharing. It produces isolation and disconnection. The ego thought system - the world of duality - is all about selfishness.

"Selfishness is of the ego" T-7.IX.1:4

If duality really means selfishness, what is the opposite of selfishness? It is sharing. But this requires that there be someone or something to share WITH. It cannot mean that there is only you there, or only God. It also requires that in absolute reality, in God, there must be something other than JUST God, such as your brothers, to share with. For example:

"You dwell in the Mind of God with your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone." T-11.I.1:6

"Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself." T-11.I.5:7

God wanted to share himself. In fact we're also told that SHARING is the natural inherent property of reality.

"Nothing real can be increased except by sharing. ³That is why God created you. ⁴Divine Abstraction takes joy in sharing. ⁵That is what creation means." T-4.VII.5:2-5

We're told in ACIM itself, putting aside all interpretations by other well-meaning teachers and students, in Jesus's words, that God did NOT will to be the "only thing that exists". He did not will to be alone. He willed that there be ANOTHER, and CREATED at the very least one son.

He even goes on to say that God not ONLY willed to create at least one son, this son ALSO has the ability to create its own sons.

"God would not have us be alone because _He_ does not will to be alone. ⁷That is why He created His Son, and gave him the power to create with Him. ⁸Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself, as holy as He is." T-8.VI.8:6-8

Note also that it clearly states that God has SONS, not just one.

"The creations of every Son of God are yours, since every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole." T-7.IX.5:3

"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are as like the Sons as they are like the Father. ¹¹Know, then, the Sons of God, and you will know all creation." T-7.XI.7:10-11

It's quite simply stating that God not only created many children, but that even those children in turn go on to create more children. The Sons of God form the sonship, which shares the One Mind of Christ. And collectively as the One Son, we all co-create with God to produce our own creations.

This is in fact why Jesus refers to us as having BROTHERS. The term brother means an equal sibling of the same parent. Because God did not will to be alone, and did not will us to be alone, he created MANY OF US, so that we would have permanent brothers IN heaven forever.

"Return with me to Heaven, walking together with your brother out of this world and through another, to the loveliness and joy the other holds within it." T-18.I.12:4)

"Here stands your brother with the key to Heaven in his hand, held out to you. T-24.II.7:6"

There is also a holy trinity in reality. God the father, the Sonship as the One Son comprising many sons and their creations, and the Holy Spirit. These are not conceptual or ego inventions, they are permanent.

"The Son of God is part of the Holy Trinity" T-3.II.5:4 "Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation." T-8.VI.5:3)

The Holy Spirit is also a permanent eternal creation who will continue to exist along with the many sons even AFTER the atonement.

"When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed there will be no Call to return. ⁶But what God creates is eternal. ⁷The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy." T-5.I.5:5-7

So what we have now is in fact a more fleshed out picture. Heaven, God's reality, comprises God, the Holy Spirit, the Sonshsip, which form the trinity. And the Sonship includes many sons, and many creations of many sons, who are also brothers. By the way there are angels as well, created by God.

Now, such a picture does not sound remotely like "non-duality." Someone came up with non-duality as an antithesis to duality, purely as a conceptual idea. It's an attempt to try to explain what the course is saying. Except that, it doesn't quite fit.

It fits in the sense that it may describe God himself, IF God were alone and willed to be alone. As a LOGICAL DEVICE, opposite to "many" means "one", a count of one. This is what non-duality logically means. There are many flaky and wishywashy definitions out there which have tried to glue toegether pieces of the course to make it fit with this, but the PUREST form of non-duality is that "there is literally only God."

This obviously does not FIT with what ACIM says, because it's told us that God is a creator, that he has created at least one child if not many, and that his child has has its own children. Not to mention also the holy spirit being created, and the trinity existing. All of this is not properly encompassed by the concept of non-duality.

Some people like non-duality ideas because they seem to suggest the antithesis to "separateness". As if it is the opposite of ego, the opposite of separation, and the way to undo all trace of the separation from God. But this is VERY BASIC logic and highly inaccurate in its representation of what JESUS ACTUALLY says.

The purest non-duality does not support God being a creator, or God sharing, or God having relationships, or God having even ONE son, or of God creating the Holy Spirit, or of YOU existing, or of you having any creations. It doesn't even allow for heaven to exist. All it does is reduce God to a singular blob, a very lonely isolated blob, which sits there all by itself doing nothing. That is NOT what God is like according to ACIM itself.

The problem is that many people have latched onto this non-duality "concept" and have tried to FORCE the course to fit into it, because they don't have a better OR more accurate model. And in many cases also because they don't recognize the shortcomings of this concept.

It's easy for anyone to say, well, if I get rid of all the separations which implied "many things", then I will get down to "one thing", and this is oneness, and it must be what reality is like. Except that, it isn't. Not by a long shot.

Not according to what Jesus has said about God ADDING to himself, and SHARING himself, and having REAL relationship with his Son, and HAVING a son, and CO-CREATING with him. Jesus's definition of ONENESS is not what you think it is. It is not the everyday definition. It's more to do with a SHARED WHOLENESS between two beings.

"This may appear to contradict the statement “I and my Father are one,” but there are two parts to the statement in recognition that the Father is greater. T-1.II.4:7

The urtext had a much fuller statement about this:

"This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."

In fact we are told countless times that God is GREATER than us. We are supposed to have AWE of him, as his son. That God is the FIRST cause, and we are CO-creators as secondary causes. That "I am forever an effect of God". The whole notion of equating yourself with God is nonsense because this is what the whole authority problem is about. You are NOT at the same level or role as he is.

Urtext: "Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man. This is because God and man are NOT equal."

"God’s accomplishments are not yours, but yours are like His. ⁶He created the Sonship and you increase it. ⁷You have the power to add to the Kingdom, though not to add to the Creator of the Kingdom." T-7.I.2:5-7

There are so many aspects of ACIM that fly in the face of pure nonduality, and are contrary to the traditional idea of "oneness". It is NOT CORRECT to claim that ACIM is a non-dualistic teaching. And it is NOT correct to project an idea of "oneness" onto its statements. To be "one with" does not ERASE the fact that there are two things sharing that oneness. Heaven is all about sharing between many things, which is the opposite of many things which don't share.

In fact even individuality is an inherent part of reality. You HAD an individual existence as a soul BEFORE the separation from God ever came along. Individuality isn't even the problem. It's the unwillingness to SHARE that is the problem - selfishness is the problem. Not whether you HAVE a self.

"God, Who encompasses all being, created beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy.T-4.VII.5:1

Here ACIM has explicitly stated that God created a PLURAL OF BEINGS, in reality, who EACH had everything INDIVIDUALLY - as individuals, and who WANT TO SHARE so that THEIR collective joy increases. That is not in any stretch of the imagination a state of non-duality, or of "its all one thing", or "its all God".

What's needed is a much more accurate concept that maps to what ACIM actually says, and which supports and INCLUDES all of what it says, without trying to screen out stuff on the basis of making teh concept MORE right than the text. ACIM is a kind of "trans-duality", in which God has created many things which ARE still one. That the one and the many are coexisting through sharing. And that this is NOT duality, nor ANYTHING to do with the ego.

Heaven is in fact a holographic system. It is how God thinks. His whole creation and thought proceeds along holographic principles - where every part (son/creation) contains and IS the whole. This is NOT the same as duality. You have to open up to the idea that the many AND the one can COEXIST. That

the one IS many, and the many ARE one. This is stated here: "The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part is perfectly natural, for it is the way God thinks, and what is natural to Him is natural to you. T-16.II.3:3

"God has but one Son, knowing them all as One. T-9.VI.3:5 "Every child of God is one in Christ, for his being is in Christ as Christ’s is in God." T-12.VI.6:1

"God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ²All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other. T-6.II.8:1-2"

Perhaps we can be willing to stop talking about ACIM as if it's some kind of non-duality teaching when it is utterly riddled with statements to the contrary. God is a creator and has a FAMILY in reality. And you are part of that family. And God LOVES YOU personally and EQUALLY.

"You cannot enter into real relationships with any of God’s Sons unless you love them all and equally. ²Love is not special. ³If you single out part of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on all your relationships and making them unreal." T-13.X.11:1-3

"Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return." T-1.V.4:1)

Btw these are ALL quotes from FIP 3rd edition. Put aside what other well-meaning people have told you and listen to what JESUS is telling you.

Another malady of ACIM students is becoming paralyzed by trying to comply with ACIM principles 24/7, before you are really ready or able to do so.

This entails calling for sacrifices in your own life or that of others. It's an attempt to fit into the model of truth, or to act or behave as though you are doing it right.

It can also manifest as trying not to judge, by holding your tongue, and secretly judging in your mind. In other words, being in denial or using denial that you are judging.

Generally this is the ego trying to "act like" it is doing the Course. The spiritualized ego. It wants to people-please Jesus and never put a foot wrong.

It also results in victimhood and powerlessness whereby you hold off saying anything to upset anyone, you don't want to act, you stop standing up for yourself, you start tolerating crap and are unwilling to "act like an ego" because "its not course". This can get you really stuck in a rut and suffering.

You don't have to try all the time to be perfect at it. You don't have to be walking around biting your tongue and trying to be all nice to everyone. You don't have to be turning the actions of ASSHOLES into some kind of "its okay" attitude, where you don't do anything about it or stand up for yourself because "that wouldn't be forgiving". Then you end up trying to use the course to solve general real-life problems instead of using normal real-life methods.

Many level confusions arise when you have this issue. You try to meet up to an extraordinarily high standard, you compare yourself to advanced teachers, you feel like crap for not getting it yet, and you generally over-reach and over-demand yourself to succeed at it right now. The ego loves to get in there and push you to "be more spiritual" ... secretly because it believes "you're not spiritual enough".