This includes the kittens and puppies and adorable farm animals and all the wild creatures of the earth, including the human bodies and aliens.

I would like to know if you find it difficult to let go of the idea that these "creatures" are real, that they are "alive", that they were somehow "made by God", or that they even exist, in terms of what the Course says?

For example "there is no world" and "there is no life outside of heaven" and "this is a dream of death" and so on. If this is true, all these things, these forms of matter, these objects which move around as if they are alive, being animated as illusions by the mind, they really do not exist or have "life".

As Jesus says even the human body is not alive. It doesn't really exist, it's not who you are, and it is an illusion. It is made of the idea of separation and death. So really it's more appropriate to say it's a "death form."

So now we have various creatures and plants and trees and so on which at times can appear to be lovely and all that. You can have love for them or be attached to them or want to protect them and save the environment etc. But... it's all an ego trap, right?

Over time my belief that physical objects are "alive" has had to come into question. There's two things being asserted and they can't both be true.

This is a cruel world which God did not create. If you go to youtube and watch some videos of wild animals maming and killing and eating each other, you can see that there is little "love" in that, and God couldn't possibly have created it. So is it life, or are these the creatures of hell?

What God creates lives forever. Is that true of anything in this world in particular? Pretty much nothing. "There is NO LIFE outside of heaven." So this world, which is the idea of being outside of heaven, is not life, right? So what is it? It's an illusion of nothing, depicting an idea of death.

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son." The whole world. All the matter, all the particles, all the separate things, all the creatures which feast on each other, all the beings that take away and must attack to continue living, and all the humans who must hunt and kill in order to avoid the ego dynamic of starvation.

Is this LIFE? here? ... this world? Is it ALIVE? really? Or is it simply a dream of death, where everything is MADE OF the idea of death and separation, masquerading as life and pretending to be alive? Is it not "the dry and dusty desert where starved and thirsty creatures come to die"? To "come to hate a while, wither and die"? A cruel world which LIFE could not possibly have created, which is part way between life and total death, and thus barely alive at all?

How about "this world holds NOTHING that I want"? Or "A teacher of God will gladly give up all the pleasures of the world"?

There may be some remaining semblance of life here. We cannot actually fully separate ourselves from God and even the illusions we make cannot be fully "outside the laws of God". Even these illusory forms must come from a mind which is alive enough to project them. They may have a little life left, but it isn't much. And it's nothing compared to heaven.

It's a sorry picture. But this world is really not what LIFE is like. It's not HOW life lives. It is not how life FUNCTIONS. It is run by ego laws of death, competition and destruction. We like to stick a bow on it and wrap the dogs in clothes and make little play houses for the cats but hey... they die, right?

Their bodies can't be real. And the humans... their bodies also can't be real.

Immortality is of the soul, which God created, in heaven. That is where life is. That's real life. Eternal life. Life which cannot be changed or killed or hurt in any way. That's reality. That's where the LIFE is.

Forms, all forms, are "the form of error". They are depictions of separateness. Every single one of them. Are they life forms, or are they LIE forms? What is LIFE really?

The sheer extent of being deceived by FORM, is easy to recognize in this world. The sheer degree by which we have fallen for the belief that DIFFERENT FORMS are in fact different things.

We've given them different values, different meanings, different importance, different seriousness, different degrees of problem, different solutions, different natures, different materials, different shapes and colors and sizes. There is no end to the variations.

Look then at our addiction to forms. Our addiction to OBJECTS. To bodies, to toys, to buildings and cars, to special foods, to special relationships, to idols we worship. The idolization of places and things.

Look at how we seek after the next best special toy. That particular preferred clothing. That special kind of house. That dream car. That selection of food at the grocery store we like the taste of. That lifestyle. That environment. The decorations for our homes and bodies.

And look at how the world is constantly driven to tell you the many ways that the FORMS of things are different, special, unique, worth having. That some forms are SALVATION. That other forms are to be avoided, in favor of the chosen ones.

That if you just get this special form you will be happier, better off, safer, healthier. That some forms have magical powers and are better for you, while others hurt you. That some forms are to be avoided while others are to be deeply desired.

Look at all the bullshit values we've given everything. A bar of gold is allegedly more valuable than a bar of shit. The fancy dresses and suits seemingly worth more than shabby rags. Expensive houses and cars seemingly better than that old clunker.

The world tries to manufacture untold new forms, to leverage new properties of matter it discovered, and to sell the next most amazing form to you. This leads to all the shopaholic frenzy of possessions and purchases, sales and discounts. Ways to get more objects and forms of salvation.

To surround yourself with a fortress of form and to completely shut out all reality. To tell yourself your important job is doing some real good and is a great symbol of status, when all it is keeping you blinded and locked into a prison. To seek for riches, or for poverty, believing either one is the better form or more spiritual.

And then look at how we spiritualize forms and worship idols. How we put them on pedestals or throw them in the trash. And not for long will the next amazing form tempt you with its thrills, only to be discarded soon after when another comes to take its place.

Always competition. Always one-upmanship. Always the next best thing. Always superceding and overthrowing and exalting only to destroy. This is what the world is like. Driven mad by the utterly nonsense illusion that ANY form is DIFFERENT to any other. That one thing is not another thing. That all things are separate.

And so by worshipping form we worship death, because death means a lack of wholeness, and a preference for littleness. And there is no wholeness in the world as a result. And wholeness is health, meaning the worship of forms produces sickness. And now the body has become the hero of the dream, the celebrity, the one to watch.

Every way this world offers up the next puke casserole of "stuff" that you're supposed to think of as "not the same" as all the "stuff" that came before it, be not deceived. Consider that this world is going to just keep churning out form after form after form, all the while thinking it is creating something NEW, when all it is doing is rehashing and remaking what is old and dead.

Do you really WANT anything this world has to offer, when all it offers is the same one thing? The same illusion of fake things which have fake importance? Stuff you don't need, stuff you don't really want, stuff you can't rely on, stuff that just constantly changes into new forms to tempt you away from the truth.

Just how many thousands of "things" do you need? Just how many pieces of paper and shiny coins? How many different pairs of shoes and pieces of clothing? Exactly why do you collect all the rare and unusual trinkets and treasures? Why do you think EACH one is truly unique and not like the rest, worth having? And why do you seek to find the rarest and most valuable ultra-special items, exclusively for you which no one else has?

This is the madness of the world. It is disappearing up its own backside in its obsession with MAKING more and more and more. Regurgitating an endless list of piffle and drivel. Tempting you that the next right kitchen counter and the next sofa and the next douvet cover is going to save you from the very biased lopsided problems it is designed to cause? And which solution will ever set you free from the very problems it induces?

The forms of this world are a trap. They are ALL made to tempt you away from God and from wholeness, health and truth. They are all a decoy, disguising the fact that they are all ONE THING. One big illusion, pretending to be many illusions.

You keep buying the same shit over and over and over again because you don't realize it is the SAME as the last shit, just in a different form. And while you think the differences that keep forms apart are desirable, you will keep falling for the same one trick. This world really has NOTHING to offer. And ALL its objects are a lie.

"The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need."

"It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that the world has nothing to give."

"This world holds nothing that you really want"

"The world you see has nothing that you need to offer you; nothing that you can use in any way, nor anything at all that serves to give you joy. Believe this thought, and you are saved from years of misery, from countless disappointments, and from hopes that turn to bitter ashes of despair. No one but must accept this thought as true, if he would leave this world behind and soar beyond its petty scope and little ways."

"Each thing you value here is but a chain that binds you to the world, and it will serve no other end but this. For everything must serve the purpose you have given it until you see a different purpose there. The only purpose worthy of your mind this world contains is that you pass it by, without delaying to perceive some hope where there is none. Be you deceived no more. The world you see has nothing that you want."

"When we are all united in Heaven, you will value NOTHING that you value here. For nothing that you value here you value wholly, and so you do not value it at all. "

"If you will lay aside the ego's voice however loudly it may seem to call; if you will not accept its petty gifts which give you nothing that you really want; if you will listen with an open mind which has not told you what salvation is; then you will hear the mighty Voice of truth, quiet in power, strong in stillness, and completely certain in Its messages."

"Forget not the Kingdom of God for anything the world has to offer. The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it CAN blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true."

"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" This means that if he listens to the wrong voice, he has LOST SIGHT of his Soul. He CANNOT lose it, but he CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO HIM, until he chooses right."

"The wearying, dissatisfying gods you made are blown-up children's toys." "The gap that is not there is filled with toys in countless forms." "Look calmly at its toys, and understand that they are idols which but dance to vain desires. Give them not your worship, for they are not there." "Shall we continue to allow God's grace to shine in unawareness, while the toys and trinkets of the world are sought instead?" "Shall we not put away these sharp-edged children's toys? How soon will you be ready to come home?" "In my hands is everything you want and need and hoped to find among the shabby toys of earth. I take them all from you and they are gone. And shining in the place where once they stood there is a gateway to another world through which we enter in the Name of God." "What toys or trinkets in the gap could serve to hold you back an instant from His Love?" "Today He gives you His defenselessness, and you accept it in exchange for all the toys of battle you have made." "Whom He has judged can only laugh at guilt, unwilling now to play with toys of sin, unheeding of the body's witnesses before the rapture of His holy Face."

Denial can be used two ways.

1) Deny God's truth and replace it with lies.

2) Deny lies and replace it with God's truth.

One defends the ego and makes God unreal. The other defends God and makes the ego unreal.

Denial of God has progressed very far and is responsible for everything that happens in this world.

Denial of ego is the only way to resurrect and return to safety.

Sometimes, denial is combined with level confusion. When this happens, you use denial incorrectly in the name of thinking that it's making you more spiritual, but instead it's increasing separation.

Denial of the body for example could go one of two ways. You could deny that it is real, which is correct, if done as a recognition that it is unreal and not as an attack on it seeming to be real.

Or, you could be believing the body is real and attempt to PRETEND it is not there, by using denial to attack it to try to make it go away. This will separate you from it and produce sickness, instead of transcending it.

In other words, denial needs to be used honestly and with clarity. If you are "in denial" about how you are using denial, that can be a problem.

Proper use of denial will entail a clear RECOGNITION of what something IS, without avoiding it or pretending to make it into something it is NOT.

Clear perception of what the ego is, what the body is, what illusions are, is all that is needed in order to "deny the ego". MISTAKEN perception will lead to the improper use of denial, because it means you see the ego as real instead of an illusion, and will then use denial to fight with it to try to make it go away.

"T-22.III.5. 3 The body's eyes see only form. 4 They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. 5 And they were made to look on error and not see past it. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. 7 To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. 8 Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? 9 It is held back by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived." - ACIM

**** This is a very important part of the Course. ****

Jesus is telling is clearly here that the physical world of FORM, all objects, all matter, the physical universe, the world, are NOTHING, it is the way that we experience a 'wall of sin' which stands between us and God, and we are quite literally incapable of seeing God while we use the body's eyes to see.

It is also telling us that the physical universe is not reality. Perception of 'form', which means, physical materials, objects, people's bodies, the planet, etc... if you are seeing that, you are seeing an illusion.

This is very hard for many people to accept even intellectually yet alone to experience this truth. "There is no world" fits right in here.

So it's one thing to wake up to the point of still seeing the physical world and yet somehow 'seeing God in it' because God is in your mind. Okay, that's a step closer. BUT... that's not going all the way.

Jesus is telling us from a CHRIST perspective, that we have to become able to recognize that ALL FORMS ARE ILLUSIONS and that there is a REALITY that is beyond form, formless, in which you not only live your real life with God but you also are completely infinite and unlimited.

It's not enough just to find a different way of perceiving form. It's not enough to learn to not judge form. It's not enough to overlook your personal judgements or mental distortions or guilty attitudes about the world or yourself. That is not the end of the story.

We are asked to really go ALL THE WAY.... to go beyond form entirely. To go all the way to IMMORTAL SPIRIT. To transcend all forms and all physical matter and all of space and time. To go all the way to the complete and total and permanent awareness of the ONE REALITY. That reality is completely abstract and has NO FORMS IN IT. None. No objects. No bodies. No physical universe. No planets.

So that means, it's important to learn at some stage how even the body's senses are misleading you, how you are deceived by the appearance of differences and objects, how the physical world is actually set up to BLOCK you from God, and how the world PHYSICALLY STOPS YOU from being with God by completely deceiving your awareness.

You need a vision which transcends form. A vision which sees Christ. And that doesn't just mean seeing Christ in your brother or seeing Christ in the body-self of your brother. It means seeing past ALL FORM to the Christ and ONLY SEEING THAT.

Not just to see and be aware of God, but to see and be aware of NOTHING ELSE as well.

As Jesus says, "There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The difference between us now is that I have nothing else. This leaves me in a state which is only potential in you." - ACIM

Pure heaven.

MIRACLES ARE ABLE TO CHANGE PHYSICAL FORMS!

"T-22.III.7. Only mistakes have different forms, and so they can deceive. 2 You can change form because it is not true. 3 It could not be reality because it can be changed."

"Your experience of miracles is proof that you are not bound by loss or suffering in ANY FORM because they can be so easily changed. This demonstrates that they were never real and that they could not stem from Reality. Reality is Changeless and Its Effects cannot be altered. Appearances are shown to be unreal because they change."

Miracles DEMONSTRATE that this world is unreal BY CHANGING IT, to prove that its laws do not hold it in place or determine its nature.

People say, well, this world doesn't exist so there is no point changing it. THERE IS A POINT. You MUST change it to prove that it CAN be changed in ways that this world ITSELF claims is impossible. You MUST BREAK THE EGOS LAWS in order to TEACH (miracles are teaching devices) that God's laws are the only authority.

You are not bound by loss or suffering in any form. THAT INCLUDES PHYSICAL, because all FORMS are energetic or physical. "All thoughts produce form at some level". And since Jesus says that MIRACLES PROVE you are not bound by suffering in ANY FORM, MIRACLES MUST BE CAPABLE OF CHANGING PHYSICAL MATTER.

Your body, the bodies of others, the moving of physical mountains, changing objects into other objects, healing the sick, raising the dead, whatever it is... MIRACLES CHANGE THE WORLD in order to demonstrate that, BECAUSE it can be changed, the world is not real. Miracles are THE ONLY DEVICE YOU HAVE at your disposal capable of doing this.

Miracles do not change the world in order to "make a better world". They change the world in order to PROVE and DEMONSTRATE and SHOW, that this world is FALSE. Thus they lead OUT of the world. When people claim "there's no point trying to dress up the dream or make a better world", this is only because they assume the miracles would "improve your life" and you'd just stay in the dream deluded. That's not their function. Miracles "heal the world" IN ORDER TO SHOW that the world is FALSE, not in order to support the ego, and so this argument is logically unfounded.

Since all miracles that CHANGE FORMS, MUST run contrary to the "natural laws" of the ego (horizontal laws), they must supercede them or act from ABOVE them, meaning that ALL MIRACLES ARE SUPERNATURAL (above ego nature) because they reverse the ego's physical laws.

Using miracles to "change or fix" the world IS CORRECT, given that miraculous demonstrations will always PROVE this world is FALSE, and so lead AWAY from the world, not towards it. To use the idea that you should not change the world with miracles as an explanation for why miracles are pointless, is a misunderstanding of what miracles DO, and their function in SHOWING that this world is not your home. You change the world to PROVE it can change, to PROVE it CANNOT BE REAL because nothing real can be changed.

The form that something takes is NOT its meaning. A form is like an instance, or example of something, or a certain variant of its possible range of states, or a specific configuration amongst many possible configurations. Something can take on a form, or take one form, or another form. There can be "forms of" things. Shapes, sizes, parts, configurations, structures, pieces, objects, bodies, states, conditions, etc it's all forms.

When you believe that something about the form is truth, now you are saying that the form IS CONTENT. That its inherent meaning or reality is tied to its form. So now if we say, well, my banana is looking old a rotten, we might now take this to mean the banana is dying and is not edible. Versus an underripe banana which is more firm and green, we might think this MEANS it is not yet edible. And thus we lock the form into certain judgmental definitions of what they are and what they can do.

When we mistake the form that something takes, for what it MEANS, and we derived meaning FROM it or based on it, we are deceived. This means we are listening to an illusory world asking it to tell us what is true. Form IS NOT meaning. Form is not content. Form does not have ANY truth. It is unsubstantial and meaningless and nothing. All forms are fiction and illusions. They are forms of error. They are mistakes, deceptions, lies, illusions, dreams and wishes.

To understand that everything in this world does not MEAN anything, we have to recognize that the form anything takes cannot tell us what it MEANS. One configuration of objects does NOT tell us anything. A certain arrangement of parts does not really mean anything. A bigger object or a smaller object, a certain kind of material, a piece of machinery, old versus new, none of it means anything different.

When we are in a thought system where we seem to ASK the world of form to TELL US what it means, looking to it as a source of truth and to inform us of what is THERE and what is happening, based on its particular aspects, we're literally asking a meaningless nothingness to derive meaning from itself. That a certain body in a certain state means one thing, and a body in another state means something else.

We start to then believe that there can be a DIAGNOSIS. Or a prognosis. Or a judgement or evaluation of what condition something is in, and the possible outcomes that may be consequences of that specific state. As if that means something or would lead to possible futures or potentials, while shutting off the path to other possibilities that aren't "appropriate" for this specific form. Possibilities that the FORM "claims" is not possible, BECAUSE OF the form.

So now a dead body rotting and decaying is believed to MEAN an irreversible process is taking place and the decomposition PROVES that life has ended. This is all completely bullshit and made-up. The body in this state is really absolutely no different to a body running a marathon. If we are DECEIVED by the appearance of form, then we are BLINDED. ALL appearances, all forms, all configurations, all shapes and sizes and colors are utterly meaningless and nothing true can be derived from them.

"Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form MEANS understanding HAS BEEN obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they CAN deceive. You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is NOT reality, it MUST be an illusion. And is Not THERE to see. And, IF you see it, you MUST be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it WERE. What cannot see BEYOND what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions AS THE TRUTH. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?"

Recognizing all objects as EQUALLY meaningless, their forms now become irrelevant. Who cares if something is taking on a certain shape? What does it matter that there SEEMS to be a certain specific sickness? Why should our response or reaction be profoundly different when the FORM is in a certain state versus another? To have different responses or to react in fear is really a sign that you BELIEVE that the form MEANS something different in a hierarchy of illusions. That a body in "this state" means "its terribly bad", while a body in "that state" is "not cause for concern." This is all bullshit, both the good and the bad evaluations.

All forms are deceptions. That's why the world is an illusion. It SEEMS to be something that it is not. It appears to be something it isn't. IT IS NOT TRUTH. It attempts to demonstrate PROOF OF SIN, that sins and events and happenings are taking place as, as if the world and the body have some kind of power, causation, will, mind, or ability to produce certain specific outcomes, chain reactions, or consequences. None of these pretend causations are real. All of these forms are equally just fake images being projected. They are empty pictures on a blank screen.

This is why ACIM even starts out the workbook having you look around the room and identifying that none of this means anything. To apply a single response (unconditionality) to ALL illusory forms, to all objects, in order to train your mind in the recognition that the form DOES NOT MATTER. That the form IS NOT MEANING. That the form of one object is no more or less important or relevant or significant than another. To deprogram you from the belief that certain kinds of objects in certain conditions MEAN one thing while others are more preferable.

The world is just a giant soup of jumbled up bits and pieces of nothingness, scrambled together into untold seeming numbers of configurations, designed to make it look as if there are a great MANY DIFFERENT things. As if there are contrasts and conflicts and ways that one thing IS NOT LIKE another. That this object is not that object. That this sick body is distinct from that healthy body. These are all DECEPTIONS. All illusions, trying to make it seem like ONE THING is many things. That the ONE DREAM is composed of many parts. That the illusion of separation isn't just an illusion of separateness, but a collective of untold numbers.

The ONLY way to recognize that all objects are equal, is to recognize they are all equally THE SAME. And the since they are all illusions of difference, their differences cannot be TRUE. Their FORMS cannot be true, when they conflict and differ. To be truth they have to be IDENTICAL. But their forms are NOT identical, so sameness reveals that their forms are NOT TRUTH. And different forms cannot be KEPT if there is to be equality. Their forms and their appearances of difference must not BE reality, because they're all contradictory. Therefore ALL FORM IS A LIE.

Not one object means anything more or less than another. Not one body means anything more or less than another in any state or seeming condition. Extreme torment and death and suffering is not any worse, bigger, stronger, harder, more difficult to undo, or more powerful and causative, than the slightest hint of a disturbance. Form cannot be taken to be meaning, it cannot be content, it cannot tell you WHAT SOMETHING IS, and all it can do is present a smokescreen.

The world is nothing. Absolutely nothing. It's not there. Without its forms there is no world. It is empty and nothingness. A void of meaninglessness. And not one thing in it means anything at all. And so there is no order, and no levels of difficulty, and no hierarchy, and no inherent meaning in any of it.

Therefore miracles respond to it with a single response, an unconditional response, which must be love, because only love can be unconditional. And so to recognize the world is all nothing is to love it, and light will shine away the darkness of forms and separations.

"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."

"There IS no meaning in the form, AND THERE WILL NEVER BE. "

"What is perceived takes many forms, but NONE has meaning."

"Realize that, whatever form they take, they have no meaning and no power."

"Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."

"You have not found your happiness in foreign places, and in alien forms which have no meaning to you"

"Bodies may battle, but the clash of forms is meaningless."

"For here is nothingness, where neither birth nor death is real, nor any form in the misshapen mind that spawned it has any meaning in the Mind of God."

"Take not the form for content"

"Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing forms that shift with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning."

"What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His. Therefore, it has no meaning."

"I do not choose to value what is totally insane and has no meaning."

"Would God have left the meaning of the world to YOUR interpretation? If He had, it HAS no meaning. For it cannot be that meaning changes constantly, and yet is true."

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind."

The ego's problem solving solution is to separate. It will tell you that the way to forgive something and free yourself from suffering at its expense, is to separate from it and/or attack it.

The way you'll separate from it is to deny it, try to believe it's not real, to see it as not happening, attach a label of illusion to it, affirm over and over how God didn't create it, label it as duality, and generally weaponise various parts of ACIM against it to "make it go away."

This is what the course calls "forgiveness to destroy". It demands that either a) the thing itself changes so that you're not affected, or b) you destroy its existence so that you're not affected. Both entail you not really changing yourself, while increasing separation - but disguised as "forgiveness."

The main problem is sin. Sin is a combination of two things: form and meaning. Meaning or interpretation is given to a form and associated with it, but then it seems like the form IS the meaning and you're dealing with ONE thing. One object that is evil, one act that is bad, one person body that is sinning, etc.

The combination of ego interpretation and form, makes it seem like your only solution is to get rid of the form. You have to throw it away in order to free yourself from the meaning. This immediately produces the spiritual bypass in which experience is denied, feelings are repressed, guilt is not looked at, beliefs are not questioned, the world is denied, bodies are denied, and the person tries to "escape" from the world of form.

The insight that HAS to happen for proper forgiveness to take place, is to recognize that "the problem" IS a combination of two things - form and a meaning you're giving it. You have to recognize that YOU are contributing something extra to the thing, you're adding something to it, you're giving it a meaning. And that means that there is an ASPECT of the thing that you can change your mind about.

This then leads to the realisation that if you were to think differently, believe differently, undo guilts, change your attitude, interpret in a lighter higher way, or generally alter YOUR MIND, it would change how you experience the thing. We're not talking here about doing this to make the form of the thing go away, but we're talking bout making the FALSE MEANING go away by REPLACING it with a higher meaning.

What this then does is it acknowledges the continued possible presence of the form without bypassing, without denying it's there, without trying to make it unreal, without attacking it with quotes, without ignoring the body, without numbing the feelings, without pretending you're not unhappy, and without denying the guilt.

Instead of being a "shove this thing into the pit of hell so that it's out of my way", it's more like "I'll change MY contribution to this so that I see it in a better way". This entails an honesty and a willingness to question your beliefs, to consider that your interpretation might be mistaken, to have a little willingness to admit to being wrong, and certainly a willingness to stop denying what you are experiencing. In fact you need to acknowledge the forms that are taking place EVEN MORE, before you can properly move into forgiveness.

For example if you are full of guilt but are in denial about it, you will project that guilt onto forms. And then you'll associate it with the forms. And then you'll think that the form + guilt is actually just "formguilt", like it's locked in as one thing. In order to move away from this delusion, you would have to be willing to stop denying that you feel guilty, stop denying that you believe you are guilty, and look at the guilt with the Holy Spirit and find a better to look at it so that you can overlook it and see your innocence.

As no time are we looking to write off, ignore, relegate, label, attack, dismiss, deny, pretend, or otherwise "make go away" anything physical or emotional or mental. We just want a different ANGLE on it. As soon as we start getting into "I want to make this go away", we're very likely binding meaning with form and are trying to get rid of it all at once. And that means we're going to move into a "reaction to sin", with a counter-measure of forgiveness to destroy. And then we're in a bypass.

When we use high-level lofty truths, the proper use of them is NOT to deny form or experience, or to create another separation or rift between heaven and earth. It's to use it to steer the mind towards truth WITHOUT negating or attacking or denying the illusory world. If there is any hint of "separate from it" in your forgiving, you're got some ego in there.

For example if you say "there is no world" and you're using that to try to write off the world and make it go away, that's a spiritual bypass and an attack. If you are saying it with the purpose of affirming your true identity and increasing the recognition of what the world IS, that's a proper use of it. There's a subtle difference there, but it's also huge.

If we say for example "I am not a body" the purpose isn't to destroy the body or make bodies go away. The purpose should be to affirm your identification with spirit and shift your identification away from the body. This isn't to be used as a statement with a hidden meaning of "bodies aren't real" or "bodies don't exist." Because the truth is that you DO believe very strongly that bodies exist. Your aim is to dis-identify from them not destroy them and not see them, at least not until much much later when you're ready for that.

We have to therefore always be careful to check whether how we're USING the course is using denial properly. If we've got some "make it go away" vibes in there, we're introducing some ego. If we're weaponising statements in order to "defend against", we're got some ego in there. If we're trying to say I am immortal spirit in an effort to get rid of the body and shut it out, that's a huge bypass.

Overall, the best way to avoid bypassing is to adopt an attitude that you are in this world, in this body, and you will remain in this world in this body, even when you are very close to awakening. An attitude that you will find peace even here in this world, and not initially attempt to escape the world in order to find it.

An attitude that you will repurpose and re-use the body and express the love of God through it to others here in this world while you have it. That you'll use the body for teaching and healing, rather than trying to not have a body at all.

That instead of trying to attack the world away, you'll find a way to forgive it and arrive at the forgiven world, seen here in a body with christ vision. An attitude that you will STAY AND HELP, rather than trying to "escape from hell", that you will be a healer and a teacher of God and bring light INTO this world. To be the light of the world!

As soon as the course is being used in an effort to escape from the world, you're going to go into a spiritual bypass. As soon as you're trying to write the world off, get rid of the body, demonise death, repress feelings, deny suffering, or make the whole of spacetime out to be some defective sinful thing that you want nothing to do with, you're going to be bypassing.

This bypass results in escaping into the intellect, using very lofty level 1 statements to try to "write off" the world and the body, using non-duality ideas to invalidate everything you experience, makes you sacrifice and control and limit everything you do including anything you enjoy, produces a cold dismissive attitude of rejection, develops a sense of total separation between heaven and earth, and generally increases the ego.

Jesus suggests to avoid this "top down" sort of approach where we just try to hammer high truths into our minds or force ourselves to believe things. We're meant instead to work from the bottom up, from where we are at now, without denial of experience or feelings or suffering, and work with whatever we're open to as the next step, to question our current beliefs and consider a better way to look at things. So that we can work our way up from the bottom, instead of pretending to sit on the mountain-top hurling down judgements.

"And as a man, I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge, so much as to CORRECT error from the bottom up."

"True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. This kind of denial is NOT a concealment device, but a correction device. The "Right Mind" of the mentally healthy DEPENDS on it."

"Fail not in your function of loving in a loveless place, made out of darkness and deceit, for thus are darkness and deception UNdone."

"When I said "I am come as a light into the world," I surely came to share this light with you."

"I am the light of the world. That is my only function. That is why I am here."

When you are having true perception.... "M-8.6. The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be ***HEALED*** will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There ***will be those who seem to be "sicker"*** than others, and the *******body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before*******. 4 But ***the healed mind*** will put them all in one category; they are unreal.

5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories (false and true) are meaningful in ***sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world.*** (through the body's eyes) 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."

As you begin your journey towards truth and are using the body's eyes, which SEEM to see the physical world, but isn't REAL sight, and is actually a state of not seeing anything real, you start to open the spiritual eye and develop christ vision. The whole workbook is designed for the purpose of developing christ vision, which, by the way, entails the simultaneous use of the body's eyes to READ the workbook lessons ;-)

The body's eyes, made not to see, are always functioning as biological machinery in the same way. They are sense organs, which pick up photons of light which are DENIED by surfaces of objects, and bounce into your retina, sending "signals" of "images" into your mind. The eyeballs obviously do not see at all even at the physical level, they are just relays or sensors, which pick up light and transmit it to the brain, where the mind then "sees" the images. Only the mind really sees.

The thing is that, if you BELIEVE these images depict truth or reality, that you are seeing reality when you see physical objects, you are deluded IN your mind, and your MIND is having false perception. That is, your mind is believing in, investing in, and "making real", the images coming from the body's eyes. So now the body is fixed having false perceptions of an unreal world, it's trying to send these pictures to the mind and the mind is deciding one thing: "are these images real, or are they unreal?" "are they true, or false?".

So yes, you can continue to SEE THIS WORLD.... EITHER as "it is real" or as "it is unreal". It's not a matter of "do I see the world or not", at the level of perception. Perception EITHER sees the ILLUSORY WORLD and BELIEVES it is true (false perception), or it SEES the SAME illusory world and BELIEVES it is false (true perception). In both cases, the world IS SEEN STILL!! It's a dream! Either you are seeing the nightmare dream of false perception or the HAPPY DREAM. A happy dream is the illusory world RECOGNIZED as being UNREAL!!! You are happy BECAUSE You know it is BULLSHIT!!! How else COULD you be happy but to recognize that images of hell are NOT TRUE?

In order to come to realize that these images are false and unreal, that the physical world is an illusion, the mind has to learn to FORGIVE. "To forgive is to OVERLOOK". Through forgiveness, you train the mind to recognize illusions as illusions, to NOT believe they are real, and to NOT see value or truth in them. This results in the continual transmission of images into the mind by the body's eyes but when the mind looks AT these images, it learns to OVERLOOK the ILLUSIONS they are trying to present, the temptation, and the mind learns to CATEGORIZE ALL of these images as UNREAL. Yet, the mind STILL IS SEEING THEM. It simply shifts its vantage point and sense of TRUTH, to be able to discern that NONE of these images depict truth or reality.

Therefore Christ Vision is gradually developed in parallel to having body eyesight, and the more that you progress in forgiveness of ILLUSIONS, which means THE WORLD, the more your mind is able to recognize the world is FALSE, and the world now registers with you experientially as something false. You still SEE IT, but it doesn't seem believable. It doesn't strike you as "really happening". In this state, your mind can be SIGNIFICANTLY HEALED, and very very close to awakening, while STILL seeing simultaneously with the body's eyes.

So what now is happening is, your mind is being STILL presented with images of hell - physical world - which it can still see, but these images become so OVERLOOKED, that they start to become transparent as if you are literally looking THROUGH them rather than stopping at the surfaces. You start to glimpse the face of christ BEYOND the physical images, beyond the universe, beyond the body. And so now you are starting to see God "in everything you see" because you are seeing God BEYOND the physical illusion of objects.

In this state, you are a teacher of God, who is still in the world, having a body, SEEING WITH the body's eyes, AND simultaneously seeing with Christ Vision which OVERLOOKS what the body sees. In this state, it is TOTALLY NORMAL to be able to still see the bodies of other people, moving around, doing things in the physical world, while ALSO overlooking them and recognizing them as unreal. Since the body's eyes do not "Switch off" at this point, it's kind of like you're getting bombarded with images of hell at the same time as trying to approach heaven. And so you have to learn to NOT BELIEVE what the eyes are showing you. BUT YOU DO STILL SEE IT "mixed in" with your Christ vision.

Jesus speaks of this again in this statement:

"M-12.6. Oneness and sickness cannot coexist. 2 God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. 3 It is a conscious choice. 4 For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. 5 The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? 6 Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. 7 They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. 8 Yet they are not deceived by what they see. 9 They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. 10 Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. 11 And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

Notice how it says that such persons are AWARE of dreaming, which means they can SEE the dream world - the physical world. Notice how it says THEY WATCH DREAM FIGURES come and go, shift and change, AND ... SUFFER AND DIE! All seen from A HEALED MIND!!! They CAN SEE bodies being sick, they CAN SEE "people" suffering, they CAN SEE DEATH, EVEN THOUGH they themselves are having a very healed mind, a very "sick free" mind, which does NOT BELIEVE IN sickness, and IS NOT PROJECTING SICKNESS ONTO OTHERS. And this is because the body is still dangling in front of the mind picking up signals from the dream world. The body will continue showing the mind pictures of sickness and death EVEN IF the mind does not believe in sickness and death. The result is that the images are SEEN, but they are NOT BELIEVED. They register as UNREAL, FALSE, NOT TRUE. It's a shift in vantage point which makes the whole world be RECOGNIZED as an illusion, instead of BELIEVED to be real.

In this state, it is perfectly possible for a teacher of God to be "in the world but not of it". To walk around the Earth, seeing bodies still, but overlooking them as well. Seeing people with broken legs, severe diseases, missing organs and so on, or even states of death. But the miracle worker in their right mind DOES NOT BELIEVE any of these things are true of any brothers, and they do not AGREE WITH what those brothers ARE BELIEVING about themselves and their bodies. The brothers ARE recognized as calling for love, since it is forgiving to recognize this and not that punishment is real, and as such there is EFFORTLESS perception of the "need" that people SEEM to have. And that means, you recognize who is viable as a recipient of A MIRACLE. It means you CAN SEE A CALL FOR HELP.

This combination of body vision and christ vision is precisely why JESUS was able to walk the Earth, SEE people sick and dying, and DO SOMETHING. He could tell that someone's body was showing up to his mind as "it is in the form of sickness", EVEN THOUGH he did not BELIEVE in sickness being TRUE. He did not merely "switch off" the ability to SEE the body at all, at that point. He did not have a state of "if I see sickness, I am sick". You have to remember there are TWO functions of seeing happening at once. In His mind, in his Christ Vision, he OVERLOOKED the sick body and it registered to him as NOT REAL. But in his body vision he could still SEE the state the body was in. And this is how he was able to SEE, those who were suffering and sick, even though HIS MIND did not believe the images he was seeing. HE was not sick. HE was not projecting sickness. HE was not MAKING people be sick. He knew the were not REALLY sick. But he also knew he could SEE that THEY believed they were suffering. So he HELPED THEM!

This is precisely the scenario that sets up a foundation for being a MIRACLE WORKER. Because now a teacher of God is HEALED, and yet CAN SEE those who are NOT healed. The teacher of God now has an abundance of love, while recognizing that those whose dream bodies still seem to suffer, are SEEMING to LACK love, and are "in need". That they are, from their own perspectives as individuals, suffering. Their minds are sick, their bodies are sick. And this establishes the dynamic where the miracle worker IS HEALED, but OTHERS ARE NOT. Thus, "Miracles supply a lack". and "Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more, to those who temporarily have less." It would be absolutely impossible to EVER be in a situation where you HAVE MORE, while others HAVE LESS, if the commonly-held mistaken view of how perception works were correct. And it would VIOLATE numerous miracle principles.

See, this is how most people think of perception, and it's wrong... the idea that "I have perception", it's one thing, it looks upon the world, and "I need to shift it". And the idea that projection makes perception, implying that whatever I see, I am putting there. So now it's like, my perception was aiming at hell, because I was putting hell there, and I need to redirect it towards heaven, so that I will perceive heaven and NOT SEE HELL at all. This is a big problem. Because if that's your model of perception, it means you become BLIND TO what is happening in the world as soon as you no longer believe in it. So like, if you stop believing sickness is real, in this model, you would literally expect to not be able to SEE anything that is sick, ever again. And this would imply, if you see sickness, YOU are sick, or you are attacking, or you are trying to make your brother be sick. That their sickness is your sickness. And this essentially makes you TOTALLY INCAPABLE of seeing whether or not your brother is in need of help.

Also in this broken model, it results in a situation where there is total inner and outer equality between what you believe and what you see. Therefore, you will assert that the outward picture (equated also with what the body sees) matches my inner condition and the world is like a mirror. So I see only myself. I'm all that exists (narcissistic, selfish). And thus you can never be in a position where "you have more" and someone else "has less". It means thus you never see any reason to help or heal or supply a lack for others, because you think "their sickness" is just a reflection of "your sickness." You think if you see sickness at all (e.g. broken leg), YOU must be making it be broken, and you need the healing, and no-one else needs anything. This is in TOTAL DENIAL of the way the body's sight functions continually in parallel to spiritual sight.

This is a very prevalent belief about how perception works, and it is totally bullshit. Or rather, it's only one half of the picture. It leads to a justification for NOT PERFORMING ANY MIRACLES FOR OTHERS. It completely WIPES OUT, the entire situation where miracles given to others could EVER be seen as "needed" or "making sense" to "called for", because the person now thinks that all they see is themselves. That the whole world is their own self. This thus becomes SELFISH. And it cancels the entire practice of miracle working in the world. It completely obliterates any reason why you would be able to SEE the "call for love" of another, yet alone giving a reason to respond to it. And this model of perception is treasured by those who do not want to work any miracles ever. It is a miracle-fearing, course denying paradigm of a mistaken understanding of how perception functions.

There is SOME truth to this false model, in the sense that it IS describing the transition from false perception to true perception. It is describing the healing of the BELIEF IN sickness being real or true. It IS a movement towards healed perception and christ vision. It IS the opening up to forgiveness and the overlooking of illusions and lies. It is recognizing the you DO project stuff onto others and see it. And it recognizes that YOUR MIND DOES need healing when you see illusions AS REAL. But that's a far cry from believing that you must not see the world AT ALL in order to be healed, which denies what the body's eyes are doing. It is taken in isolation to mean, THE BODY STOPS SEEING ANYTHING, or that, you will see through the body's eyes and NOT SEE AND BROKEN BODIES, with is totally a level confusion. It completely IGNORES and shuts out the FACT, that the body's eyes CONTINUE to send images from the physical world into the mind, right up until the atonement is accepted and you leave the world behind.

The result is that the body still sees "the veil", which is the physical world, while the mind is overlooking those images and seeing THROUGH them to the light of heaven BEYOND the physical. In that state, let's say the veil/body images are registering with 1% visibility and perception of heaven is registering at 99% visibility. You DO transition from one to the other, but body vision does NOT END until christ vision is TOTALLY 100% PERFECTED. seen.9

The result is that the body still sees "the veil", which is the physical world, while the mind is overlooking those images and seeing THROUGH them to the light of heaven BEYOND the physical. In that state, let's say the veil/body images are registering with 1% visibility and perception of heaven is registering at 99% visibility. You DO transition from one to the other proportionately, linearly, because "you cannot see two worlds", but body vision does NOT END until christ vision is TOTALLY 100% PERFECTED. Meaning you're going to HAVE TO still keep seeing the physical world UNTIL you are practically ready to ascend to heaven.

WHEN Christ vision is absolutely complete, the face of Christ appears. That means, heaven becomes "visible". And it also means, Earth become "invisible." Literally. If you look upon the face of christ it should last merely an instant before God takes you to Heaven. The forgiven world has disappeared from your sight. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." And then perception ends entirely, the body's vision ceases to send anything to the mind, because the mind is now free of bodies forever. And that's what it means to be 100% spirit identified. And ONLY THEN, when you no longer HAVE A BODY AT ALL, ONLY then do you no longer have a PERCEPTION with which to see the illusory world of hell and death.

UNTIL THAT HAPPENS, you WILL continue receiving images from the body's vision! You WILL continue being able to see bodies in various states of health. YOU WILL be able to discern "who" is calling out for love and who isn't. Who is SICK, and who isn't. Who is DEAD, and who isn't. Who is mistaken and delusional and who isn't. But your mind will recognize these things are not REAL. The people BEING sick DO think it is real, but you do not agree with them. And this is how you are able to set them free and weaken their belief. This is how you are able to PERFORM MIRACLES IN THE WORLD. To help others, to heal the sick, to raise the dead. To let the Holy Spirit USE YOUR BODY'S EYES for HIS PURPOSES! Because he is very much ready and willing and desiring to PERFORM MIRACLES IN THE WORLD TO HEAL THOSE WHO ARE IN THE WORLD. And that DOES include healing of sickness in mind AND body!!

Only when you ascend to heaven and leave the body entirely will you cease to be able to see the suffering of others in this world. And until then, you are to be a miracle worker. And if you're not doing that, you're in denial and being selfish.

"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."

Physical sight is blinded by perception of form. It looks only at the forms of error. It regards form as all that exists. The physical sight is blindness, because it cannot see everywhere, and is easily obscured be meaningless objects.

Form doesn't mean anything. But mind then takes the form and decides that certain forms mean certain things. We make up meanings and project them onto the forms. Now there is a hierarchy of illusions, varying degrees of difficulty, and the form of life seems to mean something different to the form of death.

"Life and death seem to be opposites because you have decided death ends life."

The form of death is not really death, and the form of life is not really life. We decided that death and decay "means" death and decay, and that living forms are "more alive". Who told you this? The myths of the world told you this. People made this up.

The form of death is not really death at all. It's just one configuration of materials. A kind of state. One possible way that form can appear. And when the same form appears more animated or fresh or vital, or capable of giving rise to more forms, then we say it means life. But these forms are neither alive or dead.

"In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning."

We give all forms all the meaning they have. We decide that a broken object means there's something wrong. We decide that a rotten corpse means something is beyond the hope of living. We look at the form of things and use the form to substitute for meaning, as if the form something takes MEANS something.

But all forms are illusions, and death is not death, and life is not life. They are all just equal images, appearances and illusions. All easily changed into other forms by the power of the mind.

"The miracle is means to demonstrate that ALL appearances can change BECAUSE they are appearances, and CANNOT have the changelessness reality entails. The miracle attests salvation FROM appearances by SHOWING they can change."

When no artificial meaning is given to the forms of the world, and the world's inherent meaninglessness is recognized, we end up with a level playing field. And now miracles can operate, disregarding any orders of difficulty or "reasons why" you can or cannot change one thing into another.

And now the seemingly dead bodies can be resurrected to "the living", to symbolize eternal life. And forms of sickness can be undone, to testify to innocence. And now water turns into wine and bread and fish multiply and who cares about the so-called law of gravity.