You might think that you have some kind of 'right' to have whatever belief you want to have. But ultimately the only option you have is to either accept 'what is' or be opposed to it.
Most beliefs oppose the truth in one way or another. Some much moreso. The ego is in complete opposition to the truth, at its deepest levels.
So it's not really a matter of who is right or wrong, but moreso just a matter of how 'opposing' a person is being. How much they are trying to reject truth and reality.
If you can't accept reality, or what is, or real truth, or love, or God, then you are in opposition, no matter what form it takes.
The ONLY way that you can be happy and at peace, then, is to learn to ACCEPT THE TRUTH of what is, rather than oppose it.
You cannot be opposed to the truth and be at peace. You cannot be opposed to the truth and feel happy and fulfilled. You cannot be opposed to the truth and feel loved. Because the truth IS love.
The way existence is set up, you're supposed to be completely provided for by God, you're supposed to be connected to His Mind, you're supposed to receive unlimited Power and Love from Him which you extend all the time, and you are so sustained and empowered by this that you feel totally safe and looked after.
As Jesus says, miracles are everyone's right, but when they don't happen, something has gone wrong.
So if the miracles aren't flowing, and the love's not extending, and you're not being sustained by God, and you're disempowered, and you're alone and afraid and feeling weak and vulnerable, it's basically because you're trying to work against the grain. You're trying not to exist.
There's really no other options in this. There's no alternative that works. The options are either:
a) Join with God and be happy and healthy and fulfilled and abundant and joyful forever, or
b) Go off on your own and rely on your own little self to be terrified in an overpowering world of madness, unhappy and certain of death.
There's no other way to access true happiness, health and abundance without God being involved. You can't have the cake and eat it. The ego wants to suggest you can do perfectly fine all by yourself, thank you very much, but it's not true.
There is suffering. There is weakness. There is fear. There is powerlessness. There is degradation and decay. These are not what God wills for you. This isn't how it's designed to work. But you can't be free of these things and simultaneously stay separate from God. It doesn't work. It's the separation from God that cuts you off from all of these good things.
So either you kind of suffer in isolation and eventually seem to die, or you turn to God and open up to eternal life. Seems like a bit of a no-brainer, but we seem to fight it tooth and nail.
Maybe we've just forgotten how good things could be if we were to fully trust God, and think that we're doing pretty fantastic all by ourselves. There's no comparison. As Jesus iterates many times in ACIM, the ego is offering you next to nothing. You're going to be giving up nothing and gaining everything when you go with God's plan. He just wants you to be happy ;-)
P.S. this is sort of sounding borderline judgementalist christianity attitude where people tell you their belief applies to you whether you want it to or not and that you're going to go to hell if you don't fall in line with 'how things are' .... lol.... yes, parallels, but let's get things straight... we will all return to God eventually and God loves unconditionally. So no worries if we delay. We just might be happier if we don't.
You may believe that you need to get love from someone important. Maybe a spouse or a friend or a child or parent.
But this love that you think you need from them, is a substitute for the love of God.
Your attempt to need or depend on their love is a way for you to claim that you need to get love from outside of yourself, because you lack it, because God doesn't love you.
You'll be upset about how your need for love is not fulfilled by others, and why they are supposed to fulfill it, and why you feel so lost and empty because of their failure to do so.
But this so-called "need" that you have, is really your own belief and assertion that you're not lovable, an attempt to avoid being loved by God, and a way to hide from love.
The external seeking for that love when then look like a really deep desire to be loved and to want love, but it's really in truth a cover-up for an attempt to not want love to be inside of you.
So long as someone else is tasked with providing love for you, and so long as you keep them in that role, you are in denial and are trying to stop yourself from being actually loved.
You do not need other people to love you. You do not need to get special love from them.
Your "need" is a belief in, a choice for, and attempt to bring about, a lack of love, because it's part of your ego's defense against God. For it to then seem to yearn for love externally is a fake motivation, a cover-up story, to pretend to desire love very strongly, as a way to always move away from where love really is.
This so-called "need" for love is a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that as soon as it's put into place, it stops love from being present. It's an avoidance of love, and an assertion that love does not exist. To then proceed to seek for love based on this is to guarantee you will not find it. "Seek and do not find" is your ego's primary mandate.
The only way you are going to experience love is to let all those people off the hook, to stop expecting or needing them to be the ones to love you, to recognize they themselves need love because they are resisting God, and that you need to get your love directly from God within. And the only way to do that is not to fulfill your need for love, but to get rid of your neediness because it's actually what's blocking you from love's presence.
You need to instead open up to accept and allow God to love you directly, to receive it, to experience it, to let it be true, and to be filled up with it from the inside. It means dropping your belief that you can't be loved or that it's someone else's job to do so. You need to learn to love yourself, and in so doing, allow God to love you also.
It's God's love that you really want. It's God's love that is the only real love, anyway.
"I am not weak, but strong.
I am not helpless, but all powerful.
I am not limited, but unlimited.
I am not doubtful, but certain.
I am not an illusion, but a reality.
I cannot see in darkness, but in light."
More...
I am not mortal but immortal.
I am not sick but healthy.
I am not dying but eternal.
I am not afraid but confident.
I am not a victim but empowered.
I am not guilty but innocent.
I am not sinful but holy.
I am not lost but united.
I am not alone but one.
I am not forgotten but remembered.
I am not upset but peaceful.
I am not unhappy but joyful.
I am not attacked but safe.
I am not hopeless but grateful.
I am not deprived but abundant.
I am not lacking but receiving.
I am not hurt but invulnerable.
I am not suffering but relieved.
I am not affected but causal.
I am not stuck but miraculous.
I am not imprisoned but free.
I am not angry but calm.
I am not condemned but forgiven.
I am not dark but light.
I am not separate but whole.
I am not an ego but as God created me.
I am not confused but clear.
I am not diseased but healed.
I am not broken but complete.
I am not isolated but expansive.
I am not asleep but awake.
I am not unconscious but aware.
I am not deadly but harmless.
I am not murderous but welcoming.
I am not a victimizer but truly helpful.
I am not misguided but directed.
I am not ugly but beautiful.
I am not depressed but happy.
I am not unwilling but willing.
I am not resistant but open.
I am not ill but well.
I am not damned but saved.
I am not in exile but in heaven.
I am not a body but spirit.
I am not a dream but God's creation.
I am not fictional but authentic.
I am not divided but undivided.
I am not adrift but purposeful.
I am not threatened but permanent.
I am not rejected but loved.
I am not abandoned but embraced.
I am not in hell but in God.
I am not offended but humored.
I am not suspicious but trusting.
I am not vicious but gentle.
I am not ashamed but appreciative.
I am not envious but fulfilled.
I am not idolizing but within.
I am not heroic but saved.
I am not horrified but passer-by.
I am not judging but forgiving.
I am not hateful but generous.
I am not resentful but thankful.
I am not in danger but protected.
I am not disgusting but acceptable.
I am not beyond help but supported.
I am not embarrassed but understood.
I am not grieving but reunited.
I am not controlled but powerful.
I am not terrified but strong.
I am not worried but filled with faith.
I am not dead but eternal life.
I am not lonely but home with God.
I am not sad but overjoyed.
I am not insane but sane.
I am not delusional but honest.
I am not empty but inspired.
I am not insecure but secure.
I am not anxious but reassured.
I am not cold but warm.
I am not tense but relaxed.
I am not disturbed but quiet.
I am not stressed but at ease.
I am not serious but playful.
I am not harsh but kind.
I am not weak but supernatural.
I am not in time but in eternity.
I am not separate but with God.
A brother is an equal sibling of a shared parent.
God is the Father, the shared parent. God created more than one child, more than one son, IN REALITY. Those children are brothers to each other. It takes at least two children to be brothers. The state of being a brother is a permanent reality and relationship, in Heaven, which has always been and always will be. We are permanently brothers. Being a brother has nothing to do with the ego or with separation ideas. The ego is not your father. All references to "brother" in ACIM are talking about the GOD-CREATED EQUAL BEING that is your brother in REALITY. This is A Course in Miracles.
"Heaven is the home of perfect purity. And God created it for YOU. Look at your ***HOLY BROTHER, SINLESS AS YOURSELF*** (having NO ego at all), and let him lead you there."
"I trust my brothers, ***WHO ARE ONE WITH ME***."
"You, ***MY CHILDREN***, are afraid of ***YOUR BROTHERS***, and of ***YOUR (shared) FATHER***, and of YOURSELVES. "
"Perceiving ***THE MAJESTY OF GOD AS YOUR BROTHER*** is to accept your own inheritance. "
"You do not know YOUR creations, because you do not know ***YOUR BROTHERS WHO CREATED THEM WITH YOU***."
"Whenever you heal a brother by recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging ***HIS POWER TO CREATE AND YOURS***. HE cannot have lost what you recognize, and you MUST have the glory you see in HIM. ***HE IS A CO-CREATOR WITH GOD WITH YOU***. Deny his creative power and you are denying yours and that of God Who created you."
"***ALL YOUR BROTHERS*** must enter WITH you, for until you have accepted them, YOU cannot enter. "
"No-one who condemns a brother, can see HIMSELF as guiltless in the peace of God. "
"Brothers can misperceive one another, but they rarely maintain that they do not ***KNOW*** (knowledge is of heaven) each other. This is possible only if they maintain that they are NOT really brothers." (beleiving your brother is not REALLY a brother is not ACIM).
"By guiding your BROTHERS home (home of both of you), you are but following HIM."
"For you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER (to go home together as many)"
"Release your brothers from the slavery of THEIR illusions, by forgiving them for the illusions which YOU perceive in them."
"And as they rest, the face of Christ shines on them, and they remember the laws of God, forgetting all the rest, and yearning only to have ***HIS LAWS PERFECTLY FULFILLED IN THEM AND ALL THEIR BROTHERS***. "
"If you would hear me (Jesus, at the level of Heaven), ***HEAR MY BROTHERS*** (who are still his brothers at the level of Heaven), ***IN WHOM GOD'S VOICE SPEAKS***."
"The name of Jesus, is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ ***IN ALL HIS BROTHERS*** and remembered God."
"Your relationship with them IS without guilt, and THIS enables you to look on ***ALL YOUR BROTHERS*** with gratitude, because ***YOUR CREATIONS WERE CREATED IN UNION WITH THEM***." (in heaven!)
Our only real need is for the love of God. All other needs are ones we've invented.
We invent a need when we first find ourselves lacking something. It is generally the apparent absence of God that we think we lack, that gives rise to all other needs.
So really, when we think that our one need - the love of God - is not fulfilled, it produces a sense of lack or emptiness, which does not feel good, and which then compels us to search for its fulfillment somewhere.
Typically then, because we see the need as having been lost within ourselves - as if, love is not in us, we then look elsewhere for it. Anywhere else but within. And that ultimately means, we look for this fulfillment anywhere other than where the love actually IS, ie within, and so we do not find it.
So then we're in a state of neediness and yearning and deprivation and lack, thirsting and hungry, and we then think that we need to 'get' from somewhere outside of ourselves. And we will actually attempt this getting. But even if we get ie take ie steal from others, we will not be able to actually accept it.
Accepting that our artificial needs are met, entails accepting that the lack of love within us has been restored. But we can't accept that because we believe, more deeply, that love is absent, ie God is absent.
So it's like... God has to fill our bucket, but then we're going around saying we only believe in empty buckets, and then we take our empty bucket to everyone else trying to get them to fill it with their piece of God, but as soon as they try to put their God into the bucket we refuse to let it be filled up because we're adamant that our bucket must be empty. We want to keep our bucket empty, even though we're desperately trying to fill us from any source other than where it can really be filled from. And every time we believe our own bucket is empty, we will see everyone else's buckets as empty also, and so there's no sign of the love you need.
Seek and do not find.
The ONLY solution is the reversal and undoing of the belief that your bucket is empty in the first place, which is an ILLUSION and a deception within yourself, covering up a tremendous FLOOD of love that resides in you as God, already. We have this entire lake of love flowing through us, an ocean of it, but we've simply blocked it out and made it seem to us like it's not there. It IS there. We have to uncover it, rediscover it, find out that it was NEVER LOST, and accept that it is present. That's all. This one need is then met and all other false needs disappear because they're absolutely unneeded.
When you have false needs you have a lot of questions because you have a lot of doubt about love's presence in you, and so you have a lot of fear about how you're going to manage without the strength of this love. So then you've got all this questioning and confusion. What happens to all that when you GO TO GOD? All of this doubt and questioning is based on the absence of God, staying away from God, so when you go to God, the entire foundation of all this questioning is completely mute. It's irrelevant. All of the questions are about how to meet a need that is FAKE - a need that you don't really have. When the true need is met, all else is taken care of.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and your way will be made straight.
All you need is love.
A few years ago when I was having a profound spiritual experience, I had so much love and joy inside of me.
It was just pouring out, shining outwards. I felt like I was just 'beaming' it out of me like an intense flashlight, shining onto everyone.
I felt that I had no needs, and no lack.
I just felt tremendously loving, tremendously broadcasting, just all this joy was shining outward so brightly.
It shone so brightly that I became able to look people directly in the face without flinching, so intensely that they were always the first to look away.
The love in me shone so brilliantly, and was like an intense radiation outwards, extending outward and flowing only outward.
In this state, there was no sense of anything coming into me. I did not feel that I had any needs whatsoever. Nothing was coming in from outside, it was only extending from within.
In fact, that day I did not feel like I needed to eat food. I tried to put food in my mouth but it felt completely alien, like I was just shoving these lumps of stuff into my body for absolutely no reason, that it was not going to do anything to me or for me that I needed at all.
I didn't see myself as needing to get anything from outside of myself for any reason. I didn't need anyone's help, I didn't need anyone's advice or opinion, I didn't need food or water, I didn't need sleep, I didn't need anything.
The love was in me. All it could seem to do was shine brilliantly and to go outward. This simultaneously gave me a perception that absolutely nothing COULD come into me, and that therefore I was very safe and protected. The light was so bright that it shone away all darkness and kept all ego illusions away from me. I could not take anything from anyone and did not want to, and as a result did not perceive that anyone could do anything to me whatsoever.
Not only did I not want to get anything from anyone, I could not. There was such intensity in what was going outward that it was impossible to bring anything in from the outside. Ego illusions, fears, whatever it was, could not come into me. I had everything I needed. I had the love and presence of God.
To some degree, because I was in a very different state of mind, people thought that I needed help. And they started trying to help me. But their help was, from my point of view, completely unnecessary. They thought I needed help, and were offing all kinds of advice and shit, but not one single bit of it was needed, or wanted, or necessary. There was nothing wrong with me. They were the ones who were upset and afraid.
Love has to be in you, coming from God, first, in order for you to extend love outward. And when God is in your mind, FIRST, you will see God in the world. You can't see God in the world unless God is in your mind. You can't see Christ in others unless Christ is in your awareness, first.
When it's in you, you will not need love from anyone because you will have no needs. Because you will have no lack. When there is no lack of love in you, you become invulnerable and strong and fearless. You become fulfilled. You want for nothing and need nothing. You are sustained by the love of God, literally, to all degrees on all levels. Even physically.
You cannot get this from another person. No-one can make up for a lack that you believe is in you which you put there and think is real. The only lack you need correct is the absence of God. The only need you really have is His love, without which you will see yourself as in need and go trying to steal what you lack from other people. This turns you into a psychic vampire. Everyone is doing this, feeding off each other.
Love is all you need. You have to undo whatever it is that has come between you and God, whatever it is that made you believe you lacked His presence, and whatever it is that blocks you from having Him in your awareness. Whatever that block is, it is the sole foundation of all neediness, all ego seeking, and all vulnerability. Lack is a state of victimhood. You cannot be a victim when have God in you. You are invulnerable. You are literally immortal. Nothing can assail the Kingdom of Heaven.
Here are FIVE passages from ACIM telling us about a body which is not sick, cannot suffer, cannot die, and symbolizes immortality.
"****The body can become a sign of life****, a promise of redemption, and a ***breath of immortality*** to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and ***by its health and loveliness*** proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to ****represent an endless life, forever unattacked.**** And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."
-----
"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, ***the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still***, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all.****IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt****, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.
Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that ****every scar is healed****, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. ****YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health.**** BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true."
-----
"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and ****the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die****. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition. Yet the teacher of God does not make this decision alone. To do that would be to give the body another purpose from the one that keeps it holy.God's Voice will tell him when he has fulfilled his role, just as It tells him what his function is. ****He does not suffer either in going or remaining. Sickness is now impossible to him.****"
-----
"****Now is the body healed**** because the source of sickness has been opened to relief."
"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. ****The body's health is fully guaranteed**** because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. ****You need do nothing now to make it well****, for ****sickness has become impossible.****
Yet this protection needs to be preserved by careful watching. If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgement or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick. Give instant remedy, should this occur, by not allowing your defensiveness to hurt you longer."
-----
"Very simply, the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the world's purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself. It is the end of dreams of misery, and the glad awareness of the Holy Spirit's final dream. It is the recognition of the gifts of God. It is the dream ****in which the body functions perfectly****, having no function except communication."
One of the ways the ego deceives you is to make it seem like you are not yourself. It wants to suggest that something has changed about you, since God created you whole, and that you are now missing something.
The only way it can make it seem like you are missing something is to HIDE it or conceal it. It's not actually capable of getting rid of your real self, because God made you PERMANENT. There is no real way the ego can stop you from existing or take away your reality.
The ONLY trick the ego has is to pretend that there is something about you that is missing, by trying to BLOCK YOUR AWARENESS from being aware that it exists. It does this by applying distortions to your perception which seem to make it hard to SEE what is really right in front of you and obvious.
These blocks to the AWARENESS of God's presence are the only problem. They need to be removed, in order for you to become AWARE again that you DO still have everything that God gave you, you ARE still immortal, you HAVE NOT been changed and NOTHING is missing.
So what the ego does, is it covers you up a little bit, maybe with a lie or a deception or some darkness or a temptation or some other mechanism of illusion. It makes an illusion that makes it seem like something's gone wrong, something's happening, there's been a loss, or an emptiness, or a hole has been made in the Son of God, or something's been taken away, or whatever.
So this ego PRANKSTER tries to TRICK you into believing that it's actually TRUE that something about you is missing. It tries to get you to believe that it's true you've lost your love, or your power, or your strength, or your sanity, or your connection to God, or your peace, or your identity, or whatever. As soon as you believe it's lie and fall for its trick, you are now in a state of confusion.
Confused, and convinced that you actually HAVE lost some part of yourself, and that this part of yourself IS NOT where it should be - ie within you - where God placed it - what do you do now? Perceiving a lack, you feel a need, and that need automatically asks to be fulfilled because it's a magnetic belief in 'not having' which draws itself in the direction of 'getting' - ie re-acquiring.
So now you go off, distracted, looking everywhere you can possibly look, EXCEPT for where this missing thing IS, which is in you, because its' not really missing AT ALL it's just being covered up, and what results will you encounter? You'll look high and low and everywhere in-between, everywhere EXCEPT underneath the blanket that hides it. And it won't be there. And you will not find it, because it's not anywhere that you're looking.
This is how the ego has you "seek and do not find".
It's also how the ego has you "seek for salvation" (a solution to the problem of something having gone wrong), outside of yourself, in places where you will never find it, even though you have this big HOPE of finding it there. The ego would want you to keep DOING stuff to trying to REPLACE what you think you lost, even though it's not reall lost. And all this doing will entail 'trying' really hard to accomplish what you ultimately cannot accomplish. And the more effort you put into 'finding' what you think you do not have, the less it will work and the more frustrated you'll be.
So all you need really to do is to LOOK AT the ego's smokescreen, QUESTION the ego's bullshit deception that says you are lacking something, figure out that what it says you're lacking is just HIDDEN, look at what is hiding it and how it is functioning, STOP DOING IT - ie UN-DO the action of hiding it, and lo and behold.. abracadabra.... IT IS REVEALED TO YOU!
Eureka! You found it. It is already in you. It always was. It was never lost. It wasn't removed. It wasn't really damaged. Nothing really happened to it. This LOVE that you are, is still perfectly intact, perfectly whole, perfectly at peace, perfectly happy, perfectly powerful and immortal and innocent. It has never changed. And so as you remove this BLOCK to awareness, instead of trying to REPLACE what the block says is missing, you simply uncover the truth of what is, what always was and what always will be.
There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing lacking in you. There is nothing missing from you. You have not been hurt. You have not been damaged. You have not sinned. You are not guilty. AAAAAAALL this other stuff that says otherwise is just a COVER for your immaculate divine innocence and invulnerability. And all your worries about all this other bullshit is all because you think it's telling you the truth. None of it is true. The only truth is that you are STILL as God created you, even if you've been hiding it underneath layer upon layer of illusions.
It's going to be a wonderful day when you finally realize that you are still as God created you and nothing has happened.
This is a potent, and clarifying passage, about the fact that ALL perception (even true) is totally OPPOSITE to reality still. Even Christ vision, even sight of the real world, is STILL a state of separation. "Perception is a separated state." "To perceive the truth is not the same as knowing it." Knowledge is a direct experience of God's Kingdom, whereas perception is a once-removed, separated, interpretative IMAGE-based reflection. Nothing in the world of illusions (including Eath) HAS any truth to it. True perception merely recognizes that the world IS SENSELESS. Teachers of God who choose to look on dreams a while, are NOT DECEIVED by what they see.
"This is a course in miracles. And, as such, the laws of healing must be understood before the purpose of the course can be accomplished. Let us review the principles that we have covered, and arrange them in a way that summarizes all that must occur for healing to be possible. For when it once is possible it MUST occur. ALL sickness comes from separation. When the separation is denied, it goes. For it IS gone as soon as the idea which brought it has been healed and been replaced by sanity. Sickness and sin are seen as consequence and cause, in a relationship kept hidden from awareness, that it may be carefully preserved from reason's light.
Guilt ASKS FOR punishment, and its request is granted. NOT in truth, but in ***the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin***. The Son of God perceives what he would see, because perception IS a wish fulfilled. Perception changes, MADE to take the place of changeless knowledge. ***Yet is truth unchanged. It cannot BE perceived, but only known.*** What is perceived takes many forms, but ***NONE has meaning***. ****Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent.**** Kept APART from truth, it SEEMS to have a meaning and be real. ****Perception's laws are OPPOSITE to truth, and what IS true of knowledge is NOT true of ANYTHING that is apart from it.**** Yet has God given Answer to the world of sickness, Which applies to ALL its forms.
God's Answer is eternal, though It operates in time, where It is needed. But, because It IS of God, the laws of time do not affect Its workings. It is in this world, but NOT a part of it. For It is real, and dwells where all reality MUST be. Ideas leave not their source, and their effects but SEEM to be apart from them. Ideas are of the mind. What is projected OUT, and seems to be EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has NOT left its source. God's Answer lies where the belief in sin MUST be, for only there can its effects be utterly undone, and without cause.
****Perception's laws must be reversed, because they ARE reversals of the laws of truth****. The laws of truth FOREVER will be true, and cannot BE reversed; yet can be SEEN as upside down. And this must be corrected where the illusion of reversal lies. It is impossible that one illusion be LESS amenable to truth than are the rest. But it IS possible that some are given greater VALUE, and less willingly OFFERED to truth for healing and for help. ****NO illusion has ANY truth in it.**** Yet it appears some are MORE true than others, although this clearly makes no sense at all. All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is PREFERENCE, NOT reality."
This is really key:
"Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent. Kept APART from truth, it SEEMS to have a meaning and be real."
The world is an illusion. Period. Having illusions ABOUT the world, means you are believing the world is real. It means you have illusions ON TOP OF an illusion, and are not RECOGNIZING that it's an illusion.
"the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin" "The world of bodies is the world of sin."
Perceiving the world AS REAL, means that it has been kept APART from truth. And therefore true perception is not occurring.
Because the world IS AN ILLUSION, perceiving it AS REAL is a MISTAKE. An error. This is FALSE perception.
Because the world IS AN ILLUSION, perceiving it AS NOT REAL, is CORRECT perception, true perception. When the world is seen with true perception the world does NOT BECOME REAL. It becomes RECOGNIZED AS FALSE. Its senselessness becomes apparent. It ceases to DECEIVE because you do not buy INTO its illusions of temptation.
This world is not real. Nor is is real in the eyes of christ. Believing it is real is a complete 180 degree reversal of what the course is teaching.