Sometimes doing ACIM seems very difficult. It boils down to a simple fact. Everything in the world is opposite to the truth. And that means you're going to have to become opposite to everything in the world!

"This IS the "natural" condition of the separation. And those who learn that it is NOT natural at all, seem to be the UNnatural ones. For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."

This is no easy feat. Everything in the world is totally backwards, inside out, and upside down. It is opposite to heaven's laws and nature in EVERY way.

"...earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

So it's calling for you to totally go against the grain in order to be sane, to deny and defy the whole nature of this entire world and not believe a single thing about it. The world is insane, and you want sanity.

"What does this prove except the world is mad? Why share its madness in the sad belief that what is universal here is true? Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are."

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death."

"This IS an insane world, and do not underestimate the actual extent of its insanity. There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and your dream IS sacred to you."

Our position in "false perception" is one where we have reversed or swapped cause and effect. We've also swapped what is true and what is false. Everything is totally back to front. We now believe the world is happening to us, causing us. And yet, we are immortal beings, causers, creators, rulers of the universe, to whom nothing is supposed to be happening.

There are very strong empowerment themes in ACIM to do with you learning to re-adopt the position of having power OVER the world. Over even sickness and death. Over all problems and forms of suffering. In which you are the cause of the dream, and not its effect. Where you are invulnerable and incapable of being hurt. Where you would show and demonstrate to others that you cannot be hurt even physically.

"Show your brother you've had no hurt of him."

"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."

Whenever our mind believes for a second that cause and effect have been swapped, we see ourselves as at the effect of the world and other people. They're doing it to us. We're being affected. We are now passive victims, suffering against our will, experiencing things we seem to have not chosen or wanted. But then the course is saying, absolutely everything that happens you must have chosen and wanted, and you did it to yourself.

This is reflected in the secret of salvation "you're doing this to yourself." It doesn't even matter what form it takes or who seems to be the victimizer. If you see yourself as an effect of the very thing you made, you are playing a role of victim and are positioning yourself to be hurt by it. And yet you are an immortal being, who cannot be hurt.

"Nothing real can be threatened."

The real meaning of this is that you are an immortal being and you are CAUSAL. You caused this world. You are the dreamer of it. It is nothing but an effect and it cannot do anything to who or what you really are. You've dreamed up dream figures and set them about attacking your body.

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal? "

"The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did."

"My Self is ruler of the universe. It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen."

And then Jesus even goes on to say that you cannot suffer or be sick or hurt or killed or anything against your will. That even death is CONSENTED to in all its forms.

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details."

So we've got the world seeming to function backwards, in which it seems capable of causing your body, making it an effect of the world. You've got random chaotic events "happening to it". You've got all manner of inescapable problems, people attacking you, stuff going wrong. And you're supposed to fly in the face of it all exclaim, THIS IS DOING NOTHING TO ME.

That's not easy. You're asked to act like an immortal being in a mortal world. And that means if you are not vigilant, you're going to be constantly drawn into the world's ways, tempted to believe what it shows you, deceived by its illusions and frightened by its images. You have to constantly be on-guard and vigilant in your willingness to take a forgiving attitude instead.

Forgiveness means little more than looking at the world from a point of view of it BEING NOTHING LIKE YOU, and therefore that you are immortal and it is not. Forgiveness symbolizes your immortality and points to your invulnerability. You can accuse no-one of sin if it is impossible for you to be sinned against. If the world can do nothing to you, you cannot be angry at it. You can only be benevolent by recognizing that you cannot be changed.

That's difficult work. Being confronted with a totally backwards world all day every day, and being asked to totally go against it and deny it in every way. That even your body lies to you. Even your planet is a false world. Even the events that sure as hell look like they're happening aren't happening. That even the suggested proof of sin that your body can be crucified is a total deception. The world is COMPLETELY UNNATURAL.

"as it seems to be the most unnatural and difficult for the untrained mind."

"Deny your own identity and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought which mocks creation and which laughs at God."

"The ego wants to teach you that you want to OPPOSE God's Will. This unnatural lesson CANNOT be learned"

"Miracles seem unnatural to the ego"

"To you the miracle CANNOT seem natural, because what you have done to hurt your minds, has made THEM so UNnatural that they do not remember what is natural to them. And when you are TOLD about it, you cannot UNDERSTAND it. 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."

"Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is UNnatural. Perverted thinking will ALWAYS be attended with guilt, because it IS the belief in sin."

For you to become your natural self, you're going to have to stop believing anything the world says or does. That's not exactly easy if your'e used to being in false perceptions where you buy into the entire system and think it's the truth. You're quite literally stuck in hell and trying to get back to heaven. And the only way to get back there is to become heaven-like while you're in the midst of evil.

You're being PULLED in two different directions. The world is trying to pull you into hell and darkness and death. God is trying to pull you into heaven and light and happiness. The two are irreconcilable. They are totally opposite. You will have to abandon the world if you want to go home to God. You will have to turn your back on death and reject sickness and choose away from sin and guilt and fear. And most of all, you will have to learn to see yourself as the RULER of the universe, in no way a victim, and entirely equipped with the power of God.

What you believe is true, you will believe is true of you, and therefore defines what you are. You become one with whatever you believe is true. If you believe and trust God's truth, you will identify with your soul/spirit. If you believe and trust the ego, the body and the world, you will believe you are these things.

In order to identify with spirit, you have to believe that spirit's qualities are true of you. And you also have to believe that the ego/body/world's properties are NOT a part of what you are. Therefore, all of the ego reactions, upset emotions, hurts, angers, fears, guilts, shames, losses, loneliness, desperation, angst etc must all be a part of something which you are NOT.

Your sense of what I am and what is my self, my identity, has to be separated out from all the things that are not of God. You have to tell yourself that you're not the body, nor are you the ego reactions or emotions or thoughts. Whatever the ego is, as nebulous and hidden as it seems to be, only the ego can actually suffer, only the ego can be guilty, and only the ego can seem to die.

You have to tell yourself that these things are not a part of yourself. You as immortal spirit cannot suffer, cannot be upset, cannot be unhappy, cannot be sick or dead, cannot be afraid or guilty, cannot have loss or grief, cannot be threatened or damaged, cannot sin or be evil, and can have no part of the body or the world.

Jesus tells us that he has nothing that does not come from God, and that this is the only difference between us. Because we believe we have and are something that does not come from God. We think we are bodies and egos and the world. We think we are upsets and stress and turmoil. We think it is us that is having and experiencing and being these things. But it isn't a part of who we really are, all of these upsets are an illusion.

How can you be upset when you are immortal and perfect? How can you have loss and grief when you have everything? How can you have suffering of any kind when you are invulnerable and eternal? You have to identify with being that which is perfect forever, flawless and immortal and unassailable, strong and innocent and powerful.

Your whole sense of self - of what am I, what is true of me, has to filter out and reject any experience or thought or feeling that is not in line with God's creation.

You remain as God created you. You are perfect spirit. You are holy and pure. There is no ego in you, no body in you, no earth in you. You are not of this world. You are of God, and anything not of God is not you.

"There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a POTENTIAL in you."

"Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self."

"Identity in Christ is fully recognized as set forever, beyond all change and incorruptible."

"There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly."

"You will identify with what you think will make you safe. Whatever it may be, you will believe that it is one with you."

"Identify with love, and you are home. Identify with love, and find your Self."

"I will identify with what I think is refuge and security."

"Try to identify with the part of your mind where stillness and peace reign forever."

"Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself."

"To identify with the ego is to attack yourself, and MAKE YOURSELF POOR."

"It follows, then, that if you identify WITH the ego, you MUST perceive yourself as guilty."

"The belief in hell is inescapable to those who identify with the ego."

"Guilt is the only need the ego has, and, as long as you identify WITH it, guilt will remain ATTRACTIVE to you."

"You who identify with your egos cannot believe that God loves you."

"My true Identity abides in You."

"Now are we one in shared Identity, with God our Father as our only Source, and everything created part of us."

"The Son of God is my Identity."

"Father, my thanks to You for what I am; for keeping my identity untouched and sinless in the midst of all the thoughts of sin my foolish mind made up."

"Let me remember You created me. Let me remember my Identity."

"Deny your own identity and you will not escape the madness which induced this weird, unnatural and ghostly thought which mocks creation and which laughs at God. Deny your own identity and you assail the universe alone, without a friend, a tiny particle of dust against the legions of your enemies. Deny your own identity and look on evil, sin and death, and watch despair snatch from your fingers every scrap of hope, leaving you nothing but the wish to die."

"Identity in Christ is fully recognized as set forever, beyond all change and incorruptible."

"Identity in dreams is meaningless BECAUSE the dreamer and the dream are one."

"Then I lose myself in my Identity, and recognize that Christ is but my Self."

"Thanks be to You for Your eternal gifts, and thanks to You for my Identity."

"What could we seek but our Identity?"

"Your altar stands serene and undefiled. It is the holy altar to my Self, and there I find my true Identity."

"But we have listened to Your Voice, and learned exactly what to do to be restored to Heaven and our true Identity."

"My true identity is so secure, so lofty, sinless, glorious and great, wholly beneficent and free from guilt, that Heaven looks to It to give it light."

"In this equality is Christ restored as one Identity, in Which all Sons of God acknowledge that they all are one."

"Identity and function are the same, and BY your function do you know yourself."

"In a split mind, identity MUST seem to be divided."

"And we have already learned that this identity is shared."

"Your goal is to find out who you are, having denied your identity by attacking creation and its Creator."

"By seeking after such things the mind associates itself with the body, obscuring its identity and losing sight of what it really is."

"For self-condemnation is a decision about identity, and no-one doubts what he believes he is."

"Here you understand the Word, the Name Which God has given you; the One Identity Which all things share; the one acknowledgment of what is true."

"There are those who have reached God directly, retaining no trace of worldly limits and remembering their own Identity perfectly." "Again, how simple is salvation! It is merely a statement of your true identity."

"But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs about your Identity, Which God alone established in reality."

"Today we will again give thanks for our identity in God. Our home is safe, protection guaranteed in all we do, power and strength available to us in all our undertakings. We can fail in nothing."

"Remember if you SHARE an evil dream, you will believe you ARE the dream you share. And, fearing it, you will not WANT to know your own identity, because you think that IT is fearful."

"Those who have joined their brothers HAVE detached themselves from their belief that their identity lies in the ego. "

"Do you not WANT to know your own identity?"

"Remember always that your identity is shared, and that its sharing IS its reality."

"Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the extension which maintains it in wholeness and peace."

"They do not realize that, to deny God, is to deny their own identity"