Surround search terms with " " double quotes for exact matches e.g. "drops of healing rain"

Have you ever noticed that the physical form or shape of objects, is touted as making something "unique", but really they're all the same thing?

In the company I work for I have to add thousands of products to a website, and so I see all these variations on a theme.

Then I find myself asking myself, why would anyone want to have 3000 different types of this item? One with a little but of a more rounded look, one with more fancy bits, one in a different color, one with shiny metal on it. And companies are churning out these products by the thousands as if they are all important and worth having. We have become quite obsessed with possession of such crap.

After a while I become completely disillusioned, which is a good thing.

The human race has become really good at manipulating forms, designing objects, and creating appearances of differences. The explosion of "creating" (making stuff) is on a roll.

Since the industrial revolution especially we've really gone wild exploring every conceivable "version" of the same thing, every way to take advantage of material properties and differences, and all the different forms we can come up with.

Amazon now sells almost half a billion products, and most of them are just variations on a theme. There are now 60,000 t-shirts for sale. Do you really think the differences between these t-shirt is SO VAST that they are all completely unique? How many ways are there to cover up the upper torso?

This is something of a madness which humanity has pursued and doesn't really know how to stop pursuing. This notion that if the form is different, it is a unique thing. some forms or shapes are more desirable, and finding the "best ones" is some kind of salvation. This is mental illness.

Unique tools are needed to solve unique problems. The ego loves this. It loves to create new appearances of unique situations which call for a custom solution which is nothing like any other solution, does not extend to solve any other problem, and keeps the solution isolated and limited to this one need.

This belief that all forms are unique and different and worth existing, is the ego's insanity. Exactly why do we need 60,000 t-shirts, or 100,000 different kinds of trousers, or a million songs?

You might say well, this is human nature, to create and express and explore. No, it's not. It's UNNATURAL.

Personally I have grown significantly disillusioned with physical objects. To want to have certain special objects or toys or whatever, to try to receive their specialness or to think that I am somehow better off by choosing exactly the right items.

I used to buy into the illusion of differences of form much more and wanted to have this item or that item or be very careful about choosing. Now I care much less. Much more laid back in terms of how I think these things are going to save me or how I need to have the best this or that.

Sure it can be fun to shop, no harm done. But perceptually and psychologically, "civilized humanity" has become lost in its obsession with forms - particularly the illusion of form, its appearances and its special isolated different properties. This is a huge world filled with junk.

It's funny when Jesus talks about this and how we think that we're doing important things, earning little bits of paper and metal discs, spending them on ridiculous things we don't need or really want, to decorate and adorn our fake bodies and our fake homes, all as substitutes and distractions away from God. lol

"This world holds nothing that I want".

"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you. You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. You really think you are alone unless another body is with you.

It is insanity that thinks these things. You call them laws, and put them under different names in a long catalogue of rituals that have no use and serve no purpose. You think you must obey the "laws" of medicine, of economics and of health. Protect the body, and you will be saved.

These are not laws, but madness. "

ACIM says "anger is never justified". This is big news for anyone who is used to feeling justified in being angry about anything.

There is a culture in this world is believing it is 'normal' and 'healthy' to be angry. When various 'bad things' happen, it seems very commonplace to react with anger. You might even be outraged. It may appear to you that you're completely right to feel that way.

Perhaps. Perhaps not. Anger may acknowledge what you perceive has happened unfairly, but it betrays the fact your perception is faulty and in need of correction.

It is so widely accepted (by everyone's egos) that anger is a normal, justified reaction, that to say it is anything but justified seems like complete nonsense.

What if we were to say, anger is a state of insanity? What if anger is a mindless attempt to blame someone else for your own self condemnation? What if anger is deception? What if anger has a secret agenda of shoveling your own giult onto other people whenever anything conveniently goes wrong or looks like it could be used to justify being angry at yourself?

When anger is justified, the world is at war. There is no side you can take in anger to be at peace. And then your life will be filled with things which you get angry about. Every angry reaction is another instance of you believing that whatever happened is justified in happening, in spite of the fact that you're attempting to use it to explain why it shouldn't have happened.

It is extremely common to react in anger. It seems so commonplace and so 'normal' that most people accept it as some kind of 'normal psychology' or a 'healthy anger' or a healthy way to process what is wrong with the world. This is far from truth. It's a myth perpetuated by a very deeply ingrained ego thought system which runs through every society on the planet.

The only way anger is justified is IF .... IF.... this world is real. IF what happens is real. IF someone is really hurt. IF someone has actually proved that we are separate from God. IF we actually are not responsible for what happens to us. IF everyone else is guilty except ourselves. Only then would anger be justified. But that doesn't mean it is sane.

We have to lift all of humanity out of the bogmire of unconscious reactions based in the ego, reactions of anger which really are reactions of agreement and victimhood. We need to be more honest with ourselves and own up to and heal the real reason for our anger - that we are angry at ourselves for leaving God. Until this is faced, it will seem like 'normal culture' to get angry and upset about everything in the world.

"Anger is never justified" - ACIM - Anger is never justified because there is never any REASON to be angry because there IS ONLY LOVE.

U7

Chapter 7 - The Holy Spirit

U7A1

Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified with the Christ, the Son of God as He created Him. The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or Spirit, is eternal and has never changed. He was "called down upon the earth" in the sense that it was now possible to accept Him and to hear His Voice. His is the Voice for God, and has therefore taken form. This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him.

U7A2

The Holy Spirit is described throughout the course as giving us the answer to the separation and bringing the plan of the Atonement to us, establishing our particular part in it and showing us exactly what it is. He has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out this plan since he was the first to complete his own part perfectly. All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours. The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit long before Jesus set it in motion.

U7A3

The Holy Spirit is described as the remaining communication link between God and His separated sons. In order to fulfill this special function the Holy Spirit has assumed a dual function. He knows because He is part of God; He perceives because He was sent to save humanity. He is the great correction principle; the bringer of true perception, the inherent power of the vision of Christ. He is the light in which the forgiven world is perceived; in which the face of Christ alone is seen. He never forgets the Creator or His Creation. He never forgets the Son of God. He never forgets you. And He brings the Love of your Father to you in an eternal shining that will never be obliterated because God has put it there.

U7A4

The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with both. And therefore it is He Who proves them One. He seems to be a Voice, for in that form He speaks God's Word to you. He seems to be a Guide through a far country, for you need that form of help. He seems to be whatever meets the needs you think you have. But He is not deceived when you perceive your self entrapped in needs you do not have. It is from these He would deliver you. It is from these that He would make you safe.

U7A5

You are His manifestation in this world. Your brother calls to you to be His Voice along with him. Alone he cannot be the Helper of God's Son for he alone is functionless. But joined with you he is the shining Savior of the world, Whose part in its redemption you have made complete. He offers thanks to you as well as him for you arose with him when he began to save the world. And you will be with him when time is over, and no trace remains of dreams of spite in which you dance to death's thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the eternal Formlessness of God.

The holy spirit is not a metaphor, or an idea, or a concept, or a fiction, or just part of your own mind. He is an eternal, immortal spirit being. He is also a creator. Just as much real as you are.

"The Holy Spirit, being a creation of the one Creator, creating with Him and in His likeness or spirit, is eternal and has never changed."

In fact, Jesus tells us that we are part of the Holy Spirit, as much as He is part of us. He shares himself with each of us just as much as we each share ourselves with each other. This does not make him literally "our own self".

"This form is not His reality, which God alone knows along with Christ, His real Son, Who is part of Him."

The holy spirit existed before Jesus accepted atonement and exists forever.

"He has established Jesus as the leader in carrying out His plan."

"The Atonement principle was given to the Holy Spirit long before Jesus set it in motion."

The holy spirit is a bridge across the gap of separation who remains permanently aware of God and permanently aware of your connection to him. He is the answer to separation and the bringer of salvation.

"The Holy Spirit is described as the remaining Communication Link between God and His separated Sons. In order to fulfill this special function the Holy Spirit has assumed a dual function. He knows because He is part of God; He perceives because He was sent to save humanity. He is the great correction principle; the bringer of true perception, the inherent power of the vision of Christ. He is the light in which the forgiven world is perceived; in which the face of Christ alone is seen. He never forgets the Creator or His creation. He never forgets the Son of God. He never forgets you. And He brings the Love of your Father to you in an eternal shining that will never be obliterated because God has put it there."

Jesus further clarifies that the Holy Spirit "abides" in your mind, but this does not mean he is literally you or "your right mind". He is IN your right mind and the right minds of all souls, and yet has his own being or spirit and his own mind. He *represents* your self - that doesn't mean He IS your self. He is alike your self, and alike God. He proves you and your father are one, ie, of like kind. The part of your mind that joins with the whole sonship in "christ" is where He lives.

"The Holy Spirit abides in the part of your mind that is part of the Christ Mind. He represents your Self and your Creator, Who are One. He speaks for God and also for you, being joined with Both. And therefore it is He Who proves Them One."

After the atonement plan is complete, and after resurrection of all sons, Holy Spirit will remain as a permanent real creation of God. His function of perception will disappear and He will remain holy. His return to the formlessness of God does not mean He ceases to exist.

"And you will be with him when time is over and no trace remains of dreams of spite in which you dance to death's thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the eternal formlessness of God."

"When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed, there will be no call to return, but what God creates is eternal. The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless THEIR creations and keep them in the light of joy."

Most of the time, people consider themselves confined to their bodies. The body itself forms a barrier around their mind, shutting it in. The only place on the body where it seems the mind is 'visible' if you will, is perhaps through the eyes. The mind can express through the body in terms of moving the body and expressing, but generally speaking the mind stays inside the body behind the scenes, hidden behind the flesh.

However, some people who are perhaps more open in some ways, either by being 'psychic' or 'empathic', have in some way awoken the ability to go beyond the confines of their own body. This means, they are capable of moving or extending their 'mind' to locations outside the body.

A person for example who is empathic, you can kind of tell (especially if you are also empathic), because you look at them and can feel and sense how some part of their mind is NOT blocked by the body, and instead flows outward past the physical form. Particularly out of the stomache and power-chakra area. In a way, it's almost as if being able to see the mind of the person shining out of this area, as if the physical form of the body isn't even there at all.

Similarly, folks who are psychic tend to be more skilled at projecting a part of their mind outward and locating it at any other location, therefore quite literally being 'aware' in that location and receiving sensations, images, perceptions etc from that location. For example I once experienced a person who claimed to have psychic abilities, and would notice how his mind would quite often come and 'visit', as though he wasn't just over there in a body, but also over here in my body.

This may sound weird at first. But, even these examples of going beyond the boundaries of the body are barely even scratching the surface of what it means to be in Oneness.

In Oneness, the body's boundaries have absolutely no limiting effects on the mind whatsoever, and mind then is effectively capable of being everywhere and anywhere. This is in fact our 'natural state', and it's in fact unnatural and a sickness to not be able to join with other minds, to experience Oneness all the time, or to blend with others.

In effect, humanity is really a large, collective entity which has upon its surface many many seemingly individual points of awareness, which we think of a separate people, and yet is still all connected. It would be NORMAL for any one person in that collective mind to experience things that other people are experiencing also, not only as if it is their own, but that it actually IS their own, because it is shared.

I can tell you from experience personally, in fact, that it is possible for all forms of energy, emotions, even physical sickness, to be transferred and shared between people. You think certain things are contagious? Well, for someone who is quite empathic it is possible to actually, literally, take upon themselves the energetic presence and form of another person's discomfort or illness. And that illness then manifests or plays out in your own body. This can happen on emotional or mental or physical levels. In effect, 'ownership' of matter or form of body stuff can actually be shared and transfer between people.

This shouldn't really be an unusual exception, it in fact should be the rule, that all of us are so connected and One that we share in everything together. And it should not be at all surprising when we experience things that other people are experiencing.

In fact, it would be far clearer and more accurate to say, that NOT experiencing what other people are experiencing means you are very SEPARATE from other people, which means you have disconnected yourself from Oneness and do not 'share well', which means ultimately that you are in a state of sickness. Lacking empathy for example is a sign of a sociopath who has barely any sense of what others are feeling. Isolation, separation, aloneness, loneliness, sickness, withdrawal, darkness, etc are all the same condition of disconnection from the whole.

It isn't healthy for people to be disconnected from each other. And in A Course in Miracles, Jesus clearly lays out how it is by JOINING MINDS that we are capable of healing sickness in ourselves and others, because it is the *separation* of minds and the perception of separation between individuals that causes ALL sickness.

This means, there is a healing that can occur if you are willing to step out and be part of a Oneness, to unite with others empathically, to join with them, to resonate with and unite with them in 'spirit' and in 'energy', and to then transmit and share love and light and truth with that person. Or in other words, to allow Holy Spirit to erase all sense of separation between you, such that wholeness and unity and light are restored to the person, producing what we call a 'healing'.

1) Get quite and join with Love/Holy Spirit/Jesus

2) Become one with another person/empathically tune into them

3) Invite Holy Spirit to heal the separation in them and to send them healing love.

It's as simple as that. We simply join minds with others, share love with them, and love does the rest.

I had an 'aha' moment today about being a teacher, i.e. being helpful in this world, which probably applies to everyone.

ACIM says that "those who temporarily have more" give to "those who temporarily have less". This is the relationship of teachers to students.

But let's look at what this means.

The teacher has to be someone who temporarily appears to be more aware of truth than the student. And that means if the student can learn anything from them, the student has to be temporarily less aware.

Being temporarily less aware means you must be more insane, and you must believe in less truth, and you must therefore see truth as the enemy.

So this means that, potentially, the student will reject the teacher, i.e. the teachING, at least at first, because there is a clash of belief systems. The student comes to the teacher IN ERROR, seeking CORRECTION.

What this means for the teacher, is that the teacher will very likely experience REJECTION, conflict, attack, misunderstanding, etc. i.e. a lot of confusion and interference, at the beginning, moreso than potentially at the end AFTER teaching has been accomplished.

So here's the problem for the teacher or anyone who wants to be a teacher. And this also applies to anyone who wants to express themselves more fully, anyone who wants to express something that other people may not be able to accept, anyone doing art or creative pursuits, and anyone trying to say anything that might actually HELP or contribute to the awakening of humanity.

The problem is, that there will be a fear of rejection, a fear of judgement, a fear of abandonment, BY the student, i.e. by the audience. And you hear this a lot like people who are artists being afraid of the 'pressure' to have their art be liked, or a writer who gets a block because they are too worried about the audience's reaction. Or a teacher who wants to share and uplift others but is afraid that the teaching will be ridiculed.

The insight I had, about this, which is very freeing, is this. IF you want to in any way help, uplift, inspire, teach, awaken, guide, educate, or cause people to experience something or enjoy something that you created, there absolutely WILL be rejection. At least at first. There HAS to be rejection by the student otherwise the student wouldn't NEED the teaching. The art critic MUST 'not get' the art, at least at first, otherwise the art really has no transformative

power.

In other words, if you as a teacher/artist/creative etc can ACCEPT, that there is rejection built in whenever you step outside the box or attempt to open people's minds, that THEY will not understand because they CANNOT understand, at first, you can perhaps see that it is not PERSONAL. It is not that they are personally attacking you, it's that their .. 'ignorance'... is resisting exposure to what you are offering. And that only means, that they are not as aware, and they have come to you BECAUSE they are ripe for increasing their awareness. "Those who are to meet will meet" - ACIM .... When the student is ready, the teacher will appear (I forget if that's ACIM or not).

So those who have a potential to learn, at least will find the teachers, or the artists, or whoever is offering the expanded mind. The teacher/artist/expresser should EXPECT that there HAS to be rejection, because the student's mind has not yet opened up to the teaching/offering. And so it's not that the teaching is crap, or the art is crap, or the creation is crap... it's that the viewer hasn't yet opened up to it - and that's because of THEIR mind and THEIR unconsciousness and THEIR resistance. It's nothing to do with what you're offering. And really it should be the PURPOSE of the art or teaching, to help that student transform and awaken out of their resistance/rejection, into acceptance and understanding.

So I guess my insight is, which helps me immensely, is.... that instead of being afraid of rejection, and thus hiding from 'coming out' as 'a teacher', I need to recognize that there will be rejection and why, and realize that it will not actually have anything to do with me. Those who are ready and willing to open up will do so, and those who are not will not do so. I need to DETACH from the ego effort to 'force' or 'coerce' others into accepting what I say, therefore indirectly accepting ME. I need to take the ME out of it. Just put it out there for "those who have ears to listen", and just accept that everyone else will fall into the 'rejection' camp. And this is normal. And it's not personal. And it's nothing to do with me.

Expecting that rejection and welcoming it and knowing that it is because of a person's un-readiness or inappropriateness to be a student, takes the burden off the 'false' expectation that *EVERYONE* MUST ACCEPT YOU. You don't need *everyone's* acceptance. Not everyone is ready. Not everyone is meant to meet you. That's not how the plan works. We each have an appointed function. Talents. Gifts. etc. Or as some people say, "just do you".

I guess in a way this means being unconditional in how you express yourself. Being true to yourself and expressing who you are and what YOUR message is, in the knowing that SOMEONE is meant to receive it, and that everyone else is irrelevant. Which means there is absolutely no reason NOT to express yourself exactly how you want to. With freedom. And not with dependency. So what is 90% of people hate your stuff. Let them. Help the rest.

Your belief that you're guilty ... because you sinned .... is a mistaken belief .... and it is not true.

You are NOT guilty because you HAVE NOT sinned, and your belief is mistaken. Because it is mistaken it is not true and does not apply to you, so you are free of it. And in that freedom you find RELIEF and can be thankful to God that you HAVE NOT DONE what you think you've done.

YOU DIDN'T DO ANYTHING!!!!

THAT is applying forgiveness to yourself.

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God."

Sin, is a FALSE idea, about YOU - as God's son. Forgiveness SEES ITS FALETY. That means, a recognition, that it is NOT TRUE. It is NOT TRUE that you have sinned. That's what you need to recognize and accept.

The belief that you are guilty, is a mistaken belief. You have to recognize that YOU HAVE BEEN MISTAKEN TO BELIEVE IT. You haven't ever done anything wrong!!!

And the reason why you are mistaken is because you HAVE NOT SINNED. You did not do what you think you did.

Notice this line:

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred."

Applying this to yourself as well, what you THINK you did, HAS NOT OCCURRED.

Now, this does in fact LITERALLY mean that even events that seemed to happen in this world, even things you think you did to other people or their bodies, crimes committed, attacks you performed, whatever. HAS NOT OCCURRED.

It really does mean this. You DID NOT do these things. If you DID really do these things, and if this world is REAL, then YOU CANNOT ever be innocent. And thankfully this is not the case.

The reason you did not do them is because this world is NOT REALITY. And because it is not real, anything that SEEMS to take place here is part of a dream, and is not happening TO anything real.

Reality cannot be changed or affected or attacked. Reality is PERMANENT. Because it is permanent you CANNOT sin against it. You cannot attack God, you cannot kill his son, you cannot murder the sonship, you cannot destroy heaven, and you cannot change yourself into an evil monster. You also cannot stop being innocent.

What you THINK you've done, whether it be in heaven or on earth, YOU HAVE NOT DONE. This is an actual TRUE FACT. You CANNOT have done anything to God (nothing real can be threatened) and anything you have done in a dream world (nothing unreal exists) IS IRRELEVANT because it doesn't really exist and has no REAL effects.

This is why there is no sin. There is nowhere REAL that it can take place, and anywhere else is UNREAL - meaning any sins taking place there are UNREAL. Sin is not possible anywhere on any level.

The entire world, everyone in the world, is believing that they've done something terribly wrong, and believe it's had a real effect on something REAL IN REALITY, and that therefore they ARE actually truly guilty. And then everyone is filled with this guilt and is proceeding to PUNISH themselves, torment themselves, threaten themselves with death, inducing suffering and sickness and all manner of horrors in themselves and their lives, because they BELIEVE they deserve it.

This is the big problem of humanity. Everyone is trying to destroy themselves over something THEY NEVER DID.

The separation from God was a very strange thing. It wasn't that anyone ACTUALLY did anything real, TO anything real. Nothing real WAS ever affected. Instead, it was more like, everyone started to spiral inward into a private world of confusion and insanity, lost in a haze of fear and uncertainty, delusion and self-deception, TELLING themselves that they were something they were not, that they had DONE something they COULD NOT have done.

And in that confusion they believed they HAD in fact committed some terrible crime that they HAD NOT committed. That something real had been hurt by it, and they had done it, and that therefore THEY were the guilty one. And because they believed that innocence had been defiled, God had been attacked, heaven had been murdered, they believed they ARE guilty for causing something horrible to happen. And because of this guilt, they deserve to die.

This produced a death wish in which people believed there was no way God was going to forgive them for this REAL SIN, and therefore they could never go back to God, never return to home to heaven, and never be forgiven. In effect, they could never return to LIFE. And that means the ONLY OPTION LEFT was go go off in a dark corner and suffer and DIE.

But this is based on a false premise. The false premise is the belief that you EVER DID ANYTHING AT ALL. What do the innocent exclaim? "I never did anything." What do the guilty exclaim "I did it!". Only by recognizing the FALSETY OF THE PREMISE, does it rip out the idea of having sinned at its root, undo the belief in "separating", and thus completely invalidate all guilt. And as the guilt goes, the ego goes as well, because the ego is just a false belief about yourself (guilt).

YOU HAVE NOT DONE WHAT YOU THINK YOU'VE DONE. YOU HAVE BEEN VERY MISTAKEN. EVERYTHING IS OKAY!!!!!!

You got the wrong end of the stick, believed a lie, deceived yourself, told yourself something that wasn't true, wanted it to be true, tried to make it happen, and believed that you'd done it. And yet AT NO TIME did you EVER actually accomplish what you thought you did. And it has had NO EFFECT ON ANYTHING. Everything real is PERFECT ALRIGHT AND UNHARMED!

You have NOT sinned. You are NOT guilty.

This recognition IS forgiveness. THERE IS NO SIN.

"Let me remember that there is no sin."

"What if you looked within, and saw NO sin?"

There is a profound RELIEF that happens, when you realize that you HAVE NOT DONE a terrible thing that you thought you'd done. It's like being able to finally breathe and let go and be happy. Finally, a correct judgement, that you DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. Ahhhhhh. Thank God for that!!!!!! After all that time that you spent stressing and fearing punishment and worrying about the suffering that you BELIEVED you deserved and WERE TRYING TO MAKE HAPPEN. Over a FICTIONAL CRIME that you never committed!

Finally to hear that "all is forgiven, you can come home, God still loves you!" What a relief!! Thank GOD you haven't done anything at all to anything ever!! You are still completely innocent. You are STILL as God created you. You are WELCOME in heaven. God STILL loves you completely and NEVER STOPPED. Ahhhhhhh.

Whatever you see in something, if you think it is inherently offensive, it is not. The offensiveness is in your own mind, and you put it there.

That can be hard to accept because it means that you've been used to this idea of an objective reality outside of yourself all this time. A reality which has its own inherent qualities and which reports them to you as though they are distinct from your perception.

What it implies now is that what you're experiencing as reality, is in fact a hallucination that's part of your own mind's malfunctioning, that you literally are inventing everything that bothers you, that you are doing all that to yourself.

This implies also that there is no fixed reality out in the world, and therefore there is no inherent truth based on form. You literally give everything the meaning that it has for you.

ACIM lesson #2, right at the start: "I have given everything I see…all the meaning that it has for me."

This means that you are basically inventing every single justification that you think is truth, or that you think is based on objective facts outside of you. It means that, if you want to, and when it suits you, you MAKE UP everything that you think is true.

If you are in favor of something, you will make up reasons why it is a good idea, to support it and lend weight to your conviction that it is somehow inherently right. And if you are against something, you will make up reasons why it is a bad idea, in order to continue to support your belief that the reality outside of you is fixed and has nothing to do with your experience of it.

It can be perhaps alarming to discover that you are literally making everything up as you go along, and that all the things you thought were factual or true are really just your rationalizations. You decide what stuff means. You lend it credibility and pretend that this credibility comes from outside of you.

You think that other people's opinions, authority, certifications, education, experience, or even physical evidence, are all ways in which the world has an inherent truth. You have come to depend on this notion that you are not experiencing the results of your own made up subjective fantasy, but that everything that's going on is happening "on its own" without your input. And because you do not see the ways that you contribute to it or indeed create it, you do not accept that IT HAS NO TRUTH.

This leaves you in a kind of limbo like state where you're kind of just hanging there with no sense of what the truth outside you is anymore. If you're making up all the meaning, and quite literally the entirety of humanity is totally making up the meaning of everything in society as it goes along, then really there IS no inherent meaning outside of your mind.

This means the world is basically either neutral or insane, and that, based on the ego, it CANNOT make sense. There cannot be truth to it, and since it is a mental hallucination, it is nothing better than a chaotic illusion. Trying to "understand it" is an attempt to discover that it has an inherent meaning of its own, separate from your mind. We are very addicted and conditioned to continually look for meaning outside of ourselves, in the world, in order to disown true meaning (God/Self).

This is what happens when you try to figure things out, diagnose sickness, analyze situations, look for what is really happening, try to find proof, explain the background of something, try to identify causes, look for rational explanations or depend on the opinions of other people's authority. This is you attempting to turn an illusion into a reality, trying to convince yourself that you are NOT the one who has given it all the meaning it has, or that it is not just some blank canvas onto which you've projected an entirely fantastical world.

What this means for your mind and your sense of reality is that you cannot continue to claim that there is an objective world out there, and nor does that world have its own meaning at all. It is in fact a meaningless world, and this meaningless world cannot be understood unless you transcend it.

ACIM lessons 10 through 14:

"10 My thoughts do not mean anything."

"11 My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world."

"12 I am upset because I see a meaningless world.

"13 A meaningless world engenders fear."

"14 God did not create a meaningless world."

If the world is meaningless, and God did not create it (thus it is not objective reality), then this shows you that every meaning you see in it is made up but your thoughts, which are themselves meaningless and contain "pretend meanings". These pretend meanings attempt to give meaning to a world which has none.

What you may be afraid to admit is that it is not possible to find truth in any way shape or form in the world, because the world is not real. And that means your mind, your sense of reality, has been believing that it's had nothing to do with what you perceive all this time. When in fact it is the sole inventor of all the meanings that you think the world has.

Everything supposedly "out there" is neutral and therefore if you think something is good or bad or right or wrong or acceptable or unacceptable it is ONLY because you're making up a truth which you try to turn into reality and try to justify to yourself as being objective. It is not. It is subjective hallucination. So if there's no truth out there, it leaves you sort of hanging as to how to deal with reality.

It is as though you create your own reality, which is a popular new-age concept, which also leads on to manipulating the world. But this really is denying the fact that you do not create reality. You are creating UNREALITY. But it's a step closer to realizing that what you are experiencing is coming from you, and therefore what you perceive is not necessarily objectively real.

You're dreaming, and only God creates reality!

This is why in your awakening journey you then have to go through the process of recognizing the part that your mind plays in inventing meaning, how it distorts perception, how you contribute to what shows up outside of you, how you use it, how completely subjective you're being, and how everything that you thought was objectively real is in fact not real at all.

As you do this you will gradually realize more and more that there IS an objective reality, it's just not "out there" as a physical world, and instead it is within, in your Oneness with God. Formless, timeless, spaceless, ageless. The ONE and only meaning. A meaning that has not been fragmented into a billion conflicts. A meaning which hasn't been artificially attributed to an illusion. A meaning which ACTUALLY IS MEANINGFUL to you - that you can feel in your heart, in your very being.

God is true meaning. God is the one and only meaning. All else is meaningless.

What if when people in this world make a mistake, there is complete and total forgiveness and unconditional love?

If as a group we are to uphold a shared condition of peace, love and harmony, then we need to have 'shared interests'. That means, it must be in everyone's best interests to treat everyone with unconditional love and forgiveness at all times, absolutely regardless of the seeming severity of anything anyone does.

Unconditional love would say to someone filled with hatred, "Even though you completely hate me, I completely love you."

Unconditional forgiveness would say to someone murderous, "Even though you have tried to destroy me, I find you to be innocent and completely forgiven."

Can you imagine our present day society treating people this way? No. Because by and large, they do not. Most people in this world are riddled with egotism and condemnation of themselves and others. Therefore we have a world where when someone makes a mistake, it is considered to be a 'sin' or 'crime', and that it calls for punishment. We don't believe it calls for forgiveness, at least not unless there has been a huge amount of suffering first.

Maybe we can throw someone in jail for 20 years and make them 'atone' by doing hard time, and then forgive them? We even have a hard time forgiving them when they get done with their allotted punishment. We just want to keep on judging and condemning and finding other people guilty left right and center. Goes to show you how much we all have bought into the 'mistakes call for punishment' system of the ego.

It does not benefit us as a whole, that when someone makes mistakes, we ask them to feel guilty or ashamed. We describe this as a guilty conscience, as though we are supposed to be guilty because it is directing us to learn from mistakes or is telling us how terrible of a person we are because we deserve it. And we believe that this guilty conscience is our 'guide' and trusted advisor, which will steer us clear of mistakes.

BULLSHIT!

It does not benefit us as a whole, to find someone guilty, to ask them to experience guilt, and to suffer and go into a state of profound negativity, following the making of a mistake. All that this does is we now add on an extra layer of even greater negativity. That person, who could've been a loving member of society, is now relegated into a 'bad box' and has to now curse the whole world with their moping around feeling guilty and ashamed, their negative self-talk, their broadcasts of angst and upset, and basically everyone has to now tolerate them failing to give love to others. As if making a mistake the first time wasn't bad, requiring people to follow it up with a health dose of suffering makes EVERYONE suffer.

Therefore we have a vested interest, and should step the fuck up as a mature society, to recognize that the ONLY course of action that is sane when someone makes a mistake is to offer them completely unconditional love and forgiveness and acceptance. ABSOLUTELY unconditional.

How do you think God thinks of people? Do you think He gets all pissed off and angry and sends down some suffering? Do you think he demands some punishment and condemns people to hell for 60 lashes of death and pain? And how long is long enough to suffer? How long is long enough for YOU to suffer when you make a mistake? 10 years? Are you going to carry around all your baggage of righteous self hate and self loathing and believing you should be ashamed and believing you don't deserve love?

Well guess what. When you believe you don't deserve love, you also stop BEING loving, and so you also believe nobody else deserves love, so now on top of the mistake you made which came from unlove the first time, you now add a healthy dose of more - perhaps worse - unlove on top of it. How is that helping anyone? It's completely ridiculous. Being guilty and ashamed and unforgivable and unacceptable is EGOTISM. It does not help anyone. It just pollutes the collective consciousness. Being guilty does NOT atone for a lack of love, it increases the lack of love for all concerned. Love does not equate to guilt and guilt does not offer a gift to those who have been wronged. It's really a slap in the face.

God loves unconditionally. You make a mistake, God keeps loving you. You make a really really really bad mistake on the far end of the 'hierarchy of illusions', and we're talking, sin and death people... you make one of THOSE mistakes.... and God doesn't even blink a fricking eye. He doesn't even waver. He doesn't even stop to think, hmmm.. maybe I should stop loving Paul, he's done a pretty bad thing right there. No. He just keeps on loving, loving, loving, loving, loving, all day every day.

That's called unconditional love folks.

Forgive your enemies. Love your worst nemesis. Otherwise you will not be able to forgive and love yourself when YOU become that enemy. What you do to others you do to yourself. You have to extend the same 'charity' to others that you would want also. You can't be loved unconditionally no matter what you do, unless you are willing to love others unconditionally no matter what they do. Otherwise your belief that 'love only happens if conditions are met' will apply to you also and you'll find YOURSELF unworthy of it. To stop this you're going to have to get out of the ego SYSTEM (thought system, social system), of attacking anyone when they make mistakes. Otherwise you'll believe that when you make a mistake, you're unworthy of love, and you deserve to suffer and die.

Unconditional love calls an end to all suffering. It calls an end to all punishment. It calls an end to all labelling as criminal. It calls for the person making the mistake to be LOVED to high heaven, FORGIVEN totally, and ACCEPTED completely without reservation. It calls for the person to receive correction and healing. And it calls for that person to be RESTORED to the fellowship of the One united brotherhood. Only then can the person actually return to being capable of offering love, which is for the benefit of all, rather than offering guilt and shame and fear and attack.

It is in all our best interests to drop the bullshit ego thought system of 'demands punishment' and 'guilty conscience is a good thing' and 'don't make mistakes or you'll get punished'. Because you know what, while you're waking up you WILL make mistakes, and you won't be able to help it.

Nobody in their right might commits a sin. Nobody in their right mind can be anything other than innocent. Innocence cannot sin. Only when you stop being in your right mind can you seem to make a mistake, and your mistake was leaving your right mind. So now you are unconscious and you are not really aware of what you are doing, so you are not really doing it entirely willingly or consciously, which means you do not know what you're up to. "Forgive them father for they know not what they do" applies to EVERYONE who makes a mistake of any kind!

All mistakes are forgivable. And sometimes you're going to have to claim this unconditionality of forgiveness for yourself, and for others, in spite of whether other people are willing to go along with you or agree with you. YOU deserve forgiveness and so does everyone else. Be one of the few (currently) who hold humanity to a higher standard of being unconditional in our love for each other, rather than buying into ego blame, suffering and punishment. This world has suffered long enough already, and it never deserved even one ounce of suffering to begin with. Let it be over with! Bring on the love!

A Course in Miracles - Urtext material - reproduced with permission from the Foundation for Inner Peace (acim.org), and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (facim.org).
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