The truth is an experience, not information. It is not metaphysics.

So as you approach the truth, it's going to be less and less possible to just expose yourself to written truths or concepts of truth and believe that they're actually making you truth-filled. How many truth burgers will you eat before you are full and still hungry?

How many times do you need to hear someone say or quote the ways in which you need to be in order for awakening to happen? How can it happen when all these things do is provide your intellect with information?

Will exposing yourself to some lofty spiritual truth cause you to become awakened? Is it going to rub off on you and give you major insight? When is the truth going to take you out of the intellect into the heart? When does it turn into love?

A major mistake I made many many times is believing and assuming that my intellect was capable of producing an experience of God. I thought that if I could fully and correctly understand the metaphysics or the information, and "get" that understanding, then I would find God. But it did not work. Grasping the information did not produce love. There was nothing at the end of it. It's just information.

The information has to be APPLIED, and used in such a way as to actually change the mind, remove insanity, undo illusions, and bring about an awakening of presence, which is quite different to becoming an expert on the literature or a brilliant quoter or someone who knows what the Course says inside and out. Analysis doesn't produce oneness, it produces separation.

God is being. God is love. Presence. Happiness. Joy. Peace. Information will never give you that. Its only purpose is to point the way and to give you tools for mind correction, so that you can experience reality.

"The simple and the obvious are NOT apparent to those who would make palaces and royal robes of nothing, believing they are kings with golden crowns BECAUSE of them."

Last night what came to awareness is the nature of the ego. It was shown to me as a picture of a selfish king.

The king was riding on a golden jewel-laden platform, lounging casually while being attended to by guards and servants. Eating luxuriously, wearing elaborate robes made of the finest materials, complete with jewels and gold and a crown.

He thought highly of himself, of his own self importance. He saw himself as above everyone, and because of this he really did not care to even mingle with those lesser than himself. He was distanced and cut off from the larger population, and didn't really care for anyone at all besides himself.

He wanted to live an opulent, wealthy, care-free life, waited-on and pampered and adored and worshipped as a lord. Skimming along the surface of society barely involved in anything or helping anyone, wanting nothing to do with the unclean peasants nor to barely give a single thing to anyone.

He wanted to live in his big castle with his special toys and his expensive furnishings. To be told how great he is, to sit on his portable throne and be escorted according to his shallow wishes. It seemed he had everything he wanted, having gained the whole world, sitting at the apex of the pyramid on top of a mountain of riches, and yet bereft of any real relationships with anyone.

Living out his days in the illusion of perfection and the fantasy of having everything there is worth having. Of owning and ruling over the whole kingdom, a kingdom that he had no real interest in other than to be ruler of it and exalted by it. And for all this selfishness and seeming success and wealth and grandiosity, he lived as if on a tiny island all alone and had nothing of any real value.

His life was empty and narrow and shallow and greedy. He got everything he wanted and no-one could oppose his tyranny. And so he thought himself to be of the utmost specialness, important above all others, and the greatest of all rulers. Caring not for anything he ruled over nor for the lives of others. He was fat from the feasting and lazy in his lifestyle. And he wanted nothing but to keep the lesser-kind away from himself.

He lived like a king, but he had no soul. He thought everyone wanted what he had, and that therefore everyone envied him, and therefore that he was entitled and better than all of them. And not once did he think of anyone besides himself. His castle was a prison, to keep him and his riches protected from thieves and beggars and the hungry, to keep them out and to keep him in. For he wanted only to have everything for himself.

"Would you remain WITHIN your tiny kingdom, a sorry king, a bitter ruler of all he surveys, who looks on nothing, but who would still die to DEFEND it?" "In your tiny kingdom you have so little!"

"The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world, and lose your own Soul."

"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?"

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.

Sometimes people try to put you down, condemn you, make you wrong, call you names, claim you sinned etc. They may have a strong opinion, be domineering or power hungry. They may even say something quite vicious designed to push you away, shut you up, or shut you off.

This is always evidence of someone who does not love themselves. They have entered into a split mind where they are projecting, and they believe always that something applies to you that does not apply to them. They point a finger as if it’s not pointing at themselves. It is a very one-sided state. You are wrong, they are right. All the accusation seems to be coming out of them into you. And this makes it seem it’s entirely you who is under attack.

People like this can be difficult to deal with. There is also tremendous temptation to take this at face value and believe it’s happening to you. Or that it even really is about you or has anything to do with you. If you yourself do not love yourself enough, those weak parts of you will be triggered, seemingly hurt, react, and erupt with emotion and upset. You may then believe your experience was caused by them, that they actually attacked you.

If you do love yourself you will be unmoved. If you do not believe about yourself what the person believes about you, you will not be triggered. You will be clear it is not about you. Your forgiveness of yourself makes you immune. It then becomes clear they are talking about themselves, hate themselves, and are in a state of self attack. It also becomes obvious that how the attack appears on the surface is not what it really is.

The person is in a state of not realizing they are actually attacking themselves. They have disassociated from their self condemnation. They are in denial that they are hurting themselves. They are being murderous and harmful because they really believe and perceive that their attack is having no effect on them. They are not in their right mind. Self hate has blinded them, and now they are accusing a brother of their own sins. And they believe they can get away with it. They are unloving toward you not because you deserve it, but because they don’t love themselves.

If you can not buy into this performance, recognizing this attack as a call for love, realizing the person has made several errors, you have an advantage. Their self attack is something you can use to diffuse their attempted projection. It’s now your function to heal them, to love them, by reminding them of what they are ACTUALLY doing to themselves. You can look out for their innocent, holy self. Look at what they are doing to themselves in the interaction, NOT what they are doing to you.

You can now diffuse it by presenting the fact of what they are doing to themselves. Lovingly. To make them aware of how they are not loving themselves. This puts all the attention back on them and makes it clear this has NOTHING to do with you. You therefore are protected by love, cannot be hurt, and no-one can make you lose your peace.

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

I love learning about miracles.

There are kind of two levels or layers of mind. The higher level is filled with love. It is a mind at-one with others and filled with God’s Will. It has no ego, has let go of its separate will (the authority problem), and is free to perform miracles. This mind is naturally miraculous. It shares the Power of God, which is unlimited. This mind is so holy and so powerful, there is literally nothing it cannot do.

The second layer is accessed via a kind of "descent into hell", aka the separation from God. This lower level is like going into darkness, into separation, into isolation and suffering, into sickness and death. It is here that all of the beliefs in sin, guilt and fear seem to exist. It is here that people choose to die. It is here that all suffering seems to occur.

A miracle, is a HEALING ACT, where a higher-level mind "lifts away" (undoes) the darkness. It’s like the hand of God reaching down into the darkness and lifting up the souls who find themselves trapped there. It brings them back towards God. It restores and heightens communication, because communication means sharing the mind of oneness - the undoing of separation and darkness.

A miracle is an EXPRESSION OF LOVE, which shines with a healing power onto the "starved and thirsty creatures", blessing them with beautiful healing softness and restoration, undoing all signs and symptoms of separation. These signs include all sickness, suffering, pain and death, as well as all emotional states and states of mental illness. All of these are healed because the mind is LIFTED UP towards the light, which dissolves the darkness and causes the symptoms/expressions of a lack of love to disappear.

The miracle lifts away layers of separation which have come between the Son of God and God. All forms of sickness are symptomatic of this belief in separation, and therefore all forms of sickness can be healed by the miracle.

The higher-level loving mind is able to lift away layer upon layer of separation and denial. The result is a *supernatural*, ego-law-defying, sin-reversing, death-reversing, separation-reversing, uplifting demonstration that the mind of love has power over all forms of separation.

The miracle heals from the top down. It is a light which shines upon the darkness and dispels it. This doesn’t just mean, but does include, the healing of the mind, the removal of blocks to awareness, the undoing of false beliefs, and the correction of perception. Yet since all suffering stems from false perception, and all forms of sickness and death stem from it also, all such things are simultaneously dissolved (undone).

"The miracle does nothing - all it does is undo." This doesn’t really mean that miracles have no power and do not cause anything to change. What it really means is, because the ego is entirely a state of "doing stuff", and all illusions take effort to maintain, and all sickness is an act of force, the CESSATION of that effort which comes about through "doing nothing" actually COLLAPSES AND UNDOES what the ego WAS doing, including all of its illusory symptoms and signs and effects. They simply vanish. That vanishing is perceivable and tangible!

The ultimate aim of miracles is therefore the lifting up of the mind to wholeness, the restoration of communication and union, and the healing of all separation. That IS going to entail the un-doing of all the things the ego is doing, and therefore WILL INCLUDE the reversal of all forms of death.

If death means separation or distance from God, as a descent into darkness and hellish nightmares, then the UNDOING of death results in RESURRECTION. This resurrection is not just going to take place "in the mind" and not the body and not the world. ALL of these things are equally parts of the ego thought yssystem. Mental death, emotional death, physical death, all of them can be lifted away and reversed by the miracle worker.

This does also mean that miracles therefore can literally reverse physical death, can literally undo all sickness such as cancer, blindness, damaged or missing limbs, mental disorders, etc. There is NOTHING your holiness cannot do.

Your holiness is also able to do things which you might think do not appear to be useful miracles. IF it were beneficial in raising awareness and increasing knowledge of the fact that the ego’s dream is a LIE, ie would be useful to *literally* move a mountain. If it taught a lesson, showed that the ego’s laws are false, or healed false perceptions in some way, it would be valuable.

When Jesus walked on water, it was not to show off. It was an act to demonstrate, and prove, that the laws of physics have no bearing on the miracle worker. It was a teaching act. When Jesus multiplied food for thousands of hungry people, it wasn’t to show off. It was to demonstrate and use the miracle-working power of the mind, to manifest food out of nowhere, to prove that hunger is unnecessary and people need not suffer. It was educational. Miracles are teaching devices.

Wherever there is suffering, there is bondage to the ego. This means the person is attempting to be far from God. All sickness is a defense against the truth. Everything about the ego and suffering and death is about trying to put more distance between yourself and God. The miracle CLOSES THE GAP and heals the separation, causing miraculous results.

This is also a maximal service that you can render to another person, giving them the love they are lacking, supplying a need from above, from those who temporarily have more to those who temporarily have less. Think of this as all happening on a VERTICAL axis. This is why the course says that miracles are a shift in perception from horizontal to vertical perception. A movement UPWARDS towards God heals and undoes the manifestations of the ego.

Miracles lift you and your brothers up towards Heaven. They loosen the chains, release you of the darkness, and allow you to express and shine a light. That light is a Life Giving force. It has the power to REVERSE DEATH. And it is only by this power that YOU can resurrect back to life, away from the lower state of death in which you find yourself.

Miracles lift you UP from a lower level, at first by having faith in a higher level power (Holy Spirit). Later, you will be up AT the higher level, more able to then RAISE OTHERS UP out of their darkness. Your expressions of love toward them can heal them, undo all of their suffering, reverse all states of suffering and even bring them back from the dead.

Love heals. Love is powerful. Love is ALIVE and gives Life, even to the dead. There is nothing that love cannot do, and there is nothing that cannot be undone. If love could not reverse death, it would be powerless and unmiraculous, and have no ability to return you to Heaven. A belief in death is a belief in the end of miracles. A belief in Life is a belief and a trust in UNLIMITED RESURRECTION and Eternal Life.

ACIM has many statements which really don't make any sense. For example:

"To have all, give all to all."

Let's look at this closely.

In this world, let's say you have a chocolate cake. You follow Jesus's advice. You are attempting to have ALL the cake. So you give ALL the cake to everyone else. The question then is, having done this, and now that everyone else is smiling and full of cake, do YOU have any cake?

The answer is no. If you have given ALL the cake, there is NO cake left.

This is really quite simple and hopefully makes sense to you. In terms of spacetime and all its physical contents, anything that you give you lose. You cannot really share anything. We can't both have the whole pizza. If I want you to have the whole pizza, I'm going to go hungry. If I give you the whole pizza, there will be nothing left. I cannot have ANY of the pizza, if I give ALL of the pizza.

Take another look at what Jesus said: "To have all, give all to all."

Now we have to admit something here. There are two possibilities.

1) Either Jesus is lying and is completely mistaken, because giving all of something leaves you with nothing.

2) Or, Jesus is correct, and knows what he's talking about, and SOMEHOW the LOGIC that we're using isn't working correctly. Or it breaks down and is invalid for use in reference to anything real.

Either Jesus is wrong or the logic is wrong, they can't both be true because they're making opposite claims. So, when you give ALL, do you truly GET all, or do you LOSE all? Is Jesus right or wrong?

What he's implying is that, somehow, when you give EVERYTHING away, you still have everything. How is that even POSSIBLE? Let's say that Jesus is very wise and knows what he's talking about. Let's say that his claim is true and we'll trust it. What does that mean? It means that if HE is right, the LOGIC must be wrong.

Something is wrong with the way the logic proceeds. There is something fundamentally broken about "normal logical reasoning" that is incompatible with what HE says is the truth.

What it implies is that the entire way that we think about things has something wrong with it. The reasoning that we use has something wrong with it. It's somehow fundamentally OPPOSITE to some kind of logic that is needed to properly handle Jesus's claims.

We can't continue to use the same way of thinking, if we hope to understand why or how his claim is true. It can't be true that when you give everything away you end up with nothing. But that's what the logic says. So the logic is faulty. We need some other way to "reason" things out that follows some other kinds of rules.

The truth is that our normal logic is actually based on SEPARATION. It was in the separation that we introduced the idea of "separate parts". And with that, the idea of "many separate things." We think that removing the separation is a matter of removing the many things, but in fact undoing separation really means undoing the entire SYSTEM of logic.

What people doing ACIM may not realize is that we continue to use a logic system of separation when trying to study what ACIM says. And this produces faulty conclusions. Even when you attempt to remove (disguise) the separation by getting rid of all the separations between things, to end up with a count of 1, we are still actually squarely WITHIN the thought system of separation. We've just reduced the number of boxes, instead of transcending the system of boxes.

ACIM presents another kind of thinking and reasoning, which is not compatible with the way we normally think about things. It's based on paralogical reasoning. It's worth your while looking that up and learning about it. In paralogical reasoning it's possible for one thing to be two things, and for two things to be one thing. It's possible for something to be in multiple places at once, and for all of something to be in all places at once. It is a transcendental model of logic.

It is only through transcendental logic that it becomes possible for Jesus's statement to be true. If I give ALL to everyone else, the only way I can still have all of it is if I am INCLUDED in the "everyone else". I have to BE the everyone else in some way, which means I have to transcend the box that separates me off from others. And there has to still BE others in order to "give to all."

So now my sense of who and what I am has to become transcendental. It can't just be that EITHER I am me OR not. It has to be that I am me and I am also something else. I am others and also myself, at the same time. This has to melt borders and transcend boxes. When I ... who am also everything, give all to all, I am giving all to myself, and therefore end up with all. So I do not sacrifice or lose, and OTHERS, who are also part of the all, now gain what I gave them. And now everyone is sharing everything.

"You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."

This is another of those impossible statements. If I were to have everything, normal logic would say that YOU cannot have ANYTHING. There is nothing LEFT for you to have if I have it all. e.g.

"Each Soul knows God completely. This IS the miraculous power of the Soul. The fact that each Soul has this power completely is a fact that is entirely alien to human thinking, in which if any ONE has everything, there is nothing LEFT."

So here Jesus himself is even tipping us off, that in normal logic, if we are to say that one soul/son has everything, for itself, there cannot be anything LEFT for anyone else to have. And he's saying this is NOT the case - that in fact the soul has a miraculous - transcendental quality, which makes is possible for EACH individual soul to have ALL. At the same time. And that is a matter of sharing.

I can have all of God. You can have all of God. We both can have all of God all at once, without contradiction or compromise or sacrifice or loss or taking turns. That makes NO sense in normal logic. But it makes total sense in paralogical reasoning, in which something can be true of two things at once without being a contradiction.

A logic system based on sharing is needed in order to understand Jesus's statements about the nature of reality. You CANNOT use normal logic because it will just polarize and separate and project separation onto reality. The result will be that you'll claim either God is alone or he has a separate son, and neither of those is really true.

It's mind-bending to us because we have to find a way to accept that, it's possible, for two things to be true at once. For God to have an actual real son who is real and individual, but who simultaneously is not separate from God. That you can be one with God ie the father, but that this oneness does NOT mean you are God. That you are still his creation. To be one, and yet to be also two, at the same time, that is the true quality of reality. And that is what Jesus's statements are pointing to.

What makes no sense to the ego, or to separation-based logic, makes total sense in reality. That's because the ego is really nonsense, and its whole logic system is nonsense. It has to be possible that when we give all to all, we still have all. It has to be possible that when ideas are given away and shared, they increase, and are accessed by both persons.

It has to be possible that when I have everything, you can also have everything. It has to be possible that I am myself and I also am the whole Kingdom of God, and all my brothers. It has to be possible that you have brothers permanently, but are also one. And that you can be one with God, without losing yourself. Otherwise Jesus is telling a whole bunch of lies. Like he says, the father is GREATER than you, so you ARE NOT his equal, so you cannot just disappear into him at the loss of your soul. You have to be able to be one with God AND be yourself. Two, AND one.

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

Reality's true nature is that it is one and many at the same time. This is not something that a lot of people are comfortable with. The EGO's way of thinking has told them that reality has to be ONLY one thing, with no parts or aspects or divisions or separations, which might hint at "bad evil separation" happening. But the presence of divisions at the SAME TIME AS the presence of oneness, is entirely natural. It is only when you remove the oneness aspect of that, that you end up with "only many", which is duality.

God is a creator with many parts and every part of God is one with all of God. And each of God's creations is a son of God, a member of the sonship and part of his Kingdom. Each of them is a co-creator and has their own creations, who in turn are co-creators with them. Heaven therefore includes a great many created things, all of which are "many in number", while simultaneously being ONE in number. BOTH one AND many. That is paralogical reasoning. That is what ACIM is based on and it's what we have to learn if we want to understand how it makes any sense at all.

"Heaven is the sum of all God's thoughts, in number infinite."

"The Kingdom of God includes all his children and their creations."

"We are the Kingdom, WE, the Sons of God."

The authority problem is an issue of authorship, power, and causality. ie, who is the author? Who caused? Who has the power to do so? Why has the authority to decide what the truth is?

God is the primary authority who has the power and is the cause of His creations. When he creates his children in Heaven he uses his authority to do so. But he also extends His authority to them, giving them their own true authority, which means they too now have the authority and power to create - to author. It is because souls have authority that they are co-creators with God. Every Son of God has authority and power because God is in them.

"Souls were given their own true authorship"

The problem came in the separation idea, where souls attempted to be the author of God. Simultaneously they attempted to deny that God is the author of them. And therefore that the author of themselves is anonymous or unknown.

This then opened up the possibility for souls to believe that they could invent their own definition of God, their own definition of truth, their own definition of who or what authored them. And so they themselves were now attempting to be the one to define their own selves, as though they had authored themselves and could determine what they are. Or to put it another way, they wanted to be God and to change, cause, or alter God, which is the idea of sin.

"You HAVE the power to ADD to the Kingdom, but NOT to add to the Creator OF the Kingdom."

By denying the author of you (God), you invented an author of yourself, by yourself, and thus found yourself in a kind of split minded state of being under the power of a made-up false God, while also attempting to BE a false God. This all hinges on the belief that you can author God, can cause God, can change reality, and therefore have power over Him. It's an attempt to establish what the truth is, to decide what it is and to use this power to redefine or deny God's truth.

"First, the assumption is implicit that what God has Created can be changed by the mind of Man.

Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect (or wanting) is intruded.

Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of God (including himself) has arisen, and is tolerated.

Fourth, that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him."

You then form this ego viewpoint that you are God, you have power over God, you are the author of yourself, you don't need God, you don't derive from God, you are not like God (or yourself), and you can "make up" or invent whatever you think you want to be. This also then positions you as believing you are an authority, for whom there is no higher authority. Which means you are now unwilling to accept or share God's truth, mind, or will, and have "gone rogue".

By trying to be an authority over God, who is the authority over you, you enter into level confusion. You who are an effect of God, authored by God, deny this inheritance and claim to be able to cause/author God. You are now like a resistant child who doesn't want to cooperate and is digging in its heels with a superiority/inferiority complex.

This level confusion forms the root basis for the entire ego thought system, which is entirely level confused, is infused with the authority problem throughout, and leads to the making of a world in which you play God. "The world was made as a place where God could enter not", SO THAT you could be God without God in this world and try prove your authority does not come from Him.

As "children without a father" (the separation between Father and Son, Cause and Effect), we now act as if we're God in this world, a gatekeeper, a definer of truth, he through whom all things must be approved and agreed if they are to be "authorized." We attempt to define our own self, to establish our own truth, to invent worlds, to make-believe stuff into reality.

We're then busy not listening to God, not receiving, denying inheritance, rejecting guidance, wanting to be right, and are so in denial that we have trouble being willing to accept correction.

You can see this in anyone who is doing A Course in Miracles, and indeed everyone else. The attempt to be God. Nothing is authorized or approved unless it is cleared by us. Nothing is allowed to be agreed to as "the truth" unless we say so. We have to be the one to figure everything out on our own. We are unwilling to be mistaken because our reliance on our own self and abilities is too high. We depend on our belief that we are so accomplished and important and authoritative that anything challenging our self-defined truth is rejected.

This also leads to a kind of maniacal, tyrannical, domineering, resistant, stubborn, power-hungry, competitive, war-mongering, intimidating nature. These are all forms of artificial authority. They are all based on the belief in a lack of authority and insecurity. They all require a lot of reinforcement, and in the worst examples produce a desire to literally force others to comply with one's wishes. You can see this in leaders of some countries for example, in murderers, and in those who project and scapegoat and blame.

As far as A Course in Miracles is concerned, we come to it with an authority problem. We come to the truth with this egotism of self-centered "I must control", "I am right", "it's not true unless I say it is" kind of approach. And this also means initially that we will attempt to change the course to make it match what we want the truth to be.

We think we have more authority than someone who has accepted that God is their author, such as Jesus, and who has authored the Course from his position of true authority. This doesn't mean that Jesus has authority OVER us. He is an equal. He temporarily is like an older brother due to his acceptance OF authority and the reclaiming of his TRUE authority and power. But this does not mean he aims to force or dominate.

God similarly is not forceful ("God does not coerce" "even God would not go against your will"), and His authority isn't a domineering tyrannical rulership of forced control, but the ego cannot help but fear this authority. It reads into it its own authority problem and sees it as a threat, or as an attempt to have power over you. There will then ensue a power struggle for dominance, for who is right, between you and what the truth says is true.

This usually leads to a tremendous amount of attempts to redefine the meaning of the truth. New ideas which seem to threaten one's God complex will be frowned upon or treated suspiciously. We will try to change the truth and the course to fit whatever we believe is true already. We might though gradually become willing to surrender and let go of this need to have authority over true authority.

What we find in the Course is an expression from a Master who has authority and knows the truth. Ego doesn't like this. It wants to be the gatekeeper through which all things must be approved otherwise they are considered false. We have to become willing to surrender this position and becoming open to receiving a truth which may contradict our beliefs. And that means a willingness to be mistaken, not just about what we've concluded but even that we are in a position TO define what God's truth is.

Basically we're being exposed to God's truth and authorship, while believing we are the truth and authorship of ourselves. Believing we don't need God or his stupid truth. So there's going to be a tug of war on our part. There's going to be resistance. But ultimately we need to shift from trying to be the one who defines the truth, to being one who accepts HIS truth.

To do this is an act of surrender, and the development of trust. A willingness to be mistaken. An openness to BE taught. To be a student. To learn of Him. To ALLOW His truth to become the authority. To align with God's will. To surrender the ego and let go of being right. It means regarding the Course's truth as FIXED TRUTH, meaning that YOU are the one who needs to adjust to correlate to it, rather than IT being the one to change. It means TRUSTING Jesus's words. If HE says something is true, YOU need to accept it, even if that means letting go of beliefs which say the opposite. Without this trust there is no willingness to allow Jesus to be your teacher, or to accept the truth of God.

This is where you become humble. This is where you surrender the fight. This is where you are willing to let God tell you of Himself. This is where you learn to receive love. This is where you let go of controlling yourself, your life, and others. It's where you become willing to do God's will. To set aside your attempts to oppose His guidance. To hand over authority to your soul, receiving its truth from God. Where you plug your mind back into spirit and acknowledge that God is your father again. That you have no other God's. That you are open to receive your inheritance and recognize yourself as God created you.

It entails allowing God to be the one who has defined who and what you are. To recognize you cannot and have no changed yourself. That you have never sinned because you did not cause God and have no desire to do so. To realize you must still be as God defines you to be. AND this does not mean, as it does to the ego, that you have to merely begrudgingly cooperate "against your will". We have to unlearn the belief that God is trying to force us, require us, or manipulate us. We have to learn he does not have an ulterior motive or that he's trying to dominate.

We can only come to God through our own free will. It entails a willingness to accept God's truth is the only truth. That it offers you an extraordinary inheritance, freedom, power and joy. That doing God's will will make you happy. That forgiveness offers everything you want. And this all requires you to trust God and surrender your self-authoring control issues. If you suspect God of trying to force you to do something you don't want, it's because you are forcing yourself and others against their free will. We have to re-learn that God can be trusted, and that He still loves us.

Upon relinquishing false authority, or rather, an attempt to have authority without or against God, as a rebellious nature which seems to throw yourself into hell, we can resume our TRUE authority as co-creators, with the power TO create, to ADD TO the Kingdom, and to Create WITH God USING His power which He has shared with us in our own creation. We now happily and willingly resume the extension of God's spirit to increase our joy and to fulfill our function. God knows what's best for us.

A willingness to accept God's authority of us doesn't necessarily mean having to accept that you are under coercion. "God does not coerce." God has granted you free will and co-creatorship. He wants to create WITH you. Through you.

It also doesn't mean you have no power or no authority. The Sons of God have authority over all illusions. They also have authorship, shared with each other and with God, of their creations, to and through whom they extend their authority from God. God is not trying to take your power away. He's trying to give it back to you. It's just that He wants your power to the be the power HE gave you. He wants your truth to be the truth HE established in you, which is true of you. He wants you to let go of the truths you invented and to allow His truth to be your truth. In this way, you reclaim your inheritance of truth from Him.

This means that as you become more truthful, opening up to receive truth FROM Him, you put aside your OWN opinion. You let go of the truths you invented to replace his. You become a messenger of His truth, an extender and sharer. You now become authoritative in His truth, able to express it, but this truth didn't come from you. It is not OF you.

This means that while you are being authoritative, you also recognize that the truth you express is not "your own". We are not accustomed to the idea that someone's statements of truth are not necessarily THEIRS alone. That what they are saying has been inherited FROM another source, and is not their own opinion. We have to separate out the truth we share, from the messenger.

Just because you communicate this truth to others doesn't mean it is your OPINION. Having authority does not mean you are trying to be right, if it is based on truth inherited from God. When you have transitioned from being an inventor of truth, to being a relay or medium through which trust extends, you become a PART OF the Kingdom, a representative of God's authority, a way for His truth to transfer and extend to others. You have the truth, but you did not create the truth. The power of your word has the power of God in it, but you did not give it this power. As a representative of God, your truth also is His.

The light in you is what God put there. He shared His will with you in your Creation. He gave you his power. He put authority into you. He created you with His truth. And he etablished your permanence by knowing you forever. Everything you really are has been defined by Him, sustained by Him, and kept safe by Him.

You are worthy because He says you are. You are permanently at peace because He says you are. You are free to love and create because He says you are. What you are you cannot define. All you can do is accept and rejoice that He created you good and you are perfect and happy in the function He gave you. And by simply being true to yourself and natural in your expression, you are a perfect child of God, created to create the perfect.

Accepting your function is accepting God's authority. Having authorship by God does not make you a slave. You are an author, and you do have creations. But these creations were not created WITHOUT Him, or using anything not OF Him. Of yourself you are nothing, because you are not of yourself. You are not from yourself. But you DO have power, shared with Him, because He put it there. You are the medium through which this power can extend, per your free will. And when you will in accord with God's will, the power of God moves through you, with you.

"The power of God, and NOT of you, engenders miracles. The miracle ITSELF is but the witness that you HAVE the power of God in you."

"To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all power. The image you made of yourself has none. The Holy Spirit knows the truth about you. The image you made does not. Yet, despite its obvious and complete ignorance, this image assumes it knows all things because you have given that belief to it. Such is your teaching, and the teaching of the world that was made to uphold it."

"I am forever an effect of God."

"In the Creation, God projected his Creative Ability out of Himself toward the Souls which He created, and also imbued them with the same loving wish (or will) to create."

"The Soul, because of its own likeness to its Creator, is creative. No Child of God is capable of losing this ability, because it is inherent in what he IS."

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world." "Do His works."

"I am the model for rebirth, but rebirth itself is merely the dawning on your minds of what is already in them. God placed it there Himself, and so it is true forever."

"For no one can forget what God Himself placedin his memory. You can DENY it, but you cannot LOSE it."

"The communication link which God Himself placed within you, joining your minds with His, CANNOT be broken."

"His is the ONLY Fatherhood, and it is yours only because HE has given it to you."

"Thus the Son gives fatherhood to his Creator, and RECEIVES the gift that he has given Him."

All credit goes to God for what you are and what is in you. Without Him you are nothing. All credit goes to God AND to you and your brothers for what you express TOGETHER in co-creatorship and joint power.

Without an acknowledgement of God's power, you have none. By acknowledging it, it becomes yours. And so long as you remain plugged into His power supply, the Power of God is in you and is yours to extend with Him. Through His power, you work miracles. The power, peace, joy and love of God is your natural inheritance, and yours to pass on to the children of your will.

This is a MAJOR axis in the course, transitioning from false perception to true perception. Learning to overlook the world of bodies and see beyond it to the light of the real world, so that you are ready to move on to Heaven. It is VERY CLEAR that the physical world of bodies is ONLY SEEN through the body's eyes, and learning to OVERLOOK it and not believe any of it is forgiveness.

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant."

"Sin is a block, set like a heavy gate, locked and without a key, across the road to peace. No-one who looks on it without the help of reason, would try to pass it. The body's eyes behold it as solid granite, so thick it would be madness to attempt to pass it. Yet reason sees through it easily, BECAUSE it is an error. The form it takes cannot conceal its emptiness from reason's eyes."

"ONLY the form of error attracts the ego. Meaning it does not recognize, and does not know if it is there or not. Everything that the body's eyes can see is a mistake, an error in perception, a distorted fragment of the whole, without the meaning that the whole would give. And yet mistakes, regardless of their form, can be corrected. Sin is but error in a special form the ego venerates. It would preserve all errors, and make them sins. For here is its own stability, its heavy anchor in the shifting world it made; the rock on which its church is built, and where its worshippers are bound to bodies, and believe the body's freedom is their own."

"If you but recognized how little stands between you and your awareness of your union! Be not deceived by the illusions it presents of size and thickness, weight, solidity, and firmness of foundation. Yes, to the body's eyes it looks like an enormous, solid body, immovable as is a mountain. Yet, within you, there is a force which no illusions can resist. This body only seems to be immovable. This force is irresistible in truth. What, then, must happen when they come together? Can the illusion of immovability be long defended for what is quietly passed through and gone beyond?"

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see beyond what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and not see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."

"It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty."

"The body's eyes will NEVER look on it. Yet they will SEE what it dictates. The body will remain guilt's messenger, and will act as it directs, as long as YOU believe that guilt is real. For the REALITY of guilt is the illusion which seems to make it heavy and opaque, impenetrable, and a REAL foundation for the ego's thought system. Its thinness and transparency are not apparent, until you see the light BEHIND it. And then you see it as a fragile veil, before the light."

"This world you see (with the body's eyes) MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision (christ vision). YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

"You do not really want the world you see (with the body), for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built have never sheltered you. The roads you made have led you nowhere, and no city that you built has withstood the crumbling assault of time. Nothing you made but has the mark of death upon it. Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end."

"The purpose of these exercises (workbook intro) is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world. The workbook is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the undoing of what you see now, and the second with the restoration of sight."

"Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."

"Corrective learning always begins with awakening the spiritual eye, and turning away from belief in physical sight. The reason this entails fear is because man is afraid of what his spiritual eye will see, which was why he closed it in the first place. We said before that the spiritual eye cannot see error, and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement. There is no doubt that the spiritual eye does produce extreme discomfort by what it sees. The thing that man forgets is that the discomfort is not the final outcome of its perception. When the spiritual eye is permitted to look upon the defilement of the altar, it also looks immediately toward Atonement. Nothing which the spiritual eye perceives can induce fear. Everything that results from accurate spiritual awareness merely is channelized toward correction. Discomfort is aroused only to bring the need to correct forcibly into awareness.

What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can it be corrected by any device which can be physically seen. As long as a man believes in what his physical sight tells him, all his corrective behavior will be misdirected. The reason why the real vision is obscured is because man cannot endure to see his own defiled altar. But since the altar has BEEN defiled, this fact becomes doubly dangerous unless it IS perceived. This perception is totally not-threatening because of the Atonement. The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what man has done to himself."

"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."

"But the outcome is as certain as God. The spiritual eye literally CANNOT SEE error, and merely looks for Atonement. All the solutions which the physical eyes seek, dissolve in its sight. The spiritual eye, which looks within, recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled, and needs to be repaired and protected."

"The REAL beauty of the Temple cannot be seen with the physical eye. The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity. This is because the spiritual eye has perfect vision."

"Vision adapts to wish, for sight is always secondary to desire. And if you see the body, you have chosen judgment, and not vision. For vision, like relationships, has no order. You either SEE, or not."

"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good".

"The concept of the self stands like a shield, a silent barricade before the truth, and hides it from your sight. All things you see are images because you look on them as through a barrier which dims your sight and warps your vision, so that you behold nothing with clarity. The light is kept from everything you see. At most, you glimpse a shadow of what lies beyond. At least you merely look on darkness, and perceive the terrified imaginings that come from guilty thoughts and concepts born of fear. And what you see is hell, for fear IS hell. All that is given you is for release; the sight, the vision and the inner Guide all lead you out of hell with those you love beside you, and the universe with them."

"And this he learns when first he looks upon ONE brother as he looks upon himself, and sees the mirror of himself in him. Thus is the concept of himself laid by, for nothing stands between his sight and what he looks upon, to judge what he beholds. And in this single vision does he see the Face of Christ, and understands he looks on everyone as he beholds this One. For there is light where darkness was before, and now the veil is lifted from his sight.

The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just one error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him. The sword of judgment is the weapon which you give to the illusion of yourself, that it may fight to keep the space that holds your brother off unoccupied by love. Yet while you hold this sword, you must perceive the body as yourself, for you are bound to separation from the sight of him who holds the mirror to another view of what he is, and thus what YOU must be."

"Your brother's body is as little use to you as it is to him. When it is used only as the Holy Spirit teaches, it has no function. For minds need not the body to communicate. The sight that sees the body, has no use which serves the purpose of a holy relationship. And while you look upon each other thus, the means and end have not been brought in line."

"If you send forth ONLY the messengers the Holy Spirit gave you, WANTING no messages but theirs, you will see fear no more. The world will be transformed before your sight, cleansed of all guilt, and softly brushed with beauty. The world contains no fear that you laid not upon it. And none you cannot ask love's messengers to REMOVE from it, and see it still. The Holy Spirit has given you HIS messengers, to send each other, and return to each with what love sees. They have been given to REPLACE the hungry dogs of fear you sent instead. And they go forth to signify the END of fear."

"My holy vision sees all things as pure" - "And while we still remain outside the gate of Heaven, let us look on all we see through holy vision and the eyes of Christ. Let all appearances seem pure to us, that we may pass them by in innocence, and walk together to our Father's house as brothers and the holy Sons of God."

"Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision and give you joy. And place no value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is."

"Vision is freely given to those who ask to see. Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him."

"There is no problem, no event or situation, no perplexity, that vision will not solve. All is redeemed, when looked upon with vision. For this is not YOUR sight, and brings with it the laws beloved of Him Whose sight it IS. Everything looked upon with vision falls gently into place, according to the laws brought to it by His calm and certain sight. The end, for everything He looks upon, is always sure. For it will meet His purpose, seen in unadjusted form, and suited perfectly to meet it. Destructiveness becomes benign, and sin is turned to blessing under His gentle gaze.

What can the body's eyes perceive, with power to CORRECT? Its eyes ADJUST to sin, unable to overlook it in any form, and seeing it everywhere, in everything. Look through its eyes, and everything will stand condemned before you. All that could save you, you will never see. Your holy relationship, the source of your salvation, will be deprived of meaning, and its most holy purpose bereft of means for its accomplishment. Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination. But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway of Heaven's laws."

"The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes. ITS vision IS distorted, and the messages IT transmits to you, who MADE it to limit your awareness, ARE little and limited, so fragmented that they are meaningless. From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. For YOU sent forth these messengers, to bring this BACK to you."

"Anger but screeches, "Guilt is real!" Reality is blotted out as this insane belief is taken as replacement for God's Word. The body's eyes now "see"; its ears alone can "hear." Its little space and tiny breath become the measure of reality. And truth becomes diminutive and meaningless."

"Reason would tell you that the world you see through eyes that are not yours, MUST make no sense to you. To whom would vision such as this send back its messages? Surely not you, whose sight is wholly independent of the eyes which look upon the world. If this is not your vision, what can it show to you? The brain can not interpret what YOUR vision sees. This you would understand. The brain interprets to the body, of which it is a part. But what it says, YOU cannot understand.

Yet you have listened to it. And long and hard you tried to understand its messages. You did not realize it is impossible to understand what fails entirely to reach you. You have received no messages at all you understood. For you have listened to what can never communicate at all. Think, then, what happened. Denying what you are, and firm in faith that you are something else, this something else, which you have made to be yourself, BECAME your sight. Yet it must be the SOMETHING ELSE which sees, and, as NOT you, explains its sight to you.

YOUR vision would, of course, render this quite unnecessary. But, if your eyes are closed, and you have called upon this thing to lead you, asking it to explain to you the world it sees, you have no reason not to listen, nor to suspect that what it tells you is not true. Reason would tell you that it can't be true, BECAUSE you do not understand it. God has no secrets. He does not lead you through a world of misery, waiting to tell you, at the journey's end, why He did this to you. What could be secret from His Will? Yet you believe that YOU have secrets. What could your secrets be except ANOTHER will, that is your own, APART from His? "

"Your sight was given you, along with everything that you can understand. You will perceive no difficulty in understanding what this vision tells you. For everyone sees only what he thinks he IS. And what your sight will show you, you will understand BECAUSE it is the truth. Only your vision can convey to you what YOU can see. It reaches you directly, without a need to be interpreted to you. What needs interpretation MUST be alien. Nor will it ever be made understandable, by an interpreter you cannot understand. Of all the messages you have received and failed to understand, this course alone is OPEN to your understanding, and CAN be understood."

"Reason will tell you that they must have seen each other through a vision not of the body, and communicated in a language the body does not speak"

"My condemnation keeps my vision dark, and through my sightless eyes I cannot see the vision of my glory."

"The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another. That is because the real vision is still so dim."

"Miracles are seen in light" "It is important to remember that miracles and vision necessarily go together. This needs repeating and frequent repeating. It is a central idea in your new thought system and the perception which it produces. The miracle is always there. Its presence is not caused by your vision; its absence is not the result of your failure to see. It is only your awareness of miracles that is affected. You will see it in the light; you will not see it in the dark."

"Only be quiet. You will need no rule but this to let your practicing today lift you above the thinking of the world, and free your vision from the body's eyes."

"To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent you will perceive attack cannot BE justified. This is in strict accord with vision's FUNDAMENTAL law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this."

"But on His Vision sin can NOT encroach, for sin HAS BEEN corrected by His sight."

"What is the resurrection?" "Here the curriculum ends. From here on, no directions are needed. Vision is wholly corrected and all mistakes undone."

"Now there are no distinctions. Differences have disappeared and Love looks on Itself. What further sight is needed? What remains that vision could accomplish? We have seen the face of Christ, His sinlessness, His Love behind all forms, beyond all purposes."

"These things await us all, but we are not prepared as yet to welcome them with joy. As long as any mind remains possessed of evil dreams, the thought of hell is real. God's teachers have the goal of wakening the minds of those asleep, and seeing there the vision of Christ's face to take the place of what they dream. The thought of murder is replaced with blessing."

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"These are among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body's eyes can see. You also believe the body's brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea." " Yet this is no more foolish than to believe the body's eyes can see; the brain can know."

"It is your weakness that sees through the body's eyes, peering about in darkness to behold the likeness of itself; the small, the weak, the sickly and the dying, those in need, the helpless and afraid, the sad, the poor, the starving and the joyless. These are seen through eyes which cannot see and cannot bless. Strength overlooks these things by seeing past appearances. It keeps its steady gaze upon the light that lies beyond them. It unites with light, of which it is a part. It sees itself. It brings the light in which your Self appears. In darkness you perceive a self that is not there."

"The body's eyes are closed, and as you think of him who grieved you, let your mind be shown the light in him beyond your grievances."

"You can SEE reason. This is not a play on words, for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. Vision is sense, quite literally. If it is not the body's sight, it MUST be understood. For it is PLAIN, and what is obvious is not ambiguous. It CAN be understood. And here do reason and the ego separate, to go their different ways."

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For this the body's eyes are perfect means. But not for seeing. See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and cannot go beyond. Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning."

"Let not the FORM of his mistakes keep you from him whose holiness is yours. Let not the vision of his holiness, the sight of which would show you your forgiveness, be kept from you by what the body's eyes can see. Let your awareness of your brother not be blocked by your perception of his sins, and of his body. What is there in him that you would attack, except what you associate with his body, which YOU believe can sin? Beyond his errors is his holiness, and YOUR salvation. You gave him not his holiness, but tried to see your sins in him, to save yourself. And yet his holiness IS your forgiveness. Can YOU be saved by making sinful the one whose holiness is your salvation?"

"There has been some controversy (in human terms) as to whether seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all." " The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything." "Only the mind sees".

"Your world is seen through eyes of fear, and brings the witnesses of terror to your mind. The real world cannot be perceived except through eyes forgiveness"

"I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ."

"You keep an ancient memory before your eyes. And he who lives in memories alone is unaware of where he IS."

"The real world is attained simply by the COMPLETE forgiveness of the old; the world you see WITHOUT forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake WITH you the careful searching of the mind that MADE this world, and uncover TO YOU the SEEMING reasons for your making it. In the light of the REAL reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will SHOW you that there is NO reason here at all. Each spot HIS reason touches, grows alive with beauty. And what SEEMED ugly, in the darkness of your LACK of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity, could be without a hidden spark of beauty, that gentleness could release.

All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world, reaching quietly and gently across chaos, and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."

"Forgiveness is the home of miracles. The eyes of Christ deliver them to all they look upon in mercy and in love. Perception stands corrected in His sight, and what was meant to curse has come to bless. Each lily of forgiveness offers all the world the silent miracle of love. And each is laid before the Word of God upon the universal altar to Creator and creation, in the Light of perfect purity and endless joy."

"Seen through understanding eyes the holiness of the world is all I see, for I can picture only the thoughts I hold about myself."

"Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. They are His substitutes for all the terrifying sights and screaming sounds the ego's purpose brought to your horrified awareness. They step away from sin, reminding you that it is not reality that frightens you, and that the errors which you made CAN be corrected.

When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision? And after vision, who is there who could refuse what MUST come after? Think but an instant just on this. You can behold the holiness God gave His Son. And never need you think that there is something else for you to see."

"This is your purpose now, and the vision that makes it yours is ready to be given. You have the vision that enables you to see the body not. And as you look upon each other, you will see an altar to your Father, holy as Heaven, glowing with radiant purity, and sparkling with the shining lilies you laid upon it."

And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see. For you will not interpret what you see without the Aid that God has given you. And in His sight there IS another world. You live in that world just as much as this, for both are concepts of yourself, which can be interchanged, but never jointly held. The contrast is far greater than you think, for you will love this concept of yourself, because it was not made for you alone. Born as a gift for someone not perceived to be yourself, it has been given YOU. For your forgiveness, offered unto him, has been accepted now for BOTH of you."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals."

"Accept the one illusion which proclaims there is no condemnation in God's Son, and Heaven is remembered instantly; the world forgotten, all its weird beliefs forgotten with it, as the Face of Christ appears unveiled at last in this one dream. This is the gift the Holy Spirit holds for you from God your Father."

"Now is there silence all around the world. Now is there stillness where before there was a frantic rush of thoughts that made no sense. Now is there tranquil light across the face of earth, made quiet in a dreamless sleep. And now the Word of God alone remains upon it. Only That can be perceived an instant longer. Then are symbols done, and everything you ever thought you made completely vanished from the mind which God forever knows to be His only Son."

"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike. Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done. And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God. God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant, and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause. For where God's memory has come at last there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies, and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

"The stars will disappear, and night and day will be no more. All things that come and go, the tides, the seasons, and the lives of men; all things that change with time and bloom and fade, will not return."

"The stars will disappear in light, and the sun, which opened up the world to beauty, will vanish. Perception will be meaningless, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will have no function. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."