Sometimes when an old hurt is coming out, you'll start to project it onto someone else. It's kind of as if you switch on a movie projector, you fetch an old tape from your vault, load it up and press play. The movie starts to project and you start to see it and experience it. Except now it's mapped onto other people who probably were totally unrelated to causing it, which starts to make it seem like they are causing it.

As you project, you are kind of hurling the pain at someone else. Whatever the issue is, let's say you are angry at someone for how they treated you or that they acted a certain way that was hurtful. As this hurt comes up in your mind, it will find a target and project toward it. It actually tries to turn that person INTO the person that you are upset about, and you start interpreting their actions as though they're doing exactly what that person did.

And as you do this projecting, it's kind of like you are judging, condemning and attacking the person with this stuff. You're trying to turn them into this stuff, to fill the role. And for most people this actually influences them and may cause them to start acting in a way that fits the 'role' that you are projecting. And this makes it even more plausible that all of this upset is because of them.

In the midst of such hallucinations you can really get to believing that this person is doing this to you, and at the same time you are feeling the old hurt, and putting two and two together you think its because of them. But what's really happening is the person is just triggering your old hurt and you're not really dealing with it.

Whatever the person seems to be doing, it likely is similar to what someone else did in your past. Form-wise it may not be similar at all. It could be that the person has the same attitude, or reminds you of how someone was a certain way when around you, even though their physical behavior and appearance may be different. The psychological 'content' seems to match and this creates a connection.

In this state of semi-consciousness it's pretty hard to realize that this is what is going on, especially when you're convinced it's all to do with this other person. But what you're feeling is your own stuff, for which you are responsible, and this projection is just hurting the other person. You are accusing them of what you believe someone else did to you so that you have a way to scapegoat the energy and seem to get it out of your mind. Which doesn't work.

The only way is to realize that you are triggered, you are reacting, you are re-experiencing old stuff, it's nothing to do with anyone else, and you need to own it and heal it. Taking the burden off the shoulders of the other person is a good start.

Think of an apple. Now think of a knife cutting through the apple. The knife is separation. BOTH sides of the knife will experience the effects of separation. The knife will come between them and attack both of them. The inner and the outer will both suffer.

So sickness, as an implementation of the separation idea, isn't just happening to you. It's happening towards yourself and its happening towards others.

What applies to you applies equally to everyone else. That's the rule of the Holy Spirit's thought system, and the truth of how your mind works.

You cannot attack yourself without attacking others. You cannot separate yourself from the truth without pushing others away, which is an attack.

This is why Jesus explains that when we have sickness in the body, we are using sickness as an attack on our brother. The sick are always accusers. A sick body is a sign of an unhealed mind. And sickness is a device for separating you from everything else through attack upon yourself and others.

Death, as pathetically powerless as it seems to be, is the ultimate form of attack. It's not only an attempt to attack yourself so thoroughly that you completely separate from Life, but is also actually an attempt to attack Life - all life. Those who die are attempting to destroy all of creation. And they are attempting to destroy God. Their insistence that God is dead, which is a vicious attack, causes them to die.

So don't think of sickness as, one person has this sickness and another person doesn't. Sickness comes BETWEEN people. It is a separation device, a wall, a crow bar leveraged in-between what once was whole and joined and connected. It comes as a defense and as an attack. All defenses (against the truth or wholeness) are attacks.

So yes, everyone who is sick right now, is attacking not only themselves and God, but also everyone else. Anyone with a common cold is attempting to destroy themselves and others. This is why many supposed forms of sicknesses are contagious as well - an expression of the idea of attacking not only self but others also.

If you are sick it is because you have gone into isolation which means you have attempted to isolate yourself FROM others, but in so doing, also isolating OTHERS from you. Sickness is always a double-edged sword. It hurts you and it hurts everyone. It is applied to the whole sonship simultaneously.

It may seem in this world that for the most part, the sick are the only ones who suffer, or what can happen to them isn't happening to anyone else. But this isn't true. This is why a joining of minds with your brother can heal sickness because sickness is separation in the mind - separation between separate selves, who really are One.

Your sickness keeps you imprisoned and keeps everyone else imprisoned along with you. I'm not trying to make this a guilt-trip, but we need to recognize it for what it is so that we can be free of it. Self-attack is all-attack. Sickness is an attack on everyone.

Recently I've seen how it is detrimental to spend a lot of time trying to diagnose problems or to even understand what is happening. But this was mainly in the realm of what's happening with other people. Now I've come up with a problem closer to home ... my thumb hurts.

So now this same lesson seems to be in my body. I noticed that I kept doing the same thing - trying to figure out why it hurts, what's wrong with it, what could've happened, etc. These are all ego reactions. And I even sort of thought to myself, it's probably not exactly helpful for me to have thoughts of "what's wrong with it" so often. I felt worried about it, afraid it might be arthritis or repetative strain or something. Surely those thoughts are attack thoughts.

It's a bit easier to detach from these reactions of ego trying to diagnose and figure out when it's about other people, but when it's in your own body and it Involves pain, it's harder.

Nevertheless. This is obviously a LESSON in which I am to learn NOT how to diagnose and figure out what is going on, but instead, to learn how to HEAL IT.

This is really a shift between responses. The response of the ego will always be to use my mind and intellect to try to understand, figure out, diagnose, assess, and explain, 'why' this is happening. Obviously that does absolutely nothing to heal it, and all it really does it assumes and accepts that 'it is really happening', which is the anti-atonement. Explaining why something has gone wrong does absolutely nothing to undo it.

The alternative response is that of God/Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit doesn't respond with diagnosis. He doesn't need to figure out what it is. He isn't deceived by illusions. He doesn't have to pick it apart and try to piece together a picture or history of what led up to this. He doesn't need to dig into thoughts to 'try' to discover, and possibly not discover, what the cause is. He already knows everything. He is already completely certain of the truth. And he has absolute ability to heal ANYTHING, right now, already, ready to go. And so His, and therefore my, response to this thumb, should be, to simply HEAL IT NOW with love, and to think only loving things about it.

Spirit is ready right now to heal. Spirit is completely certain and aware of the truth right now. Spirit already knows everything it needs to know about illusions to undo and correct them right now. And Spirit has complete willingness to heal it right now, without delay. God is permanently in a state of health and radiation of health so it is God's will that I be fully healthy. I command this thumb be healed right now in Jesus's name and all pain to leave and thumb be made completely whole right now. Holy Spirit I invite you into my thumb. Clear this mistake and undo all of the consequences of my wrong decision whatever that may be, correct my mind and remove these symptoms. NOW.

What I heard just now... Is "trust". Trusting Holy Spirit to heal and correct, rather than trusting the ego to explain and diagnose what it thinks is happening. So it's like, do I turn to the earth doctor who seems all educated and knowledgeable about specific things, or do I surrender and trust Holy Spirit to not only know how to heal it but to actually allow him TO heal it.

I trust you Holy Spirit. I open to receive your love and healing right now. Come.

The main reason why you automatically assume that other people do stuff to you, and that it affects you, is because you assume that you are currently aware of the entire content of your own mind.

Your little 'conscious self' believes that everything about you, everything that is in you, you must be conscious of right now. If you're not conscious of it, you believe it does not exist and is not a part of you, except that maybe you accept you have 'memories' stored somewhere. But you don't generally accept that you have 'reactions' stored somewhere, or 'wounds', or 'emotional content'.

This is how most of us perceive and engage and live our lives, as little conscious selves that believe we are fully aware of every part of ourselves, as though any and all previous trauma or upset simply does not exist in you anymore.

So then what happens is, someone comes along and offers to be a victimizer and does something 'to you'. You refer to your vast catalog of immediate personal awarewness and you do not have awareness of anything `in you` that even remotely resembles upsets, guilts, fears, sins, hurts, pains, unhappiness, grief, etc. All you're currently aware of is your present mood and a handful of thoughts and that's about it.

So this person does something and all of a sudden, inside you there appears a big giant elephant made of guilt and fear. It feels terrible. It came out of NOWHERE! And because it was not there before, you're pretty sure that must mean the victimizer PUT IT THERE or caused it to be there. You don't even think it is YOUR upset. Everything about it is their fault because, if this whole scenario is the truth, and if this content was not in you previously, then obviously it MUST be their fault.

So this is our default ego reaction mode. Stuff just pops into our experience internally that we're convinced was not there before, and it doesn't feel good, so we blame its 'creation' on someone else - they are the cause.

So when you look at it, this all stems from the fact that you have a stinking heap of shit LURKING in your mind, OUTSIDE your awareness, unconsciously lingering in the background. Out of sight, out of mind. Its hidden behind denial and repression and suppression. It's covered over with layer upon layer of rejection and avoidance. And each layer of it conceals and hides even more deeper layers that you don't even realize are `in there`.

If it weren't for this unconsciousness, and if you were fully aware right now of the ENTIRE content of your mind, and if someone came along and 'did something to you', you would immediately know that NOTHING CHANGED. Your content was already there. All your guilts and hurts and fears were already there in your awareness and you were already experiencing them fully. The person did not add anything, so that means.... you know they are innocent.

Long story short.... you blame everyone and everything for your own experience of life because they keep causing your own stuff to come into your awareness and you FORGOT it was there, because you buried it and hoped it would go away. Other people come along to RE-MIND you - to get you to look at your shit and become aware of the stuff you DO NOT WANT, so that you will actually take productive steps to really heal it and undo your belief in it being true.

So everyone is just trying to help you. Everything is for your benefit. And for that you can be grateful.

Someday when you are done purifying your mind, releasing old pain, healing wounds and undoing all trace that anything even seemed to happen at all, you WILL be walking around in FULL awareness of all of yourself, because you will be awake. And you WILL know that everyone is innocent, and you will know that nobody can add to or take away from what is already in you.

Maybe it's your hair, the shape of your face, or some other body part. Maybe it's how you speak. Maybe it's the way you walk or where you came from.

In one way or another, you probably walk around with layer upon layer of not being what someone somewhere thinks you should be.

You might think you are dysfunctional, or broken, or defective, or incapable, or somehow just fundamentally flawed. People might treat you like you're disabled, less than them, or inferior.

The problem isn't so much that other people are constantly bombarding you with these judgements, but that you've accepted them for yourself as though they are true of you. You believe in them and make them your identity, even if it hurts.

But this also means you have the choice, whether to let go of this false sense of worth and identity, or whether to hold on a while longer.

What if these views that you have of yourself are not really true about you? What if there's really nothing wrong with you at all? What if everyone has been mistaken about you, but even moreso, you've been mistaken about yourself?

What if you're still just as worthy and valuable to God as you always have been, and you just forgot for a while, thinking you were no longer acceptable?

Love loves you unconditionally forever and ever and ever. You are worthy of God's love, right now. You don't have to earn it. It's being offered unconditionally and freely without any strings attached.

Let yourself be loved.

Lately I'm noticing more and more often, I just don't want to blame. I'm believing in "real sin" less and less.

I didn't see this coming, and it's not that I've been deliberately working on not being blameful. But I'm starting to see why this makes sense.

When I blame, I am believing that there is some "other" that's not me, that I'm finding responsible for some kind of guilt or sin. This so-called other is actually a part of my own self which I split off in my mind and attack. This attack seems to cause a hallucinated projection onto other people, in which the disassociation from the "conscious" part of my mind makes it seem like it's all to do with someone else.

But the truth is that my attack is actually coming from me, and it is going TO me. And in fact, I am not even really attacking anyone else at all. I think I am, but I'm not.

In the ego's thought system of denial, it really does seem like it is not only possible to find someone else guilty for our own belief in our own sinfulness, but that they can receive ALL of the blame and we receive none of it. We actually think we can scapegoat someone and make them wrong and find them guilty and that this has NO effect on ourselves whatsoever. i.e. Do unto others as you would NOT have them do unto you.

This is of course a complete illusion. While it persists, we go around blaming people because we think that we CAN, as a viable "option" for getting rid of our own sinfulness. Introducing a separation between cause and effect, we think we can be free of the effects and responsibilities of our sin, and someone else can take the hit. And we want to make especially sure that the separation between both is strong so as to be strongly convinced no nasty effects are going to leak back onto ourselves.

But what has to dawn on our mind is not only that we are responsible for 100% of what we are experiencing, but also that everything that has happened we have therefore done to ourselves, and therefore there ARE no causes outside of us, and thus there are no grounds for blame.

This also reveals to the mind that while it thought it was capable of attacking someone "else" with no effects on itself, it actually WAS attacking itself. At first it will think that it was attacking both itself and others, but then it will also dawn that it was in fact ONLY attacking itself. In our egos we live in private worlds of self-attack, at war with ourselves, in our split mind with multiple personalities. It doesn't even really involved anyone else at all, we just pretend it does. When we are willing to become aware that we are ONLY doing it to ourselves, then a whole new kind of experience starts to emerge. This is what's starting to happen to me now.

I am getting this feeling that I just don't WANT to blame people for anything. I haven't deliberately been trying to stop blaming as such, it's just sort of emerging. Some part of me seems to be aware that if I blame, in the act of blame, there is an attack and that *I* actually receive at least some of the effects of that attack. It's not true that the other person is 100% separated from me, and it's not true that they are really guilty. If I am being responsible, it MUST mean that I am doing this to myself and am attacking myself.

So each time I go to scapegoat, i.e. pretend that I even CAN scapegoat, I'm starting to learn or realize that the "blame" is ACTUALLY from myself, to myself, and I WILL experience effects from that. I am becoming aware of those effects, rather than being unconscious of it. And the fact is, outside of denial, this self attack HURTS ME. I do not want to keep hurting myself. It is a natural response, really.

If you could be aware that you can ONLY do anything to yourself, and that if you attack, YOU will be the one who gets ALL of the effects, you would not attack.

It is only because we've been unconscious and split in our mind and believing that there is an "other" that all of the responsibility can be given to (disowning of self), that we even CONCEIVE of the idea of displacing blame onto this "other". Or even that doing so might cause us to NOT be experiencing the effects of the sin. It is only because of DENIAL that it even seems possible that this would be helpful in alleviating guilt.

So while I am in denial and am being dishonest and irresponsible and believing that i am really sinful, I'm going to be really compelled to try to split myself off from that and project it somewhere. But the truth is, I'm not escaping it. Self-attack is self-attack. Nobody else is even being attacked by me at all, so it's not even as though there is this motivation to "be nice to other people". My self-attack has NOTHING to do with anyone else at all, and in truth, NOBODY receives any effects from it. No real effects anyway.

So it's not even as though I'm doing this out of GUILT in relation to trying to be kinder to others. That would actually be a form of self sacrifice which is ego. Instead, it's just the natural dawning of AWARENESS, that because I am responsible, I literally AM doing unto MYSELF as I would have MYSELF do unto me. I am attacking myself, and it is my belief that I am really sinful that is the root of this attack.

So as we have the courage to look at our own belief in our own sinfulness, in the idea of "real sin", and are finding some genuine healing atonement for this, it seems like the truth that we are only attacking ourselves becomes more obvious. I just am becoming aware that if I attack, *I* will feel hurt, and I just don't want to feel that anymore. I don't want to keep finding myself sinful, because now it's not a game of whether or not anyone else is being forgiven (you cannot forgive anyone other than yourself, and there is no need to!), it's a game between me and myself now and how I want to be towards myself.

I don't want to blame others, because I don't want to blame myself, because I don't want to keep finding myself sinful and guilty. I am just losing interest in it. It hurts to hurt myself. I don't want that. This is how my interests become shared interests with others. This is what leads to literally doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, which really means, you are DOING LOVE to others BECAUSE you love yourself. You cannot really do anything to others unless it IS love, because everything else is really self attack.

So it's funny but, in situations where I would've gone right into blame and accusation and scapegoating, I just can't seem to believe my own bullshit anymore. I know its dishonest and irresponsible and denial and not true that it's anyone else's fault. Nobody has done anything to me. No-one is the cause of my upset. I am choosing it. I'm doing this to myself. And I want to stop doing that. I want to recognize my true innocence, and learn to love myself again.

Surrendering to self-love shared with God. I am worthy because in the atonement, it is true that I have not really done anything real, and therefore am still innocent. Accepting that produces a justification to love yourself.

Even people who are some of the highest teachers, continue to disagree about who is right and who is wrong or what the truth is.

There is a system, world-wide, universe-wide, an inherent feature of this illusory existence, in that absolutely everything is against absolutely everything else.

While there is not oneness, there is disagreement. While there are multiple truths, there is disagreement. While there is opinion, there is disagreement.

We have to ask ourselves, do we want to put aside all personal opinions and ideas and accept the ONE TRUTH, an unquestionable truth, which God has set in place, OR do we want to have it be some other way that we are proud of coming up with by ourselves?

This is precisely why no-one can agree about what happens to the body, how the body works, what diet is best for anyone, the cause of any sickness, what helps or hurts, or who is right about any of it. Trying to figure out what is happening or why it's happening or how to fix it is a total minefield of utter bullshit, conflicting opinions, and basically NO-ONE knowing what the fuck they're talking about.

This is the ego world. This is how it is in a split mind, a mind with so many separate wills, all different and against each other, all of them blinded in some way, that not one single one of them can see the whole truth.

It's never about people having to agree with me or others or anyone. It's about, do we agree with God? Will we accept the only truth? Are we prepared to surrender all of our own faculties of attempting to invent or change the truth to suit our own beliefs, to allow God to tell us directly what the truth is - in an experience of revelation or total awakening?

No-one is right in an ego world. There is no truth in illusions. There is no truth in the world. The truth is not out there in the world. It's not in someone's explanation, someone's scientific study, someone's opinion, someone's education, someone's viewpoint or anywhere else. The truth is only within, in a direct connection and union with God. That's the only truth. And you're either ACTUALLY in that relationship of Oneness, or you're in denial.

The golden rule is the nature and law of God. In God, everything is equal and shared. What applies to one brother applies to all brothers. What is true of me is true of you. But even moreso, because brothers are ONE, they literally share identity and soul. I am in you and you are in me. We are part of each other. We are irrevocably joined and share everything, even our selves.

We can describe this as the golden rule, in which what I do to you I also do to myself. There is no option or clause that your brother MIGHT treat you a certain way. You treat your brother a certain way SO THAT you are treated a certain way, because you ARE him, and so you are DIRECTLY treating yourself how you would wish to be treated.

There are no exceptions to this and it is impossible to violate or break this law or be outside of it. It is always operating, whether you are accepting of it and living by it, or whether you are attempting to ignore it and pretend it doesn't apply to you.

If we are one, then I have a shared interest with you. Whatever I do to you I do to myself. Whatever I give to you I receive. Giving and receiving are one. If I were to attack you, I'd be attacking myself. Therefore, it's in my own best interests to ONLY LOVE, otherwise I will make MYSELF suffer, and by my own hand. I have to INCLUDE you, otherwise I will suffer from exclusion.

"Ego" is nothing more than an attempt to oppose, deny and ignore this law. It is an attempt to pretend that it does not apply. That I am not you and you are not me. That we are not equal. That what applies to me doesn't apply to you, because we are different. If we are separate, we not one, and now I should have my own selfish interests - survival of the fittest.

It's like, were both standing on the same floor. Then there is a separation, like an earthquake. The floor cracks in two. I now seem to be on one side, and you on the other. But also the heights of the floors have shifted, and mine is slightly above yours. The two floors are now separate and different and not equal.

This is the separation from God, the seeming split in the mind, which suggests that instead of us all being one, we are now two, split apart, separated off, isolated in our own private territories, and kept apart. We can't seem to share because we can't span the divide of the broken ground, and everything we do is separate.

On this basis of separation, or not being able to share, the breakdown in unity, the collapse of oneness, the arising of exclusion, and the seeming imprisonment on either side of the rift, we get the denial of the golden rule. It seems possible now that because I am not a part of you, and am separate and isolated on my own island, I can only now think of my OWN interests. What I do to myself is done to myself alone, and if I throw a rock over at you, it hurts only you and not me.

While I might believe that what I do to you is NOT done to myself, or what is true of you is NOT true of me, it becomes possible to enter this state where we're trying to get away with murder. It suggests I could attack you, and escape the consequences. I could do something to you which is not done to me. I could give something that I do NOT receive, because I am not INCLUDED in it, because I've become EXCLUDED from you. As though giving and receiving are not one.

So the whole ego system is all about this sense of being exclusive, separated off, not sharing, not one, unequal, different, disconnected, dis-associated, and isolated. Our whole belief then shifts to it seeming to be plausible that we can attack without being hurt, or we can accuse without being accused, or we can make someone be guilty to take the guilt off our own shoulders. That no matter what we cause, we can escape the effects. I can hurt you, and not myself.

So this is then what the ego does, all the time. IT HAS ONE MODE of functioning. It's all it CAN do, because it is ONLY the idea of separation. Its aim is to emphasize, enhance, increase, and deepen the sense of being separate, so that IT increases. That's it's only goal. To attack ever more strongly and cause ever more disruption in equality. It's entire existence DEPENDS on the continuation of this inequality, this rift between brothers, and this sense that you cannot share anything with anyone because they're separated from you.

If the two floors or islands were to meet, and reconnect, and level out, and become one single unified space again, the two brothers could be reunited, and all sense of inequality and difference would melt. And ALSO there would have to now be an acceptance of the golden rule, because if we are sharing everything, then what applies to me now also applies to you and vice versa. We are now the SAME. We are one. So I cannot do anything to you without doing it to myself.

The interesting thing is that even when we're in an ego state of believing that we ARE separate, and are not a part of others, the golden rule actually still applies. We can BELIEVE that we are attacking something "not myself", and we can BELIEVE that the effects are being felt ONLY by that other separate person, and we can BELIEVE that we completely escape any consequences for it, BUT WE DO NOT. Because there are dire consequences STILL operating, consequences which are SELF INFLICTED, which CANNOT be avoided.

If you attack another, you STILL attack yourself, because you STILL ARE them. If you hurt another, you ARE hurting yourself. If you try to destroy another, you ARE destroying yourself. You may not REALIZE that you are, because you think of yourself as PROTECTED BY THE SEPARATENESS, as if the prison walls keep you SAFE. And so you think that attacking someone makes you SAFER. But it in fact erodes your safety because the more you attack the more YOU become imprisoned and weakened.

"Exclusion and separation are synonymous. So are separation and dissociation. We have said before that the separation was and IS dissociation, and also that once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the device which KEEPS IT GOING. The reason, however, may not be as clear to you as you think. What you project you disown, and therefore DO NOT BELIEVE IS YOURS. You are therefore EXCLUDING yourself from it, by the very statement you are making that you are DIFFERENT from someone else. Since you have also judged AGAINST what you project, you attack it because you have already attacked it BY rejecting it. By doing this UNCONSCIOUSLY, you try to keep the fact that you must have attacked yourself FIRST out of awareness, and thus imagine that you have made yourself safe."

You cannot be strong without your brother. You cannot be happy without your brother. You cannot be healthy without your brother. You cannot be loved without your brother. You cannot be powerful without your brother. You cannot be free without your brother. You cannot be innocent without your brother. You cannot be holy without your brother.

So if you try to attack in any way, to produce the separation, to make yourself MORE separate, emphasizing the ways that someone else is an inferior evil shit that you hate and who should feel terribly guilty for being so wrong, YOU ARE accusing yourself of this. So you might ask yourself, "would I accuse myself of this?" You will think you're NOT accusing yourself because you don't see yourself as A PART OF the other person, but you are still doing it.

There is a HUGE COST to attempting to ignore the golden rule. The cost is that your mind becomes split, you become self-destructive and suicidal, you become alone and lonely, you become weakened and live in darkness, the world becomes a nightmare of conflict and war, you lose all sense of peace and happiness, communication breaks down and you become unable to relate to anyone, it makes you question whether you even exist, and you will try to destroy yourself. That's a pretty major cost for believing something that isn't true, as if it were real.

You DO have a vested interest, because when you attack you DO experience consequences, even if you do not REALIZE that you do. You may not recognize that every time you attack you feel worse. You may not recognize that when you hate someone you feel awful and guilty.

You may not recognize that when you accuse someone angrily of being guilty of something, to make yourself feel better, you increase your sense of being separate and small and weak and alone. Or that anger hurts your mind and body. You have to recognize what the consequences of attack ARE, so that you will decide that you do not WANT to be murderous anymore, because it actually is not REALLY in your best interests.

The golden rule always applies. It is never broken or violated. You can deny it. If you deny it you will suffer. If you deny it you will be confused as to why your life sucks, and you will probably blame it on someone else, thinking that they are not you, and that therefore you haven't blamed yourself. Everything you do you to do yourself and to all your brothers, to the entire sonship and to God. This is also the secret of salvation. You are INCLUDED IN EVERYTHING. And inclusion is ultimately love.

I was thinking for a while that maybe certain people were inept. Maybe it was certain groups of people. Maybe it was medical people. And maybe it was the body. Maybe it was just some portion of things. But the more I look at it the more I realize that the ENTIRE WORLD, the whole SYSTEM of thought of this lower-order reality of spacetime, is fundamentally broken. It is an impossible system, based on laws of failure and lack and insufficiency.

The whole thing functions in a ridiculously faulty way. Every motion, every action, every doing, every impulse, causes a disruption and changes and side effects. You cannot do anything physical without it potentially leading to more problems. Everything you do to fix something gives rise to new problems. Every use of materials degrades the material. Every aspect of this entire cosmos is fundamentally stupid as fuck and ridiculously backwards.

The whole thing simultaneously gives one thing and takes away another, in a two-faced self-contradicting self-denying expression of incapability and limitation. Nothing in the world has any ability ever to truly do anything unconditionally or perfectly. There is no unlimited giving, no flawless correction, no ultimate solution, no perfect response, no clear answer, and no magical salvation.

There is literally no salvation in the world which produces a state of utter hopelessness. This is the stupidity of the world at large, and the whole thing is one big giant fuckup. There is no escape from it. The only way out of this hell is through transcendence and forgiveness, recognizing it is NOT REAL, and therefore thankfully there ARE no unsolvable problems. Such is the miracle's ability to reverse everything the world says can never be undone.

The world is an ILLUSION. An illusion that presents itself as being one thing when in fact it is its opposite. Everything it tries to do it does the opposite. Every way it helps it hurts. Every pleasure leads to pain. Every solution becomes broken. It cannot go towards God because everything if offers ALWAYS points towards death and destruction. Even its so-called "life" has death in it.

Contemplating this fact of the world's bullshittery made me laugh so much.

"Real choice is no illusion. But the world has none to offer. ALL its roads but lead to disappointment, nothingness and death. There IS no choice in its alternatives. Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped. Be not deceived by all the different names its roads are given. They have but one end. And each is but the means to GAIN that end, for it is here that all its roads will lead, however differently they seem to start; however differently they seem to go. Their end is certain, for there is no choice among them. All of them will lead to death. On some you travel gaily for a while, before the bleakness enters. And on some the thorns are felt at once. The choice is not WHAT will the ending be, but WHEN it comes."

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

"You do not really want the world you see, 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."

"Thus does the miracle undo all things the world attests can never BE undone. And hopelessness and death MUST disappear before the ancient clarion call of life. This call has power FAR beyond the weak and miserable cry of death and guilt."

The ego doesn't have any real power of its own. Its only strategy is to try to get you to willingly give your power to it.

To do this, it has to present to you some kind of temptation or lie, something untrue, and generally something that upsets you in some way. If it can especially get you to have a reaction, or be triggered, then you have fell for its trap.

The ego uses your own beliefs and your own blind-spots, as a way to get you to agree to go along with it. While you remain unconscious and attached to a certain egoic belief, you are quite literally agreeing with the ego and giving it permission to use this against you.

The ego cannot take power from you, you have to give it away. When you give it away, you give it away through playing the role of a victim, perhaps entering into fear or guilt etc. This is your way of making it seem as though the power you share with God has now been separated from God and is handed over to the ego.

In certain other religious circles, this principle is taught in terms of the devil, sin, and how the devil operates. That is, that you first must sin which means you believe in something that's mistaken. Then based on this sin, you have literally agreed that something untrue is true. And now this creates an 'open door' and an invitation and a resonant agreement, which allows 'the evil' to come in and control you. This is also how evil 'spirits' enter people's lives. Because YOU have violated a law of God, so to speak, by going against it, you have permitted darkness/ego/devil to use this darkness against you.

But notice here that the ego/devil does not actually have its own power. And it completely depends on you agreeing with it, and continuing the 'sin' i.e. the false belief. It also does not actually have any power to prevent you from undoing that belief, or choosing again, or waking up. It has ZERO 'actual' control over you, besides your own willingness to play along. If you were to decide to stop playing along, and to withdraw your belief, and to take back your power knowing it is yours, and knowing that the ego can do absolutely NOTHING to stop you, the ego would be dis-empowered.

The only tool the ego has is the presentation of illusions, in an attempt to try to play upon what you believe and to convince you that it is either your friend and ally, or to distract you from choosing again by throwing fears or guilts or rationalizations or whatever else your way, to try to once again push your buttons or pull up your past hurts or play upon your own fears, to keep you ensured in its mindset. And often, in unconsciousness, you will go along with this and be pulled right back in, but ONLY because you have not become conscious/aware enough yet to discern and to decide not to listen or believe what it's saying.

So really the ego is just a mirror for your own mis-beliefs. And it shows you and reflects back to you what you currently believe. Change your belief, and the reflection of that belief - the ego - must disappear.

There is nothing keeping you stuck. There is nothing stopping you but yourself. There is no reason why you can't be loved. There is no reason why you can't wake up. The only thing keeping you asleep is yourself.