Oneness does NOT mean you do not have a self or free will.
ACIM quotes:
God, Who encompasses all being, created beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy. (T-4.VII.5:1)
God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other. (T-6.II.8:1-2)
Creation is the sum of all God's Thoughts, in number infinite. (W-pII.11.1:1)
God knows His children with perfect certainty. He created them by knowing them. (T-3.III.7:9-10)
In the creation, God extended Himself to His creations and imbued them with the same loving Will to create. (T-2.I.1:2)
The constant going out of His Love is blocked when His channels are closed, and He is lonely when the minds He created do not communicate fully with Him. (T-4.VII.6:7)
What God does know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His children are wholly joyous….God's extending outward, though not His completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thought, "My children sleep and must be awakened." (T-6.V.1:5,7,8)
When the Atonement has been completed [and we are back in Heaven], all talents will be shared by all the Sons of God. (T-1.V.3:1)
When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed…the Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy. (T-5.I.5:5,7)
The Holy Spirit promotes healing by looking beyond it to what the children of God were before healing was needed, and will be when they have been healed. (T-5.II.1:2)
God has but one Son, knowing them all as one. (T-9.VI.3:5)
It should especially be noted that God has only one Son. If all His creations are His Sons, every one must be an integral part of the whole Sonship. The Sonship in its oneness transcends the sum of its parts. However, this is obscured as long as any of its parts is missing. That is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until all the parts of the Sonship have returned. (T-2.VII.6:1-5)
It should be noted that God has begotten only one Son. If you believe that all of the Souls that God created are His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul must be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have too great difficulty with this. The Sonship in its Oneness does transcend the sum of its parts. However, it loses this special state as long as any of its parts are missing. This is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until all of the individual parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then, in the true sense, can the meaning of wholeness be understood.
One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth. Yet do these thoughts make clear the meaning of creation? Do these words bring perfect clarity with them to you? What can they seem to be but empty sounds; pretty, perhaps, correct in sentiment, yet fundamentally not understood nor understandable. The mind that taught itself to think specifically can no longer grasp abstraction in the sense that it is all encompassing. We need to see a little, that we learn a lot. (W-pI.161.4:1 8)
When you are told what is natural, you cannot understand it. The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part is perfectly natural, for it is the way God thinks, and what is natural to Him is natural to you. (T-16.II.3:2-3)
Most people have an idea of what duality means. Usually a world of many separate things. Separate objects, separate bodies. A count beyond one.
This however isn't a full enough definition. Duality is also a matter of NOT SHARING. It's a state of mind in which you do not want to be joined with, share with, or have relationship with, anything or anyone. It's also a state of selfishness, therefore, because it opposes sharing. It produces isolation and disconnection. The ego thought system - the world of duality - is all about selfishness.
"Selfishness is of the ego" T-7.IX.1:4
If duality really means selfishness, what is the opposite of selfishness? It is sharing. But this requires that there be someone or something to share WITH. It cannot mean that there is only you there, or only God. It also requires that in absolute reality, in God, there must be something other than JUST God, such as your brothers, to share with. For example:
"You dwell in the Mind of God with your brother, for God Himself did not will to be alone." T-11.I.1:6
"Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself." T-11.I.5:7
God wanted to share himself. In fact we're also told that SHARING is the natural inherent property of reality.
"Nothing real can be increased except by sharing. ³That is why God created you. ⁴Divine Abstraction takes joy in sharing. ⁵That is what creation means." T-4.VII.5:2-5
We're told in ACIM itself, putting aside all interpretations by other well-meaning teachers and students, in Jesus's words, that God did NOT will to be the "only thing that exists". He did not will to be alone. He willed that there be ANOTHER, and CREATED at the very least one son.
He even goes on to say that God not ONLY willed to create at least one son, this son ALSO has the ability to create its own sons.
"God would not have us be alone because _He_ does not will to be alone. ⁷That is why He created His Son, and gave him the power to create with Him. ⁸Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself, as holy as He is." T-8.VI.8:6-8
Note also that it clearly states that God has SONS, not just one.
"The creations of every Son of God are yours, since every creation belongs to everyone, being created for the Sonship as a whole." T-7.IX.5:3
"The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons and their children, who are as like the Sons as they are like the Father. ¹¹Know, then, the Sons of God, and you will know all creation." T-7.XI.7:10-11
It's quite simply stating that God not only created many children, but that even those children in turn go on to create more children. The Sons of God form the sonship, which shares the One Mind of Christ. And collectively as the One Son, we all co-create with God to produce our own creations.
This is in fact why Jesus refers to us as having BROTHERS. The term brother means an equal sibling of the same parent. Because God did not will to be alone, and did not will us to be alone, he created MANY OF US, so that we would have permanent brothers IN heaven forever.
"Return with me to Heaven, walking together with your brother out of this world and through another, to the loveliness and joy the other holds within it." T-18.I.12:4)
"Here stands your brother with the key to Heaven in his hand, held out to you. T-24.II.7:6"
There is also a holy trinity in reality. God the father, the Sonship as the One Son comprising many sons and their creations, and the Holy Spirit. These are not conceptual or ego inventions, they are permanent.
"The Son of God is part of the Holy Trinity" T-3.II.5:4 "Your creations are your gift to the Holy Trinity, created in gratitude for your creation." T-8.VI.5:3)
The Holy Spirit is also a permanent eternal creation who will continue to exist along with the many sons even AFTER the atonement.
"When the Atonement is complete and the whole Sonship is healed there will be no Call to return. ⁶But what God creates is eternal. ⁷The Holy Spirit will remain with the Sons of God, to bless their creations and keep them in the light of joy." T-5.I.5:5-7
So what we have now is in fact a more fleshed out picture. Heaven, God's reality, comprises God, the Holy Spirit, the Sonshsip, which form the trinity. And the Sonship includes many sons, and many creations of many sons, who are also brothers. By the way there are angels as well, created by God.
Now, such a picture does not sound remotely like "non-duality." Someone came up with non-duality as an antithesis to duality, purely as a conceptual idea. It's an attempt to try to explain what the course is saying. Except that, it doesn't quite fit.
It fits in the sense that it may describe God himself, IF God were alone and willed to be alone. As a LOGICAL DEVICE, opposite to "many" means "one", a count of one. This is what non-duality logically means. There are many flaky and wishywashy definitions out there which have tried to glue toegether pieces of the course to make it fit with this, but the PUREST form of non-duality is that "there is literally only God."
This obviously does not FIT with what ACIM says, because it's told us that God is a creator, that he has created at least one child if not many, and that his child has has its own children. Not to mention also the holy spirit being created, and the trinity existing. All of this is not properly encompassed by the concept of non-duality.
Some people like non-duality ideas because they seem to suggest the antithesis to "separateness". As if it is the opposite of ego, the opposite of separation, and the way to undo all trace of the separation from God. But this is VERY BASIC logic and highly inaccurate in its representation of what JESUS ACTUALLY says.
The purest non-duality does not support God being a creator, or God sharing, or God having relationships, or God having even ONE son, or of God creating the Holy Spirit, or of YOU existing, or of you having any creations. It doesn't even allow for heaven to exist. All it does is reduce God to a singular blob, a very lonely isolated blob, which sits there all by itself doing nothing. That is NOT what God is like according to ACIM itself.
The problem is that many people have latched onto this non-duality "concept" and have tried to FORCE the course to fit into it, because they don't have a better OR more accurate model. And in many cases also because they don't recognize the shortcomings of this concept.
It's easy for anyone to say, well, if I get rid of all the separations which implied "many things", then I will get down to "one thing", and this is oneness, and it must be what reality is like. Except that, it isn't. Not by a long shot.
Not according to what Jesus has said about God ADDING to himself, and SHARING himself, and having REAL relationship with his Son, and HAVING a son, and CO-CREATING with him. Jesus's definition of ONENESS is not what you think it is. It is not the everyday definition. It's more to do with a SHARED WHOLENESS between two beings.
"This may appear to contradict the statement “I and my Father are one,” but there are two parts to the statement in recognition that the Father is greater. T-1.II.4:7
The urtext had a much fuller statement about this:
"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."
In fact we are told countless times that God is GREATER than us. We are supposed to have AWE of him, as his son. That God is the FIRST cause, and we are CO-creators as secondary causes. That "I am forever an effect of God". The whole notion of equating yourself with God is nonsense because this is what the whole authority problem is about. You are NOT at the same level or role as he is.
Urtext: "Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man. This is because God and man are NOT equal."
"God’s accomplishments are not yours, but yours are like His. ⁶He created the Sonship and you increase it. ⁷You have the power to add to the Kingdom, though not to add to the Creator of the Kingdom." T-7.I.2:5-7
There are so many aspects of ACIM that fly in the face of pure nonduality, and are contrary to the traditional idea of "oneness". It is NOT CORRECT to claim that ACIM is a non-dualistic teaching. And it is NOT correct to project an idea of "oneness" onto its statements. To be "one with" does not ERASE the fact that there are two things sharing that oneness. Heaven is all about sharing between many things, which is the opposite of many things which don't share.
In fact even individuality is an inherent part of reality. You HAD an individual existence as a soul BEFORE the separation from God ever came along. Individuality isn't even the problem. It's the unwillingness to SHARE that is the problem - selfishness is the problem. Not whether you HAVE a self.
"God, Who encompasses all being, created beings who have everything individually, but who want to share it to increase their joy.T-4.VII.5:1
Here ACIM has explicitly stated that God created a PLURAL OF BEINGS, in reality, who EACH had everything INDIVIDUALLY - as individuals, and who WANT TO SHARE so that THEIR collective joy increases. That is not in any stretch of the imagination a state of non-duality, or of "its all one thing", or "its all God".
What's needed is a much more accurate concept that maps to what ACIM actually says, and which supports and INCLUDES all of what it says, without trying to screen out stuff on the basis of making teh concept MORE right than the text. ACIM is a kind of "trans-duality", in which God has created many things which ARE still one. That the one and the many are coexisting through sharing. And that this is NOT duality, nor ANYTHING to do with the ego.
Heaven is in fact a holographic system. It is how God thinks. His whole creation and thought proceeds along holographic principles - where every part (son/creation) contains and IS the whole. This is NOT the same as duality. You have to open up to the idea that the many AND the one can COEXIST. That
the one IS many, and the many ARE one. This is stated here: "The recognition of the part as whole, and of the whole in every part is perfectly natural, for it is the way God thinks, and what is natural to Him is natural to you. T-16.II.3:3
"God has but one Son, knowing them all as One. T-9.VI.3:5 "Every child of God is one in Christ, for his being is in Christ as Christ’s is in God." T-12.VI.6:1
"God created His Sons by extending His Thought, and retaining the extensions of His Thought in His Mind. ²All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other. T-6.II.8:1-2"
Perhaps we can be willing to stop talking about ACIM as if it's some kind of non-duality teaching when it is utterly riddled with statements to the contrary. God is a creator and has a FAMILY in reality. And you are part of that family. And God LOVES YOU personally and EQUALLY.
"You cannot enter into real relationships with any of God’s Sons unless you love them all and equally. ²Love is not special. ³If you single out part of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on all your relationships and making them unreal." T-13.X.11:1-3
"Ultimately, every member of the family of God must return." T-1.V.4:1)
Btw these are ALL quotes from FIP 3rd edition. Put aside what other well-meaning people have told you and listen to what JESUS is telling you.
There are over 250 references to this in the course explicitly tying God to the creations of many individuals. To refuse to accept this is simply unwillingness and denial. It means that oneness does not equate to "no individuals". It also means ACIM is NOT non-duality and we are not one big blob.
The information below is courtesy of Robert Perry.
The Course uses a number of terms to speak of the plurality of Sons.
Sons
The Course uses the term "Sons" 82 times. Simply using a plural term like this, of course, implies that there is more than one Son. Further, the Sons are often associated directly with Heaven, implying that they are not just post-separation illusions: "The Kingdom of God includes all His Sons" (T-7.XI.7:10).
Children
The Course uses the term "children" to refer to the "children of God" 42 times. This, of course, is another plural term. It, too, is often used to speak of God's children in Heaven, not just on earth, thus making clear that it's not just a post-separation concept. For example, "God knows His children with perfect certainty. He created them by knowing them" (T-3.III.7:9-10).
Creations
Creation is a technical term in the Course, referring to an act that takes place solely in Heaven. The Course is clear that no creation takes place in this world: "In this world it is impossible to create" (T-17.IV.2:1). Interestingly, the Course uses the plural word "creations" 118 times, mostly referring to God's creations (though many times to our own heavenly creations). For instance, "In the creation, God extended Himself to His creations and imbued them with the same loving Will to create" (T-2.I.1:2).
Sonship
The term "Sonship" is used 104 times. It is particularly significant because it at once captures both the unity and plurality of the Son. Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the suffix "-ship" as referring to "the body of persons participating in a specified activity." The Sonship, then, is "the body of persons participating in the activity of being God's Son." It's clearly a membership concept. The Course refers to this, talking about "the members of the Sonship" (T-1.II.6:2). Further, the Course clearly links the Sonship with creation, which rules out the idea that the Sonship is a post-separation product: "The Sonship is the sum of all that God created" (T-1.I.19:2). "He [God] created the Sonship" (T-7.I.2:6).
Other terms
There are a number of other terms the Course uses to denote the plurality of Sons. Parts: "the parts of God's Son" (T-20.V.1:5), "parts of the Sonship" (T-12.IV.6:8). Aspects: "all aspects of the Sonship" (T-13.VI.6:4). Extensions: "His [God's] extensions are like Him" (T-12.IV.6:8). Channels: "His [God's] communication channels are not open to Him" (T-6.V.1:5). Brothers: "In every case you have thought wrongly about some brother God created" (T-4.IV.2:3). Minds: "all the minds which God created one with me" (W-pI.156.8:6). God's Thoughts: "All His Thoughts are thus perfectly united within themselves and with each other" (T-6.II.8:1-2). Souls: This term was used copiously in the original dictation of the Course, and eleven references to it remain. It, of course, captures exactly the notion we are talking about, that of a God-created spiritual identity that is in some sense individual.
Let's take a good hard look at something that very few people want to ever admit. Something dark and awful, but true.
Planet Earth, and the rest of this universe, were made in a thought of opposition to Heaven. This was an attempt to make hell real, by dreaming up a world that runs completely opposite to the beautiful divine nature of the Kingdom.
To do this, an opposite to life had to be invented - death, and the entire system of thought had to be based on not only the belief in this but the attempt to make it as real as possible. To bring it about. This alternative world was an attempted weapon to destroy the Kingdom and destroy God, if that were possible.
"The world was made as an attack on God."
Because of this, everything in this world runs contrary to life and is governed solely by the laws of death and destruction. The world is an attempt not to exist and to destroy the Son of God.
"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."
The world wasn't made in order to have a place to live forever. Heaven is where you live forever. The world was made to kill you. Everything in it, even those things which seem to begin or are born, are automatically infused with death right from the outset.
Death, separation, limitation, spacetime, conflict, attack, are all built into every single part of the system. Even the most beautiful flower, the cutest puppy, the loveliest sunset, are made of the illusion of death. They take on forms whose appearance is designed to tempt you to believe they are desirable, valuable, wanted. But they are nothing but illusions, designed to distract and deceive you and keep you in hell.
The fact is, that everything in this universe dies sooner or later. It does not matter what it is, or how long it takes. Planets die. Galaxies die. People die. Animals die. All of it. Sooner or later, death is going to fully express itself, as the entropy and decay gradually erode whatever illusion of life there is. And as Jesus says, this world is "at best an illusion of life, at worst death", since it cannot be alive at all.
"There is no life outside of heaven."
Jesus asks that we take a good hard look at this, because we seem to be quite deceived and deluded in believing that the world can offer us something valuable. We are constantly tempted by its attractions and exciting adventures. It offers us toys and objects and pointless things to keep us entranced. But most of it, is attempts to convince us that avoiding death here is possible, if we will just put our faith in the ego a little while longer, until death arrives.
And so one of the biggest problems we have, is that we do not recognize this world is ENTIRELY made of death, or that ALL its roads lead to death, or that there is NO ESCAPE from this hell if you play by its rules. The idea of "living here" is ridiculous. It can never be experienced as a true home. And everything it does is a murderous attack on your happiness and wellbeing. The world eats you alive. And it is designed to do nothing but destroy you. At least, eventually, when it's done pretending to be your friend.
The problem we have is that in our deception and rose-tinted blind optimism, we keep believing that this world can be or do something that it can never be or do. We keep trying to turn it into heaven. We keep trying to wrap it up and dress it up to be what it's not. In a state of denial. One more flavor, one more combination, one more appearance, one more new distraction, one more toy, one more desirable temptation to lure you in. And by believing that you can achieve some kind of escape from death through this means, the world has deceived you for a while, and you think you like it here. Until it fails. Which it will.
Make no mistake. This world was designed to result in, lead to, culminate in, and guarantee, one thing only. The death of God and his son. It has no other ambition. It has no other direction. It will always enforce this ambition sooner or later. You might spend most of your life pretending that this is not the case, avoiding the inevitable, but regardless of your outlook the world is run by laws of death.
When you don't recognize the world's "nature", its complete failure to accomplish anything, its automatic built-in destruction, and its inability to be heaven, you enter into wishful thinking, delusions, denial, and start down a fairy-tail road of spiritualized egos and thinking that this time you'll win. If you play in the ego's sandpit you will die, by its rules, when it wants you to die.
Expecting the world to be something it's not, can only make you frustrated, and disappointed. You might hope that it can be something, that you can succeed, that you can have your cake, that you can win, that you can escape somehow, but sooner or later it comes crashing down, it turns out to be an empty promise, something you don't really want, and then it breaks, and it fails, and it dies again. Wanting it to be otherwise will only frustrate you. Not recognizing that this is the only way it can be, and letting go of the wish to have it be different, simply traps you in it more.
The world WILL disappoint you, if you try to build your house on its unstable rock. It WILL disappoint you if you forget for a moment that perfection is impossible here. It WILL disappoint you when you start to become attached to hopes and dreams which are later dashed against the rocks. And it WILL disappoint you when you thought that next toy you buy was going to be your salvation, only to discover it was the wrong one, or it broke, or it didn't quite do what you thought it would do.
Nothing really works in hell, it's all broken. How many times will you have to go through the same lesson of expecting it to not be hell, only for it to result in hell, before you you learn? And no this is not an attempt to make hell REAL, it is a reminder that hell IS AN ILLUSION, and to not fall for its tricks. Because hell's biggest weapon is to make itself seem like heaven, something you want, and somewhere you want to live forever.
"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."
We need to at least acknowledge this. We need to recognize it, see it, notice it. We need to realize this is its nature. The world is not a perfect living place. It's a place of destruction and conflict and incompletion and damage and problems and everything going wrong. It can't be any other way. All illusions have this nature built into them, because they lack the harmony, perfection and love of the Kingdom.
THE WORLD JUST SUCKS It simply does. It can't not suck. But by recognizing it inherently sucks, you can at least let go of the expectation of it not sucking. Which in fact is a truer perception, a more accurate way of looking at it. The world was made to be hell. If you can recognize that, you can be free of it. NOT recognizing illusions deceives you. And "Illusions recognized must disappear."
You are only trapped in it if you resist it, make it real, believe it's true, consider it heaven, or mistake it for God's creation. And you only keep holding onto it if you think you want it or it offers you something of value. But it cannot. Ever.
"This world holds nothing that I want."
"Teachers of God are willing to give up all the pleasures of the world."
"It takes great learning to both recognize and accept that the world has nothing to give."
"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."
Jesus isn't being negative here. He isn't being judgement or closed-minded. He's not in ego. He's being very truthful and honest and sane. He's simply pointing out what the world's nature is, without flinching or looking away or being in denial about it. The world was made from the idea of death and everything in it is designed to fail and die and cease existing. That's just how it is. It can't be any other way.
Even in the happy dream, or the real world, the laws of the physical world still remain in effect. Trees still die in storms. Animals get eaten. Planets die in supernova explosions. Stars get swallowed in black holes. Your car rusts, your shoes wear out, your food rots, and people die. It's supposed to happen this way. It's not fate, but it is an illusion of fate, based on the idea of sin being real. The wages of sin is death, and everything in this world is designed to make death and sin real.
"The world of bodies is the world of sin. 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?"
"From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it."
"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its power declines if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."
"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path, - all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this."
When you "get excited" about something, there's a very high likelihood that you will enter into disappointment. Maybe it's a new car. Maybe you're going on a wonder vacation. Maybe it's a new pet or some new food you're trying. And maybe it will seem to you that these things are great and enjoyable and nothing to complain about. But then, maybe ignorance is bliss and you didn't notice the experience of HEAVEN that you did not have, while these falling-short substitutes came to drag you into hell.
I got a new car. Winter came. The snow and salt fucked up the interior. Oh well. I got a new fish tank. A fish died, plants died, it didn't go quite to plan. Oh well. I ordered items online, they came, they were the wrong items. Oh well. This is the kind of stuff that happens here. But if you expect it NOT to happen, you are expecting some kind of spiritualized salvation and external perfection, which is setting you up for total disappointment. The more you worship idols and seek for external saviors, the more you will be let down. And even your most valued teachers have their skeleton-full closets hidden away.
"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. ***They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die.*** Yet they are not deceived by what they see."
Even for a teacher of God, a highly healed and awakened individual, the world continues to SUCK AND DIE!
THE WORLD SIMPLY SUCKS ASS! It was designed that way. It will never not suck. Even if you are happy. Even if you are truly forgiving and loving. It will still keep doing what it does until it finally vanishes into nothingness. Waking up doesn't stop the world from killing 130,000 people a day. Waking up doesn't repair everyone's broken limbs. Waking up doesn't make waterfalls flow uphill or prevent planets from colliding. Stuff still keeps ticking over, per the laws of death, and there is no hope here.
This is essentially the crux of the matter. The belief that there is hope, faith, trust, in the ego and its death world. That it has a redeeming quality, some possibility of being heaven or home, and a chance of escape from God. It's this wishful thinking that just maybe, you can get away with murder, just maybe you can be God, and just maybe you can overthrow the Kingdom and prove the Son of God is dead. Or that this world can be perfect. But you can't. And you never will. So the whole endeavor is pointless.
There is no hope in the world. Hope is of God. There is only hop because the wrold is NOT real and its illusions of hell are fictional WHEN RECOGNIZED. If you want hope, you have to look beyond the world, and forget the world and all its twisted ways. We can but recognize the world's limitations and laugh at them. The world will end in laughter because it is a place of sorrow. In laughter we will shine it away because of its fundamentally unhappy nature. The world will never be your home. You do not belong in hell.
Is it not far saner to recognize and accept that no matter what you do in this world, its laws will steer it towards failure? Because if you expect the opposite, you will be disappointed, again and again and again. This does not mean there is no hope at all. Only that trying to find it where it is not, cannot work. God and His Kingdom are your only home and your only happiness.
"The thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE."
"A Son of God is happy only when he knows he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make."
"To be without a body is to be in your natural environment."
"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."
"There is no life outside of Heaven. 2 Where God created life, there life must be. 3 In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. 4 At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. 5 Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. 6 Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. 7 Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. 8 Illusions are but forms. 9 Their content is never true.
T-23.II.20. The laws of chaos govern all illusions. 2 Their forms conflict, making it seem quite possible to value some above the others. 3 Yet each one rests as surely on the belief the laws of chaos are the laws of order as do the others. 4 Each one upholds these laws completely, offering a certain witness that these laws are true. 5 The seeming gentler forms of the attack are no less certain in their witnessing, or their results. 6 Certain it is illusions will bring fear because of the beliefs that they imply, not for their form. 7 And lack of faith in love, in any form, attests to chaos as reality.
T-23.II.21. From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. 2 It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. 3 The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. 4 Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth. 5 Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. 6 The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. 7 And where your thinking starts, there must it end.
T-23.II.22. Brother, take not one step in the descent to hell. 2 For having taken one, you will not recognize the rest for what they are. 3 And they will follow. 4 Attack in any form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads from Heaven. 5 Yet any instant it is possible to have all this undone. 6 How can you know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? 7 Quite easily. 8 How do you feel? 9 Is peace in your awareness? 10 Are you certain which way you go? 11 And are you sure the goal of Heaven can be reached? 12 If not, you walk alone. 13 Ask, then, your Friend to join with you, and give you certainty of where you go."
Each thought system starts with a logical premise, which determines everything that comes from it, which are perfectly logical conclusions. This is true of both God’s creation and the EGO’s world, which are logical outcomes.
The separation from God followed NEAT, LOGICAL steps. The thought system of the ego is run by impeccable logic, just as God’s thought system is. The outcome of each system depends entirely on its logical premise. At the CORE of A Course in Miracle’s metaphysics is PURE LOGIC.
If you can understand the logical premise of each system, and if you can follow the progression of logical conclusions based on that premise - which is IMPECCABLE LOGICAL REASONING, you will correctly understand ALL of the metaphysics of the course. Where everything fits. The TRUTH about the entire separation from God, states of awareness, what is true and false, what is real or unreal, who created what, how the systems MUST function etc.
It is all TOTALLY LOGICAL. If you struggle with logical reasoning you may have difficulty SEEING the logic or following it.
This literally means, that states of mind, states of separation, the making of the body and the world, all of the mechanics of special relationships, sin and death, the nature of the physical universe and its laws, ALL OF IT, is a LOGICAL CONCLUSION. Correctly discerning what the logic IS, HOW it progressed, and WHY that makes SENSE, is the key to accessing the core metaphysics in the course. Once you do this, you can refer to this metaphysics as a cheat-sheet, a reference to TELL YOU, what ANY statement in the course MUST MEAN, where it fits, and what JESUS MEANS. GUARANTEED.
"T-23.II.21. From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. 2 It is because it follows that it seems to be a LOGICAL CONCLUSION; a valid STEP IN ORDERED THOUGHT. 3 The steps to chaos DO FOLLOW NEATLY from their starting point. 4 Each is a different form in the PROGRESSION of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth. 5 Think not one STEP is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. 6 The WHOLE DESCENT FROM HEAVEN LIES IN EACH ONE. 7 And WHERE YOUR THINKING STARTS, THERE MUST IT END."
"The ego's LOGIC is as IMPECCABLE as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."
"The Holy Spirit USES LOGIC as easily and as well AS DOES THE EGO, except that His CONCLUSIONS are not insane. 5 They take a direction EXACTLY OPPOSITE, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. 6 WE HAVE FOLLOWED MUCH OF THE EGO’S LOGIC, and have SEEN ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS. 7 And having seen them, we have realized that they cannot be seen except in illusions, for there alone their seeming CLEARNESS seems to be clearly seen. 8 Let us now turn away from them, and follow the SIMPLE LOGIC BY WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES the SIMPLE CONCLUSIONS that speak for truth, and only truth."
"The Kingdom is the RESULT OF PREMISES, JUST AS THIS WORLD IS. 2 You may have carried THE EGO’S REASONING TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION, which is total confusion about everything. 3 If you really saw this RESULT you could not want it. 4 The only reason you could possibly want any part of it is because you do not see the whole of it. 5 You are willing to look at the ego's PREMISES, but not at THEIR LOGICAL OUTCOME. 6 Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? 7 YOUR CREATIONS ARE THE LOGICAL OUTCOME OF HIS PREMISES. 8 His THINKING has established them for you. 9 They are exactly where they belong. 10 They belong in your mind as part of your identification with His, but your state of mind and your recognition of what is in it depend on what you believe about your mind. 11 Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the PREMISES that will determine what you accept into your mind."
"Look calmly at the LOGICAL CONCLUSION of the ego's thought system and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this is what it offers you. 2 To obtain this you are willing to attack the Divinity of your brothers, and thus lose sight of yours. 3 And you are willing to keep it hidden, to protect an idol you think will save you from the dangers for which it stands, but which do not exist."
"In one sense the ego's fear of God IS AT LEAST LOGICAL, since the idea of Him does dispel the ego."
What you are, what everyone is, is only that which God has given you to be. There is no other truth about you. The only truth about you is the truth you have inherited from God, who is the only truth.
Since God is immortal and God has created you, you are immortal. You cannot be anything else. You cannot be mortal.
Since God created you to be permanent, nothing can ever interrupt or end your permanence. You cannot be attacked, degraded, changed, damaged, manipulated, destroyed, made to suffer, to be sick or dead.
It is simply literally IMPOSSIBLE that who you really are can ever be sick. There can never ever be anything wrong with you. You were created perfect by God and you are still perfect.
So if it seems that sickness is showing up, and in light of the fact that it is IMPOSSIBLE for you to be sick, the sickness CANNOT be telling the truth. It cannot be real. It cannot be actually happening.
Everything the sickness suggests HAS to be an illusion, some kind of fiction. It can't even be there. It can have no reality, no truth, no validity, no function, no value, no true purpose, no meaning, nothing. It is literally nothing because there is no sickness.
This is how we must regard all sickness, whether seemingly in ourselves or others. Sickness must be recognized as IMPOSSIBLE. The Son of God cannot become sick, get sick, contract illness, be infected, or become diseased. God's son is perfect and immortal forever.
If sickness is showing up, a lie is showing up. It has to be recognized as false. Sickness is not true. Everything about it must be a deception. It must be a fake sickness. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing real can become sick.
When the illusion of sickness is fully recognized as false, and as impossible, and that this must mean it is LITERALLY NOT THERE, the power of God can shine through and ASSERT LIFE.
Resurrection is the assertion of life, and it has tremendous power because there is truth in it. Life is reality. Life is truth. Life is immortal. To assert that your immortal being is the only truth, is to assert and cause life. Anything that was "not alive" must resurrect. Anything that "was sick" must be overridden.
You cannot die. "You are immortal and you cannot die." "There is no death, the Son of God is free." You can never die. You will never die. You have never died. You are absolutely beyond the reach of all lies of sin and guilt and suffering and punishment.
Simply ask yourself, this simple comparison. If I am immortal and perfect forever, can it be possible that this sickness is real? Either the sickness is real, or the immortality is real. They can't both be true. As you side with the immortality, the sickness has to go.
"Did God create the mortal and corruptible?"
"I will awaken from the dream that I am mortal, fallible and full of sin, and know I am the perfect Son of God."
"You were not born to die."
"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end?"
Health, is simply alignment with your true nature. It is simply "being immortal". By being your true self, you can never die. By being true to yourself, you cannot suffer. Being as God created you, and not trying to be anything opposite or contradictory, there can be no sickness in you.
Using denial, through the proper use of denial, you should reject sickness and death. You should assert that only eternal life is true. You should assert that only eternal life is POSSIBLE, because it is all that God willed there to be. And in this recognition, you should recognize that sickness and death are simply NOT POSSIBLE.
When it seems like sickness is happening, that a little death is taking hold, something illusory must be happening. It can't be actually happening. It can seem to be happening. There can be symptoms and signs and pains and disfigurements and seeming malfunctions and lacks and deprivations and decay etc. But these CANNOT be possible.
"There is no pain in God and therefore none in me."
A son of God cannot be sick, otherwise God would have to be sick, because a son of God is only the inherited attributes of the father. If sickness is real, God is sick, and is the God of sickness. This is what the ego believes in.
Through the assertion of your immortal nature, you express love, which is life. You express power, which is life. You express miraculousness, which is life. "Miracles mean life and God is the giver of life." Miracles break all the laws of spacetime which say that sickness is possible and happening. Miracles override the laws of physics. Miracles heal and undo all sickness and death.
"T-10.III.3. To believe that a Son of God can be sick is to believe that part of God can suffer. 2 Love cannot suffer, because it cannot attack. 3 The remembrance of love therefore brings invulnerability with it. 4 Do not side with sickness in the presence of a Son of God even if he believes in it, for your acceptance of God in him acknowledges the Love of God he has forgotten. 5 Your recognition of him as part of God reminds him of the truth about himself, which he is denying. 6 Would you strengthen his denial of God and thus lose sight of yourself? 7 Or would you remind him of his wholeness and remember your Creator with him?"
"To believe a Son of God is sick is to worship the same idol he does. 2 God created love, not idolatry. 3 All forms of idolatry are caricatures of creation, taught by sick minds too divided to know that creation shares power and never usurps it. 4 Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that power can be taken from you. 5 Yet this is impossible, because you are part of God, Who is all power."
"You made the god of sickness, and by making him you made yourself able to hear him. 5 Yet you did not create him, because he is not the Will of the Father. 6 He is therefore not eternal and will be unmade for you the instant you signify your willingness to accept only the eternal."
"You can give up the god of sickness for your brothers; in fact, you would have to do so if you give him up for yourself. 5 For if you see the god of sickness anywhere, you have accepted him. 6 And if you accept him you will bow down and worship him, because he was made as God's replacement. 7 He is the belief that you can choose which god is real. 8 Although it is clear this has nothing to do with reality, it is equally clear that it has everything to do with reality as you perceive it."
"Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead." "You made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."
"You can do anything I ask. 2 I have asked you to perform miracles, and have made it clear that miracles are natural, corrective, healing and universal. 3 There is nothing they cannot do, but they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt or fear. 4 When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. 5 Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also. 6 You believe in what you value. 7 If you are afraid, you are valuing wrongly. 8 Your understanding will then inevitably value wrongly, and by endowing all thoughts with equal power will inevitably destroy peace. 9 That is why the Bible speaks of "the peace of God which passeth understanding." 10 This peace is totally incapable of being shaken by errors of any kind. 11 It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. 12 This is the proper use of denial. 13 It is not used to hide anything, but to correct error. 14 It brings all error into the light, and since error and darkness are the same, it corrects error automatically.
T-2.II.2. True denial is a powerful protective device. 2 You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt you. 3 This kind of denial is not a concealment but a correction. 4 Your right mind depends on it. 5 Denial of error is a strong defense of truth, but denial of truth results in miscreation, the projections of the ego. 6 In the service of the right mind the denial of error frees the mind, and re-establishes the freedom of the will. 7 When the will is really free it cannot miscreate, because it recognizes only truth."
"T-23.II.19. There is no life outside of Heaven. 2 Where God created life, there life must be. 3 In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. 4 At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. 5 Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. 6 Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. 7 Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. 8 Illusions are but forms. 9 Their content is never true."
"You are at home in God, dreaming of exile, yet perfectly capable of waking to reality."
Let's make this simple and clear.
You are permanently within heaven, within God's being, within reality. You cannot leave. There is nowhere to go. You cannot really be outside of it.
However, you who are in heaven always, fall asleep and dream of NOT being in heaven always. You dream of being EXILED from heaven, in ANOTHER WORLD, which is totally opposite to and unlike Heaven in every way. You dream of space and time. You dream of planets. You dream of suffering and death.
Everything about that dream of exile, seems to place you OUTSIDE the Kingdom of God. It's an ILLUSION that it is possible to be NOT AT HOME. To be not in the eternal presence of the "here and now" of reality. The dream of exile is a dream of NOT BEING HERE NOW, and is a dream of being OUTSIDE the Kingdom. This is also backed up in the bible where it talks of you seeming to be "kicked out" of heaven.
You cannot really be outside of Heaven. You are INSIDE heaven, DREAMING of being outside Heaven. But the dream you have IS a dream of being separated from heaven, rejected by God, seeming to exist in an entirely alien world, and having experiences and hallucinations that aren't real or true.
While you seem to be IN the dream world, which is "the world you made", you seem to be in THIS world, and you seem NOT to be in heaven. Everything in this dream world is an ILLUSION. "The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it." Everything in spacetime is an illusion. All objects, all bodies, all planets and galaxies. It's all part of the dream of exile and the SECOND WORLD that you made in your dreaming of NOT being inside the FIRST WORLD of heaven.
Now, in terms of perspective, sometimes Jesus talks about how Heaven is BEYOND this world. How reality is not OF this world. How what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is not OF this world. How your brother's reality is BEYOND his body. And how reality is beyond the illusion. The physical world IS the "wall of sin" and the "veil" that "covers the face of christ", because it is the dream of denial/death that blocks out or paints an illusion that "you are not in heaven." And this is also why as you forgive the world you should be OVERLOOKING the world and looking BEYOND IT, PAST IT, to the larger truth that you are actually "in heaven", NOT in a dream.
The thing is, just because you are always in heaven, doesn't mean that you are aware of it. When you are IN the dream, you are NOT being aware of being in heaven. You cannot be both awake and asleep. Either you sleep and dream of exile, or you wake and the dream is gone. Either you see the world of death, or you see the real world. While heaven is "here now" and always present, THIS WORLD, the dream of exile, is NOT REALLY HERE NOW.
This also leads to the fact that in order to be fully aware and awake IN heaven, which is awareness of eternity, you must EXPAND your awareness to the size of the CONTAINER within which this dream is housed. The bubble of spacetime. You must transcend space AND time! You have to get OUTSIDE of the little dream of exile, taking place in heaven, so that you can wake up in the larger "room" of Heaven. Spacetime is much much smaller than heaven's eternal scope. "Everything in the world is little because it is made of littleness."
So in a sense we can say, from being in the dream, that in order to wake up you must LEAVE THIS WORLD. In other words, you must expand beyond the limits of the body, beyond the confinement of a location in space and time, and BE EVERYWHERE AT ONCE FOREVER. That is awakening from the dream. That is the end of the dream of exile. You wake up to being fully present everywhere. And that everywhere DOES include the "location" in which Earth seemed to exist, except it shines away the world and REPLACES it with reality.
To onlookers etc, when you wake up to heaven, you DO LEAVE THIS DREAM WORLD. You must. "A dream of death is not left by death, but by truth" tells us that in both cases you LEAVE! You leave the dream. You vanish from the dream. Your body disappears and ceases to exist. It is undone. You become invisible to the dream world. You are then "more here" than ever, as Jesus says he will never leave you, but you are no longer "inside" the dream isolated from reality. You are pervasive. Which is why Jesus says "you cannot remain in the world, with this knowledge" and "the body cannot stay without illusions".
You do leave this world, because it is the "outside the kingdom" world. Which really is inside the kingdom, but a rejection of the kingdom. ie a denial that the kingdom is everywhere. "Enlightenment is but a recognition and not a change at all". It's a recognition of where you ARE and what what you are, that you are HERE NOW and have always been. But this world... this planet.... this universe, IT IS NOT HERE NOW. It is removed from eternity. It is slightly delayed from immediacy. "At no time does the body exist". It is always past and future but never eternal presence. Even the "now" of time is nothing but a symbol in a dream.
Waking up, you become omnipresent. But this dream world, it's days are numbered. When no-one remains believing in it or needing it to learn to awaken, it WILL vanish. And in its place there will only be heaven. "Eternity will shine away the world." "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came." The dream bubble of spacetime exile, will disappear. Light will envelop it and infuse it and shine it away. Only heaven will remain.
So yes, heaven in a sense IS elsewhere, it certainly is not this dream world, it is not exile, and it is not outside the kingdom. But in another sense heaven is everywhere and here, moreso here than anything else. You seem to ascend to and be in heaven, but you really just wake up to realize you are where you've always been, and you journeyed without distance from your home that you can never leave. You just thought you were outside the kingdom for a while. And the people who still think they are outside the kingdom will not be aware of your immediate presence.
Jesus is not in the world. But then again, the world doesn't exist. So Jesus is everywhere.
Since there is no life outside of heaven, and everything outside of heaven is an illusion, the dream of death is NOT LIFE. This WORLD, is not life. It is "at best it seems like life, at worst, death". Life is ONLY "inside" the kingdom, which is an exterior kind of way of looking at it. From within the kingdom life is everywhere because there is really no outside. "Life forms" in the dream of exile are NOT LIFE FORMS. They are illusions of life. Only eternal life in the kingdom is real life. "To be without a body (in heaven) is to be in your natural environment."
You disperse, to everywhere. Here, there, everywhere. Not localized. Not in space or time. Eternal. Endless. Ever-present. Transcendent of location or limitation. The all in everything. But the dream of exile, though it is in heaven, is not really anywhere. It is the idea of not existing. It is the idea that you are not here or there or anywhere. It is the idea of death. And there is no death, thus no world. This tiny speck of what seems like a world is absolutely nothing. That is the message of the course. There is no world - central lesson. The dream does not really exist, you are not really exiled, and you are already home.
Dreams disappear when you wake up.
Everything within the ego thought system, every part of separation, this universe and world, issues with bodies, all forms of sickness, every problem or upsetting situation, all appearances of external causes and even death, can be described by one SIMPLE statement:
The sequence of cause and effect has been reversed.
This BEGAN in Heaven when you attempted to will against God's will. To will something separate from God's will. This "authority problem" was an act of trying to CAUSE GOD.
God is cause. You are God's effect. God did grant you the power to cause and create, but He did NOT grant you the power to cause HIM.
The entire separation and everything that followed from it, was formed on the basis of this belief that you are willing against God's will, and therefore God's will is outside/separate/external to your will and acting against your will.
This is the idea of sin. That you could cause and therefore produce EFFECTS in God, to hurt Him, to change His mind, to make Him not love you anymore, or to destroy Him, and that you have in fact been capable of doing this with "real effects".
This was the beginning point of all dreaming.
It's all entirely because you tried to stop being the effect of God and to instead cause God.
Let's describe that in terms of levels. The higher level is causal (God). The lower level is effect (You/Son of God). You are as God created you, as God intended, as God willed. When you, who are on the lower level, attempt to CAUSE the higher level to change, this is LEVEL CONFUSION. It is the authority problem. It is the belief in magic. It is the belief in an external will. It is the source of ALL SICKNESS. Eventually to will so strongly against your own cause, against God, is to deny God and deny life, and results in DEATH.
This all comes from reversing what the Course calls the "divine order". The proper sequence of creation. Cause produces effects, not the other way around. The world that we are in now, is also a "level", and it is being caused by a higher level. It is a dream-effect or a causal mind "above" this world. Everything in this world is an effect, not a cause. But when anything in this world is given properties of "causing" or "willing" or "making effects happen", that is LEVEL CONFUSION also, another layer of it. And this is the source of all our suffering.
Everything in your life that you "need to forgive", is BASED ON this same dynamic. Every upset you have. Every perception that someone is acting against your will. Every form of victimhood. All states of sickness and death. Every argument. Every conflict or war. All special relationships. Every part of the ego thought system is based on this reversal of causality. "All sickness is the result of confusing the levels". Whenever something "below" or an "effect" is believed to have an ability to CAUSE, that is level confusion, it is mental illness, it is an illusion, it is false, it is ego, and it encapsulates the entire ego thought system.
It causes you to "perceive" that cause is outside of you, causing AGAINST you. This is because instead of God flowing into you from "behind", and you extending it outward and "forward", you have instead turned around and taken a stand "against" God's outflowing will, to try to will in the other direction, to STOP God's will. Like a rock in a river trying to stop the flow. ALL your suffering and problems come from this.
So to CORRECT IT, to "apply forgiveness" as we like to say, you ONLY need to correct this one fundamental error in the dynamic. You need to re-reversed cause and effect so that the levels are in their proper ORDER, and so that you recognize yourself as the effect of God, so that you are not against God's will, and thereby do not perceive that there is a will acting against you.
That also means you no longer perceiving or believing that there is a "separate cause" outside of you, or a cause in the world, or a cause on a lower level, or a cause in the body, or a cause in other people, or a cause in laws of physics in the environment, or any other externalized cause. Cause is IN YOU. God is IN YOUR MIND, so Cause is in your mind, and your mind is the effect of GOD and nothing else.
Every situation in your life which seems like 1000 DIFFERENT problems with different dynamics and issues and reactions and emotions and so on.... all those differences are illusions COVERING UP the simple CORE THREAD which is the SAME in all of them. That is, somehow, you have become mistaken about what is a cause and what is an effect. And so now you see causes as doing stuff to you against your will, when they are not. And you've turned yourself into an effect of the world, instead of the cause of it. This same simple concept runs through EVERY FORGIVENESS LESSON.
Now, before you can undo this problem in real life situations, or even recognize it in your upsetting situations, you need to recognize something.
The ego has invented its own idea of cause and effect. It believes that causes and effects are "horizontal". This has resulted in "horizontal perception". That means, it believes and perceives that something in the world on this same "level", has the ability to "cause" something else on this same level, and produce effects in it. So now it seems possible that an object can produce a reaction in another object, a person can come along and hurt you, someone can be to blame for doing something to you etc. Causes and effects are seen as linear on the horizontal plane, or sideways. This is totally opposite to the truth, which is that the HIGHER level is the only cause and the LOWER level (this world) is ENTIRELY EFFECT.
So part of what you have to realize is, this world does not contain any real causes AT ALL. It is all effect. It is all a dream, all the effect of you dreaming from a higher level. It doesn't matter how it APPEARS, that a cause is outside you on this same level. There are NO CAUSES IN THE WORLD. There are no causes in your body. There are no causes in other people doing stuff. There are no causes in the environment. Cause is on a higher level, and it's in your mind, "above the battlefield."
The recognition that causality is VERTICAL, results in what the course calls "vertical perception." It also says a sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception is required in order to produce a miracle. Miracles are expressions of VERTICAL CAUSALITY in which the levels are in their proper order, there is no level confusion, there is no belief in something in the world causing something else, and therefore the higher level which MADE the word can CHANGE it in total defiance of any illusory laws or horizontal cause-effect relationships. This produces supernatural miracles which are ABOVE (super) the "natural" (nature) of the horizontal illusion and prove through demonstration that cause-effect on this level is ENTIRELY AT THE EFFECT OF YOUR MIND.
So what you're going to need to do in an everyday upsetting situation, something you "need to forgive", is UNDO BELIEF IN horizontal cause and effect, so that you CAN SHIFT to a vertical perception, in which God is cause, you are His effect, and YOU ARE THE CAUSE OF THIS WORLD that you're dreaming.
Recognize therefore that the ego INVENTS the idea of being caused by things outside of you on this same level. It is never true. This forms a kind of fictional "connection", mentally and energetically, between you and other people. You perceive and believe they, or the environment, or you food, or events, or the body, can "cause you". This is FALSE. So what you need to do is COLLAPSE the ego's horizontal cause-effect beliefs and relationships. Cancel them out, separate them out, and that leads to a pretty simple goal:
Recognizing that there is NO CAUSE OR EFFECT between any two things in this world. This whole world is an EFFECT of your mind ON A HIGHER LEVEL. And therefore you are NOT ON THIS LEVEL, you are ABOVE IT.
So what you want to do is effectively "SEPARATE" cause from effect on this level. It's like two boxers in a ring who are fighting, you need to separate them, get them back to their corners, and stop them from affecting each other. Break them up. Put a GAP between the horizontal causes and the horizontal effects so that you can believe and perceive that YOU ARE NOT AT THE EFFECT of anything in this world.
The only way you can believe and perceive that you are not at the effect of anything in this world, is to not believe in CAUSES in this world, of any kind, and therefore to shift into a VERTICAL perception which is miraculous, which recognizes that this ENTIRE WORLD is made up, its a dream, it was all made at once, and every ILLUSION of causality or effects were made TOGETHER simultaneously. There ARE no real causes here.
I like to do this with a simple process of "correcting ideas" something like this:
You did not cause me. I am not at the effect of you. You have not made me upset. You are not the one who attacked me. You did not do anything to me. You have no power over me. I am free of you. You are not the source of my upset. Everything I am experiencing I have chosen. These feelings are my own. This hurt is something I put there myself. I am responsible for everything I am experiencing. It's got nothing to do with you. I must've wanted to experience this. I chose this myself and made a wrong decision and can choose again.
Notice regardless of the words you use, that there is only ONE THING happening here over and over. I am CUTTING TIES between myself and the other person. These are ARTIFICIAL ties of horizontal causes and effects. They are not real or true at all. I am SEPARATING MYSELF from the "fictional causes" so that I am not at their effect. You could express this a 1000 different ways, whatever words or aspects you need to use to break up all of your personal perceptual errors and beliefs in how something is affecting you.
But note that in order to FULLY CANCEL the ego's illusion of horizontal causality, you need to also apply this same set of clarifications to the other person or cause as well. This helps to "balance it out" or to complete the undoing of any other beliefs or perceptions which you might have such as that YOU affected the other person, resulting in guilt etc. This really helps to clean up any possible effects which have come from what you falsely experienced. For example:
I did not cause you. You are not at the effect of me. II have not made you upset. I am not the one who attacked you. I did not do anything to you. I have no power over you. You are free of me. I am not the source of your upset. Everything you are experiencing you have chosen. Your feelings are your own. Your hurt is something you put there yourself. YOU are responsible for everything you are experiencing. It's got nothing to do with me. You must've wanted to experience this. You chose this yourself and made a wrong decision and can choose again.
When you do this, you BREAK the ego's chain of fake causes and effects on the horizontal level. That means you actually will no longer believe or perceive or experience that there are ANY CAUSES on this level affecting you. While this is still a horizontal state of perception, it actually lays the groundwork for you being able to then shift into VERTICAL perception. You may be still in the world not affected by the world, but now you need to position yourself ABOVE the world, above the battlefield.
You got into your right mind, now you need to get into the ONE mind. So if there are no causes in the world that you believe in, this makes it pretty easy to then recognize you are ABOVE, in terms of levels and causality, the divine order is re-established, the levels are in their proper sequence, and you recognize that everything in this world is AN EFFECT and you are a HIGHER CAUSE.
This readies you to be MIRACULOUS. Miracles flow from a higher level to a lower level, like love or creation does. God causes you, you are the miracle of God. You then cause a level below yourself, and these are your miracles. When your higher mind CAUSES effects in the lower level of this world, these produce SUPERNATURAL EFFECTS. This is what miracles really are about. A higher level causing a lower level and proving that the lower level is nothing but an effect of the mind - that mind has total power OVER it.
This more or less is ALL you need to do. If you can really go deep with this, it will undo all your false perceptions, your upset, your stress, your emotional reactions, your fears, your obsessive thinking which can't let go of the situation, and it will bring you back to peace AND empowerment. Then you are in a position to ACCEPT THE ATONEMENT by recognizing that you are the effect of God, you accept that you are STILL as God created you, God has NOT been affected or changed, and therefore is not willing against you.
This process ALWAYS WORKS to undo ego because it addresses THE ENTIRE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM at its foundation. There is not one part of the ego that escapes this, because the ego is BASED ON the reversal of cause and effect, so the correction of cause and effect cancels out the entire ego. Therefore it can be applied to EVERY situation and will always lead you back to truth.
Try it.
We can perhaps summarize this way:
God causes me.
I have not caused God.
I am the effect of God.
I am the cause of what I made/projected/created.
What I made/dreamed is not the cause of me.
Therefore I am still as God created me.