"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."
"As long as you perceive the body as your reality, so long will you perceive yourself as lonely and deprived. And so long will you also perceive yourself as a victim of sacrifice, justified in sacrificing others."
If there is some way that you are found, or find yourself to be, not equal, it will induce a sense of inadequacy. This is based on a perceive lack of value or worth. And this in turn will induce a feeling of shame and unworthiness.
Whatever is considered the ideal, or the optimum or best way to be, if you do not "measure up", or you are evaluated to be less than or lacking, this inadequacy will present shameful feelings. As if you are lacking something.
Ultimately if you look at the body, the body was made on purpose to limit you, confine you, define you as very restricted, with only a small handful of abilities. It can only move so fast, perform so good, look so attractive, etc. If you identify with a body, you fundamentally identify with being inadequate. Which produces automatic shame.
So anyone who has identified with a body is automatically grandfathered in to feeling a sense of shame and unworthiness. Because no body, no matter how great it seems to be, is free of limitations. And every body was made from the idea of imperfection and is inehrently inadequate.
It doesn't therefore matter how beautiful you make it look, how much muscle you build, how tall and hansom it is, how fair and lovely, it can never fully represent your perfection. It can never be "good enough". So if you think of it as your self, and you take personally anything about it, you are doomed to find yourself not good enough.No-one who believes they are a body can be satisfied with their "self image". Even those who believe their body is god-like and fantastic, must at some level suspect their flawed and limited nature. Any amount of body identification is going to condemn you as less than whole and less than perfect.
Sometimes also the things that bodies do, or the we use them for, fall far short of perfection. And that means that almost everything we do with them is prone to result in a judgement of inadequacy. It doesn't even matter if you try to be proud of it or pleased with it or amazed by its greatness, these are all forms of denial of the inherent limitation and lack that the body represents.
There is also a fear of failure that automatically must be present for anyone who considers themselves a body. Since it is recognized how limited you are, that you do not know how to do something, or be guaranteed to do it perfectly, it presents an inherent recognition that it WILL fail to some degree. And this induces fear. So the inadequate and the shameful are afraid of failure, knowing that they ARE a failure, having identified with failure.
The only way to transcend inadequacy and be fully released from shame, is to embrace your REAL perfection, which is your spirit. To be spirit identified is to overcome all limitation and thus all inability, insufficiency and incapability. There can be no grounds for shame in owning up to being immortal and divine.
"This perception places you in a position in which your problem solving must be inadequate, and failure must be inevitable. ""Being unable to love, the ego would be totally inadequate in Love's presence, for it could not respond at all. You would HAVE to abandon its guidance, for it would be quite apparent that it had not taught you the response pattern you NEED."
"But the means are tedious and very time consuming, for all of them LOOK TO THE FUTURE for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy."
"God is the strength in which I trust. Now try to slip past all concerns related to your own sense of inadequacy."
In ACIM there is a theme which says ... we need to surrender control of our lives and hand it over to the Holy Spirit in trust.
We've put ourselves in a position of being greatly disadvantaged, blinded, confused, lost, alone. We can't see the whole picture, we don't have all the facts, we are lacking greatly.
And yet at the same time, we've adopted a position of trying to be an "authority". As though we have rejected the authority of God. We don't want God telling us what to do, what is true, how to live, or anything. We value our own judgement, we value our intellect, we value our experience and education, and think that we know it all - that we don't need or want any help.
In that position, we have to depend on our own strength - which is really a lack of strength, which makes us afraid. We have to make all decisions on our own, which leads to huge amounts of guilt and fear. We have to try to control everything, which leads to everything becoming uncontrollable. And we stubbornly refuse to admit to being mistaken.
What if God came along and said, hey, I will just plan your whole future for you, I will orchestrate everything that is going to happen, I will choose everything for you, I will make all decisions, I will smooth the way, I will cause the right people to show up at the right time, I will put you in the right situations, I will guide the right people to come to you for help from me, and we'll do this all together.
What would you say to handing over control and management of your whole life to the Holy Spirit? Would you accept an off-the-shelf inheritance, rather than one you made up yourself? Would you be willing to admit that you are not in a POSITION to be ABLE to correctly do anything on your own?
The course has several teachings that focus on this in different ways.
1) You cannot decide anything on your own
2) You're not in a position to judge anything correctly
3) You're supposed to put your whole future into God's hands
4) You're supposed to let the Holy Spirit make all decisions
5) You're supposed to go where you're directed
6) You'll be told specifically what to do
7) If you depend on yourself you become afraid
8 ) You are trying to take on the Holy Spirit's function
9) You're being asked to resign as your own teacher
10) There is an atonement plan in place
11) You're asked not to interfere with God's plan for salvation
12) The Holy Spirit leads you to eternal life by his planned events
13) You are nothing without God
14) The right people are being sent to you at the right time
15) You don't know anything because you lost knowledge
16) You have a big problem with God having authority
17) The ego in you has ruined your life and you trust it
18) You don't trust God to look after you
19) You think you are separate and autonomous
20) You keep trying to control and manage reality
The list goes on and on. The central core of all of this is you RECOGNIZING that you are NOT in a position of knowledge or capability. You have put yourself at a disadvantage, with limited abilities, a massive lack of awareness, a great inability to make wise decisions, you're making a mess of your own life. We've even given ourselves learning disabilities.
Rather than carrying on like a bunch of headless chickens, it would be better for us to have humility and humbleness and admit that we are ILL EQUIPPED to run our lives. That we do in fact NEED HELP. This takes surrender and willingness to look at the fact that we are essentially very disabled in our ability to be aware of the whole picture, or to know anything for sure.
In the course Jesus asks us to admit that we cannot judge on our own, and any time that we judge anything without total whole awareness we are making a mistake. That it's not just that we make bad judgements all the time, but factually we cannot actually make any judgement at all. Because we are so out of touch with reality and knowledge.
Instead of us being so arrogant, so dependent on ourselves, so alone and isolated, so putting our egos on pedestals, idols worshipping ourselves, thinking we're better than others and proud of all our useless education and worldly learning, perhaps we should be admitting that we generally suck. We have very limited resources, very limited perception, very limited truth and very limited ability.
So that being the case, we are far better off admitting that without God we are nothing. That since we're not aware of everything right now, we cannot do anything correctly. We are lost in the woods. We need help from outside of the scope of this world. And that means admitting that you are flawed and limited.
Egos everywhere will not like the idea whatsoever of admitting to being limited or incapable. Ego will take it as an affront, suggesting you are inadequate, uneducated, don't know enough, not successful enough, not enough social standing, not intelligent enough, stupid, flawed, lacking in some way. Ego does not like to admit that it is woefully inadequate at fulfilling the ROLE of God. Yet we are all in our egos trying to play at being God - being an authority, because we have a big problem with his authority.
How would it be, if you let the Holy Spirit run everything? Like, put your entire future in his hands, let him decide everything, let him tell you what to do, where to go, what to say. In which you TRUST that whatever he decides, whatever is in HIS plan, is right for all concerned. That you don't NEED to know the details. You don't NEED to be informed of the reasons and why and explanations of what it's based on - which all undermines trust. What if you just trusted that everything he's orchestrating and telling you to do is absolutely correct, and just went with it?
What if you don't need to know everything, don't need to figure everything out, don't need to explain the reasons for everything, don't need to "be sure", don't need to control and manage anything, don't need to find the correct judgement, don't even need to make any decisions? What if you just had faith and trusted? What if you just asked for His Help and listened and followed his guidance, saving you massive amounts of time and effort and thinking and worrying?
Adopting this position of humility and downplaying the ego's importance is not only VITAL to salvation and awakening, it is REQUIRED.
"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life." UrW136L19
"Resign NOW as your own teachers. THIS resignation will NOT lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves, and of the learning outcomes which have resulted." UrT11F11
"If you are trusting your own strength, you have every reason to be apprehensive, anxious, and fearful. What can you predict or control? What is there in you that can be counted on? What would give you the ability to be aware of all the facets of any problem, and to resolve them in such a way that only good can come of it? What is there in you that gives you the recognition of the right solution, and the guarantee that it will be accomplished?" UrW47L1
"There is another advantage,- and a very important one, - in referring decisions to the Holy Spirit with increasing frequency. Perhaps you have not thought of this aspect, but its centrality is obvious. To follow the Holy Spirit's guidance is to let yourself be absolved of guilt. It is the essence of the Atonement. It is the core of the curriculum." UrM30A3
"Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS." UrT9C6
"You would make no ATTEMPT to judge, because it would be quite apparent to you that you do not know WHAT ANYTHING MEANS." UrT15F1
"The giving up of judgment, the obvious prerequisite for hearing God's Voice, is usually a fairly slow process, not because it is difficult, but because it is apt to be perceived as personally insulting. The world's training is directed toward achieving a goal in direct opposition to that of our curriculum. The world trains for reliance on one's judgment as the criterion for maturity and strength. Our curriculum trains for the relinquishment of judgment as the necessary condition of salvation." UrM10A2
"You are still convinced YOUR understanding is a powerful contribution to the truth, and MAKES IT WHAT IT IS. Yet we have emphasized that you need understand nothing." UrT18E8
"The Thought of God protects you, cares for you, makes soft your resting place and smooth your way, lighting your mind with happiness and love." UrW165L2
"EVERYTHING you have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you. You know not WHAT it is, nor WHERE. You have made a SEMBLANCE of power, and a SHOW of strength, so pitiful that it MUST fail you. For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind." UrT14G1
"You taught YOURSELVES the most unnatural habit of NOT communicating with your Creator." UrT13H16
"You do not know how to OVERLOOK errors, or you would not make them. It would merely be further error to think either that you do NOT make them, or that you can CORRECT them without a GUIDE TO CORRECTION." UrT9C2
"The Bible tells you to become as little children. Little children recognize that they do not understand what they perceive, and so they ASK WHAT IT MEANS. Do not make the mistake of believing that YOU understand what YOU perceive, for its meaning IS lost to you. But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He will restore what you have thrown away. As long as you THINK YOU KNOW its meaning, you will see no need to ask it OF Him. You do not know the meaning of ANYTHING you perceive. NOT ONE THOUGHT YOU HOLD IS WHOLLY TRUE." UrT10H6
"There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:
"I do not know the thing I am, and THEREFORE do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world and on myself." Yet in this learning is salvation born. And what you are will TELL you of Itself. UrT31E16
Surrendering is always a great way to let go, give up ego resistance and settle into being guided. It allows you to admit to the truth and stop pretending. It's a way to dissolve denial and get to the real root cause behind things. It helps you to sink deeper into the Holy Spirit and allow yourself to be helped. It entails giving up on trying to do it all yourself, trying to fearfully depend on your own strength, and builds trust.
Without surrendering ego activities, you will remain "in control" and clinging tightly to problems and upsets, thinking that the more you do this the more you will avoid further suffering. But it works the opposite way. The more you try to control, the less control you have. Everything falls through your fingers when you try to grab it. You have to let it go. You then can gain everything by holding onto nothing.
As I surrender to the Holy Spirit and let go, I feel myself being willing to drop egotism, drop controls, drop the fight, and that puts me in a position of being open to support. The Holy Spirit can't do or take anything from you against your will. But in order to become able, you have to show a little willingness. And that means being willing to admit the truth, which in turn means surrendering or letting go of the ego facade, bravado, prowess, fake strength and "total independence."
It is natural for you to be completely 100% dependent on God. This doesn't mean you have no free will. It means you trust and will in accord with His will. You want what He wants because you know it's for your best, and He wants only good for you. You are a co-creator with God. The ego sees surrendering as death. It doesn't want to drop defenses. It doesn't want to let anything go. Attachment and possession are its motto, which keeps you bound to stress and fear and problems. Let all that fucking shit go.
It can literally be as simple and easy as saying over and over again, "I surrender", "I let go". Just say it or think it to yourself. The less time you leave in-between each repetition the more effective it is because it keeps you from drifting back off into problem solving. Usually now when I do this Holy Spirit steps in and starts healing me very quickly, and it was by doing this that I developed trust in Him to come into me and help me.
By surrendering, you open up to receiving. It's kind of like a willingness to let everything go to shit, which at first seems like it's going to be a terrible move and life will suck. But the truth is that when you let it all go you transcend the shit and it no longer seems important to do anything about it at all.
Especially if you are afraid, if you are fearing and worrying and doubting and are riddled with uncertainty, you need to surrender that shit. It means you're relying heavily on your own little ego self which is totally inadequate and is not the source of certainty or strength. Certainty (fearlessness) is an attribute of Knowledge, which is of God/Love. You can't experience certainty by "going it alone". You can only be fear-free by being joined with God, Holy Spirit, Jesus, higher-self, love, whatever you want to call it. Dependency on God is freedom.
The instant you start to surrender and let go you'll feel relief from the fear/anxiety. As soon as you surrender you'll start sighing, as an expression of how you admit that what you've been doing isn't working. It seems like a disappointment to admit that the ego's strategies are all bullshit. That your best "I can do it myself" reliance/independence simply is not working. Admitting to failure is a great step toward surrendering because it admits the truth, and that means opening a window for truth (healing) to access you. All your strategies suck. and aren't working. Let go and let God.
Surrendering will make you happier. Surrendering will bring you peace. Surrendering will make you calmer and less stressed out. Surrendering will open you up to spiritual healing and miracles. Let Holy Spirit manage the body. Let God in. Receive love. Be healed.
sThe world in itself is altogether intolerable. It was designed to be a place of limitations and difficulties and problems.
As Jesus says,"Seek not ESCAPE from problems here. The world was made that problems could not BE escaped."
That means you can't really expect the world to stop having problems, making things go wrong, being utterly awkward and stupid.
But what you can do is change your attitude.
All your suffering comes from believing that the world SHOULD NOT have problems, that it should work, that perfection is possible, that things will always go well, that every problem has a solution, that you can gain everthinge you want without losing it, and that the world has something truly valuable to offer.
If you believe that, you will be up shit creek, because the world CANNOT function that way. It's not capable of acting like heaven because it was made to be heaven's opposite in EVERY way imaginable. If you want it to function OTHER than how it DOES function, you will fight with it and be at war with it and hate it.
It was designed to be difficult, riddled with problems, totally contradictory, and hard to deal with. It was designed so that all choices are choices for partial things, and never can you get the whole from anything. It was designed to fail and be broken and lacking and special. It was NOT designed to be sane or to have order or to function benevolently. It was meant to be cruel and vicious and malicious and murderous. So let it be that.
If you can accept that the world is completely broken and ridiculously beyond all hope of improvement, then you're onto something. Because now your attitude is not BASED ON the world and not playing by its rules. You are under no laws but God's. You are not dealing with the world on the world's terms, you're transcending its terms.
If you can accept that the world is a completely stupid pile of shit that would be better of flushed down the cosmic toilet, then you'll be better off. Because then you'll allow and RECOGNIZE that it is like this, and not deceive yourself. It's only when you DENY that it is like that that you suffer, because then you are going against its grain and are in conflict with it.
Everything it is made to tempt you into suffering, to believe in death, and become disappointed. But only if you thought that the world would NOT be like this. If you are deceived into thinking that you can have it all, succeed, stop the problems, make everything work right, or prevent everything from dying, then you're going to be VERY upset when it constantly works against you. The world WILL have it's way, and it will fuck you over.
It will then seem that the world is against you because your demand for what you want the world to be like is against the world's nature. And so really you are against yourself. Strangely and paradoxically, if you can let the world be utterly shit and BE OKAY WITH THAT, without resisting it or hating it, without condeming it with sin or judgement, then you can let it be only what it is.
And then even though it is not heaven and is not of God, and continues to completely fuck up at every opportunity, you can now laugh at these mistakes and shortcomings, you can overlook them in forgiveness, you can not let them disturb or disappoint you, and you can therefore transcend them in peace. As Jesus said, you are not then trying to "escape from problems here", but you are instead seeing those problems with a more forgiving view.
The more forgiving view is to recognize that the world was MADE TO be a place of suffering and bullshit and conflict. It functions on the basis of separation. It was projected out from the insane ego mind, made by minds driven mad by guilt. It is not meant to WORK. But because it was designed BY something other than itself, it is NOT really responsible for its shortcomings. It can only be what it has been designed to be, and in that light you CAN FORGIVE IT, because it is not the cause of its own limitations.
The way out then isn't to try to stop the world from being the way it is, it's allowing it to be the way it is to that you are not caught up in fighting against it. Resistance is futile, and all it does is bind you to the world. When you drop the resistance you drop the attachment, and then you are free from the world. The world is not then disappointing you, if you never expected it to work out well. The world is not then doing something horrible that it shouldn't be doing, because that's all it CAN do. And you can just recognize its corrupt and inadequate nature and have pity on it for its inability to work any other way. And in that lack of sin you are set free.
Let the world burn, and be happy. A world that truly works and has order and peace and wholeness and where you can get everything you want without loss and receive perfection and have no problems, is not this world. It is the Kingdom of God, which God created as your true home, beyond this realm of nonsense and impossibilities. Let the impossible be impossible, so that possibility can be possible. Let the world "world" itself to death, while you by passerby and laugh at its unimportance.
People are all different. One of the most harmful aspects of this ego world is the attempt to make everyone the same and gloss over their differences. This is the ego's attempt to pretend that 'everything is ok' and 'we are all equal' as a form of denial and repression. It thus leads to people feeling like they have to 'pretend that they agree', when around individuals who are different.
For me, for example, I am an introverted person. That means I am more independent from society and social interactions and tend to be more sensitive and introspective. What seems 'natural' for me is quite different to what is natural for extroverted people. When the two worlds collide there is almost always a sense of tension and miscommunication and people-pleasing and dishonesty and lack of authenticity
For years and years I always felt compelled to have to try to 'be like others', or fit in, or just automatically accept sociable situations, as if not doing so was wrong and anti-social. This I think is largely because more extroverted people `push` sociability as though it is normal and exalted (especially with the whole idol worship/celebrity/hollywood ideals). But what is ideal for them is not ideal for me. Layers and layers of guilt and shame have had to be released and healed to come to feel that it is `ok` to be truer to my personality and my own standards and that I do not 'have to' just go along with other people.
The main area I experience this is in social interactions especially with strangers or where more sociable people are engaged. Just even the mere fact that people decide to suddenly stop and connect and converse is to me an uninvited intrusion, and due to my sensitivity I experience it as jumping ahead several steps in the amount of `trust` or depth of connection I would need to establish first. It's especially difficult around people that I think of as - social bloodsuckers - the people who suddenly decide to include themselves and involve themselves and start yacking on about themselves, especially filled with complaining and other forms of social attention-seeking, as a way to kind of `hold me hostage`. I want to tell them to shut the fuck up and leave me alone and stop invading my space.
So you can see that if you are different in some fundamental ways, whichever side of the fence you fall on, it can really produce a lot of tension and conflict, either externally or internally. That discomfort makes it feel like it's not okay to be the way you are or its not normal or its not acceptable, and that can lead to profound shame and emotional pain.
The term 'painfully shy' can arise for introverted people quite easily and the pain actually comes from social embarrassment, a lack of social prowess, troubles speaking (at all), troubles finding things to engage about conversationally (to even have the mental thoughts that lead to conversation), not belonging or fitting in, feeling inadequate socially and thus as a person, feeling lacking and insufficient and defective, feeling unheard (because more extroverted people actually don't connect at the same depth as introverted people - they are shallow and enjoy social-lies rather than truth), etc... this all can add up to a tremendous sense of 'being attacked' (either internally or by others) and that produces profound emotional pain. I suffered with that for years and years thinking it was not okay to be the way I am.
Gradually, and this is thanks in large part to A Course in Miracles and other healing and loving support, I've been learning two things - how to be more comfortable being the way I am - at least in terms of personality and needs - and consequently, being more comfortable to be around people and converse. The `opening up` of the Course has helped me to heal from 'social torture' to a large degree and to feel more confident in being `myself`. Even if that means just being my ego self more authentically. Because that authenticity is a doorway to my True Self.
Being true to yourself no matter what your `self` is, is empowering. And it also has helped me to learn healthier boundaries, that I don't have to people-please, that I can just walk away from people when I don't want to be social, that I'm not `held captive` by anyone's need for attention or domination, and generally an overall sense of ... greater peace, I suppose. These weren't necessarily goals I had with the Course but it has definitely healed to bring about healing in these areas, to remove fear and inhibitions, and to build a deeper connection of trust - and yet personal power - when interacting with others.
I don't know what kind of a moron I am in the eyes of extroverted people. I must come across as some kind of inept antisocial lifeless idiot or something. I have more to learn about how the majority of society functions. This is why it is very hard for me to envisage ever standing in front of some audience and giving a speech or being a highly visible public figure. Jesus has me doing things on a much lower-key and more behind closed doors, lol. Whatever your style is though, I'm just glad to finally be feeling a sense of RELIEF from years of torment and misery trying to be something I'm not, and I hope extroverted people can also learn they don't have to be like those annoying, antisocial, holier-than-thou, wimpy introverts ;-)
There is, as always, a paradox - the truer you are to yourself and to how you are different, not trying to pretend you are the same, actually allows you to become inter-dependent and open to true communication, understanding and compassion. And that is joining. Everyone has their gifts and talents. Let's celebrate how our differences can be acknowledged so that we can all experience peace. Political correctness out the window - we need to embrace who we are (even as an ego) in order to let others be who they are, in order to accept others and not be insensitive to their differences.
Thank you Jesus!
When problems are recognized for what they are, they are recognized as NOT EXISTING. They are recognized as being part of a larger illusion, wherein the ENTIRE illusion is one thing and NONE of it is true. Because the only problem is whether or not you are sane and happy and at peace.
When you do not recognize that all illusions are one illusion, you fall for the illusion itself. And now you are deceived. And in being deceived you will narrow your viewpoint and become more specific. And now you will start to notice and dwell on the FORM of the specific problem, noticing its part in the hierarchy of illusions, aware of how it appears to be different to all other things and not like them at all.
And now you are lost in the appearance of a problem which isn't even the real problem. You see its differences and believe that they define what the problem is. The form becomes the truth. And upon looking at form as truth, problems are all different and specific and many, and the seeming solution to one is not the solution to another, all of them asking for a custom-crafted solution aimed at solving ONLY THE FORM of the specific problem. Such as using the right tool for the job.
When all problems are uprooted at their source, by recognizing that the FORM does not matter at all, and the form is not the actual problem, you see all of the problems from a single abstract vantage point. This view recognizes that the form of the problem is utterly irrelevant, its appearance means nothing, it is NOT really different to anything else, and you overlook it. You stop being deceived, and now by recognizing that ALL problems are one problem, and all seemingly separate illusions are ONE illusion, the ONE problem reveals itself: you believe illusions are reality.
Upon recognizing that all illusions are NOT REAL, and are all the same in different forms, and the ONE PROBLEM is your MAKING IT REAL, then the one solution that solves every problem regardless of its form, is to withdraw that reality and not believe they contain truth. NO illusions are real, and NONE of them are true. The whole "master illusion" is recognized as ONE thing, and it is ALL FALSE.
The problem isn't the problem. It's not about whether the sink is leaking, or whether the leg is broken, or the car has a hole in the exhaust, or paperwork went missing at work, or you don't have enough ice-cream. The problem is you believe this world is real, has truth, exists, is happening, is causing you, is alive, has a mind of its own, is willing against you, and is God. And the only problem happening is whether or not you are happy, or whether or not you are suffering. And all suffering is caused by you making illusions real to you.
The one problem to solve is the question of whether you are at peace or whether you are suffering. Whether you are in God or lost in an imaginary world. Whether you are safe or whether you are threatened. Whether you are joyful or whether you are experiencing the loss of imaginary things. Whether you are sane or whether you are insane. This is the only problem to actually solve, because once you go into insanity you invent a myriad of non-existent forms of problems which aren't even really the problem. Fixing the kitchen sink doesn't solve the separation from God.
Problems are solved when you are happy, because when you are happy you are free of problems and suffering. When it's true happiness, it forgives problems and rises above the battlefield. When you are not transcending form you are stuck in a maze of unlimited configurations and deceptions and cannot be happy. Only if the world is unreal can you recognize it does not exist, that you must still be with God, and therefore are happy.
----
"A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already, you will still have the problem because you cannot recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. But the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized.
Everyone in this world seems to have his own special problems. Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted. Who can see that a problem has been solved if he thinks the problem is something else? Even if he is given the answer, he cannot see its relevance.
That is the position in which you find yourselves now. You have the answer, but you are still uncertain about what the problem is. A long series of different problems seems to confront you, and as one is settled the next one and the next arise. There seems to be no end to them. There is no time in which you feel completely free of problems, and at peace.
The temptation to regard problems as many is the temptation to keep the problem of separation unsolved. The world seems to present you with a vast number of problems, each requiring a different answer. This perception places you in a position in which your problem solving must be inadequate, and failure must be inevitable.
No-one could solve all the problems the world appears to hold. They seem to be on so many levels, in such varying forms and with such varied content, that they confront you with an impossible situation. Dismay and depression are inevitable as you regard them. Some spring up unexpectedly, just as you think you have resolved the previous ones. Others remain unsolved under a cloud of denial, and rise to haunt you from time to time, only to be hidden again but still unsolved.
All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. Perceiving the underlying constancy in all the problems which confront you, you would understand that you have the means to solve them all. And you would use the means because you recognize the problem."
To transmit large amounts of love to someone, supplies a lack and heals them. All suffering is simply the illusion of a lack of love, ie belief in sin and fear.
But the ego will believe that this undertaking of exprsesion will exhaust you, threaten you, deplete you and will take a great effort to push this love outward. It believes that all expression is a SACRIFICE AND A LOSS. That you will have to burn yourself out to help anyone, expending great effort above and beyond what you are capable of. And that you will have to do all of this yourself without divine help.
The solution to this is the recognition that your proper function in the machinery of love, is in its EXTENSION, not its sourcing. All love is of God. You should ALLOW HIM to extend love through you, and your "effort" should mainly be in stepping back, opening the door to the light, and being a CONDUIT, THROUGH which the love expresses. This requires your own mind to be open to love.
If you think that you are the one giving this, you will become an unhealed healer and deplete yourself, because you are really trying to force there to be a power. And you who see yourself as finite and limited will see this power as limited, requriing you to force it more The power has to be acknoweldged as being OF GOD, and via the Holy Spirit, so that you ALLOW HIM to be the therapist.
"To acknowledge that all power is of God is to gain all power."
"The thereapist merely lets healing be." "The Holy Spirit is the only therapist."
Our healing function is therefore to act as a PORTAL, open and free from fear or restriction or limit, which acts as a LENS, to allow the light of God to shine THROUGH. To broadcast and transmit to and be shared with another. To be this portal YOU DO have to be in a loving, spiritual, purified state yourself, not simply so that you do not interfere but so that you can reflect and RELAY what is being given TO and THROUGH you.
If you repeat something along the lines of "I extend God's love to you", this is a good place to start. You reach within or above, find the light, love and power of God, tune into the Holy Spirit, and with great willingness act as a RELAY STATION to extend HIS love to the patient. "I give God's love to you" would be another way to look at this. "I extend God's love to you".
"Through prayer love is received. Through miracles love is expressed." You receive the love by giving it and through your own healing. You express the love by extending it in which giving and receiving are one.
It is also true that if you believe you are currently lacking in love, which is highly likely if you are still working on your own atonement, you will recognize yourself as NOT having what it takes to heal anyone. You will fear healing. You will feel inadequate and weak and incapable. And you will try to depend on your own knowledge to make something happen, even though you have NO CLUE how to heal anything. This will make you feel TENTATIVE and HESITANT about even trying to heal.
But what you will find is that, as you step aside and plug yourself into the power source, and start to "get the ball rolling" by STIMULATING the flow of love through you, simultaneously your openness to the love will increase. As will its effectiveness.
The ego would say, if you start out with hardly any love, you have nothing to give. And it would say that because you lack love, there is no way to increase the love, and so giving it risks your own depravation. But you will in fact find that if you simply TRY, and start from wherever you are AT, and you start to "talk yourself into it", by at least efforting to extend God's love, you will find that your rusty pipes will open up, the flow of love will increase, it will BENEFIT YOU as it increases, and this benefit to you will also raise your own light and increase your ability to flow it.
"I will heal (myself) as I let Him teach me to heal (others)."From a stationary starting point, you can simply assert, "I love you [person]" or "I feel and extend God's love to you" or whatever. And as you repeat this over and over, you WILL start to tune into love, and feel it, and this will begin to heal you, and raise you up, and plug you in even more strongly. "Miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver".
By giving, you affirm that you have it. By giving, you open up to receive even more. The more you give, the more it FLOWS abundantly. Giving even when you believe you have nothing TO give, starts the process and gets things moving. Your natural function here is to SHINE BRIGHTLY, to emit a large amount of intense light. And you can only do this by EXTENDING the power of God through the Holy Spirit. Not by "burning out" of your own resources.
Ultimately when your mind is very loving and giving and receptive to love, it shines brightly and the light shining THROUGH you from God shines INTO the other person's mind and energy field. This lifts them up as well as you. You will feel not only lighter but stronger, your energy will feel more intense, and you will feel more powerful. And you will feel noticeably happier. And if you had stuff to be healed as well, you will find YOU receive a healing as you attempt to heal others.
We fear to begin this process only on a basis of the apparent LACK of love that we currently experience. We think we are are just too WEAK to even get off the starting blocks. That we don't have enough to give. Or just feel too unloving, honestly, to really want to help anyone, because we sense that giving a lot of love to someone is going to bring healing to ourselves also, and that is going to entail a challenge to our ego and our own suffering. We literally stand in the way of healing until we have some willingness to TRUST and to OPEN UP and at least TRY, from whatever our starting point is. And to do what we have to be willing to BE healed as well.
This is why it is vital to be willing to at least ATTEMPT to perform miracles, to express love, even if you yourself are lacking, and even if you are not enlightened yet, because it is this OFFERING of love that UNLOCKS your own receipt of help and healing. And it is through this GIVING that you accelerate your own RECEIVING of illumination.
You can of course take your sweet time and simply wait until you are "naturally" expressing love consistently all the time, but being willing to EXPERIMENT with this and TRY to heal, even as an unhealed healer, will help you to move forward on your own path faster, AND begin to show you RESULTS through your efforts with others. And by these results you will see PROOF that you have the power of God in you.
Miracle working is an ABILITY to be practiced. "Doing them brings conviction in the ability". You are not yet convinced that they can even be done, because you doubt your natural function as light of the world and as co-healer with the Holy Spirit. But by ATTEMPTING to perform them you will learn and hone the ability, learn from your egoic interference and failure, and move more rapidly towards consistent miracle working.
Upon entering the separation, we immediately entered into states of suffering. This happened because we rejected our wholeness. By choosing to believe we could be separate from God, in the fall of man, we were choosing not to be the whole of who and what we are.
We rejected our wholeness and wanted to be partial. We started to believe in lack. We saw ourselves as special and wanted to hoard some things for ourselves selfishly, meaning that we also wanted to be deprived of what others had. We introduced this depravation and suffering into our own minds.
"If you will accept yourself as God created you, ***you will be incapable of suffering.*** But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the ***acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE***. Your Father created you ***wholly*** without sin, ***wholly*** without pain, and ***wholly without suffering of any kind***. If you deny Him, ***you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind***, because of the power He gave it. "
This meant that upon the very instant of beginning to enter into separation, in the fall, we introduced suffering into our own minds. This suffering is nothing more than the seeming lack of wholeness. Simply by rejecting wholeness, we placed our minds in every conceivable condition that you might think of as suffering.
For example, all of "the separated ones", by rejecting their whole identity, actually came to be uncertain whether they really exist. They rejected their souls and began to experience a tremendous uncertainty about whether they were even real, or even existed at all. This is because we rejected our Father, and therefore rejected the belief that we had been CREATED. So this brings with it a fear of not existing (fear of death).
"The dispute over authorship has left such uncertainty in your mind that it may even doubt whether you really exist at all."
Also in the separation, by trying to be partial and special and not whole, we introduced the idea of lack and scarcity. We saw ourselves as lacking, or being less than whole. This alone lays the foundation for feelings of inadequacy, shame, unworthiness, weakness, fear of not having what it takes, a desire to hide, powerlessness, deprivation, scarcity, lack of abundance, fear of loss, constant anxiety about being overcome, and perpetual stress.
"Today's idea will eventually overcome completely the sense of loneliness and abandonment which all the separated ones experience.""Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones."
So by going into the separation, we immediately placed ourselves into suffering states. It's not like something in life happened to cause the suffering. It's not about some event taking place on a timeline. It's not about people doing stuff to us on a Tuesday. It all began and has its deepest roots in the separation from God itself. That's where it all started.
Your sense of suffering, lack, unworthiness, inadequacy, fear etc, can be compounded, and seem to increase or decrease, based on reactions to life events and so on. But fundamentally it isn't the world that's making you suffer, or any specific person, or any even major event. It's the separation from God. It's the lack of wholeness in your mind. It's the rejection of your soul. That's what's making you suffer, and that is the core root of ALL suffering. Which as the secret of salvation tells you, YOU are doing to yourself.
This really is also the source of all sickness and death. By believing that we are not as God created us, we reject eternal life, and believe in death. By seeing ourselves as unsufficient, a failure, lacking, unprepared, incapable, disabled, broken, etc, we form an image of ourselves as a body, representing what we think is true of us, and this now symbolizes and pictures our inner condition. So now the body is sick and frail and disabled because the mind is sick and frail and disabled."If you let your mind harbor attack thoughts, yield to judgment or make plans against uncertainties to come, you have again misplaced yourself, and made a bodily identity which will attack the body, for the mind is sick."
The resistance against the truth, puts the brakes on the extension of creation, rejects your natural functioning, and places you into a state of malfunction. This is the root of ALL forms of sickness. Worded in another way, it is a fear of the state of wholeness, a fear of approaching that state of wholeness, and therefore a fear of awakening to wholeness.
"All forms of sickness even unto (physical) death are PHYSICAL expressions of the fear of awakening."
This tells you also that if you were not to be afraid of awakening, if you were to embrace wholeness, if you were to open up to your perfection, and if you would deny and reject anything not of God any power over you (including death therefore), your mind would not be in a state of fear and would not need to defend itself against the truth, sickness would vanish and the body would return to a symbol of health.
It ultimately isn't stuff in the environment, little viruses, people's attacks, weather conditions, poisons in the food and water, or anything else in the world that is making us suffer. It is solely our own seemingly broken relationship with God. It is the connection between you and your soul, which has become blocked off and rejected. It is the denial of your SELF, that is making you have an ego exprience.
All pain is therefore induced by the denial of God. "The denial of God is the ego's religion." This denial of God produces a false "God of sickness". And this God of sickness demands the rejection of health both mentally and physically.
"Allegiance to the denial of God (and thus your wholeness) is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival."By even dipping your little toe into "the separation", by even perceiving at all, by believing a single illusion, you are entering into a realm of suffering and pain and fear. You cannot feel safe until you are whole. You cannot feel free from death until you embrace your eternal life. You cannot end suffering or be happy until you know you are with God.
"A Son of God is happy only when he knows he is with God. "So we can look externally all day for illusory sources of suffering. We can attribute the cause of death to anything OTHER than ourselves. We can blame the whole world for causing us to suffer. We can use the world as a gigantic scapegoat. But it will never change the underlying fact that WE cause our own suffering through our belief in separation. And this is the ONLY cause of suffering, sickness and death.
"Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments in which it hides its nothingness."
"Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to their believers."
"Reason will tell you that the only way to escape from misery is to recognize it and go the other way."
"Our efforts will be directed toward recognizing that there is only one problem and one answer."
"Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution."
For those of us, us "separated ones", who see ourselves as trapped in bodies, and prone to suffer, we need to be gentle with ourselves in recognition of WHY we suffer. We see ourselves as unworthy and insufficient, lacking and unwholy/unholy, imperfect and flawed, weak and frail and afraid, guilty and shameful, not good enough, disempowered, lost, alone, withering and dying. We believe this because we believe in being separate and are deceived by illusions.
It's quite natural to then become afraid of failure at every step, because if you know/believe that you are less than whole, you know that you do not have everything you need. And you then see yourself as incapable. And in recognizing your limitations, you will not trust that you can do things. You will undermine yourself, sabotage your efforts, avoid, procrastinate, and generally "fail" to live. And in seeing yourself as inadequate you will avoid doing anything because you know that you do not have what it takes to do it.
All this undermines your sense of confidence and certainty. It places you into doubt and fear and weakness. So you have to now be gentle with yourself in trying to "recognize your disability", which is mentally imposed, and work to undo this disability. To overcome your belief in being limited and confined and broken. Because by recognizing your immortal perfection you can rejoin yourself in wholeness and undo the illusions of damage and reverse your belief in being a frail lifeless piece of garbage.
We are all here as "recovering" death-addicts. We are all trying to find the strength to carry on. The will to live. We have to develop trust in a truth bigger than ourselves that we are far more powerful than we realize, are fully capable, and "there is nothing our holiness cannot do." This is a pathway in becoming re-empowered, re-energized, and alive again. It is the path of resurrection from death. You are coming back to LIFE, because you are crawling our of your hole of self torture and torment and hell, and are rising up the stairway to heaven's gate, where God is there to welcome you Home.
"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."
Perhaps worse than guilt, shame is self destructive and a form of self imprisonment. There is not much spoken of this in ACIM. But shame is very prevalent and heavy and harmful.
I looked up psychology definitions of how shame and guilt are different. A loose summary goes like this...
GUILT - A kind of internal judgement that you feel, based on what you did outside of yourself. Like attacking another person or breaking some moral or social code. It's not too far removed from remorse or regret, and somewhat "feels sorry for" the person. It to some degree recognizes that your behavior was wrong but it doesn't condemn your entire self.
SHAME - A kind of external judgement upon your entire inner self, based on what seems to be true of you. This can be based on something you did that you're guilty of, or just on some condition that you have. It can be based on your body's state or life situation or relationship status or whatever.
It's a condemnation that you are not deserving of love, you're lacking, deficient, inadequate, not good enough, weak, decrepit, insufficient, inferior, bad, sinful, evil, unlovable. Somehow that your SELF is fundamentally judged as "of lesser or no value". That you are not equal to others, you're beneath them.
When you apply shame to yourself, it's like a form of self punishment and imprisonment. ACIM does say that when you attack in any way, it induces guilt. But what it doesn't go into is that once you've found yourself to be guilty, you now decide that BECAUSE OF your guilt, you do not deserve forgiveness. To be found guilty is to sin and NOT forgive it. Having found yourself guilty, you've decided you are UNFORGIVABLE. And that also means you should not be loved, you are unworthy, and you should be ashamed. That you should feel deeply bad about yourself as if you've "become a permanent sinner".
Feeling ashamed is feeling really bad about who you are, as if you are inherently flawed. It causes you to withdraw and separate and hide and shrivel up. It's a disempowered state. Shame can also be fairly closely tied to embarassment. E.g. if you get pulled over by the cops for speeding for you might feel guilty for breaking the law, and then feel ashamed at having to "face the judgement" and be found guilty, for it to be proven that you were deficient and flawed. And if that's taking place in public with a crowd watching, you're going to feel shameful.
Shame is very self destructive. It's one thing to feel guilty, and the course talks a lot about guilt. But once you've found yourself guilty, you start to punish yourself. You agree you do not deserve forgiveness, which relegates you to being some kind of inferior creature. Something that does not DESERVE to be treated well. Like some caged animal that has no rights.
Because surely there is something inherently WRONG with you, that you did this. And this puts a major dent in your sense of worthiness. You feel unworthy of love and forgiveness. You feel unworthy of happiness. You feel unworthy of having relationships. You feel unworthy of existing, because you're not valuable enough to "qualify".
Within that state, a person moves further towards suicide. It's like they are bringing a ton of bricks down upon their own head. It's self condemnation. A desire to hurt and destroy oneself. And it's rooted in this belief that you don't deserve to live or be happy, therefore you deserve to DIE and be unhappy. And if death were to come to punish you, you'd practically welcome it, unwilling to choose against it, because you yourself think it would be justified, based on your self loathing.
You can become ashamed even just through simple mistakes. You can mistakenly accidentally hurt someone. And then you might feel ashamed of yourself that you were so incapable of avoiding it that there must be something wrong with you. You can also take on shame through public judgement by others, peer pressure, social pressures and so on.
You can feel ashamed from not fitting in, being different, looking and moving differently, not matching up to some kind of ideal standard. Shame is always a discrepancy between what you are "meant" to be like ideally, and what you are actually like (due to ego). You can feel ashamed for having an uncommon trait or body shape or being "too this" or "not enough of that." Not measuring up. Shame evaluates that you are simply LACKING, which places you below everyone else in the pits of hell.
Feeling ashamed makes you feel like you are some kind of lesser creature. That you don't have the same rights as others. That you can be used and stepped upon and mistreated, and you have no right to stand up to it. It's welcomed as though you think you deserve it, like you're this hideous unlovable ugly wart of inhumanity that everyone hates. And because you then believe you do not deserve love or respect or freedom, your only seeming remaining option is to seek out distorted forms of affection and attention - little conditional scraps here and there, from those who typically want highly special relationships and to take from you. Which feeds right into becoming a martyr, a slave, a victim and a punching bag for others.
Perhaps the worst part about shame is that it's really an attempt to destroy your very self, and your identity. To de-value and de-humanize you. It strips you of your freedom, your rights, your validity, your sacredness. It labels you and puts you in a box. It cuts you down and diminishes you and stomps all over your dignity.
It puts you out of touch with who you really are. It's a major loss of power and a state of weakness and fear. It makes you live in a little darkened cage like an animal, with no friends and no allies. It puts you into isolation, separates you off, portrays you as worth nothing, and seeks your destruction. Shame is like being eaten alive from the inside out.
When you have shame, therefore... through "secret sins", this HAS to be healed. You have to find forgiveness. And you have to find a way to regain your "self worth" - to recognize your value. You have to get your power back and become able to stand up to those who might try to diminish your light or limit you. In particular you have to find a way to forgive YOURSELF, in order to approach a sense of being valuable to God, to regain acceptance of your innocence.
In shame, it will always seem like everyone else has power over you, that you are not good enough, strong enough, capable enough, powerful enough, smart enough, creative enough, good enough, loveable enough etc.... just not enough... for anything or anyone. And this will make you feel limited and like a constant failure.
You'll avoid doing things because you believe you'll fail at it because you're already a failure. You'll fear the judgement and rejection and punishment of what you think is others, for an inevitable insufficiency and heaps of mistakes that you are destined to make, because you believe you are fundamentally flawed. And this will turn you away from expressing and creating and playing and enjoying simply on the basis that it threatens to expose you. It threatens to put you in the spotlight in the arena where you are much more likely to be called out for being unworthy.
The only way though that this can seem to affect you is by you yourself agreeing to it. Which means its your own harsh judgement of yourself that you have to get past. It's really not other people holding you down or making you inferior, it's you. It's your decision that you are unworthy because of your guilt. That has to go, so that you're not constantly second-guessing everything you do. You cannot feel confident about anything while you're riddled with self-sacrificing martyrdom and making yourself small and playing the part of weak and helpless.
Then you'll find that what was really holding you back was YOUR shame, which you imposed upon yourself. And it wasn't really that other people were keeping you locked in a tiny corner of the world, but your own unwillingness to be seen, to be heard, to stand up, to own yourself, to be authentically you, or to stand firm in the face of un-called-for criticism. You have to grow in your strength and power and your imperviousness to judgement.
Ultimately the fact is that all mistakes are forgivable, everyone is worthy to God, no-one ever needs to feel guilty or ashamed, and everyone is loveable. Whatever you did that you feel so bad about, that you're dragging along the ground like a ball and chain around your ankle, you don't deserve that. And because you don't deserve punishment, you don't deserve to die. And that means you deserve to live and resurrect and enjoy your life. You deserve freedom and power and health and joy and relationships.
Below are some of the very brief things ACIM says about shame...
"Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy."
"The seeds of sickness and the shame of guilt He cannot bridge,..."
"For specialness is triumph, and its victory is his defeat and shame. 9 How can he live, with all your sins upon him?"
"Let not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others."
The physical universe is not what it appears to be. It is a wall, constructed of a mad idea of sin, formed from lies, to tempt you to believe a great many horrible things are happening. It has been inserted as a gap of hell, in between you and yourself, between you and God. It depicts every form of suffering imaginable, is designed to tempt you to believe all of it is real, and deceives at every turn.
"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant."
"The world was made as a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."
"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."
So hanging in between you and God's Son, there is a three dimensional image, physical matter, "the world of bodies is the world of sin", depicting God's son as crucified, attacked, murdered, fragmented, suffering, vulnerable and sick. This is what planet Earth was designed to be. A giant holographic presentation of the idea of an attack on God and His Holy Son.
"The world was made as an attack on God."
All of its forms, all events, all occurrences, every interaction and movement, is all part of a shifting picture of change, in which every possible unreality except permanent perfection is depicted. Every car crash, every disease, every murderous war, every pain, every destructive habit, every unhappiness, all the tears, short and long term death, it's all designed on purpose to show you a picture of crucifixion.
Crucifixion is another word for death and this is a dream of death. And being an illusion of death, with stories of death running through it, it does not depict life and is not capable of doing so.
"What you are cannot be seen nor pictured."
"Nothing so blinding as perception of form."
So here you are, in your human dream body, looking out upon what seems to be a world, which you are blinded by. The body was deliberately designed to use its own senses to attempt to self-prove its own existence and the existence of other bodies. Its eyesight is blocked by the surface of sin (flesh, matter) so that by seeing it you do not see past it to the light of truth.
"You cannot behold the world and know God."
"Theirs (body's eyes) is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing."
And so, every day, you wake up, and you see this world - the hell you made. And in it, things go wrong, all the time. You see someone you love in pain or suffering sickness and fear. You see animals being abused. You see wars waging on foreign continents. You try not to drive your dream car over the road kill. You see the dead deer on the side of the street. And the whole thing is one big pile of torture and terror.
The thing is, just the mere fact of "feasting your eyes" upon any of this worlds contents, immediately instills fear. Just the mere act of seeing it at all, means christ vision has become blocked and you are now losing sight of the truth. Illusions of a world rise before your sight, claimed as true and real by the body's senses. And now the world seems real to you. People seem to be suffering.
Things seems to be going wrong. There is murder and death on the news. And if that is true, if you see it, if it has become real to you, if you are experiencing it at all, it is because you now believe it is reality. And by virtue of equating this world with reality, you MUST now be horrified and afraid, because if suffering is reality, there is no way to exist anywhere in reality without suffering.
And if pain and misery are true, there is no way to exist in truth without pain and misery. And in this there is no hope and no light and no salvation, because if reality is now hell, there is no heaven. And all this occurs in a split second just merely by "sensing" this world. Just merely by seeing someone walking as a cripple. Just merely receiving signals that someone is crying in pain. Just merely witnessing bodies moving around. This is enough to produce an ego reaction of terror.
The instant you believe, are deceived by, witness as true, and fail to overlook this ENTIRE world, this picture of crucifixion and lies, your mind MUST now equate that reality is harmful. And this will instill a sense of being at the effect of harm. And this will incite fear. And now your mind will spring into action with "why is this happening" "how can I fix this" "how can I avoid this" "what's gone wrong" "what caused it". All based on the belief that IT IS HAPPENING AT ALL.
At this point we have already fallen for the ego's trap. The instant we are deceived by the world, tempted to believe "it's happening" or "there is a world", we've already slipped on the slope and are now descending into ego responses. And our entire struggle now becomes one of trying to escape, while falling ever deeper into a pit. With the walls of the world closing in. And no matter what we do, WITHIN that kind of mindset, it does not bring peace. Because now we're in the desert where there is no life or love, and we need to leave.
It's like, we're being bombarded night and day with visions of hell. A world of lies. Where not one single thing is true. Where the whole world is a temptation to buy into an illusion of a world, as if it's really here. As if events are happening. As if things are being threatened. It's a nightmare to believe this world is happening. It's a dream of death, and all dreams are of death. A dream of life is still a dream of death, because life isn't a dream.
"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem."
So if there is someone in pain, if someone is suffering, and you see it or hear it or sense it, and you take this to mean "its happening", and you believe that, that alone means you are now tempted by the ego and are not forgiving. Because "to forgive is to OVERLOOK". And "falling for the world" or "gaining the whole world" causes you to lose your soul.
Failing to recognize this is JUST an illusion, NOT something "really happening", NOT something to react to, is a failure to be in christ vision. It's a failure to SEE reality. The screeching sounds of the ego have blotted out the real world. Not only is form blinding, it's *extremely* blinding, and every single thing that this picture of crucifixion DOES or SHOWS, is an illusion. A lie. A not truth. A false witness. A testimony of death. An attempt to prove that sin is real and death is truth.
If you watch yourself you'll see this happen. The moment you "experience" anything in this world, where you see something seem to go wrong, watch how your mind instantly reacts with ego. Watch how the fear increases rapidly. Notice how you immediately slip into the context of "I accept it is happening, but what is causing it"? rather than realizing, or questioning, is this even happening? If I believe what my senses are telling me at all, I am deceived.
"Whatever you accept INTO your mind has reality for you."
If I just fall into "its happening" mode, I will automatically start having thoughts like "why is this happening", "what's making this happen", "how can I stop this happening". Which is all ego. We then turn into fixers, managers, controllers, resisters, trying to change what we believe is happening. Trying to change an illusion based on believing that the illusion is real. And this is not forgiveness at all.
Forgiveness is profound. It literally means that this world IS NOT HERE. It requires the recognition and acceptance that THERE IS NO WORLD. It entails seeing PAST this world entirely, not falling for ANYTHING YOU SEE. Not being deceived by the powerful tempting illusions of suffering. To literally completely IGNORE extremely loud shrieks of suffering and war presented as physical proof. To look past the world as if it's not there. To not believe for an instant that someone's appearance of sickness is REAL or TRUE or HAPPENING. To realize your brother literally did not do anything that he appeared to do, and there are no real events here.
"All events are nowhere."
"Forgiveness recognizes that what you think your brother did HAS NOT OCCURRED."
Not just you thinking, well, yes he did something, he moved, he writhed, he suffered, he spoke, whatever... but that this wasn't real. It means being willing to pay NO ATTENTION to any of that, to ignore those signals, to not even TRUST your body senses, and to instead fixate on the light of truth beyond the body. Beyond matter. Beyond all physical objects and planets. Beyond the universe. A vision in the light so bright that it completely looks PAST (overlooks) and practically ignores everything in the world.
"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees."
Anything the body does is not true. It's an extraordinary picture of lies.
"The body is the instrument the mind made in its striving to deceive itself."
We have to learn, this is a really profound lesson. This whole world was designed to deceive us. We have to learn to NOT believe its lies and NOT take its appearances as literal reality.
"The world was made that problems could not BE escaped."
"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely."
"Temptation has one lesson it would teach, **in all its forms** (all objects), wherever it occurs. It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach."
"The temptation to regard problems as many is the temptation to keep the problem of separation unsolved. The world seems to present you with a vast number of problems, each requiring a different answer. This perception places you in a position in which your problem solving must be inadequate, and failure must be inevitable.
No-one could solve all the problems the world appears to hold. They seem to be on so many levels, in such varying forms and with such varied content, that they confront you with an impossible situation. Dismay and depression are inevitable as you regard them. Some spring up unexpectedly, just as you think you have resolved the previous ones. Others remain unsolved under a cloud of denial, and rise to haunt you from time to time, only to be hidden again but still unsolved.
All this complexity is but a desperate attempt not to recognize the problem, and therefore not to let it be resolved. If you could recognize that your only problem is separation, no matter what form it takes, you could accept the answer because you would see its relevance. Perceiving the underlying constancy in all the problems which confront you, you would understand that you have the means to solve them all. And you would use the means because you recognize the problem."
There is a world beyond this world. It's reality. This world, Earth, is a giant advertisement for everything OTHER THAN reality. "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way." Every aspect of this universe is a dream about "what is it like to be dead". "The world has disappointed you since time began." It will never satisfy us. "This world holds nothing that I want."
"Hold it not dear, for it is old and tired, and ready to return to dust even as you made it. This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."
The escape from hell is the escape from this world, into the light of reality. Leaving behind every temptation, deception, denial, resistance, darkness, horror and hellish vision. To awaken from this dream of suffering and return to awareness of immortal reality.
"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.*** They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."