Here is another way of interpreting this well-known quote:

"Seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. What you see reflects your thinking. And your thinking but reflects your choice of what you want to see."

Instead of this meaning, that the world exists objectively and you must change your perception of it, so that you see it clearly....

What if it means...

What you see reflects your thinking. Change your mind and what you see will change, because YOU are MAKING the world. You are the cause of what's out there. YOU are the dreamer of the dream. Change your mind and the world must follow. Not just a change or a shift in your own perception, or a position of seeing it from a different vantage point. Instead, it's a position of recognizing and admitting that you have power OVER it and by changing your mind the world will change!

This means the exact opposite to what is it is commonly interpreted to mean. It is the sheer difference between merely changing how you perceive and attempting to accept and keep what is out there, verses realizing that you PUT the world there and by changing your mind you can be miraculous in changing it with the Power of God.

You don't think you have this power over the world because you believe heavily that it decides everything for you. That's being a victim of the world.

You are not supposed to just change your perception or INTERPRETATION of the world. You are supposed to realize that you have the power to create physical matter, to change objects, to heal sickness and undo death. That this world LITERALLY is coming from your mind and you have power over it.

Focusing on this simple formula some more...

"If he senses even the faintest hint of irritation in himself as he responds to anyone, let him instantly realize that he has made an interpretation which is not true. Then let him turn within to his Eternal Guide, and let Him Judge what the response should be."

1) Jesus seems to be saying that we should watch ourselves for any signs of upset, irritation, annoyance, anger, grief, unhappiness, etc any of the ego emotions or reactions, any kind of un-peace or lack of happiness and love.

2) This means having a very high standard for what we should normally strive for - totally peaceful, happy, joyful, loving, strong, certain, all the time. Free from suffering, free from sickness, free from death. That if we are not totally immortal and powerful and whole right now, we notice something must have gone wrong.

3) Jesus is then suggesting that this entirely boils down to an INTERPRETATION. What he's really talking about here is perception and meaning. Perception is an INTERPRETATION of what's there. A translation. We give everything all the meaning it has by INTERPRETING it. We interpret it one way ie with ego, we move into hell and false perceptions and insanity/sin. We interpret it another way with Holy Spirit and we move into the real world and true perception ie forgiveness.

4) He then goes on to say that instead of trying to sort of fix this yourself, once you recognize that you "must have made a wrong decision because you're not at peace", you now turn to the Holy Spirit and "he will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I let him. I choose to let him....". So now we're asking okay Holy Spirit, please SHOW ME how YOU see this and help me to see this through your eyes/eyes of Christ.

5) So now you open to receive his healing and to join with him, to merge with his mind, to be open to his awareness and his light, allowing him to correct and heal you. This means being willing to receive correction ie to be given healing, to be shown a different approach or interpretation of the world and the body and everything. To adopt HIS approach to it, as your own, as part of you resuming the will of God.

Essentially this means that while we have perception and a body, we are spending ALL our time INTERPRETING, and thus translating, and thus GIVING everything whatever meaning we want it to have. And that means we need to change HOW we have interpreted something, if we're finding that the intepretation is producing some kind of dis-ease or suffering in any way.

We MUST have interpreted it negatively with the ego if it led to a negative reaction, so now we become willing to reinterpret it a different way with the Holy Spirit, so that we can see it from a more forgiving and HAPPY vantage point. And we just keep doing this over and over and over until all our interpretations are THE SAME ONE INTERPRETATION of the Holy Spirit, which does not fluctuate or waver or change with conditions. An interpretation which reflects unconditional constant love and peace.

"You but mistake interpretation for the truth. And you are wrong. But a mistake is not a sin, nor has reality been taken from its throne by your mistakes. God reigns forever, and His laws alone prevail upon you and upon the world. His Love remains the only thing there is. Fear is illusion, for you are like Him."

"Would God have left the meaning of the world to YOUR interpretation? If He had, it HAS no meaning. For it cannot be that meaning changes constantly, and yet is true."

"A common purpose is the ONLY means whereby perception can be stabilized, and ONE interpretation given to the world and all experiences here. In this shared purpose is one meaning shared by everyone and everything you see. You do not have to judge, for you have learned one meaning has been GIVEN everything, and you are GLAD to see it everywhere."

"It is but your INTERPRETATIONS which are lacking in stability. And they are NOT in line with what you really are."

"Correction of a lasting nature, - and only this is true correction, - cannot be made until the teacher of God has ceased to confuse interpretation with fact, or illusion with truth."

"Your interpretations of your brother's need is your interpretation of YOURS."

"By applying the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that HIS criteria are equally applicable to YOU."

"Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no-one can be angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appear as facts."

"If anger comes from an interpretation and not a fact, it is never justified. Once this is even dimly grasped, the Way is open. Now it is possible to take the next step. The interpretation can be changed at last."

"Now is escape impossible until you see you have responded to your own interpretation, which you have projected on an outside world. Let this grim sword be taken from you now. There is no death."

"Yet you cannot BE aware without interpretation, and what you perceive IS your interpretation."

"The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function."

"Do not allow the body to be a mirror of a split mind. Do not let it be an image of your own perception of littleness. Do not let it reflect your will to attack. Health is the natural state of anything whose interpretation is left to the Holy Spirit, who perceives no attack on anything."

"What you do not understand is that the two voices speak for different interpretations of the same thing simultaneously, or almost simultaneously, for the ego always speaks first."

"Every interpretation you would lay upon a brother is senseless. Let the Holy Spirit SHOW HIM TO YOU, and teach you both his love and NEED for love."

"Joining with Him in seeing, is the way in which you learn to share with Him the interpretation of perception that leads to knowledge."

"The Holy Spirit's interpretation of fear DOES dispel it, for the AWARENESS of truth cannot BE denied."

"Knowing is not open to interpretation, because its meaning is its own. It is possible to interpret meaning, but this is always open to error because it involves the perception of meaning."

I have been noticing in myself lately that I keep being judgemental. My thoughts feel like judgements. Even just basic thoughts of "what something is" feels like a judgement. I wondered to myself why I seem to be judging all the time. I hadn't realized just how judgmental I seem to be all the time.

This could be in the form of just having some opinion about everything. It didn't even necessarily need to be in terms of anger or projecting blame, just a kind of incessant "believing I know". Just constantly and consistently labelling everything in terms of what I believe it means.

I would just keep labeling everything in course terms. "That's an illusion", "They're level confused", "This is unreal", etc. I seemed to be just using the whole course to add a layer of naming and shaming to everything I was aware of.

I noticed also that I couldn't seemingly just look at something without "coursifying it". I couldn't just enjoy something or do normal activities without having to have an ACIM commentary running alongside it. Just constantly trying to "counteract" the world and everything I see with statements, trying to deny it, trying to change it, trying to push it away.

This also seems to be tied into a general sense of unhappiness about everything. My ego would sometimes really flare up with attack thoughts which clearly were attempts to increase separation. It increased a sense of being alone, and further justified a sort of seeming "bitterness" about the world. It kind of felt like kind of slipping down further into hell rather than rising out of it.

I also have been growing weary of ACIM, quite honestly. I've chewed on its words and metaphysics and have written about it to such an extent that I was becoming tired of it. Tired of thinking about it. Like I'd done it all and seen it all and there was nothing left to figure out. As if figuring it out, or understanding it, was the whole point.

I wanted some kind of more direct, simplified experience. Something more practical that works. Something more direct, that didn't have a layer of interpretation or second-hand thinking alongside it. I didn't want more affirmations or course statements flying around in my mind. I didn't want just another commentary or people just parroting the course's words as if knowing what it means. I and I didn't want to keep doing forgiveness on the basis of some bunch of statements, trying to use words to fend off ego attacks.

I had to step away from all this for a bit to just settle down and get a sense of something more basic and simple and fundamental. And this is when I started opening up to wanting the Holy Spirit to inform me of a better way. I wanted to see things how he sees things and to join with him more, to just very simply take some small little step that would be enough to fix my mind without all the psychobabble. Some kind of simple something I could just "do" that would produce a happier experience without all the course crap alongside it.

I saw that having conversations about the course just wasn't really working. Everyone's just talking about it. We use its statements as if they are magic wands. But I wasn't seeing a satisfying effect from this. Just figuring out what it means and repeating its words didn't do much. I didn't want to be just another parrot regurgitating the same stuff while staying entirely confined in this same "way" of trying to apply it. I wanted something much closer to my being, that I didn't have to think about. Something much more basic and intimate that I could "live" without mental gymnastics.

This is when I started to discover that I was in general laying an entire interpretation of everything on top of it. This interpretation was based on my thinking that I knew what things were. An attempt to understand it. I saw that I was giving everything meaning through this interpretation. I was deciding that things sucked or were negative and was then reacting to my own decision as to what I thought it was. My interpretation of everything was being mistaken for the thing itself.

So then I considered the fact that every single time that I was less than happy in any way, it was a part of this "way" that I was interpreting. I was filtering or translating or changing, twisting, whatever was "out there", into some kind of decided-upon "version" that I was then experiencing as my "perception of it". Because if you remember, "perception is a result not a cause" and "projection makes perception".

It's really what I project that produces perceptual issues. If I perceived a result or conclusion of "unhappy", I must have projected and wanted that. If I was interpreting that something happening "meant" that I should be afraid, I must've decided that it meant this. I gave it this meaning. And this meaning changed my perception and produces "experiences" or effects which were generally unpleasant.

In the truest sense, I was doing this to myself, as in the secret of salvation, because it was this whole "layer" of interpretation, coming in between me and the world so to speak, that was responsible for causing my "experience" of the world to be faulty. I was willing to consider that any time I was not happy I MUST have mis-interpreted and had come up with some kind of MISTAKEN opiniion about what it MEANS.

I had to be willing to recognize that it was my chosen interpretation that was entirely responsible for the "effects" of that interpretation upon myself, the seeming ego reactions or fears or upset emotions or any kind of annoyance or disturbance. All of my suffering was really rooted in that layer of interpreting, NOT in what lied "beyond it" as the world. And that meant that I was making a lot of mistaken interpretations, resulting in a lot of unhappiness.

Light a light-switch, I then found that simply by recognizing I had made an interpretation, and just being willing to admit that it was the entire reason why I was not happy, my mind would become open to just "letting that interpretation go." I didn't seem to have to do anything else for this to happen. As they say, "illusions recognized must disappear." My interpretation IS the illusion. It was a way of turning "reality" into something it's not. Just recognizing it as an illusory, self-made, made-up, filtered "view", was enough to make it disappear.

As soon as it would just disappear, immediately my mind would light up with light and happiness. It would seem as though a higher me, rooted in the "back" of my mind, would suddenly shine outward. It was as if secretly behind all my ego upset sense of self, there was this higher me that was just always happy and filled with light and wasn't taking anything seriously. It seemed to already be there. I didn't invent it myself. Perhaps this was the real me.

This has started a revolution in my mind and in my outlook and in my way of experiencing the world. It isn't a forgiveness based on some kind of long-winded, elaborate story that I have to tell myself, trying to deprogram myself, trying to counteract perceived problems with a long litany of affirmative statements, or trying to remember course principles, or trying to grasp at straws to make it go away.

It was very very simple. It was much more a sort of change in how I EXPERIENCE what's going on. And that was far more immediate. More like just a kind of attitude change. Not something "thought about", or arrived at through understanding, or made out of complicated metaphysics, or logically deduced. It was a kind of forgiveness that was just a much more intimate matter of psychological engagement.

Either I was interpreting or I wasn't. Either I had chosen to invent some kind of "meaning" for something, or I had let it go. Either I was filtering and believing I knew what something was, or I was just willing to stop doing it. It wasn't a matter of replacing it with something or justifying it or explaining it or writing a book about it. It was kind of like just stepping back. Getting out of my analysis. Stopping my self-made attempt to determine what something is.

The bizarre thing is just how effortless it is and how immediately a whole world of low-level ego experience, suffering, upset and darkness, is immediately overruled by a much much higher bright light of happiness and lightness.

It almost seems wrong, in that the light-heartedness of it doesn't even seem to care to "address"the many doubts and fears and concerns that the ego had. It just sort of leaps above it and pays no attention to it. Like, who would have thought THAT would be a solution? Not to change the ego but to just get OUT of it? To just leave the desert without even dealing with all the many loose ends and questioning fears.

I think for a ton of years now I've generally been locked into the ego mind. Regardless of how lofty my thoughts have been, and regardless of efforts to forgive. It's always still been accompanied by ego feelings, upsets, emotions, fears, reactions, ego rebounds.

I was just kind of getting fed up with the fact that every time I tried to do anything with the course, it ALWAYS had a stupid ego rebound afterwards. Catharsis, release, upset emotions, fear reactions etc. It was just so annoying. I was kind of getting tired of the course in this sense because I couldn't seem to do any of it without having this sense of ... I just don't want to do this. My ego self or whatever just is wired against God and does not want to wake up, and can't. "I", mixed up in that sense of lower-suffering-self, couldn't stop being the way it was.

So there's been this tug of war between the part of mind that just basically couldn't care less about the course and just wants to live a normal life in a body, versus this constant barrage of attempts to awaken to some kind of higher life and perspective that's totally incompatible. The contrast between the two was becoming very acute and I couldn't find a way to satisfy both. I had to even take a break from ACIM for a while and just be in "my ego" to just be normal and stop hitting it over the head with a hammer of spirituality.

But I think what's come out of that now is this very very unexpected movement in which I let the ego stuff remain ego and just seem to step outside of it. It's quite odd. Because I now see that within myself there's this sort of self-contained internal bubble of my suffering self, complete with all the ego emotions and upsets, which is generally most of the time unhappy, riddled with fears and grief and uncertainty and so on. And it seems like this is all within my body. And then somehow there's this higher me that is totally outside of all that, shining a light from a vantage point of not even trying to understand or interpret anything.

It has raised questions of, who even am I. What aspects of myself or of my experience actually is "the ego" and should be something to "get rid of", versus what aspects of this is actually a permanent part of my true nature? Are my emotional reactions just an ego thing? Is this sense of "me suffering" the ego? In particular, where do I draw the line?

But I'm finding that maybe I don't actually have to answer that in terms of a description of it. Because what I seem to be realizing is that ALL of that internal seeming "struggling self" is entirely sort of the "byproduct" of this whole "thinking I know" thing. This whole interpretation of everything. Having a judgement about what everything is. Labelling everything in course terms. Trying to describe everything in explicit detail.

That whole approach of trying to "understand" the world and everything in my experience, is precicely what CAUSES all of the suffering. It's as if, when I try to interpret "reality", it produces generally negative forms of consequence, in a cause-effect kind of way. And the outcome of that is what we might call "the ego" in me. It's this collection of reactions, emotions, upsets, perceived threats, fears, guilts, etc... which all seem to revolve around victimhood and being at the effect of something. That all seems to actually be the END RESULT OF, my minds attempts to INTERPRET reality.

So I put out some kind of negative faulty mistaken interpretation or effort to understand what something is, this results in a false perception, which in turn results in a bunch of suffering, which in turn assembles as a collection of unhappy elements that bundle together as an "ego experience". And that ego experience seems like it's somewhat outside of me. And when my mind is going there, it seems that I am the one having this experience, that my identity IS the suffering, that I AM the upset and the unhappiness. And that anchors and confines and limits my whole awareness INSIDE OF that whole viewpoint.

So if my view is so narrow and limited and false, producing heavy false dark perceptions, then my whole sense of self seems to become imprisoned and confined, alone and afraid, small and weak and vulnerable. It seems like my entire life has been spent accumulating sufferings in this little internal storehouse, surrounding and forming this confused and separated-off sense of self or of "my experience" of life. All gathered up in a ball, even which seems to be housed within my body and especially within the "emotional center" in the stomache area.

If this ENTIRE experience of life is the end RESULT, ie perceptual consequence of, the various mistaken MEANINGS that I keep putting onto things, then it stands to reason (lol) that if I fundamentally CHANGE my entire approach and alter the process of "giving meaning", then it's going to totally override that ENTIRE realm of expeirence.

It's going to basically switch off the ego experience, it's going to totally override all the upsets and reactions, all the unhappy emotions etc. Because it was as though, all along, all this time, ALL of my sufferings have been the RESULT of the meaning that I'VE been giving to everything.

I've become very good at describing things, explainig things, analyzing the world, picking apart illusions, labelling stuff, counter-attacking attacks, and generally just reacting to MY OWN decisions. And suddenly I seem to be embarking on an entirely different ballgame. I guess it can be described as moving above the battlefield in a way. It's like a HUGE stepping back and just stopping trying to fucking figure everything out. Not just because it can't be figured out but because the act of trying to do so is BLOCKING me. It shuts down my light and decreases my awareness and turns me into a judger.

So now for me, this whole course thing, it's turning into something very very simplified. It's just some basic sort of flip of the switch thing, between whether I want to carry on with my faulty judgements/interpretations/translations of what's going on, or whether I want to just let those go.

As I let them go, it's like a huge cloud of psychological blockage is lifted away. A bright HAPPY light switches on out of nowhere, as if I'm getting back in touch with the REAL me that is in the back of all this, and has been there all along covered up by all the mental distortions. It immediately feels remarkably happy and light, regardless of how heavy and dark the ego experience was "before" I stepped out of it.

What the ego is, I think it really is just the "effects" that are produced when we try to "narrow" (Jesus interjected) reality down to being this or that, to describe it, to judge it, to assess or evaluate what stuff "is". The labels and meanings we keep trying to give things. And then mistakedly confusing that effort for reality, believing that reality now inherently IS the meaning that WE decided it has. That produces all the ego reactions, all suffering, all unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

When we stop producing these illusions of interpreation, trying to think we know what things are, trying to understand the ego and the world, trying to filter what's happening, trying to insist that something is what we think it is, trying to be right about our labels and projections, all that just immediately switches off the "ego effect" and puts our mind back in touch with cause.

We settle back into reality, we return to our baseline, we get back in touch with who we are BEHIND all these layers of interpretation, and the clouds part and the light comes shining forth. And it feels SO much happier than the deluge of suffering that ALL interpretations produce.

So it's not a matter of trying to get "that ego" to change and grow and wake up and become spiritual, the ego is just the result of "shutting down". If we are to "open up" we have to be willing to actually be open all the time. Because any time we judge or label or describe or analyze or think we know about or seem certain of what stuff is or means, we are actually narrowing and closing down, casting anchors into the wind. And that just diminishes our light and makes us feel dark and alone and afraid.

We step out of the ego by stepping into the light of "not knowing", of forgetting what you taught yourself, or letting go of thinking you know, and of learning NOT to try interpreting anything. When you stop projecting your made-up meanings onto everything, you leave an open space for the Holy Spirit and God to project THEIR meaning instead, in the emptiness that you've left there. In the space you've provided for light to shine through you. Really it's more like, getting out of your own way.

I am finding this is what forgiveness means to me now. It's the simple movement away from having made the mistake of deciding what something must mean, which is pretty much always in error and leads to suffering, and just being willing to not do that. My own meanings are what blocks my sight. My own judgements of reality are what keeps reality from me. This is how we undo perception itself, by undoing the basis for judgement. And it takes no more than a slight willingness to recognize my self-inflicted suffering is coming from my self-imposed meanings, to let them disappear to reveal the light within.

Yesterday I saw for the first time, myself just pivoting differently, in a situation where someone had clearly "done something wrong", breaking some rules. I could've "held it against" the person, and yet somehow I remembered that this entire experience of it being "wrong" or sinful was a meaning I was giving it, and as I stepped back from that I found myself expressing that the person was still lovable regardless of this mistake, and it was only a mistake. It was as kind of "experiential forgiveness", so basic and simple, a psychological act of just "withholding judgement" in a way, that I felt it produced some kind of miraculous effects afterwards. And it felt good.

Ultimately it all boils down to the simple idea that we have en experiential realitionship with truth and reality, and we are either going to be fully open it and let it be what it is without trying to define it, or we're going to narrow our perception and lay judgements and labels on it, trying to dissect it. And as soon as we do that we will shut down our light and go into darkness (ego). If we want light and happiness, we have to learn to just accept reality in the fullness of "what is" (not the world as such), by not "having an opinion about it". Not laying a meaning on it. So that the light can fully shine and illuminate our happiness.

"Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, ****nor seeks to twist it to appearance that it likes.**** It merely looks and waits and judges not. ****He who would not forgive must judge****, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must ****learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.****"

"If you could accept the world as meaningless and ***let the truth be written upon it for you****, it would make you indescribably happy." "In the world you, can become a spotless mirror, in which the holiness of your Creator shines forth from you, to all around you. You can REFLECT HEAVEN here. But no reflections of the images of other gods must dim the mirror that would hold God's reflection in it. Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it. Reflections are seen in light. In darkness, they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves."

"The reflection of God NEEDS no interpretation. IT IS CLEAR. Clear but the mirror, and the message which shines forth from what the mirror holds out for everyone to see, NO-ONE will fail to understand. It is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in HIM. He recognizes it, because he has been taught his NEED for it, but knows not where to look to FIND it. Let him, then, see it in YOU, and share it WITH you. Could you but realize, for a single instant, the power of healing that the reflection of God, shining in YOU, can bring to all the world, you COULD not wait to make the mirror of your mind clean, to receive the image of the Holiness that heals the world."

God is always light.

When we resist God, we try to block the light.

This blockage produces an illusion of the absence of light, ie a "lack of light."

This lack of light may seem like darkness. But this darkness is entirely dependent on the block remaining to obscure the light. When the block is removed, the light will be present and there will be no darkness.

God's law is that light always dispels darkness, and that the illusion of darkness only shows up when the light seems to be blocked/denied. This works the same as clouds - when the cloud blocks the sun the cloud seems dark, but the darkness is an illusion. When the sun shines upon the cloud from below it is illuminated.

"Light dispels darkness automatically, by definition." UrT1B22A

If there is a lack of light, also called a lack of love, this is merely a seeming absence. It's like there isn't enough of something, or it's being held back. It is not the presence of something.

A darkness is merely the dimming of light, producing an illusion that there is less light. But this isn't the same thing as a "presence of darkness." Your world doesn't become "filled with darkness" at night, it just has a lack of light.

Darkness is not causing the light to go away. The blockage to light is what obscures the light and makes it seem like it has gone away. The blockage directly causes a shadow or darkness to appear, but the darkness is entirely dependent on the blockage because the blockage is keeping the light from shining.

If the blockage were to be removed, there would be no lack of light, and no illusion of darkness, and the light would shine so much that there would be no darkness. Light always dispels darkness this way.

Someone who is blocking the light/love of God is merely mistaken. They are putting up a block trying to deny what is still true. This is seeming to shut out the light and love of God, but only in an illusory way, because God's light and love cannot be affected.

So blockages to light are really just forms of denial, in which we try not to admit that the light is still there, and hide it from awareness, covering our eyes to try to be blind to it. And we may go so far as to hide in the illusion of the darkness to pretend there is no light.

Doing this isn't a sin, it's just a mistake. It's an attempt to not extend God's light and love, or to put the brakes on creation, so that God is prevented from shining/extending outward. Trying "not to shine" holds the light in and doesn't let it out, producing an illusion of an absence of light - a darkness.

"God's extending outward, though not His completeness, was blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one." UrT6F2

If the denial of light, or the block to awareness of light, is recognised for what it is, without getting into ego, then it calls for an obvious remedy. It is seen as merely a lack of love, and the obvious response is that love needs to be supplied. So you give love/light to supply the lack. This is what miracles are for.

"Miracles are a form of healing. They supply a lack, and are performed by those who have more for those who have less." UrT1B8

There is no "sin" involved in this, only mistakenness ie denial of the truth. An unwillingness to admit that the light is still there.

"Sin" is a faulty interpretation of this whole scenario. It ignores that the block to love is the "cause" of the darkness, or that if the block were removed the darkness would be dispelled. To suggest this is to suggest that you could heal the darkness and replace it with light by removing the blockage.

The ego does not want this to happen. Ego is the idea that the blockage is not the cause of the darkness, and that the darkness exists in its own right. Such that whatever has put the darkness in place is irreversible, because it seems to have no cause other than itself.

Ego doesn't just see a shadow projected from the blockage. It takes the darkness and considers it as standalone thing, and fails to recognize that there is a lack of light/love. Instead it interprets that the darkness is the PRESENCE OF something else. Something which has its own existence, its own power, its own will, its own causality. Something which can make the light go away. Or as the course describes, this is the belief that darkness can hide.

"Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide. Man believes that what he cannot see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark." UrT1B22B

When a "lack of light" is interpreted to be the "presence of darkness", this is the idea that evil exists. That there is a power capable of causing light to go away. And then there becomes a vested interest in staying in the darkness in order to "exist". This is why the ego dwells in shadows and cannot exist in the light, and why it wants to keep the illusion of darkness going.

So we turn a lack of love into a "real sin" with "real consequences". We hold the lack against the person, and instead of saying that they are merely mistaken and we need to give them more love, we say that they have failed to love and do not deserve forgiveness. Therefore their blocks to love are irreversible and their darkness its produced is permanent and they are now wretched and darkened beings.

In effect, what should just be a simple error easily corrected by love, is misinterpreted as something real in its own right with its own meaning, proof that evil is real and exists, and holds that against the person as their truth. We take what should be easily forgivable and turn it into a crime, as though to say that they aren't just making a mistake, they are positively making an act of assault.

"The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love. It perceives it as a POSITIVE ACT OF ASSAULT. This is an interpretation which is necessary to its survival, because as soon as YOU regard it as a LACK, you will automatically attempt to remedy the situation. And you will also succeed. The ego regards this as doom, but YOU must learn to regard it as freedom." UrT5G8

So essentially the idea of the belief in sin, or interpreting things as sins, is rooted in taking something which is actually an absence, and interpreting it as the presence of something. It's not just an error, it's a crime. It's not just a mistake or something to be learned by a child, it's a deliberate attempt to harm and offend. It's not just an innocent lack of wisdom, it's a positive desire to do horrendous things on purpose out of malice and spite.

So really when we interpret someone as sinning, we're sort of saying "you're a dark evil person for being this way", rather than that "you are just lacking some light and need more light." Any sense of accusation, scapegoating, making guilty, turning what someone does into a crime, holding the mistake against them like it proves that they're unworthy of love etc, is all the ways that we convert a mere "lack of" love into a "presence of" evil.

True perception accurately and correctly views all illusory things - all blocks and the results of those blocks - as nothing more than temporary errors, which can be perfectly corrected without any punishment or need for chastisement or blame or hurt. And no death sentences or justified revenge. It merely sees an innocence and a mistakenness within the confused/lost person, rather than converting that mistakenness into "you're doing this on purpose to hurt people because you're evil and deserve attack."

There are only mistaken innocent souls who lack wisdom and are lost and confused and choose incorrectly, who need simple gentle correction by a loving hand such as the Holy Spirit. A simple classroom of children learning how to stop hurting themselves. When we turn this into a bloodbath or a warzone or a battlefield or a place filled with enemies and opponents and competition, we're moving into the belief in sin.

The belief in sin is the belief that darkness is real and contains real evil and can really produce real powerful consequences in its own right. This completely ignores the truth that there is only love and a lack of love, and never a sin. Nothing is a sin, because sin is nothingness misinterpreted as something. Your brother's sins are not sins, they are just mistakes calling for love.

"Dream softly of your sinless brother, who unites with you in holy innocence. And, from THIS dream, the Lord of Heaven will Himself awaken His beloved Son." UrT27H14

Many ACIM folks appear to struggle between two sort of 'camps', in regards to whether to change the world or not.

There are many passages and quotable concepts in the Course which could be used to back up either viewpoint.

I think though the main reason people struggle with this is because the EGO has tremendous difficulty understanding anything outside of its backwards perspective.

For example, to the ego, control brings you freedom. It says that if you control things more, you'll be able to prevent all the things you don't want to happen, and enforce all the things you do want to happen. You'll 'get your way', and that means life will seem to be doing what you want it to do. And that is its interpretation of what freedom is.

The truth, which the ego cannot grasp or accept, is that control DIMINISHES your freedom, because it separates out some parts (of yourself ultimately) from others, sets them against each other, and elects to support only one of the two parts. Now your choices are diminished. In other words, if you choose A or B, once you've chosen, the other choice goes away, and now you are 'stuck' with the choice you made. This is freedom to the ego, but to your Real Self this is imprisonment.

So when you use the ego mind to try to understand a very basic principle like ACCEPTANCE, this I think is where the community's viewpoint hinges and stimulates controversy. It's because the ego does not understand HOW it could be possible that you can be accepting, or just working on changing how you perceive the world, and not be passive. So this is what it all pivots around.

Really these are the two conflicting attitudes of the EGO:

1) Accept everything as it is, don't try to change anything, be passive, work on your own mind, change your mind ABOUT the world, study in secret, don't tell anyone you're doing the Course, keep miracles to yourself, interpret miracles as shifts in your own perception only, and generally lay down any kind of 'interference' with the world as you go within. This is EGO because the ego has now separated you from the world, has isolated you to your body/mind with the justification of hundreds of Course quotes which SEEM to support its argument. This is EGO because the ego can't ALLOW there to be acceptance without interpreting it as SACRIFICE, i.e. the giving up of control which the ego thinks means like 'I need do nothing' i.e. I will literally stop expressing anything in the world. This is SPIRITUAL CONSTIPATION! You'll be stuck in your head and paralyzed from exerting the will and power of God. You will be disabled. The ego sees acceptance as disempowerment and disability, and this inspires all thoughts of how this kind of 'attitude' is the correct way to do the Course.

2) The second ego interpretation is that you aren't meant to just dwell on fixing your view of the world, but you're meant to change the world. Except that, to the ego, this means, using the ego to change the world. This turns into control. It turns into spiritualization of the world. It becomes the ego's party where all egos are invited to 'act spiritual' or to pursue special causes or use your ACIM learning to 'attack' what is. The EGO can't understand whatsoever how it could be possible to express something in the world and have it be ACCEPTING of the world at the same time. It does not get this. So if you were to express or exert or change the world, this is now considered 'unacceptable' to the Course theology, and therefore rejected by many students. And yet those who accept this idea then go on to shy away from some of the seemingly contradictory statements about acceptance or doing God's will or changing your mind and so on. This again is another ego play to flip your mind around a polarity of DUALITY, so that you stay within the ego thought system, and keep interpreting the course WITH the ego.

Neither of these camps have the truth.

Truth is of the Holy Spirit and his mind functions in a completely different way with rules that apply to all and which has no duality in it. The Holy Spirit has a completely different understanding of ACCEPTANCE. He has a completely different grasp of whether you are 'for or against' doing stuff in the world, knowing that this is a dualistic question. Holy Spirit would not see your 'accepting things as they are' attitude as being SEPARATE from 'being empowered to do God's will and heal the world'. And therefore, Holy Spirit supports BOTH camps combined, which completely defies the ego's logic.

It is possible to be accepting without that having to mean, you cut yourself off from the world or disappear into your intellectual correction of perception. It is possible to be accepting of what 'is' or what appears to be happening, while at the same time having the power and will to CHANGE IT. Because... after all, IT is just an effect of what's going on in the mind. IT is a dream that YOU are dreaming. So this has to mean, you can accept what you have made, but you can also make something different. So this division of separation in the community is really only there because the EGO has gotten ahold of the Course and DOES NOT understand the Holy Spirit's viewpoint or thought system.

As always with ANY polarizing, dualistic, separating set of questions, in which it seems that neither side seems to 'get it', this ALWAYS means that "there has to be a better way" and there always IS a third option. It's that third option that comes from Holy Spirit. Another way not just of looking at the situation, but another way of looking at HOW you look at looking at the situation.

You can accept without being controlling, and yet exercise tremendous freedom to intercede. "I [Jesus] inspire all miracles, which are really intercessions. They intercede for your holiness." - principle 32. "35 - Miracles are expressions of love, but they may not always have observable effects." - principle 35, which also means miracles USUALLY have observable effects, meaning they change the world.

There is not a contradiction here. The contradiction is in the ego mind that cannot understand this. It can't get it because the ego can only see WITH separation. It is blind to Oneness or true meaning. Any separation in the community has to be founded in the ego.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Often when I'm in the middle of some kind of upset, or a pain, or a sickness, or a struggle with someone or whatever, Jesus or Holy Spirit will simply say "its a lesson".

When they say this, they aren't saying "its a punishment", even though that's what I'm interpreting it as - some kind of unfair treatment. By saying its a lesson, it lets me know I have something to learn.

But it also lets me know, that this isn't something that they're trying to hide from me. They're not being assholes and concealing the answer to the lesson. It's totally available, and I'm aware somehow that the only reason I'm having the lesson is because *I* need to change in some way. There's something about my perception that is faulty, or something is unforgiven, or some healing is needed.

At the same time, I get this feeling like, there is a prize... a gift... there's something valuable that is 'mine' but its hidden from me, like a buried treasure or something. I can have it, and there's nothing stopping me from having it, other than that I need to learn the lesson. It's not a lesson in punishment or how I need to suffer. So then this makes it feel more like a challenge.

Also knowing it's a lesson helps me to not see it as 'against me' or 'unwanted' like I was before. If its just a lesson then things are happening for a reason, and there's just something I don't accept or don't realize/recognize yet. This sort of makes it almost an exciting challenge to find out what it is that I'm not 'getting' yet. This then sends me on a journey of discovery to look within and investigate what's really going on here. It's a call to do some radical honesty and inquire within.

And actually it's not like Jesus or Holy Spirit are mean school teachers who put up walls or reprimand you or anything. They are actually willing to HELP, with the lesson. But it entails a certain amount of willingness on my part. I can even ask them for guidance and they can provide some.. sort of like clues... because they don't often just outright reveal the 'answer' or solution or truth. But they're there to help as much as I'm willing to learn. Ultimately, how quickly I learn the lesson is up to me.

See we each have our own curriculum and like ACIM says, we get to decide when to learn - ie we can delay or be willing - but we don't necessarily set what the curriculum contains. And usually when lessons come along they are always unwanted at first. That's why they happen, lol. But they're there to help. They're nudges toward God. So if something seems to have gone wrong I need to become willing to at least accept that this is trying to help me somehow, and that I need to open up to something because I've made some mistakes. I need to learn the lesson. It's not there to torture me but to free me. My mighty companions just want the best for me.

Thanks Jesus/Holy Spirit.

"Illusions recognized must disappear."

Let's say there is a monster behind the door. It's dark back there, and there was a strange noise. Something seemed to move. Because of the darkness, there is a lack of ability to see clearly, and things are obscure. You're having to make evaluations based on a lack of clarity and not having all the facts. You can't see the whole context so it seems reasonable to conclude there is some strange dark beast lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce.

However, when you switch on the light, and you move the door aside, you see that in fact there is no monster there. It was a trick, a deception. What you thought was there, is not there. And all you see is some clothing which was hanging on the door which slipped off the door hook and fell down. You suddenly realize this is what made the sound you heard, and are relieved to realize this is "all that it is". You simply see the whole picture clearly, you have all the information, nothing is hidden or obscure, and "in the light" it becomes clearly obvious what is there and what is not. And upon seeing this, the illusion of a monster has disappeared.

This is what it's like to go through a transition from believing that illusions are real, to realizing and recognizing that they are not. Learning to recognize what the situation actually IS, rather than what you thought it was. Learning to SEE clearly, so that you only see things for what they actually ARE, instead of what you were making of them. And once you see the illusion for only what it is without adding to or removing anything, it no longer holds any threat or implication. It only is what it is, nothing more and nothing less, and what it is is false, not something to believe in or be upset about. And seeing it for what it IS, doesn't make it REAL.

A similar thing happens with puzzle solving. Let's say you have some puzzle, perhaps a three dimensional set of object pieces that you're supposed to disconnect but you can't see how to do it. You start out deceived by illusions. Something about the appearance of the puzzle has deceived you, causing you to make assumptions that are false, and so you're starting out with distorted perception OF an illusion. But you believe them, and so you are blind to the "solution" because you can't see past your deluded mis-perceptions and mistaken evaluations.

Eventually after much trying, it suddenly occurs to you that something you were seeing was not actually the case. It seemed to be something, but was actually something else. You suddenly remark "oh" and recognize what's actually happening. You recognize the illusion, see through the illusion, and awareness of a larger context dawns on you. In that greater light or perspective, outside of the illusions, you can suddenly "see" the answer, and WHY the puzzle was deceiving you.

You see through its deception and recognize the mechanisms of deception, and now can solve the puzzle. It is obvious then. And you kick yourself for having not seen something so blatantly obvious all along. Afterwards you can never see the puzzle the same way again or be deceived by it, because you have learned to recognize the truth and would have to deliberately blind yourself.

The same thing also happens with your beliefs, which have an effect on your perception and how things register to your awareness. What you believe is true, will seem real to you. And it will take on properties of power, causality, will, intensity and permanence. And by investing it WITH truth you will take it to be telling you the truth, as though it is factually real. But just because illusions appear to be real, doesn't mean they are. And so if you have illusions ABOUT illusions, you are having false perception.

If you have a belief, let's say, that you are an unworthy person who doesn't deserve love because of something you did 3 years ago, that's going to skew your perception and make it appear that it's TRUE of you that you don't deserve love. And because you believe in that, which ultimately is untrue in the big picture, you are blinded by this belief. You can't see past it or accept the truth about you - that you deserve love. Illusions about you seem to be true, rather than illusions about you being recognized as false.

But then if you work on this "true" belief, you transition from believing it is true, to recognizing and believing it is false. As you make that transition, how that belief "strikes" you or registers with your mind, changes. When you believed it was true it seemed to hold power and truth, to threaten and define you, and upset you, and seemed to be a CAUSE or reason why you are unlovable. It seemed to have truth in it and you were upset by it. But now, as you see it from a different vantage point, you STILL SEE IT, but it registers to your perception in a different way. It now just seems false, you don't feel like you believe in it, it doesn't appear to be true to you, and it doesn't hold any of that seeming "charge" that gave it a sense of power and causality. You now see the belief as nothing, nonsense, totally untrue, and something you are now WILLING to surrender and let go of.

As you work on transitioning from false perception to true perception, this is more or less the same process you will go through. False perception is a state where you are experiencing or presented with illusions but you are having illusions ABOUT those illusions, causing you to BELIEVE THEY ARE REAL. You believe they are true, are blinded by them, deceived by them, tempted by them, and you can't see past their *appearance*. You think they make sense and are valid, because you believe IN them and have placed a sense of trust and truth into them, seeing no reason to question their "reality."

Over time, you will still continue to see these same illusions, BUT, how they APPEAR to you, how they strike you, how they register to your awareness, will transition from that state where they seem to have power and causality and loom over you like they are unquestionable, to where they have lost all their seeming strength, all their power and causality, all their truth and validity, you have WITHDRAWN your belief in them, you see PAST their appearances, you no longer put your belief IN them, and therefore they simply now seem to be UNREAL. They have deflated and collapsed down into nothing. They register to your mind as FALSE. You see a bigger truth, in light of which these smaller lies are OBVIOUSLY false and cannot be believed. You wonder why you ever believed such nonsense in the first place.

Recognize here then that up until you are done perfecting your true perception/christ vision, you are in a state of being surrounded WITH illusions (the physical world), but are learning to RECOGNIZE them for what they REALLY ARE, rather than being deceived by them and believing they are true. And that means you're still going to PERCEIVE them, it's just that HOW you perceive them is going to change, and how they LOOK to you is going to change. What they MEAN to you is going to change. And whether or not you believe they are TRUE is going to change. The world is going to transition from seeming to be REAL, to being clearly UNREAL!

When illusions are seen but NOT recognized for what they are, two things are happening. There is a seemingly external illusion, PLUS you have a distorted vision which can't see past the appearances and takes the illusion to be real. So now there are TWO layers of illusions. When you are learning to OVERLOOK (forgive) the illusion, it is STILL SEEN for a while, BUT the DISTORTED INTERPRETATION *OF AN ILLUSION* changes to an ACCURATE interpretation of the illusion. That which is illusory is not merely your mistaken perception OF something. There are two layers to illusions. The illusion ITSELF (e.g. physical world, bodies), and whether or not you are DECEIVED by it (believe in it). Just because you undo your deception/misperception doesn't mean that you are done undoing the illusion ITSELF. Your misperceptions OF the world, merely reveal to you the truth ABOUT the world, the "reality" of it, which is that IT IS NOT REALITY.

When Christ vision is perfected and you no longer believe in ANY illusions, the illusion DOES disappear. Or shall we say, when you no longer believe that this ILLUSORY WORLD is real, and can RECOGNIZE IT for what it is - a dream - it will disappear. Along the way, as you undo your belief in ANY illusion being real, the illusion "THAT IT IS REAL" disappears, revealing the illusion FOR WHAT IT IS. That it IS an illusion, not a reality. And eventually the view that it is ALL an illusion becomes very clear and obvious, and then the entire thing disappears.

To "see through" the illusion is to OVERLOOK it, which is what forgiving it means. "To forgive is to overlook". By NOT BEING DECEIVED *BY* the illusory world, causes you to forgive the world and therefore produces "the forgiven world". But "a forgiven world cannot last", because IF you forgive it, ie if you recognize it for what is "really is", you WILL recognize that IT IS AN ILLUSION OF A WORLD. NOT a real world. "The real world still is but a dream." And this is why forgiven worlds MUST disappear BECAUSE they don't really exist!

This world, including Earth, is an illusion of a world. It is illusory ITSELF, a fake world made of illusions and deceptions. regardless of whether you RECOGNIZE it as that or not. And if you DON'T recognize it as that, you WILL believe it is REAL. And that is FALSE PERCEPTION. It was made to tempt you and deceive you. If you are still seeing it, you must believe in it to some degree. But as you transition towards Christ vision, you will gradually learn to regard it as FALSE, unreal, and untrue. This means you will be withdrawing your belief in it, withdrawing your faith from it, and learning to register it as false, or in the category of "unreality". You will no longer be deceived BY the illusion, or have illusions ABOUT the illusion.

***Just because your misperceptions become corrected DOES NOT MEAN that you are unveiling reality to yourself. It means you are unveiling the TRUE NATURE OF the ILLUSION!*** And reality is BEYOND IT!!!

Just because you have illusions ABOUT the world, does not mean that the world itself is REAL! Or that by "seeing what is true about it" is to see it AS true. Or to "see the reality of it" means it IS real. IT IS NOT REAL. Just because you misunderstand what the world IS, doesn't automatically mean it IS REAL or true BEHIND your misunderstandings. Your misunderstanding OF the world is that YOU THINK IT IS REAL WHEN IT ISN'T!!!!! It only means that you are not seeing WHATEVER IT IS, correctly. False perception does that. And it does not follow that seeing the world "truly" will show you that it is REAL, only that its "true nature" will be revealed, real OR illusory. It will show you the truth ABOUT the world. It will show you the "reality of" the world. But what the world is, in reality, in truth, IS UNREALITY. The world *ITSELF* is an illusion of a world, which you have been having illusions ABOUT.

***False perception falsely perceives illusions (with more illusions) and believes they are real.***

***True perception CORRECTLY perceives ILLUSIONS and RECOGNIZES them as FALSE.***

Undoing your illusions ABOUT the world therefore isn't going to lead to you realizing that this world is REAL, or reveal to you "its underlying reality". It SHOULD lead to you realizing that this world is UNREAL, and that it couldn't possibly have come from God, only from YOUR DREAMING. It's unreal precisely BECAUSE when you believed it was real, you were MISTAKEN. When you thought IT was true, you were mistaken and having misperceptions of insanity - believing that something illusory HAS REALITY. And so learning the truth ABOUT it, should revel to you that it is NOT REAL, AND NOT WHAT YOU THOUGHT IT WAS. False perception is a state of FALSELY INTERPRETING AN ILLUSORY WORLD. ***It is a state of HAVING ILLUSIONS ABOUT AN ILLUSION.*** Not falsely interpreting reality. True perception is a state of CORRECTLY INTERPRETING AN ILLUSORY WORLD TO BE FALSE, whereby the illusory world is OVERLOOKED (forgiven) and the REAL WORLD (heaven) comes into sight in place of it.

What the course typically calls "the real world" is that state of mind you get into when you solve the puzzle, or realize there is no monster behind the door. It's a state where the world is still briefly SEEN, but NOT BELIEVED. So that means, as you approach the real world, and you are seemingly IN THIS WORLD, in a body still, you SHOULD be realizing AND recognizing and perceiving this world AS. .... nothing but A DREAM, a fiction, UNTRUTH, UNREALITY. Walking around it in the "awareness of dreaming" KNOWING that it IS a dream, NOT a reality. Being aware that this world IS ILLUSION and holds nothing that you want. "It takes great learning to both recognize and accept that this world has nothing to give." And in that state of recognition, you are like dipping your toe into an unreal hell only for the sake of helping others to leave it.

The world should hold NO REALITY FOR YOU!!! NONE. The world IS NOTHING. IT DOES NOT EXIST! THERE IS NO WORLD! "The world will spin into the NOTHINGNESS from which it came."

To be a teacher of God is to be aware of dreaming. That means being aware that you are IN A DREAM WORLD. It is not the END of dreaming. You are still IN the dream, RECOGNIZING that it IS a dream, not a reality. NOT believing it is true or real. NOT believing in it. NOT buying into what you see. NOT buying into sickness. NOT believing bodies are really people. NOT believing that anything you see is TRUE or permanent or irreversible or happening in reality.

Yet still perceiving it, just enough that you can still operate in it temporarily. And eventually your clarity about the truth becomes so complete, there you will see THROUGH the illusory world fully, having NO ILLUSIONS ABOUT THE ILLUSION, such that the illusory world completely disappears, revealing the real world, and then you will transition effortlessly to heaven. Where is the illusory world then? It does not exist, and it never did, because there is no world.

When illusions are fully recognized, THEY DISAPPEAR. The illusory world, Earth, WILL disappear, BECAUSE it is an illusion. The body's eyes can see it BECAUSE the body can ONLY see illusions. The world and the body are both dreams. None of them are real. That is what true perception is supposed to reveal to you, NOT that this world is "actually real" behind your misperceptions of it.

Reality is BEYOND ANY PERCEIVED WORLD. It is beyond the falsely perceived illusory world, and it is beyond the truly perceived illusory world. It is beyond perception ENTIRELY.

An "appearance" is another term for something physical. It's what you see when you take the physical form at face value. You look at what it appears to be on the surface, on the face of it, without any seeming interpretation.

"There is nothing so blinding as perception of form."

When mind denies itself and denies God's reality, it tries to become one with a body. To become one with separation. It narrows itself and confines itself and aligns itself with the body. The closer it becomes to being "body like", the less difference there seems to be between them.

Eventually this lack of difference makes the body seem like an ally, as in "the ego's chosen home", a friend of sorts, and something you can "identify" with (agree with), because it seems to agree with your mind. The mind is then confused with the body and the two seem to become one. In this ***illusion of oneness***, the body's sight is believed completely to be total fact.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

Actually, without a difference between mind and body, you will enter a state where it seems you are not even interpreting at all. Where the physical world is total fact. Where everything is physical proof. Where the form something takes is entirely what it means. And where there is no sense of questioning or a bigger picture or a different vantage point. Everything seems to be "exactly as it is".

In false perception, the mind trusts the body's senses and this produces an experience of being "convinced", that what you see happening really is happening. In fact, you move toward a state of "obviousness", where everything physical seems to "obviously" be there, doing what it's doing, irrefutable and undeniable. The more you are in false perception the more the physical world seems to be totally real to you.

The mind gets into a state of being so body-aligned that it is no longer questioning what the body senses. Everything physical becomes total reality. Everything that "happens" becomes actual life and real events. And without any difference between mind and body, other bodies and their activities are taken as absolute and irreversible, having all the qualities of God.

So our minds, by believing IN separation, actually get into a state of what SEEMS to be ***"no separation"*** between mind and body, where all sense of you interpreting anything is lost. There is a seemingly unified experience, a oneness with the world at the physical level, everything looks obvious and real, and you take everything to be exactly what it appears to be.

In this state you also form a "story", because now the story of what bodies are doing, what events transpire etc, is all taken to be actual real fact. If someone's body acts out, or someone attacks, or there's a conflict, or any kind of thing you don't agree with, it is taken as being totally real. Like they REALLY DID DO it, provable in a court of law. And then you will automatically and naturally and logically hold it against them, justified by the fact of it happening.

Holding something against someone happens as a result of the mind binding with the body and believing that physicality is true. It does not question or doubt the physical "reality", so if someone does something offensive it is now a SIN. And this sin has physical proof right in front of your eyes. And your eyesight cannot deny it sees it. And this sin is irreversible, unhealable, unfixable, and the person has definitely messed up in a way that is so actual that it has the property of permanence.

"The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

You will then find yourself accusing the person, justifiably, of having done some terrible thing, all on the basis of what things look like at the physical level only. You did this, and you didn't do that, and that's the fact of it. And you used to be like this, and now you're like that, and I don't like you like this anymore. And how dare you treat me this way, and why are you doing this to me etc. Why is your BODY doing this to me.

This of course gives rise to an experience in which you are a helpless victim. In which you seem to have no say, no influence, no interpretation or way out of anything. Because what happens physically is factual reality. So now there is real physical threat and danger, people really are physically attacking, and there are physical things wrong with "you".

This is all blindness. This is the state of perceiving falsely and being body-identified, mind seeing itself as a body, total unforgiveness, unconsciousness, special-relationship, ego identification, and self destruction. There is no "gap" between mind and body, so everything that happens seems to happen to you, hurting you and upsetting you.

"The mind can be made free when it no longer sees itself as in a body, firmly tied to it, and sheltered by its presence. If this were the truth, the mind were vulnerable indeed!"

So "appearances" really are form, ie physical form. They are how stuff looks when you don't question its reality. It's how the physical world appears to you, or what it seems to mean, when you are totally invested in it. All meaning seems to be taken from how the external world tells you it is, as though you are not giving anything any meaning. Whatever happens seems to be the only truth. If someone kills your cat, they sure as heck actually did do that, and the cat is in fact really dead to prove the sin.

In such a state, we have been tempted by form and have "fallen for" the temptation. We've believed that people are bodies, that we are having relationships with bodies, that the physical world is the only reality, that there is no other mind besides the body, that God doesn't exist, and your self is a physical object. In this state you are not aware of reality, but you THINK you are, and because you're so convinced the physical world is WHERE the reality is, you do not question it.

To get out of this requires the questioning of appearances. The questioning of the PHYSICAL. This is why Jesus in the course introduces ideas such as that you give everything all the meaning it has, that you are projecting something, that you are influencing what happens, that your thoughts are involved and are attacking you, that you need to dis-identify from the physical body, that the physical world is an illusion not to be believed, and that all the events are nothing. To not even believe what the body tells you.

Without this rising up above "the battlefield", you will just live a life of hell, of blame and accusation, or suffering and selfishness, of specialness and deprivation, or mis-treatment and attack, unfairness and regret and remorse and resentment.

Only by questioning the physical world can your mind begin to see that it is NOT one with the body. And that because mind and body are different, they DISAGREE. And therefore what the body shows you is not to be believed. And you are now starting to step outside the "story" of your little body life and seek for a higher life.

If you were to describe someone's life based purely on what appears to be happening at the physical level, that is false perception. Only when you begin to look for a larger purpose or meaning, an influence of mind over matter, a choice and a freedom of will, a way by which someone might be responsible for making the world be the way it is, and an identity beyond the physical, only then are you properly recognizing that there IS a separation between mind and body. And that mind does not HAVE TO believe in the separation.

The gap of separation was COVERED OVER by your attempt to be one with the body. It seemed to disappear entirely underneath your mind's identification with the physical. Trying to be one with the body and make the physical real HIDES the fact that the world is separate from God and is not heaven. Only by beginning to recognize that you are NOT a body, can you recognize that there IS a separation between mind and body, and the two are not the same. Nor is the world a part of God.

Then you will seek for a higher oneness, a oneness with something NOT physical, a oneness with God and with a true reality. And the whole transition towards that is the awakening process. Waking up from the dream of hell and death and suffering and murder. Only then are you being forgiving, and seeing a forgiven world, because the world must be seen in another light in order to overlook its illusions of form.And only through the forgiveness state can you be free from deception permanently.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error, and it has not left its source. It will remain no longer than the thought which gave it birth is cherished. When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear, and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well."

What if the world is really a highly malleable dream, not some fixed objective place, and our minds have the power to change it at will? Then this perhaps redefines physical miracles.

If the state of objects, the events that happen, the people that show up, the things that happen, are all chosen and consented and actually put there by the mind, then the mind is in a position of orchestrating, arranging, organizing and putting in place the contents of the dreamworld. Literally projecting physical matter.

This then means that if the mind is changing, its current state is going to project and manipulate and steer the dream in different directions. If it is in fear and war it's going to produce more conflicting nightmarish dreams, and that literally means causing the physical world to have more fights, arguments, conflicts, and so on. Not merely that you're interpreting such events in a more negative way but literally the physical number of problems increases.

Then if the mind is moving into a lighter, higher perspective, it is projecting a broadcast of more tranquil "surroundings", it will outwardly picture its inner condition and make a world in which there literally is less conflict. Less fights, less arguments, less wars, less attacks. Not merely that wars and attacks are now looked up in a more loving way, but that literally the count of them decreases.

This would then mean that someone who is anti-miraculous will be tending to mis-create life scenarios, events, occurrances etc which are generally more conflicted and upsetting. And someone who is more at peace and in line with God will produce life scenarios which are literally, on the physical level, calmer and more cooperative and easier to deal with.

A miracle worker would then be someone of a high mind who literally "manifests" a more healed world. Not merely healed as in, on I'm looking at the same world in a happier way, but that literally a higher world is projected and made. A higher world is hallucinated. Not a projection onto the world, but the ACTUAL world itself is a higher kind of world, with more peace and less problems and less sickness and so on.

For example, Jesus speaks of this:

"When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and SEEN it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision?"

Jesus isn't merely speaking there of interpreting a warzone AS IF it were a beautiful garden. He is saying that literally it transforms INTO a beautiful garden, a physical garden. How else does "all around the signs of life spring up" when miracles fall like drops of healing rain?

We have to now ask ourselves, is Jesus referring here to vision being some kind of just "happier way of looking at the same stuff", in which there are still wars and conflicts and so on but you "read into" them more positively? OR is he LITERALLY saying, that terrifying scenes, harmful arrangements of objects, frightening events, and so on, are literally erased, and replaced with a different kind of "reality" where there is now literally a beautiful garden instead of a warzone? Not a warzone reimagined or reinterpreted, but a warzone REPLACED by a garden?

What if our attempted understanding of perception is totally fucked up, and Jesus is actually NOT saying that you have "perceptions about" a separate world "out there", but instead that there is NO objective world, there is only a wishful-thinking dream projection hallucination of a world, which takes on different literal FORMS, depending on the content of your mind? Because now we're talking about mind literally changing the physical content, the events that transpire, the people that interact, how relationships go, problems that arise etc, and not merely looking at them in a different way.

Perhaps Jesus has thrown out the idea of there being an "objective world" entirely, and is speaking solely to the fact that our minds are literally PROJECTING A WORLD in realtime? That the reflection of hell on earth isn't merely a darkened interpretation of earth, but an actual projection of a warring world? And that vision or true perception or sight of "the real world" may actually be a way to project a heaven-like illusory world where there is no more sickness or death or suffering? Not a heaven ON earth, but a dream of heaven replacing earth?

When you go back and re-read many of Jesus's statements about perception and what you see and so on, perhaps they take on a different light if you consider them as NOT referring to an objectively separate world. Such as when Jesus says "The world IS perception" and "The world is false perception." Perhaps he is literally saying that when the mind is in false perception it projects planet earth, and when it is in true perception it projects the real world which REPLACES ENTIRELY the "actual world"? That perceptions of the world are always SUBJECTIVE hallucinations.

There is no world to really project onto. There is only an outward picturing of your present inner condition. There is no perceptions "about" the world as such. Changing how you feel about the world actually changes the world, itself, into a different form of a world, a different dream.

You see, when Jesus says that your self is ruler of the universe and nothing happens without your consent, he's not giving any exceptions to that. He's telling us that nothing happens unless we consent to it. That means the events, the happenings, the people, the encounters, the relationships, etc are actually orchestrated by the mind. Not merely interpretations of a world. The mind IS the world. "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts."

So now when you are a miracle worker, turning water into wine, walking on water, raising the dead, these are not merely perceptual reinterpretations of things. Jesus didn't look at lazarus's body in "a happier light". He transformed the FORM of his body from a dead decaying corpse into a living healthy active form of a body. That is direct reality manipulation. That is mind over matter. That is changing the dream world with the mind. That is what we might call a "physical miracle".

I'm really starting to lean more now toward this idea that there is no objective world here, there is only a dream, and it does not exist without our mind dreaming it. Therefore its content is entirely mind driven, mind chosen, mind consented. What happens is what we desire. If the world is going to pot its because we're making a world that's going to pot. If events are improving its because your mind is improving. And this leads to the notion that eventually we will actually orchestrate a world state which is actually somewhat like "heaven on earth", before we ascend. Where things are PHYSICALLY more harmonious.

What if the world is not a mirror or a screen or something to project onto. What if it IS the projection? And what if there is no world without such dreaming? And what if you as the dreamer can dream any kind of world, and have it become physically manifest?

"But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

"There is no world apart from what you wish, and herein lies your ultimate release. Change but your mind on what you want to see, and ***all the world must change accordingly***."

"There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and ***you maintain the world within your mind in thought***."

"***external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many***, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet."

I think I made a major mistake when starting out with the course. It was fuelled by a rather "negative" view of the world, which was part mine, and part that of certain teachers I listened to. In that view, I thought that references to a meaningless world, were references to a the world being inherently bleak and dark and depressing. I also combined various aspects of ego and false perception with the world, binding them together, and then sought to get rid of the whole thing.

This was based largely on teachings by well-meaning people that the world has no redeeming qualities, that it is inherently somewhat negative and pointless, and that the only thing to do is leave it behind. While there is some basis for this, in that the world is nothing, it kind of skipped over the forgiven world/real world and didn't put enough attention on how to reinterpret or repurpose it. And it definitely didn't make much mention of doing anything to improve or heal or save it.

This was an incorrect framing of the world, because I realize now that the world itself has NO meaning, not a negative meaning. Its meaningless is simply a lack of ANY meaning, positive OR negative, and is not inherently anything. And my egoic association of the world with my ego's negativity didn't allow me to "separate out" the world from my projections onto it.

But the course isn't asking us to condemn the world and run away from it. It's asking us to realize the world is nothing at all, but that we've projected false meanings onto it. And when these false meanings are lifted off from it, the world resumes being meaningless. Not negative, or positive. And then we are free to project positive meaning onto it, in which we now see the reflection of God.

This obviously makes far more sense, interpreting the world as a neutral mirror with no meaning of its own. It also changes my focus, from one where I just wanted to escape from "the negative world" and throw it in the trash, to where I can now look at the very same world - its guts, recognizing it as nothing, but project love onto it. That's a profoundly different relationship to it, properly regarding it as nothing but a mirror with no meaning of its own, rather than as bound to ideas of hell.

It changes quite a lot of my perspectives about the course and what it's saying. It also relieves pressure and resistance and negative connotations to things which didn't seem to fit. I can accept then that I can see this world through forgiving eyes because of itself it is nothing. And it also makes it easier to accept that it can be used differently, and can reflect heaven. Obviously keeping it around long enough to allow it to do that can't entail attacking it with misinterpretations of the course.

Eventually when seen as the nothingness it is, with the reflection of God seen upon it, its re-purposing is complete and it is no longer needed as a device to bring us home. We can now wave farewell to the forgiven world and thank it for its temporary usefulness, as we watch it disappear and give way to the gates of heaven.

The key part I think is that a lot of people have completely missed the somewhat subtle teaching in the course that the world ITSELF has no meaning. That it was a projection out, from an idea of nothingness, BEFORE we projected onto it. The whole "projection makes perception" thing came later.

And the world doesn't have to be objectively real or a creation of God for it to act like a neutral mirror and still be a world of illusions. This two-layered projection is completely missed by a lot of people. And some interpret the world as having to be God's creation in order for the "project onto" part to make sense. Which is yet another mistake. So many of us are so confused about this whole thing. But I'm glad now it's becoming ever clearer.

Jesus speaks in ACIM about translating hell into heaven, converting somehow the Earth into heaven's reflection. ie that the Earth is neutral/devoid of meaning and we project meaning onto it. Or to put it another way, we decided that certain states or forms or situations "must mean" something in partcular.

We associate meanings like they are outcomes or inherent definitions of what is happening. As if, when such and such happens it always means "this". As if the meaning is inherent in the form. Jesus speaks of this as form appearing to shut out all meaning to the extend that the form itself seems to describe what the forms means. And that this is a total illusion.

"See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning."

The truth is that we give everything all the meaning it has, and the world has NO inherent meaning of its own. It is indeed a meaningless world, which is why it acts like a mirror reflecting back whatever you project onto it. We actually decide that it means whatever we think it means, and then pretend it meant this without our contribution.

But when you think about it, he's talking about a process of interpretation or translation. There's plenty of interesting quotes about both those terms. We basically interpret the world. Interpretation means, a process of judging or evaluating, what WE BELIEVE something is, which in some way TRANSLATES it into some other preferred form in our minds that we find acceptable. We decide to interpret it to mean whatever we WANT it to mean, hence "there is no world apart from what you wish."

Similarly, the idea of a translation does not simply mean that the thing itself changes. The world doesn't actually "turn into" the meaning that you give it. You can take the example of translating a language.

If the world is writen in English, and you translate the world into Spanish, and you can only speak Spanish, then you can "read" or interpret a VERSION of the world, an image of it, written in the Spanish language, that seems to represent the world. But the translation you are reading isn't the ORIGINAL form. The world is essentially still in English, but your interpretation of it is transforming its meaning.

Translation is also a kind of math term, translating means to move something from one location to another. And it's part of a broader group of operations such as rotation and scaling, which are all types of "transforms". In effect the thing goes through a transformation of some kind and ends up different to how it began.

So in ACIM terms, our minds are giving the world meaning by interpreting it, putting that meaning onto it. Sometimes we give it meaning from our egos and sometimes from the Holy Spirit. When the ego gives it meaning, we believe the world is inherently hell or reflects a hell-like nature. When the Holy Spirit gives it his meaning, the world now reflects the love of God.

But we should note here that the TRANSLATED VERSION of the world is in fact once removed from the world, just as a Spanish translation is once removed from the original English. When you have interpreted the world to mean that it reflects heaven's meaning, we're saying that we now look AT the translated version, a sort of copy of the world, which is a different way of looking at it.

So when ACIM talks of earth translating into heaven etc it's not really saying that a meaningless world, having the meaning of God projected ONTO it, reflected back, now is actually a meaningful world. But that the REFLECTION is meaningful, and the TRANSLATED alternative dream which INTERPRETS the world is heaven-like. You are then seeing what you put there to see, rather than necessarily what is there. Because really the world is not there at all.

Our task then is simply to recognize that we do not want the translations that are converting the world into a hell-like language, and we instead want to "read into" the world a heaven-like language. We want the Holy Spirit's translation of the world, his purpose for it, his use of it, instead of what the ego is trying to "make of" it or use it for. And that applies to the body too.

"Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth."

"The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must perceive SOMETHING, and WITH something. This is why perception involves an exchange, or a translation, which knowledge does NOT need. The interpretive function of perception, (actually, a distorted form of creation), then permitted man to interpret the body as HIMSELF, which, although depressing, was a way out of the conflict he induced."

"Thus are the Holy Spirit's lesson plans arranged in easy steps, that, though there be some lack of ease at times, and some distress, there is no shattering of what was learned, but just a re-translation of what seems to be the evidence on its behalf."

"For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight. The end of the world is not its destruction, but its TRANSLATION into Heaven. The RE-INTERPRETATION of the world is the transfer of ALL perception to knowledge."

""Father, Christ's vision is Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world! Yet how much more will I perceive in it than sight can give."

"For the instant of peace is eternal, BECAUSE it is wholly WITHOUT fear. It WILL come, being the lesson God gives you, through the Teacher HE has appointed, to translate time to eternity."

"Blessed is God's Teacher, Whose joy it is to teach God's holy Son his holiness. His joy is not contained in time. His teaching is for you, BECAUSE His joy is yours. Through Him, YOU stand before God's altar, where He gently translated hell into Heaven."

"Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here. Forgiveness is the closest it can come to earth. For being Heaven-borne, it has no form at all. Yet God created One Who has the power to translate into form the wholly formless."

"Forgiveness is the ONLY function meaningful in time. It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to TRANSLATE specialness from sin into salvation. "

"For to RECOGNIZE fear is not enough to escape FROM it, although the recognition IS necessary to demonstrate the NEED for escape. The Holy Spirit must still TRANSLATE it into truth. If you were LEFT with the fear, having RECOGNIZED it, you would have taken a step AWAY from reality, not TOWARD it."

"Never forget that the Holy Spirit does not depend on your words. He understands the requests of your heart and answers them. Does this mean that, while attack remains attractive to you He will respond with evil? Hardly! For God has given Him the power to translate your prayers of the heart into His language. He understands that an attack is a call for help. And He responds with help accordingly."

"Miracles are natural to God, and to the One Who speaks for Him. For His task is to TRANSLATE the miracle into the knowledge which it REPRESENTS, and which IS lost to you."

"However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE them into holiness, by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM. You can place ANY relationship under His care, and be sure that it will NOT result in pain, if you offer Him your willingness TO HAVE IT SERVE NO NEED BUT HIS." "Every attack is a call for His patience, because ONLY His patience can translate attack into blessing."

"Thus does the Holy Spirit replace fear with love, and translate error into truth. And thus will YOU learn of Him how to replace your dream of separation with the fact of unity."

"When a child is helped to translate his "ghost" into a curtain, his "monster" into a shadow and his "dragon" into a dream, he is no longer afraid, and laughs happily at his own fear."

"The Holy Spirit, as always, takes what you have made and translates it into a learning device FOR you. Again, as always, it re-interprets what the ego uses as an argument FOR separation into an argument AGAINST it."

"Forgiveness is this world's equivalent of Heaven's justice. It translates the world of sin into a simple world, where justice can be reflected from BEYOND the gate behind which total lack of limits lies."

"The miracle-worker begins by PERCEIVING light, and translates HIS perception into sureness by continually extending it, and ACCEPTING ITS ACKNOWLEDGMENT."

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

"By RE-INTERPRETING the ability to ATTACK, which you DID make, into the ability to SHARE, He TRANSLATES what you have made, into what God created."

Separation is really about trying to do everything alone, without God. After all, if you separate yourself off from God, who was essentially doing everything for and with you, you end up in a position where you have do it all yourself. You then start to depend on yourself in every respect.

Depending on your own thinking, your own efforts to assign meaning, to figure out what things are, what to do and when to do it, making plans, making decisions, interpreting everything through your own personal beliefs, trying to single-handedly do everything without help.

It's as if we say, "I don't need God". And then we start developing all kinds of needs, lacks and limitations. And now we seem to have to fend off the attacking world single-handedly. And then we develop pride and prowess and abilities and skills and information and all manner of defenses to try to bolster our ability to survive.

But the fact is this. All of our efforts to do everything alone, has made us miserable and exhausted. It has produced every conceivable form of suffering and sickness. It has eroded all relationships and trust. It has made us seem small and weak and helpless.

We've basically tried to take on this huge burden of managing "our own life" to the exclusion of depending on God, and we've found that we're horrendously under-equipped. We've been just carrying a heavy weight of burden trying to be "the one" that does everything. And then to top it off we've framed our efforts at "independence" as something to be celebrated, complete with victories and successes, and all manner of self-appointed empty awards.

What I see ACIM telling me now is that basically, I have orphaned myself, and put myself in a position of loneliness and isolation, such that I've ended up having to carry the weight of the world. To do alone everything that I should be allowing God to do for me. It's like someone who refuses to accept any help and prides themselves on their seeming "abilities" to accomplish goals on their own.

But the course is saying hey, the Holy Spirit is here to do all this for you and through you, to mange your life for you, to look after your body and health for you, to think and inspire and heal for you. But it's going to require two things - a willingness to give up your position of autonomy, and a willingness to surrender to trusting in being dependent on a higher power.

It really boils down to a question of, do you want to be separate anymore? Do you want to be alone in everything you do? Do you really want to have to be the one that figures everything out and makes all decisions and solves all problems and heals all wounds?

The fact is this. The more you separate off from God, the less power you have. The more you isolate from help, the smaller and weaker you become. The more distance you put between you and God, the less capable you are of doing anything at all. You basically lose everything by moving away from him. You THINK that you're gaining everything, but it's really an illusion, and you end up with literally nothing. Or as Jesus puts it, you will think you are gaining the whole world, but will lose touch with your soul.

What we call an "ego" is just some soul who is trying to be separated off from the shared dependency of relationship with God. It's a self that doesn't want to share and doesn't want to be part of the whole. It's a self with an attitude problem of selfishness, autonomy, specialness and every aspect of the ego mindset that comes with that. It's just someone who is alone and afraid, lost and confused, and doesn't know how to get out of it.

The more you try to gain in terms of what you can do on your own, the more you lose in terms of what you share with God. The more you think you are becoming strong in your independence, the more strength you lose. The more you think that you are so confident on your own that you don't need anyone, the more afraid and vulnerable and limited you become.

The only thing that we're really being asked to do is to come home and rejoin the family. To stop being an outsider or a loner. To open up to sharing with God again. To re-establish your dependency on God for everything, and learn to not want to do anything alone any more. It's God's heart just reaching out and saying, hey son, I love you, come back to me, you're still welcome. Come home.

And so this whole thing is indeed like the prodigal son, running away from God believing you are so capable of going it alone, until you run into pain and misery and suffering, and then finally realize it is utterly impossible to live without him. And then you return to him, willing to surrender and let go of all efforts to do everything without him. To give up all judgment and all evaluation, all decisions and all plans, all interpretations and all meanings, and everything you thought you had to do when you had no-one else to depend upon.

Just to let yourself be a part of God again. Supported and protected, nourished and cared for, guided and directed, loved and made whole.

"God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there."

Actually think about why this makes sense. God is infinite, unlimited, omnipresent, He exists in a totally expanded abstract state in which He is everywhere. Totally spread out to infinity. He is not localized anywhere. There is no way that God can be "only" in one location, and not another.

The idea of a body, is the idea in SPACE and TIME to being spatially and temporarily separated out from the whole. It's the idea of limitation, confinement, imprisonment. "The body is a device for separation". The body was made to represent the idea that you are NOT everywhere, and therefore your mind is trapped in your brain. That you are "located" inside the body, not outside the body.

God, however, who is everywhere, cannot be squeezed down and inserted into the insides of a body, in exclusion of being also outside of the body. He cannot separate off a part of himself and put it "into" a body separately from being outside the body or in all other bodies also. Being everywhere means NOT being in any specific location to the exclusion of any others. Nor does that mean he is in all bodies. He cannot be in ANY bodies.

"God cannot enter a body"

Similarly, you who are trying to be One with God, to experience God, to express God, so long as you confine yourself to a body, limit your awareness to only the body's senses, regard yourself as being "in" or "having" a specific body, or in any way are not experiencing yourself as being infinite, unlimited, larger than the universe, all-expansive, all-encompassing and omnipresent, you are NOT experiencing the fullness of what you are.

And the fact is that God is not going to ever narrow himself down and put himself into a body. He remains in an expanded, abstract state at all times. The only way for you to MEET him and to be in total communion with Him, is to expand your self, expand your awareness, to go beyond the size of the universe, to infinity, to such an extent that you become just as ever-present and transcendent of space, place, location, or time, that you exist EVERYWHERE with Him.

That is the only way that you can be One with God. That is the only way that you can commune with Him, join with Him, be IN him, and experience Heaven. You literally cannot do that by being in ANY WAY limited, in any way less than WHOLE, in any way smaller than the entire magnitude of infinite creation. You are vast, unlimited, and only complete when you are EVERYWHERE. Not confined to your little body, not confined to only one body, not confined to ANY bodies. Larger than the planet. Larger than the solar system. Larger than the galaxy. Aware of EVERYWHERE simultaneously. That is who you are.

So I hear some people saying, believing, thinking, interpreting, that they are having experiences of being one with God in a body, being awake in a body, experiencing the fullness of God in a body. They are mistaken. It is literally impossible to have a FULL complete total experience of God while maintaining the body. Because the body is localization. It is limitation. You cannot keep localization and be infinite and unlimited. You cannot be finite and specific and located in space or time and be simultaneously infinitely abstract.

"The body cannot stay without illusions." "The body cannot remain." "To be WITHOUT a body is to be in your natural state." "The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist." "You are not a body." "The body is a limit."

"And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God."

You can approach God, you can get closer to God, you can feel the warmth of the light, you can radiate love and joy into the world as though joined with God, but you cannot FULLY, TOTALLY, COMPLETELY immerse yourself in God while maintaining isolation, localization, temporal separation in one moment of time. To be eternal is transcendent of time and space. It means you not only exist EVERYWHERE you also exist EVERYWHEN. You exist in and beyond all moments of time. It makes you a time traveler, transcendent of the temporal order, not merely "I'm in 2019".

Do you really how VAST you are? Do you realize how VAST God is? How totally utterly unlimited? Then look at the body, look at how it IS a limitation, and that having one, using one, seeing one, or believing one exists at all, is causing you to NOT BE WITH GOD.

"You cannot behold the world and know God."

"To see a sinless body is impossible."

"God did not create the body."

"God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there."

You HAVE TO LEAVE THE BODY to be with God. You have to leave the body entirely, permanently, never again to need a body EVER. You have to overcome reincarnation. You have to overcome death. You have to overcome the NEED to be in a body AT ALL, if you want to be with God. You cannot KEEP the body and maintain that kind of abstract infinite knowledge. "You cannot remain in the world with this knowledge." You cannot STAY HERE in this fictional world, and be totally joined with God. You can perceive him perhaps, you can see him perhaps, you can love with him perhaps, but you cannot be ONE with Him in a body.

Is Jesus in a body? Nope. I rest my case.

"denial DEPENDS on the real belief in what is denied for its OWN existence."

To deny something, implies that you actually believe it EXISTS, but that you do not WANT to acknowledge its existence. This isn't the same as the thing not being there at all. It doesn't take any denial to establish that something is really NOT there. Denial REQUIRES the belief that it IS THERE, and is unwanted.

Therefore, when you are in denial, you actually are AFFIRMING that the thing you are denying, is true. You are saying, I believe that it does exist, but I don't want to openly admit it. This means that denial in fact DEPENDS ON the very thing it is denying. And you cannot be in denial of something that doesn't actually exist.

Fear, ego, death, illusions, it's all the same thing as denial of reality. When you are in fear, it seems like you're saying you are afraid of reality or truth. But, in order to make this claim, you have to be asserting that reality IS real and true, and true reality cannot be feared. Reality is loving and kind. The fear of love and kindness ACKNOWLEDGES its presence, just as denial acknowledges what it hides from.

So when you are afraid, a part of you CANNOT BE afraid. Part of you HAS to believe in love, in order to fear it. Part of you HAS to believe in safety, in order to suggest that your safety is BEING DENIED to you. It's not that safety is GONE, only that you are rejecting it's presence. You could not possibly be afraid of something that actually does not exist at all. You can only be afraid of something you believe IS THERE. And so the "fear of love" is in fact an AFFIRMATION that love exists, which in turn undermines the fear. This is because fear and denial are self-contradictory states.

Jesus says that if you can look at fear/denial and recognize that the fear actually AFFIRMS its own absence, when this is recognized it actually undermines the belief in the fear. The fear is not regarded as "only fear", but is now recognized as fear + a belief in its opposite. Within the fear there is love mixed in. And therefore the truth that it HIDES is acknowledged as STILL PRESENT. If you can focus on this and realize that fear PROVES love's presence, and can hone in on that fact, then you have to realize that it is IMPOSSIBLE to be purely afraid, or to obliterate the very love that you are afraid of. And all fear is the fear of love, being love's supposed absence.

To acknowledge that fear implies love's existence, means you cannot fully believe in the fear, and so the fear cannot be wholly true. EVEN the fear tells you that love is real. EVEN denial tells you that what you are denying exists. And so it not possible EVEN in fear to truly obliterate love from your mind. You can mix in some fear with the love but you cannot replace the love."The ego sees SOME good, but never ONLY good. That is WHY its perceptions are so variable."

This also means the ego does not ever see ONLY BAD. There is no such thing as ABSOLUTE evil. There is only relative evil/ego. And all forms of ego are LIMITED in their egotism. You can't be fully egoic, because egotism is the idea of not-wholeness. By recognizing that even the egos lies imply the truth is still true, you have a way out. You can use this to realize that the fear cannot be wholly true, and therefore must be false, because even fear tells you that God is real. To fear God is to affirm his existence. So even in fear you are to some degree expressing your love for God.

By recognizing that fear/denial isn't ACTUALLY able to remove or hide or completely eradicate what you are in fear/denial OF, you can see that it DOES NOT WORK. And it therefore is useless. Denial affirms the very reality is tries to block. Fear affirms the very love it asserts against. If fear CANNOT seem to exist WITHOUT affirming the very thing you're supposed to be afraid of, then fear cannot accomplish what you set out for it to do. And so you might as well discard it and embrace the love instead.

This constant affirmation of God even in states of denial, is the inherent and un-removable attraction to God. The attraction to God is present at ALL levels and orders of reality, even in dreaming, to at least some degree. Even the ego-believing part of mind is dependent upon God and drawn to him.

"By interpreting fear correctly, as a POSITIVE AFFIRMATION OF THE UNDERLYING BELIEF IT MASKS, you are undermining its perceived usefulness by rendering it useless. Defenses which do not work AT ALL are AUTOMATICALLY discarded. If you raise what fear conceals to CLEAR-CUT, UNEQUIVOCAL PRE-DOMINANCE, fear becomes meaningless. You have denied its power to conceal love, which was its only purpose. The mask which YOU have drawn across the face of Love has disappeared."

"The truth is still that the attraction of God is irresistible at ALL levels, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of time."

"If you would look upon Love, which IS the world's reality, how could you do better than to recognize, in every defense AGAINST it, the underlying appeal FOR it?"

"The test of everything on earth is simply this; "What is it for?" The answer makes it what it is for you. It has no meaning of itself, yet you can give reality to it, according to the purpose that you serve."

The world was made for a purpose. It was deliberate, intentional, chosen. We wanted there to be an alternative to heaven. And its form and function were made to serve that purpose. Just as all sickness is intentionally used to serve a perceived need.

Purpose is based on "how you are using it" or "what it is for". What is the goal attached to it. What is the ambition. How is it being used to accomplish that goal. How does it serve you and God.

We started out with a purpose of separation and attack, and produced a world which seems to be a world where that purpose could be fulfilled. That it could serve or be used as a way to avoid being with God. A hell where God could enter not.

But since the PURPOSE of the world or what it MEANS or is USED FOR, is distinct from what the world IS (just a neutral illusion), it's possible to give it a different purpose and a different meaning or use.

The Holy Spirit uses the world in a totally different way to our original intentions. To bring you home to God, to wake you up, to get you to let go of your artificial meanings and the meanings you've given everything. He presents an alternative meaning and use of the world and the body, based in love.

So in forgiveness, we're giving the world a different meaning and purpose. We're re-interpreting it. We're re-purposing it and coming up with a different use for it. Instead of using it to keep you away from God, we're trying to use it in such a way that it doesn't serve as an obstacle, or as proof of sin, or as a way to keep you suffering.

In effect, we're trying to use what we made against itself, to undo it. We're cancelling it out by forgiving it, ie giving it a meaning from an opposite thought system, which runs contrary to the world's nature, so that the world is recognized sanely, setting you free from it. Because illusions recognized must disappear.

So when Jesus asks you to consider "what is it for?", he's trying to get you to look at how you're using it, or for what purpose, or what meaning you're inventing for it, and to question that choice, and choose again the Holy Spirit's alternative meaning and purpose and use of the world and the body.To "let me not use this as an obstacle to peace, but help me to use it to facilitate its coming."

The forgiven world is the same world with a different purpose. A world which came to damn, made in false perception, now being used to return you to salvation. A body which was made to separate, being used to bring help and healing. A life which was made to hide in darkness, being used to bring light to the world.

Purpose aligns with perception and belief, because when you change your mind about what you believe is true and want, you are changing the meaning of things. And now you project that meaning onto the world and see it.

So if you recognize and believe and accept God's meaning and truth, it will change the meaning you give to the world. And now you are perceiving closer to Christ Vision or Real Truth because you're looking at the world from a different vantage point or angle. Framing it differently.

Essentially, it's the same world, combined with a different attitude. A more holy attitude seems to render the world as though it is holy and harmless. Ancient hatreds turn into present loves. Serious suffering turns into effortless healing. Death turns into resurrection. And fear turns into happiness.

Another way of saying "what is it for?", is "what meaning do I want to give it?" Do I want to use this for attack and making sin real, or do I want to use it repurpose it to remind me of God's truth and method by which I might be saved from hell? Can I see it in another light? There must be a better way.

If I am presently using the world in such a way that it means attack and offense and threat and damage and suffering and hell, I can admit that I am using it in a certain way, thereby "doing this to myself".

And then I can change my mind and choose a different meaning. And then elect to tune into Holy Spirit's perspective of forgiveness and repurpose what I think happened to help me move towards peace instead.

"Only the mind sees". "Minds do not need bodies to communicate."

Mind by itself has awareness and SEES in the light. It needs nothing else for this seeing to work. This seeing is not perception at all. But when we went into the separation, we invented a separated state where we do NOT see only with the mind, and instead INTERPRET. "Perception is fundamentally judgemental". This interpretative mechanism is like a filter, which is a layer over the mind. Another term for this mechanism is the belief system.

The mind, in a sense, is now looking UPON or "through" the belief system, through perception. At the same time, the body is now sending signals into the mind from outside to report on an illusory world. The body is set up to only see the world with false perception, permanently, and to "see objects" as if they are real. It shows images of these objects to the perceptual mechanism. These are images of hell, an inability to see reality and a blindness by perception of form, regarding physical matter as "really there".

The belief system then INTERPRETS what the body is showing it. The belief system/perception now categorizes various things into separate boxes and labels them per the meaning it gives things, and assigns meanings to them. The mind, looking at these boxes, then "sees" the meaning that perception gave TO what the body's eyes were looking at.

Additionally when the belief system is not one of wholeness, certain images are spiritualized and others are ignored. Fear is used to shut out from awareness whatever the perceptual system does not want to see or believe in, and "acceptance" into the mind is permitted to the things it does want to see and believe in. Jesus says that whatever you VALUE, you will BELIEVE IN, and whatever you BELIEVE IN, you will WANT TO SEE, and because you want to see it, you will make yourself see it IN whatever the body is showing you. Projection makes perception, and obviously that is a state of hallucination.

So the belief system is now giving meaning to what is seen in the world and is interpreting it and hallucinating that it is something it's not. This means the perceptual SYSTEM is now a system/filter based in false perception, the body's eyes are also based in false perception, and so now the belief system is "lined up with" or in accord with/believing what the body reports without questioning it. That is unconsciousness, in which you take whatever the body shows you as "real".

In order to move away from this, the body's eyes continue to report the same photon-based false perceptions of fake objects as before, an illusory world seen as real, but the perceptual mechanism/belief system now REINTERPRETS the meaning and purpose of what is being sent to it. This leads to "true perception", which is a REINTERPRATION of the world "The Holy Spirit is the great re-interpreter of the world you made."

In true perception the belief system has been purified and equalized and all the meaning you gave to a meaningless world has been ironed out. Instead of a fragmented interpretation, there is now an interpretation/filter based in a reflection of the laws of God, which is wholeness. The belief system is still being bombarded with body-world-is real images but it now categorizes them all as UNREAL. It has to, in order to see with love, because the body can ONLY show you pictures of hell seeming to exist (solid objects) and so the mind has to learn NOT to believe what it is being shown. It has to recognize that this picture of crucifixion is actually not true, not real, not really there, and not happening. It looks PAST those illusory images and OVERLOOKS them, which is forgiveness

The mind's belief system now is a system of forgiveness which doesn't fixate on the surface of objects that the body is trying to report still, but instead overlooks those images entirely and sees the face of Christ BEYOND them, because it is now having mind-to-mind perception, BYPASSING the body's sight and practically ignoring the images the body presents. The body's images become like a "thin veil" before the face of Christ, because their LIES are SEEN THROUGH (REASON sees THROUGH the forms of error) so much that they become transparent. The light of Heaven is seen as being BEYOND what the images report, and the forms of matter are recognized as nothing.

All of these REINTERPRETATIONS of "the world you made" and "the world you see" (with the body) that the body is fixated on, with its false perception, are now "seen truly", with true perception, and recognize the illusion AS an illusion, not as reality. It looks past it to the light of Heaven. But what's happening now is the MIND, which is the only thing which SEES, is now looking AT the "reinterpreted images", while also looking through them TO SEE ITSELF, to see Christ. The belief system becomes transparent. The body images become transparent. The light of God is shining through the whole "system" of mind/perception/body and providing a REFLECTION of Heaven in the world. A symbolic representation of "light within darkness". The mind having true perception is looking a this fake world "in quite another light."

At this point though, the mind still is having perception, albeit true perception, and it is still in two minds. It is still having a separated state, perception, with a belief system. It's just that the belief system now is more or less empty, and God's truth is seen truly as true. Only the truth is true. The mind doesn't NEED the perceptual mechanism in order to SEE with Christ Vision, and the body and its signals have now been overlooked ENTIRELY. The whole "world" that the body was reporting as "there" has been SEEN THROUGH. And Christ has been glimpsed beyond the images.

The images of the world disappear, the body disappears, the mind stops having a belief system, perception comes to an end, the "filter" is removed, the separation is undone, and the mind now returns to a state of PURE MIND, in which there is no body and no world and no perceiving. In this state, sight is KNOWING, and knowledge of the Kingdom of God has been restored. This is the "sight of the Son of God." It is being IN Heaven. Recognizing where you really are and who you really are as Christ. And communing with God in fullness, which wasn't possible while the separated state of perception was lasting. Now perception is gone, the world is gone, the body is gone, and all that remains is your natural state of being. The entire world of bodies has literally become TOTALLY INVISIBLE to you and does not exist.

In summary, the mind sees, and while there is body/perception, the mind sees what the perception/belief system SHOWS it, which is an INTERPRETATION of what the BODY shows the perception/belief system. And as the mind sees BEYOND the body and perception, it sees itself as Christ and sees nothing else. This is all supported in various ACIM statements about seeing, vision, perception, sight, body's eyes etc.

"Each man makes one ego for himself, although it is subject to enormous variation because of its instability, ***and one for everyone he perceives***, which is equally variable." UrT4C2

Did you know you've made an ego for other people, just as much as you've put an ego inside yourself? That's what he's saying. You have invented an ego for other people and you interact WITH that ego rendition of the person rather than seeing them for who they are. And we're not talking here about just seeing them as a body, but even overlaying their body with another layer of modification.

He's also goes on to say that as your ego and the ego you made for another interact, they change and affect each other.

"Their interaction IS a process which literally alters both, because they were not made either BY or WITH the unalterable.

"It is particularly important to realize that this alteration can and does occur as readily when the interaction takes place IN THE MIND as when it involves physical presence. THINKING about another ego is as effective in changing relative perception as is their physical interaction." UrT4C2

For me I was quite shocked to realize that I had made an ego for a particular person, and I was interacting with it. And this ego was a very reduced view of that person. It focused on their body only, seeing their body as though it was all there was to the person. In fact, strangely even seeing the person as if they had NO mind at all and were entirely physical. All sense of them even being there or having a presence or personality was mostly gone, replaced by a seemingly empty shell of an appearance.

It was also shocking to see that I was interacting with that ego and not with the person. I was not giving them any credit and was not seeing past their body form. I had taken their body form to be them almost entirely and was very blind to anything else. I now had a special relationship that had stripped that person down so much that it felt like I was interacting with a small child who was regarded as defective and weak and very sinful and treacherous.

It was strange to realize I was even doing this. And when I realized I was doing this I also realized I could step back from that version of them and get outside of it, to take a look at the person more directly and with more presence. It wasn't just "my ego" that was causing a clouding of how I see. It was the fact that I had also produced a kind of "mirror" ego that was projected onto that person and had substituted for them. That ego or "image" of a self was now masquerading as them to my awareness, and I was relating only to it. I was in a relationship with a fantasy character.

I then thought to myself, I don't even know how I got into this state. How did this happen? How could I have built up such a false view of a person that was so out of touch with them it made it seem like the person wasn't even barely there any more. That the person seemed to be so different from how they used to be that I barely recognized them, as if I thought that person was not even really there anymore, and yet they were.

So now begins the task of dismantling the egos we've made not just for ourselves but even for other people. These are narrow, condemned, faulty, dysfunctional, guilty senses of identity which have become counterfit selves standing-in for other people. It's now not simply just a matter of my finding out what my own real identity is, it's also a matter of finding out what is the true identity of others. Have I even seen them really? Do I even know what they're really like? It's not just that I'm not my thoughts or emotions or body, they're not theirs either, and they're not the version of them that I made up.

For sure my ego has a dominating tyrannical overpowering and attacking view of others. But in fact its view of what I think is them is in fact a view of further egos that my mind believes exists. Its relationship is with these artificial figures that aren't even the actual persons. It has special relationships with these "dream figures" like in a private world, subjectively interpreting that these make-believe fictional entities are actually out there to be interacted with, and that this is all that's there.

"Who sees a brother's body has laid a JUDGMENT on him, and sees him not. He does not REALLY see him as sinful; he does not see him at all. In the darkness of sin, he is INVISIBLE. He can but be IMAGINED in the darkness, and it is here that the illusions you hold about him are NOT held up to his reality. Here are illusions and reality kept SEPARATED. Here are illusions NEVER brought to truth, and ALWAYS hidden from it. And here, in darkness, is your brother's reality IMAGINED as a body, in unholy relationships with other bodies, serving the cause of sin an instant, before he dies." UrT20H6

"Can the ego teach truly, when it overlooks truth? Can it perceive what it has DENIED? Its witnesses DO attest to its DENIAL, but hardly to WHAT it has denied. The ego looks straight at the Father and does not see Him, for it has denied His Son." UrT10F17

"The other has many forms, for the content of INDIVIDUAL illusions differs greatly. But they have one thing in common; they are all insane. They are made of sights which are NOT seen, and sounds which are NOT heard. They make up a PRIVATE world which CANNOT be shared. For they are meaningful ONLY to their maker, and so they have no meaning at all. In this world their maker moves alone, for only HE perceives them.

Each one peoples his world with figures from his INDIVIDUAL past, and it is because of this that private worlds DO differ. But the figures that he sees were NEVER real, for they are made up ONLY of his REACTIONS to his brothers, and do NOT include their reactions to HIM. Therefore he does not see that he made them, and that they ARE NOT WHOLE. For these figures HAVE NO WITNESSES, being perceived in one SEPARATE mind only.

It is THROUGH these strange and shadowy figures that the insane relate to their insane world. For they SEE only those who remind them of these images, and it is to THEM that they relate. Thus do they communicate with those who ARE NOT THERE, and it is THEY who answer them. And no-one hears their answer save him who called upon them, and he ALONE believes they answered him. Projection MAKES perception, and you CANNOT see beyond it. Again and again have men attacked each other, because they saw IN THEM a shadow figure in their private world." UrT12E1

The appearance of the sickness is actually an illusion which covers up what the problem is. The sickness, the symptoms, are actually there to function as a distraction, to make you focus on the body and to make the body real. This is a protective mechanism to try to defend your ego-aligned self against a misperception of the truth.

It's not that the form of the sickness is the problem. The PURPOSE of the sickness is the problem, which is to act as a defense. There is a perceived NEED for a defense, and that manifests as physical symptoms. But the appearance of it, the physicality of the sickness, is not really the cause or the thing that's happening.

What's happening is the underlying attempt by the MIND to shut out God and to cling to the body. It just happens to CREATE symptoms such as pain and disease, in order to try to get the awareness to fixate on the body, to think that the body is very real, and therefore IGNORE the truth - to shut it out of awareness.

So sickness is an escape from reality. If someone has cancer they don't need to be healed of cancer. They need to be healed of the belief that they need cancer in order to protect them from reality. As Jesus says, when the purpose of the sickness is recognized, and when it is understood to be an illusion, it must disappear. If you had no more "use" for the sickness, and it wasn't serving a purpose of any kind, it would have no basis for the mind to keep sustaining it, and it would vanish.

So it's like, someone gets exposed to truth but their ego misinterprets it and their interpretation scares or threatens them, so they put up a "shield" of protection, which cuts them off from Life and blocks life-sustaining "energy" flowing in the system, and creates distortions in the body image. The body image then shows a sickness to symbolize the need for escape, and to provide an escape. Therefore the sickness is always a form of distraction and an attempt to make the body MORE real than the truth. Trying to make illusions more real than reality produces sickness.

If you could be convinced that you don't really have a need for the sickness because the purpose of it was misinformed, and what you experienced as a threat is not really a threat, and it's not a threat because you're not really the ego self that sees it as a threat, then you'd be willing to let it go and stop using it to protect you. You'd see no purpose in it, no need for it, and no use for it. So it would disappear.

The trouble is that once sickness is implemented, its symptoms and suffering can be so effective at distraction, so effective at absorbing your attention, so effective at making the body seem real and frightening, that you have all kinds of peripheral reactions as a whole other "layer" of experiences. You start trying to defend yourself against the defense! And that means you start to view the sickness as though you did not choose it.

Theres's a very good reason why you do not want to admit to having chosen the sickness, and it's because if you did, you'd have to own up to that and wouldn't be able to hide behind it. The sickness was made to block awareness and to shut out the truth, so if you were to admit you made it, you would not longer be able to receive its benefits of defending you.

You don't want that, so instead you shut out awareness that you made it, perceive that you did not want it or ask for it, and then launch into a series of reactions to the sickness as though it is attacking you, you want it to go away, etc... but you really don't. Not honestly. If you really wanted it to be done with you wouldn't react to it at all, you'd just admit to the ways you wanted and needed it and would drop those, having come to accept that the truth was true and your misinterpretation of the truth was invalid.

Fighting with sickness therefore is part of the huge distraction that sickness presents, and can have you spinning your wheels trying to just deal with the symptoms and discomforts. Part of you is saying you want it to go away, while another part of you - now unconscious - is actively choosing to keep it, because in the bigger picture you're still terrified of what you saw in the truth and are trying to protect yourself. It therefore frightens you to think of actually being HEALTHY, because that would mean you'd take away your PROTECTION, and then the truth would be able to attack you again. So efforts to become "well" actually can have a lot of resistance and a lot of defense against, because it actually threatens you more to become free of the sickness, IF you are still misperceiving the truth.

Perhaps a key then lies simply in the mistaken perception you originally had which seemed to show you that you needed to become sick in order to defend yourself. You need to look at what you perceived and why you perceived it. But you need to look at it with Holy Spirit or a higher perspective of truth. You need to be willing to have been mistaken. This is why you need to APPLY FORGIVENESS, to undo the ILLUSIONS that you were under that made you misperceive, creating the need for a defense. You need to disassociate from the ego identity in some way so that you do not take the truth as a threat, and do not see it as meaning that you are going to stop existing.

The primary "cause" of sickness, if you will, is the simple fact that you have bound yourself to the ego, are perceiving what IT perceives, are interpreting the truth THROUGH it, and therefore you become frightened whenever you are exposed to the truth. The truth is that the ego is not real and does not exist, and everything it believes in is false. If you are identified with it and think that it is you, then whenever the truth comes along you will be frightened that you are being attacked by it, that it implies you do not exist, that you are not real, and that's horrifying. It is a misperception, but it's horrifying. And who would not want to defend themselves against that?!

Correction is needed therefore, and a forgiveness is needed and a willingness to consider that who you are is not the ego. You need some reassurance and clarity and perspective that just because the truth says something, does not mean it is attacking you. Who you thought you were was mistaken. How you were perceiving was mistaken. What you saw in the truth was projected onto it by your own mistakes. It amounts to a willingness to accept that the truth is TRUE, and not that the truth contains evil intentions. If you can accept that the truth is true, and not false, and that what you thought was true is false, then you have the key to unlock the NEED for sickness to protect you from it.

When there is no misperception of the truth, there is no need for sickness, and you will not create it or use it.

Sickness isn't really the problem that needs healing. Sickness showing up in form is an ILLUSION, because it covers up the underlying secret ambition of self preservation, and is meant to be a distraction and a smoke-screen. That's why sickness isn't real. It's not the problem that needs to be corrected. Trying to treat the sickness or the symptoms of sickness therefore will fail.

It should be obvious that since sickness is an attempt at self-preservation, making oneself sick and likely to die in the name of self-preservation is insane.

The below quotes are from sections about true perception and how it works while still in a body.

It speaks of how the body's eyes STILL see what seems to be an "outside world" of differences, forms, bodies, places.

However, the mind is responsible for INTERPRETING, the messages which come in FROM the body's eyes. The body's eyes can ONLY look upon the physical world of form and never has real vision. The body's eyes cannot look past the world of forms and differences. So it is up to the mind to determine whether the "signals" coming to it are TRUE, or FALSE.

ONLY THE MIND PERCEIVES, not the eyes! Perception is not about what the body's eyes see AT ALL. The body's eyes just collect "data" and send it to the mind to evaluate. The body's eyes cannot ADJUST to anything. They cannot "see differently". They cannot change perception.

They can ONLY LOOK AT the world you made as hell. The physical form of the Earth. They cannot and do not INTERPRET what they see, because they were made to FIXATE ON FORM. They are neutral. They do not "see lovingly" nor do they "see hatefully" or fearfully.

A healed mind will put all such signals into a category of "false", *recognizing* that *everything* the body's eyes "see" is an ILLUSION. It recognizes they are ALL UNREAL.

The body's eyes at this point are still "seeing" the forms of the physical world. But the MIND, which is responsible for SEEING, is now seeing with forgiveness and recognizing that the physical world is ENTIRELY illusion. That every signal coming from the body is FALSE, and therefore totally unreal.

This is why in TRUE PERCEPTION, you STILL SEE the world, the bodies, the world events, all the same as before, but your MIND interprets the whole thing as FALSE, because it sees with the whole truth.

As stated below, reality is without size, shape, time or place and differences DO NOT exist in it. Heaven has no forms. And so in comparison to this, a mind aware of the truth knows that all forms, shapes, times and places are NOT reality. And so such a a mind perceives that the physical world of forms is NOT REAL.

Note it is also clear here that PERCEPTION is not about what the BODY'S EYES SEE, it is a function of the mind which either mistakenly interprets those "visual" signals and thinks that some of it is real, or correctly interprets those signals entirely as unreal. This is why you must not "believe your eyes" at all.

"M-8.3. Where do all these differences come from? 2 Certainly they seem to be in the world outside. 3 Yet it is surely the mind that judges what the eyes behold. 4 It is the mind that interprets the eyes' messages and gives them "meaning." 5 And this meaning does not exist in the world outside at all.

What is seen as "reality" is simply what the mind prefers. 7 Its hierarchy of values is projected outward, and it sends the body's eyes to find it. 8 The body's eyes will never see except through differences. 9 Yet it is not the messages they bring on which perception rests. 10 Only the mind evaluates their messages, and so only the mind is responsible for seeing. 11 It alone decides whether what is seen is real or illusory, desirable or undesirable, pleasurable or painful."

"M-8.6. The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. 4 But the healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal. 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."

Notice also that in terms of "projection makes perception", the quotes above state that the mind projects its hierarchy of values and preferences outward, THEN it sends the body's eyes to try to "see" that, the body now looks only at the FORM of the physical world, sends back signals of its physical nature, the mind is now FILTERING that signal through its belief system of values/hierarchy/preference, and only SELECTS what it wants to allow into awareness. This is described here:

"What perception sees and hears appears to be real because it permits into awareness only what conforms to the wishes of the perceiver. This leads to a world of illusions, a world which needs constant defense precisely because it is not real....When you have been caught in the world of perception you are caught in a dream."

Remember that perception is a function of the MIND, not the eyes. So here, the mind is filtering through its perception, its interpretation of body signals, what it wants the signals to mean. It only allows into awareness, the root of the perceptual system, that which makes it through the filter.

Therefore if the mind has false perception ie false interpretation and projections of filtering beliefs in attack etc, it is now MIS-perceiving and hallucinating a distorted version of the visual signals it's getting from the eyes, and READING INTO them, and EXCLUDING what it does not want to look at, in order to make it SEEM as though it's seeing the reality it PREFERS. "Perception SELECTS and makes the world you see." But the "world you see" is happening in your MIND, in your perceptual interpretation function, regardless of the world that is "out there".

Here is some additional material:

"Reason will tell you that the form of error is not what makes it a mistake. 2 If what the form conceals is a mistake, the form cannot prevent correction. 3 The body's eyes see only form. 4 They cannot see beyond what they were made to see. 5 And they were made to look on error and not see past it. 6 Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see only illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside form of nothing. 7 To this distorted form of vision the outside of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true. 8 Yet how can sight that stops at nothingness, as if it were a solid wall, see truly? 9 It is held back by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else but form will be perceived."

"These eyes, made not to see, will never see. 2 For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. 3 What was its maker's goal but not to see? 4 For this the body's eyes are perfect means, but not for seeing. 5 See how the body's eyes rest on externals and cannot go beyond. 6 Watch how they stop at nothingness, unable to go beyond the form to meaning. 7 Nothing so blinding as perception of form. 8 For sight of form means understanding has been obscured."

"Only mistakes have different forms, and so they can deceive. 2 You can change form because it is not true. 3 It could not be reality because it can be changed. 4 Reason will tell you that if form is not reality it must be an illusion, and is not there to see. 5 And if you see it you must be mistaken, for you are seeing what can not be real as if it were. 6 What cannot see beyond what is not there must be distorted perception, and must perceive illusions as the truth. 7 Could it, then, recognize the truth?"

I'm learning recently that my mind and attitude may well affect other people. I think this is part of being more responsible for what my mind is doing "to itself", and extends to others, in that whatever I am doing to myself I am also attempting to do to others. Whatever sense of sin or guilt I have about myself I am likely to project. And this projecting is a kind of psychological attack that accuses and weakens others.

I notice that all the various thoughts I have about a person, all the fears, wonderings, ideas, visualizations of what may or may not happen, form a kind of "broadcast" that I experience as kind of "in front of me". Perhaps I experience it as being outside of me or coming out of me, due to the disassociation of projection.

So there is this whole "wall" or screen filled with ego thoughts that I am pushing out of me. And so by even having these thoughts at all, "about" someone, it's as if I am putting those thoughts onto the person and holding them within it. Framing them in my ideas about them, and trying to make it apply to them. Even if these thoughts seem harmless in the thinking of them.

Whatever I think about them is a form of framing them, interpreting them, deciding what to see in them, having an opinion about their condition etc. And the thing is, the ego has this really sneaky way of suggesting that "all thoughts are neutral", "you can think anything without having any effect", "your opinion is unbiased".

Early in the workbook we're told that "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my thoughts". That's a pretty major deal right there. And it also taps into the fact that our minds are powerful and our thoughts have effects. It also says "I have no neutral thoughts", so the ego myth of a neutral unbiased objective opinion or evaluation of what something is or is not doing, is a lie. Every thought is biased and has an influence and an effect and is a DECISION to see or believe in a certain way, NOT an impartial detached idea.

The power of the mind to affect real consequences is something which Jesus says we are afraid of.

"People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them. Therapists try to help people who are afraid of their own death wishes by depreciating the power of the wish. They even attempt to "free" the patient by persuading him that he can think whatever he wants, without ANY real effect at all."

So you could put it this way. Either you are broadcasting love to people, or you are broadcasting fear and attack to people. How's that for responsibility? The whole collection of ego interference, predictions, controls, visualizations, imaginings, worries, concerns, etc that my mind has, are all forms of attack. So if I'm not loving, I'm attacking. "What is not love is murder." Gotta get honest here. We are either healers and blessers, or we are attackers.

I see that if I'm in attack mode, which is unto myself but also now seems to be "about someone not myself", and is still an idea in my own mind, that can't exactly be helpful to others. In fact it's what Jesus refers to as imprisoning your brother. And he even goes as far as to say that we're capable of cursing people with this.

""Casting spells" merely means "affirming error", and error is lack of love. When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made. This distortion makes them vulnerable to the curse of others, since they have already cursed themselves. The miracle worker can only bless, and this undoes the curse and frees the soul from prison."

So if someone is already in some ways cursing themselves, weakening themselves, and you then start to go into a reaction, and start to join with them in this belief, and fall for ego illusions, and have fears and other attack (non-light) thoughts about them, you are cursing them and reinforcing their errors. Your thoughts are NOT idle or private, they are having effects. Fortunately, negative ego thoughts are likely "weaker" than light-filled miracle thoughts.

Most likely it's accurate to say, we are all pretty sick minded and spend most of our time attacking each other psychologically. If I am in sin and guilt, I am not really going to be very helpful to others. I am likely cursing people all the time, not blessing them. If I want to be a miracle worker, in which I express love to people which actually has the power to affect them positively, to heal their minds and bodies, to set them free from imprisonment, then I am going to get my own mind healed so that I can bless, not curse.

When you withhold or cease to attack/project sin with the mind, when you are not being in fear, when your ego isn't running wild with interference and planning and deciding everything and playing God, when you are listening and following God's will and trusting Him in love, you effectively "take off of" others the chains of imprisonment and the curses you have been putting onto them. This DOES appear to have an EFFECT on them. You are now "not supporting" THEIR own self-curse and are not reinforcing their own weakness. Instead you supply the lack and strengthen them through your miraculous blessing.

"The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs."

So there is this pivotal message in the course. Either we are in a state of attack upon ourselves and others, which imprisons us AND them, in which we actually act like a prison guard controlling and isolating and defining people's confinement to ideas of limitation, OR we are setting ourselves and our brothers free by shining freedom onto them which actually HELPS them. By not supporting their self curse, we can perform miracles to alleviate their own imprisonment. Your loving mind CAN HEAL OTHER MINDS!

"The miracle is the act of a Son of God who has laid aside all false gods, and who calls on his brothers to do likewise. It is an act of faith, because it is the recognition that his brother CAN do it. It is a call to the Holy Spirit in his mind, a call to Him which is strengthened by this joining. Because the miracle-worker has heard Him, he strengthens His Voice in a sick brother by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does NOT share. The power of one mind CAN shine into another, because all the lamps of God were lit by the same spark. It is everywhere, and it is eternal."

So we have to ask ourselves a humble question. Do we want to be a prison guard, controller, attacker, limiter, interferer, free-will denyer, and curser today.... or will we get out of the way and be miracle working healers who can only bless and extend love and who can literally bring about the release of others by our willingness to ONLY bless with thoughts of light, strength, support and love? We can resurrect the dead by believing in our own life. We can heal our brothers. This is the goal.

Our thoughts exert real influence. This is why we have to learn about the power of the mind. This is why we have to learn to be careful and responsible about what we think. Even our so-called "private thoughts" are being received by others. If you think poorly of someone, watch how they start to act negatively in return, because they DID receive your broadcasts even if you didn't speak in person.

If you take back all your projected bullshit and stop attacking yourself and others, watch how people start to miraculously awaken and heal in your presence. The strength of the Holy Spirit's light in you is powerful enough to resurrect the dead, waken the sleeping, and cure the sick.

"Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world, because the human being has many things he must do, and cannot engage in constant thought-watching. However, if he hopes to spare himself from fear, there are some things he must realize, and realize them fully, at least some of the time.

The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

"While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don't really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains. "

"Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation."

"Now is Christ's power in your mind to heal as you were healed."

"The thoughts which the mind of God's Son projects, HAVE all the power that he has"

When we are introduced to this world, it is through false perception. That means we SEEM to "see it with" the body's eyes, and we believe the body's way of seeing. And the body shows us the world of form, which is cruel and dark and a place of death.

We do not even realize our mind is in any way making, or interpreting, how the world is. We observe. We see its suffering and carnage. And we decide the world is an inherently bad place.

Jesus then tells us:

"The world is false perception".

"The world IS perception."

"There is no world apart from what you wish"

"Projection makes perception."

What this suggests is, when your mind is in a dark attitude, it projects a world which it simultaneously perceives as a dark place. And when the mind is in a light attitude, it projects a world which is simultaneously perceived as a light place.

What it also suggests is, there IS no world, beyond your mind's dreaming and projecting of one. Ie the world is in your mind. And Jesus agrees to that.

"You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts."

"Projection makes perception; the world you see is what you GAVE it, nothing more than that. But, though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you, it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive."

What this tells us is there is not really an objective world. The world doesn't exist without someone dreaming of it, in their mind.

It may appear, conceptually, that there is a neutral, meaningless world, like a mirror, waiting for you to project whatever kind of images you want onto. And it might suggest this neutral world is a receiver of either your dark projections or your light projections. And that you see this darkness or light "in" "it" accordingly.

But He is also telling us that at no time does the body or world exist. That it is an hallucination.

"Perception is a result, not a cause."

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you really understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who seem to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are wholly unreal?"

"Hallucinations serve to meet the goal of madness. They are the means by which the outside world, projected from within, adjusts to sin, and seems to witness to its reality. ***It still is true that nothing is without.*** Yet, upon nothing, are ALL projections made. For it is the PROJECTION which gives the "nothing" all the meaning that it holds. ***What has no meaning, cannot BE perceived.*** And meaning always looks within, to find itself. And THEN looks out. ***All meaning that you give the world outside, must thus reflect the sight you saw within.*** Or better, if you saw at all, or merely judged against."

You look within your mind first, and then you project. And what you see, is only what you have projected, because projection MAKES what you perceive, and perceiving is the RESULT of what you projected.

Therefore you see only "a world" "out there" because you are projecting it inside your mind. It is not really out there at all. It is nothing. There is nothing to project onto. Only what you project AS.

This tells you essentially that the world you see in false perception, when your mind is dark, when you look within and see darkness, and then project it outward for perceiving, is seen ONLY in the dark of mind.

And this tells you that, essentially, there is ANOTHER WORLD, another "version" of a world, unlike what you saw in false perception, which is seen in light. It is seen only by looking within, seeing the light of Christ, and then projecting outward as Christ Vision. That "real world" has no resemblance to the world of false perception.

In fact, because there is no objective world, and you maintain it entirely in your mind, and because your mental attitude "tunes you out" of one world and "into" another, the Holy Spirit's happy dream, seeing one makes you unable to see the other.

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

"Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear. And yet their power is NOT the same, because their real attraction to you IS unequal. You do not really want the world you see, for it has disappointed you since time began."

It's kind of like saying, when you are in a bad mood, you project a hellish version of a planet Earth. When you are in a good mood, you project the real world, which contains no forms, no suffering, no sickness, no death. They are like tuning into different TV stations. Investment in the spiritual eye weakens investment in the physical sight.

"Everything looked upon with vision is healed and holy. Nothing perceived without it means anything. And where there is no meaning, there is chaos."

The world, which we call Earth, seems to exist only so long as we dream of it. A forgiven world, is how Earth appears to be when seen through forgiving eyes. It is not the real world, because in the real world there are no forms. But it may appear close.

Earth is a veil, hanging in front of the real world, and must be seen through to the light. This is what Christ Vision does, overlooking the world. And eventually this veil lifts entirely to reveal the real world/face of Christ in its fullness. And in this Vision, the world - Earth, is completely forgotten, and disappears from sight entirely.

"This world of idols is a veil across the face of Christ, because its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself."

"Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world."

"the veil of sin that hangs between you and the face of Christ."

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible."

The Earth, hell, the forgiven world, the real world even, are all dreams in your mind. The real world offers you an entirely different outlook, vision, and something to look at, beyond the world of bodies and sin.

"This is the shift that true perception brings: What was projected out is seen within, and there forgiveness lets it disappear. "

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all."

"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him. But while he still lays value on his own, he will DENY the vision of the other world, maintaining that he loves WHAT HE LOVES NOT, and following not the road that love points out."

"Vision is the means by which the Holy Spirit translates your nightmares into happy dreams; your wild hallucinations, that show you all fearful outcomes of imagined sin, into the calm and reassuring sights with which He would replace them. These gentle sights and sounds are looked on happily, and heard with joy. "

"When you have looked on what seemed terrifying, and seen it change to sights of loveliness and peace; when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and watched them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need persuade you to accept the gift of vision?"

"Damnation is your judgment on YOURSELF. And this you WILL project upon the world. See it as damned, and all you see is what you did to hurt the Son of God. If you behold disaster and catastrophe, you tried to crucify him. If you see holiness and hope, you joined the Will of God to set him free. There is no choice that lies between these two decisions. And you will see the witness to the choice you made, and learn from this to RECOGNIZE the one you made. The world you see but shows you how much joy YOU have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as YOURS. And, if this IS its meaning, then the power to GIVE it joy MUST lie WITHIN you."

"You HAVE been wrong about the world, because you have misjudged YOURSELF. From such a twisted reference point, what COULD you see? All vision starts WITH THE PERCEIVER, who judges what is true and what is false. And what he judges false, HE DOES NOT SEE. You who would JUDGE reality CANNOT see it, for whenever judgment enters, reality has slipped away. The out of mind is out of sight because what is denied is THERE, but is not recognized. Christ is still there, although you know Him not. His Being does NOT depend upon your recognition. He lives within you in the quiet present, and waits for you to leave the past behind, and enter into the world He holds out to you in love."

Illusions + reality = sin.

Reality - illusions = innocence.

This world we're in is a place of limitations. Everything is an illusion. Nothing is whole. Everything is partial. And all the forms that things take seem to depict and symbolise, in one way or another, ideas of separation and attack.

But even so, the world is neutral and is just a dream, it doesn't mean anything. Its forms are just mistakes - errors, various symbolic images which seem to depict impossible things, unnatural things, things not of God. Like sickness and death and murder.

None of this is a sin. But it could tempt you to believe it is a sin, IF you follow the sin formula.

The sin formula is a combination of illusions and reality. It's what you get when you take something that is an illusion and you try to GIVE IT the properties of God. If you give it reality, permanence, irreversibility, unchangeability, truth ..... then you now combine various flawed-looking limited things with truth. And that is how you convert a mistake into a sin.

Sin is then a way of looking at a mistake, in a mistaken way. It's a mistake about a mistake. It's' where you don't recognize that an illusion is just an illusion, or that a mistake is just a mistake. Instead it is regarded AS TRUE, as real, as happening, as permanent.

As such a sinful false-perception way of seeing things looks at bodies and physical happenings - which are all illusions - AS IF THEY ARE REAL.

So IF it were true that we are bodies, and IF bodies were real, and IF bodies were "doing something" to each other, it WOULD be a sin. Because now something real is attacking something real. And that WOULD be a horrendous attack upon reality. And it WOULD have real effects which can be observed and proven.

Such a sin WOULD call for punishment, it would be such a logical statement of truth and fact, such as that "you really have killed God" or "you really have killed God's son" ... that it would absolutely totally JUSTIFY all anger and all revenge and all punishment. This is why "the wages of sin is death." Logically it says you DID do this, I did not ask for it, you owe me, I am justified in revenge in order to atone and equalise, and therefore you deserve to die.

But sin - the perception that something IS a sin - is just a mistake ABOUT mistakes. A mistaken view OF illusions. A mistaken combination of things which in and of themselves are NOT true or real, taken to be true and real. An illusion believed, turns it into a sin.

Sin kind of "locks things in", makes them seem unchangeable - this is the idea that sin is irreversible. It would indeed seem that sins are irreversible if you give them God's properties - because God himself is irreversible. His permanence, confused with space and time and its contents, produces a perception of a world of sin.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there is a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away." UrT5A5

What this is really saying is that the world of bodies is the world where you could be tempted to believe sins are happening, and typically you need bodies in order to make sins possible. But sin is just a way of INTERPRETING bodies, and once you interpret them as REAL, you introduce a demand for guilt and death.

This is why forgiveness takes away guilt, because it still looks at the same bodies but WITHOUT confusing them for something real or true. It lifts away God's properties and power and permanence, and sees that the bodies are just neutral harmless illusions. And as such they ARE ERRORS, but they are NOT SINS.

"To see a SINLESS body is impossible. For holiness is POSITIVE, and the body is merely neutral. It is NOT sinful, but neither is it sinless. As nothing, which it IS, the body cannot meaningfully be invested with attributes of Christ OR of the ego. EITHER must be an error, for both would place the attributes where they cannot BE. And BOTH must be undone, for purposes of truth." UrT20H4

The body is not "sin-ful" as in FULL of sin, because this is an ego attribute - a false perception OF a body - to suggest its erroneous nature is REAL, and therefore that it is inherently a sin. The body is not really a sin. But at the same time, the body is also not said to be sin-less. .. because sinlessness is a state of such purity and innocence that it cannot have illusions in it. The body IS an illusion, so the body is actually NOTHING, so cannot accurately be said to be "a sin" OR "an innocence."

The thing is that we in our egos, in our false perception insanity, tend to COMBINE physical things with the properties of God. The worst of all these beliefs is the belief that the physical world is God's creation, IS God, and is thus real forever. This is the most sin-laden view of the world possible.

By believing the world is reality, is true, is eternal, is of God, all physical things - which are errors, are converted into sins. And now all acts, all behaviours, all events, are regarded as sins. As we believe that bodies are real, we believe that bodies ARE PEOPLE, and now we are believing that the mind is physical and souls can be destroyed.

Believing that the body is real and is the person, IS a belief in sin, and is thus an attack upon the body and the person. It's an egoic way of framing the person as not innocent. And once you believe they ARE a body, you will enter into all manner of nightmares.

There will be the nightmare of fear that their body could be in danger, the nightmare of guilt that you cannot save their body from death, the nightmare of anger that other people or things are doing stuff to their body, the nightmare of hopelessness that you cannot stop their body sickness, it goes on and on.

While we continue to be confused and lost in combining illusions with reality, giving God's properties to things which are not of God, we will continue to suffer and have a bad dream experience. But once we separate out God from the world, reality from illusions, souls/Christ from bodies, we can enter into the happier dream.

The happy dream comprises still the dream of illusions, but without sin projected onto it. Without that sense of - this is actually really a horrible bad thing. Without that attacking judgement of "this world REALLY IS a shit place." Yes it can seem to be a shit place, indeed it cannot be anything other than shit, but thankfully it is not a REAL one.

The happy forgiving dreams of RECOGNITION that an illusion is an illusion, that bodies are dreams, that the world's events are fiction, and that the world IS NOT ACTUALLY doing anything to anything real, liberates the mind and allows us to be in a state closer to sinlessness, closer to innocence. And we can project this onto the world, temporarily, and see it reflected back as the reflection of heaven. A distorted strange dream-world seen with forgiving eyes, a kind of "happy fiction."

"Forgiveness might be called a kind of happy fiction; a way in which the unknowing can bridge the gap between their perception and the truth. They" UrT4A2

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven." UrW220W11

Sins are forgiven by recognizing they are NOT sins, they are just mistakes. And mistakes simply call for correction, not punishment. When you recognize that someone just made a mistake, you do not hold it against them like it is some kind of permanent reality and truth about them. You let your view of them be CHANGED, so that you see their mistakenness calls only for a gentle loving correction, and not a horrendous accusation.

"And what else should therapy be? Awake and be glad, for all your sins have been forgiven you. This is the only message that any two should ever give each other." UrP4B4

The thing it realize about perception is this. The physical body itself has a form of sight. It can only see differences. Its sight is based on the reflection of photons of light, which seem to illuminate the surface of objects. This light enters the biological eyeballs and passes ”images” or sensory impressions on to the mind.

The physical body is actually permanently locked into FALSE perception. ”The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen.” It CANNOT SEE reality. Which in turn means EVERYTHING IT CAN SEE IS NOT REAL! What it is looking at is therefore NOT reality. Physical objects, photonic images, differences of form, shapes and sizes, colors and brightnesses, is not reality. These is ALL a part of false perception. “The world is false perception.”

It is not really seeing. It is in fact blindness. “Nothing so blinding as perception of form.” Since the body cannot see through or beyond physical surfaces, its seeing is in fact BLOCKED by objects. Objects blind it from seeing what is beyond. And therefore physical sight pretends to be seeing, but is in fact a lack of seeing.

These messages which the body seems to receive from the outside world, transmit into the mind, and the mind is sitting there EVALUATING THE MEANING of the messages. The mind is flexible in its beliefs, and can choose. It can decide what is true, and therefore what something MEANS.

The mind takes the ”physical images” provided by the body senses, and decides what they MEAN. It has perceptions ”about” the images, or projected ONTO the images. In a sense you could say the mind projects stuff ONTO the world or has perceptions ABOUT the world. But it’s really about the sensory signals being interpreted internally, once the body has received them.

The mind can decide whether these images represent the truth, or whether they are false. It can decide whether to believe in them or deny them. It can choose whether to regard them as real or as illusions. It can project sin and guilt ONTO these images and USE these images to mean attack, just as it can also project innocence and love ONTO these images which re-frames them as harmless. “I have given everything all the meaning it has for me.”

In and of themselves, the images actually have NO MEANING. They come from a world which itself HAS NO MEANING. This is why the course describes it as “a meaningless world”, and one which God DID NOT CREATE. The physical world is not merely meaningless ONLY when viewed in false perception, as if meaningful when perceived truly. It is in fact NEVER inherently meaningful. Meaning can be PROJECTED ONTO it, but in and of itself it is literally nothing. “The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it.”

So what actually happens is, the physical body provides a FIXED state of FALSE perception. And everything it sees is what we typically refer to as “the world” or planet Earth. Bodies, trees, houses, buildings, streets, the sky etc. Differences, changes, transitions, growth, decay, etc. This is all false perception and CAN ONLY been seen IN and WITH false perception.

Then at the same time, the MIND is sitting there INTERPRETING the physical signals. So the mind can ALIGN or IDENTIFY with the body, with physicality, and make the world seem real to it. When it does this, the MIND is now having false perception OF a false world - a false interpretation of a false image, at the same time as the physical body having false perception. They are in seeming agreement.

So what the falsely perceiving mind sees as coming from the body, it regards as TOTALLY REAL, because it is tempted anad DECEIVED BY the illusion. It totally agrees with and accepts it as true. That is what false perception means - not recognizing that an illusion is unreal. Just as true perception recognizes the world IS an illusion and not reality.

The mind can also move into a totally opposite state of TRUE perception, which is accurate perception. In this state, the BODY is actually STILL insisting on sending signals of physical unreality to the mind for interpretation. But the mind is not DECEIVED BY their falseness or their forms and appearances. Instead, the mind puts ALL of these physical signals into ONE category - THEY ARE ALL UNREAL. This is because it RECOGNIZES WHAT THEY ACTUALLY ARE, and is not deceived into thinking the physical world is reality. It recognizes these images ARE ILLUSIONS.

It regards them as UN real because it does not AGREE with or align or identify with the physical. It has identified with spirit, which is NON-physical and OPPOSITE to the physical world. Being fulled on the side of reality, everything unreal is now clearly and obviously unreal. And that means everything FALSE is ”truly seen” as false. As it is. And since the body can ONLY see falsely, and everything it sees IS FALSE, the sane mind now recognizes that the physical world is NOT REAL. Or even really there at all.

The body is trying to tell the mind that there is a world of differences and forms and attack and death ”out there”, BUT the mind is not BUYING INTO it at all. It does not fall for THE ILLUSION. It is not tempted. It RECOGNIZES what the physical really IS, which is that it is NOT TRUE. “The one you made is false.” It’s a false world which ONLY exists WITHIN false perception.

So now you’ve got FALSE signals of FALSE perception coming in from the body, and you’ve got a mind looking AT and USING these signals for a certain purpose. And its goal is the TOTAL OPPOSITE of the physical. So it does not believe in, accept, have faith in, nor is it deceived BY, anything the body is seeing. It’s a strange state, almost a paradox, where something UNREAL is recognized as an illusory physical world, while at the same time the mind is in a state of truth. “The world you see must be denied.”

True perception, christ vision, the spiritual eye, does not depend on, use, or rely upon, the physical sight mechanism. It is actually direct mind seeing. But this mind seeing does not SEE the physical world, because it regards it as FALSE, and what is false is shut out from awareness. This is why “It is impossible to see both worlds.” Either you see the false physical world AS IF it is real and true, or you see beyond it to reality. The mind’s eye also does not utilize physical photons for seeing, which is why in effect it cannot see the physical world. “Forgiveness sees it not.” It‘s sight is not based in space or time or distance or measure.

Truly, “To forgive is to OVERLOOK” and overlooking means ”forgetting to see”, or not seeing. You cannot look AT what you forgive. Looking AT it is unforgiveness. You look PAST it and fail to see it. That is what overlooking means. This is why “A world forgiven cannot last.” You cannot forgive the physical and still see the physical. When the mind is sane and healed, it categorizes ALL physical materials, worlds, energies, SPACE TIME, as entirely UNREAL. And this is the recognition of illusions which causes them to DISAPPEAR. And why “there is no world.”

The physical body is an illusion and sees ONLY illusions, in an agreein-with-illusions manner, which makes them seem real. “Only the body makes the world seem real.” All things physical are illusory and unreal. They are blindness. The blind body can only look upon the blind world, which was made to HIDE REALITY from your sight. “The world is drawn like a vail across the face of christ, but it can last no longer than an instant.” Only by recognizing that ALL body signals are FALSE AND UNREAL, can your spiritual eye rest upon the face of Christ, making you ready to return to God, ending perception forever.

The things of this world change. Change is impermanence. Change is mortality. Change is death.

If you associate your self with being one of these things, you are forced to have to believe that you are something that can die.

This will induce the immediate fear of death, and you will not be able to let it go while you believe you are something mortal.

In this world, most people believe that they are bodies, and that everyone else is a body. Bodies are mortal. They grow and change and shift and generally speaking end up in a state we call death. And yet even that isn't the cessation of change, because they go on to transform into food for other creatures and become the building blocks of further forms which appear to be reborn. And on it goes.

The problem is, if your or someone else's identity is wrapped up in something mortal and changing, you are locked into a fear state. You cannot believe you are a body and deny that you MUST therefore believe that you will change and die. That you'll stop being you.

Even every moment in which the body changes and moves is like a death - who you were as a child, almost unrecognisably transformed into an adult, and an old person, and a corpse. Who can you be in all of that when it keeps shifting and changing?

When a person believes they are a body, their mind is sick. The mind in its natural state recognises that your SELF is immortal spirit. Something that does not change, something that never dies. And in that there is safety and security and nothing to fear.

But believing in being a body makes the mind narrow and limited, as an attack upon immortality. And now this attack turns to sickness, and the body is attacked and made to be sick and corrupt and malfunctioning. And then it dies. Seemingly the inevitable consequence of being one at all.

Knowing that the mortal body can die, and believing that you or a loved one is a body, you are forced into a state of mind where you fear their death and your own. Their mortality becomes your mortality. Just by believing they are a body, you believe they will die. And this induces a fear of loss. A certainty that they WILL be lost, and there is no escape, and no solution to the calamity of being mortal.

This fear will then lead to all manner of panic and desperation, searching for answers, trying to find causes, even efforts to heal. Efforts to work miracles. Efforts to raise the dead and heal the sick. Efforts to be a miracle worker overcoming the forces of death with your power.

But this is a kind of miracle-working effort rooted in the unhealed healer. Anyone who believes they are a body is unhealed. And so the unhealed healer feels compelled by fear to save and fix those who are broken, yet simultaneously knowing they cannot be saved, and knowing that their demise is already written, if they be something that can die. A hopeless lost cause from the outset.

In this state we put up a fight, we resist death, we try to stop it happening. We'll do anything to keep a person in their body, as a body, because we believe that is what they are. And that to lose the body is a loss of the person, a true real loss in reality.

So we think that if we do everything we can to stop it happening, to prevent further sickness, to put up barricades against death, to defend against the evil medical system interfering and making things worse, to stop others from meddling or to deny help, and to enact attempts to solve the problem or to make the problem go away, are all the result of an insane compulsion to stop death happening.

But this resistance is really a form of attachment. It's a way of trying to keep the person going in a body by making the body real and associating them with the physical. This is how we hold on psychologically, through identification. And the more we believe they are a body the more we will interpret physical change as a threat, and will fear death even more.

Unless someone is going to reach a state in which they are so miraculous and healed that their body becomes incapable of sickness or death, which is quite advanced, generally speaking the body is going to become sick and die. The result of the choice to be unhealed leads to the inevitable consequence of death and dissolution.

This could be seen as acceptable, if a person would not resist this, and would not think of the person as a body. As just recognizing that bodies are doing what bodies do in their mortal ways. If it is recognised that people are not bodies, there need be no resistance or fear of the body changing. After all, change is all the body CAN do. It is constantly dying and transforming and becoming something else.

If we resist and fear the physical changing, interpreting it as a threat and a potential end to someone's life and existence, we'll create so much control and resistance and heroism and trying to be a saviour and healer and all manner of "not letting go". This is not a surrendered state or a healing state, it's a state of alarm and stress and fear and panic and horror. All unnecessary.

A person wanting to keep another person going at all costs, to prevent their departure to higher realms, to stop all sickness happening, and to ward off death itself, is really in a special relationship with the body. It's part of the belief and identification that the person is their body, and not an immortal being. And should anything happen to that precious treasured body, it is taken to mean an actual assault upon the persons reality and existence. Every change becomes a blow and insult to peace.

This whole attitude of resistance and fear of death is a layer of interpretation on top of what actually physically happens. Regardless of whether it's right or not for the body to reach a death state, you can either resist its changes or you can accept them. In order to accept them you have to let go.

Letting go means not believing that a person is something mortal, or that they can be attacked, or that they can ever die. It means not confusing the body for the person. And not minding or needing or depending on the body "staying alive" in order to be happy. It means recognizing physical things are always coming and going and transforming their state, and nothing physical is everlasting.

To surrender and let the death happen is far better than fighting against it. Because in truth you cannot win by fighting anything. To attack death is to fuel it. To resist sickness is to reinforce it. To want to heal and rescue the body-self is to imprison a person in a body further and bind them with sickness and guilt.

We must detach from the physical in all ways, including our own sense of identity and that of others. We must let go of believing that physical things will not change, because they are made of change and change is all they can do. We need to recognize that people are permanent souls that cannot change, because permanence is all they can do. And separate out the two.

We then can "let death be", without resistance, without fear, without attacking it, without feeling offended by it, without making it an enemy, without scapegoating it or hating it, or feeling reluctant or unwelcome toward it. This doesn't mean we have to condone it or choose it or support it, because it's still the result of an unhealed mind. But if it IS going to happen, we must not put up an egoic fight against it.

Resistance is futile. You cannot heal something by resisting it. It may seem paradoxical but actually by accepting something you let it go and let it be, but at the same time this gives you freedom, which opens you up to love and power, and makes you capable of healing. You can't heal a sickness by trying to make it real and then fighting against it. You have to not mind it first, and allow it, and then you are in a better position to help.

I used to see myself a rising up against sickness and death, becoming the kind of miracle worker that would be on some kind of crusade of revenge to conquer it and overpower it and make it stop. This never worked. And it's a good thing it didn't, otherwise I wouldn't have learned that this isn't how healing works. You can't stop death by trying to stop death. It has to be recognised as nothing and of no consequence or importance.

You stop it by letting it be nothing, recognised as nothing, unimportant and not worth resisting, and you allow it to be, SO THAT you can be aligned and identified with spirit, have access to God's power, recognize others as immortal, reinforce the LIFE in them, and thus give the life of resurrection and healing. It's kind of about getting your priorities straight. Death doesn't matter. Why fear something that has no effect on anything real?

In the course Jesus describes how, sometimes miracles can potentially induce fear. Also that even though someone seems to be asking for healing, they might in fact become afraid if they were to suddenly be healed.

He goes on to add also that if you were to take away something which someone is using as a defense, for the perceived purpose of protection, they may then become afraid due to having no defenses. And in turn, if you take away something which someone values or seems to need, even if it is working against them, they can become depressed.

"Yet what if the patient uses sickness as a way of life, believing healing is the way to death? When this is so, a sudden healing may precipitate intense depression, and a sense of loss so deep that the patient may even try to destroy himself. Having nothing to live for, he may ask for death. Healing must wait, for his protection."

The reason this happens is fairly straightforward. In the separation from God, we have reversed what is true and what is false, what is real and unreal. We have tried to give all the attributes of God to the ego illusions, and vice versa. So in our confusion, we think that heaven is hell, death is life, attack is salvation, and truth is a lie.

Anyone with an ego has this distortion to some degree, and usually extensively. It's the upside-down nature of the thought system. We actually think God is evil and help is harm and that we need to be protected from health.

If someone then comes along and attempts to "remove" that which we're valuing, depending on, seeming to need or want, without us having a change of mind and heart, we may interpret it as an attack and a threat. If someone were to shine a lot of light onto you, you might think you are being dragged kicking and creaming into the light, interpreting light as darkness.

This is the nature of insanity. We are confused about what things are. We lack recognition. We are out of touch with what is true. So in our confusion we are lost and deceived. We need to be aware that even if we ourselves are willing to go to the light and be the light of the world, others who need help are not there. They still defend against God and to some degree do not want your love. They fear it.

Similarly with fear, fear is the state of the rejection of love, and being afraid is bad for your health. But those who are afraid believe that the fear is protecting them from the threat of God. You can also be afraid of awakening, because to your ego awakening is like death or dissolution of the false sense of identity.

"All forms of sickness even unto death are physical manifestations of the fear of awakening."

Having identified with the ego or body, sudden miraculous changes to the body could be interpreted as frightening. If you think that you are a body and suddenly your broken leg is healed, or you literally see physical changes happening before your eyes, it could be interpreted as an intrusion or strange external power. It could upset your sense of protection and make you feel vulnerable.

Indeed for many people the idea of "spirit" or "spirits" is frightening. The idea that there is some kind of person or entity which is not in a body, which you can't see, and which is there doing stuff, can be terrifying. The Holy Spirit and angels, even a discarnate Jesus, can be interpreted as being able to bypass your physical defenses and "get to you". At least that is, until you have developed trust and recognition and are not using fear as a defense.

As miracle workers, Jesus cautions us that we need to be aware of the fact that all those who need help are backwards, insane, afraid, confused, lost, uncertain, deceived, defensive, poised to attack, and that they may even see your help as alien and vicious. It is this that they need saving FROM, but the help has to be carefully provided with love and a care not to "trigger" the person into greater retreat.

"Before it is safe to let miracle workers loose in this world, it is essential that they understand fully the fear of release. Otherwise, they may unwittingly foster the misbelief that release is imprisonment, which is very prevalent."

So the situation is, that you are working with patients who have various forms of insanity and fear, they need help to have their minds healed, but it has to be done in such a way that doesn't make the situation worse. They are booby-trapped with all kinds of mental reasons why they would misperceive what you are trying to do, and a significant supernatural miracle could be interpreted falsely as terrifying.

This in no way means that you should not perform miracles, nor spectacular ones. But you can also be sure that many people who are not READY or WILLING to receive them, may reject and run from them. In essence, people who need help generally do not want help, which is precisely why they need it. If the help is seen an encroaching on their territory, or attacking their valued beliefs, they will put up defenses. Even if the help is valid.

Unless they are willing to come forth with some sense of trust and willingness, they may not be too "closed" to reach through powerful means. They might require a lot more time and patience and a gentler approach, to use language or symbols they understand, and to not expose a "raw undiluted miracle" to them knowing what their reaction will be.

"Sometimes the illness has sufficiently great a hold over an individual's mind to render him inaccessible to Atonement. In this case, one may be wise to utilize a compromise approach to mind and body, in which something from the OUTSIDE is temporarily given healing belief. This is because the last thing that can help the non-Right-Minded (or the sick) is an increase in fear. They are already in a fear-weakened state. If they are inappropriately exposed to a straight and undiluted miracle, they may be precipitated into panic. This is particularly likely to occur when upside down perception has induced the belief that miracles are frightening."

Since everyone has free will, and chooses everything, even those who are seemingly far from God and being "evil" are rejecting love. They do not want your help. But unconditional love nevertheless shines upon them gently, slowly melting their resistance. Tolerance for pain is not without limits etc... eventually everyone seeks for a better way and thus invites the holy spirit with a little willingness.

In effect, those you are helping need to have a little willingness, otherwise to help them is to violate their freedom. You can't corece or force them to be well. "God does not coerce." Which poses the sad but necessary scenario that sometimes you have to let people remain in suffering, not because you are cruel and don't want to help but because they aren't willing enough to receive it without making their own situation worse. And sometimes being too helpful is actually a form of imprisonment and disempowerment.

"The use of miracles as a spectacle to INDUCE belief is wrong. They are really used for and by believers."

What this means is that miracles are generally more openly given and received for those who are willing to be open to it. They need to "believe" to some extent, ie to trust the help without being frightened by it, in order to be helpable. This is why miracles are not used to FORCE someone to heal or improve. Trying to INDUCE someone to align with truth is inappropriate and a form of ego manipulation, disguised as help.

Those who are open to it, bring it on. Those who are willing to get help, go ahead and offer it. Those who are willing to put aside fear, and to trust, and be open to a powerful supernatural event, all the better. You'll notice that God doesn't just snap his fingers and force everyone to wake up in a flash of light. Because people are free and they don't want it. Otherwise his mere presence would anchor them in reality and the world would vanish.

"If to love oneself is to HEAL oneself, those who are sick do NOT love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are DENYING TO THEMSELVES. If they knew the truth about themselves, they could not be sick. The task of the miracle-worker thus becomes to DENY THE DENIAL OF TRUTH. The sick must heal THEMSELVES, for the truth is IN them. But, having OBSCURED it, the light in ANOTHER mind must shine into theirs, because that light IS theirs."

Your role as miracle worker then is to discern clearly where people atre"at", psychologically, and to seek advice from Jesus/Holy Spirit, so that you don't perform indiscriminate miracles, or waste your efforts, or burn yourself out trying, or cause the patient to become worse off due to your "heavy-handed healing". But certainly, for those who are ready and willing to receive help, the help is there to be given.

Treat gently on the bruises. Tip-toe around the defense systems. Gently invite the person into the light. And provide plenty of reassurances. The limiting of fear and reactions is vital. Triggers must be carefully navigated. And you especially don't want to go for the ego's jugular right off the bat. Perhaps the motto should be, "gently does it."

Forgiveness is a state of mind in which you recognize that there is nothing that NEEDS forgiving. It is a recognition in which you know there is no sin, sin is impossible, attack is impossible, so nothing can have happened to be forgiven. It's an awareness of innocence.

Forgiveness however isn't "passive", it is ACTIVELY converting illusions into truth. It is actively translating sin into error. It is actively interpreting and changing something. It is causing a healing and radiating life.

What you do to get your mind INTO the state of forgiveness, in which forgiveness is "complete", or in which you are "completely forgiving all the time", as an attitude, is what we might call "purification" or correction or healing.

Healing, or shall we say, being in a state in which you or another is healed, must entail similarly a recognition that "there is nothing that NEEDS healing." If we are focusing on "something is wrong", we are reinforcing and giving reality to sickness and damage. If we think a person "is a sick body", that's actually an attack on their immortal nature.

Like forgiveness then, proper healing entails a recognition that there is nothing to heal, because it recognizes immortality and wholeness and harmlessness. It recognizes invulnerability and permanence and the impossibility of attack/sin/guilt. It ASSERTS only "you are fully alive".

Perhaps we can then say that you can ONLY correctly heal, as in correctly forgive a sick person, by looking for and focusing on the NON-SICK self in them. Finding the pre-existing UNCHANGED perfection in them. Recognizing them as NOT SICK, as not broken or damaged, as not guilty or punished, and as not a victim. And certainly not a body.

Holding this light for the person, shining the truth into them, seeing them IN the light WITH light AS light, is the absence of a BELIEF IN sickness. It places no attention ON the sickness. When you have made sickness real and are reacting to it, even trying to "fix it", you're giving it power and reinforcement. In order to heal sickness you have to NOT give sickness any power. Which means giving it no direct attention. The symptoms will disappear naturally when the UN-SICKNESS is given power.

Now, we have to be careful that we're not saying .. I'm not just going to "do nothing". We're not talking about NOT performing a miracle of healing. We're not talking about just idly sitting there. We're talking about HOW TO HEAL. You heal by actively choosing to "see health". To join with your brother's mind in the light and through a light-based vision. To SHINE LIGHT into them on purpose, to deliberately FILL them with light so that they are enlightened.

Just because we're recognizing that the person doesn't REALLY need healing, and isn't REALLY sick, doesn't mean we're just ignoring it or doing nothing about it. We must focus on their immortal self, remembering the truth about them, taking all attention off any illusion of a mortal self or a body self, and putting all attention on who they really are. Acknowledging who they are FOR them.

Recognizing their LACK OF SICKNESS for them. This is a SERVICE. "A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."

To reject and thus to CANCEL all belief in, reality of, attention given to, power in, sickness or damage, WITHDRAWS power from those things and weakens them in your mind. Because you are joining in love/light with your brother's mind this weakens it in their mind also because you do not support their belief in being mortal.

Simultaneously, to not support death is to ASSERT LIFE. This is an actual active assertion, an EXPRESSION of love. Something which goes out and is given and is can be received by another. Something that can be shared. While you remove all power from death and mortality and ideas of a person being a body, you GIVE all power to where it belongs - to their immortal christ self which is flawless and perfect and has nothing wrong with it.

Miracle don't just "take away" the illusion of sickness which seemed present. They also ASSERT and EXPRESS and RE-ESTABLISH or "repair" what was given by God. By "cancelling" what is not really there, miracles remove the ego and the guilt and the symptoms of sickness. This IS A CHANGE, but it a change in the direction of REMOVAL, resulting from an ASSERTION or expression of love's power. "THE MIRACLE DOES NOTHING. All it does is to UNdo. And thus it cancels out the interference to what HAS BEEN done. It does not add, but merely takes away."

"A miracle inverts perception which was upside-down before, and thus it ends the strange distortions that were manifest."

All fearful reactions to someone's physical state are your own unforgiven deceptions. Trying to manage, control, defend against, make go away, all physical APPEARANCES of sickness is wasted effort. It's part of you giving power away to them, because you do not remember who you are. Having stopped knowing yourself, you have entertained the idea of mortality and death YOURSELF, and have forgotten you are unchangeable. As a result you begin to believe that you are a mortal body, that other people are mortal bodies, that your bodies are being changed and that you need to desperately do something to stop it.

None of that business and reaction helps at all. As Jesus frequently tells me, "relax", ie chill and stop dwelling on what's going wrong. Stop buying into the appearance of a LIE, and let us remember that ALL sickness is an illusion. There is no REAL sickness. And focusing on the body of another results from your OWN body-identification, which is you forgetting your own true nature. That means YOU need a miracle of healing for yourself.

"He MUST heal his perception in this respect. He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself here (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector) before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are."

To get your own mind right requires you remembering and knowing yourself, tuning into the fact you remain as God created you, recognizing why you cannot change or be changed, and identifying with your IMMORTAL SPIRIT. Knowing that you cannot be hurt, cannot be sick, cannot die and cannot suffer. Once you have accepted this for yourself and have thus received healing and correction, you can now GIVE what you have received. And this is where you become able to give a miracle as "a creative energizer."

It is creative energizers that are GIVEN TO OTHERS. This is where you now EXTEND the light of christ you've seen in yourself, and SHARE it with another. Where you have joined the Holy Spirit in his view of you within yourself, and now see that same unchangeability in another, focusing on their immortal nature and their incapability of being sick. You tell them psychologically, "you are immortal and perfect and you can never be sick." You recognize in the light of truth that their body and their sickness IS NOT TRUE. That it cannot be true in light of God's truth. Only God's truth is true and nothing else is true.

It is in this "joining in christ" or "sharing light" with another that both of you are resurrected. In which "those who temporarily have more give to those who temporarily have less." It is where you recognize your brother's inestimable worth as equal to your lovable value in God. And where you see the other as ALREADY HEALED AND WHOLE. Already perfect, created by God to be perfect forever. ALREADY devoid of sickness. INCAPABLE of suffering. In which death and sickness and deformity and disability as IMPOSSIBLE.

Thus do you know you brother as one with you, like you, whole like you, healed like you. Thus do you know your neighbor as yourself. Thus do you support ONLY LIFE, and completely give no attention whatsoever to the illusion of death or the goal of death. In which your ONLY goal is life, shared with the Holy Spirit, in which you ONLY RESURRECT, and CAN ONLY HEAL.

"The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself. This means that he knows that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE healed by the Atonement. Once he accepts this, HIS mind can only heal (others). By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others (heal others). The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them (because they are immortal)."

"To the ego, the goal is death, which IS its end. But to the Holy Spirit, the goal is life (life=eternal life/immortality), which HAS no end."

"When you heal, that is exactly what you ARE learning (doing). You are recognizing the changeless mind in your brother by perceiving (knowing) that he could NOT have changed his mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is ONLY the Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he CAN, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not know what his self IS. If YOU see only the changeless in him (his immortal self), you have not really changed (healed) him at all (have seen him as not NEEDING healing). But by changing your mind about HIS FOR him (recognizing his immortality), you help him undo (heal) the change his ego thinks it has made in him. "

"Your brother has a changelessness (immortality) in him beyond appearance and deception both. It is obscured by changing views of him which you PERCEIVE as his reality. The happy dream about him takes the form of the appearance of his perfect health; his perfect freedom from all forms of lack; and safety from disaster of all kinds (symbolic of his immortality). The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form BECAUSE IT CAN SO EASILY BE CHANGED."

I recently seemed to come full circle with the course. And I mean, right back to the very beginning.

I found myself in states of false perception, looking at the world and its hellish ways. There was "tolerance for pain" and ridiculous stupid things happening. It was like I was back at the very start of course, immersed in the world and identified with suffering. It seemed like I hadn't learned a single thing.

The difference was that this time around I seemed to bring a whole lot of learning and light with me, taking a fresh NEW look at the very first starting steps on the road to awakening but without a ton of clutter and confusion. I've been rediscovering "the basics" in a whole new light, seeing a much greater simplicity and clarity in the course material.

I settled into really looking at the world's ridiculousness, its hopelessness, its meaninglessness. Jesus describes this process in a section called "the real alternative." It speaks of how we must at some point look at the fact of the world's nature and not deny it.

I had to look at the fact that time is death and everything in the world leads to death. That it is a closed system of fear in which everything always fails. It wasn't pretty to look at. But this gives rise to a deep inner rejection of the ridiculous nature of the world, an insistence that this just CANNOT BE God's will.

It was an insight that there has to be a better way, there has to be another world, there has to be another way to see and to live and be happy that has nothing to do with the world. This was a real turning point because without the awareness that the world is completely hopeless and impossible, too much value is placed in it and salvation is sought within its offerings.

I found this interesting because for a very long time I have sought to try to understand the LIGHT, the nature of heaven and God, and to try to get a clear picture of what the truth is. To reach above and beyond with theory and thought so that I could more fully understand the proper perspective of the truth.

And here I was instead taking a really good look at the darkness and finding there was a major treasure there to discover - a use of it that would prove to turn me 180 degrees in the right direction. Just as I thought things could not get much worse, I suddenly found a way out.

So for me this then opened me up to not only the willingness to seek for a better way, and another world, but also the willingness to no longer look for hope in and of the world. It was the end of false hopes and idle wishes. But it was also the birth of a fresh NEW hope, a real hope, a real possibility and a clear path to God.

I turned my back on the world more and sought the light. This also involved a major upheaval to what I thought about the world. I had to realize that much that many people had taught on the subject was wrong, and that the world in and of itself was meaningless.

I had to realize that it was POSSIBLE for there to be another way, a better way, a higher way, to rise above the hell and misery. There had to be another truth, a higher truth, not of this world, which could override the world. And this meant no longer associating hell with the world, no longer believing that it was inherently guilty.

This had required, I think, years of undoing of guilt in myself, because previously I just don't think I could conceive of how the world could not be guilty, or not accuse it all the time, because there was too much of a mountain of guilt to look past. I couldn't get my mind to conceive of a "better way" or a way of looking at the world that wasn't riddled with guilty projections. I couldn't "separate out" the world from what I was turning it into.

I hadn't thought it POSSIBLE that the same meaningless world could be seen in such a way as to even love it or find a reflection of innocence in it. I started seeing all this stuff in the course about the real world and true perceptions and the forgiven world, God loving the world and seeking a different way of seeing everything. Christ vision and so on. And this really "awakened" something in me in terms of being able to understand that the world could be forgiven and seen in a totally different light.

I did actually have several days where I felt like there was literally a light inside me that was shining all the time. Like something had been activated. And this light was entertaining the possibility that "the world I made" could be seen in a more loving way, instead of the rejecting way that is taught by many course teachers. I embraced the idea that the world isn't fundamentally hell, and it's really my interpretation of it that MAKES it so.

This has opened the way for the very simple awareness that there are indeed two ways of looking at, interpreting, giving meaning to, giving purpose to, the same world, and they are very opposite. It has also given rise to an awareness that I actually do have a CHOICE. There IS an alternative. There IS another way and another option. I don't HAVE to just go along with what appears to be an inherent meaning or a judgement that seems to come from the world. I actually can choose HOW to use and experience the world.

This has unlocked a freedom and a sense of looseness about being able to actually ELECT what to "make of" anything. I can see now that things only seem to be bad and wrong if I literally chose that they are. I see that my interpretation of everything is entirely optional and unlimited. I make everything up as I go along. I can choose something else. I have to keep asking myself whether something "really is" what I am thinking it is, or if it only seems that because I'm MAKING it be that. It is constantly revealed that I'm the one who made it into hell, and I could be happier if I would stop doing that. "I can escape the world i see by giving up attack thoughts"

I had to realize per the secret of salvation not only that I was doing it all to myself, but that it was ME who was DECIDING that the happenings in the world were evil and wrong. There's a whole layer of interpretation, judgement, evaluation, deciding and projecting that comes in between me and it. And it's not fixed. I can just as easily THINK and feel in a happier way than in an unhappy way. There is an actual alternative option to choose, a better way, a higher outlook, a more loving viewpoint.

Now I see that my experience of the world is literally like a switch. I can flip channels between the lower ego mind and the higher holy spirit mind. This forms two perspectives, the false perceptions that make everything seem like a fearful hell, and a higher perspective which lights everything up and makes it happy and easy.

"Earth can reflect heaven or hell" because I am the one who decides to believe what I see in it. It is literally nothing other than what I put there to see and I seem to be finally finding the "controls" to operate the machinery of perception. Because I've opened up to realizing there is ANOTHER world, there is a REAL ALTERNATIVE, there is a REAL HOPE, my mind is now able to not be so stuck on a one-track rollercoaster ride.

I've stepped back somehow and found a deeper footing behind the flip-flopping instabilities of perception - gaining an ability to freely stabilize it. Of course it's still a learning process but there is a definite opening and a raised awareness and an increased versatility. I see that thought is powerful and I see that ego is a false function.

I see that I need now to have only higher happier thoughts. It is not enough to just accept suffering, I will now INSIST on a better way. On ONLY seeing with christ/holy spirit and ONLY having uplifting happy thoughts. I see now that these higher-mind thoughts are the source of miracles. "The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness." I can just as easily MAKE UP that something MEANS something good than to make up that it means something is terrible. I can CHOOSE NOT TO SUFFER.

The whole course is taking on new meaning and I keep seeing how the things Jesus has been saying all along suddenly make so much more sense and I see the purpose of them. Without the openness to a better way it was like functioning only on one level. But there ARE two levels, two levels of minds, two ways of seeing, two functions, two mindsets, two perceptions, two qualities of thought, two purposes, two meanings. One is lower, one is higher, and there is nothing stopping me from choosing one or the other.

I just need now to practice focusing on and embracing the higher level truth, the holy spirit's christ vision, and the happier uplifting resurrecting outlook. To have only the thoughts I think with God. To completely turn my back on, deny and reject, the unacceptable lower-level lies. This entails also not listening to the ego, not listening to the world, not listening to the body, and not paying any mind to anything not of God.

There IS a better way. There IS another world. There IS a reality where everything is always happy and everything is perfect. My willingness to trust that and side with it and believe it has really strengthened. It's time to rise!

IT DOESN'T MATTER WHICH VERSION OF THE COURSE YOU USE

THEY ARE ALL THE SAME! THE COURSE IS NOT A BOOK.

A Course in Miracles is a metaphysical course. It is also holographic.

If you were to "get" a single sentence Jesus has spoken in its fullest meaning and accept it, you could wake up. It does not require you to study specific words or versions. It does not require you to do the entire workbook.

I know this may sound controversial. At some point you are supposed to even leave the course behind and go to God with empty hands. The course is a stepping stone, a guide. It is not an experience of the truth.

The course is holographic in that the whole truth can be found in each part. Holograms make no sense to the ego because it has attempted to demonstrate through physical objects, that what is true of one thing is not true of another. It sees only separate problems defined by their FORM, the solution to which fixes on isolated problem and not any others - a learning which cannot be generalized.

Physical objects are the mind's way of projecting an image in which it seems like God does not exist anywhere, by making it appear that there is nothing the same anywhere. God is the same everywhere, he is the All in All. And he is fully present in all parts. The ego does not understand this because it will ask, how can All of God be in one part, and All of God be in another part? But God can, because God is omnipresent.

Similarly with the Course book(s), Jesus has expressed WHOLE TRUTH, using various words, many times over. The reason the Course repeats so much is because the SAME CONTENT is expressed in many different ways. So as you read it, it builds upon itself, because really, what you are learning is a "core truth" which is very, very simple and deep and profound yet which is expressed over and over again.

It is almost like a fishing net, which has been cast outward in many seemingly different "forms", talking on what seem to be many separate topics, in great detail, so that the MANY VARIED EGOS in various states and conditions can start with where they are AT, taking the course to be a specific form, and then WORKING THEIR WAY TO THE SOURCE, by realizing that each part IS NOT SEPARATE from the rest, and that there is a common thread, a very abstract yet wholly simple truth, hiding behind every single word. One Truth. One Answer.

Jesus in fact expressed the entire Course from a single state of mind, from love. In ego terms, that should mean that He only needs one expression, one WORD, which would be sufficient for you to awaken. As Jesus explained, even the term "God is" is sufficient. It contains the WHOLE TRUTH. The Complete truth. There is nothing missing in that.

Similarly for example, "nothing real can be threatened", contains the whole truth. Every aspect of that truth is reflected in it. If you could just GET that one thing, and get it really deeply and fully and really grasp the totality of it, the absoluteness of it, then you would be done waking up. So do you really need thousands of pages of text? Do you really need 365 workbook lessons?

Jesus didn't write a linear book. He didn't take the route that most authors take where they write things in a sequence along a timeline, with separated out content, and where each piece of content is tied to a particular form, and therefore to digest the "full story" you have to read the entire book, every word. Jesus's book is totally different to that.

Even though it seems to speak on many many different ILLUSIONS of topics, such as ego, mind, death, sickness, healing, miracles, heaven, worlds, separation, holy instants, brothers, etc... He is expressing ALL of it from ONE truth, one perspective (sitting in Heaven sipping tea), and that ENTIRE truth is contained in each part. You could get by with a single page of the text and wake up from it.

This is why the course is so DEEP. It has nothing to do with the HORIZONTAL digestion of the Course, how many words there are, how many words you read or practice, how much you memorize, which parts you quote in isolation, or which version seems more or less original. The course does not proceed in the horizontal. It is NOT attempting to get you to make "horizontal progress"!

It does not care how much time it takes or how many lessons you've done or which version's material was left in or out. That is not the DIRECTION in which your mind needs to progress in order for you to wake up! Your mind does not need to take on board 10,000 words. Your mind needs to TRANSCEND THE WORDS. To generalize the learning.

To transform what APPEARS to be thousands of words and to consolidate and reduce them down, boil them down, to a VERY, VERY SIMPLE core truth. You do that by going INTO the course, not moving through the material sideways or in a linear fashion!

The metaphysics of the course is DEEPER than the words, the meaning of the words is DEEPER than the words. There is an ABSTRACT TRUTH being presented here, a truth which *SPANS* the entire book, and is THE SAME EVERYWHERE. Page 1. Page 100. Page 1000. It's all the SAME CONTENT!

You are supposed to be GENERALIZING the learning. What that means is, you see SIMILARITIES in many different seeming parts of the book. Over here in chapter 1 Jesus talks about a miracle in this way, over there in chapter 12 Jesus talks about a miracle in that way. They correlate and are BOTH fragments of the same truth expressing. A piece of the hologram.

BOTH of them point to the same thing. If you are understanding the meaning of what's being said, your mind will develop a CONNECTION between the parts, and will therefore move towards a MORE ABSTRACT TRUTH than either of the parts suggest in their form. Your mind will start to build a "picture" or an overall concept or piece of the metaphysics, based not on a single quote or piece of form in isolation or certain versions, but based on the UNITY between them which transcends the forms of the words.

Just as the Course says you could gain vision from looking at a table in the correct way, so too you can gain vision from looking at a single sentence in the course in the right way. This is why a statement like "there is no sin" gives you a sigh of relief. It is HEALING, not because of what the words say or which words are used. It is healing because it is ABSOLUTE TRUTH expressed in one of many forms, reminding you that something FAR DEEPER than the form is real.

It does not matter which version of the form of the course you use or work with. It does not matter who edited in or out anything it says. It does not matter who influenced it or which forms are more original or less edited or which predate others. It is irrelevant. The course is RESILIANT and RESISTANT TO EDITING, because you cannot EDIT OUT the holographic truth.

A feature of holograms is that THE WHOLE TRUTH is present in every part. If you remove some of the parts, it DOES NOT DIMINISH the whole truth. Every OTHER part that remains, still has the WHOLE TRUTH in it. If you know anything about holograms such as those little 2D ones used on credit cards - when you move your vantage point you see a DIFFERENT SIDE of a 3D OBJECT... because every little particle of the holographic image CONTAINS THE ENTIRE OBJECT, making it possible to see multiple different perspectives at the same time. Try it yourself. To the ego, this should be impossible.

The course is the same way. If you take out AN ENTIRE CHUNK of it, just chop out 90% of the chapters in the text, YOU WILL NOT be removing even 1% of the CONTENT of the course that remains. The WHOLE TRUTH can still be found in the remaining content. You could even pare it down to just 2 words, like God Is, and THAT STILL contains the ENTIRE COURSE. So to think that someone's editing, even aggressive editing, has POWER OVER THE TRUTH, to strip out and steal away and leave out ANYTHING MEANINGFUL, is absolute bullshit ego drama. The truth is INVULNERABLE!

Taking out or changing some words WILL NOT, and SHOULD NOT (for anyone discerning) confuse or distract anyone from the truth. Believing otherwise means you are obsessed WITH FORM and are TOTALLY MISSING the content, which means you're NOT EVEN GETTING THE COURSE from the parts that you DO have access to! The Course contains such a STRENGTH and CLARITY of truth, do you really think that changing a bunch of words can corrupt it beyond all recognition, beyond all usefulness? You cannot remove the ALL from every part without changing EVERY SINGLE WORD. And then you might as well read the phone book. And even the phone book can be used to wake up.

The truth is not a form. It is not a version of some words. The metaphysics is essentially THE SAME in every single version ever released. If you think the differences are important, then you are not transcending the form and are not seeing the metaphysical foundation. WHOLE TRUTH cannot be edited out!

The metaphysics are based on extremely absolute logical progression, which is absolutely black and white with absolutely no wiggle room or room for confusion or misunderstanding.

The metaphysics explains the entire separation and every facet of the ego's working, as a logical progression, because all thought systems are logically consistent throughout. Once you can see the logical CLARITY, which is why Jesus uses extremely black and white terms as much as possible, you will GET the metaphysics and be able to see it and USE it, to clarify the MEANING of the words. The words do not provide meaning! The meaning provides the words! Content over form.

It is not necessary for anyone to read the entire text. It is not necessary for anyone to do the entire workbook. It is not necessary to read the manual for teachers, or absorb every word of every pamphlet, or listen to every single publication by well-known teachers. All you need is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit IS THE ANSWER TO THE SEPARATION.

The Course is only meant to put you in touch with Him and to recognize Him as your teacher and healer and helper, and to learn to allow Him to HELP YOU WAKE UP. Being in touch with Him and relying on and developing TRUST in Him, is MORE IMPORTANT than any words in any version of the Course anywhere. He is the ONE who Jesus appointed to help us. He is the ONE who will awaken us. He is the ONE who heals us. He is the ONE who KNOWS EVERYTHING and who can tell us anything we need to know, and direct us very specifically.

"I don't need to know what to say or what to do knowing He goes there with me. I will heal as I let Him teach me to heal" etc...

It is THE EGO that wants to hang onto every word and quotation of the course, to take parts of it in ISOLATION and dwell on the FORM, in order to SEPARATE the course out into multiple separate problems, to confuse and obscure the message and the meaning.

It does not matter WHAT WORDS Jesus wrote. It does not matter what they mean in English language. It does not matter that you try to "let the words" tell you the truth without you interpreting. That STILL won't get you to be awake. You have to go beyond the words. They are just symbols, pointing you to the truth.

For some people, reading the entire text is helpful. Maybe many times. For some people, doing every single workbook lesson is helpful, maybe even many times. But NOT EVERYONE needs that. What is NEEDED, what is required, is to learn your personal curriculum which you will experience in your regular daily life, learn your lessons, apply the course principles and demonstrate the truth. Be a living example of the teaching, not someone who bashes others over the head with a book. There are already enough bible bashers in the world.

Sometimes people "get" the meaning of the course much quicker than others. It totally depends on the person. Sometimes there has been enough gained from the course writing itself that you no longer "need" to go do lessons or read the words. The core truth is generalized and the abstract nature opened up to. You get in touch with the Holy Spirit who is God's APPOINTED TEACHER, and you listen to Him and allow Him to TEACH YOU DIRECTLY. To help you to forgive and heal. To help you to APPLY it, and to RECEIVE HEALING.

What's right for one person may not be right for you. You have no idea. One person may need years and years of pouring over the urtext. Another may need just one reading of a FIP version. Someone else might need constant references to a sparkly or original or whatever edition. It doesn't matter. OUR CURRICULUMS ARE DIFFERENT, so there is NO ONE RIGHT BOOK to recommend for everyone to use, or which everyone should be using. And NONE of the books contain the experience of the truth.

All who are to meet will meet. When the student is ready, the teacher appears. There are no accidents in salvation. We are all on seemingly different paths, all leading to God. And no-one will be left behind. But don't fall into the trap of turning the course into FORM or having IDOL WORSHIP of it, or hero-worship of the people who we've made SPECIAL for having worked on certain versions. Much appreciation to them for their SERVICE, but they are NOT IMPORTANT. All that's important is that YOU become WILLING to accept the atonement yourself.

A major theme in ACIM is that you are supposed to come out of the PAST into the PRESENT. Basically it's saying that in the separation from God, we made time, by inventing a sense of the past being different to what is here now. Or as an attempt to change what is here now into something it is not, resulting in a different future. Time was an attempt to destroy or deny what exists, by claiming that it has changed, being no longer like it was.

In doing this we kind of avoided the eternal always now of the present in ETERNITY, which is timeless. And instead we positioned ourselves separate and distanced from that sense of now-ness, inventing the past and the future which are both avoidances of the now. The past is also the idea of sin, suggesting that your past sin caused a guilty present and will be punished in the future, as a kind of chain of cause and effect.

So we literally invented time displacement, which is also distance, and is thus also space. We invented spacetime, a belief in not being now or of being distanced from what is. The "now" moment in time, while still being IN time, is actually symbolic of eternity. It is the holy instant. It is not eternity but it is very close to it because it centers time on a rejection of "past and future", and therefore invites the end of time.

In ACIM therefore we are literally being asked to bring about the END OF TIME AND SPACE, by moving out of the past and future into the present. Because it's only in the present that you can be forgiving, and have vision, and be healed. Love is present, God is present.

We are told that "I see only the past", and to then gradually learn to come out of the past into the present so that "I see only the present." To see relationships in terms of what your brother is NOW without his past, which is forgiveness, laying the basis for holy-relating.

This is rather similar to the "Power of Now" that Eckhart Tolle has touted. ACIM is actually asking us to stop believing in the past and the future and to become very focused and centered in the present, so that we can align our mind with the eternal now. Heaven is always in a state of "now is always and forever", unchanging and never moving away from what is here now - never avoiding God.

Avoiding the present is the avoidance of God. Which is why the ego is dedicated to the past, and to maintaining time - or a gap between what is and where you are. We are literally being asked to come out of time, out of the sense of history or future, and into a pristine, clean, "new", fresh look at what is here NOW, so that we can truly see what is here now, which allows us to see the real world, and thereby forgive the world.

All condemnation of sin is always about the past. All projections of guilt and blame are based on past doings. Even in the moment that someone sins, it is already old. Holding it against them is holding the past against them and against ourselves. PRESENCE, therefore, is a major central pillar in ACIM's teaching.

We are being asked to be fully present, fully aware, fully attentive to what is, fully wholly undivided in our dedication to the immediacy of reality. This leads to holy instants, to the real world, and lays the path back to heaven. By coming out of the past and future we literally are undoing the gap of separation, and are therefore collapsing both time and space.

The present is the key to the disappearing of spacetime and everything it. And it is the doorway to resurrection and to miracles. It is in the PRESENT that we become a "born again Christ-ian."

"To be born again is to let the PAST go, and LOOK WITHOUT CONDEMNATION UPON THE PRESENT. For the cloud which obscures God's Son to you IS the past, and if you would have it past AND GONE, you must NOT SEE IT NOW."

"At no SINGLE instant does the body exist at all. It is always remembered or anticipated, but NEVER experienced just now. Only its past and future make it seem real. Time controls it entirely. For sin is never present."

"The miracle enables you to see your brother WITHOUT his past, and so perceive him as born again. His errors ARE all past, and by perceiving him WITHOUT them, you are RELEASING him. And since his past is yours, you SHARE in this release."

"His past has NO reality in the present, and you CANNOT see it."

"Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds."

"Look lovingly upon the present, for it holds the ONLY things that are forever true."

"The present is before time WAS, and WILL BE when time is no more. In it is everything that is eternal, and they ARE one."

"The ego invests heavily in the past, and in the end, believes that the past is the ONLY aspect of time that is meaningful. You will remember that we said its emphasis on guilt enables it to ensure its continuity, by MAKING THE FUTURE LIKE THE PAST, and thus AVOIDING the present."

"For the ego uses the present ONLY as a brief transition TO the future, in which it brings the past TO the future, BY INTERPRETING THE PRESENT IN PAST TERMS."

"NOW has no meaning to the ego. The present merely reminds it of PAST hurts, and it reacts to the present AS IF it were past."

"The ego teaches that you always encounter your PAST, and because your dreams WERE not holy, the future CANNOT be, and the present is without meaning."

"The continuity of past and future, UNDER ITS DIRECTION, is the only purpose it perceives in time, and it closes over the present, so that no gap in the EGO's continuity can occur. ITS continuity, then, would KEEP you in time, while the Holy Spirit would release you FROM it."

"For healing CANNOT be accomplished in the past, and MUST be accomplished in the present to RELEASE the future. THIS interpretation ties the future to the present, and EXTENDS THE PRESENT, rather than the past. But if you interpret your function as DESTRUCTION, you will lose sight of the present, and hold on to the past TO ENSURE A DESTRUCTIVE FUTURE."

"Who can grieve or suffer, when the present has been freed, extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with hope?"

"Father, we were mistaken in the past, and choose to use the present to be free. Now do we leave the future in Your hands, leaving behind our past mistakes, and sure that You will keep Your present Promises, and guide the future in their holy light."

"There is a real world which the present holds safe from all past mistakes." "The Holy Spirit teaches thus: There IS no hell. Hell is only what the ego has made OF THE PRESENT."

"Fear is NOT of the present, but ONLY of the past and future, which do not exist."

"The choice is not whether to see the past or the present: it is merely whether to see or not."

"For the present IS forgiveness."

"The special relationship TAKES VENGEANCE ON THE PAST. By seeking to remove suffering IN THE PAST, it OVERLOOKS the present, in its preoccupation with the past, and its TOTAL COMMITMENT to it. NO SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP IS EXPERIENCED IN THE PRESENT."

"Your mind cannot grasp the present, which is the only time there is. It therefore cannot understand time, and cannot, in fact, understand anything." "Sometimes the past seems real, as if it WERE the present. Voices FROM the past are heard, and then are doubted."

"The aim of prayer is to release the present from its chains of past illusions; to let it be a freely chosen remedy from every choice that stood for a mistake."

"Your learning gives the present NO MEANING AT ALL. Nothing you have ever learned can help you understand the present, or teach you how to undo the past. Your past IS what you have taught yourselves."

"The present now remains the only time."

"A miracle is a beginning and an end(ing). It thus abolishes time. It is always an affirmation of re-birth, which seems to go back, but really goes forward. It undoes the past in the present, and thus releases the future."

"We look neither ahead nor backwards. We look straight into the present. And we give our trust to the experience we ask for now."

"What time but now can truth be recognized? The present is the only time there is."

"The making of time, to TAKE THE PLACE of timelessness, lay in the decision to BE NOT as you WERE. Thus, truth was made past, and the present was dedicated to illusion. And the past, too, was changed, and INTERPOSED between what ALWAYS was, and NOW. The past that YOU remember NEVER was, and represents only denial of what ALWAYS was."

"the Son of God is risen from the past, and has awakened to the present. Now is he free, unlimited in his communion with all that is within him."

"In the holy instant, you see, in each relationship, what it WILL be, when you perceive ONLY the present."

"He is as safe in the present as he was before illusions were accepted into his mind, and as he will be when he has let them go."

"The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless."

"Today the light has come. And you will see the world that has been promised you since time began, and in which is the end of time ensured."

"So do the parts of God's Son gradually join in time, and with each joining is the end of time brought nearer. Each miracle of joining is a mighty herald of eternity."

"Everyone seen WITHOUT the past thus brings you nearer to the end of time, by bringing healed and healing sight into the darkness, and ENABLING THE WORLD TO SEE."

"And it is given you to be the means

Through which His Voice is heard around the world

To close all things of time, to end the sight

Of all things visible; and to undo

All things that change. Through you is ushered in

A world unseen, unheard, yet truly there."

"I do not know what anything, INCLUDING THIS, means. And so I do NOT know HOW TO RESPOND TO IT. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now."

Lately I've been noticing that .... my state of mind, has something to do with what happens. I know that sounds a bit far fetched to many people. But we are after all told that this world is a dream, and that our minds are dreaming it.

I see how sometimes events and the appearance of certain people seem to correlate to certain attitudes or modes that I'm in. Sometimes a freer happier mode seems to produce the appearance of certain types of people, while unhappier or angrier modes seem to produce other types.

One of the ways that I've noticed this manifesting is with the idea that "what you resist persists". For example if you are driving a car and some slow person is in front of you, and you resist them being there, they seem to linger more than if you let them be there. When you let them go and don't make them an obstacle, they seem to leave sooner. In a sense, the showing up of a roadblock or "reason to slow down" shows up when you are "pushing too hard" or rushing. It influences what happens.

I've seen also times where, if I am doing a healing and saying things which are truthful, such as a few times in the hospital recently, following those times I noticed how other people seemed to lighten up a lot and laugh more. The whole sort of "atmosphere" of the place changed, the people changed and their moods changed and the events became more supportive.

For sure I also find that if I am upset or angry or frustrated, I start producing things going wrong. More and more things seem to fall on the floor, break, slip out of reach, get in the way, or generally just become "more reasons to be annoyed." I don't think that this is merely a matter of being annoyed and interpreting them as annoying. I think there is actually an increase in the number of things that happen, which don't appear to happen in such a condensed way at other times. Mind mind is literally influencing what happens.

Sometimes I get a sense that there is a kind of "psychic weather", in which, let's say.... it seems like maybe there are some minds that are contributing to external conditions - to dream content. Certain events seem to transpire as though "put there" by the minds of certain people. It seems at times as if there is a kind of psychological war playing out, literally orchestrating changes in events and what objects or people show up, in a subtle but noticeable way.

"This is not safe, because ***external conditions are produced by the thoughts of many***, not all of whom are pure in heart as yet."

Overall, I sense and notice more often, that the world in fact does appear to be a malleable dream. Not just some fixed physics-driven state of objective reality, but really a much more malleable fluid sort of "mix" of contributions and influences. It even appears to be possible that stuff which seems like it would've taken a long time to "plan" or "make possible", becomes possible complete with backstory, just to "fit" into place. As if the whole world just "changed" to line up with expectations.

There are some days when I wake up and I feel like everything has changed, in a subtle but noticeable way. Almost like as if you had jumped to a different "dimension" or "version" of the world, in which everyone and everything is subtly different in the same way.

I wouldn't be the first to claim this either, because there is plenty of evidence and stories out there about buildings appearing out of nowhere, strange correlations, sudden appearances or disappearances of things which couldn't seem possible, etc. Again suggesting that this world is not a fixed predictable place but rather a "mind-driven" realtime mixture of effects coming from the minds of people.

I think that in some way, the more that I become responsible for causation, as per the secret of salvation, and less of a victim, and perhaps stronger spiritually, I'm seeing more "influence" happening. Perhaps in the early stages of this development, but it does seem that my mind and focus and mood often influences the environment around me. Not merely in a subtle way as suggested in the heisenberg principle of quantum physics, but at even a much more "macrocosmic" level.

I feel this also points to having to also be more responsible and vigilant for thought, for more carefully managing my projections and my ego activities. After all, Jesus in ACIM also says that we need a healthy respect for the power of the mind....

"All miracle-workers HAVE to be trained that way. I have to be able to count on them. This means that I cannot allow them to leave their mind unguarded, or they will not be able to help me. ***Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation.*** Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight, a circular process which would hardly foster the time-collapse for which the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the ***healthy respect that every miracle-worker must have for true cause and effect.***"

Notice here that Jesus says that mind is very powerful and we need to be careful about mis-creating. If we are indeed powerful creators, and we have power of mind over matter, and mind is stronger than bodies, etc... and mind knows its dreaming, then obviously mind is going to start being able to "control" what dream content there is, what happens, and what does not happen.

"Yet this world is ONLY in the mind of its maker, along with his REAL salvation. Do not believe it is outside of yourself, for only by recognizing WHERE it is, ***will you gain control over it***. For you DO have control over your mind, for the mind is the mechanism of decision."

This suggests to me that in fact the workbook lesson "my self is ruler of the universe" where "what happens is what i desire" is not merely suggesting that we live in an objective world where we are "okay with" whatever happens, but that in fact LITERALLY we actually CAUSE EVENTS TO HAPPEN. That we begin to orchestrate the dream, consciously. Perhaps we can call it "lucid dreaming" in a sense. Indeed the mind certainly seems to have an INFLUENCE.

What this suggests then is this quite profound idea.... As you awaken more, your mind becomes more powerful. It becomes more causal, or more focused or "in control" of more DELIBERATELY CHOOSING. And this results in actual effects. It causes the dream to change. Your mind actually dreams of a different world. Not simply that you dream of the same world in a different way, or interpret the world differently, but that you PRODUCE a different world. The so-called "physical world" literally turns into a different configuration.

This would mean that the mind actually has the power to change the dream world directly, to manipulate events, to cause objects to show up and disappear, to have power OVER matter, to quite literally manipulate the world through direct effects. This would mean that, for example, for a person of enough power, they do not merely walk "the world", they walk whichever kind of world they want to emanate.

They literally can cause events, and prevent events. Nothing happens without their consent. They begin to have control over the dream world, over objects, over what transpires and what doesn't. And perhaps they can even literally force death and attack not to happen. They can cause events to steer away from destruction and death. Just as ACIM states that the Holy Spirit can clear a path for you so that you are free from obstacles...

"He will go before you, making straight your path, and leaving in your way no stones to trip on, and no obstacles to bar your way. NOTHING you need will be denied you. ***Not one seeming difficulty but will melt away BEFORE you reach it.*** You need take thought for nothing, careless of everything except the only purpose that you would fulfill. As THAT was given you, so will its fulfillment be. God's guarantee will hold against ALL obstacles, for it rests on certainty, and NOT contingency. IT RESTS ON YOU. And what can be more certain than the Son of God?"

That is quite a radical interpretation of the course because it suggests we don't just "re-perceive" the world in a better way, but that in fact the world literally is OUR DREAM, our mind is literally THE CAUSE of it, and we literally can dream of something else, CAUSING literal physical-seeming things to change. Why would this NOT be the case, when the mind has the power to actually cause bodies to heal, and the dead to resurrect, and mountains to move, and storms to calm? Such a mind can, let's say, ALTER REALITY. And that's quite exciting and interesting. And it means MIRACLES CAN MODIFY DREAM CONTENT DIRECTLY.

Obviously someone would need to become very vigilant about heir mind, very careful NOT to mis-create, very careful not to deliberately cause "bad situations", very careful not to CHOOSE events in which there is suffering etc, and to only induce dream environments which are conducive to healing etc. But this doesn't mean they can't choose anything they want. Imagine that Jesus could manifest any object he wanted out of thin air. Imagine that Jesus could make things multiply out of nowhere, he could turn bodies into other bodies, and could make things disappear. Why not, when he was "ruler of the universe"?

Not a mere passive traveler in a foreign land, but an ACTIVE DREAMER. Indeed, a "miracle worker", someone who can literally transform ANY APPEARANCE into any other, manipulating space and time and matter as if it's something to play with. In which the laws of reality as the world knows it are violated, any there is NOTHING your holiness cannot do.

"There is no world apart from your ideas because ideas leave not their source, and you maintain the world within your mind in thought."

"But it is you who have the power to dominate all things you see by merely recognizing what you are. "

"The idea for today is a beginning step in dispelling the belief that your thoughts have no effect. Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. There is no exception to this fact."

"There is no point in lamenting the world. There is no point in trying to change the world. It is incapable of change because it is merely an effect. But there is indeed a point in changing your thoughts about the world. Here you are changing the cause. The effects will change automatically."

"Neutral thoughts are impossible because all thoughts have power. They will either make a false world or lead me to the real one. But thoughts cannot be without effects. As the world I see arises from my thinking errors, so will the real world rise before my eyes as I let my errors be corrected."

"Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it."

"I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body AND the power of the mind, by uniting MY will with that of my Creator, which naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose."

"Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world, because the human being has many things he must do, and cannot engage in constant thought-watching. However, if he hopes to spare himself from fear, there are some things he must realize, and realize them fully, at least some of the time."

"The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will."

"It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains.

It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it.

People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them."

"My Self is ruler of the universe. ... It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen. This must I accept."

"You who perceive yourself as weak and frail, with futile hopes and devastated dreams, born but to die, to weep and suffer pain, hear this: All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do."

There is a huge rift in the ACIM community.

It mainly hinges around a single assumption. Some people make this assumption and some do not.

Those who make it are very consistent in the consequences of that assumption, because it leads to massive level confusion. There is an entirely different interpretation of the meaning of almost everything the Course means, which arises based on that one assumption.

The assumption is this:

Everything about the course applies to "my identity" as I see it right now. It ALL applies to ME.

This is a MISTAKE!

And this happens because .... every course student has a EGO, which is a false sense of identity or self, which perceives that everything is about IT. It is an ego-centric interpretation of the course.

Here is a fact which you can deny or accept:

Sometimes the Course is speaking to and about an "individual son" as part of the "sonship." "A son", "A brother", "my brothers", "God’s children", etc of which there are many. And sometimes, the course is speaking about The One Son of God - "The son", "God’s son" etc.

These are two very different LEVELS OF IDENTITY. The scope of these levels is vastly different. What applies to one individual may not apply to another individual. What applies to the one son, does not apply to an individual son in isolation. The mind of the One Son is HUGE, it is the mind of Christ. The mind of an INDIVIDUAL SON, has its own individual free will choice and its own ability to independently deny God.

Confusing or combining these two levels, which is a confusion of identity, will lead to massive level confusion and false conclusions.

When YOU, as an "individual son", think that everything the course says about the One Son applies to YOU, you are making a massive level confused mistake! It does NOT apply to you! When you, as an individual son, believe that every teaching in the course is ABOUT YOU, as you see yourself as an individual right now, you WILL come to false conclusions. And these conclusions are radically warped in comparison to what they would be if you saw all the levels in their appropriate placement.

Some parts of ACIM are talking about an individual son, and some parts are talking about the One Son, which is a vast difference. Knowing WHEN Jesus is talking about WHICH LEVEL, is very important, otherwise you will just lump them all together and .... come to some very distorted conclusions.

To understand and accept this DOES REQUIRE that you believe that there ARE multiple sons. Some people refer to multiple souls as mentionedin earlier versions. Or the sonship, which even in edited versions talks about multiple sons. The sonship IS supposed to be a term that refers to MULTIPLE INDIVIDUALS. The sonship is NOT the One Son of God. The sonship IS NOT CHRIST.

If you confuse certain intentions of "which level of identity" Jesus is talking to or about, it will produce huge differences in what you think he means. If he says something which only applies to the One Son, and you think it applies to YOU as an individual, you will become mistaken.

This is what is happening throughout the course community. A kind of rift or difference of opinion, between those who take the course as "all one level talking about me as the only son" versus "multiple levels talking sometimes about me as an individual and sometimes as a shared single identity."

Those who believe the course always is talking at one level, who fail to see the levels or discern when Jesus refers to which identity, WILL come to the following FALSE CONCLUSIONS:

1) "I dreamed everything in the world, it’s all in my mind, therefore if I heal my mind, it will heal everyone else, because they are all part of me." —�- NO. This is only true of the One Son! It is not true of individuals. You as an individual are NOT responsible for what other individuals are experiencing!

2) "I dreamed the world myself"—�- NO. The One Son dreamed the world and you are INSIDE HIS DREAM. You are having an ADDITIONAL LAYER OF DREAMING within his dream.

3) "When the course talks about perception, he is talking about my pecteption." —� NO not always. E.g. When he says "the world IS perception", he literally means, planet earth is part of the perception of the ONE SON. It showing up is the One Son’s dreaming. You, as an individual, have your own INDIVIDUAL PERCEPTION *OF* the Son of God’s perception of a world. There are two levels here.

4) "I need only change my mind about the world to be at peace". —� NO. When you heal your individual perception OF the One Son’s perception, you will wake up IN the dream, but not FROM it. Many gurus have done this. Doing this will still result in death.

5) "If I change my perception, I will be able to transcend sickness." —� NO. If you change your perception of something which you think has been put there by someone else, in order to deal with it, IT will still stick around, proving that the One Son’s mind has not been healed.

6) "God created the world" —� NO. A person WILL come to this conclusion if they do not believe that there is a sonship of many individuals. This is because, somehow, they have to account for what the world IS or how it got there beyond their personal perception. Since they don’t believe there is a separate LEVEL of identity of the One Son, and they think they ARE the one Son at this level of individuality, they MUST conclude that the only identity LEFT who might be responsible for making the world is God! They do not see, that the One Son made the world, NOT their individual self.

7) "If you heal your perception you cannot perceive sickness in another." —� NO. This level confusion comes from believing that you, as an individual, are the one son. This means that everything you see in the world is "part of you". That then means that if sickness is showing up, like a person has cancer or some disease, it must be "part of your mind". And this leads to the conclusion - if I change my mind about this sin I’m seeing, that person will get healed. NO—�- it does not work. That other person is NOT part of your mind. You are an individual, they are an individual, and you both have free will. Believing that you are the one son of God at this level makes you delusional that a) you are responsible for other people’s sickness, b) they are sick because of you, c) if you withdraw your projection they won’t be sick. NOT TRUE. You are having an INDIVIDUAL FALSE PERCEPTION. And so are they. You are not the one son of God at this level. Other people are NOT part of your individual mind. They are part of the One Son’s mind, and that’s NOT your identity right now, not even if you reach true perception.

8) "What I project onto others affects them or is in them, so I need to take back those projections so they will be healed" —� NO. Your projections within the scope of your own individual mind, DO NOT LEAVE YOUR MIND. It only seems that these things are outside of you in another person. You have a belief in sin - an independent belief. Not the one son’s belief. This independent belief splits your independent mind. Your mind then has one area which seems innocent and one area which seems sinful. You will shift your identity to associate with the innocent part, and disassociate from the sinful part. This is internal denial. Your mind is at war with ITSELF. Your identification with the innocent part makes it seem like the sinful part is OUTSIDE of IT, but it is still within YOUR individual mind. You will hallucinate that because it seems "outside me", it is IN or belongs to or is doing something to other people. IT IS NOT. All attack is SELF attack. You NEVER attack others. Your projection DOES NOT leave your mind and go onto them. They HAVE NOT been affected by your projection! And when you take your projection back, it will NOT CHANGE ANYTING in terms of what the other person is experiencing. This is because both of you are individuals. Interpreting this whole part of the course based on the assumption it’s referring to "you" as "the one son" is a huge error.

9) "If I stop identifying with the body I will be free"�— NO. This is part of the belief that the body is there on its own, which is part of the belief that either God or the Son of God made it, and that if you just detach from it you will be free. The body is showing up because YOU AS AN INDIVIDUAL are projecting it. What YOU, as an individual, use the body for, it will become to you, individually. Use it for attack it becomes sick, use it for love it is healed. This is about you as an individual son, not as the one son. You can’t disidentify from something that YOU are responsible for putting there. This includes all sickness in your body. YOU, as an individual son, made sickness and death, and therefore can abolish both.

10) "If I stop projecting sickness I will not see my brother as sick" —� NO. This is the erroneous assumption that everything "out there" is "in you". Therefore that you are the one son, not an individual son. This makes you believe if you correct your false perception of sickness, you will never again be able to SEE that someone is sick. You will think of people as just parts of your own mind, that their sickness is your own, and that therefore YOU need healing. THIS IS FALSE. You can get your individual self to a healed state and be whole as an individual, free of sickness, while other individuals continue to be sick. You will not be blind to their choice to be sick. Because at this LEVEL, they are OUTSIDE OF YOU. They are inside the One Son, yes. But you are NOT the one son at this point. Healing your perception heals YOUR perception, not anyone else’s. Accepting the atonement accepts it for you, it doesn’t force anyone else to accept it. Other people WILL NOT suddenly become cured when you see correctly. True Perception is INDIVIDUAL. You will still see the illusion of sickness other people are projecting, you just won’t believe it is real. People can stay sick in spite of you!

11) "I can be at peace with death" —� NO. You cannot. This suggests death happens regardless of you choosing the truth. Which suggests God is doing it to you. This is not true at ANY LEVEL of identity. If you are going to die, as an individual, it is because you, as an individual, have a belief in death. And it will not affect anyone else.

�—�—�—�

There are other examples but I’m out of oomph right now. We need to be careful to read the course, maybe even re-read it, knowing that there are TWO levels of identity. And we need to discern, when is the course talking about me as an individual, and when is it talking about the entire One Son. At times it talks about perception and seeing in terms of The One Son’s perception, not yours! And we have to recognize, while we’re in bodies, if we’ve awoken to the maximum limits of our individual mind, our individual identity in its most natural whole state, that mind is STILL MUCH SMALLER than the mind of the one son.

The mind of the one son can experience THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE at once. Recognizes that absolutely all individuals are part of itself. Knows that IT dreamed the entire universe. Knows that it has the power to create planets. That One Son’s mind is huge. To awake to THAT mind requires a TRANSCENDENCE OF INDIVIDUALITY where a single son in the sonship unites with God. Just like Jesus did. That happens AFTER you wake up individually in the dream! Becoming the Christ, is another whole level of awakening FROM the dream, that takes place after you as an individual wake up IN the dream. Becoming healed as an individual IS NOT the same thing as becoming Christ! You have to transcend the entire sonship to do that!

For me, the Course makes so much more sense, is much easier to understand, is clearer, more consistent, less confusing, and gives you much more relief of responsibility and guilt if you can recognize that there is MORE THAN ONE LEVEL in what Jesus is presenting. We need to learn the individual level first, then the second level later. That there are two levels in the awakening is clear, evidenced by some individuals who have woken up IN the dream, believe they are done, only to find they are NOT done. They still die. And they still do not perform miracles. Because they did not transcend the sonship yet to return the mind to Christ.

It’s a simple concept that there are two levels of identity. But failing to recognize which identity you have right now, and which identity Jesus is speaking about or when, WILL lead to huge level confusion. And many many false conclusions have come from this.

(and you must!)

The "sickness is a defense against the truth" section says a lot about how we make sickness AND reverse it.

Basically, sickness doesn’t just mean bodily sickness it means any kind of belief that separation is real. That belief is in the mind. The mind is projecting the body currently, because the mind sees itself as an illusion not a reality. When the mind sees itself as being "made of" something ego, it manifests the very thing it sees itself as, like a body.

Sickness is "made" or put in place, by the mind, by using the body without love, or rather, by using it for attack. That means you’re believing that you really did sin against God, are really separate, and are now trying to get rid of that sin by denying and projecting it. That means you’ll try to project it through, and onto, the body, or rather you’ll project a body which appears sick, which makes the body show up with sickness. When you attempt to therefore get rid of the sin by accusing someone else of being the one to sin, instead of them receiving the consequences or effects, you do. You do it to yourself.

This is because there is a law of the mind, to do with how a mind of oneness and wholeness works. That law is, that what you do to another, you directly do to yourself. It sort of along the lines of "do unto others as you’d have them do unto you" except that version does not work because it leaves open the possibility that someone else might not reciprocate. Instead, the law says, a mind that is one with another mind, WILL experience directly the effects of its causes. So if you were to attack that other mind, you WILL attack your own, because your are one with them. You therefore have a vested interest in ONLY loving your brother and yourself, otherwise you will make yourself suffer. This is the meaning of having SHARED INTERESTS.

When we then get into the ego, that law STILL applies at all times, but the ego goes into denial about it. Then it believes it can get away with murder by being able to attack/cause another person without experiencing the effects/consequences. So the ego will then attack trying to get rid of sin, but the law kicks in, and all the effects/consequences you have attempted to "give" to the other person, you DIRECTLY give them to yourself. So suddenly your body will become sick because you have attacked yourself. This is the secret to salvation, that you are the one who is giving yourself ALL the sickness and suffering and death that you imagine is caused by other sinful people or things in the world.

Sickness, as a belief in separation from God, and thus a belief that sin is real, is basically DENIAL. It is a way of trying to defend against God, to block God, to shut off access to Life. Obviously if you shut yourself off from that which gives Life, you will suffer and become weak and sick and die. So denial is the ego’s device for pretending that the truth is not true. Denial causes projection because it puts you into a state of mind where it seems *possible* to get rid of your sin without having to deal with the consequences. All death is suicide and no one dies without their own consent.

That means that if there is any sickness showing up in the body at all, or the person dies, it is PROOF, that the person believed in sin and separation somewhere in their mind. Their mind was not healed. This is absolutely rock solid bullet-proof cause and effect. Anyone who believes in separation will become sick in some way and they will attack their body and it will become sick and eventually die. And that will be a CHOICE. AND it will be implemented entirely personally BY that person who believes that. Hence "a broken body is PROOF the mind has not been healed."

Jesus describes it in that section about defenses against truth, that basically in the ego, having sided with it, we misperceive through it, we look at the truth and believe that the truth is not the truth. We see in it something false that we put there - sin. And make it out to be an attacker. This seems to "logically" then make sense that we need to DEFEND our life against this perceived attacker, and the seemingly sensible thing to do is to put up a defense against it. This defense is implemented by increasing the sense of separation between you and God/attacker, in your mind, psychologically. You put illusions of walls and defenses in place.

The problem is, that by doing that you inadvertently attack yourself, separate yourself from life, make yourself go unconscious, believe you have been attacked by God, believe that it’s God’s will that you die, and so SICKNESS or symptoms of sickness start to show up in your body. The ego’s advice, or its solution to the problem it perceives, always SEEMS like it will make things better for you, but actually makes it worse. So in an act of what seems like "self defense", you end up actually attacking yourself and hurting yourself. Then you get sick, then you die, and you did it to yourself. There IS no other CAUSE of sickness in the entire world.

Once you know this, you’ll realize as Jesus says, that there is a PURPOSE to your sickness. It was put there to deny God and defend your EGO-identified self against what it thinks is an attack. The key then, is recognizing that you only thought you NEEDED the defense, because you mis-perceive what the truth IMPLIED, because you were interpreting its meaning with the EGO, and the ego had a REACTION based on a false perception.

You can then become WILLING, to recognize that what you thought was some kind of sin or evil "IN" the truth, or in God, or some kind of malicious intent, WAS NOT THERE, that the truth really DID NOT mean you were going to stop existing, you had a misperception as a result of seeing the truth through the ego, the truth is NOT trying to hurt you, and therefore you do not NEED "protection". ALL sickness is an attempt to PROTECT yourself, and so it’s paradoxically hilarious that doing so REMOVES the natural protection that love would offer you. The ego’s protection is attack!

When you can realize you had this PURPOSE for your sickness, your defenses, and that you do not NEED them, because you can see clearly (with corrected perception) that the truth is actually supporting you, loving you, is on your side, and it was your alignment with EGO that was hurting you.... you are correctly RECOGNIZING the ego‘s illusory conclusions for what they are. You recognize the truth as TRUE, and you recognize the false as FALSE.

This makes it really OBVIOUS to you that you have no need for the defense whatsoever, and that KEEPING it would only mean that you are continuing to believe the truth is attacking you. You recognize how pointless that is, how meaningless and useless, and so you no longer have a NEED or a PURPOSE for the sickness. The sickness itself then will simply be DROPPED by you, you will stop USING it, you will stop attacking yourself with it, you will recognize it is futile and absolutely not working, is only making things worse for you, and that you have no further use for it.

You will also recognize that the ONLY reason it is there, the only CAUSE of it, IS YOU! It is only there because you WANT it to be, you put it there, you made it, it HAS no other cause keeping it in place, and if you do not WANT it, IT CANNOT STAY. Once you do this, you are withdrawing your belief from it, and IT WILL DISAPPEAR!!!!!! "Illusions recognized must disappear." It disappears because you SEE THROUGH the illusion, you no longer believe there is truth in the sickness, you recognize it was never real, you don’t believe in it, you know you made it up and it is a fantasy, and then it is EFFORTLESS to let it go. Recognizing it is ALREADY GONE, and WAS NEVER REALLY THERE, makes it vanish!!! Belief that God is truth, puts truth where it belongs and vanishes untruth. Belief that ego is truth, puts truth where it doesn’t belong and turns sickness and death into reality.

The sickness was ONLY there because your mind was maintaining it and thinking it needed it. That’s the ONLY cause of any sickness ever. It’s not caused by the environment or the body or other people or food or liquids or events or objects or anything outside of your mind whatsoever. It is cause solely by YOUR misperception of the truth through the ego. And since you MADE the sickness, you therefore can UNMAKE IT. "You made sickness and death and therefore can ABOLISH both". Jesus is absolutely 100% literally meaning that..... there is no sickness that will not disappear INSTANTLY if you no longer have a purpose for it and do not believe in it as being the truth.

This is also why a broken body proves the mind CANNOT be healed. And this is also why, when a healed body shows up, IT IS PROOF that the mind HAS been healed. Sickness, if it’s showing up In the body, always confirms that the mind MUST be believing it needs a defense against truth. And that means it is NOT in acceptance of the atonement. It is LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE for the mind to accept the atonement and for the body to remain sick. The body HAS TO show up as healed, because the mind no longer has the guilt in it that the sickness was MADE OF. It also no longer has defenses against the truth, so simply those "defenses", which project as PHYSICAL DEFENSES, are GONE from the mind and therefore from the body also.

When you stop using the body for attack and stop believing in sin and stop misperceiving truth, the body BECOMES INVULNERABLE, because the mind no longer believes in attack or defense. IT needs no defense. Therefore it does not MAKE or support any, and so they do not show up. Recognize the mind is re-projecting an entirely fresh IMAGE of a body every instant. The "past body" has not properties of its own or ability to keep sickness in place. It has no will or power or conitnuity whatsoever. If the mind accepts the truth, it WILL project instantly a healed body which is not only "holy" it CANNOT BE SICK, and IT CANNOT DIE.

There IS absolutely a direct correlation between the mind’s belief and how the body appears. And there is no other cause for how the body appears. Healed mind, healed body. Sick mind, sick body. Cause and effect. Absolute mind over matter. You cannot be at peace and be sick. You cannot be at peace and die. Death is the opposite of a belief in God. There is no form of sickness that cannot be reversed if the mind accepts the truth and becomes clear about what is true and what is false.

We are supposed to not only demonstrate that there is NO CAUSE outside of us that justifies keeping the body in sickness or damaged or broken, that our brother HAS NOT attacked us, that we CANNOT be hurt, that we are NOT at the effect of the world, that MIND has power over the body (which every miracle demonstrates), and that the Son of God CANNOT BE KILLED. And we are supposed to demonstrate that IN THE FLESH. To use the body as a symbol of IMMORTALITY. For as long as it is useful to do so. Then we lay it aside by making it disappear entirely.

The body itself was a form of sickness. It was made from a belief in sin. "The body is the belief in sin made flesh and projected outwards." When we finally let go of ALL needs to defend against God, we will DISAPPEAR THE BODY - it will vanish, and then we will be entirely Spirit-identified.

The secret to salvation is.... you are doing this all to yourself. So if you don’t like what shit you made for yourself, STOP MAKING IT.

This is why you have to be 100% responsible for every single thing you experience and put in place. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO REVERSE DEATH AND TO MAKE DEATH IMPOSSIBLE. No-one needs to find a way to tolerate sickness, to put up with it, to suffer justifiably, to make do, to live in pain and fear, to suffer, or to die. No-one is supposed to be DYING ever! Use the body with love and, while it shows up, it cannot die. It will become a sign of immortality.

When ACIM talks about the secret of salvation, it goes on to talk about how there is a singular lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, transcendent of all forms of suffering:

"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth ("That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF"). For this one answer TAKES AWAY the cause of every form of sorrow and of pain. The form affects His answer not at all, for He would teach you but the SINGLE cause of all of them, no matter WHAT their form. And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."

So what he's saying here is, YOU CAUSE all of your own suffering and pain and sickness and death. YOU are the SINGLE CAUSE of all suffering.

So if we are then to approach healing something that you are seeming to suffer from, even a physical sickness, we need to be at least acknowledging this fact that you have to ADMIT... that you DID THIS, and you now become willing to UNDO it.

"miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo." "

This means there has to be a willingness to admit and accept that if there is any suffering of any kind, it is because YOU CHOSE IT. This has nothing at all to do with inducing guilt either.

"I must have made a wrong decision because I am not at peace" "I made the decision myself..."

This tells you the same thing. You can't get anywhere so long as you are tangled up in beliefs about someone OTHER THAN yourself, or some EXTERNAL CAUSE, being responsible for putting this suffering in place.

You have to be willing to look at the fact that you PUT IT IN PLACE, through a decision you made, a deliberate choice, FOR a reason to fulfill a PURPOSE, to achieve a GOAL, based on a perceived NEED to do so.

"No-one can heal unless he understands what ***purpose*** sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. ***When this is seen, healing is automatic.*** It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear."

Jesus again confirms that without a PURPOSE, or a NEED FOR the suffering, due to some belief that you WANT IT in order to accomplish something, there would be no way for the sickness to remain.

"Special agents seem to be ministering to him, yet they but give form to his own choice. He chooses them in order to bring tangible form to his desires. And it is this they do, and nothing else. They are not actually needed at all. The patient could merely rise up without their aid and say, ***"I have no use for this."*** There is no form of sickness that would not be cured at once."

You can see that Jesus is being very clear about the RESPONSIBILITY and the POWER that you have, the FREE WILL which you are at all times exercising, which results in either supportive or destructive effects. If anything is happening, it is ONLY because you have chosen it. And therefore you have every power NOT TO. To reverse and undo whatever it is that YOU put into place.

""My Self is ruler of the universe." "***It is impossible that anything should come to me unbidden by myself***. Even in this world, it is I who rule my destiny. What happens is what I desire. What does not occur is what I do not want to happen."

So nothing AT ALL, no sickness, suffering, experiences, effects, reactions, perceptions, NOTHING can come to you unbidden (un-chosen) by yourself. YOU CHOOSE whether or not you suffer. Which exactly ties into "no one dies without their own consent."

We are free willed beings, which means that absolutely NOTHING happens against your will. You yourself have to ELECT to experience whatever it is you experience. EVERYTHING you experience is chosen freely and willingly. NOTHING happens without YOU willing it to happen. This is responsibility.

This also means there are NO VICTIMS. There is no-one else to blame. No-one else is responsible for changing you or fixing you. No-one is the CAUSE of anything you experience. You are NEVER trapped and stuck in any situation regardless of the symptoms or severity. EVERYTHING can be reversed if you TRULY, genuinely, honestly choose it.

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain. ***Nothing external to your mind can hurt or injure you in any way.*** There is no cause beyond yourself that can reach down and bring oppression. ***No-one but yourself affects you.*** There is nothing in the world which has the power to make you ill or sad, or weak or frail."

Read it again. "No-one but yourself affects you."

NOTHING in the world has any power to make you ill or sad or weak or frail. NOTHING in the world causes you to be sick. NOTHING in the world can make you die.

If you are suffering, and without adding any guilt or BLAME, which is an ego interpretation of responsibility, YOU HAVE THE POWER to choose again and be free from it. Because you have GIVEN IT to yourself, and you can take it away.

"I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo."

So at the very least, as we're looking at the "consequences of our wrong decision", which "The holy spirit will undo" ... "if I will LET Him". .... we need to at least be willing to accept the BASIC rule, that whatever it is... WE MUST HAVE CHOSEN IT.

So you admit to yourself, I chose this. I wanted this. I put this in place. I made this happen. I put it there. I did this on purpose. I did it intentionally. I was trying to ACHIEVE something. I had a PURPOSE for it. I NEEDED to do it.

As you think along these lines, you might be surprised that the RATIONALE for WHY you did this, what you were TRYING TO DO, is much more likely to come to mind. I did this with a physical problem for example and quickly what shows up in my mind was a feeling of hate and anger and a desire to attack, and this hate was clearly directed towards myself. And it was coupled with a desire to position myself as suffering so that I could try to blame someone for something. That's why I induced sickness. And sickness is ALWAYS CHOSEN CONSCIOUSLY.

"***Sickness is not an accident.*** Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception."

"Defenses are not unintentional, ***nor are they made without awareness.*** They are secret magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second, even less, in which ***the choice is made***, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do, and then proceed to think that it is done."

There is also a whole "piece" to the course's metaphysics to do with projection and accusation. That is, when you use the body for attack, which attacks the body, such as when you are trying to project your sin and guilt onto your brother, you DELIBERATELY make your body sick in order to PORTRAY "your self" as suffering, SO THAT you can create EFFECTS in the body, which act as PROOF. And these physical effects, which form as part of PROJECTION OF SIN, act as ACCUSATIONS.

"Sick bodies remain accusers"

And once the body is showing as sick, tied into the projection of RESPONSIBILITY and CAUSE onto another person, in which you see yourself as NOT RESPONSIBLE and NOT THE CAUSE and NOT THE CHOOSER, you are accusing your brother of being these things. And your effects seem to correlate to HIS causing you. And now he stands accused, by your suffering, of being the REASON FOR your suffering. And you will now happily have the body suffer and die if it means you can be exonerated from sin by finding your brother to be the RESPONSIBLE party. And now "brother by your hand I die."

So what's happening here is we try to DISOWN the fact that we ALWAYS CHOOSE THE SUFFERING, and that WE PUT IT IN PLACE, and we try to FRAME someone else as the cause of it, by externalizing the choice and try to pin it on someone else. And we use this as a DEVICE, to try to escape RESPONSIBILITY. Because in our mind in which are know we ARE responsible for everything we experience, we also experience GUILT for sins we believe in, and to the ego that makes us feel like we are responsible for being guilty sinners. And we can't stand that so we try to DISSOCIATE from it.

To do that, we have to reverse perception and project causation and make it seem like someone else or something external is the cause of it, we materialize the effects in the body through SELF ATTACK, and then blame our brother for it. So now sickness has a PURPOSE of trying to disown your responsibility and GET RID OF the guilt out of your mind (and of course ideas do not leave their source). And the NEED for the sickness is to escape from RESPONSIBILITY for the guilt. So we try to throw the responsibility out with the guilt.

So while you have a NEED to escape from sin and guilt in your own mind, which YOU CHOSE TO BELIEVE WERE TRUE OF YOU, you have all kinds of reasons why you can BENEFIT from sickness and from portraying yourself as suffering. So that you can DEFEND against the truth. So that you can INDUCE illness. And so that you can try to render yourself SAFER and more INNOCENT. By finding someone else to blame for the beliefs YOU are responsible for, you create a false sense of security. Which at the same time undermines your security.

This is still stuff that we are RESPONSIBLE for doing. But the ego has a really tough time accepting any kind of responsibility because it believes sin and guilt are real. So whenever we're asked to be responsible for choice, for power, for SELF INDUCED SUFFERING, the ego recoils at it, interpreting it as meaning WE REALLY ARE GUILTY if we "own up to having sinned." To admit to "being the sinner" in an effort to be more HONEST, is interpreted through ego as confessing to a crime, and you avoid this at all costs because it induces guilt.

This is why RESPONSIBILITY has to be separated out from ego, sin and guilt, and recognized as SALVATION, rather than as a guarantee of condemnation. Being fully responsible for CHOOSING everything is not in any way an indication of being guilty, or to compound it, or make you feel bad about yourself. It's not a way of pointing a finger of blame or shifting blame to yourself. You are supposed to ADMIT that you did this to yourself, SO THAT you can tap back into the POWER you have to DO THIS, so that you can UNDO IT.

"When you are willing to accept ***sole responsibility*** for the ego's existence YOURSELF, you will have laid aside all anger and all attack""Anger ALWAYS involves PROJECTION OF SEPARATION, which must ultimately be accepted as entirely one's own responsibility."

In general, you will make far more progress towards healing if you are willing to look at your suffering from a vantage point of being its SOURCE. Consider yourself as PRE-SUFFERING, and in a position of being PRIOR to having CHOSEN it. And now recognize from this perspective that you MUST HAVE CHOSEN IT, wanted it, put it there, USED it, desired it, had a purpose for it, needed it, for a reason. And ADMITTING this, will prevent your mind from making up projections and disowning the causation of it. And this will very quickly bring to mind WHAT you did to yourself, and WHY.

You can't become aware of the PURPOSE of your suffering if you are not willing to be responsible for causing or needing it. And only when to recognize what it was FOR, can you see what USE or need you had for it, and may still have for it. But once you can see WHY you did this to yourself, you are then in a far better position to CHANGE YOUR MIND, and therefore UNDO what you have done.

When sickness is correctly recognized as NO LONGER NEEDED, BY YOU, for any reason, and you clearly now have no use for it, having addressed the source underlying reasons why you put it there in the first place, you will LET IT GO. And it will simply disappear automatically because your MIND no longer supports it. And then there is healing.

You can set yourself free. You can find salvation. The secret of salvation is that you are doing it to yourself.

There may be a few I missed but this is most of the references to SOULS in A Course in Miracles. Souls are God's Children, they are permanent creations of light, and there are MANY of them.

"Revelations induce complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. They represent the original form of communication between God and His Souls, before the intrusion of fire and ice made this impossible."

"The Revelation unites Souls directly with God."

"The Miracle unites Souls directly with each other."

"Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by honoring his Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm Soul-identification."

"By perceiving the Spirit, they adjust the levels and see them in proper alignment. This places the Spirit at the center, where Souls can communicate directly."

"Eternal validity belongs only to the Soul. The miracle acknowledges only the Truth. It thus dispels man's illusions about himself, and puts him into communion with himself and with God."

"The Soul never loses its communion with God. Only the mind and body need Atonement."

"The miracle restores the Soul to its fullness. By atoning for lack, it establishes perfect protection."

"The strength of the Soul leaves no room for intrusions."

"The forgiven are filled with the Soul, and their Soul forgives in return."

"The soul is in a state of grace forever. Man's reality is ONLY his soul. Therefore, man is in a state of Grace forever."

"The miracle worker can only bless, and this undoes the curse and frees the soul from prison."

"HIS slip (rivet) was an expression of a Soul gaining enough strength to request freedom from prison. It will ultimately DEMAND it."

"The Soul is therefore unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can elect the level it chooses to serve. The only limit which is put on its choice is that it CANNOT serve two masters."

"Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God."

"The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished."

"The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants."

"Most of the abilities man now possesses are only shadows of his real strengths. The Soul knows, loves, and creates. These are its unequivocal functions."

"Perception did not exist until the Separation had introduced degrees, aspects and intervals. The Soul has no levels, and ALL conflict arises from the concept of levels."

"The Soul does not need healing, but the mind DOES."

"Any attempt to endow the ego with the attributes of the Soul, is merely confused thinking."

"The mind returns itself to its proper function only when it WILLS TO KNOW. This places it in the Soul's service, where perception is meaningless. The superconscious is the level of the mind which wills to do this."

"The mind DID divide itself when it willed to create its own levels AND the ability to perceive them. But it could NOT entirely separate itself from the Soul, because it is FROM the Soul that it derives its whole power to create."

"Even in miscreating, will is affirming its source, or it would merely cease to be. This is impossible, because it IS part of the Soul, which God created, and which is therefore eternal."

"But I was a man who remembered the Soul and its knowledge."

"God and the Souls He created remain in surety, and therefore KNOW that no miscreation exists."

"I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body AND the power of the mind, by uniting MY will with that of my Creator, which naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose."

"Strong wills can do this NOW. And you WILL find rest for your Souls. God knows you only in peace, and this IS your reality."

"Never forget that the Sonship is your salvation, for the Sonship is your Soul."

"Your Soul does not need salvation, but your mind needs to learn what salvation IS. You are not saved FROM anything, but you ARE saved FOR glory"

"Glory is your inheritance, given your Soul by its Creator, that you might EXTEND it."

"But if you hate part of your own Soul, ALL your understanding is lost, because you are looking on what God creates AS YOURSELF without love. And since what He created IS part of Him, you are denying Him His place in His own altar."

"The peace of YOUR Soul lies in its limitlessness."

"Limit the peace you share, and your own Soul MUST be unknown to you."

"Every altar to God is part of your Soul, because the Light He created is One with Him."

"We have repeatedly emphasized the fact that one level of the mind is not understandable to another. So it is with the ego and the soul, and with time and eternity. "

"Eternity is an idea of God, so the soul understands it perfectly. Time is a belief of the ego, so the lower mind, which IS the ego's domain, accepts it without question."

"The Holy Spirit is the mediator between the interpretations of the ego and the knowledge of the Soul. Its ability to deal with symbols enables it to work AGAINST the ego's beliefs in its own language. Its equal ability to look BEYOND symbols into eternity also enables it to understand the laws of God, for which it speaks. It can thus perform the function of RE-INTERPRETING what the ego makes, not by destruction, but by understanding."

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

"We have also emphasized that man, insofar as the term relates to Soul, has not only been fully Created, but also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in him."

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

"With full recognition of its transitory nature, (a recognition which I hope you both share), Helen offers a very good teaching example of alternations between Soul and ego, with concomitant variation between peace and frenzy."

"In answer to Bill's question, it is perfectly apparent that when she is ego-dominated, she DOES NOT KNOW her Soul."

"Man reacts to his ego much as God does to His Souls, - with love, protection, and great charity."

"The ego's ceaseless attempts to gain the Soul's acknowledgement and thus establish its own existence are utterly useless."

"The Soul in its knowledge is unaware of the ego. It does NOT attack the ego. It merely cannot conceive of it at all."

"While the ego is equally unaware of the Soul, it DOES perceive itself as rejected by something which is greater than itself. This is why self-esteem in ego terms MUST be a delusion."

"The religiously ego-oriented tend to believe that the Soul existed before, and will continue to exist afterward, after a temporary lapse into ego-life. Some actually believe that the Soul will be punished for this lapse, even though in reality it could not possibly know anything about it."

"The term "salvation" does NOT apply to the Soul, which is not in danger and does not need to be salvaged. Salvation is nothing more that "right-mindedness" which is NOT the one-mindedness of the Soul, but which must be accomplished before one-mindedness can be restored."

"Attack is ALWAYS made on a stranger. You are MAKING him a stranger by misperceiving him, so that you CANNOT know him. It is BECAUSE you have made him into a stranger that you are afraid of him. PERCEIVE him correctly, so that your Soul can KNOW him."

"To be fatigued is to be DIS-spirited, but to be inspired is to be IN the spirit. To be egocentric IS to be dispirited. But to be self-centered in the RIGHT sense is to be inspired, or in the Soul. The truly inspired are enlightened, and cannot abide in darkness."

"He can speak from his Soul or from his ego, precisely as he chooses. If he speaks from his Soul, he has chosen to "be still and know that am God."

"Your real worth IS your divine authorship, and your Soul is its acknowledgement. I cannot guide your egos EXCEPT as you associate them with your Souls."

"Chesterton wrote an excellent description of Cervantes and his perception of his "unheroic hero," a view of man which the ego tolerates all too frequently, but the Soul NEVER countenances."

"The ego may will them because the ego IS both lean and foolish. But the Soul CANNOT embark on them because it is forever UNwilling to depart from its Foundation. The journey to the cross should be the LAST foolish journey for every mind."

"The soul's true functions are knowing, loving, and creating."

"Note again that the functions of the Soul were not referred to as abilities."

"The clear-cut implications of relativity, which properly inheres in this statement, DEMONSTRATE that abilities are not functions of the Soul. The Soul's functions are NOT relative. They are ABSOLUTE. They are OF God and BY God, and therefore God-like."

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

"Peace is a natural heritage of the Soul. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is NOT free to establish what his inheritance IS."

"Remember that the Soul knows no difference between being and having. The higher mind thinks according to the laws which the Soul obeys, and therefore honors only the laws of God. To Him, getting is meaningless, and giving is all."

"Having everything, the Soul HOLDS everything by GIVING it, thus creating as the Father created."

"Can the Creations of God Himself take joy in what is not real? And what is real except the Creations of God and those which are created like His? Your creations love you as your Soul loves your Father FOR THE GIFT OF CREATION. There IS no other gift that is eternal, and therefore THERE IS NO OTHER GIFT THAT IS TRUE."

"In every case you have thought wrongly about some Soul that God created, and are perceiving images your ego makes in a darkened glass."

"It is possible even in this world to hear ONLY that voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God's Sons are as equal as learners as they are as Souls."

"What profiteth a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own Soul?" This means that if he listens to the wrong voice, he has LOST SIGHT of his Soul. He CANNOT lose it, but he CAN not know it. It is therefore LOST TO HIM, until he chooses right."

"In contrast, the Soul reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true, and does not respond at all to anything else. Nor does it make any attempt to ESTABLISH what is true. It knows that what is true is everything that God created. It is in complete and direct communication with every aspect of Creation, because it is in complete and direct communication with its Creator."

"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains. They are the range of choice beyond which your decision cannot go. The real and the unreal are all there is to choose between, and nothing more than these."

As Jesus states here, the real and the unreal are all that you can choose between. Each of these is a "world", or a system of thought or order or thought. Reality is the higher order reality, an unreality is the lower order "reality" - the illusion of spacetime. These are the only two states that you can choose between. Two worlds, not three.

The "real world" described in A Course in Miracles, sometimes speaks in a manner which makes it sounds as if it is some kind of "in-between world", between heaven and earth. Not earth, not heaven, but something else. There are also references to it being a borderland of thought between the two. Kind of like the threshold of a doorway which is not really a place but a transition or meeting place, like a bridge.

But there are also other references to the real world which are framed more as if references to heaven itself. Such as "nothing there but shines and shines forever." And "This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all." And "Yet the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT." These references are to me clearly references to heaven, yet use the term "real world".

I think in ACIM circles the attempt to grasp "what is the real world" has led to a lot of confusion especially due to the use of the term "real", and has led people to think it is a third world interposed between heaven and earth. I don't think this is really the case. I've been shown and told that the real world is the kingdom of God.

In terms of what Jesus has said about there being only TWO options, the "real world" becomes a far more appropriate term for HEAVEN. Because after all, Jesus is very careful and accurate in his choice of words, and heaven IS very appropriately "a real world". Not a pseudo-reality or an inbetween-almost-reality but actual reality. What else would you very appropriately call heaven but "a real world" - because it is actually completely real.

I see also references to christ vision looking beyond the physical unreal world to the light of heaven. I see references to us seeing christ - and christ is in heaven. I see references even to seeing God or having visions of God, who is not in this world. There are references to seeing your creations as well, which are in heaven. These all seem to further point to "the real world" being heaven.

Now, that said, it IS clear that there is a CONTEXT, and it also is the most frequent context, in which "the real world" term is referring to something seemingly "outside" of heaven. Particularly in terms of "For as Heaven and earth become one, even the real world will vanish from your sight." And "The real world still is but a dream." Plus "And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the PURPOSE that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dreams are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love."

Now here's how I'm interpreting this. Let's simply and logically clearly say that heaven is the only real world. It is appropriately titled the real world. Let's also recognize that in spacetime we are using perception. Perception is once removed from knowledge. It is judgemental and interpretative rather than direct cognition or knowing. Perception is image-making. This "layer" of images overlays reality.

So now let's say that there is heaven AS a real world, and then there is a PERCEPTION OF heaven from "outside of it". This is a perception experienced by those who still have perception, who are looking in the direction of heaven, toward the light of God. They are literally peering INTO heaven from the outside. I think of this as "window shopping". They're outside heaven, in a body, having a perception or "vision" (true perception), but they're looking towards and upon reality.

"when you have looked on scenes of violence and death, and WATCHED them change to quiet views of gardens under open skies, with clear life-giving water running happily beside them in dancing brooks that never waste away; who need PERSUADE you to accept the gift of vision?"

This PERCEPTION OF reality is a dream still. It's like an image or a surface crust or layer of how heaven would appear TO perception. And let's not forget that "Even the perception of the Holy Spirit, as perfect as perception CAN be, is without meaning in Heaven. Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light." This to me implies that perception can reach to heaven and can see heaven.

So now what I'm saying is, the context where "the real world" is described as a borderland, a bridge, an image, a symbol, the face of christ, still a dream which can disappear, this is all talking about the PERCEPTUAL INTERPRETATION OF HEAVEN. It's not a direct experience of heaven or christ but it's how heaven and christ look when you use perception to look at them instead of direct knowing. It's still a little removed from heaven but it forms a kind of "image" or symbolic experience of it. This image is still a dream and that's why it comes to an end.

"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God's Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father's Love"

"But the Face of Christ is the great symbol of forgiveness. It is salvation. It is the symbol of the real world. Whoever looks on this no longer sees the world. He is as near to Heaven as is possible outside the gate."

So here Jesus seems to be confirming that "the real world" as used in its more common context, being removed from heaven, is SYMBOLIC - a symbolic version of the ACTUAL REAL HEAVEN. And symbols aren't something in themselves, they POINT TO the thing. They represent it, like a photograph. By using PERCEPTION to look upon the reality of the kingdom, you see it symbolically and no longer see the physical world. The "face of christ" then literally is like a surface appearance of christ, an outside "facade" ie a symbolic representation of the christ that is WITHIN heaven.

This to me is currently the only way to support the idea that there are ONLY two worlds. Not that there is a "real world" sandwiched in between them, or that this borderland has stuff in it. Because we're also told ""The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."

To me, the only way "the real world" can have contents that shine FOREVER, in contradiction to the fact that "even the real world will vanish from your sight", is that it's a reference to HEAVEN. Heaven's contents will shine forever. Heaven IS the real world. But the PERCEPTUAL VISION of heaven is what he refers to in the context of "the real world" that is a symbolic dream, which ends. First you see the kingdom as accurately as perception CAN, within its limits, and then you go INTO it.

"Perception can reach EVERYWHERE under His guidance, for the vision of Christ beholds EVERYTHING in light. But no perception, however holy, will last FOREVER."

"Nothing that you remember, that made your heart seem to sing with joy, has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will bring you. FOR YOU WILL SEE THE SON OF GOD. You will behold the beauty that the Holy Spirit loves to look upon, and that He thanks the Father for."

Note here that he's telling us that in the holy spirit's PERCEPTION, we will see the son of God. Where is the Son of God? He's in heaven. He IS heaven. He is the sonship. The Holy Spirit loves to look upon christ who is in heaven. His perception is a vision of christ, which later gives way to the direct cognitive knowledge of christ.

"And he cannot fail to look upon what Christ would have him see, and share Christ's love for what he looks upon."

"Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God."

This is why I've concluded that essentially the forgiven world is the ILLUSORY world of space and time and matter, which is looking AWAY from heaven towards form. It is earth, the world, which has been forgiven. And forgiveness forgives it BY OVERLOOKING IT, looking beyond it towards heaven. The real world is heaven, and it is the light which christ vision sees, which is initially seen using perception. When this perception is full and complete, as in seeing the face of christ or "christ as if seen from the outside", perception ends and you now enter into heaven.

ie "the real world" really is the kingdom of God. The perceptual interpretation of that real world is what is commonly thought to be "the real world". The real world is NOT a reinterpreted earth. That's the forgiven world. Because reality cannot be forgiven, only illusions can be overlooked. Christ vision which is true perception forgives the world by looking past it to the light of reality.

There are only two worlds. Reality and unreality. Perception is always within the realm of unreality, but can be adjusted to be more accurate and thus to perceive reality from the "outside". To interpret the kingdom. This is its view of the real world of heaven from within the perceptual landscape. When this perception is whole, the illusory forgiven world disappears entirely and is forgotten, and perception comes to an end.

So the commonly referenced "real world" (outside of heaven) is actually a perceptual interpretation OF the ACTUALLY REAL world of heaven. It's you looking at heaven through perceptual interpretation, with vision (true perception). It looks just like heaven because it is looking AT heaven. It is not a third world but is actually an experience of heaven's reality and contents through the heaven-aligned filter of true perception. Perception no longer distorts it and perceives it directly. This perceptual layer thus becomes irrelevant because it is not needed, and you then move into the direct experience without perception in the way, to SEE the SAME REAL WORLD of the kingdom, forever.

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

"Beyond this world there is a world I want."

"Your Kingdom is not of this world because it was given you from BEYOND this world."

"Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS, for each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have denied the other."

"No-one in this distracted world but has not seen some glimpses of the other world about him."

"The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true, and wholly YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it God created you as one with Him."

"As mediator between the two worlds, He (Holy Spirit) knows what you have need of, and WHICH WILL NOT HURT YOU."

"It is impossible to see two worlds which have no overlap of any kind. Seek for the one; the other disappears. But one remains." "Heaven remains your only alternative to the strange world you made."

"The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture. As you look on THIS, you realize that IT IS NOT A PICTURE, but a reality. This is no figured REPRESENTATION of a thought-system, but the Thought Itself. What IT represents is THERE. The frame fades gently, and God rises to your remembrance, offering you the whole of creation,"

"The (physical unreal) world stands like a block before Christ's face (perception's view of christ in heaven). But true perception (vision) looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil (of illusions), so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is (an illusion, nothing). And now it cannot fail to disappear (so it is recognized and vanishes), for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears (a vision of heaven), and in that instant is the world forgot (the forgiven unreal world) , with time (spacetime) forever ended as the world (forgiven) spins into nothingness from where it came."

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

Somewhere in your mind, before all the consequences and side-effects that cascade, spiraling down into hell, there is a FIRST STEP. There's an initial "something" that you do, which leads to all the rest. It's the CAUSE of every aspect of your life, of all the ways you suffer, all the ways you relate to others and the world. It is even the cause of the world itself.

We need to dig deep and find out where this whole mess is STARTING, if we want to truly be free of the problem. Things which happen later are not actually the problem. Consequences and effects, projections and blame, perceptions and false identities, these are all things that arise later. They are not where the problem starts.

The course has a ton of material discussing many aspects of things that happen AFTER the initial problem begins. And this can be distracting. The world is a projection, so it's not the starting point. Your special relationships stem from your mental attitude, so they are not the cause. Even your holy relationships are just ways of relating FROM a certain state of mind, and arise from that state. Even miracles are really EXPRESSIONS from a certain mental state, so are not the starting point.

What is it that comes FIRST? Where does it START? What is the fist step on the staircase leading to hell? What is it that we keep doing, that is so fundamental and so primary, so deep within us and so causal, that it LEADS TO all this other stuff - our body issues, our life dramas, our relationships, our world, our perceptions, all stemming from it. What is the very core tiny little thing that we FIRST do that has a side-effect of producing the illusion of spacetime? We do know this:

"Separation from God is the only lack he really needs to correct. But his Separation would never have occurred if he had not distorted his perception of truth, and thus perceived himself as lacking."

Here Jesus suggests that a sense of separation is the only problem to correct. As it says elsewhere, we seem to have ONE PROBLEM, requiring ONE SOLUTION. But he also goes on to say that your mind went into a distorted sense of "what is true", and by doing this, PRODUCED "the fall of man" (THE separation). So even the sense of being separate from God is in a way further down the line from the initial act that causes it.

We know at least the problem we have IS NOT other people. Our relationships with them, issues with them, the things they seem to do to us, the things we do to them, that is all just an arena of effects and consequences, further removed from the actual issue. We're also told that the real problem is IN OUR OWN MIND, not out there in the world.

"Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell. It does not matter. What God did not create can only be in your own mind apart from His."

"Guilt is ALWAYS in yourOWN mind, WHICH HAS CONDEMNED ITSELF."

"I am the means by which God's Son is saved, because salvation's purpose is to find the sinlessness which God has placed in me."

What this is now telling us it that at some point, we condemned ourselves. Individually. I at some point attacked myself. And this is backed up with:

"It can be but myself I crucify."

"You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself."

"It is your thoughts alone that cause you pain." "Nothing in the world can bring oppression."

"I can be attacked by nothing but my thoughts."

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF."

"My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability."

"Only the self-accused condemn."

"You cannot die unless you choose to do so." "No one dies without their own consent"

"What has been FORGOTTEN then appears to be fearful, but ONLY because the dissociation was an ATTACK ON TRUTH."

"Because you had attacked yourself, and BELIEVED THAT THE ATTACK WAS EFFECTIVE, you behold yourself as weakened."

"Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally"

"You HAVE attacked him, and you MUST have attacked yourself first."

"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. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

So now Jesus is saying essentially that our INITIAL PROBLEM involved the denial of creation, which was an attack and a dissociation from the truth - a disowning of yourself. That includes the denial of God (the ego's religion), and the denial of your real self - your soul. The rejection of your truth and your identity. That was in fact a SELF ATTACK.

And as evidenced by the rest of the quotes, if you were not to "do it to yourself", if you were not attack yourself with YOUR OWN THOUGHTS, you would not have any problem or suffering of any kind. And here is the final clarification:

"Attack in ANY form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads FROM Heaven."

We also know that "sin is attack". We also know "sin is insanity". We also know we have an authority problem of trying to deny God's authority and authorship. We also know we tried to sin against his will by trying to attack him. We also know we made a world as an attack on God. So you attacking is where this all BEGINS.

"Listening to the ego's voice MEANS that you believe it is possible to attack God. You believe that a part of Him has been torn away by YOU."

"We have repeatedly emphasized that the ego DOES believe it can attack God, and tries to persuade you that YOU have done this."

Now, is it that other people attack you? No. Is it that the world attacks you? No. Is it your relationships attacking you? No. Is it your perceptions? No. "Perception is a result not a cause". "Projection makes perception" What you PROJECT comes before what you PERCEIVE, because perception is the RESULT of what you want to see. You look first WITHIN and then project it out and then perceive it. It's more to do with how YOU are attacking.

"What is projected OUT, and seems to be EXTERNAL to the mind, is NOT outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has NOT left its source."

"It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition. As a manthinketh, so does he perceive."

So not only is perception not the issue, but also even projection is not the issue. You projecting is not the problem. Where you project FROM, or WHAT IS IN YOU TO PROJECT is the problem. The content in your mind is the problem. And even if you DIDN'T ever project anything, you'd STILL have the same problem. Because the problem comes BEFORE PROJECTION. Projection is just the mental mechanism by which you GIVE what you HAVE.

So nothing that you project, or project onto, any blame of sin where you are projecting YOUR OWN SIN onto others, anything to do with making the world or interpreting it or having perceptions about it, NONE of that is the real issue. That's all side-effects further down the line of cause and effect, stuff that happens as you keep mis-stepping on the descent into hell. We want to know what is the PRIMARY CAUSE OF ALL HELL.

This is why Jesus talks about how you have to realize AT LEAST that the problem is in your own mind, not outside of you. That your ideas didn't leave their source. That your projections are deceiving you, and what you perceive is just a manifestation of your inner wishes. That the problem is really IN YOUR MIND, and it's there that you have to look for the solution that God put there - the Holy Spirit in you.

"That is because I do not yet realize that God has placed the answer together with the problem, so that they cannot be separated by time."

"But bring the problem to the only place which holds the answer lovingly FOR you."

"Problem and answer lie together here, and having met at last the choice is clear."

"The miracle forgives; the ego damns."

What it boils down to is that YOU HAVE CONDEMNED YOURSELF TO HELL. Other people didn't do this to you. The world didn't do this to you. Your body isn't doing it to you. Even God didn't do this to you. YOU are the one responsible for having chosen to suffer. YOU are the one who is pretending the Son of God can die. YOU are the one with the death wish. YOU are the one attacking yourself. YOU are the one who is taking a step onto the stairway to hell. And YOU are the one who has to CHANGE YOUR MIND in order to stop doing this.

"But until you change your mind about those your ego has hurt, the Atonement cannot release you."

"And then change your minds to THINK WITH GOD's."

"will to change your mind ABOUT the world"

"Now the source of thought has shifted, for to change your mind means you have changed the source of all ideas you think or ever thought or yet will think."

"It is not pride that tells you that you made the world you see, and that it changes as you change your mind."

"To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself."

"But you can NOT remove the Power to change your mind"

"For you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape."

"And it will change entirely as you elect to change your mind, and choose the joy of God as what you really want."

"You must change your MIND, not your behavior, and this IS a matter of will."

"The emphasis this course has placed on that idea is due to its centrality in our attempts to change your mind about yourself."

"you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless."

"you MUST change your mind and help others change theirs"

As you can see, Jesus is quite clear that the ONLY problem is IN our own individual mind, the only problem is that we have CHANGED our mind ABOUT OUR MIND, in a wrong direction. And the only solution is to CHANGE YOUR MIND ABOUT YOURSELF in the direction of God. That is where is all STARTS. It starts with YOU. With your relationship with YOURSELF.

That's because ultimately the separation is about ONE THING. Your attack upon YOURSELF. Your effort to LACK LOVE about yourself. Your attempt to DESTROY yourself. Your self attack, your self destruction, your suicidal thought system of egotism that leads to self-induced death, and your effort to NOT BE IMMORTAL.

So for all its words and all its topics, all the things we might spend time dealing with, trying to clean up the mess and consequences, it really boils down to the CORE issue WITHIN you.... which has nothing to do with other people AT ALL, and nothing to do with the world AT ALL.

One thing which, if you change, if it's corrected, LEADS TO everything else AUTOMATICALLY correcting itself as an EFFECT and consequence. And since heaven is in you, seeking FIRST the kingdom of God (seeing yourself as holy and sinless) DOES make your way straight. Because all other CONSEQUENCES follow on from that, from your inner content. If you are the Kingdom, then ONLY GOOD can come from you and to you.

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

"And as we look within, we see the purity of Heaven shine in our reflection of our Father's Love."

You need to learn to love yourself again, to accept you are still as God created you. And that is all. Your one responsibility of accepting the atonement for yourself, which ONLY YOU CAN DO. because ONLY YOU are your only enemy.

And that means embracing your lovability. And that is only possible if you think you DESERVE love. And you can only deserve love if you are not GUILTY. And to be not guilty you have to recognize you HAVE NEVER SINNED. And therefore you remain as God created you, INNOCENT AND SINLESS FOREVER. You must embrace your TOTAL SINLESSNESS if you are to stop attacking yourself. Attack of ANY kind has to be purged from your whole mind. This is the process of PURIFICATION.

"The state of sinlessness is merely this: The WHOLE desire to attack is gone, and so there is no reason to perceive the Son of God as other than he is."

"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering."

"Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness. For it contains the Word of God to us, and in its kind reflection we are saved."

"Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated until it is accepted."

"Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created."

"In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality."

This is all an inside job. The secret of salvation simply states it - you are doing it to yourself. No-one else, nor the world, is doing anything to you. You simply need to stop doing it to yourself, and you will be free!

A Course in Miracles itself contains some structures. There are for example two basic "levels" or states that are contrasted. There's reality vs illusions, God vs ego, life vs death, awakening vs dreaming, light vs darkness, health vs sickness, heaven vs hell, the Kingdom of God vs Earth.

So let's say that upon reading about these things, we start to form a structure in our mind, sort of a framework. We've got this one box over here in which we put all the reality stuff, and another box next to it but opposite, in which we put all the illusory ego stuff.

Now, here's where a big mistake happens. It's possible to INTERPRET what each of these boxes MAPS to. Or what they refer to in your environment. Whenever the Course says "reality", WHAT in YOUR world view is that REFERRING to? Which PART of your view of all of existence, is it speaking ABOUT? Which means some portion of "existence" in your world view has to be where you put the "reality" box, and another portion has to be where you put the "illusion" box.

If you discern this correctly, you'll map the reality box onto the Kingdom of God which is NOT OF THIS WORLD, and you'll map the illusion box onto THIS WORLD, Earth. This then means that Earth is an illusion. "The world you see is an illusion of a world" "The world was made as an attack on God etc." In this view, "there is no world" is referring to the illusory world which is in turn referring to Earth and all the galaxies etc.

But there is another way to MAP the course. This alternative approach SHIFTS the framework down a level. It considers that all the "reality" box stuff is actually TALKING ABOUT or referring to, THIS WORLD. e.g. the universe, Earth, bodies etc. Everything the course says about real stuff a person will think is referring to THESE THINGS. And here's the rub.

In order for the course ITSELF to seem to make sense, its STRUCTURE has to remain intact - the contrast between the real stuff and the illusory stuff. So that means you now need somewhere to PUT the "box of illusions". SOMETHING in your "environment" has to be ASSIGNED to the box of illusions, otherwise you can't make sense of it at all.

So if Earth and bodies are considered "in the reality box", you now have to find another thing to assign "illusions" to. And what might that be? Well, since if bodies are real we don't want to ever challenge that idea, so it can't be anything PHYSICAL. So this then leans towards something psychological, something perhaps to do with the MIND or the realm of perception. You have to connect the references to illusions SOMEWHERE in your experience.

And so what people do is, they take a necessary "step back" from "the world" which they think is REALITY, Earth, bodies being real, and HAVE TO displace the illusions into some kind of INTERNAL box, a hidden box, a more nebulous perceptual box. And so now the meaning of illusions is RELEGATED entirely to the inside contents of the mind. It all now becomes a model in which illusion means "my FALSE VIEW OF the world", and awakening now must mean "seeing the world as reality".

Of course if the world IS reality, correct perception would SEEM to line up with the idea that all you're supposed to do is learn to LOOK AT the world correctly, "as God intended", and then you're more or less done. ie true perception is now passed off as "seeing the world as God's most beautiful handywork." And therefore that if I don't LIKE the world for some reason, I must be HAVING ILLUSIONS, in my mind, in my perception, which is causing me to NOT APPRECIATE the world that God supposedly created "outside myself."

There is a great deal in the course which COULD by some seem to be suggesting this is correct, especially given that people seem to find themselves ISOLATED to a single body. "The minds are trapped in their brains." And from that perspective, where you think your mind is CONFINED to your brain, or your self is confined to your body, it SEEMS to make sense that the rest of the world and the body are God's creations. It doesn't seem to challenge it. But this is only because the perception of self and mind as LIMITED TO ONE LOCATION goes unchallenged. It's completely ASSUMED that it is normal to find yourself "inside a single body." And in this view, it seems to make sense that "everything else" is God's doing.

But there are some significant distortions that have to be introduced into what ACIM says in order to make this FIT. For example, the course is very clear in stating that "the body does not exist." "The body is a dream". That doesn't fly well if you believe God created the world. So in order to COMPENSATE for that, to ADJUST the course's meaning so that this basic core belief goes unchallenged, a person will REDEFINE THE MEANING of various terms.

"The body" may now be thought of as being some kind of internal "ego attitude" or "mental self". The "world you made" may be considered some kind of projective, perceptual, interpretation OF the world. "Earth" even has to redefined in light of ACIM stating that Earth is heaven's opposite, so now you have to conceive of references to Earth meaning some kind of "inner planet?". Statements about the sun disappearing have to also be reinterpreted to mean some kind of "inner attitude ABOUT the sun". These modifications are absolutely NECESSARY AND UNAVOIDABLE if a person is to try to maintain a sense of CONSISTENCY in their thought system.

But here's the problem. Just because a person is grasping the internal STRUCTURAL relationships in various parts of the course, the relationship between reality and illusions for example, and just because they are maintaining a clear delineation between the two in THEIR view of the world, it doesn't mean their view is VALID. Consistency is not necessarily validity.

It is possible for example, for a person to take *everything* the course says, and essentially RE-MAP it to MAP IT ONTO, this prior-belief that God created THIS world. It takes a huge number of modifications to the meaning of statements to do this, but if a person does this with BELIEF it doesn't matter to them. They just believe it's correct. It SEEMS TO MAKE SENSE to them, because it is CONSISTENT.

But the problem is you can really go DEEP into this and expose yourself over and over and over again to the same interpretation of the course, become very deeply rooted in it, believe you are "getting it", but all the while are interpreting that it is REFERRING TO stuff that it isn't actually referring to. In fact, a person can become extremely comprehensive in their awareness of what the quotes say, studying the text umpteen times, doing the workbook endlessly, and STILL believe that God created the world.

They will think "when it says body, IT MEANS...." and then will attach that to whatever TARGET they think the course is talking ABOUT when it says "body". There is this TRANSLATION happening all the time, which now requires a person to be an expert translator in order to "understand" anything it says. And it's now possible to think you are understanding it because it seems CONSISTENT, while being TOTALLY INVALID. Because if when Jesus says "the body" you think he means "my internal attitude and NOT my physical body", that's now leading to a TOTALLY DIFFERENT interpretation. It now makes the person have to REINTERPRET EVERYTHING, rather than just taking it simply and literally.

What does this DO? It basically establishes in a person's mind a very DETAILED, reinforced, faith-given, heavily-believed-in "model" of what is real and what is not, WHICH IS FALSE. And a person can study the course for DECADES believing that THIS is the correct interpretation of what the course MEANS when it says stuff. What it is REFERRING to. Don't be fooled - someone can have been doing ACIM for 40+ years and be totally mistaken about everything.

So by failing to see what the course is REFERRING TO with each of its statements, an entire layer of interpretation and displacement is occurring which results in the person becoming STUCK AND TRAPPED. They are stuck because they THINK that they are relating to reality, when they are relating to an illusion. They THINK they are accepting what the course is saying, when in fact the stuff they are accepting is REJECTING what the course is saying. And so they think they are doing something they are not doing. WHICH IS INSANITY.

One of the really serious things that happens is this. If it is believed that God created the world, but if this is NOT TRUE, the person believing it now looks upon this world as if it is REALITY. If it is NOT TRUE that this world is reality, but the person believes it is, that person now technically has FALSE PERCEPTION. False perception means you are viewing illusions and mistaking them for reality. Just because a person BELIEVES that this world is reality, doesn't make it true. And believing it is true, is being MISTAKEN, while believing you are NOT mistaken. And so the person becomes BLIND to the fact they are mistaken - they are insane, while believing they are sane.

If the world IS an illusion and you believe it is reality, you are deceived and are believing falsely. But to the person doing this, who believes "the world is real", THEY believe that regarding this world AS REAL is TRUE TO ITS NATURE. That seeing this world "truly" or as God intended, is TRUE perception. So if this world is NOT real, that person now has false perception but believes they have true perception. That is a state of profound confusion.

There are things which the course states plainly enough which are hard to deny. For example it actually states that THE SUN WILL VANISH. It also states that the stars will disappear. Which means, ALL GALAXIES. Believing God MADE THEM this is totally contradictory. What is a person to do? They would have to relegate these references to "they must mean something else". And then they'd seek for something else to pin it on. And good luck with finding "a sun" and a whole bunch of massive galaxies that exists only in your "inner perceptions about the world that's real."

And how about "Both heaven and earth are in your mind"? Surely this isn't saying that your mind is SO VAST that it actually contains a physical planet and an entire kingdom, whereby all of the animals, mountains, oceans, forests are all INSIDE YOUR MIND, meaning your mind must be HUGE and powerful? Well, that's what the Course IS saying. But those who don't believe this, relegate it to a nice comfortable safe "this must just be referring to some perceptions I'm having inside my little body." And that's an extremely TINY (non-threatening) interpretation of what ACIM is meaning.

These are basically the two major views of ACIM. Either God created the world or he did not. If he did, rather large chunks of ACIM **do not mean what they say**. In order to "make it make sense" the whole thing has to be interpreted as poetry, metaphor, and re-interpreted at every turn. Even the meaning of common words HAVE to be completely redefined, like "Earth", "Sun", "Body". Nothing is then taken LITERALLY. The course is no longer believed to be simply plain and obvious or honest and straightforward, but rather some kind of obscure and subtlety poetic array of metaphors that have hidden subtle meanings hardly anyone can understand. And Jesus is quite clear he has taken every effort to make this course as obvious and unambiguous as possible.

The simple view that God did not create this world is FAR MORE ACCURATE, requires massively less "reinterpretation", is EASIER to understand, is much more literally connected to what Jesus actually SAYS using terms that we are familiar with, AND makes a whole lot more sense. The HONEST view of ACIM is that it is telling the truth when it says the sun will vanish, the earth is not heaven, that this world is cruel, and that bodies are illusions. This true view of the course removes an entire LAYER of interpretation and "mapping", taking out the FILTER which some people interpose between themselves and EVERYTHING it says, incapable of taking Jesus at His word EVER.

This view of the course is also far more radical. Therefore potentially more threatening to the ego. It is therefore less popular, and more challenging to accept. If it's true bodies don't exist and the world is fiction and you made it all up and your mind is bigger than the universe ("your mind has the power to make worlds"), that's a much bigger mind bending conclusion with extraordinary implications. It challenges your every belief, all your values, everything you have a special relationship with, the notion of bodies being life forms, and even brings into question whether anything you see is real at all. But this view of the course does have one thing going for it. It doesn't require you to MANGLE THE HELL out of everything it says in order to make it make sense.

"There is no world" is simply literal. "You made sickness and death and can therefore abolish both" is now literal. Miracles can now literally heal the sick and raise the dead IN THE WORLD, not just in your mind. Miracles are no longer mere shifts in perception but capable of transforming matter and BREAKING ALL THE LAWS OF THIS WORLD including the laws of physics, which supports Jesus walking on water LITERALLY. And it also now means that it is possible to overcome PHYSICAL death. And in this view, the world is recognized as AN ILLUSION, NOT the Kingdom of God.

This view of the course is VASTLY DIFFERENT to the conclusions drawn from the other view. The contrast is practically night and day. The THOUGHT SYSTEM that arises is totally different. And the kind of BELIEFS you have to have to invest in them to make them true are TOTALLY opposite. It's literally the difference between believing that God made the Earth and believing God did NOT make the Earth. The difference between THIS IS REALITY, and THIS IS NOT REALITY! It's a hugely different view. And it hugely affects how you perceive and relate to this "world."

You CAN only believe one or the other, if you are consistent about it. Which ever one you side with will completely gravitate ALL your views towards it. In order to keep it consistent, you will HAVE TO adopt every single view that is based on that belief. And that means you will have to view everything "the other camp" believes as TOTALLY FALSE. And not one thing the other camp says will be accepted as true because it would undermine the CORE belief that God made the world, or not. And this is why there is a huge divide in the ACIM community between those who think the world is reality, vs those who do not. It's extremely pivotal and fundamental. And they can't both be true.

So you have taken a side. The question is, whether you are on the side of actual truth, or the side of fiction.

----TL;DR: Changing your perception OF a sick body, isn't enough to change what you are projecting. You are projecting your body and the symptoms.----

"Projection makes perception. The world that you see is what you have put there to see; nothing more and nothing less and so it is important to you. The world that you perceive is the witness to your state of mind, the outward picture of your inward condition. As you think so do you perceive."

Recognize that projection COMES FIRST, then perception happens SECOND.

"The world you see" (perceive) "is what you have put there to see" (what you projected first).

"The world you perceive" (second) "is witness to your state of mind" - your perception "witnesses", perceives, and reflects back to you, your state of mind, because your state of mind PROJECTED what it is that you are now PERCEIVING.

These are two different processes. The act of having a certain state of mind, which you then project FROM, puts stuff "out there", which you THEN perceive as a secondary process.

Even the body itself is a projection. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards". The body then PERCEIVES, AFTER having been projected.

Jesus talks about how this is a circular logic for us, a trap, whereby we believe what we want to see, we project it because we believe in it, we "make it appear" (manifest it), then we "perceive" ie let the body tell us what it is we projected.

Perception then, is distinct from projection. It is a secondary act. Without projecting, there would be nothing TO perceive.

So here's what you need to realize about perceptions of sickness.

The mind, in whatever state it is in, has beliefs in it, thoughts, which then project. These projections MANIFEST the body and many other forms and objects. The mind for example projects the body ITSELF.

If the mind has a belief in separation, it will project a body which shows up with signs and symptoms of sickness, because it is a PICTURE of your inward condition, and your inward condition is one of "I am under attack". So the body SHOWS it. it is a WITNESS ie corresponds to your state of mind. This is why "a broken body is proof the mind has not been healed." The body literally only shows up as the mind's manifestational projection. It's an image being projected by the mind.

Jesus speaks to this in his "special notes to helen"....

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it.. It merely became what it always was. ... The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond... To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness.

I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood.

I came to tell them that death is an illusion, and THE MIND THAT MADE THE BODY CAN MAKE ANOTHER SINCE FORM ITSELF IS AN ILLUSION. They did not understand."

So here we can see, the MIND, MAKES the body. Your mind is projecting your body, and everything about it, right now. However it is showing up, witnesses to your mental content and your belief system. If it is showing up as sick, it is therefore directly correlated, it is PROOF, that your mind is not healed.

This also means, that when the mind IS healed, or close to, and it is still projecting a body, it MUST project a body which appears without signs or symptoms of sickness. This is because the body COMES FROM the mind, mind is its source, and a healthy mind WILL ONLY project a healthy-appearing body image.

Now. There is a problem here in how many people are interpreting the correction of perception.

Remember perception happens to look upon WHAT YOU PROJECTED, after you projected it. The body's eyes receive little photons of light to tell it, oh look, there's a body there. That's part of perception. The illusion that the very thing YOU PROJECTED, is now telling you what IT IS, completely forgetting that you put it there in the first place.

So now perception, is ONCE REMOVED from the direct expression or projection of the mind. Perception therefore is a secondary experience.

So now, let's say that you have projected a body with a broken leg. The broken leg was not caused by anything in the world. It was ONLY projected from the mind. The mind did not project a broken leg ONTO the body. The mind directly projected ONLY an image of a body with a broken leg. The body does not EXIST as a separate object, or a "thing", or something as an end in itself. If you do not project it, nothing shows up! If you do not project it, there is no body!

So now, that you projected an image of a body with a broken leg, you now will perceive. Perception can be in a state of correctness/clarity or in a state of false perception/distortion. Since your MIND has a belief in sickness in it, and has made a sick-appearing body image materialize, it also now believes sickness is real. Perception is now going to take place, and that same mind which PROJECTED the "sick body", is also going to see that same belief in sickness IN the body that was projected.

This means perception is now going to show you a hallucination of "sickness is real", "something is wrong", "sin and guilt" etc, as though it is *IN* the body. It is not in the body, it's in the mind. Thus the idea of sickness, which made the body to begin with, is now SECONDARILY projected ON TOP OF the body that you projected.

Then you will have various ego reactions to what you are misperceiving, and will start to seek a resolution. But your planned strategy here isn't typically anything to do with fixing your PROJECTION, it's always to do with fixing your PERCEPTION. And that means, something very obvious is about to happen.

If all you do, is fix your perception OF what you projected, you might be able to seem to "be at peace" with what is showing up. You might seem to become less upset or resistant or less fighting with, your broken leg. You'll tell yourself, if your perception OF the body is healed, you will be TOTALLY DONE. But this leaves you with a problem, and a state of denial.

Fact is, even if your so-called "perception" is perceiving your broken leg as "lovely and wonderful", oh how lovely that death looks.... your leg is STILL BROKEN. And that's a problem. Because now you are demonstrating that you can be hurt, you are attacking the entire world by claiming that something OTHER THAN YOU put the break there, you are holding this broken leg up for everyone to see to make them guilty and accuse them of sin, and you are attempting to demonstrate that God's Son can be killed.

It also means that since ALL sickness manifests as a DEFENSE against the truth, in the mind, which then projects a "defending body", which shows up as attacked, you CANNOT accept full and total peace while still maintaining that defense. It is impossible. The defense has to go, which means the belief in separation has to go, which MUST produce a projected body which shows up as HEALED.

Nothing happens to the body that was sick that you projected previously. It does not exist. You just RE-PROJECT A NEW ONE, every moment. Sickness in the body can only show up if the mind is defending against truth, and sickness can only show up in the body if the mind has GUILT. "Sickness is but another form of guilt". Therefore, if the mind does not have guilt and defenses, the body WILL ONLY show up as healed, as PROOF, that the mind is healed. The mind will PROJECT a healed-appearing body to testify to ITS inner condition.

So while that broken leg persists, you are in denial. You may be owning up to the fact that you have some control over your PERCEPTION. But you are not admitting that you have the power to PROJECT what you are even looking at.

This is a fundamental difference and there is a pretty big divide in the ACIM community based around this one distinction. Many people believe all they need to do is fix their perception OF the world, or what's showing up, and then they are done. In this belief system, it becomes justified that you can still have sickness show up and have a "healthy mind", that you can still DIE and be innocent, you can welcome death, you can keep your sickness and be totally happy, etc.

Yes, to a degree, as a preparatory step, you can come to be "relatively peaceful" about these things through changing your perception. What you are INDIRECTLY doing there, is that it's not actually your perception that you're fixing, is the content of your mind that PROJECTS the body in the first place. Attempting to change your perception is a second-hand roundabout way of trying to address the content in your mind, which is "showing you" a belief in sin and sickness "in" the broken leg. But at some point.... you're going to hit a wall.

The wall will simply be, that in order for you to really thoroughly change your perception so that you do not believe in sickness, and have no sickness in your mind, you're going to have to also ADMIT, that your mind is projecting the FORM OF SICKNESS *AS* the body, in the first place, regardless of your perception OF it.

So many people are onto this "change my mind about the world" kick, which changes perception OF the world. But they do not realize, at some point, if you are not going to perceive sickness, your mind has to be emptied of all belief in sickness, AND THIS MUST result in the PROJECTION changing. It has to. The mind can't retain some small amount of belief in separation and have *perception* be a state of peace.

If that broken leg is still showing up, but you are relatively "ok with it", you are IN DENIAL. That broken leg is NOT SUPPOSED TO BE SHOWING UP AT ALL. A sick body is PROOF the mind HAS NOT been healed.

There is this second camp of ACIM folk then who see this, and acknowledge, that the mind projects the body. Jesus Himself said it in that quote above. The mind that projects the body can make another. And if the mind can project the ENTIRE BODY, then IT is 100% responsible for making the body show up with ANY sign of sickness or death. This is how no-one can die without his own consent! If your mind does not put it there, it cannot be.

So if you just stop at.... I'm going to just be okay with this sickness, I'm going to perceive this sickness differently, I'm going to perceive this BODY differently, I'm going to look at this body in a more loving way etc.... that's a step TOWARDS healing the mind's content. But if that body is still showing up as BROKEN, you are NOT DONE.

This is where there comes to be a lot of denial, because not only is it often difficult to see that you projected the sickness AS the body (it can happen really fast and then go unconscious), there is also a lot of FEAR about this idea that your mind is THAT POWERFUL, that it can not only make sickness and death happen to you BY your will, but that the mind can also reverse that. Yet Jesus teaches:

"You made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both." ABOLISH means, to TOTALLY REMOVE. That means, the reversal of ALL forms and signs and symptoms of sickness in the body AND mind, and EVEN DEATH. It Literally means, the ability to reverse death, to raise the dead, and to completely restore life. It is the ability to REWIND SIN and UNDO ALL OF THE CONSEQUENCES (effects) of your wrong decision.

Your mind is cause. Your body is your effect. The body is NOT CAUSED by the world in any way whatsoever. Ever. Your sickness is NOT PUT THERE by any cause outside of your mind, EVER. You are responsible for what you have chosen. And because you are, you can CHANGE YOUR MIND and it MUST CHANGE THE PROJECTION.

So yes it's one thing to work on changing your perception, but your perception has arisen from what you have projected. And that means, if you are GENUINELY undoing the sinful content in your mind, are taking full ownership of your power, are NOT believing that anything in the world has the power to affect you or your body, and are NOT attempting to demonstrate that the Son of God can be hurt and killed THROUGH the symbol of the body (the body can become a sign of immortality), then YOU WILL STOP PROJECTING SICKNESS AND DEATH.

You do not project it ONTO the body. You project it AS the body. No-one else put the body there. Your parents did not put the body there. Biology did not put the body there. Chemical reactions and physical interactions did not put the body there. The world, the dream, other people, did not put the body there. ONLY YOU DID.

So that means, if you're to go all the way with this.... this is where you get into MIRACLE WORKING. Because it means, you are willing to DEMONSTRATE, to live by example, that it is possible to reverse all sickness and death in yourself, AND IN OTHERS.

You first reverse it in yourself by accepting atonement. This allows you to receive miracles. Then you are able to express those miracles to and for others. If they are willing to accept it.

We are not supposed to be walking around with limbs hanging off and body parts failing and organs malfunctioning and eyesight going bad and developing a limp and a having cancers and diseases and various other forms of SIN.

Death is an attempt to demonstrate that the Son of God can be killed. Pain is an attempt to bind the son to the body to fixate him on and identify with being a real body. Sickness is an attempt to prove the Son can be hurt. Sickness is an attack on your brother. Sickness is the result of seeking outside of yourself, and demonstrates level confusion. None of this is God's will. It is a demonstration of the OPPOSITE OF GOD'S WILL for you.

No-one is supposed to be dying. Bodies are not supposed to be decaying and dying. There is NOT supposed to be 7 billion people planning their own death, who will very likely die in the next 100 years, putting 7 billion corpses in the ground, just because they did not want God's healing and love. That's their choice. It does not have to be yours.

If we are to demonstrate that we are immortal and invulnerable, we ARE supposed to demonstrate here, in the flesh, that the body cannot be hurt, BECAUSE, the body is ONLY coming from the mind, and therefore if you project a healthy body it will STAY HEALTHY at all times. And nothing can attack it. It is IMPOSSIBLE for it to be sick. NOR CAN IT DIE.

"Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as IT MAKES ALL DECISIONS THAT ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE BODY'S CONDITION."

Later, when it's done being useful, it is simply DISAPPEARED. Just as Jesus did:

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it.. It merely became what it always was. And that is what 'rolling the stone away means.' The body disappears, and no longer hides what lies beyond... To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness. "

It was not a matter of it disappearing from his perception OF it. The body ITSELF disappeared because HE STOPPED PROJECTING IT.

THIS is our natural inheritance, this ability to work miracles, to reverse all sickness and death, to not only correct perception but to CORRECT PROJECTION. To UNDO everything we have PROJECTED. AND that ultimately includes your body, everyone else's body, all sickness, all death, all forms of separation, all objects, all planets, and this entire ILLUSORY UNIVERSE which is a PROJECTION coming from the mind.

So don't stop at "I will just change how I see the world." "Seek not to change the world, seek to change your mind about the world. Perception is a RESULT (effect of projecting) and not a cause (the body that shows up is not alive!). "And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless." ie... change your MIND, your body and the world MUST CHANGE to reflect the content of your mind. Without exception.

There are people who wake up in this world. There are people who are awake in the dream. There are people who have purified perception to such an extent that they seem to be seeing the real world or something close to it. They recognize that they were contributing sin to what is here, projecting it "onto" the body and world. But what they usually do not realize is, THEY are projecting the body and the world. And therefore, typically, they age, and they die. And then they reincarnate and make another body. Why? Because they did not get to the level where they woke up FROM dreaming, and FROM perceiving.

To wake up FROM the dream, you have to get in touch with the fact that you are the DREAMER of it, the one who is PROJECTING IT, and you are the one who is PUTTING ALL OF ITS OBJECTS OUT THERE. This puts you in touch with miracle working because now you are able to enact VERTICAL PERCEPTION, cause and effect are now vertical not linear, and you recognize the power of YOUR MIND to manifest absolutely anything in this dream, or change it, at will. Because you will realize, you have been DOING THAT all along. Your body was coming from YOUR MIND, and your mind only.

To wake up from the dream requires the undoing of dreaming, which overrides ALL perception, deals with separation at ITS CAUSE, and therefore DISAPPEARS THE DREAM UNIVERSE. That means, the disappearance of the physical universe, including precious "planet earth", which was never anything but a mental projection. All that is then left, is God's creation, which is Heaven.

In ACIM we're told about "the real world" and many people have different ideas about what that's referring to. Here's my take on it. It took me quite a long time to realize this.

Contrary to popular belief, the real world is actually another name for Heaven. God's creation. Reality. This is why Jesus correctly uses the word "Real" in relation to it. It is the Heaven that God created, which also is another name for the Sonship. It is described for example in this quote:

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever."

The shining forever only takes place in Heaven. It's not a temporary shining or an intermediary place. There is no Earth there, no bodies, no walls, and no sun to cause "night and day." No buildings, no streets, nothing physical. It's talking about Heaven.

Now, in some OTHER statements Jesus makes, he is speaking in a context of having perception still. And when He is speaking within this context, He refers to "the real world". But is now referring to the real world, Heaven, from a perceptual standpoint. So now what he's calling the real world, is the PERCEPTION OF the real world. It's a symbol, within a dream. An interpretation or judgement, a partial glimpse or reflection of Heaven within the separated state. He refers to that "image" of the real world AS the real world, because you are PERCEIVING the real world - heaven - but this is not the same thing as being IN Heaven.

"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made."

"The perception of the real world will be so short, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."

Jesus says for example that you can PERCEIVE the real world, which means that you can be still OUTSIDE of the Kingdom, looking in from a separated state - because "perception is a separated state". It's like window shopping.

"To believe that you can perceive the real world is to believe that you can know yourself."

"The forgiven world", is actually a reference to Earth/this universe which is seen through, past, and beyond, as a thin veil which covers the face of Christ. The "face of Christ" is another synonym for the PERCEPTION OF the real world of heaven - sort of an outside exterior look at the surface of Heaven from a separated state. The forgiven world is Earth, the real world is Heaven. And "the real world" (perceived) is what you see BEYOND "the forgiven world" (earth) when you overlook it with forgiveness but are still having perception. And "those who perceive still need healing" and "perception of the truth (perception of the real world) is not the same as knowing it (being IN IT, one with it)".

"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes. For forgiveness literally TRANSFORMS vision, and lets you see the real world (perception of heaven), reaching quietly and gently across chaos (earth/hell/forgiven world), and removing ALL illusions that had twisted your perception, and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf (part of the forgiven world, NOT the real world) becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection (signs are symbolic, not the ACTUAL thing - the perfection seen is the real world BEYOND the forgiven world of the leaf). From the forgiven world, the Son of God is lifted easily to his home. And there he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."

Similarly "God is in everything I see because God is in my mind" really means that you look at/through/beyond the forgiven world of Earth, it becomes transparent, and you see BEYOND IT, to the real world, and it is the real world that is GOD... that you SEE BEYOND the physical, beyond forms, and seems to be "in" what you physically see, because you're seeing both the physical AND the real world at the same time. This does not in any way make the forgiven world REAL, NOR does it associate it with God. God is IN what you see because he is BEYOND the forgiven world that forgiveness is OVERLOOKING and seeing PAST, TO reality. And when you forgive the world and see God "in" it, the world disappears and reveals there is ONLY GOD, no world.

"Every illusion brought to its forgiveness is gently overlooked, and disappears."

"A forgiven world cannot last."

Once the face of christ is seen, ie real world is perceived, the forgiven world - the veil - actually disappears from sight completely, because "it is impossible to see two worlds."

"This world you see (earth/forgiven world) MUST BE DENIED (not put on a pedestal!!!), for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS (there ARE TWO WORLDS, heaven and earth, and Heaven is HERE, Earth IS NOT HERE). For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER." - its like a seesaw, you can be up or down but not both. As true perception dawns, false perception ends. As heaven is recognized, earth is forgotten.

"For what appears to hide the Face of Christ (earth/forgiven world) is powerless before His Majesty, and **disappears** before His holy sight." (thus earth can't be holy)

"Before this light the body disappears, as heavy shadows MUST give way to light." (body is made of darkness - "the body is a dream" "the body is the IDEA OF SIN made flesh and projected outwards.")

Here for me is the key distinction between these "four" different worlds/terminologies:

Unforgiven world" Earth/this world, not overlooked, it is an illusion, and IF YOU BELIEVE IT IS REAL, you are delusional and insane and are blinded by perception of form. You are not seeing PAST form so are no forgiving. This makes the world seem like a real place, a real nightmare of hell. Where "things happen", people suffer, and there is real death. THIS is "the world you made." It has nothing to do with God, and the Holy Spirit DOES NOT see it because His forgiveness COMPLETELY overlooks it and fixates on the real world.

Forgiven world: Earth/this world, overlooked with forgiveness, seen through, recognized WITH truth of true perception as BEING FALSE, becomes transparent and disappears when the face of christ/real world is seen. True perception overlooks it. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." Teachers of God (not advanced) still see it overlaid on top of the perception of the real world as a thin veil and so can operate "in" the forgiven world/earth from a state of "mostly awake" or "Awareness of dreaming is the function of God's teachers". This awareness is NOT awakening. It is "conscious sleep", because dreams are still being DREAMED.

Real world (as perception of heaven from outside): Also is the same thing as the face of christ, and "the real world still is but a dream". This perception OF the real world isn't reality, it's a reflection of Heaven within the dreaming state. It seems heaven-like and "holy" but it is still an illusion. Perceiving this FULLYy you NO LONGER SEE planet Earth and cannot remain in this state longer than an instant before God scoopes you up and you return to awareness of BEING IN Heaven.

Real world (as Heaven itself): Being IN heaven, with no perception, no forgiven world, no bodies, no buildings etc. This is the living world of light. God's creation. The sonship. Reality. The REAL world that is not earth in any way.

"And now God's knowledge, changeless, certain, pure and wholly understandable, enters its kingdom. Gone is perception, false and true alike (no perception IN the real world of heaven). Gone is forgiveness, for its task is done (includes atonement). And gone are bodies in the blazing light upon the altar to the Son of God (all physical forms/worlds). God knows it is His Own, as it is his. And here They join, for here the face of Christ has shone away time's final instant (perception of real world has made it impossible to see physical worlds), and now is the last perception of the world without a purpose and without a cause (forgiven world disappears in this perception of light). For where God's memory has come at last (in heaven) there is no journey, no belief in sin, no walls, no bodies (no f'ing bodies in heaven!), and the grim appeal of guilt and death is there snuffed out forever."

Here for example is a reference to how Heaven, the REAL real world, can reach into THIS world - the forgiven world.

"This aching world (Earth/physical/unforgiven world/hell/even as the forgiven world) has not the power to touch the living world (real world of Heaven) at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world (Heaven IS ANOTHER WORLD - the REAL world). But the REAL world (heaven) HAS the power to touch you even here (outside the Kingdom, in this illusory world), BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT (heaven). And what you call with love WILL come to you (from Heaven). Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made (earth/unforgiven world), and do not want (earth holds nothing that I want). The only effort you need make, to give this world (earth) away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make (God created Heaven not earth), is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE. (Earth, un/forgiven world, is FALSE!)."

"The world you made (earth etc) is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself (heaven)."

God created the real world of heaven: "The real world (heaven, perceived) is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true and WHOLLY YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade (earth will disappear). But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son ("And God so loved the world (heaven) that he gave it TO His only begotten Son - God doesn't give planets."). Your ONE reality (heaven) was GIVEN you, and BY it, God created you as one with Him. (in heaven)"

Now, the Holy Spirit is a simultaneous MAKER (not creator) of the world you made. You made hell, but he repurposes it to direct you towards Heaven, and to change your perception of/making of it so that you stop interpreting it as hell and reinterpret it as a REFLECTION of Heaven, once removed from Heaven. HE, therefore, made "the real world" as in, the PERCEPTION OF the world GOD CREATED, Heaven, from inside the dream. And this real world is the face of christ. It is NOT EARTH. He ignores, overlooks, cancels, everything of the forgiven world and points beyond it.

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the laws of God; NOT as the law itself upholds the universe as God created it (heaven), but in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error. There IS another purpose in the world that error made (you made earth in error/sin), BECAUSE it has another Maker Who CAN reconcile its **goal** with His Creator's purpose.

In His perception of the world (forgiven world, totally overlooked), nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness (and "to see a sinless body is impossible" because perception does NOT SEE bodies). Nothing arises but is met with instant and complete forgiveness. Nothing remains an instant, to obscure the sinlessness that shines unchanged, beyond the pitiful attempts of specialness to put it out of mind, where it MUST be, and light the BODY up INSTEAD of it."

You can only perceive bodies if you believe in sin. You can only see bodies if you are Unforgiving. You can only see bodies/the forgiven world if you are NOT fully forgiving! Because a forgiven world cannot last and sinlessness is not OF the forgiven world, it's of the real world. Holy Spirit totally overlooks Earth and bodies and the forgiven world and fixates on the real world, temporarily through perception OF the real world and simultaneously IN the real world (heaven).

The Holy Spirit offers a happy dream to replace the nightmare dream that you made. It does not replace the world you made, it reinterprets it, OVERLOOKS it, and looks toward Heaven. The world you made as opposite to Heaven is hell, this planet, this universe. Spacetime. It is opposite to Heaven in every way. Holy Spirit allows you to forgive it and overlook it and forget it. This does not mean looking AT IT and LOVING IT. IT means learning TO SEE, by NOT SEEING THE WORLD - not allowing "perception of form" to BLOCK YOUR SIGHT. To look away from dark dreams of hell towards the light and eventually beyond it entirely. The real world is BEYOND the forgiven world. Christ Vision is like x-ray vision.

"You will first DREAM of peace (forgiven world/perception of real world), and THEN awaken to it (in Heaven/THE real world). Your first exchange of what you made for what you want, is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love (false perception vs true perception). In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams (earth + symbol of real world) where ALL perception is."

"And the real world is but your welcome of what always was (perception of heaven gets you ready to wake up TO heaven). Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening (being IN heaven) to what you have NOT lost. "

"The world you made" and "The world you see" are this planet and the surrounding environment. All of spacetime. You are not supposed to hold it dear or value it or want to keep it. *****SIGHT OF IT, IS COSTING YOU*****. "This world you see (earth, with body's eyes) MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. ****YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS****. (very key mechanic, one or the other not both) For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER." - you cannot see earth if you see heaven, period. You cannot see even the perception of the real world/face of christ and still see physical objects.

"You do not really want **the world you see** (earth + space), for it has disappointed you since time began. The homes you built (yes physical houses) have never sheltered you. The roads you made (yes physical roads) have led you nowhere, and no city that you built (yes like chicago, new york, london) 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." (get rid of that shit!)

"To be without a body is to be in your natural state."

True perception, perception of the real world (heaven), the face of christ, the happy dream, are all the same. Perception is always within the dream, OF the dream, or as an interpretation of heaven. It can reflect heaven or rather you can shine heaven's light into the dream from heaven and illuminate it and shine it away or overlook it, and see YOUR reflection of your IMAGE of your real self there. Once removed from reality.

"Knowledge is power BECAUSE it is certain, and certainty is strength. Perception is temporary. It is an attribute of the space-time belief, and is therefore subject to fear or love. Misperception produces fear, and true perception produces love. NEITHER produces certainty because all perception varies. That is why it is NOT knowledge. True perception is the BASIS for knowledge, but KNOWING is the affirmation of truth."

Knowing occurs only IN heaven, not through perception.

Notice also there is a huge difference between the REFLECTION of heaven, and ACTUALLY BEING IN heaven.

"Those who have learned to offer ONLY healing, because of the reflection of holiness in them (YOU are the reflection), are ready at last for Heaven. There, ***holiness is not a reflection***, but rather the ***ACTUAL CONDITION*** of what was but reflected TO them here (on earth, BUT IN YOU, Earth does not become holy). God is no **image** (reflection are IMAGES in a dream), and His creations, as part of Him, hold Him in them in truth. They do not merely REFLECT the truth, for THEY ARE truth (ACTUAL holiness). When **no perception** stands between God and His Creation, or between His Children and their own (perception is gone), the knowledge of creation MUST continue forever. The **reflections** that you accept into the mirror of your minds in time (within the dream of spacetime), but bring eternity nearer or farther.

But eternity ITSELF is beyond ALL time (beyond spacetime!) Reach out of time and touch it, with the help of its ***reflection IN you***, and you will turn FROM time to holiness, as surely as the reflection of holiness calls everyone to lay all guilt aside. Reflect the peace of Heaven HERE, and bring this world to Heaven. For the REFLECTION of truth draws everyone TO truth. And as they enter INTO it, they leave ALL reflections behind. In Heaven, reality is SHARED, and not reflected. By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts. And thus, remembrance of His Father dawns on him, and he can no longer be satisfied with anything but his own reality."

PERCEIVING the real world (heaven) is seeing the "face" or "surface of" Christ from the outside. Outside the kingdom essentially. "The world", aka Earth etc, is a block - a literal physical blockage - a wall of sin - the veil - standing before and in the way of sight of heaven. Jesus refers to it as "the granite block of sin" which the body's eyes are totally blinded by and cannot see past. PHYSICAL sin.

"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. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world (earth) forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

So as stated in you cannot see two worlds, once you FULLY perceive with true perception, you become INCAPABLE of seeing the world of bodies. The veil - which houses all the bodies and planets - DISAPPEARS, and now you PERCEIVE Heaven only. This is perception of the real world. What many people think "is the real world". But this reference, this perceived IMAGE of a real world, is a dream. ie "The real world still is but a dream"

The world of bodies, planets, animals, forests, civilizations, galaxies, is a dream world. It becomes the forgiven world. HELL, becomes forgiven. And this "forgiven world" WAS made of the idea of sin and separation and death. And by forgiving it, you are OVERLOOKING it, which causes it to DISAPPEAR. If you forgive hell, it will disappear. If you overlook sin, things MADE OF SIN, will disappear. If you overlook the separation, THE GAP, which contains spacetime, will disappear. And leave no trace in its going.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies. This is its holiness; this is how it heals. The world of bodies is the world of sin (earth is made of sin), for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world (spacetime world) in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. (spacetime ends) Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible (bodies cannot exist in heaven, they rely on spacetime). Forgiveness proves it is impossible (no exceptions) because it sees it not (forgiveness, complete as the atonement, DOES NOT SEE THE WORLD OF BODIES). And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty. This is the shift that true perception brings"

Once the world is forgiven by all beings/souls, the forgiven world will entirely vanish. It is made of darkness. It is the ABSENCE of light. It is the idea of death. "Without the idea of death there is no world." It is opposition to reality. It is denial. It is made of the attempt to claim that light does not exist and darkness exists. When the light comes, light shines away darkness because darkness is not a real "thing". It's merely the illusion of the absence of light/love/God, and being an illusion it vanishes when it is recognized as such. "Illusions recognized must disappear." "The body cannot stay without illusions."

"They live in secrecy, hating the sunlight, and happy in the body's darkness, where they can hide, and keep their secrets hidden, along with them."

"And the seeming reality of the darkness makes the idea of light meaningless."

"No darkness abides ANYWHERE in the Kingdom, so your part is only to allow no darkness to abide in your OWN mind." (yes, your OWN mind, as an individual mind, one of many)

"Light does not ATTACK darkness, but it does shine it away."

"The barren sands, the darkness, and the lifelessness are seen only through the body's eyes." (body's eyes cannot see reality ever, and it also cannot perceive the real world!)

"The body is darkness."

The universe, as we know it, the physical, with Earth and other stuff, will disappear in the light. Earth does not translate INTO light, because it an ILLUSION of light's absence. It does not BECOME heaven. Earth is the ILLUSION, that there is an absence of heaven. It's a lack of light, which is impossible. "It is the world you see that is impossible." It's NOT THERE NOW. It's just an illusion, not a real thing. IT doesn't have an "it". When there seems to be darkness it is only because there seems to be a lack of light. There is a huge difference between light's seeming absence, and ACTUAL real darkness. Real darkness does not exist. The world, does not exist. It will simply vanish as an hallucination. There is no world. There is no body. There is no earth in heaven.

"Eternity will shine away the world."

"The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."

THERE WILL NOT BE A SINGLE SHRED OF EARTH KEPT WHEN IT IS SHONE AWAY BY THE LIGHT, just as all darkness VANISHES COMPLETELY when you switch the light on. "Illusions leave NO TRACE in their going."

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

And yes it does say literally, the SUN.... will vanish.

And then... there's being IN heaven.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made (earth) 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 (earth does this) 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."

Yes the physical planet earth, hell, is opposite to Heaven in EVERY WAY. And God would've have to have been SPLIT MINDED In order to make it because he DID create Heaven and heaven is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to Earth's nature and laws. "The laws of this world go against your nature." So he could not have created Earth AS WELL as Heaven. And earth IS NOT Heaven, it's a "sorry outcome".

"He thinks he made a hell opposing Heaven, and believes that he abides in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place he cannot find. " (you think you abide in, live, in reality, on planet earth. It is not reality, it is hell)

You can go beyond this world to the world of light, Heaven, which God created as your true home. Your REAL HOME. The REAL world.

"Put out your hand and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. Angels light the way, so that all darkness vanishes and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in dreams. (talking about PERCEPTION of the real world/forgiven world).

You cannot fail today. There walks with you the Spirit Heaven sent you that you might approach this door some day, and through His aid slip effortlessly past it to the light. Today that day has come. Today God keeps His ancient promise to His holy Son, as does His Son remember his to Him. This is a day of gladness, for we come to the appointed time and place where you will find the goal of all your searching here and all the seeking of the world, which ends together as you pass beyond the door." (into heaven).

"This loveliness is NOT a fantasy (perception OF the real world from outside). It is the real world, bright, and clean, and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here, for everything has BEEN forgiven, and there ARE no fantasies to hide the truth. (forgiven world has disappeared). The bridge between that world (perception of the real world) and this (Jesus talking from INSIDE OF HEAVEN - the REAL world) is SO little, and SO easy to cross, that you could not believe it is the meeting-place of worlds so different (yes, two entirely different worlds, earth and heaven). Yet this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches on this world (earth/forgiven world/perception OF real world) at all (from beyond it). This little step, so small it has escaped your notice, is a stride through time (spacetime) into eternity (heaven), and beyond all ugliness (YES EVERYTHING IN SPACETIME IS UGLY - the forgiven world is ugly), into beauty that will enchant you (the beauty of HEAVEN ITSELF), and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection."

To understand the separation from God, consider the relationship between light and darkness.

At first, light is everywhere in heaven. Then in the separation, the presence of light is resisted by trying not to will that there be light. This "puts the brakes" on creation, as an unwillingness to extend love, and a selfish attempt to retain everything for yourself. This is kind of like a light bulb that does not want to let its light shine because it wants to keep the light for itself.

When the light is shining, all is well. When there is a blockage or a denial of the light, the light SEEMS to dim. And now a seeming shadow or darkness forms. The shadow appears darker, as though there is less light there. As if light has gone away.

If you look carefully, you may notice that the shadow totally DEPENDS on the light being blocked. When the light is not blocked, there is no shadow. When the block appears, the shadow appears. And the shadow has no say in this.

On the one hand, a discerning mind should recognize that the shadow itself doesn't really have ability to assert its own existence. It can't decide to stay on its own. It can't resist the light. Nor can it cause light to go away.

Really, the darkness isn't ACTUALLY darkness. It's the absence of light. These are not the same thing. Light being absent, and darkness being "present" are different. If darkness is truly present, then darkness actually removes light as light's equal and causes light to go away, or can resist it.

In the separation, all that we really did was block the light. We blocked it with blocks to awareness, which are forms of denial, unwillingness and resistance. By being unwilling to will with God, we were unwilling to extend light. These are attempts to stop light from shining, to hold back the extension of love, and to INDUCE darkness.

Having done this, it seems like we go into a darkened state of mind. What we're going into is the appearance of a "lack of light" or "absence of light". We don't actually go into an "actual" darkness. There is in fact no such thing as an actual darkness. Similarly to how there isn't really evil or hell.

"Just because "nature abhors a vacuum," which is true enough, it does NOT follow that "a vacuum is filled with hellfire."

"Those who have not yet "changed their minds" have entered the "hellfire" concept into it."

The sane recognition that darkness is only the seeming absence of light, produced by a blockage, cast as a shadow, is what it means to recognize that this blockage is just a MISTAKE or error. There is no real darkness there at all, ONLY an illusion that makes it appear light is absent.

When you fail to recognize that the blockage is just an illusion, you start to believe that the darkness is, itself, a "positive creation", something which can cause light to go away, some kind of "actual real evil".

This is also the difference between mistakes/errors and sins. A mistake is recognized as simply a "lack of light", whereas when the appearance of light lacking is given artificial attributes of reality, it is considered to be "real darkness."

We lend it the darkness reality, truth, power, causation, will, a mind of its own, etc... and now what is really only the ILLUSION of light being absent, is now interpreted as the PRESENCE of active living darkness. And now we believe that this darkness has the power TO HIDE something, to actually blot it out.

This is the insane egoic belief that darkness has power over the light, and can cause light to go away. That darkness shines away light. It is the belief in evil and in sin and of having POWER OVER GOD. It is the authority problem and is level confusion. It is the belief that separation is real, and that guilt is true. And it is also fear. And believing that darkness can hide stuff induces fear that something evil IS hiding in the dark, which you cannot see.

"Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacy that darkness can hide."

"It is only in darkness and in ignorance that you perceive the frightening, and you shrink away from it to further darkness. And yet, it is only the hidden that CAN terrify, NOT for what it IS, but FOR its hiddenness."

By believing that what actually is only an ILLUSION OF light's absence, is actually the PRESENCE OF a "real darkness", is the entire ego thought system. It is the belief that sin is real and death is happening and impossible suffering can occur and that hell is evil and real. That the boogie man is hiding in the dark shadows. It's the stuff of nightmares.

When we denied the light of heaven, we pushed our mind into a darkened state. A state of the appearance of the lack of love and light and life. This was only really a state of the ILLUSION that light CAN be absent.

It's an illusion because light is actually permanent and can never be destroyed, and so DENIAL is the belief that it's not there, even though it is. Believing that light is not present, when it is, must mean that you believe something is true which is not. This is an ILLUSION. There is deception and temptation because something impossible seems possible.

This means also that so long as there is a state where light seems absent at all, there IS illusion. The state of light's absence is ITSELF an illusion, because it's not true that light can really be absent anywhere. So when it APPEARS that light is not present, in any way, this can't be TRUE, but it SEEMS true to insane minds.

The really big thing is this. WE MADE A WORLD OUT OF THIS DARKNESS - WITHIN the illusion of the lack of light. It is in fact THE lack of light. Another term for a lack or light or love, in ACIM, is error. The seeming lack of light appears to be an erroneous world.

"For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it."

Then, if this erroneous world is believed to be REAL, it is converted from the ILLUSION of light's absence, to the belief that it is REAL DARKNESS. That this world is in fact, the PRESENCE of a world. That there really is a world there, alive and willfull and with mind and power and causation. A world which has OVERTHROWN the Kingdom. This belief is a misperception of the illusion of the lack of light, and nothing more.

What this means is, the world we made, which includes the planet Earth, originally was simply the illusion of light seeming to be lacking. It WAS the 'absence'. It was a mis-creation, or a sort of failed creation. A limited expression, infused with unwillingness and denial. It was made in the thought of the denial of God, and as an attack on God. An attack on light, if interpreted as "actual darkness".

Then as we moved further into believing in it, we invested this illusion of light's absence with the qualities of God, such as reality and truth and power and life and will and causation. And now what merely was **IN TRUTH** an ILLUSORY WORLD, in the shape of the ABSENCE of light, was converted by our belief in it as "REAL DARKNESS" to a WORLD OF SIN.

"The body is the idea of sin made flesh"

What this means is, a world which is in fact ONLY an illusion of light's absence, and exists ONLY so long as the light REMAINS blocked, NOT made of light, was invested with greater belief in order to ASSERT that it is in fact a REAL DARK PLACE - a real living hell.

The physical world is this world, a world made of shadows cast from blockages in the mind, invested with belief and given reality, to try to convince ourselves that hell exists instead of heaven. This is the world of bodies and of forms and planets and other objects. And this world exists ONLY WITHIN our false perception. ONLY IN THE LACK OF LIGHT.

"The world is false perception."

"The world of bodies is the world of sin. For only if there were a body is sin possible."

"From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it. And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true."

Note that another word for sin is insanity. "Sin is insanity." Which means that investing darkness with the belief that it is reality, is insane. This is because darkness is NOT the presence of evil, or of ANYTHING. Nor is it s REAL darkness. Just as planet Earth is not really hell. But believing that the earth is real, IS a belief in sin, and DOES cause you to experience the Earth as though it is a REAL hell.

What we're now describing here is false perception, which really is the false BELIEF that an illusory world made of darkness is reality. It is the kind of perception which takes the physical world to be real and true and valid. It is a deceptive perception, in which something which IS an illusion is MIS-PERCEIVED AS a reality. Just as darkness ie lack of light is mis-perceived as the real presence of evil.

The Earth, in its original construction, was born of error, and projected outward, and believed in by insane twisted minds, which both produced it through their denial of light, and reinforced it through their belief in evil. This is why ACIM refers to it as "the hell you made."

"That was the first projection of error outward. The world arose to hide it, and became the screen on which it was projected, and drawn between you and truth."

"Guilt ASKS FOR punishment, and its request is granted. NOT in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin."

"The learning of the world is built upon a concept of the self adjusted to the world's reality. It fits it well. For this an image is that suits a world of shadows and illusions."

The body was also made as part of the illusion of light's absence, masquerading as the PRESENCE of a "real something". But the body is really nothing at all, just as Earth is nothing at all. This is why there is no world and the body is not an actual positive creation. The body and the world DO NOT REALLY EXIST.

The body is given senses designed to reinforce the world of apparent SIN, ie Earth believed to be "real darkness", to give it reality, to make it seem real, and to give it all the meaning it has. This is in order to reinforce the idea that real darkness exists. This was its original evil purpose. This is why we "made it" by NOT creating reality.

"Only the body makes the world seem real."

"Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, 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."

To the ego, creation means taking something that does not exist and trying to give it life, in terms of taking the ILLUSION that light can be absent and reinforcing it to the point where it seems darkness has CAUSED light to disappear.

As such, Earth was made by us to seem to REPLACE the world of light that is Heaven, to blot it out and hide it and destroy it. Indeed to destroy the light of God and his children. "The world was made as an attack on God. A place where God (light) could enter not" etc. It was born from an evil thought - a mad idea.

What then needs to happen, is the UNDOING of all this distortion and lies. This confusion and hallucination and the belief that Earth (darkness) really exists. What we need is forgiveness. We have to re-trace the steps. This means that first of all, we need to recognize (as described) how we got into this mess, and what the mess IS.

The mess is, that we have denied God's light, which has produced the UNTRUE ILLUSION that light is indeed absent, which has taken the shape of A WORLD OF BODIES, and which has then been invested with reality and fear and evil thought to try to GIVE IT immortality and reality. To make it permanently replace heaven. However, this is not possible.

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that"

"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."

What we then need to do is recognize the facts. If we have belief in the world as "real", or existing, or causing, or happening, or being valuable, or having power over the light, or able to kill immortal beings, or capable in any way of enforcing darkness and suffering, then we DO believe that darkness can make light go away. And as such Earth is interpreted as REAL hell.

This is the belief that the world of bodies ***IS NOT an illusion***. Believing it IS NOT an illusion, IS A DENIAL of the FACT that it is. It's an inability to see and recognize that the world is made of light's absence, and CAN ONLY last so long as the light remains absent. It's even more heavily the belief that the world is actually real and has REPLACED the reality of Heaven.

If we believe this in any way, we need to look at this and undo this belief. We need to stop believing that the world IS real. That belief IS FALSE PERCEPTION and is a belief in evil. What we've put ONTO the world, given it is ONLY an illusion of light's absence, is the heaviness of sin and guilt and value and meaning. We've tried to turn an ILLUSION of a world into a reality, to convert "lights absence" into "darkness's presence."

All this projected meaning, the "perceptions about the world", the sin and hate and guilt we throw onto it, the condemnation of it, the false beliefs about it, is all part of our attempt to reinforce the idea that the world IS real and DOES have power over God and his Son. If you believe it REALLY IS sinful, then you are using it to stay in the illusion that darkness really exists. Which also means that to NOT do that, you have to STOP believing the world is real.

So then we set about withdrawing these projections of "real sin", and of reality, and of rebellion, and of attack and harm, and of guilt and fear, which we have put ONTO AN ILLUSION OF A WORLD. We have in fact laid illusions ON TOP OF ILLUSION, in an attempt to DENY that the world IS an illusion, so that we can MAKE IT REAL to us. This is a DOUBLE DENIAL.

"But what you have forgot can be remembered, given willingness to reconsider the decision which is doubly shielded by oblivion."

"It adds illusions to illusions, thus making correction doubly difficult."

When, through forgiveness, we lift away from the world our belief in sin and guilt, we in fact lifting away REALITY from it. We are withdrawing BELIEF in it. We are stripping it of value, and meaning, and all the heavy dark USES of the world to victimize and to attack. We are taking back our FUTILE attempt to PROVE that darkness can destroy the light, that death trumphs over life, and that the Son of God can be killed in the flesh.

Once we stop doing this, the world that we have been "attacking", in an effort to LEND IT reality, in order to keep it, begins to be RECOGNIZED FOR WHAT IT REALLY IS. Since a false perception of the world makes it seem REAL - because false perception is a CONFUSED perception, a true perception of it does THE OPPOSITE. It takes AWAY its reality. It strips it of its causal power. It diminishes it in your sight. And it reduces its value to you. It removes what it is NOT, and reveals what it IS.

At the end of this process, the world which lives in and is made OF the illusion of light's absence, is seen NOT as a world capable of destroying life, or of sinning, or of inducing guilt, or of making life into suffering, but instead it is RECOGNIZED as ONLY AN ILLUSION OF LIGHT'S ABSENCE. In effect, its TRUE nature, is not that it is real, but that it IS NOT REAL.

"Enlightenment is but a recognition and not a change at all."

"LOVE ALWAYS ANSWERS, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made, but do not want. The only effort you need make, to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

Recognizing the world for what it IS - a FALSE appearance of the absence of God, does not mean recognizing that it IS real or true. Recognizing the truth ABOUT the world, does not necessarily imply that the world IS true. Only that we are looking at it WITH truth and seeing it "truly", to find out ***IF*** it is true. Seeing what IS ACTUALLY there. But it is entirely possible that what is ACTUALLY there, IS AN ILLUSION, and NOT a reality.

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

The world in fact ONLY exists as an illusory world. It is like a veil of shadows and darkness. It PRETENDS to be a world - a something. It is really, in truth, THE ABSENCE OF A WORLD. It is the seeming form that shadows take when light is blocked. It is ONLY the interior seeming contents and shifting patterns of the SHADOW cast by light's blockage. And as a result, the dark world is really ONLY an illusion. Believing it is real sin is a SECOND error designed to convert illusions into reality. This is like 3 levels.

1) Heaven/reality (no illusory world, only the world of light).

2) Illusory world regarded as unreal (true perception).

3) Illusory world regarded as real (false perception).

More to the point, the world is in fact, in its "true form", seen clearly and accurately, NOT a world made of "real sin", NOT a world that can cause anything to be threatened, but ONLY a world that IS FICTION. It is smoke and mirrors. It is the illusion that there is no light. It is MADE OF denial. It is the denial of existence, and so it denies ITS OWN existence.

"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."

When the "lack of light", which can at most be an ILLUSION OF a lack of light, since light cannot be really lacking, is recognized for what it IS, it is NOT regarded as a "real" anything. It is not a real world, or a real darkness, or a real sin. Its TRUE nature is that it is an ABSENCE of anything real, and an illusion of LACK.

Like a shadow, the world then CANNOT LAST, IF the blocks to the awareness of light are removed. The world DEPENDS ON this "separation" in order to maintain its seeming existence. If you lift away the dark blockages and the denial, and the light comes in, the darkness IS GONE. This is because darkness can ONLY SEEM to exist PROVIDED light seems to be absent. It is a lack, and not a presence. Forgiving it brings light in, and makes the world GO AWAY.

"A world forgiven cannot last. It was the home of bodies. But forgiveness looks past bodies."

The darkness does not TURN INTO light either. Light shines it AWAY, because darkness is just a sort of fictional label we give to "the part that seems lacking". A name for the lack ITSELF. But lack is not a positive creation, it is more like a "hole" in creation. A seeming place where light was not allowed to enter. A place where God was not allowed to dwell. Where life was denied.

When the light comes, that which is the absence of light and not the presence of darkness, SIMPLY DISAPPEARS. It at first appears to become lighter, because light is beginning to REPLACE it. It seems to be a mixture of darkness and light. It brightens and sparkles and seems fresh and new. Sin is lifted from it, guilt is removed from it, and REALITY IS WITHDRAWN from it.

"If you give no power to the fog to obscure the light, it HAS none, for it has power ONLY because the Son of God gave power TO it. He must HIMSELF withdraw that power, remembering that all power is of God."

BUT, at the same time, the presence of the darkness is decreasing, BECAUSE the light is increasing. The LACK of light is going away. "Miracles supply a lack." As such, anything "made of darkness", or which was really merely the ILLUSION that darkness was present, is now shown to have been really NOT the presence of ANYTHING. Like it was just some dream that passed by. And so the shadow world now simply FADES OUT and vanishes and disappears and is gone forever, leaving NO TRACE. In truth, it WAS NEVER REALLY ANYTHING.

"The old one has left no trace upon it in its passing."

"An unremembered world will leave no trace behind its going, when God's gifts have been accepted as the only thing you want."

"Idols MUST disappear, and leave no trace behind their going."

This is why ACIM teaches that "there is no world." The world, Earth, this planet, this physicality, is NOTHING pretending to be something. It is nothing other than a ILLUSION of a world, made of the LACK OF A WORLD, due to the REJECTION of heaven, masquerading as existence. It is what you end up with, limited and withering and half dead, when you try to BLOCK LIFE. It is a world of DEATH. It is made OF death and HAS no life.

"Without the idea of death, there is no world."

"There IS no life outside of Heaven."

"Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is NOT in Heaven is not ANYWHERE. Outside of Heaven (in the "darkness"), only the conflict of illusions stands (illusion of light being absent); senseless, ***impossible***, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven (interpreting the illusion of the lack of a world AS a SOLID world). Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."

"In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is NOT in Heaven is not ANYWHERE."

"it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere.

There is no world, ie there is no Earth, because at MOST it is comprised of and DEPENDS ON maintaining heaven's ABSENCE. It REJECTS reality. It is not compatible with life. And it has NO REAL PROPERTIES of its own. It is utterly slave to the shadow projection, dependent on the maintenance of blockages, and dwells SOLELY in denial. It cannot exist WHERE there is light.

"Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. "

As the awareness of the light increases, the LACK of light decreases. The illusion that light is not HERE lifts, like a veil. The veil of a "solid world" becomes transparent. Heavy sin and causation and evil are lifted FROM the illusory world, SO THAT it is not believed to be real. And the more light infuses where it seems to be, the LESS it can be seen. The world fade OUT, and heaven fades IN.

Eventually, upon opening up to the FULL experience of the light, the face of Christ appears, "Gone are bodies in the blazing light on the altar to the son of God.", the Earth is literally SHONE AWAY by the light and REPLACED AND UNDONE FOREVER, it literally DISAPPEARS, and its NOTHINGNESS is truly apparent. There then IS no world. There is ONLY light, and "Heaven is all that remains."

"Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so."

"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. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

Earth is the ABSENCE of reality and the ABSENCE of heaven. It remains only so long as heaven is blocked. And once heaven shines, the world is shone away forever. When believing in real sin, earth reflects hell. When NOT believing in real sin, earth is recognized as a meaningless MIRROR in which heaven's LIGHT is temporarily reflected. And then the world VANISHES just as eternity is finally permitted its full expression, and where there was darkness now there is only light, and the world cannot be found.

This is why we are to be THE LIGHT of the world. This is why we are to see the REFLECTION of heaven's light ACROSS the CHAOS of the illusion of light's absence. And this is why ultimately the light itself will shine the world away completely.

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

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