"The ego is the idea of selfishness."

At the very foundation of the entire ego thought system is the idea of selfishness. But more accurately, it is the idea of not sharing. It's an idea of being exclusive, the ownership of something which is considered "yours alone", and inaccessible to others.

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

God's Kingdom was set up so that everyone has everything. And this goes way beyond the kind of sharing that you experience on a physical level. In Heaven, every being has literally 100% of everything. Everyone has full access, simultaneously, to the totality of all that exists. Even your SELF is shared with everyone, as are all your creations.

This is oneness. And just because one person has full access to everything it does not shut out access to anyone else, there is no limitation, no compromise, no partitioning, no need to only access part of everything, and there is no private ownership. In reality is it possible for everyone to have everything always. You ARE everything always.

The entire idea of the ego is the idea of not sharing in this way. It's the idea of exclusivity. It's an attempt to own some portion of reality that you can call "yours alone", protected and fenced off by some kind of wall (such as the body), so that not only is your prized possession kept isolated inside the walls (such as within the body), but everyone else is also kept outside the walls (such as outside the body).

The desire not to share, is the entire basis of the separation. The ego is built on it. And this means that any attempt to have something for yourself that you want others NOT to have, or anything which is true of you and not true of them, or any sense of inequality of any kind, produces egotism. And this egotism is essentially SELFISHNESS.

The result of this selfishness is that you experience yourself as being fenced into a prison, ie the body. You see yourself as though everything which is "yours" is inside the prison. And everything outside the prison is not yours. In turn, you see that you are the only one allowed access to what is inside the prison walls, meaning that you experience yourself as being entirely alone within its confines.

This leads to the perception of yourself as though you are inside a body, you are the only one inside the body, the body is your private property, no other mind shares your body with you, you are alone and lonely and trapped inside of it, and the body's walls defend your hoard from the rest of the sonship.

This is how most people experience their sense of identity. That they are a single isolated "separated self", living within prison walls, everyone else is "outside" the walls, and nothing is shared across this boundary. The body acts then as a separation device, keeping them out and keeping you in, so that what is yours within is yours alone and your private possession.

"The body is clearly a device for separation"

From here, of course, upon seeing oneself as special, with a deeply rooted selfishness, a desire to be given special favor by God, and seeing oneself as excluded (separated) from sharing the Kingdom (exiled), so-called "relationships" with others take on the form of what we call special relationships. Basically this means that relating to others is always tainted with elements of selfishness, elements of exclusivity, elements of ownership or possession, and attempts to control and manipulate.

You see, a selfish self, ie a self that is "being selfish", has to believe that something is owned by others that it does not have access to. By cutting itself off from sharing it is able to believe in something privately hoarded and exclusive to it, but to do this it MUST also believe that others own something that it is excluded from. So now others are seen as hoarding privately hidden secret "stuff" that the selfish self wants and is jealous of, and so begins the attempts to wrestle it from others through what ultimately becomes attempted control and murder.

This is outlined in the "laws of chaos". Having seen yourself as an excluded, exclusive self, whose value is special and whose importance and truth is unequal to others, you believe other people also have something "special" locked up inside their bodies. And now you will seek to enter into relationship of some manner with them, to try to steal from the inside of their body the secret treasure that you believe should be yours.

So long as you lack what they have, you will feel an emptiness and a compulsion to steal it from them - a sense of "need" or neediness, in which you will make demands of them and place conditions on the relationship. This of course leads to conditional love and various forms of bargaining and betrayal. It can even become violent and lethal if it is strongly perceived that the other has what you significantly lack, is therefore guilty of stealing it from you, that you are justified in any action to retrieve it, and being denied it is a slap in the face that compels revenge.

All elements of this special way of relating stem from the foundation of the whole system of thinking. It all starts with this deeply rooted sense of selfishness, leading to isolation, leading to specialness and special relationships, and ultimately death.

The fundamental ONLY problem therefore is the unwillingness to share. The unwillingness to be equal. The consideration of one's own selfish made-up needs above and beyond the freedom and wishes of others. As you become presented with your own selfishness staring you in the face, you will learn to move past it and to start considering what other people want, on their terms, per their own choice, regardless of any "special interests" that you have. Once their interests become untainted by your selfishness, your interests become shared.

I should comment briefly that being "not selfish" does not in any way mean having no self, nor does it mean self sacrifice, or putting others first and you last, or any other form of inequality. It does not mean getting rid of your identity or individuality. All it means is changing your attitude, so that you are now SHARING EQUALLY with everyone, rather than isolating, excluding, or seeing to "get" something of special value "just for yourself".

"You cannot enter into real relationship with any of God's Sons unless you are willing to love them all AND equally."

Essentially our entire journey to undo the ego is simply to undo our selfishness. We have to look at this. We may be far more selfish than we want to admit to, or in ways that we had not realized. We may be more controlling than we'd like to admit. We may be claiming to put the interests of others first while secretly having needs or wants that depend on others fulfilling us in order for us to be satisfied.

To be not selfish might be what some (with ego thinking) would call the opposite - selflessness - but this can be misleading. We are not aiming here to have no self. We are aiming to SHARE, which some would refer to as joining in holy relationship. To truly think of others interests is to acknowledge that you have no needs that are interfering with being of service to them.

It means allowing and letting go and giving up controlling them. It means seeing them free from the tyranny of your control, dominance, interference, manipulation, selfish neediness, inferiority, superiority, judgement and specialness. The relinquishment of specialness is the relinquishment of selfishness.

This actually restores you to the fullness of your self, because by sharing everything you also share in all of yourself, and share all of yourself with others. You literally tried to steal yourself from God and keep it hidden. We have to open back up to allow God in and to let ourselves be visible and accessible to others, sharing fully with them and extending love with them. This is essentially a reunion with your own soul, in which all God's children share.

"The soul is the idea of self fulness."

It can be very important for your life to totally fail sometimes. It's good for the ego to totally fuck up.

It is important that you come to realize that what you've been trying to do DOES NOT WORK.

You will initially feel like this is absolutely the worst case scenario, where everything is falling apart and going to shit, and nothing is working how it's supposed to.

BUT...

This is very important.

It means you will come face to face with the fact that your ego method of dealing with things is completely flawed. And, there is an extremely powerful (yet painful) potential in that.

Only when you can fully ADMIT to yourself that your ego behavior is flawed - such as an attitude of trying to fix and save everyone - believing you are the source of everything - thinking you have authority and control over your life - believing you are in charge of your existence - when these FAIL you STOP BELIEVING that these approaches work.

You surrender them. Possibly on your knees. In tears.

And it seems right then that you are absolutely at your worst, BUT, you are mere millimeters away from something truly marvelous.

Because, when you DROP the ego tools that you have come to realize do not work, you surrender trying to do this all yourself, you withdraw all of your conviction and value and faith from these broken lifestyles, and this puts you in a position for SOMETHING ELSE.

And guess what... that something else is then ready to come flooding in. If you've seen clearly that trying to fix everyone is fundamentally totally flawed because it just makes the situation WORSE, then.... naturally... the opposite must be true. Stopping fixing must HELP.

But it's more than this. Ultimately it means, you are coming face to face with your authority problem over God, the power you think you have over your life, and you are FORCED to surrender it.

You think this is terrible, like your life is destroyed. But then you realize... wait a minute.... there is another option open to me. What if I let God be the authority? Wait a minute.. what if God has the power I've been trying to have and I can share it with Him? Wait a minute... what if I can actually be happy if I stop trying to do this myself and I instead align with His will? .... all these popcorn insights start to fire off as you suddenly realize that your ego strategy was actually a CLOSED DOOR which was shutting out the EASE of being with God, making your life difficult and driving you nuts.

So now you rip the door off its hinges, the light floods in, you suddenly realize THERE IS A BETTER WAY, and hey presto, suddenly you find real relief and your will has become aligned with God's will. And now you can actually enjoy the journey of returning to God and heading in the direction of union with God, rather than always trying to run the other way. Yay!

So your life fails... its a blessing in disguise. Looks awful, feels crap, you don't want it, but you don't realize what it's leading to. It NEEDS to fail, so you can be set free.

"Adam's "sin" could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in that belief that knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him that COULD believe it."

This statement suggests that in fact someone named "Adam", in heaven, was the first to come up with the tiny mad idea. Notice that it says that ADAMS SIN could have touched NONE of you, ie no other brother besides this one individual. And that this one individual seemed to be the first who left paradise. And it was only our own belief in the same idea that made us join him. So we can seemingly attribute the invention of the tiny mad idea to Adam, just as is similarly written in the bible in relation to Adam eating of the tree of the knowledge of life and death etc. Adam was the first to enter the "original sin".

Even though the bible's account of this story may be slightly too literal and augmented, nevertheless ACIM does seem to indicate there was a "garden of eden" (heaven), there was a kind of misuse of knowledge leading to the realm of fragmentation and hierarchies of illusion (tree with branches and leaves), the symbol of eating of its fruit (temptation to believe the mad idea), temptation by the serpent/devil (ego belief etc), expulsion from heaven (the son left God and blamed it on God abandoning him even though he did it to himself), the "fall of man" (the separation) etc. It's all there in the course. It was just somewhat mis-described in the bible, but based on the same facts.

"The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not originally an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-Separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing. The Tree of Knowledge, again an overly-literal concept, (as is clearly shown by the subsequent reference to "eating of the fruit of the tree") is a symbolic reference to some of the misuses of knowledge referred to in the section immediately preceding this one. "

"This section is inserted here because it deals with a more fundamental misuse of knowledge, referred to in the Bible as the cause of the Fall (or Separation)."

"We have discussed the fall or Separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is PERFECTLY real in time, though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer.""Until the Separation, which is a better term than the Fall, nothing was lacking. This meant that man had no needs at all. If he had not deprived himself, he would never have experienced them. "

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception. "

God already sees you as forgiven.

First you start by thinking that you need to forgive others. That's not true, because everything you think is about them is really about you. Taking back your projections undoes this error.

Secondly you think that you need to forgive yourself, because it's all about you. But this still relies on the belief that you really sinned. Undoing the belief that you're a sinner leads you to a third insight.

You cannot forgive yourself, really, because you have not really done anything that needs to be forgiven. For you to be forgiven means you must now open up to a forgiveness which comes from God, to accept the Atonement. That you are forgiven because you DID NOT do anything wrong.

That means that God already recognizes that you did not really sin at all and nothing happened. That's not so much something you can do to yourself, as it is simply something you must allow to be true and accept.

At first that seems to be true beyond yourself, because it is God's truth, but gradually the two will become one.

So really you cannot forgive others, and you cannot forgive yourself, and you don't need to. What you ultimately need to do is to accept the Atonement. In the atonement, it is a state of pure forgiveness, which sees that there is nothing to forgive and there are no real sins.

Once you get your mind into that perspective, that everything you THOUGHT you did that needed forgiving has actually NOT HAPPENED, then it's merely a matter of ACCEPTING that you are ALREADY forgiven. Haha!

Therefore it is true that at NO TIME EVER is there a real call for forgiveness or a need to be forgiven, because God has never believed that you are capable of real sin, because there is no real sin. You are forever innocent.

Then you can enjoy the relief, celebration and joy of recognizing that God loves you, you are worthy, you are innocent, you are free, and then you can allow Holy Spirit to undo ALL of the consequences, effects, symptoms and manifestations of your faulty belief.

If you truly BELIEVE fully and strongly that you are forgiven because you have not sinned, and that therefore you cannot be sick and have no need for defenses against the truth, you WILL act to cause all signs and symptoms and "effects" of your wrong decision to be undone, and you WILL demonstrate miracles to reflect and prove that the Atonement is your truth.

True healing is the recognition you have never been sick (sickness is not real).

True forgiveness is the recognition there is nothing to forgive (all is forgiven).

All of the other "steps" in your forgiveness process - the withdrawal of projection onto others, the taking responsibility for having been the one who did this, etc are just stepping stones leading up to the truth. The truth that you are FORGIVEN ALREADY, and that you just need to accept this is the truth about you.

Ultimately then forgiveness is not needed and does not "happen". All of the process of "undoing" is just a preparation of your mind, a purification, allowing you to see and accept that. You can call it a forgiveness or "applying forgiveness" if you want to. But really it is preparation for accessing the truth that you are FORGIVEN and God loves you, and He never stopped.

As the miracle principle says, "miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first". This purification is the preparation for accepting the atonement, which entails great honesty and willingness. When this purification is accomplished, THEN you can access "forgiveness", which is a single unified state of VISION In which you see only that there is nothing to forgive. Then you are miracle minded and the miracles will flow to demonstrate your TRUST that God's truth is true.

All is forgiven!

"T-18.IX.3. From the WORLD OF BODIES, MADE BY INSANITY, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind that made it. 2 And these messages bear witness to this world, pronouncing it as true. 3 For YOU sent forth these messengers to bring this back to you. 4 Everything these messages relay to you is quite external. 5 There are no messages that speak of what lies underneath, for it is not the body that could speak of this. 6 Its eyes perceive it not; its senses remain quite unaware of it; its tongue cannot relay its messages."

"The world *IS* the DELUSIONAL THOUGHT SYSTEM of those DRIVEN MAD by guilt."

T-14.I.2."THIS IS AN INSANE WORLD, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity. 7 There is no area of your perception that it has not touched, and YOUR DREAM is sacred to you. 8 That is why God placed the Holy Spirit in you, where you placed the dream."

"W-pI.139.7. Nothing the world believes is true. 2 It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are. 3 And they will come again UNTIL the time Atonement is accepted, and they learn it is impossible to doubt yourself, and not to be aware of what you are."

W-pI.53.1. "WHAT IS PRODUCING THIS WORLD IS INSANE, and so is what it produces. 4 Reality is not insane"

W-pI.135.2. "A sense of threat is an acknowledgment of an inherent weakness; a belief that there is danger which has power to call on you to make appropriate defense. 3 THE WORLD IS BASED ON THIS INSANE BELIEF. 4 And all its structures, all its thoughts and doubts, its penalties and heavy armaments, its legal definitions and its codes, its ethics and its leaders and its gods, all serve but to preserve its sense of threat. 5 For no one walks the world in armature but must have terror striking at his heart."

"W-pII.3.2. The world was MADE AS AN ATTACK on God. 2 It symbolizes fear. 3 And what is fear except love's absence? 4 Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. 5 Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. 6 But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely. 7 Now mistakes become quite possible, for certainty has gone."

"W-pI.49.4. Listen in deep silence. 2 Be very still and open your mind. 3 Go past all the raucous shrieks and SICK IMAGININGS that cover your real thoughts and obscure your eternal link with God. 4 Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF THIS INSANE WORLD. 5 ***You do not live here***. 6 We are trying to reach YOUR REAL HOME. 7 We are trying to reach the **PLACE** where you are truly welcome. 8 We are trying to reach God."

"T-18.I.8. Let them all go, dancing in the wind, dipping and turning till they disappear from sight, far, far outside of you. 2 And turn you to the stately calm within, where in holy stillness dwells the living God you never left, and Who never left you. 3 The Holy Spirit takes you gently by the hand, and retraces with you your MAD JOURNEY outside yourself, leading you gently back to the truth and safety within. 4 He brings all your INSANE PROJECTIONS and the WILD SUBSTITUTIONS that you have placed OUTSIDE YOU to the truth. 5 Thus He reverses the course of INSANITY and restores you to reason."

To be aware of dreaming, is to be aware that this entire world, all bodies, this whole seeming universe, space and time, it is all a dream.

But this awareness also includes the important awareness that only the Kingdom of God - which is not of this world - is real and true.

This sounds like a simple distinction but awareness of dreaming can only FULLY arise when we are 100% clear that this world IS NOT reality, and that God's kingdom IS. It is the awareness that only the truth is true and nothing else is true. Anything not of God is unreal.

This awareness of dreaming also entails the full appreciation of the fact that this world DOES NOTHING at all to the Kingdom of God. Bodies coming and going has no effect. Death does nothing. Sickness doesn't change anything. Not one single thing in this world has the slightest influence on God's creation.

And this also entails a recognition therefore that YOUR IDENTITY, is fully aligned with and aware of being "as God created you", as a perfect innocent soul in heaven. In which you have fully released all traces of EGO, and all sense of body-identification, and all belief that the bodies in this world are people.

Everything your eyes behold here must be recognised as A DREAM, and thus is unreal. A false dream, a fiction, an empty world, a nothingness. Something you are just dreaming in a state of seeming sleep, with absolutely NO CAUSAL POWER, and no consequence upon anything in the reality of the waking Kingdom of God.

Nothing you see here means anything. Nothing in the world can bring oppression. Nothing can make you suffer or be sick or die. You are immortal and eternal. The entire world is fake and unreal. Nothing that happens in the world or that has ever seemed to happen has any real meaning or value whatsoever. You are safe in God, at home in God, dreaming of exile.

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams, once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see. They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeing and yet surely theirs." UrM13A6

"The body is the central figure in the dreaming of the world. There IS no dream without it, nor does it exist without the dream, in which it acts as if it were a person, to be seen and be believed." UrT27I1

"The dreaming of the world takes many forms, because the body seeks in many ways to PROVE it is autonomous and real." UrT27I2

"No-one asleep and dreaming in the world remembers his attack upon himself. No-one believes there really was a time when he knew nothing of a body, and could never have conceived this world as real." UrT27I5

"For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes." UrT27I10

"Forgiving dreams are means to step aside from dreaming of a world OUTSIDE yourself. And leading finally beyond ALL dreams, unto the peace of everlasting life." UrT27F9

The world out there, or in which your body-self is located, is a dream. It does not exist. You are dreaming it. It is no different to dreams at night. It is entire symbolic and filled with symbols. To awaken must mean the dream comes to an end. This means the world must disappear completely.

"Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all." (--the physical world is just a dream you're having. You did not wake up this morning!)

"You are the dreamer of the world of dreams." (--see, you're dreaming the entire world)

"Love was never in the world of dreams." (--there is no love inside the dream of death, even if you see it with love - love is incompatible with dreams and would end them)

"They are dreams because they are not true. Their equal lack of truth becomes the basis for the miracle, which means that you have understood that dreams are dreams." (--recognizing the world is a dream is the key to awakening from it)

"Dreams disappear when light has come and you can see." (--dreams disappear when you awaken to the light of truth. In truth dreams do not exist and do not happen. They are unreal. There is no world. You can't be perceiving the world as real and be awake.)

"To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams." (--can you have the peace of God and be inside the dream? No. This means you are still dreaming and are not at peace.)

"Dreams are chaotic because they are governed by your conflicting wishes." (--the split mind has multiple wills conflicting with each other - persona and shadow, and must be chaotic. There is no perfect dream or perfect world)

"The miracle does not select some dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence." (--miracles are applied to the dream world to undo it!)

"Let forgiveness be the substitute for fear. This is the only rule for happy dreams." (--dreams can become happIER, but when the happiest possible dream is perceived, its usefulness is done and it will disappear and dreaming will end)

"Give all your dreams to Christ and let Him be your Guide to healing, leading you in prayer beyond the sorry reaches of the world." (--the world is a sorry place, a dream of death. Beyond it is God's reality, which is not of this world and demonstrates this world does not exist)

"A miracle has come to heal God's Son, and close the door upon his dreams of weakness, opening the way to his salvation and release." (--all dreams (the world, the body) are dreams of weakness - the world is attempted suicide)

"Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams gone. Let truth correct them all." (--you cannot die, it's just a dream of death.)

"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love. Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to share the resurrection of God's Son. And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you." (--enough said - we are to stop dreaming entirely and help others to do the same)

"What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. Yet the Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking up. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. Such a rebirth is impossible as long as you continue to project or miscreate." (--the world is a place of sleep, unconsciousness, and unawareness. Its condition or state cannot continue if the state of awareness increases and there is awakening. The dream must end. The world is over. ONLY heaven is real.)

The world out there, or in which your body-self is located, is a dream. It does not exist. You are dreaming it. It is no different to dreams at night. It is entire symbolic and filled with symbols. To awaken must mean the dream comes to an end. This means the world must disappear completely.

"Your sleeping and your waking dreams have different forms, and that is all." (--the physical world is just a dream you're having)

"You are the dreamer of the world of dreams." (--see, you're dreaming the entire world)

"Love was never in the world of dreams." (--there is no love inside the dream of death, even if you see it with love - love is incompatible with dreams and would end them)

"They are dreams because they are not true. Their equal lack of truth becomes the basis for the miracle, which means that you have understood that dreams are dreams." (--recognizing the world is a dream is the key to awakening from it)

"Dreams disappear when light has come and you can see." (--dreams disappear when you awaken to the light of truth. In truth dreams do not exist and do not happen. They are unreal. There is no world.)

"To mean you want the peace of God is to renounce all dreams." (--can you have the peace of God and be inside the dream? No. This means you are still dreaming and are not at peace.)

"Dreams are chaotic because they are governed by your conflicting wishes." (--the split mind has multiple wills conflicting with each other - persona and shadow, and must be chaotic. There is no perfect dream or perfect world)

"The miracle does not select some dreams to leave untouched by its beneficence." (--miracles are applied to the dream world to undo it!)

"Let forgiveness be the substitute for fear. This is the only rule for happy dreams." (--dreams can become happIER, but when the happiest possible dream is perceived, its usefulness is done and it will disappear and dreaming will end)

"Give all your dreams to Christ and let Him be your Guide to healing, leading you in prayer beyond the sorry reaches of the world." (--the world is a sorry place, a dream of death. Beyond it is God's reality, which is not of this world and demonstrates this world does not exist)

"A miracle has come to heal God's Son, and close the door upon his dreams of weakness, opening the way to his salvation and release." (--all dreams (the world, the body) are dreams of weakness - the world is attempted suicide)

"Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams gone. Let truth correct them all." (--you cannot die, it's just a dream of death.)

"There is no death because the Son of God is like his Father. Nothing you can do can change Eternal Love. Forget your dreams of sin and guilt, and come with me instead to share the resurrection of God's Son. And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you." (--enough said - we are to stop dreaming entirely and help others to do the same)

"What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. Yet the Bible says that a deep sleep fell upon Adam, and nowhere is there reference to his waking up. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. Such a rebirth is impossible as long as you continue to project or miscreate." (--the world is a place of sleep, unconsciousness, and unawareness. Its condition or state cannot continue if the state of awareness increases and there is awakening. The dream must end. The world is over. ONLY heaven is real.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The ego's experience of someone dying is horrible. Ego thinks in transactional, finite terms. As if relationship is some commodity amount that you give and lose, and then you lack, and then you need the other to give it back by losing. This is the sacrifice of specialness.

This is the opposite of the golden rule, where the ego says giving and receiving are not one. That what you give you do not give to yourself. And therefore giving is loss. It sees someone's death in rather physical terms, meaning that the form has gone and therefore there has been a one-sided loss, and now they are not giving you what you gave. The thing that was supposed to give you back, albeit separately, has stopped giving, and so you now are in a state of lack because you depended on them.

From this viewpoint the only thing you can feel is loss, which feels horrendous. It's like saying, the person is dead and thats a true fact and there's nothing you can do about it, so you might as well just be in total despair forever. But this ego perception is rooted in victimhood, ingratitude, not recognising, not appreciating, seeing oneself as deprived, unfairly treated, taken from, stolen from, and diminished. And then the ego cries. A lot.

It can reason that there is no other way, and it will have no insight into the opposite of loss, which is gain. But the Holy Spirit gives another view entirely, a totally opposite view in fact. Because as far as He's concerned, there is no loss possible in the golden rule of God. What is given is received by both. What is given is given to yourself forever. There is no room for loss at all, and there is only gain.

The way forgiveness looks at death, it regards it as a gift and a blessing, rather than a curse. It sees that the event has simply purely given to you, by which you have purely gained. You have not been deprived at all, you have only increased. A great gift has been given, and you have received it, and by recognising that you have received it you can enter into justified gratitude. And this is how gratitude becomes part of forgiveness - the recognition of the truth that there is only gain and increase under God's laws.

Gratitude is the total opposite of loss. It acknowledges that you have not lost, that nothing is missing, and that in fact you have received so much that you are overwhelmed with how much you have been given, so much that not a single trace of loss remains. And how can you then feel loss in such a perspective of having been utterly blessed? Loss is literally a lack of gratitude, an unwillingness to receive, and a denial of God's blessing.

Of course, recognising this requires dismantling the ego's interpretation of death, which sees nothing except loss and no gain at all. It sees the situation as utterly hopeless and futile, with no possibility of finding any gain in it at all, dwelling entirely on what seems to be absent, what has been stolen away, and what is no longer there. As if loss is real and permanent and total. And this is the idea of "real death".

But of course this depends on form, because the ego only really registers form "as" content, and does not recognise content at all. If a physical body is gone, yes form is gone, but the love that was in and through the body is not gone. In fact it has been given in a blessing through the person's body to you, and you have received it, and now you are it, and you extend it, and it is alive in you, continuing to be given. And that is because miracles mean endless giving - they continually extend love.

To the ego there is no benefit to you that someone has gone away. It sees only the horrifying and seemingly real deprivation, the taking away of the specialness that you loved, the exclusive source that you thought was the love itself. It sees only a dark and deceitful treachery, that has ripped its beloved treasure away and utterly destroyed it beyond all hope of recovery. And it's never coming back - a stark and horrible fact. Such is the proof of sin and death and dissolution. Then it holds this up as the only reality and truth, as if there is nothing else to it. A total fact. And within this truth, you must simply feel like absolute shit because your whole world has been destroyed forever.

But the ego is utterly blind to the truth, it has no acknowledgement of roles played, of higher purposes, of the way that someone gave transcendent of form, that what was given is still with you and still giving, that loss is impossible, and in a forgiving view you can only possibly be blessed by everything. To forgive is to truly recognise that the world is not doing anything to you, death has no power over you, and therefore it cannot cause something to be taken from you. You cannot lose, you can only win. And if you cannot lose, you must be only gaining. You must be purely receiving, and to receive unconditionally with no strings attached is love. Upon receiving such unending love the only logic response in the mind is gratitude. And gratitude is also a part of giving.

It's similar to what happens when you at first seem to be a victim of someone, and you hate them and fight with them and they seem to deprive and hurt you. But then later you forgive, and you come to realise you hired them, and they played a role that you needed for your spiritual growth, and you gained tremendously from your enemies even if they seemed to be the very people you did not want to be around. You benefited. And then as your perspective grows, you come to more fully understand who did what and why, how you consented, how you used it, and what you did to yourself. And out of that comes a recognition of the innocence of the other and yourself, and the realisation that you have only happily gained from the encounter - that it is not a loss or an attack at all. And then you can be grateful to them for helping you to learn this lesson - to move you closer to God.

Another aspect of this is that if you believe someone else has become lost to you, or that love is lost, then by the golden rule you will also believe that you are lost. And then you will become lost as well, lost in despair and grieving and feelings of loss and hopelessness. And that is because you believe it's true that some other person can be completely lost, and if thats true of them it's true of you. This is why when the loss seems to happen, you feel like you have lost part of yourself. As if it was you that died. And then you stop living. But this is the ego's reasoning as well, because nothing real can die or be lost, and certainly nothing is missing from heaven.

The antidote to loss then is the broader and deeper perspective that you have not lost anything, and have in fact only gained. When you can see that you have only gained, then your response can only be gratitude, because you have been truly blessed and given everything. You've been given freedom and life and opportunity and a future. You've been given room to grow and learn and enjoy further relationships. This isn't a fake positivity either. It's not about just trying to put on a brave face and act as if things are great in denial of loss and feelings. It's a total uprooting of the belief in loss, which is really a lack of recognition. When lessons - and death is a lesson - is correctly perceived, it is recognised as being entirely beneficial. Something that happens only for your highest good.

This also leads into why the Holy Spirit's atonement plan is solely functioning for your highest good, and everything he arranges for you to go through - which you consent to - is leading you to eternal life. If you can see it from the perspective of gratitude and blessing, without the egoic interpretation of "its a loss" or "its difficult" or "i've been deprived" etc - which is a denial of the golden rule, then it is recognised as gentle and helpful and only a blessing. If the ego enters into it, it interprets the lessons as cruel and unwanted and a curse. Something that you want to go away and stop, to fear and resist. When you stop resisting you enter acceptance and presence, and then you also find forgiveness and gratitude. God has only given, he has never taken away.

The big picture truth is simply this: everything that happens is leading you home to God. Everything. Even people seeming to die. Only forms and illusions seem to die, anyway. What is true and real and our identity is permanent and eternal. And you literally are those who seem to move on, who must still be you as well. There is no loss in truth, no loss in God, and no loss in you. There is only a complete willingness to receive God's blessing and be fully grateful for it. Really, the only reason we despair is because we think God isn't loving us anymore, and this can only be a lack of recognition of what is actually true, or an unwillingness to see it. Undoing the belief in death as a block to love brings about a revolution into gratitude and happiness.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

"The laws of God work only for your good, and there ARE no other laws beside His."

"A happy outcome to all things is sure."

You are either innocent or guilty. These are the only options. If sin is real, you are guilty, and guilt is real. If sin is not real, you are innocent, and guilt is not real. You can also say that if you are guilty, you must be sinful. And if you are not guilty, you cannot have sinned.

When sin is recognized as an illusion or dream, without giving it any reality or truth, it is nothing. When you start to give it reality and truth it begins to seem like a cause with power, leading to consequences or effects. The effect of sin is guilt. If you did in truth sin, then you should indeed be guilty of having done so. It is simply cause and effect.

But if there is no guilt, there cannot have been sin, and you are in a state of forgiveness. Forgiveness therefore is the recognition that there is no sin, which produces the effect of guilt's absence. Either way, when guilt is absent, sin is cancelled.

If the belief in sin being real is mental illness ie insanity, since "sin is insanity", and given that "the ego" is another name for this insane thought system, then depriving sin of its effects undoes the ego. The insanity goes away when there is no guilt there. Sin without its effects has no causal power or reality or truth, and so insanity is gone.

If you refuse to go into guilt, you are denying that sin is real. If you deprive sin of its consequences, you are working a miracle. A miracle undoes the seeming consequences of sin. Sin, if it were real, is the idea of irreversible permanent truth, mixed with something impossible. Any consequence that comes from sin can be undone by recognizing that sin has no validity.

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

If sin is merely a mistaken idea that's false, and if you give it no truth or reality, then nothing can come from it. Guilt cannot arise, ego cannot manifest, and sickness and suffering cannot happen. Without the presence of the guilt, derived from the premise of real sin, there cannot be any ego or any suffering. In effect, the ego IS the guilt, and the more you reinforce and increase guilt the more you are buying into the insanity.

Without guilt you must be sane. To be without guilt IS sanity because it deprives sin of any reality. To be without sin is forgiveness. You are either guilty or guiltless, unforgiven or forgiven.

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body."

"Release from guilt is the ego's whole undoing."

"The holy spirit knows that all salvation is the escape from guilt."

"Without guilt the ego HAS no life, and God's Son IS without guilt."

"WITHOUT guilt, attack is impossible."

"Without guilt there is no scarcity."

"When you have accepted the Atonement for yourselves, you will realize that THERE IS NO GUILT IN GOD'S SON."

"Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed."

"Where can guilt be, when the belief in sin is gone? And where is death, when its great advocate is heard no more?" "As long as you believe the Son of God is guilty, you will walk along this carpet, believing that it leads to death." "For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins."

"From the ego came sin and guilt and death, in OPPOSITION to life and innocence, and to the Will of God Himself." "Wish not to make yourself a living symbol of his guilt, for you will NOT escape the death you make for him, and in HIS innocence you find your own."

"The light of guiltlessness shines guilt away because, when they are BROUGHT TOGETHER, the truth of one MUST make the falsity of its OPPOSITE perfectly clear."

"The veil across the Face of Christ, the fear of God and of salvation, and the love of guilt and death, - they all are different names for just ONE error; that there is a space between you and your brother, kept apart by an illusion of yourself which holds him off from you, and you away from him."

I'm seeing that a lot of people literally do not know how to be a certain way. We're all sort of hardwired into our personalities and they have a number of limitations. Where one personality trait seems like a plus, it always has a flipside. Every pro has a con. Every talent has a curse behind it.

This is how everything is in spacetime. In order for any form or illusion to have any properties at all, it has to lack some other properties. A little bulge over here results in a lack of something over there. Something that sticks out means there's less of something. A 'commitment' to one thing produces a movement away from its opposite.

This seems to be true of the body and the personality at this level. We each sort of have a random set of character traits, a real mixed bag, like we reached into the lucky dip and pulled out the first 5 things in a weird combination. And that means we didn't get this trait or that trait or that special trait. So now we're stuck with being a jumbled up collection of parts and pieces.

I for example am wired to be very sensitive which results in a lot of empathy and acute awareness of feelings and so on. But that means I'm not very comfortable being bombarded with a lot of stimuli in a social setting, so socialising is quite awkward and like a minefield. I can't go deep AND broad at the same time. I don't do "smalltalk" well at all.

Then you have someone who is a social butterfly, extroverted and adept at being the life of the party. They can talk 'shallow' with countless people and flit around sampling everything as they go, seemingly confident and outgoing. Yet they also likely lack empathy and depth and don't really get deeply into anything with anyone, afraid to reveal their deeper feelings. Yet on the surface they seem super confident.

I've seen also how there are some people who seem very confident and attractive and have a ton of one-night-stands and are very much single, but have an incredible inability to have a deeper commitment to anyone or a proper relationship. A bias in favour of one thing seems to produce a real disability in another area. Like, we actually can't have our cake and eat it, we have to always be one thing or another.

I used to think there were people who "had it all", and were just somehow "better" than others. ie Better than me, or that I was better than them. But that's not the case at all. Even those who stand out as seeming superstars have a host of issues and blindspots. Being good at one thing usually means being bad at something else. This is just how things work when they're made of separations and illusions of form. Every gain is a loss. There is no "total package" because there is no wholeness here.

I'm finding it at the moment interesting to look at what things I'm good at AND what things I'm not good at. Because if we just focus on thinking that we're 'right' with regard to our pros, we don't have the humility to recognize our shortcomings. Seeing our 'issues' from the outside in comparison to others is quite useful in deconstructing the ego and not buying into the illusion that we're perfect in our imperfection.

Fortunately who we really are is above and beyond all such limitations and biases. If we can recognize the unique configuration of "what we're born with", both the positives and the negatives, we can more easily detach from it and rise above it rather than seeing ourselves as defined by it.

"The surface traits of God's teachers are not at all alike. They do not look alike to the body's eyes, they come from vastly different backgrounds, their experiences of the world vary greatly, and their superficial "personalities" are quite distinct. Nor at the beginning stages of their functioning as teachers of God, have they yet acquired the deeper characteristics that will establish them as what they are. God gives special gifts to His teachers because they have a special role in His plan for Atonement. Their specialness is, of course, only temporary; set in time as a means of leading out of time. These special gifts, born in the holy relationship toward which the teaching-learning situation is geared, become characteristic of all teachers of God who have advanced in their own learning. In this respect they are all alike." UrM5A1

Each thought system starts with a logical premise, which determines everything that comes from it, which are perfectly logical conclusions. This is true of both God’s creation and the EGO’s world, which are logical outcomes.

The separation from God followed NEAT, LOGICAL steps. The thought system of the ego is run by impeccable logic, just as God’s thought system is. The outcome of each system depends entirely on its logical premise. At the CORE of A Course in Miracle’s metaphysics is PURE LOGIC.

If you can understand the logical premise of each system, and if you can follow the progression of logical conclusions based on that premise - which is IMPECCABLE LOGICAL REASONING, you will correctly understand ALL of the metaphysics of the course. Where everything fits. The TRUTH about the entire separation from God, states of awareness, what is true and false, what is real or unreal, who created what, how the systems MUST function etc.

It is all TOTALLY LOGICAL. If you struggle with logical reasoning you may have difficulty SEEING the logic or following it.

This literally means, that states of mind, states of separation, the making of the body and the world, all of the mechanics of special relationships, sin and death, the nature of the physical universe and its laws, ALL OF IT, is a LOGICAL CONCLUSION. Correctly discerning what the logic IS, HOW it progressed, and WHY that makes SENSE, is the key to accessing the core metaphysics in the course. Once you do this, you can refer to this metaphysics as a cheat-sheet, a reference to TELL YOU, what ANY statement in the course MUST MEAN, where it fits, and what JESUS MEANS. GUARANTEED.

"T-23.II.21. From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. 2 It is because it follows that it seems to be a LOGICAL CONCLUSION; a valid STEP IN ORDERED THOUGHT. 3 The steps to chaos DO FOLLOW NEATLY from their starting point. 4 Each is a different form in the PROGRESSION of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth. 5 Think not one STEP is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. 6 The WHOLE DESCENT FROM HEAVEN LIES IN EACH ONE. 7 And WHERE YOUR THINKING STARTS, THERE MUST IT END."

"The ego's LOGIC is as IMPECCABLE as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"The Holy Spirit USES LOGIC as easily and as well AS DOES THE EGO, except that His CONCLUSIONS are not insane. 5 They take a direction EXACTLY OPPOSITE, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. 6 WE HAVE FOLLOWED MUCH OF THE EGO’S LOGIC, and have SEEN ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS. 7 And having seen them, we have realized that they cannot be seen except in illusions, for there alone their seeming CLEARNESS seems to be clearly seen. 8 Let us now turn away from them, and follow the SIMPLE LOGIC BY WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES the SIMPLE CONCLUSIONS that speak for truth, and only truth."

"The Kingdom is the RESULT OF PREMISES, JUST AS THIS WORLD IS. 2 You may have carried THE EGO’S REASONING TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION, which is total confusion about everything. 3 If you really saw this RESULT you could not want it. 4 The only reason you could possibly want any part of it is because you do not see the whole of it. 5 You are willing to look at the ego's PREMISES, but not at THEIR LOGICAL OUTCOME. 6 Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? 7 YOUR CREATIONS ARE THE LOGICAL OUTCOME OF HIS PREMISES. 8 His THINKING has established them for you. 9 They are exactly where they belong. 10 They belong in your mind as part of your identification with His, but your state of mind and your recognition of what is in it depend on what you believe about your mind. 11 Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the PREMISES that will determine what you accept into your mind."

"Look calmly at the LOGICAL CONCLUSION of the ego's thought system and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this is what it offers you. 2 To obtain this you are willing to attack the Divinity of your brothers, and thus lose sight of yours. 3 And you are willing to keep it hidden, to protect an idol you think will save you from the dangers for which it stands, but which do not exist."

"In one sense the ego's fear of God IS AT LEAST LOGICAL, since the idea of Him does dispel the ego."

"The power to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference"?

If you believe there is something outside of you which has causal power that you can do nothing about, you are *GUARANTEED* to live in a state of fear and suffering.

Accepting these "causes" as "outside of your power" CANNOT bring you peace.

"Letting go" of stuff that you supposedly cannot "control", could well be you resigning yourself to powerlessness and inevitable death.

How about.... I can change anything at will?

How about... the mind is so powerful there is nothing it cannot do?

How about... there is nothing that cannot be changed, and nothing that cannot be reveresed, and therefore, no "acceptance" of the consequences of sin is required, or possible? How about, this form of "acceptance" is an attempt to live with sin and death, letting them go unchallenged?

Who can "accept" that the consequences of sin are irreversible, and call that a healthy state of mind? What exactly are these effects which we are supposed to "let be" and do nothing about? How is it possible to live with suffering?

Instead, the Course is not teaching this. The course is not telling us to accept the world "as it is", as such.

Now, to clarify here.... there IS merit in RECOGNIZING what the world really is, clearly, and accurately, with true perception, without adding to or removing anything from it perceptually, which is an act of "not resisting" it. Or, in a sense, letting it be what it is rather than trying to turn it into something it is not.

HOWEVER, THAT DOES NOT MEAN, that you have no power to change it or no reason to do so. Nor does it mean that you are supposed to therefore "accept the form" of it as though it's written in stone tablets and can never be changed. Nor does it mean that whatever sickness or suffering is occurring, you're supposed to just "accept it" and let it be there. Otherwise, we literally would be saying, that we are supposed to accept death. And that is completely the opposite of what the Course is leading us to.

The course is not asking us to accept death, or to accept sickness. It's telling us that both are not reality and can be reversed and undone and healed. It's telling us to demonstrate that there IS NO DEATH and no sickness. It's telling us to show everyone that we are not at the effect of ANY causes in this world, because we are the cause of the world.

Jesus demonstrated in his resurrection that he was able to make another body, simply to show that "the mind that made the body can make another". And therefore that you are immortal spirit. But people did not understand it.

We're not supposed to be making the world real and then, like, believing that there is real sickness and real suffering, and then feeling compelled or motivated to try to "get rid of it" because of how awful it is. That's a trap of becoming a "fixer" and trying to NOT accept what you yourself as making real.

If you've made shit real, and if you either try to "accept it" or "fix it"... BOTH OF THOSE responses are ego and false. The course is not teaching either of those.

But the course is also not saying, that you are powerless to do anything about these things. It is by recognizing that they are NOT real that you will, paradoxically, recognize that you HAVE POWER OVER IT. That "illusions can easily be changed". As you realize that this stuff is not the truth, it becomes EASIER to change it, not harder. As you recognize sickness has NO POWER over you, it becomes EASIER for you to make the sickness GO.

Not to make it go because it seems real and you are "really suffering", but to make it go TO PROVE that your mind is healed and to demonstrate not only that you BELIEVE there is no sickness, but also that you will stop using the sickness to accuse your brother of being the sinner who caused it. Every sickness proves that. And every broken body proves the mind is not healed.

We are asked to NOT ACCEPT sickness or death as real, or as inevitable, or as a "death sentence", or as something we can do nothing about ("because its real") and to then simply turn into a passive mouse sitting on the sidelines waiting to die.

DO NOT ACCEPT DEATH! ACCEPT LIFE. Accepting life is accepting the atonement. But to "accept" that this world is only what it is - an illusion of a world with no power to do anything, and in THAT form of acceptance you will have power over it and not the other way around.

Given everything is driven by free-willed cause and effect, nothing is accidental. There are no mistakes. There is nothing happening randomly or by chance. Nothing happens at all without someone choosing it and willing it. There must be a CAUSE, before there is ANY effect.

You might think this is not true based on what appears to be a world or 'nature' that seems to do random stuff and is hard to explain as being anything but chaotic. But the fact is that nothing happens without some kind of "cause" making it happen. Whatever the cause may be. Without a cause there is no effect, so whenever something is 'happening', something caused it.

You then also get the idea that even if you cause something, it seems to have a cascade of completely "unintentional" consequences or side effects. There's seemingly knock-on effects or a whole chain of seemingly chaotic aftershocks. Yet are these things truly random? Are they not simply cause producing effects, which act as causes producing effects, and so on, in a chain of causality?

As the Course says, those who are to meet will meet. So for example, people meet because they choose to do so.

If you also look at My Self is Ruler of the Universe, it explicitly states that nothing happens without your say-so, and anything you choose happens, and nothing else.

The course also describes how teachers of God make all decisions fully consciously, with total awareness of the consequences, meaning, they know exactly what effects they are causing, and cause only those effects, on purpose, deliberately. And it is by choosing only loving choices that they guarantee their safety.

So this world, while it may SEEM like it's a total mess of random chaos and accidents and things happening against your will and victims and mistakes and all these illusions of uncertainty, in actual fact absolutely nothing is happening without a cause. It is all chosen. All deliberate. All instigated by a mind, somewhere.

Nothing moves or animates without mind making it move. Nothing appears or disappears without mind's say-so. Even the laws of nature are being "run" by a mind, somewhere, deliberately choosing what will and will not occur. The entire world would not even show up if it were not for a decision made somewhere.

And just because we think okay, we "set it in motion" and now the chips will fall where they may and a completely automatic random chaos follows, that's simply not true. Causality ensures that the consequences were set up in the causing, not as a result of the effects. Effects do not choose. Effects are not the source of decision. Even if there seems to be an entire cascade of consequences, one thing leading to another, is that not also completely specifically deliberately set in motion by a mind making a choice?

The truth about this world and enviornment then is that nothing happens without your consent, everything that happens is chosen, the world doesn't even spin unless someone spins it, and it is literally impossible for anything to happen if you do not choose it to. You are the author and dreamer.

You are the causer, chooser, instigator, of everything. You are never at the effect of some 'other chooser' choosing against your will, or things happening 'on their own' or as a result of some process or sequence of events that seem totally unrelated. There is no 'un-asked-for' anything. Remember that this entire world didn't even exist until someone explicitly put every piece of it in place, through choice and belief.

So there are no accidents, of any kind, ever. There is no victimhood. There is no mistake or something un-asked for. BUT, it DOES remain possible to make a POOR decision. It's possible to make a wrong decision or a decision for something that brings suffering. It's possible to evaluate situations and set in motion things which later turn out to be harmful. And it's possible to be very deluded as to what you have chosen or why.

The law always holds. Your free will is never violated by anything. If you would simply choose to wake up, you would. "Heaven is a choice I must make". Nothing can keep you imprisoned in hell against your will, other than YOUR choosing. You CAN make a poor choice, producing explicitly selected consequences or conditions, but you cannot make NO choice, and whatever you DO choose WILL happen. No exceptions.

The task then simply becomes one of, making a better choice. "I must have made a wrong decision because I'm not at peace - I made the decision myself but I want to choose otherwise - I want to choose otherwise because I want to be at peace". Choose again, the course says. You are free to choose, but not free from the consequences of choosing. And all consequences are chosen. This is how you create your own hell. And it is how you find salvation.

"Seek and do not find" is the absolute rule of the ego's way of perceiving.

It's very simple logic.

1) You already have everything you need. You are love.

2) Deny everything you are. "It's not in you".

3) Feel deprived and lacking and driven to search for what you lost anywhere, except in you - because as per step 2, it is clearly not in you (notice here that we never mentioned it being anywhere ELSE either though).

4) Now you go on a passionate hunt for what you lost - yourself - God - everywhere OTHER THAN where it is. Everywhere separate from you. In every illusion that prevents you from being as you are.

5) COMPLETELY fail to find it, because it is NOT OUT THERE.

Sometimes you'll find something which you think is your salvation - idols, objects, people, relationships, activities, places, etc. You invest them with 'hope' that they will be 'the one' that will save you from this dilemma of denial of yourself. BUT at the same time, you absolutely DO NOT believe that they will do so, because you're convinced the truth is NOT in you and never will be ever again.

So whatever you find starts to fail and reveal its cracks and show evidence that it is not working - it's not restoring you to happiness or love or who you are. So you become disillusioned, maybe angry that you've been led astray. You feel deceived and abandoned and frustrated. This REINFORCES your feeling that you are not loveable, that you are not good enough for God, that you are not with God, and that you are not yourself. You feel terrible. Even worse than before. And how does the ego suggest you solve this?

Any guesses?

"Why not go looking somewhere else, since it's obviously not here?" - ... in other words, MORE DENIAL, leading to more compulsion to seek outside yourself where you WILL NOT find what you're looking for.

Every effort you make to 'hold on', forces you to 'lose'. Every effort to 'have' or 'get' forces you to lose. Every effort to 'gain' what you lost reinfoces it's loss and loses even more. Every time you try to 'keep' what you 'little left' you fear to lose, you believe in its loss even more and it goes away. Every time you try to control what's happening so that you don't lose any more of what you value, it all gets taken away from you.

This is how the ego functions. It is insane. Only the insane would tell you to go looking for what you don't have because of how you failed to find it the last time you went looking. The last hunt didn't work? Keep on looking, you're sure to find it someday! Not.

What you're really looking for is God. What you're looking for is your True Self. It's not fancy cars and people and sex and bodies and tv shows and weddings and vacations and rainbows and pets and political rallies and movies and whatever else. It's not out there.

What you want is BEHIND the wall of denial that you've constructed, which you USED the ego to accomplish - or rather, you made the ego BY denying who you are and what you already have.

Everything you really want and CAN ever really HAVE and BE and EXPERIENCE, is already given to you by God. It is what you are. It is love Itself. With this there is nothing else that you really want. That is why the course says, "this world holds nothing that you want". Sobering. It holds nothing you want because it's not WHAT you want, what you want was already yours - it's YOU, as God created you. And you already ARE that. It's in you.

And let's be very very clear about something, because this is the ego's entire cover-story that we're about to blow. Ready? .... Denial is NOT removal. Denial does NOT destroy. Denial does not get rid of anything. Denial merely COVERS UP what is already there and PRETENDS that it is not there.

You want to know what the ego's crowning glory of denial is? The total denial that you are love, that you even live? It's DEATH. Death is DENIAL, it does NOT remove anything, it does not destroy anything, it merely PRETENDS that Life (God, You) do not exist.

It's a cover up!

You merely need to look with Holy Spirit at where you are DENYING - God - Your True Self - and uncover that, expose it to the light again, and reclaim your "natural inheritance". God's already given you everything you could possible want to be satisfied. You're just choosing not to want it. And because of that, you WILL NOT find anything better or more satisfying anywhere else.

Undo denial and you awaken to the love that is already your natural birthright. God created you AS love and that will never change, NO matter how much you might DENY it. And it is still the truth about you, because denial has not touched it or changed it. You are love.

Love is the truth, forever.

Here a beautiful and inspiring collection of short quotes all to do with going BEYOND. Beyond the body, beyond appearances, beyond forms, beyond sin, beyond the world. This is the goal of the course. To return home to Heaven.

"Beyond all idols stands his holy will to be but what he is."

"Beyond the body"

"Beyond this world there is a world I want. I choose to see that world instead of this, For here is nothing that I really want."

"You can only GO BEYOND it, and look back from a point where SANITY exists, and SEE THE CONTRAST."

"It must reach out beyond itself, as you reached out beyond the body to LET yourselves be joined."

"Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

"Understanding IS beyond perception, because it introduces meaning. But it is below knowledge, even though it can grow TOWARDS it."

"Not yet is Heaven quite remembered, for the purpose of forgiveness still remains. Yet everyone is certain he will go beyond forgiveness, and he but remains until it is made perfect in himself."

"The Holy Spirit is the Christ mind that senses the knowledge that lies beyond perception."

"Let us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look beyond them, understanding what they are, not what they would maintain."

"We go beyond the veil of fear, lighting each other's way. The holiness that leads us is WITHIN us, as is our home."

"I DO go before you, because I am beyond the ego. Reach therefore for my hand because you want to transcend the ego."

"Appearances deceive but can be changed. Reality is changeless. It does not deceive at all. And if you fail to see beyond appearances, you ARE deceived. For everything you see will change, and yet you thought it real before, and now you think it real again. Reality is thus reduced to form, and capable of change. Reality is changeless. It is this that makes it real, and keeps it separate from all appearances. It must transcend all form to be itself. It CANNOT change."

"Your brother has a changelessness in him beyond appearance and deception both. It is obscured by changing views of him which you PERCEIVE as his reality."

"Each speaks in time of what is far beyond it. Two voices, raised together, call to the hearts of everyone, and let them beat as one."

"And It must use all learning to transfer illusions TO the truth, taking all FALSE ideas of what you are, and leading you BEYOND them to the truth that IS beyond them."

"Beyond the body, beyond the sun and stars, past everything you see and yet somehow familiar, is an arc of golden light that stretches, as you look, into a great and shining circle. And all the circle fills with light before your eyes. "

"Your destiny and purpose are far beyond them, in the clean place where littleness does not exist."

"You whose hands are joined have begun to reach BEYOND the body, but NOT outside yourselves, to reach your shared identity TOGETHER."

"Desiring to look upon their brothers in holiness, the power of belief and faith goes far beyond the body, SUPPORTING vision, not obstructing it."

"ITS effects are changelessly eternal, BEYOND fear, and PAST the world of sin entirely. "

"NOTHING beyond yourself can make you fearful or loving, because nothing IS beyond you."

"One instant of complete belief in this, and you will go beyond belief to Certainty."

"The holy instant's radiance will light YOUR eyes, and give them sight to see beyond ALL suffering, and see Christ's Face INSTEAD."

"Who stands before a lifeless image when a step away the Holy of the Holies opens up an ancient door that leads beyond the world? You are a stranger here."

"Do not defend this senseless dream, in which God is bereft of what He loves, and you remain beyond salvation."

"Truth is so far beyond time, that ALL of it happens at once. For as it was created one, so its oneness depends not on time at all."

"Sink deep into the peace that waits for you beyond the frantic, riotous thoughts and sounds and sights of this insane world. You do not live there."

"He will enable you to go far beyond the healing YOU would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole He will lay His Own COMPLETE Will and make YOURS whole. What can the Son of God NOT accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him? "

"And now the mind returns to its Creator; the joining of the Father and the Son, the Unity of unities that stands behind all joining but beyond them all."

"But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines in me and in itself. "

"He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond everything that would hold you back."

"It is this that makes it holy and beyond the world. It is its holiness that points to God. It is its holiness that makes you safe."

"This thought has power to wake the sleeping truth in you, whose vision sees beyond appearances to that same truth in everyone and everything there is."

"Now he seeks to go beyond them, recognizing that another dream would offer nothing more than all the others. Dreams are one to him."

"The universe beyond the sun and stars, and all the thoughts of which you can conceive, belong to you."

"How far beyond this world my Self must be, and yet how near to me and close to God!"

"If they understood what is beyond them, they would not BE handicapped. You do NOT know the meaning of love, and this IS your handicap."

"Then turn to one who laid all limits by, and went beyond the farthest reach of learning. He will take you with him, for he did not go alone."

"No-one but must accept this thought as true, if he would leave this world behind and soar beyond its petty scope and little ways."

"Who, then, can say which one can be healed of what, and what must remain beyond God's power to forgive?This is insanity indeed.It is not up to God's teachers"

"Look, then, BEYOND error, and do not let your perception rest UPON it, for you will believe what your perception HOLDS. "

"Otherwise, you still are free to choose a goal that lies beyond the world and every worldly thought, and one which comes to you from an idea relinquished yet remembered, old yet new; an echo of a heritage forgot, yet holding everything you really want."

"He is here because He wills to be, and what He wills is present now beyond the reach of time."

"He gives you vision which can look beyond these grim appearances, and can behold the gentle Face of Christ in all of them."

"But what is that to those who have been given one true relationship, BEYOND the body? Can they be long held back from looking on the face of Christ?"

"Only joy increases forever. Joy and Eternity are INSEPARABLE. God extends outward beyond limits and beyond time, and you, who are co-creators with Him, extend His Kingdom forever and beyond limit. "

"When truth has come it harbors in its wings the gift of perfect constancy, and love which does not falter in the face of pain but looks beyond it, steadily and sure."

"It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that demonstrates you did not do them."

"What lies beyond them cannot BE attacked."

"For His answer is the reference point BEYOND delusions, from which you can look back on them, and see them as insane."

"It comes from far beyond itself, for it reflects Eternal Love and the rebirth of love which never died, but has been kept obscure."

"They choose for all mankind; for all the world and all things in it; for the unchanging and unchangeable beyond appearances; and for the Son of God and his Creator. "

"For power is not seeming strength, and truth is beyond a semblance of any kind."

"NOTHING is beyond His will for you. But signify your will to remember Him, and behold! He will give you everything but for your asking."

"The picture of light, in clear-cut and unmistakable contrast, is transformed into what lies BEYOND the picture."

"Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held within His holy Will beyond all possibility of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness. We are creation; we the Sons of God."

"Its holy purpose stands beyond your little range. When vision has shown you the holiness that lights up the world, you will understand today s idea perfectly."

"The power set in you, in whom the Holy Spirit's goal has been established, is so far beyond your little conception of the infinite, that you have no idea how great the strength that goes with you."

"Yet, for all its might, so great it reaches past the stars and to the universe that lies beyond them, your little faithlessness can make IT useless, if you would use the faithlessness instead. "

"For the words we use are mighty, and they need no thoughts beyond themselves to change the mind of him who uses them."

"You will go far beyond it. Our direction is toward perfect safety and perfect peace."

"Yet this is writ in hell and NOT in Heaven, where you are BEYOND attack, and prove his INNOCENCE. "

"Nothing will be beyond your healing power, because nothing will be denied your simple request."

"Today we will make our first real attempt to get past this dark and heavy cloud, and to go through it to the light beyond."

"The mind that serves the Holy Spirit is unlimited forever, in all ways, beyond the laws of time and space, unbound by any preconceptions, and with strength and power to do whatever it is asked."

"Knowledge is far beyond your individual concern. You who are part of it, and all of it, need only realize that it is of the Father, NOT of you."

"And this will be your concept of YOURSELF, when you have reached the world beyond the sight your eyes alone can offer you to see."

"Today's exercises are an attempt to go beyond these differences in appearance, and recognize a common content where it exists in truth."

"From you salvation radiates with gifts beyond all measure, given and returned. To you, the giver of the gift, does God Himself give thanks."

"And it is given us to look past death and see the light beyond."

"It is the world s most lofty aspiration, for it leads beyond the world entirely."

"It is past the clouds, and in the light beyond. Remember that you will have to go through the clouds before you can reach the light."

"Help him go in peace beyond it, with the light of his own innocence lighting his way to his redemption and release."

"But it begins within the world perceived as different, and leading from this fresh perception to the gate of Heaven and the way beyond."

"Grace is not given to a BODY, but to a MIND. And the mind that RECEIVES it, looks INSTANTLY beyond the body, and sees the holy place where IT was healed."

"Far beyond his dreams is his reality. But he must learn he is a Savior first, before he can remember what he is. And he must save who would BE saved."

"There is no Thought of God that does not go with you to help you reach that instant, and to go beyond it quickly, surely and forever."

"Accept these little gifts of thanks from us, as through Christ's vision we behold a world beyond the one we made, and take that world to be the full replacement of our own."

"You have many times been urged to look beyond the body, for its sight presents the symbol of love s "enemy" Christ s vision does not see."

"And so they need a teacher who perceives their madness, but who still can look beyond illusion to the simple truth in them."

"We go beyond appearances today, and reach the source of healing from which nothing is exempt. "

"The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives, the Father of the Universe, and of the Universe of universes, and of everything that lies even BEYOND them, would you remember."

"The fourth obstacle to be surmounted, hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father's Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to JOIN with Him at last."

"From BEYOND each of these OBSTACLES to love, Love Itself has called, and each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies BEYOND. Your WANTING fear SEEMED to be holding them in place. Yet when you heard the voice of love BEYOND them, you answered, and they disappeared."

"No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear, nor the cold sweat of seeming death, CAN stand against your will. And what attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it, and COMPLETELY One. "

"Communion is another kind of completion, which goes beyond guilt BECAUSE it goes beyond the body."

"This One can teach you how to look on time differently and to see BEYOND it. But NOT while you believe in sin."

"The surface traits of God's teachers are not at all alike. They do not look alike to the body's eyes, they come from vastly different backgrounds, their experiences of the world vary greatly, and their superficial "personalities" are quite distinct. Nor at the beginning stages of their functioning as teachers of God, have they yet acquired the deeper characteristics that will establish them as what they are."

Seems to me that the biggest influence on what anyone sees in ACIM, how they relate to it, what they think it's saying, what's important, is PERSONALITY. We all seem to filter it through our human ego personalities.

I've noticed this over and over again. A highly intellectual person has a very different 'view' of the course and how to "do it" than someone who is much more emotional, for example. And there are emotional people who struggle with the metaphysics. And people who get the metaphysics and are emotionally cold.

Some people are very intense about the course, others more laid back. Some are very open minded, others more closed off. Some are highly conservative, others very liberal. Some like the emphasis non-duality views, others find them to be missing something major. Some feel very aligned with the earth and interpret the course as affirming their love of the earth, while others see the world as nothing and want to get the hell out of here. And all of these attitudes were in place BEFORE anyone started the course.

It seems that the personality remains largely unchanged throughout our practice, and is more or less the same after many years of doing the course. And this personality acts like a huge filter, a flavouring, which massively influences preferences, what we resonate with, what seems to feel right to us, etc.

In the case of the course itself, the book, this results in a wide range of disagreements about what it is, what it says, what it means, how to do it etc. Because the course itself remains fixed and thus people's personalities project onto it.

In the case of our lives it's different, because each person's curriculum is very personalised and individualises to suit what their needs are, what their path is, what their background is, what their personality does to relate to things.

The curriculum and what is written in the book are somewhat different things, although leading to the same goal. Our life lessons are highly varied and personal. In that way, what one person needs is highly different to another, and this can also extend to each person USING the course different, seeing different things in it, emphasising different parts of it.

I've noticed how different personalities will tend to relate to certain aspects of the teachings and ignore others, gravitating towards parts that speak to them. This is because of the personality filter.

I'm not sure what we can do to ignore or rise above the personality, it has a strong influence on everything we do. Perhaps in the more advanced stages we are able to see past it and be more unified in our outlook. But it certainly is a very very strong flavouring of our whole experience.

What thus works for one person doesn't work for another, what one person tends to focus on in the course may be very very different to another. Some get heavily into analysis, some into feeling, some into practical everyday applications, some into high lofty abstract theories, etc.

And typically we all defend our viewpoints and opinions, because it's a reflection of our personality. And we all do a pretty poor job of being outside outside our own personality as well.

People gravitate to certain personalities as well, in terms of what videos they will watch, what posts they will read, who they'll agree with, what groups they'll join, whose version of the course they'll listen to, etc. And certain personalities which are more charismatic or outspoken or intense or talkative tend to become content creators and teachers and have followings, and then their personalities become worshipped.

In all my time with this I've rarely seen ANYONE really change their general core attitude about the course, regardless of any amount of attempted persuasion. Because most people are simply using the personality as guidance.

People who have held a general belief and attitude 10 years ago are still holding it now. How they speak to people has hardly changed. Which parts of the course they think affirm their view have not changed. It's all very locked in. And because everyone is so locked into the personality it gives rise to a lot of conflict.

We need to find a way to transcend the individual differences and personal attributes and look outside of our ego selves to see a broader more inclusive picture.

There is an interpretation of ACIM that I run into quite often, which has nothing to do with it.

In the world in general, many people have the idea that "the world" is duality. And then at some point they get the idea that "behind the world" there is a oneness.

So here you have two basic sort of levels, a oneness and a twoness. Usually this idea suggests that all the "things" in the world are actually joined together as "one thing". That it's all God. As if the "forms" of objects are some way in which the "formless God" is manifesting or showing up.

This is a variant of what some people call a non-duality idea. And many people think that for example, space and time are "the universe", ie all of existence, and that the universe "as a whole" is God, a oneness that makes up the stars and planets.

For these people, there is usually no notion of any existence beyond space time, beyond this "universe", any other dimension, or anything but what is front of their faces.

Many of these people bring this "model" of reality to ACIM with them and do not let it go. Instead they try to fit ACIM into this model. I've seen some pretty severe cases of this where a person studying ACIM for decades still believes this basic arrangement of reality.

It seems like a simple enough idea.... and also seems to be supported by science for the most part. It's the idea that physical matter is somehow a sort of illusion, and it's really all made up of energy or some lower-level substance, which at the lowest level all seems to be one big thing.

There are various statements in ACIM which, if read with this model of the world in mind, might seem to validate it. Such as God being in everything you see, or reflections of heaven on earth, or heaven not being a place but a condition, etc.

Some people have really dug into this model and believe it's the whole of what ACIM is teaching. But, in my opinion, it's far from it. One of the major problems with it is that it gives credit to the illusory world as "God's creation", it shifts an entire level of existence down a notch so that the physical world becomes part of reality, even the Kingdom. Then people want to forgive the world in terms of lifting away from it unfair judgements "of God's Kingdom", as if Earth is God's creation. And this couldn't be more mistaken, leading to making illusions real.

In ACIM's definition of reality, heaven is an unlimited realm which is hosted within God. It is God's creation or kingdom. It hosts many beings etc. In ACIM, this sonship is synonymous with references to "universe". In this view, there never was a planet Earth or space or time or physical matter or bodies or quantum fields or dark matter or any of the rest of it. There's just God's being and its divine light-based contents.

It then tells us there was a major event, sometimes called "the fall of man" and sometimes "the separation" or "descent into hell" or "detour into fear", which seemed to split the minds of some of the occupants of heaven. And this resulting in the illusory hallucinated making of a whole other seeming realm, a lower-order reality, another "universe", space and time, physical matter, planets, bodies and so on. None of this existed before, and in reality does not really exist now. And it's certainly not a creation of God.

That's very different than saying that all of the physical contents of spacetime are joined together in a oneness. It's really saying that all of the contents of spacetime, and space and time themselves, are really a single illusion, covering up ANOTHER reality beyond them. In effect, 1) the illusory world of objects, 2) the world of objects is all one big dream - but not the oneness of God, and 3) beyond this unified singular illusion is ultimate reality - actual God and heaven.

Three seeming layers, not two. Not just duality and non-duality, or duality and oneness, but separate illusions (false perception), singular illusions (true perception), and oneness (no perception). We need to open our minds to listen to what ACIM is telling us about the structures of existence, rather than dragging our baggage and preconceptions and assumptions into it, trying to force ACIM to justify and prove some pre-held beliefs. We have to surrender all prior beliefs and listen and let ourselves learn a new truth.

Space and time and matter and all of these contents that we call "the universe" is not the universe. It is an illusory realm of separation and an attack on God. It exists only as a dream in the minds of those who are asleep and in denial of actual reality. You can at best change how you look at it and see a reflection of light in it, in order to prepare for leaving it, but you cannot turn it into reality. It is fundamentally not really there. It is not existence. And it is not secretly oneness. "There is no world."

WHAT IS SIN?

Every aspect of an insane egoic mind is JUST A MISTAKE, which calls for correction. The mind "accidentally" considers something to be possible which isn't, and so is making an error. Like an error on a math test - a false conclusion, a miscalculation, a mis-thought. The mind believes impossible things, and because they are impossible it is not doing them.

"Sin" is what we call it when you become mistaken ABOUT a mistake, and fail to recognize its impossibility. Being mistaken about mistakes, not recognizing them as mistakes, converts them into TRUTHS, which are now sins. You don't realize they can't be true, and you think they are possible. As if you are actually doing them, giving them reality.

"Sin" is thus a "mistake about a mistake". A failure to recognize a mistake, leading to taking it seriously and taking it to be true and real. As if it is actually happening with real irreversible consequences.

Insane people are regarded as sinful when their insanity is not recognised as insanity, and is instead thought to BE SANITY, and thus assuming the person is SINNING ON PURPOSE from their right mindedness, which would indeed be deliberate attack. If this were true it calls for guilt and punishment.

Mistaking someone's delusional state for truth and reality, you think they are "actually attacking on purpose from a sane mind that should know better", which justifies anger and revenge for such a violation of the rules of sanity.

Guilt therefore arises from being mistaken about mistakes, regarding mistakes as deliberate acts of defiance against God and reality. If you COULD attack God it WOULD be a sin and you WOULD be guilty.

Sin is therefore a fiction about a fiction. The insane mind is in a deluded state believing illusions, which is just a set of mistakes, and then on top of this the delusion is taken to be NOT a delusion.

Sin is twice removed from God, mistakes are once removed. Guilt arises from taking mistakes to be truths. Or believing that illusions are real. Such as believing that the physical world is happening. If anything seeming to happen physically IS TRUE, it is a sin. If it is recognised that the world is JUST A MISTAKE, it is open to forgiveness.

Sin sees everything as unforgivable because it locks in the mistakes and regards them as concrete truths. Forgiveness recognizes what the mistakes ARE, and so sees an error has been made, which calls only for correction to appropriately treat the error. To fix the problem correctly.

Sin does not fix errors correctly, it compounds them by trying to use punishment as a fix. It says that the "mistake" is that you really did something impossible, as though it were possible, and now it has had real effects.

There is now "proof of sin", tangible sin, physical sin, evidence. Or in other words, an illusion (such as form) is mistaken for a real true possible thing and held up to be the "evidence" as to what you did wrong. Such as that the body did some wrong act causing the plates to be smashed, proven by the pieces of broken plate on the floor. Instead of being recognised as more illusions, it's taken to "prove" that you broke the plates in reality.

That presence of "an illusion being interpreted as proof that it's true" means "you did it" in space and time, and therefore are guilty. If you did sin, you deserve absolute punishment and death. Sin sees death as the way to CORRECT sins - death as atonement.

"Sin calls for punishment, as error for correction. And the belief that punishment IS correction, is clearly insane." UrT19C1

"They do not realize that, to deny God, is to deny their own identity, and in this sense, the wages of sin IS death." UrT19C3

"Yet, for all the wild insanity inherent in the whole IDEA of sin, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE. For the wages of sin IS death, and how can the immortal die?" UrT19C3

You not recognizing that this world is an illusion, converts the world into a place of sin and guilt, demeaning punishment for every act. You recognizing this world is just a MISTAKE and IS IMPOSSIBLE, forgives and overlooks the error and calls for the true atonement of the UNDOING of the error. The erasing of the world and space and time. The correction of the error - the illusion of a world - through its cancellation and disappearance, in which the mind returns to sanity and to God's kingdom.

"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. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place? For place has gone as well, along with time. Only the body makes the world seem real, for being separate it could not remain where separation is impossible. Forgiveness proves it is impossible because it sees it not. And what you then will overlook will not be understandable to you, just as its presence once had been your certainty." UrU5A5

The ego thought system, the mind with which you operate most of the time, and the system of perception or 'world view' which governs most of your decision making, is completely the opposite of the truth.

The mind which uses the egoic mind, still experiences, interacts and expresses itself, but the egoic mind acts as a reversal of cause and effects.

This generally means that instead of creating what you truly want and causing it to come into being as a direct effect of your power, you instead cause to come into being exactly what you did NOT seem to ask for, do not want, and are in fact trying to get away from.

Most of this world is heavily engaged in a state of consciousness where they do not realize that they are miscreating or mis-using the mind's power, and are therefore inadvertently creating and manifesting expressions which they are in conflict with. They are literally bringing into expression everything they do not want, not realizing that they are doing so, and then are fighting with those expressions.

When the egoic mind expresses and therefore fails to express what should have been a miracle, it instead expresses the opposite, manifests it, makes it seem real, and the result is that you produce stuff you do not want. The perception and experience then that stuff is happening that you do not want and did not intend, further reinforces your belief that there is a disconnect between what you are causing and the effects you are producing.

Since your effects do not seem to match your awareness of how you are causing, you conclude that these effects are happening against your will, are not things that you wanted or asked for, and therefore you are being unfairly treated. You will then react to this by fighting with and waging war against these effects, as though they have come with an "alien will" to have power over you, to threaten you, to disturb your peace, and to bring death.

And so in this confused state, few realize that they themselves are actually, literally, directly, causing to happen ALL of the effects that they are experiencing. The unconsciousness with which these effects are being produced, and their apparent opposition to what the person is aware of desiring, amplifies the sense of disconnect and disownership, leading to victim consciousness.

Since you do not see the mechanism by which you are choosing everything that happens to you, by which you are experiencing exactly what you are asking for, and by which nothing is happening to you against your own will, is simply evidence that you are not AWARE of the way that you are using your own will and power against yourself. You are your own, and only, enemy.

Since you think that there are powers outside of the scope of your will, which you really share with God, that are capable of preventing your will, or which interrupt it, or which interfere with it, you also attribute responsibility for the deeds of such a will to other people, mother nature, random chaos, sudden events and so on. Or perhaps even a devil. But ultimately it is YOU who are doing all of this.

You just do not realize just how powerful you are, the fact that you are very creative, the fact that you are expressing your desires correctly, and the slight 'error' that you are making expressions through the ego mind, which is interfering with the outcome of what you want. It is because your ego mind filters and interferes with and reverses and opposes and turns upside-down everything you are flowing outward, that you keep seeing and experiencing results which seem to be what you do not want to happen. And as such, apparently outside of your awareness - unconsciously - you keep choosing to be sick, to suffer, and to die.

Jesus reminds me, we are but doing this to ourselves, and awareness of this fact and ownership of this fact and complete experiential living out from this fact, is the secret to salvation.

What if everything that ever happened was done by yourself? What if everything that ever happened to you, seemingly, was actually chosen and done by you, even if you did not seem to want it, even it was torturous and horrible? What if you asked for every single person to treat you the way they did, and they did so faithfully? If this is true... then there are absolutely NO GROUNDS WHATSOEVER on which you can claim that you are a victim.

This might seem horrifying at first, to reclaim responsibility for what you seem to have done to yourself, and to let everyone and all external causes off the hook, but it also means it's opening the way for you to accept your power, to become clear that you CAN and DO do things to yourself, and that you can now choose to treat yourself with love and respect. Then once you put down your own weapons, there ARE no other weapons or sources of attack that can come to threaten you. And you are invulnerable.

Immortality.

Ok. Think about all the ways that people try to understand ACIM. All the opinions. All the "figuring out" what it means. All the discussion, debate, arguments and disagreements. And still it seems no-one quite knows the whole picture.

Well none of that is necessary. In fact, behind all of the words of ACIM there is a purely logical metaphysical structure and progression of thought, which if followed precisely will automatically reveal the components of separation, why bodies show up, what the world is, aspects of creation etc. All of it follows IMPECCABLE LOGIC.

All you need to do therefore is discern, from a completely sane and logically-sound starting point (God), what is the progression of logical outcomes or consequences. All of God's creation and everything about it proceeds according to perfectly logical rules. Additionally the separation from God, the ego, the ego thought system, sin and death, all proceed according to perfect logic.

For example, the idea of an "opposite" to reality, which is the separation idea, is a logical argument suggesting that something *COMPLETELY* opposite to God's nature can exist. And this for example is reflected "Earth, which is heaven's opposite in every way". .. because Earth is the logical outcome of the separation thought system and must be opposite to God's conclusion.

It is a "black and white", very clearly defined "state". And as the ego progresses in its thought system, it produces states of MIND, which correspond to logical conclusions and consequences.

All you need to do is learn this logical structure, what specifically MUST be the outcome and logical conditions that arise based on each step towards death, and the entire picture of existence is revealed, with everything in its right place and everything understood in its relationship to the rest.

This then forms "the metaphysics" of the course, which is kind of a living experiential description of the "states" of mind which have arisen, what they are based on, and how they are corrected. Once you get this underlying structure, which is deeper and less removed than words, you can take any statement in the course and fit it into the picture accurately and understand it far better than any other "random" or disjointed attempt to form an opinion.

You don't then even need an opinion. All you need is to comprehend the logical basis for things. This circumvents all discussions, debates, arguments and misinterpretations. You can also then USE the logical basis to evaluate any new statements, or to base expressions on that structure in order to "extrapolate" the course or say things about it which are completely in accord with the Course's teaching.

Jesus in the Course is extremely logical and clear. For example:

"Perfect love casts out fear. If fear exists, Then there is not perfect love. But: Only perfect love exists. If there is fear, It produces a state that does not exist."

This is a progression of pure logic. There are many many other examples. Below, Jesus talks about LOGIC and how everything proceeds according to logic...

"The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily, and as well, as does the ego, except that HIS conclusions are NOT insane. They take a direction EXACTLY opposite, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. We have followed much of the ego’s logic, and have seen its logical conclusions. And, HAVING seen them, we have realized that they can NOT be seen but in delusions. "

"In one sense, the ego’s fear of the idea of God is at least logical."

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth’s reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and away from truth. Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end."

"Upside-down logic produces this kind of thinking."

"Yet the logical outcome of your decision is perfectly clear, if you will LOOK at it. By deciding AGAINST your reality, you have made yourself vigilant AGAINST God and His Kingdom. And it is THIS vigilance that makes you afraid to remember Him."

"You HAVE carried the ego’s reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING."

"Now take this personally, and listen to Divine logic: If, when you have been forgiven, you have everything else, and

If you have been forgiven

Then you have everything else.

This happens to be the simplest of all propositions.

IF P then Q

P

Therefore, Q

The real question is, is P true. If you will review the evidence, I think you will find this inescapable. I went on very personal record to this effect, and I am the only completely True Witness for God."

"This is perfectly logical, though clearly insane. The ego draws upon the one source which is totally inimical to its existence FOR its existence."

So if you have a "question" about something in the Course and you're sure where it fits in relation to something else, or what it means, or how it's structured, or whether something is on a certain level or another level etc... once you get a visual of the logical layout in your mind, you can quite easily determine where things go and what they MUST mean, due to logical conclusions that are sound.

But of course to do this you HAVE to develop a very clear sense of what logic IS, and be very careful to discern when you are making logical errors. This means you have to be careful with reasoning, be aware of skipping around in levels, beware of trying to make "glue" that ties stuff together that doesn't go together, etc. There doesn't have to be any fuzzy boundaries or blurry conclusions that you're not quite sure about. It all makes SENSE.

At times I get this sense that when "life lessons" come along, they are not so much "optional lessons" or just painfully difficult trails and struggles,, but rather, that situations and circumstances happen "on purpose" as a kind of "conditioning". A kind of reprogramming.

You are exposed to these conditions and the conditions change you. Rather than that, like, you have to learn by making decisions and picking up facts and figuring something out mentally. You kind of inevitably end up learning something almost as if the situation "forced" you to. But of course, you have free will still.

It seems at times these lessons are more like... corrections... in the form of three dimensional spatial scenarios and interactions and happenings .... as if, some larger being is putting stuff in front of us that it knows will change us in a certain direction. That it is in fact, a form of healing? That you can't really fail to "learn the lesson", you just "go through it" and come out the other side changed.

It seems also that whenever Holy Spirit tells me some difficult situation is a lesson, before I would've thought of that as annoying as hell, and confused about what I have to learn. But lately when He says this, I almost get that this is a clue telling me "it is educating you" "it is correcting you" "it is steering you" "it is prompting you to change your mind in a good way"... almost "it's happening to you, choose God".

Like, this situation and your way of dealing with it and so on WILL lead to you discovering new things and developing more trust and opening up to new truths. Sometimes when I get through a lesson I might've learned something new about working miracles or had some deep insight or it produced a major catharsis or something.... and so when the lesson is "happening", I might more easily consider, "somehow, this is leading to growth and making me better off".

Like, the lesson is a "nudge in the right direction" regardless of how it appears, and you always come out the other end "better off". Because what I see and know now versus what I didn't know at the beginning of a recent "trial" I could never have imagined would be the outcome or insights gained as a result of going through the difficulties.

You could almost think of life situations as little "scenarios", little holographic 3D classrooms, into which you enter and are exposed to, and the classroom itself molds and shapes you and steers you in a certain direction. And generally speaking you will learn whatever you are ready to learn, freely, while passing "through" that chamber of conversion.

It really reminds me of the dream I had just recently where I was going through all kinds of trials, obstacles, escape acts, problems and people chasing after me, running through different rooms and stuff, ending up in an open area where the "host" of a game show (Holy Spirit) showed up as this woman... who asked, "what is it that is so valuable to you that you would be willing to go through all this to attain it"? And the instant answer in my mind was HOME... Heaven... I would be willing go through all these trials and life events IF it would in the very long term picture actually POINT me in the direction of home.

This also ties in with what I've heard about writing our life scripts before we incarnate... we literally choose to go through various things, those who are to meet will meet, we choose our family and major life events etc, even our enemies and people we will clash with. Even our serious illnesses and accidents etc. Even when we are likely to "die" ie leave the classroom. And then we come in and "go through it all" like it's a real "pain in the ass you wish wasn't happening", but in the big picture, somehow, using these difficult scenarios as a way to guide us home to love.

And the only reason the life events SEEM like trials, or difficult, or stressful, or upsetting etc.. is because of our ego. Our egotism and "what we need to learn" or unlearn is what makes the situations into a challenge. It's why we sort of "need" these lessons. So that we can move closer to love and way from ego choices. To that we will will surrender. And sometimes the lessons are so annoyingly fucked up that the only thing you are left able to do is surrender and give up and let go. And that's a good thing. lol

This makes me think of this...

"W-pI.135.18. What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? 2 Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. 3 But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. 4 While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life."

and

"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you. In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created alters unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you."

"Anger is never justified." - ACIM

Anger is not natural. It is very common, but not natural or healthy. Anger isn't really a valid feeling. It's actually a device for projecting something. Usually we use it to project guilt or some other hurt. It's a way of hurling stuff out of the mind and trying to pin it on someone or something else. It's a form of irresponsibility.

Anger is also caused by something other than itself, so it's not like some kind of core feeling or inherent central nature. It's a reaction to something else, twice removed from the problem, and only comes about when denial is also being used.

If you have a pain or hurt or guilt or whatever and you try to deny it, you're trying to dissociate yourself from it, disown it, and want to get it out of your awareness/mind. You do that by projecting it and trying to associate it with someone or something else. And the main skapegoating device used to accomplish this is anger.

Behind anger there is always something else going on. Deeper than the anger there is some kind of hurt or pain or fear. It's very easy for fears and hurts and guilts to transform into what appears to be anger, but this ins't their true form. Anger is always a way of hiding something else.

Not because you actually have anger, but because denying deeper feelings leads to an attempt to project those pains or put them out of your mind, which hurls them outward in a kind of broadcast. If you deny being afraid, you will feel angry instead. If you deny feeling guilty you'll become angry. If you deny that you feel hurt or at a loss or deprived in some way it can turn into anger. But the anger always comes after a perceived attack.

The anger is not a primary core feeling, it's a secondary layer on top of it designed to cover feelings up. You first see yourself as hurt or attacked, you then justify that because you didn't seem to ask for it (weren't aware of how you chose it) you are justified in being angry, and then you use that justification to hurl the blame outward.

Ego likes to use anger because it splits the mind and increases separation and insanity. While you are in denial and projecting pain outwardly your mind is dissociating and splitting and trying to pretend that the pain is not inside itself. But ideas do not leave the mind that conceive of them, so it stays in the mind in a disguised form, hidden behind a layer of denial.

Essentially anger doesn't work. It's an attempt to get rid of something deeper while keeping it. It doesn't make the pain go away. It doesn't heal anything. All it does is disguise and hide and make it seem like it doesn't belong to you. It's just a projected form of denial that says "this is not mine."

Anger is always unjustified because it's always based on a lie. But while the lie is kept in place, it seems as though the only problem solving solution is to project the pain. This won't work, but the mind will believe it's working, but that it needs to intensify the projection in order to get more pain out.

By becoming even more angry your mind reasons that it will be saved, or that by pinning the blame for the wound on something else you can be alleviated of the pain. This leads to a closed kind of scenario in which it seems all you can do is rage more to try to induce more relief, and the more you rage the better off you'll be. But this doesn't actually work because the mind is just splitting and becoming more and more insane. Ans besides, rage is not peace and attack will never induce healing.

Anger never ever works. It is a faulty coping mechanism. It's an attempt not to solve the real problem and to keep it hidden. Behind the anger if you look you'll always find something deeper like some kind of feeling of hurt or loss or guilt or fear. Something that came before it. And all you're doing is using the anger to try to make it go away. Anger is like an absence of feeling, ultimately an absence of love.

Feelings of hurt and attack and pain are always based on faulty perceptions that something outside of you has done something against your will, and that you are suffering as a result. This can NEVER be true because you are an immortal being that is permanently perfect and can never be attacked. Nothing real can be threatened.

So it always starts off with your mind going into a self attack, insinuating that you are not invulnerable, disowning the power of decision and pretending you are not the one causing your own experience, projecting out that responsibility onto others and the world, accusing them of sin, resulting in a perception that they're attacking you and you didn't ask for it, leading to hurt and pain which your mind itself puts into you to correspond to the projection, which pictures you as a victim, which justifies being angry, so then you project out anger in retaliation against the feedback loop of your own projected belief. It's pretty convoluted and crazy and a bottomless pit of hell.

You have to get further into your mind and find out the real deeper causes of things, the root issue behind all problems. It's never to do with what the world has done to you and always to do with your choice to perceive yourself unfairly treated, hurt, attacked, vulnerable etc... some kind of victim role that isn't true of your immortal nature. In that sense you are always and only the one who attacks yourself, undermining yourself first and then blaming it on the world. "Only the self-accused condemn."

This is why anger is totally unfounded and completely irrelevant in all scenarios and situations. You simply have no reason to be upset if you are immortal being that can never be hurt, made guilty, caused to be afraid or hurt for any reason. If you are not happy or at peace you have made a wrong decision and have chosen to see yourself as deprived. And no amount of blaming that on anyone or anything will make it go away. But you can always choose again.

A Course in Miracles itself is over 550,000 words of deep and dense material. It appears filled with meaning dripping from every word, and seems to talk on many topics. But really the entire thing has very simple origins and a very simple goal.

You simply started off in heaven's reality with God, and then you tried to rebel against his will and put yourself to sleep. You had a strange dream of mortality, and now you're trying to remember what your immortal reality is like again, so that you can wake up. It's no more complex than that.

Jesus even summarizes what the course/atonement is encouraging you to accept, in just 4 words, as "only reality is true." Or similarly "only the truth is true and nothing else is true." Or "I am under no laws but God's."The "truth" is what is "real", what is actual, is the most encompassing and the least interpreted. Just simply, what really exists as given by God. That which is actually happening and its truest actual meaning without distortion or denial.

The whole course is simply saying that you fell into a strange sleep where you appear to be insane and have lost touch with reality. And now he is trying to help you to become sane again. It's funny when after a while he says: "you are no longer WHOLLY insane."

"Not wholly mad, you have been willing to look on much of your insanity, and recognize its madness. Your faith is moving inward, past insanity and on to reason."

"For you are no longer WHOLLY insane, and you WOULD recognize the guilt of SELF-betrayal FOR WHAT IT IS."

But it's worth realizing that words are symbols of symbolic things - dream things. Just as the body is a dream, it symbolizes separation and ego. And the word "body" symbolizes that symbol. And A Course in Miracle as a book of 550,000+ words is filled with symbols.

Symbols always point beyond themselves to something else that they represent. They are not ends in themselves and don't really have their own meaning. They are representatives of a state prior to themselves, from which they express. Just as the body is a symbol and an expression which represents the mind from which it comes.

Jesus teaches that "nothing so blinding as perception of form". And that believing form is real or true is false perception. So when you look at the forms of the words in the course and you take them to be the truth, in and of themselves, based on the form they take, you are in fact blinded by perception of form.

Some people become very enamored with the choice of symbols in the course, the beauty of its seeming artistic poetry, and its mastery of language. But it only appears this way because it came from an origin higher and beyond and prior to itself, who articulated otherwise random symbols into seemingly symbolic arrangements to convey a message.

It's possible to mistake the words in the book for the truth itself, to idolize those words, to put them on a pedestal and think of them as the word of God. It's also possible to then become blinded by them, unable to look deeper or see the meaning on which they are based. Ultimately the purpose of the course is to make itself unnecessary, all of it has to eventually be let go and all of its words overlooked through forgiveness.

There becomes fanatical defense against the words being changed, the preservation of the words, and the attempt to prove logical arguments based on whether or not the words show up in the book. But this is all a false perception of the course, taking an illusion to be reality.

What is really needed, to go deeper, is a forgiveness even of the course itself. What begins as false perceptions of very sophisticated wordings must at some point move past the appearance of its symbols. To mistake a symbol for the thing it symbolizes is a mistake.

If you want to really find out what things mean, where they came from, why those symbols were chosen, or what they are expressions of, then you have to move beyond the words. You have to overlook their form and not get hung up on whether or not something is explicitly written, or whether it's in its original form, or whether it's been edited all to hell.

Jesus expressed A Course in Miracles from a very lofty vantage point, a point in which words mean nothing. He translated his awareness and experience into symbols upon symbols and into sequences of symbols, to try to speak a language that you might understand, or which might at least serve as an in-road towards their origin.

The words in the book are signposts and pointers, aiming in the direction of the truth. But they are not the truth itself. Nor are they even capable of accurately representing that truth, although Jesus has done an exceptional job of being very careful to convey meaning as accurately as possible. But you still have to learn to look past the words if you want to find out what they really mean, otherwise the course is just another idol.

What I personally found is that behind all of the words in the book, there is a deeper metaphysics. There is a logic which is amazingly impeccable and self evident, a living logic. There are natural structures and perfect extensions of truth. That even God is a logical premise with a logical conclusion.

There are reasons for everything being the way it is in reality, and in the ego's realm. Even the separation and the nature of this world are a progression of logical reasoning. The descent into hell was a procession of logical steps leading away from the truth, and all of this can be carefully detailed.

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth."

What you eventually have to do is a total rewind of all learning back to the origin, back to the nature of God and his reality. You have to then look logically and with reason, and very carefully, at how and why God is the way he is. To look at what it means to be absolute, infinite, unlimited, immortal, eternal and so on. There are laws behind all of this.

This is because God is actually the logical premise of all reality. It is his nature which dictates the entire laws that heaven is based upon. He is the truth and the source of all reality. If you understand why he is the way he is, then you can begin to logically reason why everything else must be the way it is. Because everything began with God and everything else followed very precicely.

Even if you completely forget everything you ever learned in ACIM and just start over from the very beginning, with the nature of God's reality, and reason out from there, you will surprisingly find that you'll come to the exact same conclusions that are written in ACIM.

Thats's because everything ACIM is saying is logically perfect. It is completely true. And if it weren't, the logic would be out of alignment with it and show why it is flawed. But it's not flawed, because Jesus is not flawed, and he knew exactly what he was talking about, as he still does.

In fact the entire nature and structure of creation, of all real relationship, including the shared sonship and the laws of heaven, all derive according to very simple and clear logical rules. These rules and their extension can be followed perfectly and make absolutely perfect logical sense. They are completely impeccable and flawless in their clarity that only a fool would argue against them once explained.

When you take these very simple logical foundations and you look at what they mean and imply, and then you take A Course in Miracles and you look at what it says about God's reality and nature, you find that they EXACTLY match in every case. They validate each other. Which means that everything in reality is perfectly logical, is exactly is the way it is, and can only be that way, and cannot be any other way. And that therefore ACIM is in fact based on the real truth.

Looking to these logical foundations, the logic can be expressed in simple words or diagrams, and it can be shown step by step, exactly why God is the way God is, exactly why and how he creates, exactly what must be created and its nature, and why the Kingdom of God operates the way it does. It can all be accurately described, and in far less words than are in ACIM. The basics are quite simple.

When you get all the words out of the way, so to speak, and see the deeper connection or basis for all of it, then you realize that Jesus really is just basing all his expressions on very simple concepts. Seeing past the complexity of the many ways it has been expresed, and not being blinded by its forms is the hard part. And it can take many years to try to find the needles in the haystack.

See, Jesus doesn't really write at the level of the words. It's not like some regular human who is sitting in this world at a typewriter pounding the keys and coming up with an egoic novel about ego stuff. He has written the course from a maximally high level, translating truths into an elegant breakdown of its aspects. How it applies to the world, how it applies to the body, how it applies to relationship etc.

He's done this so that you can be reached wherever your starting point is, and in terms you are familiar with, and using language and references you can understand. But the purpose isn't to leave you there poking around in the dirt and arguing over words, but to raise you up and bring you closer to the origins of the course. To the state of reality Jesus shares, and to its divine truth.

The metaphysics that the course is based on, shows that the course itself is an expression of something higher and deeper. It comes from a source that is very simple and is in touch with reality. Just because a person is putting the same teaching into over half a million words, or even a trillion words, doesn't mean that even more than a few words are needed to convey the whole truth, such as that "God is".

You don't necessarily need all those words. You don't really need to learn every single word form or memorize every quote or only quote from a specific version. In fact if you cannot use reason to determine WHETHER or not something is true and accurate, you are already in a state of not only depending entirely on but being blinded by the words themselves. You're supposed to see the logic behind them.

You don't really have to even read the whole book. It has a holographic nature reflecting the holographic nature of reality, such that the whole truth is in every part, because every part is an expression from the whole truth, given wholly and truthfully. Jesus wrote it all from a single whole truth and all of it expresses a cohesive single message, which you can find on every page.

You do need to fully apply it yes. You need to fully learn the simple truth, the basic nature of your self. You do need to shift allegiance from the forms of error to the unified reality. And you do need to develop trust and learn to relate with actual love and so on. But you don't need hundreds of thousands of words to do that. Maybe at first it seems you do, then later you realize you don't.

What I'm doing in the book I'm working om right now, is stripping away all the words entirely and "starting over" with pure logic. I'm examining what is deeper than all these words. I'm going to present extremely clearly what the real logic of God is and what reality's nature is.

I'll be explaining in simple clear steps exactly how heaven came to be and why it is run by the laws that it is. How creation comes of it and what must be true of you. This can all be arrived at through simple logical steps. Even God's nature can be logically and accurately described, because what you find out is that reality is in fact a living logic system of divine states, with very specific rules.

The aim is to come up with a "reformulation" of the form of the course's teachings, in far fewer words and in much simpler terms. A deep look at the ideas behind its many words. A formulation which still represents the truth with perfect accuracy, but which can be learned very quickly and easily in its more purified form.

Really the metaphysics behind the course is very simple and clear-cut, its not all that complicated once you can see it. But for many people, seeing through the fog of the course's words can be a hurdle in itself. It needs to be laid out in the simplest and clearest way possible, to save time and effort and to provide accuracy and clarity. And it has to bypass the entire realm of "opinion" - the logic has to stand on its own two feet and speak for itself.

That's why I'm making the book that I'm making right now. It will cut through all the noise and all the opinions and all the ego arguments and all the confusion. It goes deeper than debate and countless theories and interpretations that are hung up on word choices.

It's kind of like brushing away all the many forms that have covered over the course's true origins, to reveal what's behind it at all. I hope it will act as a "primer" and easier introduction, especially for those who are newer to the course.

You'll see, once you read it, and as you follow its reasoning, that it is extremely hard to deny what it says, and it is ultra clear in making total sense. I'm deliberately making it so that it is practically impossible to find fault in it. The logical is very flawless, not because I'm "expert" at it but just because reality's laws are themselves flaweless. Such that the true metaphysics of the course will be revealed in the light and seen for what it must be, completely accurately and consistently.

Then the really interesting thing is that, once armed with this tool, a kind of magnifying glass for the course bringing its depths totally into the light, it actually shines a light of clarity onto all that the course says. It helps to frame its meaning, to clarify intentions, to properly identify what Jesus meant in his wordings, and to steer away from common misinterpretations. The logic even helps you to realize things which must be true, which may not even be written in ACIM itself, yet are completely consistent with it.

The book itself actually stands alone in that it comes to the same conclusions as the course through its own process. It doesn't even rely on the course or anything the course says, to make its points. It doesn't need any quotes from the book either. It simply uses clear reasoning to come up with a clear metaphysical foundation.

Then it looks to what the course says to find out IF it agrees. And it happens to validate and agree with everything it says. And both of them reflect each other perfectly because they're based on the same exact truth.

God is the truth. Originally there was only the truth. But then we made up an opposite. We thought there could be something false as well, a falseness which had truth to it.

"For if you perceive both good AND evil, you are accepting both the false AND the true, AND MAKING NO DISTINCTION BETWEEN THEM." UrT10H2

And so we swapped what is true and what is false, and confused them. We took all the attributes of truth (God) and assigned the to something untrue (an illusory world). And then we took all of the attributes of illusions (non-existence, death, evil etc) and assigned it to God.

So there was this huge reversal in our minds. Not only did this put us out of touch with reality, which meant we were insane, we also were extremely confused and lost. We became lost because we could no longer tell whether something is true or not. We lost track of which way is up, what God is really like, etc.

This meant we lost the ability to properly discern the difference between what is true and what is false. It meant we developed a belief that God is cruel and evil and wants us dead. And it also means we invested all our sense of value and attraction into a false world in order to stay as far away from him as possible.

"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING." UrT7J9

So now when you look at death, you actually do in your mind believe it has some properties of life and truth and reality. And when you look at attack you think it is salvation. And when you look at hell you think of it as heavenly. And when you look at suffering you think it is atonement. And when you look at God you think he is an evil enemy to be avoided.

So then you have this sort of totally mixed up radar. Your whole navigation system of "what you want to go towards" is all thrown off by a kind of huge magnetic storm, which is affecting your compass. All your arrows which point in directions you think you want to go, are actually pointing in the opposite direction from where they're supposed to point.

The problem is because you're so lost in the woods you can't tell which way the arrows are supposed to point. So everyone in the world keeps making suffering for themselves because they keep choosing things which they believe are good and true which are not. And people will create sickness because they think that getting away from God (life, health, wholeness) is saving their lives. And people will even destroy and kill the body believing that it's going to set them free.

So there's not only a huge amount of confused and lost people in the world, all these people have a backwards upside-down thought system. They don't recognize what they are actually choosing in the big picture, and believe they're making excellent choices in the narrower picture. But the ego temptations are leading them down dark paths under the guise of making good progress.

This is really the problem of the world. That we're all mis-creating very faulty outcomes, poor choices, which are bringing us suffering, because in the big picture we are actually choosing suffering but we don't recognize that we are. We think we're making choices that will lead to us being better off. We are deceived, confused, insane, and lost. We don't know which way to get home, so we keep heading down a dark tunnel to death.

This also brings with it a huge amount of resistance and unwillingness to go towards God. It creates a fear of being helped. It can cause people to suspect that a miracle is going to destroy them. That the Holy Spirit is a threat. That God is not going to love them. Who would stay away from God's love unless they thought that it would make things worse for them? But that's what people believe.

So when you go to help people often they do not want the help because they see it as harm or as a threat, as if its going to take away their treasure. And they want to keep their suffering and keep trying to destroy themselves because they think that's in their best interests.

You've got a world full of very confused backwards-thinking people who don't know what they are doing or why they are doing it, but they think they do, so they keep blindly choosing very poorly and ending up suffering, having not mastered their creative power.

What we need is to get our minds straightened out and to learn to recognize again what is really true. But that's going to mean that you have to question what you believe, and be open to the possibility that you are VERY mistaken, and you have to then be willing to want something better. Not something you think is better, but something actually better in God's terms. And you will resist that and NOT want it.

It will literally be like you're being asked to go towards the very thing you want to get away from. You will advance in fear and see the destination as a threat to your existence. This is because the ego is so backwards and has framed God as the opposite of love. All of this confusion has to be sorted out and undone. And that's really all we have to do. A lack of recognition is the problem.

This is why we are to learn that "only the truth is true", ie to find out that only God's truth is true, and it's a loving truth. And to recognize also that false things ARE false and ARE unreal. Such as this world, and the body. Because while we believe we are a body in a real world we'll want to KEEP that, because letting it go or questioning it would be a threat to our entire existence.

This is why there is a lot of reluctance in some people to question whether this world even exists, and they'd rather stay asleep in a pleasant dream of a physical reality and not upset the apple cart. Some people are just not ready for the higher truth.

It also means that because people are confused, they do not recognize they are confused, and they believe they have the whole truth already when they don't. It requires great humility to be willing to be mistaken and to become open to something you were heavily resistant towards before. Everyone will get there eventually but it will take a lot of time for everyone to overcome their reluctance to go home to heaven.

"ALL are called but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose RIGHT." The "chosen ones" are merely those who choose right SOONER." UrT3F23

In the oneness of God, there is no taking of sides. There is only one side, and everyone's on it. Because there is no split, there is no war.

This state of the "absence of conflict" is a state of peace. It is also very quiet, because there is no war, no shrieks of terror, no invasion and no destruction.

To attack is to not know, because it is an attack on knowledge which is an attribute of peace. To attack peace is to not know reality, and is insane. Those who attack are unaware of who or what they are attacking, and attack in the darkness of their own minds.

"God is very quiet, for there is no conflict in Him. Conflict is the root of all evil, for being blind, it does not see whom it attacks." The stillness of God is quiet and peaceful, because in reality there is only harmony and unity. In the "separation from God", the tiny mad idea introduced the idea that some parts of existence could have something that other parts lacked. This provided the starting point for conflict.

Only when there is more than one side, and the potential to side against something, do you have conflict of any kind. War is impossible without separation, specialness, selfishness and isolation. To exclude is to attack, and heaven is only a realm of inclusion.

As soon as we added the idea of exclusivity we entered into war. This is when the war on God began, and it has not yet ended. All of the history of space and time has been a state of war. Even the physical objects, shapes, sizes, distances and so on, are forms of conflict. They conflict because they are different and do not share. They take sides against each other and differ, therefore conflicting.

"It rests on differences; on uneven background and shifting foreground, on unequal heights and diverse sizes, on varying degrees of darkness and light, and thousands of contrasts in which each thing seen competes with every other in order to be recognized. A larger object overshadows a smaller one. A brighter thing draws the attention from another with less intensity of appeal. And a more threatening idea, or one conceived of as more desirable by the world's standards, completely upsets the mental balance. What the body's eyes behold is only conflict."

Even the slightest removal from God is a state of conflict, in which there is no peace, no quiet, no relief, and no stillness. Everyone is constantly on-guard, seeing themselves as deprived and in need of defenses. To be un-whole is to be lacking, and in need, leading to a sense of vulnerability. Without conflict you are invulnerable.

Within the conflicted world of spacetime, including the Earth, everything conflicts all the time. Sometimes there appears to be what we might call "compatibility", in which there is less conflict. There can seem to be lulls in the fighting, interspersed with escalations of tension. Sometimes these break out into what we call wars or arguments or fights but the truth is that the whole system is a constant state of war, until the world disappears.

There was indeed a "war on God" which began at the separation and is ongoing until the atonement is complete. It is not so much a war between good and evil, because the good retains awareness of peace. The good is conflict-free. Only the evil believes in conflict and conflicts with itself. And thus self-attack is its entire system of thinking.

"Do you not realize a war against yourself would BE a war on God? Is victory CONCEIVABLE? And, if it were, is this a victory that you would WANT? The death of God, if it were possible, would be YOUR death. Is this a VICTORY? The ego ALWAYS marches to defeat, BECAUSE it thinks that triumph over you is possible. And God thinks otherwise. This is no war. Only the mad belief the Will of God can be attacked and overthrown."

If it is peace that you seek, then it is the end of conflict that you seek. To end conflict there has to be oneness, a singular side which benefits everyone and excludes no-one. There has to be an unconditional love and a total sharing of everything. This is the only way to end the war. So long as anyone is left out or opposes or attacks or separates themselves off, there cannot be peace.

Some pursue an escalation of conflict and attack and isolation in an attempt to bring an end to the conflict. This is the idea that if you "get it over with" or take it to the extreme, you'll alleviate the horror of the battlefield and constant suffering. Thus suicide starts to become appealing and death suggests a way out of the war.

But death is not the end of conflict, it's simply another form of it. It's just another way of saying that life and death are opposed and attack is a remedy and annihilation is a solution to conflict. It's an insane idea to suggest that dying is better than finding peace, or that death can bring peace. Only God can bring peace. "Yet the retreat to death is NOT the end of conflict. Only God's ANSWER is its end."

God's answer is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the call for a ceasefire. The Holy Spirit is offering healing and reunion and appeals to everyone to join together. All of his solutions are for the benefit of all without exception. His miracles extend to untold numbers of receivers. And his answers are in favor of everyone without taking sides. He is the idea of a return to peace and a real solution to all conflict.

To the ego, the Holy Spirit is the destroyer of worlds, the bringer of the end of space and time, the destructor of bodies and the final blow from God. But in truth the Holy Spirit is the resurrector, the restorer, the healer, the teacher, the therapist, the comforter, the friend and the help that God has sent to bring an end to destruction and death. He is literally the end of death and the guarantee of eternal life. And in eternal life, there is no more war.

If there is a pain in my hand, and if I believe there is a pain in my hand, I will begin to experience reactions about the pain.

This is simply because I see there being some kind of causality coming from the pain. I think it has a power over me. I see it as happening to me. I seem to be experiencing it as though it has happened without me asking for it. And so it seems unfair, malicious, unwanted, unwelcome, as though these sentiments are somehow justified expressions of me being holier or more innocent than this.

And if this pain in the hand continues or increases, then I will likely increase in my perception of victim hood, and simply by the reversal of cause and effect, seeing cause as outside of myself, I am actively creating responsive conditions inside of myself which show up as reactions, having threatened my own self with my own mistaken perception of this pain.

I myself am creating my own reactions, including fear which begins to mount in response, as though the pain is causing me to be afraid - what does it mean, what is it leading to, why is it happening, but simply also the sheer apparent fact (albeit unreal) that it is even happening at all, is enough to provide an upset.

"I am upset because I see something that is not there." - ACIM

And so as my fearful reaction increases, so too does my conviction that this is a more serious problem than before, that it calls for magical curative measures which will attack it and manipulate it and try to make it go away. And the more strongly I feel passionate about the need to be rid of it, the more I will actually add empowerment to it, seeing it as being so strong and mighty as to deserve serious counter-measures.

These perceptions of the need for a counter measure, a retaliation, a reaction of any justified kind, a fear, or any sense of taking this seriously or treating it as real, simply shows the extent of my mistakedness and the fact that what I am ACTUALLY doing is CREATING THIS. I create it with my fear of it, I create it with my rejection of it, I create it with my desire to be rid of it, and I create it with my attempt to fix it.

And the more real of a problem it seems to become, the more certain I will be that I really need to get something done about this because it's very very serious indeed. And yet in perceiving it, describing it, envisioning it, interacting with it and making it be serious as such - believing in its appearance - I am merely choosing to manifest it, to give energy to it, to feed it.

The reason that we do this is because when we are using the mind incorrectly and are entering into illusions, false perceptions and errors, we start to experience the opposite of what we attempt to achieve. We think that we do not want pain in the hand, but this means that we will put it there. We think the pain in the hand should not be happening, and such intensify its happening. We think that it is making us very afraid, and as such we literally are causing it to become more monstrous.

We do not realize that as soon as we have stepped away from real truth and have entered into mistaken truth, we've lost our mind and our way, have become deceived, and are now operating our mental powers 'inversed' or back to front.

The ego is an entire thought system based on this back-to-front inversion of truth, and when we are in this mind, we quite literally ask for what we do not want, attract what we are trying to get away from, try to fix what is not even a problem, and generally compound the very issues that we suffer from, not realizing all along that we are inadvertently causing ourselves to prolong the suffering, simply because we're applying ourselves through an inverting filter, a reality flip, which gives us back the exact opposite of what we think we are asking for. And this is simply because once in the ego perception, we are in opposition to the real truth, and therefore are bringing about opposite effects.

Indeed the incorrect form of forgiveness correlates to the ego activities and behaviors of believing that you are sincerely attempting to rid the world of that which is wrong with it, by taking a purer or more innocent standpoint, all the while actually reinforcing, manifesting, increasing and generally adding to the conditions of sinfulness. Such forgiveness then becomes an attack rather than a correction of error, a judgement instead of a miracle.

True forgiveness therefore must entail the cessation of all of the above egoic behaviors, reactions, self-caused chaos, and general inversion of truth and opposition to it. All of these symptoms are expressing merely because you are using the mind backwards, expressing opposition and resistance instead of unity, order and health.

True forgiveness entails the complete UN-doing of all of these egoic thought patterns, attitudes that reinforce the reality of the monster, reactions to it founded in fear which really are created by your own self as part of your psychological reversal and belief in threat, and the cessation of "making real" this problem. To lend reality to it, to believe in it, dwell upon it, give it credit, think of it seriously, forget to laugh at it, mistake it for real danger (which does not exist), and to generally actually side with it while claiming and portraying yourself as doing the exact opposite, is simply to keep the problem and make it worse.

We need to learn to forget this world. As Jesus says, forget this world and come with wholly empty hands unto your God. To forget is to literally pay no further attention, knowing that the thing was unreal, and requires no upkeep to defend against it.

We need to learn to stop learning the wrong things. We keep teaching ourselves with the ego, we keep learning that sickness is real, that sin is irreversible, and that death is inevitable. This must all be corrected and undone and vanquished from the mind, replaced with the Holy Light of the Truth, which comes to set you free.

The truth does set you free, literally, actually, and in reality. Because the Truth is God and only Love is Real.

I don't want to let go of attachments because I don't trust that everything will be okay unless I am in control.

Holy Spirit is asking us to be set free (!) of the need to have outcomes be controlled, or follow what we think is in our best interests. We want to be in the drivers seat with our ego, directing things and enforcing things, trying to resist what IS and instead enforce what we THINK things should be.

This is all about ego control and manipulation. I want to control so that I can seem to 'make happen' a particular situation. I don't trust that things will be okay unless I don't do this. I do this because I've become convinced that I NEED the situation to be this way. I think I have this need because I've got some kind of funky ego belief telling me that if things AREN'T this way then I will not be happy, or getting what I want or need. ie I'm going to lose or have lack or have something taken away if I don't make things be a certain way.

So this really boils down to fear, not feeling safe, and the belief that we need to put up defenses against what's happening in order to protect ourselves from attack. The trouble is that these very mechanisms, which are mechanisms of control and resistance, are the very things which CREATE a belief in attack because they ARE an attack.

Each time you create an expectation, or invest into attaining a particular outcome, you are setting yourself up for failure. There's a good chance events are not going to go the way you expect them to, and when that happens you will react unhappily. There is also a chance things will go the way you want, which is the ego's carrot on a stick, and then you think you have somehow 'won' the prize of getting away with murder. But its a gamble that you will likely at some point lose.

These investments into NEEDING things to be a certain way, to fulfill some kind of strange belief that 'then I will be happy' or 'I can't be happy when things aren't the way I want them to be', 'attach' us to these outcomes. We're pinning our hopes on them. We're depending on them. We're relying on things going the way we want and build up all this fear and anticipation about it turning out.

This 'attaches' our mind to these outcomes because if we DEPEND on these outcomes/events/people for happiness then we're HOLDING ONTO the ego's false promise or fantasy that GETTING this outcome will bring you salvation. Salvation will free you from whatever supposed 'need' you think you have and deliver you from the 'suffering' that you think you will experience, or maybe even do experience, when outcomes aren't the way you want them to be.

So really this is all about looking for salvation in the wrong place. Putting our faith into being CAUSED to be happy when certain things happen or certain events line up in a certain way. We're depending on EXTERNAL stuff to change what our experience is, and are relying on someone or something else to happen TO us to indirectly CHANGE us into the desirable state we're trying to achieve. This indirectness is passive and is also the role of the victim, in which you are sometimes at risk of attack and sometimes at risk of reward, and are gambling that if you steer things toward reward then you can avoid attack. But both are depending on the ego and both depend on external, separate things, to come along and affect you in a preferable way.

You can only be affected by things if you are not being responsible for yourself. You can only be changed by external things if you are not being who you really are. You can only have your happiness affected positively or negatively by outside influences if you are not aware that Joy is within you and comes from God and can never be removed. And you will only seek and not find salvation in these external outcomes if you are not finding contentment and needlessness within yourself. You will keep seeking (attaching to/depending upon) and not finding (losing/suffering) while you believe that you have a real need that is unfulfilled and that needs to or can be fulfilled (finding salvation) by some external, separate source beyond your control. And so then your attempt to control is an attempt to control what is beyond your control, to try to coerce it into becoming what you want (your savior).

So it really all comes back to whether you believe that you don't have God. Or that you are not as God created you. Or that you're lacking or failing in some way or have an absence of sustenance from God. If you're `in need` then you will seek and you will project and you will seek for false idols and you will attach yourself and become DEPENDENT UPON external stuff. This dependency is a form of slavery and is a form of losing yourself or 'transferring' yourself into the external thing. And this BINDS you to the ego's `level 1` world of duality and suffering. It binds you to the physical form and it binds you to a separate existence. All of your external dependencies and false needs keep you weighed down in the quagmire of darkness in the ego's world, and prevent you from staying squarely in the Holy Spirit.

So we need to let go of mentally and emotionally depending on anything other than God, essentially. Depending on God means looking to God for fulfillment and happiness and meeting all needs and TRUSTING that you will be taken care of if you let go of trying to care of everything yourself. But it does involve a surrender. You have to let go of your tight grip of fear that says... I won't fully let go because if I do, shit is going to happen that I don't want... which really means, shit will happen that does not align with your ego's plans for what IT thinks will bring you salvation, which is GROSSLY MISTAKEN and actually leading you into suffering. Holy Spirit's plan is better ;-)

So it's really about learning to trust Holy Spirit, to develop a trust that you CAN and should let go and allow and accept in order to RECEIVE LOVE and SUPPORT and HOLY HELP, and that it is SAFE to do so, and that it does not mean horrible suffering will follow. Going from fearfully holding on to surrendering and letting go takes a bit of a leap of faith. But once you've taken it, you'll let God be on your side. And you have mighty companions.

The world was made to die. It is hell. Bad shit happens, sooner or later. Everything breaks down, suffers, dies in the end. It's an insane world.

However.

When a whole shit ton of bad shite happens, and it keeps coming, at first it seems to attack all the defenses you made against its nature. All your safeties are called into question. All your values are turned upside down. Everything you held dear is threatened. All your expectations that the world can be a great place are shattered. All the bodies that you valued highly are threatened.

You don't realize it at the time but this is a transformation and it's leading somewhere quite useful.

Later when the dust settles, the world has left a very bad taste in your mouth. You think perhaps that you should heal from this by undoing everything that the world did to you, except that you start to notice something.

By turning to vengeance and brutality and cruelty and despair the world (ego) revealed its true nature. It shoved its deadliness in your face. It taunted you with its unfairness and harmfulness. It opened up a chasm of hell and all the voices of sin roared up in front of you. While temptation tried to lead you deeper still into its suffering dirge.

And so now, you got a really good look at the shit hole that it is. It stopped being so hidden and all its fucked-up shite just flew out in the open. And it was hell, but then you noticed.

This is how the world is. Not just "this time". Not just "because it has a grudge against you personally". It's how it ALWAYS is.

And through its destruction of your defenses against this fact, and though its deterioration of the ways this is usually hidden from view, you see the world now more squarely. It's more obvious that it simply, fundamentally, sucks ass. Because it was designed to.

And now a new awareness starts to dawn on you.

While you might've tried to escape from hell's onslaught and veer off into coping mechanisms and avoidance and denial, grasping desperately at the rose-tinted glasses in attempting to scrape together some kind of normality, all of this was brought into question.

And now instead of moving in the direction of trying to dress up the world again, to make it home again, to repair the breakdown, to create another illusion of safety in the midst of turmoil, you instead shift direction.

You notice that you've been doing this your whole life. Building up defenses against death. Believing the world can be a great place to be. Trying to assemble a home to shut out the brutality and attacks of the outside world. Forming special relationships and allegiances to defend against the enemies. All this hiding. All this defending. All this avoiding. It comes to a halt.

And now you realize it wasn't just that the world COULD be a great place, and you just weren't very good at making it one, it's actually that there's a much bigger thing going on here. The world is DESIGNED TO FAIL. Over and over again. It is HELL BENT on death and destruction. It WANTS to end and it wants to end you. This is is NATURE. But no-one told you that, and everyone taught you of its illusory virtues and hopeful outcomes and partial loveliness.

It wasn't you. It wasn't just your efforts and your denials. It's the world. It's not just something you did wrong that kept making things fail. All the times you hoped that things would be better. All the wishful thinking. It was all pointless given that the world, itself, was ALWAYS going to end in the dirt.

And now the disguise has been taken off. The world's bullshit has slapped your face rather too openly, and now you are no longer in the business of defending IT, or dressing IT up to be something pretty, or imagining that ITS nature is fundamentally good. No more trying to turn the world into heaven or expecting that it CAN be that.

There is now a willingness to recognize, to accept, this world just wants to die. And it's always dying. And everything in it dies. It's not you, it's not even personal. It's just how the world is. It's it's nature. Kill or be killed, and kill anyway. This whole planet is going to turn to dust someday, or the sun will explode and destroy it. That's a fact. This is the inevitability of the wages of sin, in a world driven by laws of death.

In a way, the world's onslaught has done you a favor. It's brought into question all your little home-making defenses and all your special values and things you liked about it. It's ripped your life apart and destroyed your idol worship. It's shown itself it be cruel, desperate, unfair, brutal, vicious and deadly. And it cares not. Because it can't do anything but make everything die.

So now you know. Your eyes have been opened. No more denial about this world being a pretty bundle of icecream and kittens. This is the recognition that the world IS hell. It's NOT your home. It's designed to make you suffer and all things in it are cruel and tempt sin and guilt.

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. "

You had taught yourself that this world was your home. You taught yourself it could be heaven. You taught yourself things in it didn't have to die. You taught yourself you could avoid and resist and deny all you want, but eventually it still turns to shit, and there seems to be nothing you can do about it.

Form, flesh, appearances, bodies, animals, nature, planets, galaxies, it's all part of a system of death. Take the veil off. Lift away the lies. See through the temptation to believe otherwise. Undo the confusion, in which you thought this world was heaven. Reverse the lies, in which you thought there was truth and reality and holiness to something which is just a dream of nothingness. See the world for what it IS.

The world is just an illusion of a world, the hell you made, an opposite to life, and designed to do nothing but destroy God's son. There is no way out of it except through forgiveness. There are no roads made of its hellish substrate that lead out of it. Everything dies here. It's what it does. Spacetime makes sure of that.

Recognizing this is seeing through illusions, not being deceived and learning. While hell came to take the truth from you, all it ended up doing was exposing itself. And now that you've had a good hard look at its desperate sucky ness, you can see it's not the dressed-up doll you thought it was. And that's a good thing. You now recognize it's made to die, so you can stop trying to run away from this, or expect otherwise for its forms.

You can indeed certainly become miraculous and overthrow all this, demonstrating that all this can be changed BECAUSE its an illusion. You can show that you are under the laws of ANOTHER world. You can demonstrate this world's fundamental bullshit by reversing its bullshit. But the world is what it is. And it will end because it never really began.

Perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel, or the "gift" that has come of this passage through darkness, is that you can now see, without the blinders on, what this world really is like. And seeing that sets you free, because only denial keeps you bound to the lies. And recognizing the world's nature gives you power over it. It is ONLY what it is, and nothing else. It is ONLY an illusion, not a reality. It is ONLY a dream of death, NOT real life. There is nothing in it worth having or that you want, because everything you really want and value is of God. And that lives in another world.

"Accepting the Atonement teaches you WHAT IMMORTALITY IS" UrT11J13

Let's look at the really big picture.

You are an immortal being with eternal life that lives in God forever. You cannot change or be changed. You are permanent and fixed. You cannot be altered, you cannot suffer, you cannot be affected, you cannot be hurt or damaged, you cannot be sick or die. Nothing can ever happen to you or disturb your peace. You are real, and nothing real can be threatened.

The so-called separation from God was an attempt to BE MORTAL. To invent death. It is a belief in EVERY single form imaginable of something OPPOSITE to your immortal nature. An insinuation, a lie, and a denial, that you can in fact "be changed", that you can be affected, victimised, hurt, damaged, broken, or even made to be sick, or even destroyed completely by death.

The entire world of space and time and everything in it was entry into a "dream of death", in which every single aspect is part of the attempt to believe that you are NOT immortal.

Even the slightest hint of fear is evidence of believing that you might not live forever. The slightest twinge of sickness is an attempt to PROVE that you can be hurt. The merest disturbance to your total peace signals a sense that somehow, in some way, your eternal extension and permanence MIGHT be in question.

And so as we entered into the separation, the tiny mad idea, we thought to ourselves that MAYBE we might not last forever. Maybe we could be changed, maybe we could alter ourselves even, maybe we could be changed by something other than ourselves. And maybe this would bring into question who and what we are, questioning even our permanence and eternal life.

This gave rise of course to fear, because the merest hint of a belief that you might not live forever induces a sense of threat to your existence, which frightens you. So we entered the "detour into fear", the "dream of death", an attempt to play a game of mortality.

We made this world, came to this world, to question our very NATURE. To draw into doubt what we are, and whether we can be what we are. We undermined ourselves. We attacked our own invulnerability. We tried to make ourselves into something that COULD be attacked, could be hurt, could suffer in some way.

So now when you look at the world and you look at ALL the massive number of forms of suffering, all fears, all victimhood, all sense of threat and danger, all sicknesses and mental illnesses, all death and destruction, every problem, all conflicts and competitions, all war and disagreement, every single nuance of body identification and believing you might be affected by something, is ALL merely a symptom of "trying to die". Trying to NOT BE IMMORTAL.

The solution to all this madness - the acceptance of the atonement - requires us to RELINQUISH DEATH in all its many forms. It requires us to ACCEPT once again that we are PURELY AND ONLY immortal beings with eternal life. It requires us to completely reject EVERY single little speck of a belief that says anything to the contrary.

All victimhood, all fears, all attack, all guilts and sins, all sense of suffering, all sense of threat and danger, all bodily identification, all belief in separations and conflicts, even the belief in change, all of it has to be questioned and let go. So that ALL that remains of you, all that you ARE, is your PURE immortal eternal self - the Christ - the soul, which resides in heaven with God PERMANENTLY safe and permanently alive.

You are life itself. You are eternal life. You are immortality. You are extension. You are the openness to never-ending. And because you know deep in your being that you are absolutely BEYOND all possible threats to your eternal nature, you are in a state of absolute peace and happiness. Not a single hint of threat, no danger, no concerns, no problems, no doubts, no suffering, no possibility of changing, not even the slightest hint of death in any form whatsoever.

You continue on. You are the immortal son of God. You have lived forever and you will always live forever. This is the central CORE TRUTH that the course is leading us to. Wake up to KNOW THYSELF AS YOU ARE IN GOD. The perfect pure immortal eternal being that is utterly beyond every form of death and every form of suffering forever, in total peace and absolute certainty. There is no death, the Son of God is free.

"This is the anti-Christ; the strange idea there is a power PAST omnipotence, a place BEYOND the infinite, a time transcending the eternal. Here the world of idols has been set by the idea this power and place and time are given form, and shape the world where the impossible has happened. Here the deathless come to die; the all-encompassing to suffer loss; the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless, and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain, and finally to die." URT29I

"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. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you." UrW191L9

"Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination." UrT20I7

"The Son of Life cannot BE killed. He is immortal as his Father. What he is cannot be changed. He is the only thing in all the universe that MUST be One." UrT29G1

"Nothing the world believes is true. It is a place whose purpose is to be a home where those who claim they do not know themselves can come to question what it is they are." UrW139L6

"You are not sick, and you cannot die. But you CAN confuse your self with things that do." UrT9K8

"The graciousness of God will take them gently in, and cover all their sense of pain and loss, with the immortal assurance of their Father's Love." UrT14E4

"You are immortal BECAUSE you are eternal, and always MUST be now." UrT11J12

"What is immortal cannot BE attacked; what is but temporal HAS no effect." UrT25H5

"My brothers, children of our Father, this is a DREAM of death. " UrT19J7

"And we will sleep no more and dream of death. " UrW191L10

"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." UrU5A7

A collection of quotes speaking to our need to go within, look within, and find heaven within ourselves. Searching externally is sickness. Searching within is peace. God put peace inside of you, and you now need to go within to find it again. The ego has taken you away from and outside of yourself. You now need to uncover the inner altar where you are joined with God.

"Forgiveness sweeps away distortions, and opens the hidden altar to the truth. Its lilies shine into the mind, and call it to return and look within, to find what it has vainly sought without. For here, and only here, is peace of mind restored, for this the dwelling-place of God Himself."

"Then let me, Father, look within and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart."

"Sit quietly and close your eyes. The light within you is sufficient. It alone has power to give the gift of sight to you. Exclude the outer world, and let your thoughts fly to the peace within."

"When you look within and see me, it will be because you have decided to manifest truth. And as you manifest it, you will see it both without AND within, for you will see it without BECAUSE you saw it first within."

"The Holy Spirit takes you gently by the hand, and retraces WITH you your mad journey OUTSIDE yourself, leading you gently back to the truth and safety within."

"As long as you believe that guilt is justified in ANY way, in ANYONE, WHATEVER he may do, you will not look within, where you would ALWAYS find Atonement."

"When he has looked within, and seen the radiance there, he will remember how much his Father loves him."

"In shining peace within you, is the perfect purity in which you were created. Fear not to look upon the lovely truth in you. Look THROUGH the cloud of guilt that dims your vision, and look PAST darkness, to the holy place where you will see the light."

"You who have ALWAYS loved your Father can have no fear, for ANY reason, to look within, and see your holiness."

"All idols of this world were made to keep the truth within from being known to you, and to maintain allegiance to the dream that you must find what is OUTSIDE of you to be complete and happy."

"God dwells within, and your completion lies in Him. No idol takes His place. Look not to idols. Do not seek outside yourself."

"And all this will they understand, because they looked within, and saw, beyond the darkness, the Christ in them, and RECOGNIZED Him."

"Home of the Holy Spirit, and at home in God alone, does Christ remain at peace, within the Heaven of your holy mind."

"Your Father wills you hear His Word today. He calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear Him today."

"Let the light of holiness and truth light up my mind, and let me see the innocence within."

"I am Your Son, forever just as You created me, for the Great Rays remain forever still and undisturbed within me."

"We clear a holy place within our minds before His altar, where His gifts of peace and joy are welcome, and to which we come to find what has been given us by Him."

"What road in all the world will lead within, when EVERY road was made to separate the journey and the purpose it MUST have, unless it be but futile wandering?"

"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."

"How holy are our minds! And everything we see reflects the holiness within the mind at one with God and with itself."

"When you are ready; you will find it there, within your mind and waiting to be found."

"Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of guilt and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with Which I would identify."

"Deep within you is everything that is perfect, ready to radiate through you and out into the whole world."

"If Heaven is within why would you seek for idols which would make of Heaven less"

"Seek Him within you Who is Christ in you, the Son of God"

"I will not look for it outside myself. It is not found outside and then brought in. But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines in me and in itself."

"with the holiness that never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God"

"We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within."

"The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen. The still infinity of endless peace surrounds you gently in its soft embrace, so strong and quiet, tranquil in the might of its Creator, nothing can intrude upon the sacred Son of God within."

"Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but your choice."

"Put all your faith in the Love of God within you, eternal, changeless and forever unfailing."

"Would you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within?"

"Your task is NOT to seek for love, but merely to seek and FIND all of the barriers WITHIN YOURSELF that you have built AGAINST it."

"The Holy Spirit's purpose rests in peace within you."

"As I share the peace of the world with my brothers, I begin to understand that this peace comes from deep within myself."

"Today we ask of God the gift He has most carefully preserved within our hearts, waiting to be acknowledged."

"You have been assured that the Kingdom of God is within you, and can never be lost."

"In order to see, one must recognize that light is within, not without. You do not see outside yourself. Nor is the equipment for seeing outside you."

"Look deep within you, undismayed by all the little thoughts and foolish goals you pass as you ascend to meet the Christ in you. He will be there. And you can reach Him now."

"And what attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it, and COMPLETELY One."

"You do not know how to look within yourself, for you DO NOT BELIEVE YOUR HOME IS THERE. Yet the Holy Spirit knows it FOR you, and He will guide you TO your home, because that is His Mission."

"The Atonement can only be accepted within you."

"The spiritual eye, on the other hand, cannot see the building at all, but it perceives the altar within with perfect clarity."

"Knowledge comes from the altar within, and is timeless because it is certain."

Sometimes, although we don't want anyone to suffer, and God does not will anyone suffer, ... .sometimes someone going through a "thing", a hardship, a suffering, is actually consentual and beneficial to the person.

There can be a great compulsion to stop it, solve it, take it away, make it better, avoid it, etc.... we are VERY avoidant of any threat to us. But in the big picture, these "trials" as they say are actually "lessons", which we've sort of agreed to go through in order to grow spiritually.

If we are in the business of just taking away everyone's troubles all the time, we might actually be denying them a tremendous opportunity for advancement.

How do we know that, perhaps a person becoming an alcoholic and hitting rock bottom could actually lead to them becoming a powerful advocate for healthy living and helping others to escape from it?

Or that, someone going through a horrible nightmarish experience of sickness might actually lead to new perspectives and opportunities and maybe even a new future career that ends up helping a lot of people? We have to be careful not to think always in such short-term aims, and look instead to what the purpose is in the LONG TERM plan of atonement.

Very often the things you go through give you a lot of wisdom and insight and personal experience, which "equips you" in a sense with perspectives and abilities and compassion for others who might go through something similar. And then you might find yourself using that to be helpful to them down the line.

You might for example have elected to be a really great therapist or something and, in order to do so, wanted to first-hand go through some horrible abuse situation which you had to experience and work through and heal, in order to find a way out, in order to become able to help others to find a way out. And without that, you might not have been able to be useful in that way, for the higher purposes of the atonement plan.

On an earthly level we often interpret any bad thing as bad and wrong and to make it stop. We insulate ourselves from problems and sufferings. We label all unpleasant things as unwanted. We try to make an idyllic life, comfortable and controlled, to shut out the chaos.

But in the big picture of the soul we come here to learn lessons, to grow, to advance towards God. The importance of returning to God in the long term, across even lifetimes, may be so significant that we would be willing to even go through hell and back if it meant we would find a way to rise above it when pushed to our limits.

A person might actually on a higher level be willing to go through tremendously difficult lessons because, in the big picture, they know what it is leading to. The potential for major spiritual growth. An opportunity to see the other side of a situation. The purpose of finding a different way to relate to others etc.

It's not like, God is there saying, you must suffer and I want you to go have a horrible disfigurement just so that you can learn, or some kind of cruel karmic punishment scenario. But because we have chosen to go away from God and into ego, we "need" lessons to help us to return to him. And that means we have beliefs that need undoing, and attitudes that need correction.

So we then find that the atonement plan is set up to use our "faults" and our unwillingness and our biases and blind spots and so on, as "lessons", which may appear at first like horrible trials and difficult challenges, in order to try to find a "better way". To find a way to make a better choice in that scenario so that in future we don't need to go through something like that. Or rather, that we stop making those kinds of forms of suffering because we've learned that they are ultimately not in our best interests.

So in general we can't be quick to judge whether something is a good thing or not. The most horrible looking through could well be very much consensual and very much asked for. If the soul knows that there is the POTENTIAL for massive growth and learning, it may in fact be WILLING on a deep level to suffer the most horrendous difficult challenges, because it knows that the payoff may be really really worth it.

So hats off to all you people who are and have gone through horrible states of hell and nightmares and abuses and victimhood and all manner of pain and misery. Because it may well indicate not that it was just some thing that "was not meant to happen" but rather, something that you consented to and were WILLING to experience because it would potentially have tremendous spiritual benefits.

No sane person in their right mind would want to choose any such trial or difficulty, but it's because we're NOT in our right minds that we DO choose these things, and the holy spirit REPURPOSES these things, in an effort to use them productively and constructively, to help us to make the best of it, so that it isn't all for nothing and a waste of time.

This is a more FORGIVING view of suffering, because it reframes it as potentially beneficial when used for a higher purpose. Instead of focusing on the thing itself through false perception, labelling it a dark and wrong and unwanted. We can USE anything for the purpose of becoming closer to God, and that's what all these "trials" are all about.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything which happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life." UrW139L19

"Trials are but lessons which you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain which what you chose before has brought to you." UrT31H2

"The misuse of will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point." UrT2B69

"In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again." He would not leave one source of pain unhealed, nor any image left to veil the truth. He would remove all misery from you whom God created altars unto joy. He would not leave you comfortless, alone in dreams of hell, but would release your minds from everything that hides His Face from you. His holiness is yours because He is the ONLY power that is real in you. His strength is yours because He is the Self that God created as His ONLY Son. The images you make can not prevail against what God Himself would have you be." UrT31H3

"Some of your greatest advances YOU have judged as failures, and some of your deepest retreats YOU have evaluated as success." UrT18F1

"There IS no choice where every end is sure. Perhaps you would prefer to try them all, before you REALLY learn they are but one. The roads this world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. Men have died on seeing this, because they saw no way EXCEPT the pathways offered by the world. And, learning THEY led nowhere, lost their hope. And yet this was the time they COULD have learned their greatest lesson. All must reach this point, and go BEYOND it. It is true indeed there is no choice at all within the world. But this is NOT the lesson in itself. The lesson has a PURPOSE, and in THIS you come to understand what it is FOR." UrT31D3

"Nothing the body's eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the body itself."

What are you being tempted to do? You're being tempted to identify yourself with the ego and with the body, to become blinded by illusions of form, to make hell real, and to move away from God. The temptation to deny the mind, forget heaven, lose yourself, reject God, buy into the ego's offerings, and gain the world of sin. To anchor you to the body and to death.

"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. It sets the limits on what he can do; its power is the only strength he has; his grasp cannot exceed its tiny reach."

We might think of temptation like a kind of magnetism, attraction, or some kind of lying deceit, which in its evil ways seems to cast some kind of magical spell to draw you deeper into nightmares of hell and further from yourself and God.

When an illusion is recognized for what it is, it has no power at all to tempt you. But if you fail to recognize it, it begins to take on seeming reality and truth, it seems to have the power to assert itself or to fight against God's truth. And now it appears to incite further errors, to increase confusion, to deceive and distract, and to make it harder for you to stay above the battlefield.

"The body's eyes are therefore not the means by which the real world can be seen, for the illusions that they look upon must lead to more illusions of reality. And so they do. For everything they see not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt."

Since how you see ties into what you believe you are, as you move into guilt and ego you also move into body identification. Your perception narrows to focus on the bodies of others, and you fail to forgive ie overlook illusions. The world and its problems seem to become a living nightmare, filled with impossibilities and horrors and terrible dangers.

The whole world was made to tempt yourself away from God. To try to give you some kind of value or meaning, something you want, something other than God that you might be attracted to. You can only be attracted to hell when you are confused, believing that hell is heaven. Or when you are repulsed, believing that heaven is actually a hell that you do not want.

If you are falling into hell, you are falling into temptation. You're buying into it. You're becoming more and more deceived, and deceiving. You're choosing wrongly and making an error, which is why you're not at peace. And the body is right there to serve the un-repurposed function of making every problem seem real and frightening.

"Today's idea is merely another way of saying, "Let me not wander into temptation." The purpose of the world you see is to obscure your function of forgiveness, and provide you with a justification for forgetting it. It is the temptation to abandon God and His Son, taking on a physical appearance. It is this which the body's eyes look upon."

Since "all the world's roads lead to death", they are all like pointers pointing away from God and away from life. So if you listen to it, or fall for it, or are too confused and lost to stay out of it, you're going to head towards the physical, towards suffering and the illusion of death. The body was made to focus on this and to give it reality. So then by becoming bodily identified, you will fall for all manner of temptations, particularly leading to temptations of sex and drugs and other addictions as ways to make the body and its pain real.

"Nothing the body's eyes seem to see can be anything but a form of temptation, since this was the purpose of the body itself. Yet we have learned that the Holy Spirit has another use for all the illusions you have made, and therefore He sees another purpose in them. To the Holy Spirit, the world is a place where you learn to forgive yourself what you think of as your sins. In this perception, the physical appearance of temptation becomes the spiritual recognition of salvation."

Becoming tempted is really a way of saying that you are shifting your sense of identity to the ego and the body, are therefore seeing the world's problems as real, and now you are under attack with a threat of mortality. You can't escape the fear that mortality will strike, without escaping identification with the body. Believe you are a body and you will become imprisoned in its hell, and its narrow vision will show you only proof of sin everywhere.

"And if we hear temptation call to us to stay and linger in a dream, we turn aside and ask ourselves if we, the Sons of God, could be content with dreams, when Heaven can be chosen just as easily as hell, and love will happily replace all fear."

"What you behold as sickness and as pain, as weakness and as suffering and loss, is but temptation to perceive YOURSELF defenseless and in hell."

"What is temptation but a wish to make illusions real?"

"Temptation, then, is nothing more than this; - a prayer the miracle touch not some dreams, but KEEP their unreality obscure, and GIVE to them reality instead."

"Let us not let littleness lead God's Son into temptation."

"What is temptation but the WISH to stay in hell and misery? And what could this give rise to BUT an image of yourself that CAN be miserable, and remain in hell and torment?"

"Whatever form temptation seems to take, it ALWAYS but reflects a wish to be a self that you are not. And FROM that wish a concept rises, teaching you you ARE the thing you wish to be."

"Be vigilant against temptation, then, remembering that it is but a wish, insane and meaningless, to make yourself a thing which you are not."

"All temptation is nothing more than some form of the basic temptation not to believe the idea for today." (my salvation comes from me)

"The avoidance of magic is the avoidance of temptation. For all temptation is nothing more than the attempt to substitute another will for God's."

"Yet each temptation to accept magic as true must be abandoned through his recognition not that it is fearful, not that it is sinful, not that it is dangerous, but merely that it is meaningless."

"Let nothing which relates to body thoughts delay your progress to salvation, nor permit temptation to believe the world has anything you want to hold you back."

"When the temptation to attack rises to make your mind darkened and murderous, remember you CAN see the battle from above."

"There is, however, a temptation to respond to magic in a way that reinforces it. Nor is this always obvious. It can, in fact, be easily concealed beneath a wish to help. It is this double wish that makes the help of little value, and must lead to undesired outcomes."

"What is temptation but a wish to make the wrong decision on what you would learn, and have an outcome which you do not want?"

"Remember ALL temptation is but this; a mad belief that God's insanity would make YOU sane, and GIVE you what you want. That either God OR you must LOSE to madness, because your aims can NOT be reconciled."

"Lead us not into temptation" means "guide us out of our own errors."

"Lead us not into Temptation" means "Do not let us deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or our brothers with ANYTHING external."

ACIM reiterates many times that WE ALONE ARE THE CAUSE of our own suffering. We are not ever at the effect of the world. We are the cause of the world, the dream, and everything we feel and think and experience. Nothing happens without our consent, and we cannot even be hurt unless we ourselves hurt ourselves.

When you take this to the extreme, it means that YOU ALONE are responsible for EVERYTHING you experience, and NO ONE ELSE has anything to do with it whatsoever. There are no causes in the world, your brothers NEVER cause you (God is the cause of you), and you cannot suffer unless you choose to.

You can't even die unless you choose to. NOTHING can happen without your decision. And Jesus is completely literal about this. If you do not CHOOSE to suffer, suffering CANNOT happen to you. Sickness cannot happen, nor can death. You have automatic innate power over death and suffering at all times, and ONLY YOU can bring them upon yourself.

"If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it."

This puts 100% of the responsibility on your shoulders. Which means that if you are ever tempted to believe that something is happening for a reason OTHER than your own contribution, you are in a state of being mistaken, and now you need correction. Because it is ONLY your contribution that is causing everything.

This sounds easy enough. You just need to realize and recognize that every time you are unhappy, upset, suffering, in pain, sick, angry etc, it is because you are making it happen. If you would just stop hurting yourself you'd be totally invulnerable and healthy and happy all the time. No joke.

What becomes seemingly difficult is the many ways that we might not recognize what we're doing, or that we're even doing anything at all. We can become so used to blame, and reaction, and emotional triggers, and powerlessness, and believing other people actually do stuff, and that it seems impossible we can be responsible for everything.

In fact it runs very deeply. Every single thought you have, every attitude, every belief, are all part of the confusion that "its not me doing it" and "they are doing it to me." In every way, it is really you, who are an immortal being who can never even be changed at all, becoming confused and believing that something outside of you is changing you against your will. This can NEVER be true.

Every time that we lose sight of being THE CAUSE, we fall into temptation. We deny the truth and project causality outside of us. And this is the same as projecting sin. Then we find others or the world to be the cause of us. And this is a defense against the healing God placed in our minds. It's a way to avoid being healed by displacing the problem and its source outside of ourselves.

We talk about teaching others, and helping others, and having relationships, and performing miracles and so on, but the foundation of all this is simply YOU BEING YOU. Are you attacking yourself, or aren't you? If you aren't, you are not under attack. If you are, you are your ONLY worst enemy. This is all due to the suicidal self-destructiveness which comes from believing you are sinful. Are you trying to destroy yourself and others, or are you extending creation?

If you were to temporarily remove the entire planet, and all the people on it, and leave just you floating in space by yourself, whatever is going on in your experience is SOLELY caused by you. There is nothing else to cause it. This really tells you that ALL your forgiveness work is ENTIRELY an inside job. IT has nothing to do with others. It's you versus yourself. Is you trying to master yourself. It's your mind playing tricks on itself. It's you alone affecting yourself insanely.

Weaning off of all the reasons, excuses, explanations, justifications, beliefs, projections, and all other forms of displacement of responsibility, is not easy. We have a lot of habits formed, a lot of assumptions made, and a lot of belief in being vulnerable. We position ourselves as victims on a minute-by-minute basis. We might think it's not even POSSIBLE to question whether these things are happening to us. That things can seem so extreme and lopsided that it seems impossible we can be the one causing it.

But even those things which seem convincing, tempting us, secretly our dissociated choice, we have to dig out ALL of them, to question every single mental activity which is leading you away from your invulnerability. Even the notion that if you are being responsible, other people can still do stuff to you, cannot be true. Even the notion that even if you're doing your best, you will still die, cannot be true. Even death itself CANNOT have power over you if you decide NOT to die. "You are immortal and you cannot die."

The aim here is that you become "strong in the truth". That you stand in your own light. That you know yourself and be true to yourself. That you be so certain of what you ARE, that you don't for a second displace yourself, make a bodily identity, project cause outside of yourself, or believe any temptation that you are threatened by the world. This is how you be the light of the world, by going WITHIN to the light that is in you, so that it can extend.

Ultimately it boils down to one simple thing. You are the one who is making your life hell. It's not anyone else, and its not the world. It's not your neighbors, not your boss, your politicians, your celebrities. It's not certain races or countries or the weather or food or where you live. It's not external activities or events or space or time. It's just YOU. You are the one who is doing it to yourself. Holy fuck!

Salvation has been placed IN YOUR MIND by God because he knows that the PROBLEM is in your mind. And so the solution is in your mind. Your mind is what needs to be corrected, and that is all. This will take care of everything else. You are the one who is against you. You are the one who keeps giving YOUR power away to others. You are the one who keeps losing yourself and confusing yourself with things which are not you. And you are the one who can use the power of your decision to get out of it.

"You are immortal and you cannot die, but you can confuse yourself with things that do.""It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace in any way.""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."

"Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in ANY way"

"Who could be hurt in such a war, unless he hurts himself?"

"Nothing can hurt you, unless you give it the power to do so."

"If you will listen to His voice, you will know that you cannot either hurt or be hurt"

"You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show your brother anything except your wholeness."

"I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked."

"It is impossible the Son of God be merely driven by events outside him. It is impossible that the happenings that come to him were not his choice. His power of decision is the determiner of every situation in which he seems to find himself by chance or accident."

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true."

While your physical body is clearly anchored in THIS world, your true self is clearly anchored in ANOTHER world. Your soul, your holy self, is entirely LOCATED in God's Kingdom.

"The soul never leaves the sight of God."

The only transition you make is between being BODY (physical) identified, which is the same as believing "I am in the physical realm", or being spirit (soul) identified, which is the same as "I am in God's Kingdom now".

But you cannot think of yourself as a soul if you think of yourself as anchored at the physical level. If YOU are IN THIS WORLD, you cannot be in the Kingdom. Your body is here, but your SELF is not.

The course becomes more clear and obviously telling us this, if you notice how it asks us to BE the way that God created us.

We're not asked to merely stay entirely OUTSIDE of the Kingdom until the last second where we pass through the pearly gates. We're asked to APPROACH the Kingdom, while in a body, and to RELOCATE our mind INSIDE the Kingdom as far as possible, PRIOR to the final awakening.

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile" tells you that you ARE IN GOD, and being in God is your safety. The course also tells you the Son of God cannot be happy anywhere in the world UNLESS he knows he is with God. To be WITH God is really to be located IN HEAVEN.

If you think of Heaven as a place beyond this world, which it is, or if you think in terms of "two levels" where Heaven is above and Earth is below, which is accurate, there is temptation to TRAP yourself in this world. You think your body is here, and therefore your self is here. This is body identification.

What we're asked to really do is to lift our mind/self up out of the body, identify with our spirit/soul which is not even in a body, shift our mind into the service of the soul, LOCATE ourselves in God, EXPERIENCE intimacy and love with God, return to ONENESS with Creation, and to do all this as far as possible WHILE we're still having a body.

It's easy to think of Heaven as on the other side of a dimensional division, or a boundary of separation, the gap, which holds heaven and earth apart. But this tempts us to believe we are not IN heaven UNTIL God takes the last step. This is inappropriate. In order to BECOME more loving, at peace, happy, joyful, powerful, under no laws but God's, returning to your true nature, etc you HAVE to start moving INTO heaven, into your spiritual identity, right from the start.

In fact, the only way to lift up OUT of false perception ("the world is false perception") is to move back towards God, re-enter the truth, position yourself IN the light, CENTER yourself in God, locate yourself IN heaven, be surrounded with divinity, and therefore be practically 100% aware of Heaven's presence, even if you are temporarily still in a body.

You are an immortal being, and you cannot die. But this does not mean you're going to be mortal UNTIL God takes you home. Instead, the course is asking you to RECLAIM YOUR IMMORTAL NATURE NOW, live out from that nature while you're here, demonstrate you are under God's laws only while you're here, BE the miraculousness of the soul HERE, and therefore heal the body and repurpose it into a symbol of eternal life.

He's asking us to return to our HEAVENLY NATURE, as fully as possible, in order to become "ready" to take that final 1% step to undo the last threads of the illusion of death and accept the atonement. The atonement is love and light, so to approach it you have to enter into the realm of love and light almost fully immersed. But you WILL NOT BE WILLING to accept the atonement without a HUGE amount of PREPARTION before hand, leading up to it. "Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

We cannot even be loving, in this world, unless we are willing to be closer to God while we're here. We can't be the light of the world unless our mind is plugged into spirit and we are literally radiating holiness and light into the world. We cannot perform miracles unless we're going to tap into the unlimited miraculous power of God WHILE we're here. To be miracle minded is to be aligned with and IN the mindset and thought system of heaven itself.

Perhaps we can frame it this way. The physical world is false perception, the lower battlefield of unconsciousness and death. ANY attempt to even START to awaken, to become more spiritual rather than unconscious, requires us to begin re-identifying with spirit. This is why Jesus says:

"Pain thresholds can be high, but they are not limitless. Eventually, everybody begins to recognize, however dimly, that there MUST be a better way. As this recognition is more firmly established, it becomes a perceptual turning-point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight."

In pain, we are in the darkness of making the world real and experiencing it as a living hell. If we want to be happier and so on, we're going to have to APPROACH THE LIGHT. This will entail shifting your sense of WHERE you are, from hell to heaven.

The journey begins as you emerge from the painful state and START to move towards God. And this means you are slightly releasing your identification with the body and physicality, and are beginning to open up a spiritual sight which is the eyes of Christ - and Christ is IN heaven.

So even if our body is here in this world, our mind/self/identity must go through a journey BACK to heaven, even from the beginning of the awakening process, such that we should be thinking of ourselves AS WE ARE IN HEAVEN, in order to live out from that truth.

We can't BE loving people if we are not coming FROM LOVE. Love IS GOD. And in this way we are bringing the laws and the love of ANOTHER world TO THIS WORLD. And in order to have a holier relationship with others, while here, we must start relating HOW WE RELATE IN HEAVEN. Holy Relationship mirrors heaven's relationships. Or in other words, we must relate here how we would treat each other IN GOD, as if we ARE in God right now.

We then shine the light of heaven THROUGH the body. We extend love from ANOTHER world through the body. We bring the Holy Spirit's healing TO the world. We atune to our IMMORTAL NATURE while still in a body, thus forcing the body to DEPICT a symbolic representation of eternal life WHILE HERE. You cannot do that if you think of yourself as IN or OF this world.

You must BRING another world TO this world. You must BE AS YOU ARE IN HEAVEN, while visiting hell. You then operate under MIRACULOUS laws, which break the laws of this world while you're here.

This is why it's important to start now to identify yourself AS your soul, to begin operating AS IMMORTAL, to extend God's love here, to shine Heaven's light into the darkness, and to be as close as possible to how God created you BEFORE you get to heaven.

"But the REAL world HAS the power to touch you even here, BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT. And what you call with love WILL come to you."

"The miracle, therefore, has a unique function, and is motivated by a unique Teacher, Who brings the laws of another world to this one."

"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence. What you cannot see becomes real to you only through the witnesses who speak for it. For you can be AWARE of what you cannot see, and it can become compellingly real to you, as its presence becomes manifest THROUGH you. Do His work, for you SHARE in His function. As your function in Heaven is creation, so your function on earth is healing. God shares His function with you in Heaven, and the Holy Spirit shares His with you on earth."

"18. 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."

This touches on the essence of A Course in Miracles and the Golden Rule. Jesus is literally telling us that YOU ARE ONE WITH OTHERS. This means you are literally IN THEM. And therefore the way that you treat them is the SAME as the way you treat yourself.

There is no exception to this. You treat BOTH yourself and others the same way at the same time. To recoil for another is to recoil from yourself. To not love another is to not love yourself. To hate another is to hate yourself. There is no escaping this because fundamentally, by the Law of God, you ARE them.

"One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds. Such is the truth."

So per the Golden Rule, that means that every person you encounter, you should love them, IF you want to be loved and if you love yourself. You should SEE YOUR SELF in them. Because both you AND them are Christ. And your love of them IS your love of yourself, directly. What you give to them you receive. What you transmit to them, you transmit to the part of you that is in them.

The "part of you" that is "in them" is the target of everything you give to them, so you have a VESTED INTEREST - a shared interest, in treating them well in order for YOU to be treated well. This is not a play on words or an option. This is how minds share and relate. This is how they were created. This is the dynamics of the laws of God which are always applying.

It is always the ego that suggests, the way you treat another is NOT the way you are treating yourself. Or that you can attack without being attacked. Or you can be murderous without experiencing the consequences. Or you can judge without being judged. Or you can hate without being hated. Or you can be right and they can be wrong and there is no equality between you.

These are all LIES because they fly in the face of the inescapable LAW. It can SEEM as if you can treat someone differently to how you treat yourself, but all of that MUST be an illusion. Because the only truth is that ALL of God's children are perfect EQUALS. Making them perfect brothers in the sonship. And this is permanent fact.

Any kind of inequality is an illusion. And that not only means that you and your brother are SEPARATELY EQUAL as individuals, like two identical twins standing next to each other. It in fact means that you SHARE EVERYTHING, which means you OVERLAP with each other, are ONE with each other, JOINED with each other, IN each other. You literally are in your brother's mind with him. Even if that means part of you seems to be "over there" in another person, from a separated point of view.

This is really the only thing to be learned. How to love yourself AND others equally. How to recognize that you are ONE with all people. To realize that, you cannot GET AWAY WITH anything. You cannot hurt without being hurt. You cannot attack without being attacked. Scapegoating and blame are delusional and denial. When you attack anyone you are hurting yourself, and you have to ask yourself, do you want to keep hurting yourself?

Anger and attack towards "others" drives a RIFT into your mind between the part of your mind which seems to be isolated to "inside your body" and the part of you which seems to be "inside other people's bodies". The more you attack what you THINK is a "separate them", the more you are SPLITTING OFF part of you which is in "you" (as a body identified self) and the part of you which is ONE WITH THEM. Which means you are directly attacking yourself and splitting your mind.

The split mind is divided by bodily boundaries, and as you focus on the ways in which you are NOT ONE, by emphasizing the solidity and reality and restriction of bodily obstacles, it simply SPLITS your mind and causes you to disassociate from yourself. And now you think you are literally two selves, with one part of you trapped in your body and the other part of you trapped in another person's body. You've now made an ego for both of you. And now you want to attack another to steal back from them the part of your SELF that you believe they have kept from you. As discussed in "the laws of chaos", everyone is looking for the self they think they lost.

So this seems to be a catch. The catch is, that if you choose to attack someone, you WILL be attacked, and you will suffer consequences, directly inflicted BY YOURSELF upon yourself. This is the secret of salvation, that you are doing it to yourself. And the only way to alleviate this suffering is to LOVE the other person. If you love them you will be loved. If you hate them you will be hated. By yourself. You cannot escape this "clause". It is the law of God. It is the Golden Rule. It is both a curse if ignored, and a clue to how to be happy if embraced.

The Golden Rule doesn't just mean that if you might treat someone as you would have them treat you, they MIGHT elect to treat you in a similar fashion. If there is any possibility that cause and effect breaks down and they MIGHT NOT treat you how you are treating them, then the law is breakable, and it is not a law, and it has devolved to the level of physical behaviors. The true nature of the Golden Rule is the oneness you always have with everyone in the mind, whereby you LITERALLY are DIRECTLY treating yourself the way you are treating them, because you are IN THEM.

"Do unto others because you ARE doing unto yourself." is what it should say.

If there is a person you hate, you will drive a separation between you. In this separation you will believe that person is completely separate from you, and you want to have as much distance and dis-association between you as possible. You do not want to be associated with them. You want to destroy them and have them not exist. And in this intensity of hatred and rage and attack and anger, you believe THEY ARE NOT YOU. And as such you can hurl as much blame and condemnation upon them as you can muster, and it seems to be 100% about their faults, and 0% about yours. This is a state of insanity.

This is a great way to split your mind, leading to states of personal suffering, unlove, a total lack of peace, and literal self destruction. Those who murder are trying to kill themselves. And those who attack are undermining their own integrity. And those who hate do not love themselves. Just as those who are sick have made themselves sick in an attempt to accuse OTHERS of sin as well as themselves.

"You but accuse your brothers of your own sin."

"Damaged bodies remain accusers."

The only solution, and the only option, and the only law which you HAVE to abide by, and cannot escape, is the law of God, that how you DO treat others IS how you are treating yourself, because YOU ARE ONE WITH THEM. And being literally part of that person, anything you hurl at them you are hurling at yourself. And you WILL experience the consequences. So really, your hands are tied and you do not have any loopholes or ways to get out of it.

Either you love BOTH you and your brother, or you hate both you and your brother. Either you love both you and your brother, or you attack both you and your brother. Either you attempt to make both you and your brother sick, or you HEAL both you and your brother. When you suffer you suffer along with him. The truth that applies to you applies to them equally and to the same degree. And not simply because they are your equal, but because THEY ARE YOU.

"Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad."When this is recognized as true, when cause and effect are reunited so that anything you cause you also experience the effects of instantly, and when there is no way to attack without attacking yourself, you now have shared interests and the only option is to love. The only sane choice is to love. If you don't love you will hurt yourself and others. If you do love you will uplift and heal yourself and others. And "when I heal I am not healed alone."

It is by recognizing that you have a vested interest in loving others, because it allows you to be loved, that you will automatically steer clear of attack upon yourself. You will realize that you CANNOT attack another person WITHOUT suffering the consequences. And there is no way to hurt them without being hurt. So your only sane choice is to love unconditionally, so that you will be loved. Otherwise a failure to recognize your oneness leads to it seeming plausible, justifiable and warranted, that you can attack without consequence. And then you are on the slippery slope to hell.

"Hold onto nothing."

Loss is self-induced suffering. It is a feeling of not getting what you want, like a childish temper tantrum. It's produced by the demand that things should be the way you want them to be, at the same time as them NOT being that way.

There is a sense of space and time, a gap, a separation, between what you seem to want, and what is. This gap is produced by two anchors. One anchor is the thing which is already gone, has left, has died, doesn't exist, is now in the past. The other anchor is your WANTING that thing to be not gone, to be still here in the present with you.

The stronger you want something to be a certain way, and the greater the contrast between that and how things actually are, the more you will suffer and feel despair, a feeling that something you really want strongly has been taken away or denied to you. But this is because YOU are denying how things are now, and so experience as though you are being denied something. If you deny, you will be denied due to the golden rule.

Wanting is actually denial, in which you are denying that things are the way they are, instead of accepting the facts. It is an unwillingness to accept the "reality" of what has changed. If something or someone has left, they have left. This is a fact. But if you want it to not be this way, you are in denial.

This denial produces lack, which produces neediness, which produces desire and wanting. If you are wanting, it means you do not have something - wanting=lacking, as in "you are left wanting." But wanting masquerades as an attraction or desire to have something, which the ego uses as a substitute for love. Wanting is part of specialness, and wanting is a way of saying "I do not want this."

When something leaves, it has left. It is in the past. It is not here. This is a fact. You should allow it to be free to be gone. But if you cannot accept and allow this fact, you will resist it. This resistance is like insisting that it shouldn't be this way, it's not right, it's not fair, you don't "want" it, because you want things to carry on as they were.

This insistence that worldly things NOT change, is in direct contradiction to the nature of all things in this world - which is that they AWAYS change, and sooner or later they "die" (change). It is their nature to change because they are illusions, and illusions are always temporary, with beginnings and endings alike.

Trying to make changing things NOT change, is an attempt to control "reality" and deny what has changed, because you "want it thus." It also means you are trying to give permanence to something that is not permanent, such as body or home or whatever.

"Dreams are perceptual temper tantrums, in which you literally scream, 'I want it THUS!'"

When things have changed, and you have not accepted that they have changed, you are denying the change. You do this to try to suggest that - if you hold on, if you resist, if you don't want the change, if you keep wanting things strongly to be the way they were, then you'll actually stop the thing from going away, you'll stop it from leaving, you'll stop the loss. This is like a desperate pleading that something doesn't leave when it's already left.

When this involves the seeming loss of a person - really just a change in the status of the body - you can resist and deny that they've gone, because you believe that by doing so you'll prevent their death. You try to keep them around by holding onto them, attaching to them, wanting them. And it seems counter to your desires to have to question whether you should even "want them" anymore, as if that would mean itself the loss of what you want.

The thing is, that the stronger you deny what has changed, the more you go into denial, the more you will feel that you are being denied something. It could take the form of you being in a different country with an inability to travel to see your family at christmas for example, and just because you are denied access, it creates a sense of a rift or gap or spacetime, a distance of separateness, which induces horrible feelings of despair - which we call loss or grief.

The intensity of the loss is really in proportion to how much you are denying and holding onto something which is not there. The more you want to keep it and not let it go, the more you feel awful when faced with the fact that it has already gone. And indeed the desire to keep it around is a way to NOT SEE that it has already gone, because you do not WANT that to be true. You want the person to still be around etc.

So there becomes this mismatch between... what is in front of your face as the "reality" or configuration of the illusory world right now, and what you PREFER that it be. If you prefer that your dead partner or family member be still in a body, and they are not, that is a contrast between what is and what is not. That contrast is a separation of spacetime, which turns into a pit of hell and despair.

Jesus in the course is leading us to learn to let everything go. To hold onto nothing. That means letting everything that is in the past be in the past. It means not WANTING to control whether something seems present or not. It means not DENYING what is happening now.

Ultimately there is a plot twist here, in that the use of denial to deny that something has gone, which places focus on something that is past and amplifies the sense of its absence while simultaneously focusing on it, takes you away from the PRESENT. And so the denial of death for example becomes a way to choose it and thus to avoid life. Being in a state of despairing loss is a way to not live in the present moment, and instead to focus on what is NOT present.

Eventually we have to get to a place where we are so detached from whatever seems to come and go, recognizing that all illusory things like bodies and places are indeed just transient fleeting things, in no way deceived into the idea that they can be permanent or last forever. When you are a "under no illusion" that temporary things are temporary, then you become able to accept the illusion's transient nature, and can ALLOW it to be the way it is.

Essentially the antidote to loss and grief is then is to learn recognize the that you are in denial and cannot allow things to be the way they are, you have to stop wanting something that you cannot have, let go of the thing so that it CAN go, allow it to move away from you, accept that it is gone and not present, give it freedom and set it free so that it can come and go without your controlling it (conditional love), and therefore reach a point of acceptance and freedom.

When you can GIVE freedom to the thing that has gone away, you can RECEIVE freedom for yourself that enables you to "move on." If you do not let the thing itself "move on" ie into the past, away from you, then you will not be able to move on either. If you deny the thing its nature of change and temporariness, you will feel denied by the way that the illusory world keeps changing in ways that you do not want. But as you come to allow the thing to go, you will allow yourself to live and be set free. And as you can accept that the thing HAS gone, you can set yourself free by accepting where you ARE in the present. Life and living is always in the present, not the past.

Essentially it all boils down to something very simple. Let all illusory things leave when they leave, live in the present, and stop trying to "stop change" from happening. Find away to accept the circumstance that you "do not want" rather than fighting against it and "wishing" it were different. This is a kind of "sobering up".

Do not BECOME attached, which will only set you up for loss when you find you have difficulty allowing the cord to be severed when the thing leaves. Non-attachment doesn't mean no life or relationship it just means not being confused about whether illusory things are permanent or temporary. People are not bodies. Places are not your real home - which is in God. Everyone in spirit are always joined to each other forever.

Accept that all temporary things are temporary, let them all come and go, and you will enter into acceptance. This is simply a willingness to accept the FACT of what has changed. In acceptance you will be in the present, because you have let all past things stay in the past instead of trying to drag them into the present as baggage. This acceptance opens the way to the acceptance of that which IS permanent, as changeless reality, in which nothing real is ever lost, no-one created ever dies, and there is no possibility of despair.

We are all a part of each other in God. You are the person you think you lost. Everyone is you. There is no death and no separation. Everyone is everyone forever.

"Hold onto nothing. Do not bring with you one thought the past has taught, nor one belief you ever learned before from anything. Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."

"ANY mistake can be corrected, if TRUTH be left to judge it. But, if the mistake is given the STATUS of truth, to what CAN it be brought? The "holiness" of sin is kept in place by just this strange device."

What is a mistake? It's just a conclusion you come to when you don't have all the facts. It's what you experience when you deny what is really true, and hide from it. Hiding from the facts makes you unaware of them.

You will base your conclusions on all the information you have. But if your information is lacking due to being hidden, you are very likely going to make a mistake. Based on what you DO know, your conclusions will seem to make total sense. But the problem is you have left out some facts, and that could change everything.

For example, the "tiny mad idea" that you can be separate from God, is an idea of something impossible. You cannot be separate from God because God is everywhere. The idea is ridiculous and makes no sense. However, if you go in denial and hide from the truth, you will lose sight of the facts. And now you can potentially convince yourself that separation is possible.

Believing separation is possible, IS a mistake. Because the fact remains that it is not possible at all. But we don't RECOGNIZE that it is a mistake, because we think that in our state of denial we still have full access to all the information. And in this we are also mistaken, because being in denial shuts information out of your awareness.

So as we go into the so-called "separation from God", as we "buy into" what seem to actually be very logical conclusions, making sense of reality based on what we think we know, we can become very mistaken and NOT RECOGNIZE that we are. We can believe separation is possible, even though it isn't. And this sets us on a slippery staircase where we're likely to make one mistake after another.

"Brothers, take not one step in the descent to hell. For, HAVING taken one, you will NOT RECOGNIZE the rest for what they are. And they WILL follow. Attack in ANY form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads FROM Heaven. Yet, any instant, it is possible to have this all undone. How can you know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell?"

Being in a mistaken state of mind, ie lacking awareness of the whole truth of God, you WILL come to false conclusions. You will assume that you are correct in believing that separation is possible. In order TO believe it, however, you have to assign the attributes of God TO the mad idea.

God means truth and reality and meaning and permanence. If you are mistaken, you are confused about what reality IS, and will lose track of WHAT is real. You will now start to assign God's attributes to the mistakes you're making. You will claim that your mistakes are NOT mistakes, and you will instead GIVE them reality and truth. You'll interpret them as ACTUAL FACTS.

Believing that a mistaken idea is actually a fact, GIVES the mistake a sense of truth, validity, power, causation, reality, permanence and life. It is by this mechanism that you convert mistakes into SINS. Sin is now the idea that, even though you are ONLY mistaken, you're not ACTUALLY mistaken, but are in fact correct, and therefore your mistakes are REAL.

If what you do in mistakes is real, then every time you make a mistake you are REALLY doing it. And you will find that once you start off on the wrong foot, believing in separation, you will progress ever more deeply into mistake upon mistake, until the descent into hell becomes so twisted and unrecognizable that you can't even tell what anything is anymore.

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is BECAUSE it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and AWAY from truth. Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end."

A sin, then, is really just a mistaken state of mind, which has mistakenly believed that some property of God belongs to the mistake. It ASSOCIATES reality and truth with something that isn't true or real. It mistakes something false FOR something true. And it therefore produces confusion and insanity.

What this really means is that what we call "the ego" or the "split mind", is NOT a sinful state. There IS no real sin, on any level at any time. The ego is not really a sinful approach to reality. It is a MISTAKEN approach. It is nothing more than mistaken. The whole notion that "you are really separate" is a mistake. Separation is not possible, so you can't be separated off. To believe that you are, is to be mistaken, but not sinful.

You cannot be guilty unless you are sinful. You can only be sinful, or believe that you are, if you combine reality with illusions. If you mix the attributes of God with the attributes of something UNREAL, you get sin. A mistake is interpreted as permanent, as having real effects, as causing with a power of its own, and of attacking the vulnerability of something as though it were true and possible. IF that were true, your mistakes WOULD be sins. But it isn't.

The ENTIRE ego thought system is nothing more than a mistaken state of mind. A mind that does not RECOGNIZE what is true and false. It arises in a mind that has lost sight of the truth, due to being in denial of God. This denial has hidden the truth and concealed it, making it hard to recognize or see. And in that lack of light, things which are NOT true are CONFUSED with things that are. This means you are lost, but it does not mean you are sinful.

If the ego assertion is that "separation is possible" or "you are separate", it will base all of its sense of identity and truth on this premise. This includes its seemingly "selfish" attitude of self-preservation and self-interest and general selfishness. But these are not really sins. They are just a mind being mistaken. And the mind is actually trying to be very very logical in drawing its conclusions, based on what it believes is true.

If separation IS true, then you ARE separated off, and you SHOULD be selfish, because there is no-one else you're connected to that you can share anything with. It all becomes about "me alone" because you literally are believing you exist on a desert island in isolation. It makes perfect sense to such a mind that it CAN only look out for its own interests, because there has been a breakdown in communication and relationship with everyone else due to the separation.

This doesn't make the ego a sinner, it just makes it confused. It is just mistaken. The belief in separation is a mistaken belief because separation is impossible. WHEN the mind finally recognizes that its conclusions of "I am separate" were simply based on a false premise, that this entire way of thinking in terms of "me alone" was based on a LIE, that same mind will have a eureka moment and wake up to the truth.

There is no call for guilt, because real sin does not exist. When you believe that sin HAS reality, then guilt IS entirely justified AND inescapable. You WILL be forced to feel guilty and to seek to destroy yourself to atone for what you really did, IF what you did is believed to be taking place in reality. If it is not recognized that this world IS A DREAM, then you will, by mistake, condemn yourself to death for your "real" mistakes. Real mistakes are unforgivable.

To forgive then, or to apply forgiveness, we simply need to learn to recognize that we are mistaken. We are mistaken because we are in denial. The denial is making us unaware of the whole truth. We do not have all the facts. We don't really know what anything is, or what it is for. We can't judge anything correctly because we can't see the whole picture and are highly liable to come to a false conclusion. We can't draw ANY conclusions because we don't RECOGNIZE the problem or situation.

Therefore we need the help of the Holy Spirit who stands outside of this mistakenness and sees it for what it is. HE recognizes that we are ONLY mistaken. All of heaven knows this. All the angels know this. They come to our aid knowing that all we're doing is being asleep and having a bad dream, which seems real, but which isn't, in which all kinds of upsetting things seem to happen. And not one single thing we dream of is real or true, nor does it have any consequences whatsoever.

They come to our aid to simply tell us, we are mistaken and are incorrect. We need gentle corrections. We don't have all the facts and need to open up to a bigger truth than the one we believe currently. We need to have a little willingness to entertain the idea that we ARE in a mistaken state, and become open to the possibility of having drawn a false conclusion. The truth might even be totally opposite to what we believe, making it seem like something we do not want.

You are not guilty because you have not really sinned. Reality and truth can only appropriately be assigned to God. You should never assign reality or truth to a dream or anything in it. The world is not real and doesn't exist, because you are still at home with God in heaven, dreaming of exile. Nothing that you seem to do in your dream happens to anything real. Nothing real is ever affected. Only by giving it reality or truth can you deceive yourself that you HAVE done what you think is possible, but what remains impossible in truth.

Undoing the ego then is nothing more than recognizing that you are merely mistaken, and not sinful. This is forgiveness. The recognition that you HAVE NOT DONE what you think you did. You cannot have done it because it is IMPOSSIBLE in God's reality. Therefore it cannot be real or true. You DID NOT do what you think you did, in reality, you just dreamed of it. And you only dreamed of it because you were mistaken. Your mistake can be corrected and undone without ANY punishment or guilt or suffering whatsoever. "Forgiveness recognizes that what you think your brother did has not OCCURRED."

"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL tod ecide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me."

Let's start with a simple fact, "an opposite to God does not exist." God is everything, and the opposite of everything is nothing. Nothingness DOES NOT exist. You cannot go there, experience it, live in it, or have it. There is no nothing.

However, in the separation, the tiny mad idea asserted that THERE IS an opposite to God. It was an attempt to believe that you CAN go into a nothingness, experience it as if it exists, and live in it. This produced a fictional world, or "lack of God", which the mind believes really exists. Believing this is obviously a mistake.

So we've now "made a world", whose nature is opposite to God's nature in every way, and which does NOT really exist because it's impossible, but the mind BELIEVES that it does. And whatever you believe in your mind will accept as "reality".

"For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."

This world also comprises planet Earth.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made " .... "and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way"

Every single attribute of God is opposed. Whatever God is NOT, this second world seems to BE. God is possible, the world is impossible. God is permanent, the world is temporary. God is changeless, the world can only change. God is immortal, the world dies. God includes, the world excludes. God loves, the world lacks love. God shares in oneness, the world separates and fragments.

So this sort of "fiction of a world", an assertion that an opposite to God exists, seems to have properties which are totally opposite to God's nature. A world of limitations, suffering, sickness and death. A world of opposition and conflict, of war and attack. This is the physical world, including the Earth and the galaxies etc. It is space and time.

By believing that an opposite to God does exist, we have thus made a world which "depicts" what it might be like IF that opposite really existed. As if nothingness, in all its ways, were something to be experienced. But it is still NOT really total nothingness itself, because that totally does not exist.

"Actual nothingness" WOULD be the total extermination of God and his creations. It would be a complete lack of existence, a total negation of life, an absolute permanent end to creation, and oblivion. We could say that the proper name for that is the idea of "hell." A true opposite to heaven.

One of the things that happens when you oppose God, is you oppose what is true. You make out that what is true is false. You also make out that what is false is true. You take what does not exist and believe it exists. You take what does exist and try to kill it off. As such the true and the false become SWAPPED, which results in total confusion and insanity.

"You HAVE carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is TOTAL CONFUSION ABOUT EVERYTHING."

This total confusion is part of the state of mind of believing in being separate, ie opposite to God. It is a total lack of recognition of what anything actually IS, and so is out of touch with reality, and is therefore insane. This is what comes from the "mad" idea. A mad world in which everything is nonsense.

The mind that believes that separation is possible, is insane. It forms what we call "the ego", which is really just the belief in nothing. A belief in total opposition to God. When mind rejects all truth and asserts everything that's false, it becomes very "twisted". This twistedness is what we might call evil. This belief in God's opposite becomes something along the lines of "satanic" or "devil worship" or "death worship."

"The denial of God is the ego's religion."

Evil is the state of mind in which the truth is completely denied and opposed. A mind that does not want God and sees God as evil. Such a mind is very very confused. It sees death as life, separation as joining, hell as heaven, heaven as hell, conflict as resolution, attack as healing, guilt as forgiveness, and punishment as atonement.

Such a mind is "sick", in every sense of the word. This is extended into what we would call depraved, disgusting, murderous, torturous, manipulative, hateful, vengeful, deceitful, etc. All these characteristics arise from opposing God's nature, leading to a seemingly "evil" sense of identity (lack of) and a completely backwards and distorted attitude. "The evil self I made."

"The devil is a frightening concept ONLY because he is thought of as extremely powerful and extremely active. He is perceived as a force in combat with God, battling Him for possession of Souls. He deceives by lies, and builds kingdoms of his own, in which everything is in direct opposition to God."

"The mind can make the belief in Separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the devil. It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood. Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at your lives and see what the devil has made."

This ego projects itself ONTO the "believed in" world, the world that was made in an attempt to oppose God. The world is a void and an emptiness and a lack, so it has no inherent meaning. Our mind has to give it meaning. Earth can thus reflect back to us, like a mirror, whatever meaning we GIVE to it, regardless of whether that meaning is unholy or holy.

"Earth can reflect heaven or hell, and always as you wish."

When ego, whose nature is THE SAME as the nature of nothingness, and THE SAME as the nature of physical world, projects onto the physical world, it EMPHASIZES and AMPLIFIES its nature. It hones in on separations, differences, appearances, inequalities, conflicts and attacks. It takes sides, pitting one part against another. It reduces identity to physical form ie bodies, and completely shuts out and kind of abstract level of mind.

The ego thus "projects hell" onto the Earth, and then perceives it IN the Earth. Earth itself isn't hell, but it is an illusion of or FORM of hell. It symbolizes hell in its form and function, but isn't inherently anything - good or bad. Ego MAKES it bad or evil, turning it into an experience of hell, psychological hell, by USING it to BELIEVE IN hell.

So the belief in the mind that believes that an opposite to God IS REAL, and does exist, and can be experienced, MAKES an otherwise neutral nothing illusion of a world into what SEEMS to be an actual existing happening world. As such in its view of this world, of Earth, the ego sees the world as actual fact, as true, as a creation, as God, as heaven, as existing, and as really being experienced.

It is this engagement with, investment in, belief in, choosing of, siding with, and USE OF the nothing world, to try to MAKE IT BE something, that converts what would BE nothing into seemingly something. It then takes on "a life of its own", the world is thought to be causal, it is now doing things to you, you are now under attack as part of it, and your whole sense of its reality blots out the mind and God.

Earth is now experienced AS hell. At first merely an empty symbolic image depicting what hell (nothingness, opposite to God) might be like, but then made vivid and meaning what it appears to be, turning it into an actual happening hell, to your mind. Now you are having a nightmare, in which an opposite to God seems to really exist, really happen to you, and really threaten your existence, robbing your peace of mind and disturbing you.

So first we make an illusory empty world which is not really anything but appears to have a form which symbolizes laws opposite to God's, then our mind turns to ego and invests it with reality, making it appear to be a living hell. Identifying AS a body puts you on the battleground, in the midst of war and chaos and conflict of forms. And everything that happens threatens your life, stresses you it, frightens you and seems unfair.

Our mind can in turn transform into thoughts of heaven, wholeness, healing and God's love. It can project this onto the neutral Earth just as the ego did. It can use the neutral Earth for a higher purpose. That higher purpose is to use it to remind you of how an opposite to God cannot exist. This projects God's actual truth onto the "opposite of God", producing a reflection of God seen "in" the world.

This also entails revealing and RECOGNIZING the nature of this world. In this recognition the world is seen only for "what it is", which is an illusion of nothing pretending to be something. It is not seen AS hell, but as a strange hell-like world that you made by mistake in your attempt to bring about God's opposite. It is seen with love, which reflects love in it, but also reveals that such a world cannot exist.

This recognition, which is enlightenment, finally perceives that this world - opposite to God - is not a real hell, real hell does not exist, only heaven exists, only heaven is reflected in it, and no longer do we need it. The world then slips away and fades into nothingness, into the idea of nothing which it came from. The idea of an opposite to God vanishes and the whole world along with it. We wake up in God, knowing as we always have that an opposite to God does not exist, and "heaven is all that remains."

Consider the idea of a script for your life which you fully planned, consented to, and passionately wanted, before you came into this lifetime. Imagine that you organized and orchestrated every single interaction. You created agreements with every single person you would ever meet and you asked them to do to you every single thing they were to do, with which they would comply. Imagine also that only what you planned would happen and nothing else would happen - except you would also forget that you planned it.

ACIM does speak to this, in that it says that nothing happens to you that you have not asked for, and that you get *everything* you ask for, and that you get *nothing* that you did not ask for. It also speaks to this when it says that nobody dies without his own consent. NOBODY DIES WITHOUT THEIR OWN CONSENT.

At some point, somewhere, whether it's in this life or before this life, but somewhere, for ACIM to be TRUE on this matter, you ****MUST**** have consented to every single thing that has ever happened in your life. ABSOLUTELY ALL OF IT. Not only consented to it but created it, asked for it, wanted it, designed it and even set it in motion YOURSELF. Not by any outside force or coercion or ANY amount of victimhood whatsoever. (this is somewhat described in the "song of prayer" pamphlet as well)

Remember the Course also says the key to salvation is this - that you are but doing this to yourself.

IF the Course is telling the truth (and it is), then everything that has ever happened in 'your life' has been exactly designed by and asked for by you. All of it. So this takes quite a lot of 'fessing up', which also means your life must become totally void of victimhood.

If you look now, and you look back at some things that you recognize as having 'happened' in your life, particularly events which involved people where they seemed to influence you in ANY way, and in particular in what *looked like* any kind of negative way, then you need to now reinterpret that. If you can allow yourself to ACCEPT that you planned and asked for every single detail of what occurred, then a few insights must arise:

1) You have to realize there was a REASON WHY you planned what you did, and that reason was FOR YOUR GOOD. Every single thing that you designed must have been for an intended purpose of, ultimately, leading you to a spiritual awakening. Every single 'lesson' or scenario that you put together, MUST have been intended to HELP YOU in some way.

2) With the information that all events are helpful, this must then shed a new light on all of these tragic past experiences, to show you that SOMEHOW, whatever happened, and no matter how it looked at the time, somehow that event and that person were ONLY doing what was in your script and they performed it perfectly. Therefore they weren't REALLY a victimizer. And you weren't REALLY a victim. At the time, yes, you believed you were, but here's the thing. You only believe you are a victim when you are UNAWARE that you are a script-writer.

3) This now gives rise to the insight that every way you've experienced being a victim in the past, was a result of a lack of awareness on your part, in which you experienced something designed to HELP YOU but interpreted it initially as HURTING YOU. This symbolically is the same thing as being loved by God but believing that you're actually being attacked by God. Ie it seemed against you rather than for you. So all of the ways that you STILL hold onto past events with a grievance, thinking of them as 'wrong' or 'unwanted' or 'bad' or 'unpleasant' or whatever, blaming the other person, all of that INTERPRETATION of events came about ONLY because you did not remember that you wrote the script. It looked like you didn't ask for what happened, which, IF it were true, WOULD justify your anger and hurt and offense. And that means, you need to to be more truly forgiving, ultimately accepting the atonement.

4) This now helps you to see that, ultimately, everyone involved is INNOCENT, because nobody has done anything outside of the contract and nobody ELSE is responsible for having done anything TO YOU against your will. Your will is embedded in your script which YOU WROTE, so even if you now find yourself unaware of this and experiencing victimhood, YOU DID STILL WRITE IT. So you can hardly blame the other person. So now you need to go look at all the unhealed grievances that you still haven't let go of, and which you still interpret in a victim consciousness that says "I didn't want this to happen", "this wasn't fair", "they did it to me against my will" etc.... you HAVE to reinterpret that.

5) This now leads us to TAKING RESPONSIBILITY. This might seem like a step which places a shitload of guilt on your shoulders, blaming yourself for what happened, bla bla bla. That's ego. What it really means is actually a doorway to FREEDOM and RELIEF. You see, if you scripted all this, and you asked xyz person to do what they did, and you can admit that and own that fact, then you can let them off the hook. You can realize they did not victimize you. YOU victimized you. You hired them to carry out your wishes. If you are responsible for writing your script (and maybe you had help on the other side to do this gently/realistically etc), then you can no longer blame anyone else for what happens, in the past or in the future. It also means you can no longer view experiences as unwanted, bad, against you, unhelpful, hurtful, something to resist, as an attack, or any other form of victimization. That means, yes, whatever they did, whatever happened, you wanted it and got what you wanted, FOR A REASON, to HELP YOU to wake up.

6) Having now admitted to this responsibility, and started to access the sense of RELIEF and freedom that this gives you... because dropping the whole victim drama is a RELIEF from suffering, you can now enter into GRATITUDE. You cannot be grateful to an attacker while you think you didn't ask them to attack you. But you can be grateful to them when you realize you DID ask them to AND you can turn your mind to look at the situation as helpful/for you. It's like looking for the silver linings. What's happening is NOT a terrible tragedy or a horrible event gone wrong. That's illusion. What's happening is trying to help you to be steered in the right direction or to keep you safe or to help you learn who you are or to guide you to remembering whats true or to learn to love and care etc.. whatever the purposes are in your plan for spiritual "growth."

7) Finally then you have to learn to change the 'direction' or angle from which you look at events. If you're responsible and everything is for your good, then you need to learn to 'take it' that way. Look for the helpfulness. Look for how it is 'positive'. Look for the silver lining, the learning, the opportunity its giving you. Look at how it is making you grow or what you're learning from it. Ultimately then there is only one LESSON, in the form of all lessons. And it's this. You need to overcome the NEED for the lesson by recognizing the truth, owning up to the responsibility of who you really are (owning your innocence), entering into the mindset of the Holy Spirit which shows you that you are never a victim, and reclaiming your FREEDOM from the dramas of the ego. Ultimately this translates to you OVERLOOKING (forgiveness) all of the ways that you get LOST in the 'game' that you set up, so that you literally are no longer CAPABLE of playing the game. Once the truth is revealed, you can never forget it. And so you no longer need to create these dramas ever again.

Remember, nothing happens to you against your will. There are no accidents. Nothing happens that wasn't planned at some point in time BY YOU. Nothing is being forced upon you against your will.

You might find yourself 'inside a lesson' in this lifetime and feeling stuck in it, victmized by it, limited by it. But you might not also remember the benefits of this situation. Maybe it has indirect effects on the spiritual growth of other people. Maybe by suffering a sickness you HELP other people to learn compassion. Maybe by being afraid you give others an opportunity to learn to nurture. We're all this big soup of roleplay and side-effects and responses.

Also let's just finish by saying you're not stuck with a lesson. Holy Spirit WANTS you to learn the lesson. The answer to it is not being hidden from you. Often Holy Spirit tells me, in the midst of some frustration and confusion, "its a lesson". So them I'm like.. hmm... what is this lesson, what am I meant to learn? And it's not like Holy Spirit is withholding the answer, but I need to experientially becoming willing to accept some measure of truth in order to complete the need for the situation. The lesson may not be obvious.

In fact a recent lesson for me was to learn to DROP the idea of miraculously healing a problem with my eye, so that i would let go of false ideas about control and spiritualization of my ego, even though this outcome seemed at the time to be totally the opposite of what I thought I needed to do. Holy Spirit eventually revealed, when I was at the readiness to admit to it, that the whole point was to help me to 'see' the truth - that I was trying to do/be something beyond what is asked of me.

Also I can't begin to tell you how much I have learned compassion and a heart-opening as a result of various challenges that a person close to me has been through. For which I'm grateful, even though it sounds 'sick' to say you're grateful for sickness.

Holy Spirit said to me, "there is a plan". I'm learning to trust that more. And thus learning to take responsibility for my part in that plan, and thus relinquishing all of the support for victim mentality and blame. Even now as I start to look back at past events in 'this new light' I can see that I need to become grateful to people that I thought were against me or who I thought did the wrong thing. They were only helping and they only DID help. I just didn't recognize it.

Ultimately you want to get to where you have no more need for writing scripts, having learned everything they offer. Then you are free from the cycle of reincarnation forever.

The ego has built some very terrible things which we regard as extremely real. These include pain, disease/sickness, fear, death, emergency, intensity, attack, and separation. When these things seems to be happening, the ego is sending out a very strong message to us.

The message says, "you should stay the hell away from this it's really bad". (Beware, this advice may be misleading ;-)

Pain quite literally tells you in an experiential way that it is something you do not want. And nobody wholeheartedly wants to be sick or dying. And attack can be particularly upsetting. The ego keeps reinforcing the idea:

"This is really really terrible and it's really happening and you should want it to stop" (Beware again, this ego advice may not work ;-)

And so typically that is the reaction that we have. If I've got pain, I want it to go away. If someone is attacking someone, I want them to stop doing it. If I am sick or diseased, I want to get rid of it.

The trouble is, these attitudes... These reactions... These ways of experiencing these 'temptation', is precisely the OPPOSITE of what will actually HELP the situation. The ego's counsel is ALWAYS completely opposite of the truth and leading you down exactly the wrong path that results in things becoming far worse. What it claims will save you, and what it claims will heal you, and what it claims will fix the situation, DOES NOT, and so you seek for but you do not find peace.

So let's look at the opposite, which the ego warns you against.

If you are in pain, love the living FUCK out of it. Welcome it. Don't resist it. Drop all desire to get rid of it. Don't make it wrong. Don't judge it as bad or a mistake or something that shouldn't be there. And in particular, stop being a victim and OWN the CHOICE to put it there.

Instead of being a passive victim of it, instead be proactive in choosing how you wish to perceive it. It is also useful to extremely exaggerate how much you WELCOME the problem. For example:

"I am choosing this pain (or whatever the thing is)."

"I really wanted to have this and this is what I've received."

"This pain is absolutely beautiful and lovely and I love it with all my heart."

"I am the one who chose this pain and I've done a really excellent job of choosing it."

"This pain is absolutely amazing I totally love it and welcome it and want it."

"I allow this pain to stay for as long as it wants to, it is completely free to do so and I don't even want to get rid of it or make it go away."

"I feel really happy about this pain being there, and I am truly grateful that it has shown up just like I planned."

"I love this pain. This is the best pain I've ever created. This pain makes me completely happy because it is exactly how I wanted it to be and it has met all my conditions."

"I accept this pain and allow it to remain."

"I let go of resisting this pain or trying to make it go away."

"I let go of labelling this pain as negative or a fault or something I did wrong, there is no guilt in it at all. I am completely innocent."

"I surrender all attack on this pain and give it to you Holy Spirit."

"I am open to being completely still with this pain and simply observing it without any desire to change it or judge it."

"I surreneder this pain to you God, please heal it in my mind and I gently let it go to you now."

Notice that we're having an ATTITUDE which is completely the opposite of what the ego says your attitude SHOULD be. When something goes wrong, the ego puts it into the hierarchy of illusions and tells you exactly what kind of severity of reaction this calls for. If you let it, you'll react according to this hierarchy and be a victim. So the ego says this pain is not something you can possible want - that YOU are not something you can possibly want - so go ahead and WANT IT, to defy the ego and reverse its assertions.

The keys here are you need to include:

1. Complete ownership for having created this

2. Complete ownership for actively still creating it and wanting to

3. Gratitude for having created exactly what you wanted

4. Openness and welcome that is heartfelt

5. Allowing and accepting whatever it, letting it BE without you changing it

6. Surrender of all of the reactions you were having about it and all the ways you were making it out to be something wrong

7. Willingness to let it be free so that you can be free

8. Offering it up to Holy Spirit now that you have LET GO OF IT and have stopped trying to attack it or make it wrong or get rid of it yourself

9. Willingness to ASK Holy Spirit/Jesus/God to now heal it and take it from you

10. Actually DOING SO and letting go of it in peaceful surrender.

To the ego this is total madness. It will tell you if you try to accept or allow something that's clearly bad or awful, that you have regarded as real and upsetting, you will just condone it and keep it. This is not true. It will tell you that you should stop even trying to 'live with it' because if you do, you literally will be stuck keeping it and have to live with it. This is also not true.

The reason the ego's attitude is false is because there are a whole shitload of attitudes that you are having which are REINFORCING the pain and making it worse. In fact, you are the one who put it there. But while you keep REACTING to its appearance, which typically is "I want to get rid of it because it shouldn't be there", that just makes it worse and keeps it. When you lift away all of those reactions and layers of condemnation, judgement, guilt and wrongfulness, you are stripping away layers of 'making it real' and holding it in your mind, which actually FREES YOUR MIND from the illusions surrounding this. So you're actually undoing your reactions, seeing innocence and harmlessness in the thing, and thus getting yourself to the point where you can LET GO of it. You can't be free while you won't let IT be free.

The reason for this is that whenever there is pain or suffering or sickness, it is because there's some part of you that you do not LOVE. Some part of you where you see guilt or wrongness or non-acceptance or sinfulness. So that part of you that you refuse to accept HURTS and turns into sickness. This may or may not produce physical sickness but often it does. So you're not really dealing with your body being sick, you're dealing with your mind being sick - some part of YOU (not the body) needs love. So as you look at the body sickness and you keep launching counter-attacks and defenses against it, all you're doing is hurting the part of you that hurts, even more. That only compounds it and keeps it. Plus it makes you very unhappy because the ego's default reaction to pain and sickness is unhappiness. And yet the fact is, it is a choice to BE unhappy by not loving a part of yourself that MAKES the sickness appear in the first place.

Do you really HAVE to be unhappy and afraid and guilty and lost and hopeless 'because of' a pain or sickness? Do you not have any choice in the matter? At the very least, even if changing your attitude about it does not have any effect on making the sickness BETTER at all, physically, at least you will FEEL GOOD instead of feeling like shit. It IS far better for you to choose to be happy because of sickness than to add a layer of feeling shit on top of the physical sensations or symptoms. Having a headache is one thing, but also having a headache and feeling depressed and unhappy is a whole extra layer of despair. You don't HAVE to have that experience. And what you might find is, if you CHOOSE to have a happier experience about what is happening - a more welcoming, loving, open, allowing experience, then maybe, just maybe, your body will fall into line and actually HEAL to match your change in attitude. Since the physical sickness is just a symptom/projection of your unhealed attitude about yourself, internally, changing your attitude MUST change the projection.

The more support for sickness you can strip away the better, and all of your default negativity and victimhood about being sick DOES compound and support and reinforce it. What happens when you withdraw that support? How can a sickness have a strength, when you weaken it by withdrawing all of your mind's support for it? Make no mistaken, seeing yourself as victimized BY sickness or BY attack or BY someone dying or whatever, that very much strengthens the EFFECTS of that thing happening. Choosing to be happy and loving toward it, instead, which is completely against the ego and does take some WILL (affirmations help too), CANCELS OUT your belief in the effects. When you deny that something has affected you, the cause is undone and you are HEALED.

Jesus DOES ask us in ACIM to cancel out all of the effects of things in order to undo them and to DEMONSTRATE that you are invulnerable. You can't do that if you insist that there's no way you can love or be happy about whatever seems to have gone wrong. You've got to start somewhere. Worth a try?

How much of your life have you spend in the default reactionary space of feeling shitty about bad things that are happening? Has it worked? How much effort have you spent fighting against things that have gone wrong and failed and that are malfunctioning? Has that really helped at all? It has not worked. Try something radical. Try the exact opposite way of dealing with it and see what happens. Holy Spirit can amplify the effects of your willingness to SEE YOURSELF AS WHOLE AND HEALED, because it is in line with the truth.

The only thing you need to be wary of is the ego turning this into a reason to become SARCASTIC, which means that you're saying one thing and believing another. You need to find some amount of belief and meaning in what you're affirming. And because you're trying to UNDO the beliefs you already put in place in your negative reactions, it may take some effort of will and persistence to change your beliefs and to actually FEEL that what you're saying is true. After a while of saying it and MEANING it, you should feel a growing sense of peace and acceptance about the issue, and it should seem easier to be less upset about, and to surrender all of your counter-attacks upon it. Then you will have a GENUINE WILLINGNESS to hand it over to Holy Spirit.

Go for it.

What appears to be the physical world is not actually "direct reality". It is in fact once removed. It is an effect of an entirely other layer of causality which seems hidden. Just as in the holographic model, the underlying "source" of the appearances you see, is obscured by "sight of form" and you end up believing that this physical world is "verbatim", ie this is all there is.

In understanding why miracles are supernatural, it is very important to recognize this. In order to be supernatural there has to be an order or layer of reality deeper or higher than what appears to be the physical surface of this universe. We have to recognize that bodies and objects are not "immediate reality", they are once removed, and are EFFECTS caused by some other hidden level of causality. There is a whole other layer of causality, and everything in this world is "coming from" that hidden realm, making this world entirely an secondary effect.

When observing just the appearances of the surface of this world, there is a tremendous vast illusion before your eyes, which seems to operate in terms of "horizontal cause and effect". It seems as if some parts of the world cause and effect other parts. But this IS entirely an illusion. It's not what is happening. Anything which looks like being "different" in this world, ie one thing is a cause and another thing is an effect, is an illusion.

What secretly is happening is a higher, hidden level, a more immediate level of reality, is causing this entire universe all at once. Causality moves in a "vertical" direction from above, downwards, projecting the universe below. This means that there is a realm where you are "outside of" or above the entire field of horizontal illusions, outside the dream, where you are under absolutely none of the illusory horizontal laws and free of ALL limitations.

In that realm, you essentially are like a movie editor, someone who can reach into the movie and rearrange parts of it, orchestrate what goes where, and make significant changes. While within the movie itself it seems there is this consistent "story" playing, which utterly depends on the existence of many limitations and props and illusions of things which "must" happen according to certain rules or laws, realize that all of these stories of causality are entirely a fiction, where nothing seems to betray the illusion, nothing hints at this not being all there is, and nothing "blows the illusion" of horizontal or linear causality.

An example is a movie that you go to the cinema to watch. When you watch the movie you believe it is a single seamless story, in which certain limits and rules have been put in place in order to paint a seemingly "consistent" picture. But the fact is, if you could've been in the studio when the movie was being created, you would realize it was simply a bunch of people "acting" and a bunch of computers producing CGI special effects, working "behind the scenes". You as as a miracle worker as a BEHIND THE SCENES OPERATOR who orchestrates and produces the second-hand "effects" or "results" of a creative process. We used this same process initially when FORMING the physical universe, which is an entire order of reality removed from those who pull the strings.

When expression is made from the higher level, the more immediate level of causality, that expression is able to cause changes to the expressed world below. Just as an editor would make changes to a movie sequence from outside the movie which has the potentially to "break the illusion" of linear consistency within the movie itself. And when it DOES "perform a miracle", it literally BREAKS the illusion of linear cause and effect - the horizontal consistency or predictability of one thing leading only to another specific consequence. It's like someone editing the movie, and to those observing from WITHIN the movie, it will look like reality just did something "impossible".

If you seem to be living in the movie and you think that all that can happen is what's inside the movie, then suddenly a spaceship appears out of nowhere because the movie director decided to insert one, you will "witness" what appears to be a miracle. Something happening that seems impossible based on the linear laws. If you think of The Truman Show - a great movie, the same laws and rules and limitations had to happen day after day to maintain an illusion that nothing could happen outside the law, but when the main character started to "wake up" and see through the limitations, the world around him started to "break" and he eventually stepped outside of the whole illusion, coming face to face with the "directory" of the movie. You as a miracle worker are a director of the physical movie.

Or similarly, if it appears that there is a law of gravity where, over time, objects are attracted towards the center of the earth, and therefore human bodies are almost glued to the surface (you can jump, but only so high before you are attracted back down), and if suddenly a human body were to fly up in the air or walk on water, this would BREAK the illusion of horizontal laws. That means, the laws "within" the linear dream, within appearances of horizontal causality, could not have "resulted in" this effect, and it must have required someone to reach in from OUTSIDE of the laws and make an adjustment that the laws themselves are incapable of producing.

The key point to realize is that all of the linear laws are VERY LIMITING. We are confined by them. We are trapped by them. They seem to play out as if having a force or power over us. We don't seem able to escape gravity, time seems to proceed in one direction, one object seems to collide with another, no objects share the same space, very large heavy objects like mountains seem completely immovable, even sickness seems to have a causality in the body or due to external forces. These are all very limiting illusions of things on the SAME LEVEL causing other things on the SAME LEVEL to change.

From the point of view of the miracle worker, who is under no laws but God's, there are NO LIMITS. And so when the miracle worker manipulates the limitations in ways which defy and BREAK the linear laws, this appears to those in the horizontal dream as SUPERNATURAL MIRACLES. Things which should technically be "impossible" according to the limits we have accepted, suddenly become possible. Things we have assumed to be "normal" or "natural" are shown to be ARTIFICIAL LIMITATIONS.

Since we don't generally recognize that we LIVE IN WORLD OF LIMITATIONS, we don't realize that there are additional FREEDOMS and flexibilities that we have decided are off-limits or impossible. Miracles are capable of exercising that freedom and of PROVING that you are NOT BOUND by the horizontal laws of the ego's illusory world. This is why miracles are super-natural, they have a freedom of potential way beyond what any physical law in this second-hand universe suggests is possible.

There is therefore literally NOTHING that they cannot do. We have to open our minds to see past the limitations of physical illusion and realize that even the things we think are impossible are perfectly possible. There is NO REASON why you cannot do anything you can imagine. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

So the main keys to this are:

1) This physical world is once removed from true cause, it is not immediate reality

2) This world has no real causes in it, they are all effects of a higher reality

3) Cause-and-effect in this world are totally fictional illusions designed BY a higher level causer, to create a "story" in which limited things happen according to limited rules

4) Miracles wield a freedom way beyond the limitations of this world and express and demonstrate that ANYTHING is possible because they originate in the FIRST ORDER of causal reality, and therefore can BREAK and OVERRIDE any of the limitations or laws present on the physical level, since those laws are limitations PUT IN PLACE BY someone from the more primal level of reality. This is why Jesus says "you made sickness and death and therefore can abolish both."

Here's what ACIM says:

"The Holy Spirit is invisible, but you can see the results of His Presence, and through them, you will learn that He is there. What He enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator. Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do."

"You cannot see the Holy Spirit, but you can see His manifestations. And unless you do, you will not realize He is there. Miracles are His witnesses, and speak for his Presence."

What if everything that's happening in the world is exactly what is supposed to be happening, per everyone's agreement and decision? And there are no accidents or mistakes and nothing is going wrong? And I don't mean, that "bad things" aren't happening, just that they're not happening accidentally or without consent.

On the surface, the world looks like hell. And it's hard to consider that everything is happening according to agreement. But there's more to life than meets the eye.

What if everything that happens can only happen because you agree to it? What if you have to put some kind of contract in place which has to be agreed to by everyone involved, in order for anything to happen? What if everything that happens is completely deliberate, and every single event in the world is deliberately orchestrated and chosen by everyone, on purpose?

What could this purpose be, but to assist you in spiritual awakening?

Before you incarnate, you make agreements with people that they will help you with your spiritual growth by playing certain roles for you. You ask them to do this and they agree freely. A contract is made. The terms of the contract state exactly what the person is to do and that they are to do nothing else. They do not add to the workload or take away from it. They are to play their part faithfully.

This includes contracts that you make with your own ego. You chose, on purpose, to make your ego, so that it would function according to your design and your rules. You wanted it to do certain things for you, to adjust your perception in certain ways, to change your values and beliefs in certain ways, and to fulfill a purpose that you wanted. You wanted the ego to function as a loyal and trustworthy device that would enable you to go through various struggles so that you could awaken spiritually. This is its only purpose.

A lot is said about how the ego is devious and vicious and all of this, pointing the finger at it and making it out to be a horrible enemy. But what role are you playing in that scenario? You are the victim. And this is the lesson. Lessons are there for your benefit to help you to wake up. The ego can be seen as a device for facilitating what's needed in order to awaken, if you perceive it correctly and use it correctly.

A spiritual lesson occurs when there is some part of you which is asleep, or at least that believes it is. This part of you, you put to sleep in the first place. And now it seems to be unaware of some aspect of truth. In its unconsciousness, in certain situations and scenarios with certain people you will suffer and struggle because you do not see the truth. This part of you will act exactly according to how you designed it. The purpose of the lesson is awakening and the solution to the lesson is always to wake up to the truth.

All lessons point to the truth and the outcome of learning a lesson must always be that you come to see the metaphysics or structure or mechanism of the lesson clearly. To step out of the lesson, out of your unawareness into awareness, and out of lies into the truth.

The ego, just like your bodily ailments, just like your relationship woes, just like your enemies, just like your financial struggles, and everything else, is only a device acting under contract to fulfill what you told it to do. It can hardly be to blame for anything when you are the one that made it. And you made it with great intricacy and intelligence, and you could say that it is a beautiful creation. It does for you according to what you wanted it to do for you.

Jesus tells us in the Course not to play down the magnificence of your mind's creative power, or to tell yourself that you are stupid for having created a monster. You must acknowledge and access that your mind is a very powerful creator and that it has been used to create your ego. Regardless of whether the ego is real or not, it is still very impressive - this whole universe is very impressive. You made it.

Also recognize that every person that you encounter, no matter what they do, they are doing because it's part of a lesson in which you asked them, under contract, to come along and treat you this way. Even if they seem to be an enemy, someone that hates you or abuses you or attacks you or even tries to end your life, they are still under contract. There is a spiritual purpose. They are trying to help you. That sounds absurd doesn't it, at least to the unawakened mind. But everyone is in your life because they are playing the roles that you hired them to play. You asked for it. You wanted it.

You wanted it because you wanted to awaken back to God and you need their assistance. You need them to trigger you, to get you to engage with your own ego, to get you to look at your own beliefs, to get you to heal, to get you to learn to forgive, etc. These are valuable lessons. Even the person you hate the most is completely acting under contract with you in agreement with you and according to your will.

Even if you are engaging with them in such a way that it makes it seem you totally do not want them to do what they are doing. Your unwillingness to accept their help is actually the lesson you need to learn. You need to find a way to see them as helpful, as innocent, as serving your highest good, as servicing your spiritual growth, and as being loyal and faithful servants according to everything you wanted.

Initially, asleep, you will react to these contractors with resistance and rebellion, because in your ego state you won't see how they are helping you. And this is what you need to learn... So you need to then transition from your initial reaction, which is blindness and forgetfulness, to becoming aware of a bigger truth, a bigger picture, in which you can see clearly. In that clarity you come to realize how they are doing what you asked, how you are not a victim, how you wanted this, how you contracted it yourself, and how you have been dutifully served.

At some point, when your lesson has been learned, and you have come to recognize the truth, you will see all of the ways that a person who once was seen as your enemy was in fact your best friend trying to help you wake up. You will see clearly, without having to add anything to the situation, that it's actually true that you asked them to do what they did. You will also see clearly that everything they did helped you, that you grew from it, that you gained awakening from it. You will see how it benefited you in the bigger picture of your life.

At this point, with clarity and truth and recognition and having therefore transcended the lesson, you will be perfectly poised to enter into genuine gratitude. This does not mean artificially forced gratitude or people-pleasing gratitude or trying to be positive gratitude. It is a gratitude that involves an appreciation - an understanding - a recognition - of what has really happened. It's the ability to see. It's the ability to recognize that this person has served you selflessly and faithfully according to what you wanted and the only possible genuine response to that is genuine gratitude.

And so you will look at this person recognizing their innocence, because they obviously can't be to blame for doing to you what you asked them to do to you. And you will see their help as welcome. And you will recognize the great benefit it has given you. And you wI'll appreciate their help. And in this moment there is a kind of reverence and sacredness or recognition. It's like the two of you will bow before each other, the fight is over, and you are both in full acknowledgement of a job well done. Services rendered. Contract completed to perfection. No loose ends, no resentments, no ties, no desire to get rid of the person or end their involvement prematurely, no grief or sense of loss of harm, just total appreciation.

And then it's as if you both bow in divine brotherhood and see each other as being absolutely the best of friends and for each other, and set each other free. And it is in this moment of freedom and love that you are finally set free of the contract. This is the only way that you can complete a lesson and be free of a contract. This is what al lessons are leading to - a recognition of your freedom and innocence and truth and equality with all your brothers. No victims. No enemies.

So with any problem you have, be it a person or a body sickness or a financial struggle or a noisy neighbor or whatever it is, while you see the problem as unnecessary, unwanted, uncalled for, inappropriate, unjustified, un-asked-for, or in any way happening outside of your will, you will be lost in the ego. And you will therefore be in the midst of a lesson and will need to learn a thing or two about the truth. You can fight with your helpers all you want, that won't help. You can struggle with your contractors, that won't help. You can try to get rid of the problem, that won't help either. You got what you asked for and nothing else. You put this thing into place, on your own, and nobody put it there for you. So at least admit to that and stop attacking what you made.

So how to do you find freedom when you're in a lesson? Forgiveness. Undoing the ego perspectives. Shifting your perception away from attack and toward welcome. Shifting your way of looking at things as happening for you, not to you. Using it as an opportunity to be triggered so that you can look at and heal what you do not want to look at. Allowing the problem to attack you so that you can see how you believe you are attackable, so that you can learn not to attack. Ultimately the purpose is for you to sort out what is really true from what is apparently false and to receive love in everything that happens.

So if you can shift your viewpoint this way and learn your lesson, you will find that you are in a moment of mutual recognition with the thing you made - the contract you created - the person you hired - the sickness you put in place - the lack you chose etc... where you can acknowledge full responsibility for what has occurred, claim the full benefits of the lesson, recognize the innocence and compliance of everyone involved, and set both you and that problem free in a moment of gratitude and welcome.

What you made cannot leave your presence until you can set it free in gratitude and recognition. Any measure of seeing it as your enemy or unwanted attaches you to it and keeps it hounding you, because then you have not learned your lesson. If you want to be free of something, you have to see how you made it yourself and why you wanted it and what you gained from it. What are the benefits? How did it serve you? Where is the silver lining? What function did you give to it? It's simply a matter of whether you truly want to continue with the need for the functionality of this self-made device or not.

And if your ultimate, very long-term goal is to awaken to God's love, then you'll be perfectly happy to keep your devices and not get rid of them, simply because you know that you still need them until you can learn your lesson. Your priority above all else is to learn to awakening to the truth, to return to God, which is more valuable to you and important to you than anything else. So given that, why would you want to keep getting rid of the very lessons that are helping you to wake up? Not that you must suffer... only if it helps you awakening and only for so long as is needed to learn the lesson. You need not suffer at all.

"What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? (W-135.13)" - ACIM

It's all for the best.

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of waking to reality."

"Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see."

The world in which we think we live, is nothing but a dream. But we're so used to being in it, that we refer to it as real. We think it has real buildings, real people, real cars and real trees. We think we are eating real food, having real sickness, working at real jobs, and that bodies really die.

To align ourselves with the truth, however, we need to properly identify what this world is. This world is UNREAL. It's a hallucinated dream happening in the mind of someone who doesn't want to accept reality. Reality is the Kingdom of God, beyond space and time. The contents of this world are false.

"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."

"And what you seem to WAKE to, is but another FORM of this same world you see in dreams. All your time is spent in dreaming. Your sleeping and waking dreams have different forms, and that is all. THEIR CONTENT IS THE SAME. They are your protest AGAINST reality, and your fixed and insane wish to CHANGE it."

Jesus is pretty blatant here, saying that even when you wake up from sleeping at night, you are STILL dreaming. This world which you think is real and is your real life, is STILL a dream. It has the same content because it's made of the same illusions, it just differs in its forms. It's so elaborate, so detailed, so seemingly separate, and so seemingly huge, that you don't suspect it's not even real.

We should properly identify then that this world IS a dream, it is UNREAL, and it is FALSE. It has no truth, because its contents are invalid. It is a false world because it opposes heaven. "Earth, which is heaven's opposite in every way." It is not created by God, so it can't really exist. It's more like a strange realm of illusions and dreams, images and fantasies, whisps of deceptive smoke and mirrors, in which figures come and go as if by magic.

"Time is a trick; a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic."

"When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, 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. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

Mind went into a sleep state, it dreamed of time (and space), it made up events which don't really exist anywhere, with consequences that have no real effect, with changes that are completely substanceless, and which will merely disappear into nothingness when we wake up to reality.

This means that, everything in this world is NOT a "real" anything. So all the things we think are real, need to be re-labelled as not real. For example, sickness is not REAL sickness. I don't mean that a person is pretending to be sick, in the context that there IS a real sickness that they're mimicking. But that ALL "actual" sickness is NOT real.

Cancer is not real cancer, it's fake cancer. Brain damage is not real brain damage, because "the body is a dream." Broken limbs are not real breaks, because the limbs are fictional. The graveyards are all fake and all the funerals are meaningless. Nothing is ever really dying because it can't, it just changes from one illusion to another, and it's just a neutral nothingness. Every kind of sickness or suffering is an illusion and NOT A REAL ONE. And there is no counterpart as a REAL sickness or suffering of any kind.

None of these things can exist in reality. In heaven there is no sickness or suffering, no attack or death, nothing goes wrong, there are no problems, there's no job to work at or house to maintain, there's no stores to buy crap at or streets for cars that break down. There isn't even a real sun.

"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."

So in this world, when you look at anything, you should really be recognizing that it is a DREAM OF something. A sick broken body is not a REAL sick broken body, it's a fake body pretending to be sick. A dead body is not a REALLY dead body, it's a DREAM IMAGE of a dead body pretending to look like it's dead. It's no different than a living one because they're both totally fake. Their forms different but they don't really mean anything different.

This also why there is really no death, because all of these things which we think "die" are just dreams. Reality cannot die because it cannot be threatened. They're figments of the mind. They're just images and holograms floating around in a fictional environment. This is why ACIM also teaches that the body cannot really die, OR live, because it is nothing. It is meaningless.

"The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who ARE life."

"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."

"There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. 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. Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven. Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true."

"My body disappeared because I had no illusion about it. The last one had gone. It was laid in the tomb, but there was nothing left to bury. It did not disintegrate because the unreal cannot die. 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. It merely ceases to interfere with vision. To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body's nothingness."

What we need to learn as teachers of God, is to recognize and be aware that we're literally hanging out inside a giant DREAM right now. This world ISN'T real. Spacetime isn't real. Physical matter isn't real. Objects and bodies aren't real. Your body isn't a REAL body. There are no such things as real bodies. Your sickness isn't a REAL sickness. There is no such thing as a real sickness. Your sins aren't real either, because there is no such thing as REAL sin.

It's a complete reframing of this whole "reality", this whole experiential realm of mind or system of thought. To realize that since it is opposite to reality, it is UNreality, and is just a dream. We try to GIVE it reality to MAKE it real, but we only do this BECAUSE it's not real. We want to believe in it and value it, only because it HAS no value of its own. It's a meaningless world, made of nothing, an illusion of nothing appearing to be something. A tiny mad idea.

To recognize the world for what it IS, you have to categorize its ENTIRE CONTENTS as unreal. Everything the body can see with its physical sight has to be recognized as NOT REAL, and NOT TRUE, and NOT ACTUAL.

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences, but the mind which has let itself be healed will no longer acknowledge them. There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before. ****But the mind will put them all in one category - they are unreal.**** 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. And of these two but one is real. 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. The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. The one answer to all illusions is truth."

So we should get our mind into the habit of regard the things of this world as DREAMS. As fiction. Properly labelling them as artificial fake things. If your partner has a physical sickness in their body, they DO NOT have a REAL sickness in a REAL body. It's an illusion of sickness in an illusory body.

You wake up in the morning and brush your dream teeth and eat your dream breakfast and drive to your dream job, you do your dream work and drive your dream car home and eat your dream supper. Then you go to dream sleep in your dream bed and pretend to dream within a dream.

It's precisely BY recognizing that a sick body does not have a REAL sickness, that all power is stripped from the sickness and it is recognized as nothing. This is part of the healing approach of a miracle worker. When sickness is realized to be FICTION, it holds no weight and has no power and is nothing at all. "Illusions recognized must disappear" and what is recognized as nothing must vanish. You weaken and withdraw power from the sickness by regarding it as NOT REAL SICKNESS. Real sickness does not exist anywhere, just the illusion of sickness pretending to be sickness. It is empty.

"Here is the CAUSE of unreality. And it is here that it will be undone. YOU are the dreamer of the world of dreams. No OTHER cause it has, nor ever will."

"You will first DREAM of peace, and THEN awaken to it. Your first exchange of what you made for what you want is the exchange of nightmares for the happy dreams of love. In these lie your true perceptions, for the Holy Spirit corrects the world of dreams, where ALL perception is."

"Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found. Let us be glad indeed that this is so, and seek not the eternal in this world. Forgiving dreams are means to step aside from dreaming of a world OUTSIDE yourself. And leading finally beyond ALL dreams, unto the peace of everlasting life."

"Because He did not will to be alone, He created a Son like Himself." It was not His Will to be alone. And neither is it yours."

There are two thought systems, one is God’s system, the other is of the ego’s system. God’s thought system produces Creation/Heaven, the ego’s thought system produces hell/earth. Both systems run on impeccable logic based on a logical premise, and are systems of thought. They both start with a premise and follow through to a logical and natural conclusion. The conclusion of Heaven’s thought system is eternal life, the conclusion of the ego’s thought system is death. Both are arrived at through perfectly logical reasoning. As Jesus describes:

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit"

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and away from truth. Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end."

The two systems THINK differently. The ego’s system is entirely founded on separation and exclusion. Everything in the system obeys the premise of exclusivity. God’s system is totally opposite, and is founded on INCLUSION and sharing. Jesus tasks us to learn to "think like God", which does not merely mean to use EGO thinking to think about God, or to use exclusive logic at all when considering the nature of Heaven.

One of the biggest fundamental errors in ACIM circles is USING the ego’s thought system to THINK ABOUT the thought system of God. God’s system is SO unlike the ego’s, that doing so automatically produces two effects: a) what seems to make sense is nonsense, b) what seems like nonsense is actually true sense.

The ego always thinks in terms of separations and exclusions. And this maps directly onto objects in SPACE. You can say for example, if bananas are yellow, and this fruit is purple, it is not a banana. Or if my car is parked in the first space, it is not parked in the last space. Or if I have the whole pizza, you do not have any. Everything is put into a contained, confined box (body) and what is inside the box is considered separate from what is outside. What is outside is *excluded*, and there is no SHARING between the two regions.

This kind of thinking is based entirely in separation thought, a way of thinking that excludes, isolates, separates off, and "reasons" based on whether something is fully in or out of a box. You think about objcts in the world this way because the world ITSELF is the ego thought system, based on the same reasoning, the same logic, the same functioning and the same relationships of separation.

This WAY of thinking, exclusive logical reasoning, is EXTREMEY POOR at evaluating the nature of God’s thought system. When it looks at God’s system (everything in Heaven), it tries to put everything into nice tidy boxes. It separates things out. IT excludes. It has no regard for ANY form of sharing, oneness, Union, or anything that transcends boundaries.

It cannot SEE or comprehend how it makes SENSE, that something can be in more than one box at once, that the inside and outside of the box are joined, that something can be in more than one place at the same time, that two entities can have full access to share the same thing at the same time without compromise, or that two seemingly opposite statements can be NOT contradictory.

For example, when ACIM says something like "God has one son", the ego is delighted, because it gets to put God’s system into a nice confined box. When ACIM then says something like "We are creation, we, the sons of God", it now concludes either a) they can’t both be true, b) the statement about the one son is true and the statement about multiple sons is false, or c) God has many sons and not one son. These are the ONLY ways that can seem to "make sense" to ego thinking. NONE OF THEM ARE CORRECT.

The correct truth about God’s system,is that God has one Son AND many sons. The truth is also that each son has full unlimited access to share ALL of God, WITHOUT excluding anyone else from doing the same at the same time. The truth is also that as you give, you do not lose anything, and you keep what you had, and now BOTH of you have it. This sounds like absolute nonsense to the ego thinker. It does not conform to boxes. If there were pizza in heaven, you and I both would be able to eat the entire pizza. That sounds ABSURD to the ego. It is the way God’s system works!

His thought system is entirely run by INCLUSIVE logic. This is based entirely on sharing. Logically it means, we BOTH share things. Everything applies to me AND you. This is what the Golden Rule is based on. Equality. Whatever is true of me, is true of you. So if I have the whole of something, and I share it with you, we BOTH have the WHOLE of it. We share space. We overlap. We commune. We share . We are united. We are one. All things real COMPLETELY DEFY exclusive boxes. If you are thinking about Heaven, God, sonship, sons, creation etc WITH exclusivity in your logical reasoning, you HAVE TO come to a false conclusion.

For example, "I and my father are one". What does the EGO make of it? It thinks ok, it said me and my father , that’s two things, two boxes. So now we have two boxes. It then says "are one". So now..... there are two seemingly contradictory things happening (to the ego). Is it two boxes, or one box? And usually this is where an ego thinker wil THROW OUT the first half of the statement or forget it entirely, and home in on the second part., in an attempt to RESOLVE the contradiction. This is BULLSHIT. Total failure. Trying to MAKE it make sense, by butchering it.

The ONLY correct way to grasp what is said, is to literally think outside the box. You have to THINK differently. Use inclusivity. Inclusivity says, two things can SHARE. It says two things can JOIN. It says two things can be mutual in their likeness and nature. And it even says that two things can be TWO THINGS, while simultaneously SHARING EVERYTHING. And so here, being one with God does NOT end the TWO-ness. Two distinct things are SHARING with each other.

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

And so oneness, being one-with, are-one, DOES NOT mean "one box". In fact Jesus even says you can "be one with your self". It means BOX DEFYING sharing and singularity of NATURE, in which the two ARE STILL TWO, while ALSO being as if one. They are two AND one. Oneness to THE EGO means "one thing". Oneness to God means OF LIKE KIND. And here also SHARING does not mean "only has one" like a single identity, it means TWO THINGS are joined in their NATURE while still retaining their two-ness and INDIVIDUALITY! AND THIS IS NOT DUALITY. NOR IS IT NONDUALITY!

Similarly when Jesus says something hyper cryptic like "one brother is all brothers, one mind is all minds" or "healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad", IT DOES NOT mean that "the one box" is true, NOR does it mean the "two boxes" is true. It is not oneness (as in a count of one) OR duality. THEY ARE BOTH TRUE. There is simultaneously INDIVIDUALITY AND ONENESS. This is why you have a self AND are one. This is why you are one of many sons of God AND part of THE son of God. And this is also why the idea of many sons is NOT a separation idea. It is NOT an idea of "many boxes". It is more like the idea of many boxes which share the same space and overlap each other and share their contents.

The Kingdom of God, the sonship, creation, the relationship of souls, the nature of reality, the way God thinks, Heaven’s functioning, the Holy Spirit, extension, giving and receiving being one, the golden rule, sharing, communication, multiple minds, etc are all GROSSLY misunderstood, because anyone USING ego logic to think ABOUT them is blind, making no sense, using faulty tools, and coming to automatically false conclusions, putting stuff in boxes that is not in a box, and just creates confusion upon confusion.

You have to THINK LIKE GOD if you want to understand these things correctly. And the Holy Spirit’s thought system is based on this inclusive logic. And you are supposed to be learning HOW to think this way, as part of true perception. You have to let go of thought processes that follow the LAWS OF SEPARATION AND EXCLUSION. Otherwise you will think in terms of boxes and shutting everything out. You cannot INCLUDE your brother with that kind of thought process. And you cannot grasp oneness by locking it in a prison cell and falsely concluding "there is only one thing" or "its all one thing" or "there is only god" or "only one son". All of that is ego bullshit.

Creation is one and many. The "one" sonship has many perrmanent parts. You have brothers who are one with you. God has many children who are a united family. Not one or two. Many AND one. And that is natural.

"The whole power of God's Son lies in all of us, but not in any of us alone. God would not have us be alone because He does not will to be alone. That is why He created His Son and gave him the power to create with Him. Our creations are as holy as we are, and we are the Sons of God Himself, and therefore as holy as He is. Through our creations we extend our Love, and thus increase the joy of the Holy Trinity."

You may not realize it, but almost everyone in the world has adopted a very unnatural way of thinking. It is based entirely on separation. And this thinking massively distorts A Course in Miracles.

It starts with very simple logic. That "EITHER" this is true, "OR" that is true, but "NOT BOTH". Another way to put this is "this is NOT that", "they are not the same".

This is what we call EXCLUSIVE logic. This thing excludes that thing. One thing is not another thing. Two things are kept apart, excluded from each other. The whole ego thought system runs on exclusive logic, because it was the attempt to EXCLUDE (deny, separate, shut out).

Another way of putting this is the idea that "nothing is shared", as if everything has to be kept in separate isolated boxes, like prisons. What is one thing, must be kept apart from another thing. And this produces what we call "duality".

So then we think along the lines of, "either this is true or that is true, but they can't both be true." Or that "I can choose this or that but not both."

We use this pattern of thinking all over the place. It maps very well to the physical world. Physical objects are a projection of the ego idea of separation, that all things are separate and everything is different. This is really the logical idea of "GOD IS NOT" .. the negation of heaven's reality - opposite to "GOD IS".

For example, I can turn left or right, but not both. A banana is not blue. My body is not your body. I can move up or down. A car is not a house. I can park in the first space or the second space. I will eat the red apple or the green apple. I choose between a vacation in Florida or California. An apple is not an orange. A dog is not a cat.

This seems to work fine in this world. The world itself is a system of exclusion and separation, because it is a projection of the idea of separation. It has produced a world where everything is different. And where it seems that one thing is not another thing. This is the illusion of form. The problem is that we now use this way of thinking about EVERYTHING. Even when thinking about things which are NOT part of the separation, such as God's reality.

The really big problem is that heaven, God's Kingdom, the Sonship, DOES NOT comply with an "either/or" kind of system. Heaven is about INCLUSION, not exclusion. It is about sharing, not isolation. It is a system which runs on a VERY different logical basis.

Heaven operates on a "BOTH/AND" kind of structure. Where BOTH are true. Where the truth applies to one thing AND another. Where two things can SHARE everything. This even means that one thing can be two things simultaneously, and two things can be one thing simultaneously. Nothing is required to "stay in a box by itself."

The notion of separate boxes does not apply to the Kingdom. It is not divided up by SPACE, because there is no space or time. Things in heaven are not limited, or required to exclude each other. They are not isolated to separate prisons, kept apart, or separated off.

EVERYTHING in reality abides by an entirely different system of logic. This system of logic is part of the thought system of God. It is how God himself thinks and creates. It is totally opposite to the idea of "either this or that". It TRANSCENDS boundaries.

For example, what is true of God is true of the Son. The truth is the SAME for both of them. What is true of one son, is true of another. This forms the Golden Rule. There is ONE truth, which ALL things share. And sharing is a fundamental property of reality.

True sharing means, that the whole of something, transcends all separations and walls, and is fully present in ALL locations. It's not a matter of "is it this or that". It's more a matter of it being BOTH this AND that. BOTH/AND is the system of heaven, and "NOT BOTH" or "NEITHER" is the system of the separation.

For example in the course we're told that ideas can be shared and both the giver and the receiver can have the same idea, leading to an increase. That by sharing, or joining, two beings can both have everything. That by giving, you in fact receive, rather than lose.

In an either/or system, EITHER you can have something, OR the other person can have it. This is true of spacetime, but it is NOT true of heaven. In heaven, even if you give everything away, you KEEP it. This is how God was able to create you, by giving ALL of himself, and yet still retains all of himself. In ego terms, God should've ceased to exist if he truly gave all of himself.

The only way to understand how it is POSSIBLE, for both me AND you to have everything, is to think in terms of both/and. This is called paralogical reasoning - you can google it. If I give everything to you, we can BOTH have all of it. We now both share the entirety of it.

This obviously transcends boundaries because, the ego would reason that whatever I give away I lose. If I give you half my pizza, I only have half a pizza left. But in heaven, this does not apply. We can BOTH have the WHOLE pizza at the same time.

In A Course in Miracles, every subject and discussion related to the ego's realm of separation, can be thought of USING exclusive reasoning. Because it is a system of separation. However, as soon as you start to think about anything PRE-separation, about heaven or reality or God or the Sonship, or real relationships between created beings, you CANNOT USE IT.

If you do, you in fact will end up with two things happening. 1) You will project "required separations" where they do NOT exist. 2) You will fail to acknowledge separations where they DO exist. An either/or process of reasoning does NOT map to heaven, and is completely distorting of it and blind to its nature. They are INCOMPATIBLE.

This especially happens for example when people try to understand the idea of the "one son". There ARE indeed many statements that God has only one son. But, there ALSO are many statements that God directly created many sons. In reality, permanently, as brothers. This is the full scope of the course material. Jesus says BOTH things are true.

So then what happens is, people start to think WITH the ego about this. They start looking for separate boxes. They want to put things into one box, OR another box, but not both. So they'll think, ok, it seems more whole to say there is only ONE BOX, and so the "one son" statements must be true. And since TWO boxes seems to be "a separation", the idea of many sons must be false.

This is however a complete logical failure. Heaven is not structured by boxes or separations like this. One son, is in fact, another son. EACH individual being God created, is in fact, ALSO, the other beings.

"One brother is all brothers. Every mind contains all minds, for every mind is one. Such is the truth." (urtext W161L4)

So we see a lot of SEEMINGLY contradictory statements, which in a both/and system are NOT contradictions. Like this:

"God has but one Son, knowing them all as One." (urtext T9E3)

What is going to happen to this if someone uses either/or reasoning? You'll say, EITHER, God has one son, OR, God has many sons. And that they can't BOTH be true. You will likely side with the one son part, and relegate the "them all" to some other realm of separation, such as part of the ego or dream or split mind. This is an error.

It is in fact true, that God has one son, which IS MADE UP OF, many sons, which is the Sonship. And these many beings ARE many in number. BUT, they are not JUST many, like in duality. They are in fact SIMULTANEOUSLY ONE. EVERY son of God, is THE ONE son of God. EACH son of God, is Christ. They all SHARE themselves, so fully and completely, that they ARE each other, while STILL also being many individuals. THAT is what A Course in Miracles clearly states.

What you have to then do is recognize the limitations of how you think, and realize that you need to adopt a HUGELY different way of thinking, if you are to understand anything to do with reality. Any subject to do with pre or post separation, cannot be thought of in either/or terms. If you do, you will DISTORT IT.

This distortion has led to all manner of completely false conclusions. Such as, that the one son split into many parts in the separation. This is not true at all. God created many children BEFORE the separation even happened, and each of those children IS the rest. They all share each other. This sharing is their oneness and unity.

This has also led to the distorted conclusion that there is only one son at all, and therefore that this only child has dreamed of being separate. This is NOT TRUE. "Christ has never slept". The one son DID NOT go into the separation. Only some of the individual parts did - some of the sons of God. This is explicitly stated in the course.

The wrong kind of thought process also leads to the false conclusion that you, in this world, are the only son of God, and everyone else is just "you". As if they don't really exist as independent beings. This is FALSE. This is not what A Course in Miracles teaches. It seems to make sense to those who think with the ego. In truth, the dream of separation is a collaborative dream by many sons of God, who were brothers BEFORE this even happened. And other people DO have free will.

So you have to beware. Watch your thought process. Look at the kind of reasoning you're doing. ANY time that you are in the "either this or that" mode, you are prone to massive errors. Because it is an unnatural, separation-based way of thinking. You are in fact thinking WITH THE EGO when you do that. Thinking with the ego, about NON-EGO things, is going to totally destroy the true nature of those things.

This is the sole reason, in my opinion, why so many people are so confused about ACIM and its teaching. Everyone is assuming that heaven is an either/or state, like spacetime. That's its sort of a second spacetime, with the same reasoning and logic and thought process. It is NOTHING LIKE IT. It is totally alien to this world and how this world thinks.

The world simply thinks backwards and with the ego, and we have to learn another way to think. Human thinking is ALIEN TO the way God thinks, the way heaven is formed, the way the sons of God relate to each other, and how reality is structured. Using an ALIEN thought process to think about what is NATURAL, is going to show you thinks seeming to make sense which are totally nonsense. What makes sense to the ego is nonsense in truth. And the ego's truths about heaven are totally nonsense.

The course is trying to get you to think in a way that is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to how the world thinks.

"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." (urtext T3G15)

"This is not the way the world thinks, but you must learn that it is the way you think." (urtext W17L1)

"There is only one way out of the world's thinking, just as there was only one way INTO it. Understand totally by understanding TOTALITY." (urtext T7H12)

"This is the first idea we have had which is related to a major phase of the correction process; the reversal of the thinking of the world." (urtext W11L1)

"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely." (urtext M29A2)

"Yet it is the final lesson in which Unity is restored. It goes against all the thinking of the world, but so does Heaven." (urtext M15A3)

"Today's idea, completely alien to the ego and the thinking of the world, is crucial to the thought reversal which this course will bring about." (urtext W126L1)

"This has been emphasized throughout the text and the workbook, but it is perhaps more alien to the thinking of the world than many other ideas in our curriculum." (urtext M5H1)

"To give up all problems to one Answer is to reverse the thinking of the world entirely." (urtext M5J1)

"The world will end when its thought system has been completely reversed." (urtext M15A4)

Miracles and supernatural interventions occur more readily when there is physical relaxation and a willingness to surrender and receive.

The act of not 'acting', of not transmitting, of not even giving, but simply a willingness to let go and be open and RECEIVE, invites and allows Holy Spirit to access and help you.

I have now over the past few months received healing from the Holy Spirit on an almost daily basis. And I don't just mean he fixes some perceptual issues. I'm talking, supernatural power! Sometimes it will occur spontaneously even if I am in public, or anywhere that I need it, but Holy Spirit can be discreet and is able to tone-down the visual signs of this happening (which usually entails much shaking of body parts), lol.

Most readily I am open to this happening when laying in bed either towards sleeping or in the morning. Typically Holy Spirit begins by simply saying either "relax" or "surrender". This could be in the middle of some rant or some other conversation and is often unexpected and I don't always clue-in at first that this means He is going to do something, but then it begins.

Even if I am laying there relaxing, sometimes He knows that I am not necessarily letting go of a situation in order to let Him help, and so he will say "surrender". This signals me that I need to actively surrender.

To do this, I will repeat in words, "I surrender", several times. At first I seem to say this slowly and with gaps between, because I am not yet very willing to let go. But I notice that the healing really starts to flow when I say it quickly and in quick succession, so that there is no time in-between for my ego to get in there and keep holding on. "I surrender, I surrender, I surrender." After saying this several times, Holy Spirit will likely spontaneously activate and begin healing.

By surrendering, what I mean is, having a willingness to let go and give up and stop fighting. It's actually a 'feeling' I get of like, how you'd feel if you'd tried everything and failed and just threw up your arms and admitted defeat. It's an openness, a giving in, and an admitting. Admitting the truth literally means "allowing the truth to come in". This is why surrender is apparently a VITAL part of the miracle process, because it means you're willing to put aside doing this yourself, and admit that you cannot, and stop trying to be God.

Then God comes.

Sometimes I've heard Holy Spirit say, "come", and I'm not sure if this means for me to come to Him, but I've also had Him basically put words in my mouth as to what He wants me to say to Him to get things flowing, which is cool. So I will say, "come Holy Spirit", "come into me". This is an invitation. Also sometimes I will ask Him to join with me or to help me to join with Him.

In my willingness to surrender, there is much activity which I'll describe in a moment. But I've also found that in addition to surrendering and allowing Him to operate on me, if I am also actively doing some kind of forgiveness during this time, like, really getting down to the truth that stuff isn't real and it hasn't happened and I'm not a victim and so on, this will also activate additional 'phases' of healing. So just when I think it's kind of done, there'll be another whole wave of it.

What almost always happens, I'm finding, is there are about 4 or so different expressions of Holy Spirit healing me. The first one is that my head literally starts to shake from side to side "violently", i.e. very very rapidly, like a vibration, and the speed of this can be so fast that it's like just a really intense vibrating, and I have to trust that this is safe (lol), which it is. This seems to dislodge... I don't know what, from my head area. This can last anywhere from a few seconds to up to 20 seconds or more. Then there will often be a short pause, and then it kicks into phase 2.

In phase 2, all of a sudden whatever energy or whatever was drained from my head area flows down into the belly area. I suddenly start to experience muscle contractions in that area, which can be quite intense. The muscles become so contracting that it forces me to hunch over or partly sit up, and in the really strong cases there is such vibrational tension in the 'floor' of the abdominal area, that it feels like an earthquake vibrating very deeply. This will go on for possibly 15-30 seconds depending. As the energy or whatever clears, and He gets done, I relax back down, and I immediately notice that ... just something has changed in my experience.

Often I immediately notice that I feel expanded, calm, peaceful and relaxed, and soft. It feels really good. It's as though something happened on the inside of me and my whole awareness is different. Sometimes after several rounds of this, per my willingness to invite more and do more healing, I have felt really really peaceful. It also energizes me somewhat but can also make me a little ungrounded for a while.

A third way it manifests is that sometimes the energy or whatever goes out through my arms which will shake, sometimes quite aggressively. Sometimes this is followed by a series of belly contractions as well. A fourth way, which actually I think was the first way that I started to experience this, was that gradually some kind of presence would begin to fill me up from my feet upwards, causing the muscles to all become tensed all the way up my legs to my stomache, and then there would be much shaking and 'draining' where emotions and other energy from the upper torso would just seem to drain out of me quickly.

I have absolutely no idea really what Holy Spirit is doing. No idea. I don't know why His presence causes the body to shake. I have no clue why His healing focuses around the head and later around the belly, other than that these are the two main area of nervous systems and the "two brains".

Similarly, if I ask Jesus to come into my belly area when I am having intense feelings, He will do almost the same thing, resulting in a complete undoing of that feeling, its cause, and a state of happiness and laughter at the end.

Also I forgot there is also another way that this manifests, and it's to do with if I am focussing my attention on another person. If I am doing a forgiveness about someone and I am asking Holy Spirit to heal some part of them, I will start to experiencing shaking and vibrations in that area of MY body, sometimes quite intensely, and sometimes it's so unusual in its focus on that body part that there is just no way I could even conceive of making that body part move that way. Like it could be a healing in the lower back or something and it's shaking all over the place but if I were to think, how could I make the back muscles shake in just that one area like that, it's just totally impossible.

I have been learning to trust that when I do this for some other person, it is helping them, but this is an area of doubt for me, which I am still working on. I have, however, noticed that after some rounds of healing for someone else in this way, they do appear to exhibit signs of SOMETHING having changed in their experience, afterwards, through at least some kind of shift in mood or renewed clarity of awareness or even some physical side effects. This is especially an area that challenges me to trust because I am not the recipient of the benefits and I cannot tell from my own sensations whether it is helping or not.

This has all has come about through SURRENDER. Also through trust. Just opening up to Holy Spirit and inviting Him to come into me and to do whatever he wants to do... that alone is a big trust step at first, because you don't know what might happen. I did that numerous times with 'milder' healings taking place before it ever progressed to the intense shaking. Another way to approach this if you prefer, is to just address God, "God, I receive your healing love".... do that a few times and tell me you don't feel some sense of love come around and into you. This also can be sufficient to signal to Holy Spirit to allow healing love to flow into you, as much as you are willing to receive it. Receiving love from God takes seemingly a bit more willingness than letting Holy Spirit run riot, maybe it's a trust thing.

These are all acts of RECEIVING, and they entail that I relax. If in the middle of the healing I start to tighten up and resist, He reminds me to relax, because it does seem to interfere to some degree, whereby the shaking etc may stop or lessen if I start fighting it. I have had to learn to TRUST it and not be afraid of it and to just let Him do whatever. It is often quite funny when my head is shaking all over the place and my cheeks and mouth are flapping around and I'm actually relaxed, it's sort of fun!

I look forward in particular now to doing a pretty strong session of this for myself on the weekends, either toward sleep or upon waking, but really Holy Spirit I'm finding out doesn't care about schedules and sometimes will start doing the shakes even before I really seem to be ready. It's gotten to where even a slight 'hint' to Him to do it can kick it in, at any time. I believe the same is true of miracle performed for others - which is where this is leading, whereby we are to just spontaneously funnel the power of God without even thinking about it.

I was watching some videos today of a pastor who performs many many many miracles and has risen the dead etc, and one of his teachings is that you need to get the RECIPIENT of healing to surrender and relax a lot, in order to RECEIVE the full transformation and healing. This seems to be key. If the person is interfering and trying to pray and do stuff at the same time, that's actually a block. Receiving and transmitting are two different functions, and the person receiving the healing needs to be ideally in a RECEIVING mindset.

So relax! Surrender a lot. Be willing. Have courage and trust and invite Holy Spirit to come into you. He is willing and ready, He's just waiting on YOU to be RECEPTIVE. This is how you can receive your own healing miracles effortlessly. I think this is actually EASIER than sharing miracles with other people, which is a whole different dynamic. But I think,... Holy Spirit may be about to reveal a new way of looking at that, based on surrender.

Let us know how you get on! Happy shaking. And remember, "He will correct the consequences of my wrong decisions if I will let Him, and I choose to LET HIM"!!

What we think passes for a special love relationship on Earth, is typically the exact opposite of how relationship should be in heaven. This is not something that the people of the world want to look at or hear about.

The special relationship is the ego's way of relating. The ego's thought system is insane and deeply rooted in separation, specialness and exclusion. It rejects wholeness in favor of some special part which is different and unique to all the rest. It uses its worshipping of these little parts as idols to shut out and reject everything else. It is not really a device for relationship, it is a device for shutting relationship down and reducing it to almost nothing.

The physical world, which is a projecting out of the insane thought system of the ego, is founded on the same thinking, on the rejection of wholeness and the emphasis of separations and differences. Special relationships then become ways for the ego to use physicality to serve ego purposes, because now bodies can be used to section off and isolate and exclude, to narrow the field down to the ultra-special chosen one, to the exclusion of all others.

As the ego pursues what it tells you is the most treasured relationship, it promises that this relationship will give you total freedom, liberation, a savior who will fulfill all your needs, will give you everything you want, do things to you that you prefer, and together you will join in triuph over everyone and everything. A power-couple, exclusive in every way, fighting against the whole universe.

Such a special relationship is founded on exclusivity, with special rights and permissions granted, commitment to the other held up with the condition that you be uncommitted to anyone else, loyalty it seen as defending and siding with the other against everyone else, and nothing is allowed to occur outside the boundaries of the relationship. Especially not the intimate sharing of the body, which is really the exclusive target of the sense of special love, in which the other is held up as an idol to be worshipped, so that you'll stay away from God.

The truth however is that by pursuing relationship on the basis of how exclusive it is, also guarantees that the relationship is a prison. Two come together to share a prison, bound by chains, and commiting to fight together against the hoards of the universe who are left outside. There are limits on what you can, where you can, who you can be with, what you can say and to whom. Break the terms and conditions and you are violating the trust and the commitment of this meeting of minds, this joining of bodies, and this attempt to merge into oneness.

In effect such a relationship is not a releationship. It is a way of using a tiny speck of relationship focused around a single exclusive separation-device body, in order to keep everyone else away. The more exclusivity is given to the pair, the less there is for others to share in. In the strictest and most controlling of examples this can turn into highly abusive "love" situations where every little act is controlled and monitored and inspected for violations. And of course this can lead to abuse and violence and all manner of anti-relationship, all masquerading as a relationship. A relationship made in hell, where rotting together in death passes for love. And how cute it is that the corpses die in each other's arms.

The ego thus attempts to merge with one special other, exclusively and only that one other, and not even the whoel of them, in order to in some way commit fully to identifying with your body and with their body. And by doing so the ego uses the body and sex to try to bind the mind to matter, to make the body out to be the mind, and to believe in the allure of the body itself. All designed to place so much focus on the physical that the relationship becomes mindless and love doesn't enter into it. The relationship can then be all about sex and no real love, no real sharing or communication, and simply the using of each other's form.

But the ego clings to this because it's like it's rock in the storm, the stronger it can bind to bodies the more it can stay away from God and define itself in terms of what the body is, separating self off from others and therefore forming a sense of identity and of existing as something unique and special. Thus the more the relationship becomes exclusively special the more the ego increases and sees this temporary ally as joining it in its fight against all others.

This results in a dependency on an external savior, a seeking outside of yourself for love, an attempt to find yourself in the other person by denying yourself, a giving away of power, all manner of sacrifices and compromises and people pleasing, losing yourself, and a high degree of dishonesty. It is a closed-off relationship based on a prison, in which the two are chained to each other in "monogomy" and "marriage" and this is held up as holy any good and God's will. A holy and unquestionale institution, which is really founded on the lie that as the two come together there will be love, when really there is love's prison.

What the ego will never tell you is that each person is never supposed to be in a dedicated exclusive relationship with only one other, in which being with them is a tool to exclude everyone else. To do this is to place someone in a prison and call it freedom, to say you love them all the wihle keeping them captive and making sure they have no life beyond what you allow. Everyone is supposed to love everyone, and equally. It is completely unnatural that a person be kept so isolated and exclusive and separated off that they're not allowed even the slightest relationship with anyone, lest there be jealousy and grounds for revenge.

That means it is completely natural in God that everyone would experience full and total unconditional love towards absolutely everyone simultaneously. That is the total opposite of exclusivity and specialness because it's based on inclusivity and openness and sharing. It is true freedom and it applies to all souls. This is what all souls want and know and trust and enjoy. You are one with everyone, not just one little individual, whose specialness is there to tempt you and keep you away from everyone else.

On Earth therefore bodies are not only separation devices and prisons, they are also used by the ego to bring exclusive bodies together on exclusive terms so that the body can essentially be used to keep both persons away from God. And in their specialness they will think they are being holy and better and rightous and above all others, whom them look down upon together.

This belief that we are all supposed to find one single person and "love them" but in such a way that this relationship excludes others and is not the same as what is shared with others, is an ego device to separate and destroy relationship. It also leads to madness, in the belief that you are completely dependent on this one other person for your salvation, and if they are gone or if they stop giving you what you want, you are desperate like some kind of stalker that just can't let go or grant freedom. The belief that you can only get your needs met by that one person is a recipe for disaster and for endless torment. You don't even really have any needs.

In order to be free from that turmoil, which is largely also the root cause of grief and loss when a person leaves or dies, the sense of exclusivity must be dismantled. The person can only be "let go" by giving them freedom and allowing the exclusive rules to be broken. And indeed when they are broken it will not horrify, but instead bring great relief. Relief from the sense of isolation, from the straight-jacked of special terms, from the obedience and worship and codependency, and from the sense of not being able to live or do anything without their approval. No more burden, no more distorting yourself with sacrifices to please them, and no more putting them on a pedestal in order to cut them down.

If the person were to for example "cheat" or go outside the bounds of the agreement, or in some way withdraw what they were giving, or the grounds of the relationship are attacked and undermined, leading to a breakdown in the specialness and the romance, then perhaps this is a good thing. Because then it can open the doorway to actually transcending the ego's attempt at imprisonment, the glorifying of the body, the desire to merge with the body, and the sense that only this one person in all the world can ever be good enough for you.

"I want you and nobody else", as many-a-song goes, becomes the ego's mantra for exclusive specialness. The special one, the chosen one, the other half of yourself, the perfect one, the ideal one, the one who does only what you want and gives you none of what you don't want, the seeming savior and oasis in the desert to keep you from the madness of others, that special someone who who can side with an gel with and connect with by way of proving how everyone else is wrong, that's the ego's goal. To use separation to masquerade as relationship, to use a reduction in communication with the whole sonship under the guise of increasing communication, and using body contact to substitute for the true intimacy of oneness and to keep it away from heaven. And yet the ego thinks this is heaven on earth.

None of this is easy stuff to look at because everyone's doing it and everyone wants this feeling that you get when you look into the eyes of that special chosen one, and how they seem to offend you the least, justifying your murderous attitude toward everyone outside the special inner circle. Relationship can be far far higher than this, much more unconditional, and far more open and sharing, but not on the egos terms, and not really in terms of bodies - only up to a point.

But let it be known that, as you grant freedom to your partner, you are also giving it to yourself. And the special relationship therefore has to be converted into a holy relationship, where the terms and conditions are no longer the ego's, but the Holy Spirit's. And where the loving becomes equal and unconditional, there isn't a foundation of neediness and dependency, and both parties attain wholeness within themselves as well as with each other. There is a way out of the ego's chains and its little prisons of isolation, but it will require a dismantling of everything you ever thought specialness was good for.

Ultiamately it means giving up the entirely egocentric belief, in the ego itself, that you or another can be everything, exlusively and alone, to the exclusion of all else. That there can be this one sole person that is capable of being so limited, isolated, controlled and imprisoned, that they are somehow made permanent and constant and always the same to you. A person who will obey your every wish, do everything you want, be everything you want them to be, and never leave you. An idol to merge with in oneness, to posses and to own and control. Setting the other free from this punishing demand sets you also free form the LIE, that anyone could ever be, or is ever meant to be, the only one you could ever love.

Allowing their love to overflow to others, begins the dissolving of specialness, and therefore also of the ego itself. It is the beginning of letting go, the giving of freedom, the allowing of the other to be with anyone and everyone they so please. So that you can also be free to be unrestricted and unlimited in your relationship to all whom God has created equal.

"You cannot enter into REAL relationship with ANY of God's Sons, unless you love them all, and EQUALLY. Love is not special. If you single out PART of the Sonship for your love, you are imposing guilt on ALL your relationships, and MAKING them unreal."

"Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe."

"On this side of the bridge, you see the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in SEPARATE UNIONS, and to become one BY LOSING. When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in. For God is left WITHOUT, and NOTHING taken in."

"In Heaven, where the meaning of love is known, love is the same as UNION. Here, where the ILLUSION of love is accepted IN ITS PLACE, love is perceived as separation and EXCLUSION."

"The special relationship is a strange and unnatural ego device for joining hell and Heaven, and making them indistinguishable. And the attempt to find the imagined "best" of BOTH worlds, has merely led to FANTASIES of both, and to the inability to perceive either one AS IT IS. The special relationship is the triumph of this confusion. It is a kind of union from which UNION IS EXCLUDED, and the BASIS for the ATTEMPT at union RESTS on exclusion. What better example could there be of the ego's maxim, "Seek, and do NOT find?"

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.

You may not realize this, but physical matter was designed to completely obscure God and make it seem like he does not exist.

You won't realize this unless you also realize what God's nature is, because then the sheer contrast becomes obvious.

We most often think about God like a physical object, covering some amount of space. As if to say, God is a very large person, with his arms spanning different parts of the world, even different solar systems, and his legs reaching between galaxies.

But we are so used to thinking in terms of the limitations of space, that we would have to say that if his left arm is stretched out over the earth, his left arm can't be anywhere else. His right arm could stretch elsewhere, but he's one got one pair of arms.

That's how people think about God. But God is not like this at all. God is not a physical object, God is not limited by space or time, God is not confined to spatial relationships or sizes or distances or issues of location.

For God, the entirety of God can be fully present in EVERY location simultaneously. This involves absolutely no compromise. It's not that only part of God can pay attention to one part, while a different part of God pays attention to another. It's not like God has to switch back and forth, or can only give his "all" to one thing at a time.

God is capable of being FULLY present, in his entirety, in one location, while also being FULLY present, in his entirety, in another location. At the same time. He stretches across spatial boundaries and transcends limitations. This is his omnipresence. ALL of God can be present in ALL locations simultaneously. Full localisation in all locations, beyond trillions, beyond count, all at once.

If you can feel into that and get a sense of that, you might begin to get an idea of what God is like. God is not just some big cloud or some large expanse or a big container. God is transcendental of ALL known spatial limits, boxes, and rules about having to be in one place and not another. God TOTALLY transcends all known limits of space and time, and all rules about where things can exist and how.

So all of God, is in all parts of God, at all times. No matter where you are, no matter what location you're in, GOD IS THERE IN FULL. And yet he is also in all other places in full as well. He is like a giant kind of "blur" which is simultaneously massively spread out and massively localised. God is in-finite.

When you then look at what spacetime is ... this "universe" ... SPACE itself is completely based on the idea that "what is over here is not over there". A SEPARATION between locations, with walls of distance and time. In which what is in one location IS NOT IN ANY OTHER location. In which what exists here, does not exist there.

In spacetime there is no transcendental omnipresence. There is a strict requirement that every single object is local only, anchored to one fixed spot. And that object IS NOT anywhere else. It's not even really connected to anything else, rendering all objects separate. Not one single speck of spacetime houses the whole.

And this is where you get the massive contrast between God's reality and the illusion of spacetime. God is omnipresent. Spacetime says, there is NOWHERE that THE WHOLE exists. Whatever is in one place, IS NOWHERE else. Whatever exists is not whole, and is only partial, and is not joined to anything.

Effectively, space means GOD DOES NOT EXIST ANYWHERE. It is TOTALLY OPPOSITE to God's nature.

God is of a nature in which all of God is in all locations at all times.

Spacetime's nature is that NONE of God is ANYWHERE EVER!

Considering that we made spacetime in order to ATTACK GOD'S NATURE, you can then see that PHYSICAL MATTER has a nature NOTHING like God. In fact, it disguises, hides, shuts out, blocks, and presents a PICTURE which is so obscure and unlike God that, if you look at this picture and believe it, you are COMPLETELY BLINDED by matter. If there was ever a need for a perfect disguise, the physical world is it.

So now here we have the major issue. When you look at an object, you look at a single independent separate object. You look at its properties, its shape, its forms, its texture, its materials, its color etc. And while you are busy looking at those things, you are seeing the outside surface of an illusion.

All your attention is put onto this narrow, isolated, extremely confined limitation. And while you are busy looking at the object, be it a house or a car or a body or an apple or whatever, you are effectively DISTRACTED from the nature of God.

If you are not seeing ALL OF GOD in each speck of that object, you are not seeing. If you are not experiencing that what you see IN each object, no matter where you look, is the same ONE WHOLENESS, you are blinded by perception of form.

In essence, God's nature is to be fully present everywhere, and matter's essence is to OBSCURE that completely so that it appears that NOTHING is whole, THERE IS NO WHOLE, and what is seen "in" the object is NOT THE SAME as what is "in" the other objects.

So long as you focus on the ways that an object is DIFFERENT to another object, you are focusing on FORM. And that includes using perception to judge, using the mind to narrow and select, looking at bodies and cars and houses, judging anything at all on your own with anything less than wholeness. If you do not look from wholeness you do not SEE the wholeness of God.

What you have to then realize is that you are not going to be transitioning from looking at the same separate objects "one way", and looking at the same separate objects "another way". That's not a change. God is not like this. If you want to see differently, you have to look for the OMNIPRESENT NATURE. This nature TRANSCENDS ALL FORMS, transcends all differences, transcends all object boundaries. And in particular it is a vision which sees ALL OF GOD, in EACH PART, holographically.

So "vision", or "true perception", which is also salvation and forgiveness, is a way of seeing WITH an omnipresent mind, based on wholeness - not just wholeness as in "a big inclusive thing" but wholeness that INTERNALLY also features ALL of it in EACH part. To see a reflection of God - or to see God in everything you see, you are not looking for an OBJECT, or a finite limited thing, or a large blob, you're looking for a transcendental omnipresent holographic space-defying blur of love.

Essentially then, false perception, ego perception, judgement, making things a sin, focusing on form, seeing bodies and all that, is a way of narrowing perception down so that you are particularly CONVINCED that physical separateness IS TRUE, and that the omnipresent wholeness of God is NOWHERE to be seen.

As we rise up out of false perception and awaken, we are not just trying to find a way to forgive specific small things, or finite limited scenarios, or particular people. It's all leading up to a UNIVERSAL FORGIVENESS, which sees with the Holy Spirit's WHOLENESS, which is also omnipresent and transcendent. And we're trying to see that wholeness - ALL OF the Holy Spirit, in EACH thing, everywhere. Because he IS IN everyone just a God is.

To gloss over the differences of forms, to not focus on picking out "oh that's a separate body", to not dwell on appearances, or be DECEIVED BY one object saying "Hey look at me, I'm different to that other object, so we're NOT the same, so sameness is obscured and doesn't exist", is to be forgiving. It's about overlooking space and time itself! Overlooking all limits and all ways that the things in front of you say "we're not one."

The world was made as an attack on God, to shut him out, and to cover him over with a veil of illusions, in order to make it seem that God did not exist. We believed in this illusory world in our egoic perception, and we're learning to transcend and rise above it with the Holy Spirit. Eventually we'll see the REFLECTION of wholeness "in" everything we see materially, but this forgiving sight will also go so far BEYOND separateness that it will eventually lead to a grand exit from spacetime entirely, after a short stop-off in the "real world".

The real world is just another term for you becoming able to see a reflected transcendental omnipresence in spacetime, seen from wholeness with total forgiveness. And this is also why Workbook lesson 1 begins with us looking around us and having the SAME view of each DIFFERENT object. Because we have to now train our minds to stop paying attention to the DECEPTION OF FORM, and focus on finding a way to see the reflection of oneness - a sameness - in all things.

Not as a "big object", but toward ALL OF GOD ... IS EVERYWHERE I LOOK.

"Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything." URW1

"Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied." UrW1

"The world can ADD nothing to the power and the glory of God and His Holy Sons, but it CAN blind the Sons to the Father if they behold it. You cannot behold the world and know God. Only one is true."

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear. And what is fear except love's absence? Thus the world was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him. Here was perception born, for knowledge could not cause such insane thoughts. But eyes deceive, and ears hear falsely. Now mistakes become quite possible, for certainty has gone." UrW240W32

"Christ's vision has one law. It does not look upon a body and mistake it for the Son whom God created. It beholds a light beyond the body; an idea beyond what can be touched, a purity undimmed by errors, pitiful mistakes, and fearful thoughts of guilt from dreams of sin. It sees no separation. And it looks on everyone, on every circumstance, all happenings and all events, without the slightest fading of the light it sees." UrW158L7

"Yet how can sight which stops at nothingness, as if it WERE a solid wall, see truly? It is HELD BACK by form, having been made to guarantee that nothing else BUT form will be perceived. These eyes, made NOT to see, will NEVER see. For the idea they represent left not its maker, and it is their maker that sees through them. What was its maker's GOAL, but not to see? For THIS the body's eyes are perfect means. But NOT for seeing. See how the body's eyes rest on externals, and CANNOT go beyond. Watch how they STOP at nothingness, unable to go BEYOND the form to meaning." UrT22D6

"I thank you, Father, knowing you will come to close each little gap that lies between the broken pieces of Your holy Son. Your Holiness, complete and perfect, lies in every one of them. And they ARE joined, because what is in one IS in them all. How holy is the smallest grain of sand, when it is recognized as being part of the completed picture of God's Son. The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing. For the Whole is in each one. And every aspect of the Son of God is just the same as every other part. Join not your brother's dream, but join with HIM, and where you join His Son, the Father IS." UrT28E8

"Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form MEANS understanding HAS BEEN obscured. Only MISTAKES have different forms, and so they CAN deceive. You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed. Reason will tell you that, if form is NOT reality, it MUST be an illusion. And is Not THERE to see. And, IF you see it, you MUST be mistaken, for you are seeing what can NOT be real, as if it WERE. What cannot see BEYOND what is not there, MUST be distorted perception. And must perceive illusions AS THE TRUTH. Could it, then, RECOGNIZE the truth?" UrT22D7

There are two approaches to spiritual progress.

1) You start out with nothing and have to attain, build, accumulate, get, learn, grow, become, seek, do something, believe in, empower, achieve, turn into, so that you will be more than you are now. So that your ego and self image will expand, and so that you will become a superhero and the God of the world. Or...

2) You start out perfect and have everything, but then you deny it and hide it, and pretend you have nothing. What you then need to do is backtrack, return, reverse, undo, cancel, deny the denial, dis-believe, withdraw power from the illusion of emptiness, remove the blocks, so that you can recognize and re-awaken to what is already permanently true. That you are with God in heaven and always have been. You "need do nothing" but accept this is already true.

We are very accustomed to thinking in terms of the first approach, because the entire ego thought system has denied God even exists, has hidden your inheritance, has thrown away any notion of you being permanently perfect, and sets you out on a path of "seek and do not find" beginning in emptiness and nothingness. We think this is normal. And we then think that salvation, love, awareness, God, our self, is somewhere else, yet to be attained or earned. Achieved through punishment and suffering and at a cost.

This is the illusion of a spiritual path. Where our whole focus is on "I don't have it now", and therefore "I need to get it". It drives the ego's focus with a complete disconnect between giving and receiving, suggesting you have nothing so have nothing to give, so need to "get" before you can give. It suggests you are devoid of love and perfection, as an attack on your true nature, hiding you from yourself, and then encourages you to seek to become more spiritual. To hide from yourself by finding yourself in another, or in the body.

But there can really be no progress at all if all we do is maintain the belief that we are not ALREADY perfect, and keep trying to become something as if we don't have it already. The ego is plenty happy to encourage you to overdo on the course, commit to paths and books and ceremonies and teachers and groups and seminars and so on, to exalt salvation outside yourself and worship it like an idol. But all this does is it turns everything you have denied within yourself, into an externalized illusion, which you now worship as though it can save you from your emptiness.

The problem is that in this approach, we're not really addressing what has ACTUALLY happened to us. We didn't pop into existence out of nothingness, with no inheritance, with no real source, and starting out with nothing. We didn't just materialize in a state of total lack and need, from which we have to spend our whole lives trying to accumulate food and objects and toys and money and fake identities and shit, just to try to build up a sense of having something, to fill the emptiness with emptiness.

"The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything TO you. (That is, to restore the awareness. Later clarification.) You had everything when you were created, just as everyone did."

"The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not originally an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-Separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing."

We have to recognize instead that we HAD everything when we were created. We were created perfect and without needs or wants of any kind. We were created permanently, and cannot be changed in our perfection. We cannot lose what we are, we cannot stop being ourselves, and we cannot destroy what God has created.

The truth is that we in fact first denied and hid from our natural permanent immortal perfection, to PRETEND that we had nothing, so that we would seek outside ourselves to find ourselves where we don't exist. The whole story reveals that not only did we try to throw away heaven and God and our real family and identity, we actually did not even accomplish this in reality. We just fooled ourselves into believing that it was possible, and that we had done it. That sin was real. And in that we are mistaken.

So then the only way to REALLY make progress isn't so much in the forward acquisition of the world, the price of which is the loss of your soul. But to realize that our perfect pre-existing immortal safe self is ALREADY THERE, simply disguised and hidden BEHIND various "blocks to the awareness of love's presence". There's simply a pile of garbage in the way, full of fake lies and un-truths, which make it seem like it's not there, or that innocence has been lost and converted into guilt.

Our real task then isn't the ego's path of gathering stuff from outside of us to plug the holes, but to reverse our steps, backtrack, undo, let go, surrender the world, deny the denial of truth, accept the reality of God's truth, simply melt into and settle into what you already ARE, and RE-discover your real nature within. To go inside and find yourself, RIGHT NOW, in a state of immaculate perfection, undisturbed and unattacked, immortal and invulnerable, incapable of suffering or sickness or death, and utterly beyond the reach of this entire world.

It's so easy to become lost in this whole drive to go do be find add get, that we can forget we're supposed to really be RECOGNIZING that we are STILL as God created us, we haven't changed at all, nothing has happened to us, we REMAIN in heaven safely with God, we haven't really journeyed anywhere but into a detour of fear, and we are utterly beyond the reach of all dreams of death. We are constant and we are permanent and we can NEVER be hurt, threatened, endangered or destroyed. Nothing has EVER happened to us. We are utterly indestructible.

That's what waking up is about. A recognition of what has ALWAYS been true, and is still true, and will forever be true. You simply can't go anywhere, or do anything, or be anything other than God established you to be. And you have nothing that he did not give you, or which you did not create with Him. And there is nothing else. You are real and you cannot be threatened, and nothing unreal exists.

You are perfect NOW. And you need merely to relax into accepting that you are ALREADY holy, innocent and perfect. You have been all along, and everything else is a lie. We simply need to acknowledge and admit that we've been perfect all along, have never deviated or changed, and we are STILL exactly as perfect as God created us to be. Which means you have no need to seek for anything.

"Who could have done this but you? Recognize this gladly, for in this recognition lies the realization that your banishment is not of God, and therefore does not exist. You are at home in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of awakening to Reality. Is it your will to do so? You know, from your own experience, that what you see in dreams you think is real, as long as you are asleep. But the instant you waken, you KNOW that everything that SEEMED to happen DID NOT HAPPEN AT ALL. You do not think this mysterious, even though ALL the laws of what you awake to WERE violated while you slept."

"The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world, and lose your own Soul. The Holy Spirit teaches that you CANNOT lose your Soul and there IS no gain in the world, for OF ITSELF, it profits nothing."

"Whom God has joined CANNOT be separated, and God has joined all His Sons WITH HIMSELF. Can you be separated from your life and your being? The journey to God is merely the reawakening of the knowledge of where you are always, and what you are forever. It is a journey without distance, to a goal that has never changed."

"Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the light are merely covering their eyes. The light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all. Light is not of the world, yet you who bear the light in you are alien here as well. The light came with you from your native home, and stayed with you because it is your own. It is the only thing you bring with you from Him Who is your Source. It shines in you because it lights your home, and leads you back to where it came from and you are at home."

"Thanks be to you, the holy Son of God, for as you were created you contain all things within your Self. And you are still as God created you. Nor can you dim the light of your perfection. In your heart the Heart of God is laid. He holds you dear because you are Himself. All gratitude belongs to you because of what you are."

"We begin the journey back by setting out TOGETHER, and gather in our brothers as we CONTINUE together."

"Ours is simply the journey back to God Who is our home."

"We have forgiven one another now, and so we come at last to You again. Father, Your Son, who never left, returns to Heaven and his home. How glad are we to have our sanity restored to us, and to remember that we all are one."

"Today we will anticipate the time when dreams of sin and guilt are gone, and we have reached again the holy place we never left. Merely a tiny instant has elapsed between eternity and timelessness. So brief the interval there was no lapse in continuity, nor break in thoughts which are forever unified as one. Nothing has ever happened to disturb the peace of God the Father and the Son. This we accept as wholly true today."

"Father, I was created in Your Mind, a holy Thought that never left its home. I am forever Your Effect, and You forever and forever are my Cause. As You created me I have remained. Where You established me I still abide, and all Your attributes abide in me because it is Your Will to have a Son so like his Cause that Cause and Its Effect are indistinguishable."

"In prayer you have united with your Source, and understood that you have never left."

"You are he your Father loves, who never left his home, nor wandered in a savage world with feet that bleed, and with a heavy heart made hard against the Love that is the truth in you. Give all your dreams to Christ and let Him be your Guide to healing, leading you in prayer beyond the sorry reaches of the world."

"In quiet listen to your Self today, and let Him tell you God has never left His Son, and you have never left your Self."

"Now try to reach the Son of God in you. This is the Self Which never sinned, nor made an image to replace reality. This is the Self Which never left Its home in God, to walk the world uncertainly. This is the Self Which knows no fear, nor could conceive of loss or suffering or death."

"Now into Your Hands we give again the spirit of Your Son who seemed to lose his way a little while but never left the safety of Your Love."

"And turn you to the stately calm within, where, in holy stillness, dwells the living God you never left, and Who never left you."

"There is no need for help to enter Heaven for you never left. But there is need for help beyond yourself as you are circumscribed by false beliefs about your Identity, Which God alone established in reality."

"Then will we wait in silence, giving up all self-deceptions as we humbly ask our Self that He reveal Himself to us. And He Who never left will come again to our awareness, grateful to restore His home to God as it was meant to be."

"Beyond all idols is the Thought God holds of you. Completely unaffected by the turmoil and the terror of the world, the dreams of birth and death that here are dreamed, the myriad of forms that fear can take, quite undisturbed, the Thought God holds of you remains EXACTLY as It always was. Surrounded by a stillness so complete no sound of battle comes remotely near, It rests in certainty and perfect peace. Here is your ONE reality kept safe, completely unaware of all the world that worships idols, and that knows not God. In perfect sureness of Its changelessness and of Its rest in Its eternal home, the Thought God holds of you has never left the Mind of Its Creator, Whom It knows as Its Creator knows that It is there."

"Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness that never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God. And when he hears this song again, he knows he NEVER heard it not."

I wasn't intending for this post to be elaborate but I LOVE how this analogy unfolded to explain the body, sickness, death, miracles, and awakening.....I think that I might even write a whole book based on this analogy alone, it's so clear and exact.... Thanks to Holy Spirit for the nudges and corrections.

...

Computers are strangely similar in their following of rules as we are in our responsibility for choice. And similarly, our bodies do exactly what we tell them to and nothing else.

A computer doesn't do anything whatsoever without a decision being made. When a decision is made, when the computer is told what you want, it produces exactly that result. The language used to tell it what to do is absolutely specific. And it only produces the exact result that was asked for. It is almost annoyingly specific in its requirement for precise instruction.

The computer doesn't really decide on its own to do anything else. It is very true to the programmer's instructions. If it seems to be doing something else, some illusion of a higher-level functioning has arisen. It's really still just processing binary data, 1's and 0s', yet produces what looks to be much more sophisticated results. Images on a screen, objects moving around, sounds happening, it's all an ILLUSION.

When the computer seems to do something it was not supposed to do, this is actually impossible. If there is a bug in the software, the computer still does what the bug tells it to do. It doesn't decide not to do bugs, and it doesn't decide to do bugs on its own. It faithfully follows instructions. That's all it can do. It has no real intelligence. It is just a machine. You get out what you put in.

The body is similar in that it is your faithful machine, and it literally only does what your mind tells it to do. It does not have a will of its own. It does not invent bugs on its own. It doesn't malfunction on its own. It only follows the program that is given to it. It is always 100% correct in carrying out orders. It does not complain or have an opinion or make judgement about rightness or wrongness of the program. It just EXECUTES.

It is a device, that you use for various purposes. Some of those purposes are malicious and as a result, they lead to the body seeming to produce malicious states of being. But regardless of these states looking like a high-level sophisticated problem, it is still just the body following orders. In this way, the body (like a computer) is completely neutral. It is your servant and you are the one operating it.

This is also exactly the same as the fact that, as Jesus tells us in the Course, you always get exactly what you ask for, you only ever get what you ask for, and you never get anything that you do not ask for. Therefore what you get and what happens is 100% your responsibility. If the body seems to go wrong or do bad things, it is because the programmer told it to.

Just as it is the responsibility of a computer programmer to give it the exact-right specific instructions for behavior, so too do you give your body exact instructions for behavior. This is why as Jesus says, if the body is exhibiting signs of sickness or disease, it must mean that the mind has given it a program where you've asked it to be sick and diseased. It is just following your request, to the letter. A sick body is a sign of a sick mind, because the programmer of the body has to be sick in order for sickness to show in the body.

This also shows us the way out of the illusion of stuff happening that allegedly shouldn't be happening. There is not ANYTHING happening in the entire world that has not been asked for by a mind. There is nothing happening in your body that you have not asked for in your mind. You put it there yourself through your instructions - your creative power and freedom. And you have received exactly what you asked for. It is a TOTALLY reliable system.

"Ask and you shall recieve" does not mean that sometimes you ask and sometimes you receive, it means you are always asking and you are always receiving and it is not even possible to not receive what you've asked for. There also therefore is never a situation where you might not receive what you've asked for, where you are in doubt, or thinking that you have asked the wrong question or don't know how to ask etc. You ask nevertheless, and everything you are experiencing right this very second, you have asked for. You can't blame the RESULTS for being something you do not want. YOU need to find out how and why you are programming the system to produce an output of suffering.

If stuff seems to be happening in the body which you don't prefer, you cannot blame the body for it, and you cannot look to outside causes to find out where the symptoms came from. There is only one program and you wrote it. Symptoms are just correct outputs, based on the program you have given the body and the request you have made.

Sickness is a correct output! Death is a correct output! If you ask for it, you shall receive it. If you say, body, you will die, it will die. If you say body you will live, it will live. This is why the illusion of things being right or wrong is 100% bullshit delusion, because there is nothing BROKEN about this system. You are giving it instructions unconsciously to produce HELL, and if that's not what you want, you need to program something else.

As explained in the Song of Prayer, you are constantly praying, constantly asking, and constantly receiving what you are asking for. Therefore, learn to pray a higher prayer. Prayer is PROGRAMMING! As Jesus says, prayer is the medium of miracles, because prayer is the act of CHANGING THE SOFTWARE! This also means that in the prayer you do not beg or request or have fear about what you are asking, you CHOOSE the results you would receive with total certainty that the system MUST produce what you have requested, and therefore you believe 100% that you MUST receive it, and YOU SHALL RECEIVE THE MIRACLE!

This also explains why really nothing has gone wrong and nothing is really happening at all. If the computer is just faithfully doing what you TOLD IT TO, nothing has gone wrong, even if what you told it to do (express a world of separation) was a pretty wacky idea for a program. This also shows why you have not gone off the path, plus there is no reason to be afraid that you cannot get back Home, because it is ALWAYS true that you are receiving what you're asking for and you can always choose again. Therefore, by choosing God's "program", you need not produce programs of suffering and death. NOTHING CAN STOP YOU FROM CHOOSING NOT TO PROGRAM DEATH! All death is a choice. All death is suicide.

This is why there is never anything out of place, there are no accidents, nobody dies without their own consent, and nothing happens without you making it happen. You are causal. You cause things. You produce. You direct. It is all extremely specific, 100% specific. Every single thing that seems to happen in illusions is put there on purpose. There are absolutely no victims whatsoever. Every notion of victimization, accidents, right/wrong, good/bad, should have happened or not, things unwanted, events you resist, etc.. it's all an effort by an unconscious programmer to fix the program by fighting with the output, instead of changing the program!

You have dominion over the body and over the Earth. You have power over all sickness and death because you MADE THEM with your programming, and you can UNMAKE them just as easily. If stuff is happening which, when you look at the results, you do not want, then you need to change your programming. You need to erase the instructions that you keep giving (false beliefs, delusions, ego), and replace it with a higher, more orderly program (Holy Spirit's mind, right-mindedness, sanity, truth).

Your body does not have bugs. Your programming of the body has bugs. Your life does not have bugs. Your programming of your life has bugs. You need to go fix your errors, your mistakes in thinking, which are producing exactly the correct output given the input. If you don't like the output, change the input, don't fight with the output like some victim that has no power to choose again.

You cannot keep looking at the output and saying, this output is not supposed to be happening, this output is wrong, this output is not what I asked for. That's a victim, which is a mind who has forgotten that they are the instructor and the INPUT to the system, and they are the ones who are causing the OUTPUT from the system, but they've forgotten that they're doing this. It's like they fed in a program (the script), walked away from the control system/terminal, and looked at the screen to see what results were coming out, saw something crazy coming out, and then having forgotten that they ASKED FOR IT, start freaking out and blaming the problem on 50 billion other reasons why the output is wrong.

The output is ALWAYS CORRECT based on the input, even if its an output of death. So who is really RESPONSIBLE for writing dodgy programs?! You are.

What you put in, you get out. If your mind is feeding input to your body and your life with unloving, unforgiving intentions, then you are going to be writing scripts which are filled with chosen suffering. You're going to be writing scripts, programs, which contain outputs that are unpleasant. You're going to even write scripts which create illusions that you're not the script-writer and that you did not ask for the output. You can even produce outputs which disguise the fact that there was ever a programmer!

So once you start getting SHIT come out of your printer, you probably can tell that shit was fed INTO the printer and you need to correct that. It's not the printer's fault. It's not the body-computer's fault. It's not other people's fault or life's fault or the environments fault or food's fault or anything's fault.

This is just a simple cause-and-effect system. It functions like a computer. There are decisions being made, there are inputs being given to the system, and it is producing exactly the output that was requested. There is not even a single interference with that. There is no corruption on the disk drive, there are no viruses infecting things, it's all running perfectly. EVERY prayer is being answered. EVERY request is being granted. You just keep making stupid-ass requests!

This is why if you really want to change the output, i.e. change the world or the body or any other effects, the ONLY real way to do that is to get back to the mind - to the programmer, get the programmer's mind corrected so they're not writing ridiculous programs, and then feed a new program into the system. A more truthful, orderly program. And this MUST (not sometimes, not maybe, but MUST) produce a corrected OUTPUT in the form of the "symptoms" or "effects" seen as the body. Remember Jesus's principle, "If miracles are not happening, something has gone wrong" - meaning, there is NEVER a wrong output given the input, so if you are not seeing a miracle, YOU CORRECTLY ASKED FOR SOMETHING OTHER THAN WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE ASKING FOR! And you WILL receive it.

Even in the bible it says that if you ask, and believe that you have received it, you will receive it. This suggests it's possible to not receive if you do not believe enough, which is not true. The correction for this is to realize, YOU MUST and ARE receiving exactly what you actually are asking for, so if it "looks like" you are not receiving what you want, you MUST be the one who is out of touch with what you want, and you're asking for stuff unconsciously that your conscious mind is in denial of.

Attempting to mess with what output you got, or what your body state is, or what your life looks like, from the end of the system that is the output of instructions, you are hitting your head against a wall and are attempting to perform magic. Magic means that you are believing that the output came from a non-obvious source, that the system is broken, and that you need to "patch it up" with some kind of bypass that messes with the output and mangles it to make it look like what you thought should have come out. That, however, does not fix the faulty PROGRAM, or the programmer that's nuts who is writing the faulty program, and so it will likely still keep producing the same output eventually. You can actually remove the effects of "sin" but if the person continues to "sin", i.e. write programs of separation, they will keep reproducing the same effects and symptoms.

A miracle, is simply the mind choosing to cause a different output. Writing a different program. Fixing bugs in its own software. When these changes show up in the output, it's amazing, like someone just rewrote all the rules, all of the old rules were broken, and the design of the whole system has been overridden. We call this miraculous. Some "super-natural" power from outside of the entire "matrix" of the system has just flipped some switches and changed the INPUT, and therefor the output has to fall into line.

Another way this can show up as miracles is that the programmer of the system can decide to rearrange space or time, can insert and remove objects from the scenery, can manipulate any piece of 'data' in the system, can modify absolutely anything in the system, and can convert anything into anything else. These are the powers that Jesus has demonstrated through miracles. He got in touch with the programmer's chair, sat down and started rewriting the programs. Everyone has the freedom to do this, we just have to get back into the chair and write programs from love!

We are not getting anything out of this system that wasn't put in, or that wasn't asked for. The computer is not broken. The hardware is not broken. We have a software problem. We keep writing faulty software. Software is PERCEPTION. The content of spacetime is DATA. Software operates on the data. True perception means seeing the program clearly and being able to do anything to modify it at will, producing different data - a different output.

We need, therefore, to tap into the assistance of a superior software writer, aka Holy Spirit, Jesus, God, who are capable of not only writing or changing portions of our program for us (collapsing time, rearranging space, etc), but can also guide and assist us with "correction" of our programming expressions. Thus we gradually can write a happier dream, leading up to a final climax.

The ultimate release from this whole CLOSED SYSTEM (it's closed because it's all happening inside of God and there are no hidden rules or secret wills and everything is very exact), is when you decide to ERASE ALL PROGRAMS. A complete reboot. A total fresh start. A renewing of everything. Not just a correction of all software bugs, but a complete realignment of the state of the system with God's truth. When this happens, basically the hard drive (body) is erased, the memory (ego) is erased, and all that is left is the hardware.

Then, the only thing running is the operating system - GOD, who has programmed Christ - the perfect program, to produce the perfect output - Heaven.

When something is logical, you start with a premise, and then as the nature of this premise "extends", it produces logical conclusions. The conclusions that will come from this premise are really established in the premise itself. The limitations or scope of the premise determines what can come from it, and what comes from it is completely in accord with its starting point.

"Every system of thought must have a starting point. It begins with either a making or a creating, a difference we have already discussed. Their resemblance lies in their power as foundations. Their difference lies in what rests upon them. Both are cornerstones for systems of belief by which one lives."

When you use logic, and you arrive at a logical conclusion, what you're looking for is consistency, or the lack of contradiction within the logical system. If what you end up with seems to correlate to what you started with, and there was no obvious "nonsense" creeping in, then you can conclude that your logical conclusions are valid. You won't see any sign of contradiction so you'll consider the conclusion to be "correct". It will seem that the logic "makes sense".

What's happening is you're finding an internal consistency within the system, set up by the premise you started with. And each step you took in your reasoning did not violate the rules of the logic system. So whatever conclusions you ended up with seemed to make sense, based on what you started with. And this gives you a notion of things making sense, being valid, even being correct.

The problem is that the premise itself has absolutely everything to do with what you end up with. The conclusions that come from it, if you follow the logical steps carefully and impeccably, are really "automatic". If you start at a given starting point, you WILL end up at an ending point which is in harmony with the starting point. And you won't be able to come to a "false conclusion" if you reason it through carefully.

But if you start off on the wrong foot, if you begin with an assumption, of your premise is entirely wrong to begin with, what will happen? You'll still make logical steps, you'll still seek out internal consistency, you'll still look for that sense of "it all seems to fit together", and you'll still draw conclusions which seem to be in accord with the premise you started with. And you'll conclude "it makes sense" even. But the conclusions you come to, if you start off on the wrong foot, will be actually false. Even though they'll seem correct.

So you can be logical, and be wrong. If you start out wrong, you will only get something wrong at the other end. If you begin with a lie, you will end up with a lie, but it will be a logical lie which makes sense within the context of the whole system.

Thought systems work the same way, whatever the system is based on determines what can come from it, and only that can come from it and nothing else, unless you want to be contradictory. Yet if you start out with a system based on a lie, you will end up with lies. The lies will seem to make sense and even will seem "true" in that they seem to "add up" without contradicting the starting point, but they will still be false in the big picture. But if you believe them, you will be trapped and stuck, while believing you are free. And that is false perception.

This is the problem with the ego thought system. In the really big picture, the ego's system is a "small picture", and it is out of context, and it does not start with the whole truth. It is not beginning with something that is actually really true. It is starting out on the wrong foot, such as the belief that separation is true, or sin is real, or the impossible is possible, or death is life, or something real can be threatened etc.

When you start out with something ultimately false like that, you will produce an ENTIRE logical "system", where your reasoning will progress completely "logically" from the start to the end. And you will end up with conclusions which seem consistent. The conclusions will even seem to make total sense, IF the premise is true. But in the big picture, if it is recognized that the premise was false to begin with, then even though the conclusions are logically consistent, they are still false conclusions.

So the ego starts off on the wrong foot, on an assumption which is wrong. It starts with the belief that separation is possible, or sin is real, and then begins a progression of seemingly natural logical conclusions. If separation is real, then it must be true (consistent) that bodies are real. Then if bodes are real, it must be true that anything bodies experience is real. And if their experiences are real, then death is real. etc. That's a natural logical progress and completely impeccable logic. But the conclusion is insane because the whole "system of thought", the system of logic, began with a false premise.

When you start with a true premise, such as that God is infinite and permanent and immortal, there are once again logical progressions which come from this. If you follow the steps and start to draw conclusions based on that, and if you are careful to be consistent and not contradictory, you will end up with natural conclusions. And these conclusions will make sense, and seem valid, and they ALSO WILL BE TRUE. If you start with truth, you will end up with truth. And so whether or not the result is true or false, depends on whether the premise is true or false. And what you get out of the system as a natural logical conclusion or outcome, is set up in its starting point.

When the starting point is God, the natural logical outcome of God is the creation of the Kingdom. It's not that God randomly decides to create immortal beings, it's that the whole system just functions that way, truth goes in at the start, progressions of logical consistency occur, and you automatically get creation out the other end. And because you started with immortality, you end up with immortality. "God is but love, and therefore so am I." Such conclusions therefore are not only making sense, they are also TRUE.

"The Kingdom is the result of premises, just as this world is. You may have carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is total confusion about everything."

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth."

When you begin a thought process/system on a lie or illusion, you will end up with illusory lies which seem to make sense but are false. This means the total absence of REASON, which is the absence of sanity, because the whole system of thinking started out insane. When you start out the thought process/system with sanity and truth, you end up with a SANE conclusion. This is what ACIM refers to as REASON. The reasoning is LOGICAL, just as the ego's reasoning is logical, but it starts with sanity so ends with sane conclusions.

Just because something seems extremely logical, does not mean it is true. And this is a BIG problem for a lot of people studying ACIM. If for example you start out with a premise that e.g. God created the world, and you do not challenge this premise, the ENTIRE course will now be interpreted to try to "fit" it into that premise. And every conclusions drawn will not challenge that premise.

In order to uphold the premise that God created this world, a LOT of adjustments have to be made to the course's meanings, in order to produce consistency and a lack of contradiction. And this can lead to what seems like a consistent picture, but it is also completely wrong. Because it started out with a belief that is completely mistaken and unfounded, in light of God's nature.

A massive collection of CONSISTENT logical conclusions will be made based on it. And all of these conclusion together will form the appearance of what seems like a completely consistent internal coherence. It will STILL all seems to "fit together". A clear "picture" will form. There won't appear to be any contradictions. And any steps necessary to keep the premise valid will be made, regardless of the extent to which that means changing the meaning of the course.

Everything it says will be interpreted through that lens and filter. And the person will end up with a very elaborate, consistent, highly polished, internally supportive, self un-contradictory, and seemingly highly sensible set of conclusions. And it will all seem TRUE because it seems to make sense. And they will marvel at the seeming beauty of its logical harmony. BUT, the entire thing will be bullshit, because it all starts out with a false premise. And so the entire system of thought is completely mistaken. Yet it is regarded as truth because of its consistency.

You have to therefore be careful that your reasoning begins with something which is absolutely true. You need to understand God's nature first. And when you reason based on the truth, you will end up with truthful and valid and consistent answers, which are correct. You can't start with the world and try to reason backwards to find the truth. You have to start at the beginning of the system.

You have to have an awareness or grasp of what the absolute truth IS FIRST, before you can even proceed to think about anything. If you set off on the wrong foot, every conclusion you come to will be potentially false. But most of us will start out with false conclusions and assumptions and not question them, resulting in more false conclusions. Because we're starting out exploring all this with our egos, which has taken a whole bunch of assumptions as true, and this has not yet been questioned.

We have to find out first what the premise of our entire thinking is, whether we have started out on the wrong foot or not. And for that you have to ask yourself, what is the ultimate truth really like? What is God like? What is his nature? What IS the ultimate absolute premise? Where DID everything actually start, and what is the logical nature of that premise? Because from God, everything real proceeds as a logical system of thought, and it proceeds only according to His nature, and nothing can come from it which is unlike its starting point. So you have to be REALLY clear about God's nature before you can reason anything correctly.

When you can understand what God is like, you can start to draw truthful conclusions. And if you are careful, you can be GUARANTEED that these conclusions will be true. But if you do not understand God's premise, or you have difficulty being impeccable with your logic, then you will come to false conclusions because you'll be starting out with something false. And yet these conclusions will see true to you and make sense, even though they are mistakes or errors in reasoning. And you can end up with a whole lot of "it makes sense" even if you start out with lies.

This is happening A LOT in ACIM circles because many students are not yet in a position to grasp the nature of God's system, the premise of reality and the one truth. And so most of us are struggling to come to terms with what the conclusions are, yet alone being able to grasp where it all started or what it's all based on. And a lot of time is spent trying to uncover or learn about the premise.

If you return to the highest possible starting point, the pre-separation system, and you look at how God functions, and then you begin to reason out what CAME from that premise, and if you do so impeccably logically, you WILL come to true conclusions. But if you are mistaken about God, you will be mistaken in everything you conclude.

Those true conclusions will not only show you the things God COULD do, it will also show you what he COULD NOT do. What CAN come from Him, and what cannot. What He would will, and what he would not. And thus what you are, what your nature is, and what you are capable of in reality. When you do that, you'll see why the ego's system is entirely a FALSE premise, and EVERYTHING that comes from it will be false. And that includes the attempt to oppose God's premise, to overthrow the Kingdom, to make another world (including Earth), and why Earth CANNOT have come from God due to its nature being a complete contradiction of God's nature.

God does not make contradictions because He is logically consistent. For Him, heaven is the natural outcome of His premise. And Heaven is the ONLY outcome of His premise. Nothing else CAN come from it because it is rooted in truth. And because of His nature, Heaven HAD to be created. It's in God's nature to extend His logical premise to produce The Kingdom. Which is why it has always existed.

Earth, which is OPPOSITE to heaven in *EVERY* way, CANNOT COME FROM GOD. Its nature is opposite to His premise. It does not function like Him. It does not begin with the premise He begins with. And it cannot be a natural outcome of His thought system. If He were to create it, in addition to creating Heaven, that would mean two entirely different and opposing outcomes can result from a single premise. This is logically IMPOSSIBLE regardless of what the premise is. Each premise produces ONE conclusion in accord with it, not two different ones.

God could only create one or the other, and which one is set up in his beginning nature. Since Earth is opposite to Heaven, God could NOT have created it, otherwise He would have to have STARTED OUT with a split mind and be opposing himself. He would have to be fundamentally contradictory, as a premise, in order to PRODUCE two contradictory outputs. He could only Create ONE or the other, not both, and they cannot both exist or "be one" because of their contradictory natures. If Earth is real, heaven does not exist at all.

God is NOT contradictory, so He can ONLY produce ONE outcome. That outcome is HEAVEN, and Earth is therefore NOT OF GOD, and is not based on truth or reality. And since God is real, Earth therefore, logically, cannot be real. And since only what God creates CAN exist, Earth does not exist at all. And if God is permanent, Earth cannot be permanent. And if God exists, having Created ONLY heaven, Earth cannot exist at all. This is why "there is no world" and God did not create it.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates MUST be eternal AS HIMSELF" is a logical statement. Since Earth is NOT eternal, it must have come from a NON-ETERNAL premise, and since God is eternal, it cannot have come from HIS premise. And because HIS premise is true, it must have come from a FALSE premise. And therefore Earth is an illusion, and never will it be His one outcome.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

In A Course in Miracles there are hundreds of references to FREEDOM scattered throughout. Freedom is also contrasted against its opposite, which is imprisonment, enslavement, being bound to the ego, to the body, to darkness, suffering and death. The whole course is geared towards you reclaiming your freedom, and giving freedom to others. Through your miracles you are setting others free, and releasing them from the chains of imprisonment you held them in before.

"I am not a body I am free."

"Essentially, ALL healing is the release from fear."

"I have deluded myself into believing it is possible to imprison the Son of God. I was bitterly mistaken in this belief, which I no longer want."

"It is NOT your will to be imprisoned, BECAUSE your will is free."

"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom."

"I give you to the Holy Spirit, as part of myself.

I know that you will be released, UNLESS I WANT TO

USE YOU TO IMPRISON MYSELF."

"But their thought is so powerful that they can even imprison the mind of God's Son IF THEY SO CHOOSE."

"For you have taught yourselves HOW TO IMPRISON THE SON OF GOD, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even DREAM of it." "When man projects this onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent that he reinforces errors they have already made."

"They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned himself. By freeing his mind from illusions, they restore his sanity, and place him at the feet of Jesus."

The idea of freedom really goes back to your creation as a free-willed being by God. God has absolute freedom, being free from all limitation. God is unlimited. He who is unlimited can only give complete freedom, because he knows not of imprisonment. God does not create by imprisoning, he creates by giving freedom. All his children are not only free, they are fully free. It is because they are completely free ... in a sense, free from God .... though still sharing freely with him, that they are established as truly cooperative co-creators in heaven.

"Think not HE wills to bind you, Who has made you co-creator of the universe along with Him. He would but KEEP your will forever and forever limitless."

"Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His."

Any attempt you make to imprison another, to attack, to judge, to condemn, to blame, to project, to hurt, to destroy, to make guilty, to accuse of sin, to be victimized by, to victimize, to narrow to a body, to induce suffering of any kind, is actually an attempt to take away the freedom of others, AND to deny your own freedom. You cannot be a victim or suffer in ANY way if you acknowledge your total freedom. But in order to gain your own freedom, you MUST acknowledge that everyone else is also free from YOU, and you from them. You are not bound BY your brothers, any more than they are bound by you.

Dwell for a moment on the feeling of "keeping to yourself", in the sense that you ALLOW everyone to be free FROM YOU. Acknowledge that everyone is completely free. You are free from their tyranny over you. They are free from your tyranny over them. Let go of all manipulation, expectation, wanting others to be a certain way, or resisting their choices. Withdraw all your efforts to control and coerce, to blame and accuse. Let go of everyone. Let the whole world be itself. Settle back into your own inner freedom. You are free from enemies, free from attack, free from the choices of others, free from the body, and free from the world.

The course is in fact leading entirely to your TOTAL FREEDOM. Claiming your freedom is the restoration of your birth right. You cannot however claim your total freedom if you are imprisoning others, because the attempt to do so is an attempt to reinforce the idea that freedom doesn't exist. And thus you imprison yourself. It is said that your brother can set you free, or is the key to your salvation. By GIVING him total freedom, you give it to yourself. By recognizing he IS FREE, you recognize YOU are free. Try it.

Atonement is all about claiming freedom for yourself and the whole sonship. It is an act of setting everyone free from imprisonment. It releases you and everyone from slavery, bondage, body identification, death identification, and from all forms of suffering. You cannot BE affected by forces outside of you. The world cannot make you imprisoned or take your freedom away. No-one can deny your freedom for you. Not even God can decide whether you are free or not. He established you as free forever, and only you can deny your OWN freedom by denying it to the whole sonship.

When you acknowledge that you are COMPLETELY FREE FROM EVERYTHING, you settle back into your soul, you lift your hands away from the territory and lives of others and you set everyone free. In so doing you BECOME free yourself. You can feel it inside you, an acknowledgement of your own freedom, and it makes you feel happy and safe. You are safe from all attack because you are claiming your freedom. You are even save from suffering and death and from all the forces in the world. Nothing can imprison you or act against your will, but your will itself. When you stop imprisoning, you stop imprisoning yourself.

Below is an extensive collection of quotes from ACIM on the topic of freedom.

"How wonderful it is to do your will! For that IS freedom. There is nothing else that ever should be called by freedom's name."

"The world awaits the freedom you will give, when you have recognized that YOU are free."

"And no-one walks upon the earth but must depend on YOUR decision, that he learn death HAS no power over him because he shares YOUR freedom, as he shares your will."

"No-one but yearns for freedom, and tries to find it, but he will seek for it where he believes it IS, and CAN be found."

"But be you, rather, grateful that YOU can be the means to serve His end. This is the ONLY service which leads to freedom. To serve THIS end, the body MUST be perceived as sinless, BECAUSE the goal is sinlessness."

"Only in dreams is there a time when he appears to be in prison, and awaits a future freedom if it be at all. Yet in reality his dreams are gone, with truth established in their place. And now is freedom his already. Should I wait in chains which have been severed for release, when God is offering me freedom now?"

"I did not understand what made me free, nor what my freedom is, nor where to look to find it. Father, I have searched in vain until I heard Your Voice directing me. Now I would guide myself no more. For I have neither made nor understood the way to find my freedom. But I trust in You. You Who endowed me with my freedom as Your holy Son will not be lost to me. Your Voice directs me. And the way to You is opening and clear to me at last. Father, my freedom is in You alone. Father, it is my will that I return."

"How glad are we to find our freedom through the certain way our Father has established. And how sure is all the world's salvation, when we learn our freedom can be found in God alone."

"Freedom must be impossible as long as you perceive a body as yourself. The body is a limit. Who would seek for freedom in a body looks for it where it can not be found."

"We sound the call of freedom 'round the world with this idea."

"The Holy Spirit is the home of minds that seek for freedom."

"In conflict-free and unequivocal response to mind with but the thought of freedom as its goal, the body serves, and serves its purpose well. Without the power to enslave, it is a worthy servant of the freedom which the mind within the Holy Spirit seeks."

"Be free today, and carry freedom as your gift to those who still believe they are enslaved within a body."

"For He would give you perfect freedom, perfect joy, and hope that finds its full accomplishment in God."

"Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance."

"For as we offer freedom it is given us. And we would not remain as prisoners, while You hold out our freedom unto us."

"He leads you steadily along the path of freedom, teaching you how to disregard, or look beyond EVERYTHING that would hold you back."

"That is the same as saying that He teaches you the difference between imprisonment and freedom"

"That is because you have taught YOURSELF that imprisonment IS freedom"

"The Holy Spirit's teaching takes only one direction, and has only one goal. His direction is freedom, and His goal is God."

"Will to BE without you. When you have learned that your will IS God's, you could no more will to be without Him than He could will to be without YOU. This IS freedom and this IS joy."

"Father, I thank You for today, and for the freedom I am certain it will bring. This day is holy, for today Your Son will be redeemed. His suffering is done."

"Thanks for today, my Father. I was born into this world but to achieve this day, and what it holds in joy and freedom for Your holy Son, and for the world he made, which is released along with him today."

"Remind yourself that you are making a declaration of independence in the name of your own freedom. And in your freedom lies the freedom of the world."

"Let us not worship idols, nor believe in any laws idolatry would make to hide the freedom of the Son of God. He is not bound except by his beliefs. Yet what he is is far beyond his faith in slavery or freedom."

"But those who are FOR freedom, even if they are misguided in HOW they defend it, are siding with the one thing in this world which IS true."

"And is it THIS that you would see within your Savior FROM insanity? He is as free from this as you are, and in the freedom that you see in HIM, you see your own."

"Those who choose freedom will experience only ITS results. Their power is of God."

"Nothing but this can touch them, for they see ONLY this, sharing their power according to the Will of God. And thus their freedom is established AND MAINTAINED. It is upheld through ALL temptations to imprison and to BE imprisoned. It is THEM, who learned of freedom, that you should ask what freedom IS."

"And where he rests a while, to forget imprisonment, and to remember freedom."

"Here is the perfect statement of my freedom. I am under no laws but God's." "I am perfectly free of the effects of all laws save God's. And His are the laws of freedom."

"Forgiveness, truly given, is the only way in which your hope of freedom lies."

"Yet you must learn alternatives for choice, or you will not be able to attain your freedom."

"The level of your prayer depends on this, for here it waits its freedom to ascend above the world of chaos into peace."

"For thus is freedom given us from all we did not know and failed to understand."

"If you want to be LIKE me, I will help you, knowing that we ARE alike. If you want to be DIFFERENT, I will wait until you change your mind. I can TEACH you, but only you can choose to LISTEN to my teaching. How else can it be, if God's Kingdom IS freedom? Freedom cannot be learned by tyranny of ANY kind, and the perfect equality of ALL God's Sons cannot be recognized through the dominion of one will over another. God's Sons are equal in will, all being the Will of their Father. This is the ONLY lesson I can teach, knowing that it is true."

"In our remembrance of EACH OTHER lies our remembrance of God. And in this remembrance lies your freedom, because your freedom is in Him."

"This is our gift of gratitude to Him, which He will share with ALL His Creations, to whom He gives equally whatever is acceptable to Him. BECAUSE it is acceptable to Him, it is the gift of freedom, which IS His Will for all His Sons. By OFFERING freedom you will be free, because freedom is the only gift which you can offer to God's Sons, being an acknowledgment of what they are and what HE is."

"Freedom is creation because it is love. What you seek to imprison you do NOT love. Therefore, when you seek to imprison ANYONE, including YOURSELF, you do not love him and you cannot identify with him. When you imprison yourself, you are losing sight of your true identification with me and with the Father."

"Only the function God has given me

can offer freedom. Only this I seek,

and only this will I accept as mine."

"In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; this choice is always between two choices or two voices. Will is not involved in perception at any level, and has nothing to do with choice."

"It must be, then, that the world is really a place where he can be set free. I would look upon the world as it is, and see it as a place where the Son of God finds his freedom."

"When I see the world as a place of freedom, I will realize that it reflects the laws of God instead of the rules which I made up for it to obey. I will understand that peace, not war, abides in it. And I will perceive that peace also abides in the hearts of all who share this place with me."

"Can I lay limits on the Son of God, whose Father willed that he be limitless, and like Himself in freedom and in love?"

"So will YOU learn the freedom that I taught, by teaching freedom to each other, and so releasing me. I am within your holy relationship, yet you would imprison me behind the obstacles you RAISE to freedom, and bar my way to YOU."

"So would I liberate all things I see, and give to them the freedom that I seek. For thus do I obey the law of love, and give what I would find and make my own."

"Today's idea is one step we take in leading us from bondage to the state of perfect freedom."

"And you are free, and glad of freedom. You have sought to be both weak and bound, because you feared your strength and freedom. Yet salvation lies in them."

"All this lies in the Holy Spirit's plan to free you from the past, and open up the way to freedom FOR you."

"Accept this key to freedom, from the hands of Christ, Who gives it to you, that you may join Him in the holy task of bringing light to darkness. For, like your brothers, YOU do not realize the light has come, and freed you from the sleep of darkness."

"Behold your brothers in their freedom, and learn of them how to be FREE of darkness. The light in you will waken them, and they will not leave YOU asleep."

"His are the laws of freedom, but yours are the laws of bondage. Since freedom and bondage are irreconcilable, their laws CANNOT BE UNDERSTOOD TOGETHER."

"You are NOT free to give up freedom, but only to DENY it."

"Think what a happy world you walk, with truth beside you! Do not give up this world of freedom, for a little sigh of seeming sin, nor for a tiny stirring of guilt's attraction."

"How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value MORE than this? For here is YOUR salvation and YOUR freedom. And it MUST be complete, if YOU would recognize it."

"But You have offered freedom, and I choose to claim Your gift today."

"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me."

"The mind that is made willing to accept God's gifts has been restored to Spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own."

"Then are you free, for freedom is your gift, and you can now receive the gift you gave."

"Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are freed. Such is the law that rules perception. It is not a law that knowledge understands, for freedom is a part of knowledge."

"Today we practice letting freedom come to make its home with you."

"Thus do we lift the chains which bar the door to freedom from the world, and go beyond all little values and diminished goals."

"Peace and be still a little while, and see how far you rise above the world when you release your mind from chains, and let it seek the level where it finds itself at home. It will be grateful to be free a while. It knows where it belongs. But free its wings, and it will fly in sureness and in joy to join its holy purpose. Let it rest in its Creator, there to be restored to sanity, to freedom and to love.

"He would only have you learn your OWN will and follow it, not in the spirit of sacrifice and submission, but in the gladness of freedom."

"The freedom to leave behind everything that hurts you and humbles you and frightens you cannot be thrust upon you, but it CAN be offered you through the grace of God."

"It contains the foundation for the peace, relaxation and freedom from worry that we are trying to achieve."

"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."

"LOVE IS FREEDOM. To look for it by placing yourself in BONDAGE, is to SEPARATE yourself from it. For the love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you BE released."

"The holy instant is His most helpful tool in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the REAL lure in the special relationship. You do NOT recognize that this IS its REAL appeal, for the ego has taught you that FREEDOM lies in it."

"It is impossible to see two worlds.

Let me accept the strength God offers me

And see no value in this world, that I

May find my freedom and deliverance."

"It is impossible to see two worlds.

I seek my freedom and deliverance,

And this is not a part of what I want."

"And think how holy HE must be, when in him sleeps your OWN salvation, with HIS freedom joined."

"What hatred claimed is given up to love, and freedom lights up every living thing and lifts it into Heaven, where the lights grow ever brighter as each one comes home."

"It is no sacrifice that he be saved, for BY his freedom will you gain your own."

"He HAS no need but this; that you allow him freedom to complete the task God gave to him."

"But if he could but realize the war is between forces that are real and UNREAL powers, he could look upon himself, and SEE his freedom."

"The war is gone. For you have heard the hymn of freedom, rising unto Heaven. Gladness and joy belong to God for your release, because YOU made it not. But, as you made not freedom, so you made not a war that could ENDANGER freedom. Nothing destructive ever was, or will be. The war, the guilt, the past, are gone as one, into the unreality from whence they came."

"In the holy instant, in which you see yourself as bright with freedom, you WILL remember God. For remembering Him IS to remember freedom."

"Practice GIVING this blessed instant of freedom to all who are ENSLAVED by time, and thus make time their friend FOR them."

"Freedom is given you where you beheld but chains and iron doors. For you must change your mind about the purpose of the world, if you would find escape."

"Peace is the answer to conflicting goals, to senseless journeys, frantic vain pursuits and meaningless endeavors. Now the way is easy, sloping gently toward the bridge where freedom lies within the peace of God." "Be merciful today. The Son of God deserves your mercy. It is he who asks that you accept the way to freedom now. Deny him not. His Father's Love for him belongs to you."

"Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws which you have set up to save you."

"It is our statement of freedom from all danger and all tyranny. It is our acknowledgment that God is our Father, and that His Son is saved."

"The song of freedom, which sings the praises of ANOTHER world, brings to it hope of peace."

"Real freedom depends on welcoming REALITY, and of your guests only He IS real."

"But the experience of freedom and of peace that comes as you give up your tight control of what you see speaks for itself."

"The song of our rejoicing is the call to all the world that freedom is returned, that time is almost over, and God's Son has but an instant more to wait until his Father is remembered, dreams are done, eternity has shined away the world, and only Heaven now exists at all."

"For you have cause for freedom NOW. What profits freedom in a prisoner's form?"

"You have denied HIS freedom, and by so doing, you have denied the witness unto YOURS. You could as easily have FREED him from the past, and lifted from his mind the cloud of guilt that binds him TO it. And in HIS freedom would have been your OWN."

"Salvation is accomplished. Freedom from conflict has been given you. Accept that fact, and you are ready to take your rightful place in God's plan for salvation."

"There is ANOTHER vision and ANOTHER voice, in which your freedom lies, awaiting but your choice. And, if you place your faith in them, you will perceive ANOTHER Self in YOU."

"The time of Christ is the time appointed for the gift of freedom, offered to everyone."

"You will have to choose between TOTAL freedom and TOTAL bondage, for there are no alternatives but these."

"In the name of MY freedom, I WILL your release,

Because I recognize that we will be released TOGETHER.

So will the year begin in joy and freedom."

"For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace."

"Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now you are prepared for freedom."

"A madman thinks the world he sees is real and does not doubt it. Nor can he be swayed by questioning his thoughts' effects. It is but when their source is raised to question that the hope of freedom comes to him at last." "Throughout the day, increase the freedom sent through your ideas to all the world"

"Where COULD his freedom lie but in himself, if he be free ALREADY? And who could bind him but HIMSELF, if he DENY his freedom?"

"Prisoners bound with heavy chains for years, starved and emaciated, weak and exhausted, and with eyes so long cast down in darkness they remember not the light, do not leap up in joy the instant they are made free. It takes a while for them to understand what freedom IS."

"Strengthen your hold, and raise your eyes unto your strong companion, in whom the meaning of your freedom lies."

"Freedom to choose is the same POWER as freedom to create, but its APPLICATION is different."

"Today escape from madness. You are set on freedom's road, and now today's idea brings wings to speed you on, and hope to go still faster to the waiting goal of peace."

"The first step toward freedom, then, MUST entail a sorting out of the false from the true. This is a process of division only in the constructive sense, and reflects the true meaning of the Apocalypse."

"Give joyously to one another the freedom and the strength to lead you there. And come before each other's holy altar, where the strength and freedom wait, to offer and receive the bright awareness that leads you home."

"His is the Voice of God, and also yours. And thus He speaks of freedom and of truth."

"There is no death. The Son of God is free. And in His freedom is the end of fear."

"Whom you forgive is GIVEN power to forgive you your illusions. By your gift of freedom is it given unto YOU."

"Behold the gift of freedom that I gave the Holy Spirit, for BOTH of you. And be you free together, as you offer TO the Holy Spirit this SAME gift, and, giving it, receive it OF Him, in RETURN for what you gave."

"Offer each other freedom and complete release from sin, here in the garden of seeming agony and death. So will we prepare TOGETHER the way unto the Resurrection of God's Son."

"Fear of escape makes it difficult to welcome freedom, and to make a jailer of an enemy seems to be safety."

"It is the Word of freedom and of peace, of unity of will and purpose, with no separation nor division in the single Mind of Father and of Son."

"There are the laws of limit lifted FOR you, to welcome you to openness of mind, and freedom."

"Do not ALLOW him to belittle himself in YOUR mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and escape from YOURS."

"Freedom from illusions lies only in not BELIEVING them."

"Nor will you leave the prison house or claim your strength until guilt and salvation are not seen as one, and freedom and salvation are perceived as joined, with strength beside them, to be sought and claimed and found and fully recognized."

"And what they see upholds their freedom FROM imprisonment and death." "Those who would let illusions be lifted from their minds are this world's Saviors, walking the world with their Redeemer, and carrying His message of hope and freedom and RELEASE from suffering to everyone who NEEDS a miracle to save him."

"The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom." "We bless the world as we behold it in the light in which our Savior looks on us, and offer it the freedom given us through His forgiving vision, now our own."

"Begin each day with time devoted to the preparation of your mind to learn what each idea you will review that day can offer you in freedom and in peace."

"Accept today's idea, and you have released the world from all imprisonment by loosening the heavy chains that locked the door to freedom on it."

"We offer thanks to God our Father that in us all things will find their freedom."

"What you have asked for cannot be denied. Your Savior has been waiting long for this. He would be free, and make his freedom yours."

"Above all else you want the freedom to remember who you really are."

"It is your special function to ensure the door be opened, that he may come forth to shine on you, and give you back the gift of freedom by receiving it of you"

"The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness they do not see. Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death."

"When you have seen your brothers as yourself, you will be RELEASED to knowledge, having learned to FREE yourself, of Him who knows of freedom. "

"The miracle teaches you that you have chosen guiltlessness, freedom, and joy. It is not a cause, but an EFFECT. It is the natural result of CHOOSING RIGHT, attesting to your happiness that comes from choosing to be FREE of guilt."

"Therefore, make your INVULNERABILITY manifest to everyone, and teach him that, WHATEVER he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can BE harmed, shows him HE is guiltless."

"You who will yet work miracles, be sure you practice well the idea for today. Try to perceive the strength in what you say, for these are words in which your freedom lies. Your Father loves you."

"The possibility of freedom has been grasped and welcomed, and the means by which it can be gained can now be understood."

"I call you to fulfill your holy part in the plan that He has given to the world, for its release from littleness. God would have His host abide in perfect freedom."

"He cannot choose to change His Son, nor make your mind accept the perfect freedom He has given you." "Healing is freedom, for it demonstrates that dreams will not prevail against the truth."

"Your special relationships will remain, NOT as a source of pain and guilt, but as a source of joy and freedom. It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery."

"The ego is immobilized in the presence of God's grandeur, because HIS grandeur establishes YOUR freedom. Even the faintest hint of your reality literally drives the ego from your mind, because of the complete lack of investment in it."

"For faith can keep the Son of God in chains, as long as he believes he IS in chains. And, when he is RELEASED from them, it will be simply because he no longer BELIEVES in them, WITHDRAWING faith that they can hold him, and placing it in his freedom INSTEAD."

"Here it is given him to choose to spend this instant paying tribute to the body, or LET himself be given freedom from it."

"He may not yet have learned HOW to exchange his guilt for innocence, nor realize that ONLY in this exchange can freedom from pain be his."

"My role is only to unchain your will and make it free. Your egos cannot accept this freedom, and will oppose your free decision at every possible moment, and in every possible way."

"Free will MUST lead to freedom. Judgment always imprisons, because it separates segments of reality according to highly unstable scales of desire."

"Miracles need freedom from fear. Part of their Atonement value involves just that. Note that the word "atone" really means "undo."

"In this phase of learning, working miracles is more valuable because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you."

"Look on your brother, and behold in him the whole reversal of the laws that SEEM to rule this world. See in his freedom YOURS, for such it IS."

"To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that you HAVE accepted the Atonement for yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you OFFER the gift of freedom from the past, which you have RECEIVED." "Be not afraid to look upon the special hate relationship, for freedom lies here."

"For the body IS little and limited, and only those whom you would see WITHOUT the limits that the ego would impose on them, can offer YOU the gift of freedom."

"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."

"For you have chosen but the goal of God, from which your true intent was NEVER absent. Throughout the Sonship is the song of freedom heard, in joyous echo of your choice."

"The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. YOU CAN DECIDE TO SEE IT RIGHT. What you MADE of it is NOT its reality, for its reality is only what you GAVE it."

"And you will carry its message of love and safety and freedom to everyone who draws nigh unto your temple, where healing waits for him."

"The belief in EGO autonomy is costing you the knowledge of your dependence on God, IN WHICH YOUR FREEDOM LIES."

"You could accept peace NOW, for everyone you meet, and offer them perfect freedom from ALL illusions, BECAUSE YOU HEARD. But have no other gods before Him, or you will NOT hear."

"Nothing of God will enslave His Son, whom He created free and whose freedom is protected by HIS Being."

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

"Because of his failure to accept his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as similarly free."

"Freedom from fear can be achieved by BOTH teacher and pupil ONLY if they do not compare either their needs or their positions in regard to each other in terms of higher and lower."

"In the service of the "Right Mind", the denial of ERROR frees the mind and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is REALLY free, it CANNOT miscreate, because it recognizes ONLY TRUTH.

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!

I am going to create a new book based entirely on the metaphysical logic of the Course, which will dispel all myths and misunderstandings and arguments about what the Course is teaching, saying and meaning, on an irrefutably logical, black-and-white basis. It will be so clear and accurate that only unwillingness to accept it will see fault in it.

Everything about the Course is logic-based and every outcome of any thought system is a logical conclusion. There is no room for opinion, neither my own nor that of anyone else. Jesus is extremely logical in his presentation of the metaphysics. People will see this as either arrogant or impossible or perfectly acceptable. But it IS possible to spell out everything Jesus is teaching in a logical manner. Jesus already proved that with His Course.

"The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has. The ego’s purpose is FEAR, because ONLY the fearful can be egotistic. The ego’s logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

Everything to do with Heaven and Holy Spirit's thought system is perfectly logical.

Everything to do with the ego's thought system, behavior, conclusions and goals is also perfectly logical.

Everything to do with separation from God and all of the steps which followed it, the outcome of the separation, what is or is not real, the nature of time, even the formation of physical matter, and the consequence of death, all come about through perfect logic.

It follows, logically, that if you grasp a correct understanding of the logic behind all this, you can come to the correct conclusions and understand why things have happened the way they have, and how to reverse it.

The flow of logic, when understood clearly without making errors, removes all questions, doubts, confusions, conflicts and arguments about what ACIM is teaching, saying or meaning. You can fight with people but you can't fight with perfect irrefutable logical facts.

The logical consistency is irrefutable, and you can also see that Jesus is very black-and-white and very extremely accurate and specific in His logical descriptions of mind and ego and everything else. Most of what He says is based on logical conclusions. This logical basis is referred to in the course as REASONING. Logical reasoning produces sane conclusions. Insane reasoning is still logical but produces false conclusions. EVERYTHING about the ego and all of its functioning and subtleties is a false conclusion.

Most of the debate surrounding the Course and what it means or teaches comes from a lack of clarity about the underlying metaphysical logic. The logic determines what the course MUST be saying, regardless of the words used or how it says it. Even debates about whether God creates souls or whether the world is real or whether God is in the world or whether miracles are supernatural or anything else, all has a LOGICAL metaphysical foundation which is irrefutable when seen clearly.

A common problem I also see is that Jesus says one thing in one part of the course on a given topic, and a person might take that in isolation and draw conclusions based on it. But then the same topic may be discussed elsewhere in the course in such a manner that it clarifies or gives a slightly different understanding. Because the Course is so large, it can be difficult to keep all of these things in mind simultaneously, to cross-reference them, to ensure that you are being completely consistent and not producing contradictions.

The Course is also often said to be contradictory in many places and many people do not understand why this is. I will say this. There are NO contradictions in the Course at all. Nor is there ANY basis for describing parts of it as metaphor, except for when Jesus is explicitly and deliberately using a metaphor for teaching purposes. The idea of the Course being filled with metaphor or symbols is a poorly illogical way to explain-away or gloss-over a poor grasp of the underlying metaphysical logic. It is usually based in poor reasoning, fear, denial, and unwillingness to accept the truth.

Jesus does not contradict Himself. He is not unclear about anything. He has deliberately tried to be as black-and-white as possible because this ensures perfect clarity and avoids any ambiguous false conclusions as much as possible. From what I've seen, most confusion or conflict over the meaning of the Course has nothing to do with what Jesus says, and is only to do with a temporary lack of grasp of the whole picture by the student, ie there are some parts they have not yet added up, they have not seen how it all fits together, or are not yet willing to accept certain things and so are blocked.

Behind all of our opinions and interpretations, there is an absolutely 100% rock solid underlying metaphysical logic, which can be spelled out in black and white terms. Everything that happens in the ego thought system, all of its dynamics, every interaction and relationship, all ways of perceiving and projecting, every reaction, is all describable in terms of completely logical conclusions, each one building upon the foundation of another. There is no part of this world or the ego or mind or anything that is not completely logical in terms of why it is happening or what it is based on.

Regardless of what the words say, regardless of illusions of contradiction, vagueness, or lack of evidence, if you grasp the logical basis CORRECTLY, you not only can logically find the right answer yourself, you also can extrapolate the logic yourself, meaning that you can not only gain NEW insights which were not previously mentioned based on the SAME metaphysics that Jesus teaches, but also that is completely consistent with it and an extension of it, producing clarifications and understanding of the metaphysics even beyond your current personal experiences.

This is why it can also become a possible trap, because the logic of the mind is able to grasp the metaphysics conceptually prior to it being your actual experience. And yet to grasp the conceptual logic is important because it becomes a GUIDANCE TOOL, correcting your mistakes in thinking and helping LEAD YOU towards the truth. Every part of the Holy Spirit's thought system is perfectly logical so each piece that you grasp accurately builds upon the rest and not only reinforces the thought system it also adds missing pieces by automatic implication.

You can "figure out" what Jesus means by using perfect logical conclusions, and can therefore even say things which are TRUE and which Jesus would agree with, which Jesus Himself never said, and have it NOT be "outside of the Course's teachings". The excuse "Jesus didn't say that" or "that's not written in the course" is a blindness which fixates only on the form of what was said, NOT the underlying logic, and this causes many students to put up unnecessary defenses, to put the course in a box, to dwell unnecessarily on different versions of the book, and to make the form of its words all important. It is what the words are BASED ON that is important. The fundamental logical basis IS the metaphysics, and IS aligned with the thought system of Jesus, from which He speaks.

For example, the only reason that someone projects responsibility for causing something onto another person, is because awareness of being the cause of it has been blocked in their own mind, meaning logically they are not aware that they are responsible for causing it, which means they MUST now look elsewhere to try to find the cause. This is not optional. There are no exceptions to the rule. This is simply what must happen given the logical foundation. If you did not do this, someone or something else did.

As another example, you can explain why every mistake is forgivable by recognizing that a person is only attacking because they are believing that someone else is the cause of the problem. Having simply not been aware of their own actions of mind, they see cause as separate from themselves. And so this justifies all anger and attack. And the only reason the person is becoming angry and attacking is because of this logical framework which has been established.

If the person were to remove the block to awareness to look at the FACTS ("no one can argue with a fact"), that they themselves did this to themselves, it is then OBVIOUS that there is no justification for attack. So anyone who is attacking is simply temporarily unaware, and THAT IS ALL, and because of that unawareness they do not know what they are doing to themselves, and so their attacks are merely MISTAKES they are making in unconsciousness, and so they must be FORGIVABLE because they did not do this on purpose consciously. They are not in their right mind, therefore forgiveness is justified in every case. This is logical, and Holy Spirit's logical thought system recognizes this and therefore sees forgiveness as being always justified.

Impeccable logic can properly explain the "levels" of separation, all states of mind, the dynamics of every interaction, the automatic, predictable flow of ego thoughts, and all logical outcomes of the ego thought system, including the formation of forms and matter and bodies and planets and sickness and death. Nothing is happening other than an entirely CLOSED system of logical conclusions, based on a false premise.

All of these steps in separation, all of the dynamics of the ego, all of the ways that mind does or does not do something, all states of perception and misperception, the state of Heaven and its conditions, the functioning of minds of oneness, all of the parts of the Holy Spirit's thought system and the ego's thought system are ENTIRELY LOGIC BASED.

Love and fear are opposites. But only love is real. Therefore fear is not real and love has no opposite. If there is fear, it produces a state which does not exist. This is PERFECT LOGIC. This describes for example the foundation of the separation. And also explains why "there is no world", because a world based on fear cannot exist. This is why "there is no life outside of heaven".

Or here is another way to do it. God is cause. You are effect. You cannot cause what caused you because you are 100% the effect of it. Therefore attempting to cause God is impossible and will produce states which do not exist (dreams of nothing). This is perfectly logical.

Since everything in the Course's teachings including the foundation for working miracles is based entirely on metaphysical logic, this is going to be the foundation of the new book I am working on. It is going to spell out all of this in such clear black-and-white terms it will be extremely difficult to deny it or to become confused by it. It's got nothing to do with personal opinion. Metaphysics means FACTS, and this is what we need to overcome our constant debates and confusions and states of misunderstanding.

Here are some examples of Jesus talking about metaphysical logic:

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth’s reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and away from truth."

"The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily, and as well, as does the ego, except that HIS conclusions are NOT insane. They take a direction EXACTLY opposite, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. We have followed much of the ego’s logic, and have seen its logical conclusions. And, HAVING seen them, we have realized that they can NOT be seen but in delusions. For there alone their SEEMING clearness SEEMS TO BE CLEARLY SEEN. Let us now turn AWAY from them, and follow the simple logic, by which the Holy Spirit teaches you the simple conclusions that speak for truth, and ONLY truth."

"Like the text for which this workbook was written, the ideas which are used for the exercises are very simple, very clear and totally unambiguous. We are not concerned with intellectual feats nor logical toys. We are dealing only in the very obvious, which has been overlooked in the clouds of complexity in which you think you think."

""God gives me only happiness."

"He has given my function to me."

"Therefore my function must be happiness."

Try to see the logic in this sequence"

"Only the DIFFERENT can attack. So you conclude, BECAUSE you can attack, you must be different. Yet does the Holy Spirit explain this differently. BECAUSE you are not different, you CAN NOT attack. Either position is a logical conclusion, if only the different can attack. Either could be maintained, but never both. "

"And reason now can lead you to the logical conclusion of your union."

"The logic of the world MUST therefore lead to nothing, for its GOAL is nothing."

"There is NOTHING in the world to teach him that the logic of the world is totally insane, and leads to nothing. But in him who MADE this insane logic, there is One Who KNOWS it leads to nothing, for He knows of EVERYTHING."

"Yet the logical outcome of your decision is perfectly clear, if you will LOOK at it. By deciding AGAINST your reality, you have made yourself vigilant AGAINST God and His Kingdom. And it is THIS vigilance that makes you afraid to remember Him."

"You therefore ARE willing to look at the ego’s premises but NOT at their logical outcome. Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? Your creations ARE the logical outcome of His premises. "

"They are the logical outcome of what you ARE. The ability to SEE a logical outcome depends on the WILLINGNESS TO SEE IT, but its TRUTH has nothing to do with your willingness at all."

"This means that the ego attacks WHAT IS PRESERVING IT, and this MUST be a source of extreme anxiety. This is why it NEVER knows what it is doing. This is perfectly logical, though clearly insane."

"Remaining logical but still insane, the ego resolves this completely insane dilemma in a completely insane way."

"In one sense, the ego’s fear of the idea of God is at least logical, because this idea DOES dispel it. "

"Test validity can be judged by logic, by theory, and by practice, each being regarded as a different dimension."

"Upside-down logic produces this kind of thinking."

"Now take this personally, and listen to Divine logic: If, when you have been forgiven, you have everything else, and If you have been forgiven, Then you have everything else. This happens to be the simplest of all propositions. IF P then Q. P. Therefore, Q. The real question is, is P true. If you will review the evidence, I think you will find this inescapable. I went on very personal record to this effect, and I am the only completely True Witness for God."

What if our mind has the power to modify the world, given we are the dreamer and it is a dream - our effect? What if by mental intention you can cause events to proceed differently? What if you can steer outcomes? What if you can change physical matter? What if the world is really NOT the seemingly fixed, closed, solid, permanent-seeming thing that we think it is, and that's all an illusion?

This is the next area of exploration for me having recently focused very much on how the world is very locked into its nature. By realizing the world is stuck being the way it is, I had to then naturally ask myself, how does one go about escaping its impossible ways, forgiving it, and being free of it? How can it be overridden? And this is now leading to me to the simple progression of QUESTIONING the world, what it is, and what our minds can do to CHANGE IT DIRECTLY. And the fact that IT IS THE EFFECT OF MY DREAMING.

Jesus says in ACIM that if you change your mind about the world, ALL THE WORLD MUST CHANGE. He also says the world is an effect, and therefore, that if you change the CAUSE in your mind the world MUST change. Like LITERALLY PHYSICALLY change. He also tells us we are the dreamer of the dream. To me what he is actually getting at is that our minds are powerful, thought exerts real influence, the physical is not really physical but dream-stuff, and we have the POWER to modify it.

I've seen some evidence for this INFLUENCE of mind over the "physical world". so I'll tell you some stories.

At my job, I deal with computer stuff, as a sort of IT-department fix-it person at times. But it would turn out that very often the problems people came up with would seem to "fix themselves" when I showed up. They definitely had the problem beforehand, but then suddenly it seemed like something "in the world" just happened out of the blue to changed the course of events. The problem became seemingly "magically" (miraculously really) solved. It usually took the form of someone realizing something, a change of mind, some fact that was overlooked comes to light, or even literally physical devices which were not working suddenly work and no-one could explain why.

Over time some people called me "the computer whisperer" because it literally seemed uncanny that when I came along to help them the problem just melted into "not a problem any more". And I mean on a physical level. Something kept transpiring in terms of the FORM of how it seemed to change, something tangible or what you might call what APPEAR to be natural changes in circumstances, environmental factors, whatever, but although it LOOKED LIKE just normal "reasons why" stuff got fixed, it was actually due to something in my mind that caused a change.

There are also some times where in my mind I am not interested in playing into a problem or having to deal with an issue. So my mental attitude is one of "I do not agree with this", not like in an annoyed wanting it to go away sense, but like I don't believe in this - not buying it. I hold firm somehow to another truth, or perhaps to another intent or desire, and somehow this has a power in it. And this power seems to alter the course of events and cause problems to go away.

A boss approaches with some issue and then I mentally reject it or want nothing to do with it and suddenly he seems to realize something or changes his mind or things just suddenly resolve themselves. And I can't tell you how man times when I've needed some "time to myself" he just seems to have somewhere else to be. What I'm literally saying here is along the lines of .... when you walk through a dying forest flowers start springing up around your feet out of nowhere. That would be a very vivid example and I'm not at that level but it seems like that is possible.

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures came to die. Now they have water. Now the world is green. And everywhere the signs of life spring up, to show that what is born can never die, for what has life has immortality."

Mind can have such power and influence that it can actually produce real changes in what we call "physical stuff". In effect, your mind can "dream" a different dream and have power over what the dream contains. And as I read about how the physical world/earth IS A DREAM, and see Jesus's references to us dreaming of worldly events and how he calls it a dream, it seems to make so much sense that our mind ACTUALLY IS dreaming and producing the environment in realtime, AND it can change the environment to another form at will. And behind material happenings there are "mind forces" at play, including the atonement plan.

"But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. While you made plans for death, He led you gently to Eternal Life."

Some years ago some people were walking down a path and it was spring, so the blossom petals on a tree were falling across the path. The couple walked under it and the petals fell onto them and for some reason this was a happy thing to me. I watched this from inside a room with a closed window, from probably a couple-hundred feet away. I had a sudden feeling of joy in my mind out of nowhere, and suddenly literal blossom petals materialized in front of my face, inside the closed window in the room with me.

Another time I was looking for money in a coin box, in which there was no "pound coins". There were only 1p a 2p bronze coins left (british). I rifled through insisting that there must be higher value money there. I did this for some time maybe even a minute, and somehow in my mind I was convinced and insistent that there MUST be some higher currency in there. Suddenly in front of my eyes as if they had been there all along, yet out of nowhere, two pound coins appeared on the top of the pile. There was no magical effect of anything to them being there, they were just not there one moment and the next they were there. And they were definitely not in the coin box hidden before.

There have also been other times where if I am fairly centered in my mind and in what I believe is true, or perhaps what Jesus calls "being strong in the truth" or at least clear about when someone is bullshitting, if I mentally stand my ground and do not buy into someone projecting or scapegoating me, it actually has an influence on them. Something changes in their mind and they suddenly become self-aware of what they're doing as if they adopted my view of them, and will suddenly realize there's something about what they said which isn't true. And then they will take it back and reconsider what their position is, because somehow the truth-focus in MY mind influenced theirs.

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

"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."

I've had to pick up subtle clues and nuances to come to realize this and this is definitely still new territory, but it seems clear that this world we're calling a physical solid world IS NOT THAT. It is in truth actually just a bunch of dream images. And our minds are not just inert little observers, they are powerful and quite capable of CAUSING the dream to change. And by dream I am NOT talking about projected meanings and interpretations of perception, I'm talking about the PHYSICAL MATERIAL WORLD. It can be changed by the mind. Mind literally has power over matter. It can steer events, cause objects to materialize, can manipulate weather, and can do all kinds of stuff - including healing sickness and reversing death and decay.

My wife has a strong will also and she has this ability too. In the past we would joke about having power to control the weather, which has proven a number of times. If I ask her to pray for me for example, my whole inner experience lights up and becomes far more happy and light and energized. She is quite capable of having a powerful influence, even at a distance. One time that we went to visit the UK for example usually the weather is crap and very consistently cloudy, but for like 3 days solid as soon as we arrived it became very clear and sunny non-stop which was very unusual. Also I know I've had influence in calming storms a couple times that I've tried to do that.

I am also convinced from some stories other people have shared that our minds influence each other including each other's bodies. Such as that for example a person was in fear and this fear was affecting the other person they were with and causing a medical condition. And then as this was pointed out the fear lifted and the medical condition just went away quickly. How is that possible unless mind has the power to influence the minds and bodies of others? That it can actually cause a different dream to just emerge out of nowhere?

Are we to really believe that the world is literally this kind of paper-thin fragile tentative sort of "material only" existence, in which everything is just the laws of physics holding it together and there's nothing else to it besides solid form? Because that's just how it APPEARS to be. The world is not actually that, because it's a dream, and it is an illusion, and it presents an illusion of a world, and this illusion CAN BE CHANGED BY THE MIND.

"Appearances deceive BUT CAN BE CHANGED."

"Yet nothing in the world of dreams remains without the hope of change and betterment, for here is NOT where changelessness is found."

"You CAN change form, BECAUSE it is not true. It COULD not be reality, BECAUSE it can be changed."

We are being asked to become aware that the world is an EFFECT of our mind. Jesus literally says "You maintain the world in your mind with your thoughts" and "Both heaven and earth are in your mind." The whole planet, the whole dream, is a mental construct. It's a fairytale of imagination in the mind, and the mind is literally projecting an imaginary world complete with all its "physical" details. And even though it LOOKS physical and as if it has laws that govern it and reasons why it cannot BE changed, that's all illusions, because it can EASILY be changed by a mind that knows it is dreaming.

"But hold out your JOINED hands and touch this heavy-seeming block, and you will learn how easily your fingers slip through its nothingness. It is no solid wall. And only an illusion stands between you and the holy Self you share."

So imagine the physical world is in fact like a LUCID DREAM. A dream in which you are awake and aware that IT IS a dream. And then you are aware that even though it appears solid and fixed, it is in fact your dream, and you CAN DO ANYTHING. "There is nothing my holiness cannot do." You can literally put your hands through physical matter, you can materialize objects, you can fly if you want to. You can change one thing into another. This is all a totally malleable dream environment, NOT really a hard solid fixed physical reality.

Do not be deceived by its illusion of hardness, solidity and so on. "What He (Holy Spirit) enables you to do is clearly NOT of this world, for miracles violate every law of reality, as this world judges it. Every law of time and space, of magnitude and mass, of prediction and control, is transcended, for what the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly beyond ALL of them."

And as MIRACLE WORKERS we are being trained and asked to adopt a position as the "dreamers of the dream", where we recognize it IS coming from us, and WE CAN CHANGE IT in any way we see fit at any time, just by the power of the mind. The Holy Spirit is capable of manipulating the atoms of the world, just as Jesus also says that space and time are under his control.

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind MUST BE STRONGER. Every miracle demonstrates this."

Jesus was masterful at this "dream manipulation". His mind was in touch with being THE CAUSE (the dreamer), and knew the world was HIS EFFECT. Therefore he was not a victim of it in any way, and had power OVER IT. He recognized he was not affected BY IT in any way because he was DREAMING it - putting it there. This is what resurrection is about, the SURMOUNTING of death - the ability to have POWER OVER DEATH. Which includes the ability to reverse "physical death" and to manipulate bodies by the mind, into any state, and any form.

He was able to give body parts that were missing, he could walk on water, calm storms, change outcomes, turn objects into other objects, multiply and materialize objects out of nowhere, appear in different body forms, could likely levitate and fly if he so willed it, and pretty much NO LIMIT to what he could do. The examples of his USE OF his power only paints a limited picture of the fact that he was able to do literally anything. And so can you, because this world is NOT a fixed solid world, it's totally at your whim and under your power!

We have barely begun to realize the sheer power of our minds, the influence our minds have on the world, the ability of our minds to change matter, the ability of our minds to heal both mind AND body, and the influence we have on ALL THE WORLD when we change our mind. Our healing literally heals the world. Our focus on truth literally awakens our brothers. And our broadcast signal of love literally transforms the dream in unlimited ways.

Miracles as expressions of love are expressions of love from a powerful mind. I think in ACIM terms perhaps miracles are actually a SUBSET of what the mind can do. When mind is aware and expresses, which must also be a loving state, it has tremendous power, and this can CHANGE THE DREAM. It can cause literal physical transformations, impossible changes, violation of laws, breaking of space and time and distance and possibility. It can heal the sick and raise the dead, produce and change objects, and even move entire mountains.

This is not even a difficult feat for such a power, but so many people are afraid and skeptical and not even suspecting that such a power of POSSIBLE, yet alone that it is in their own minds. "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."

"Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? This is indeed a little feat for such a power."

The metaphysics of ACIM is not something that someone made up, it is not an interpretation, it is not subject to someone's opinion, and there is no room for questioning it. It is not one of many possible definitions of the truth. It is THE truth. Either you understand it as it is and accept it as logically true, or you are in denial and confusion.

Metaphysics are FACTS. The thought system of the Holy Spirit is completely logically consistent, as is the thought system of the ego. There is absolutely no room for interpretation. What is "true" can easily be determined by looking at the logical structure of what has happened and where things fit. If you master the metaphysics, you will be able to extrapolate the logical thought system to explain absolutely anything in its correct perspective.

What happens after the separation from God is completely 100% logical. Everything that happens after separation MUST happen, and it MUST happen in a very specific way. The effects of separation are not varied or one possibility among many. There is only one way to separate, there is only one scenario which comes about when separation seems to have happened, and there is only one outcome.

If you can learn the fundamental, completely logically consistent metaphysical structure of the separation, it gives you a framework in which everything else fits into place. A Course in Miracles is teaching this metaphysical structure, but it is not always very obvious. Its obscure nature tends to lead people to not even realize there is a solid "core" to the Course or that you can use this structure to perfectly explain everything the ego does, the meaning of death, and what MUST be true based on it.

For example, separation from God is not possible, because you cannot be somewhere that God is absent. God is everywhere. This immediately tells us that, logically, to believe that this IS possible is insanity. It also must tell us that to believe in such a separation is to believe in a DREAM, a fiction, something which is false or not true and not real. This is already the beginning of some very solid metaphysics, and many people grasp this basic starting point.

But then there is a progression, because as soon as there is a belief in separation, the ENTIRE ego thought system can be logically described and predicted for how it will operate, what it will perceive and believe, what it will value, and everything else about it. Even such things as special relationships, special hate, unconscious guilt and so on, are not just things that happen to be a part of the situation we're in, they MUST ABSOLUTELY FEATURE in an experience of being separate from God. There is a completely LOGICAL progression of thought and circumstance which HAS to come about when there is separation, which leads to all of these things.

Jesus describes some of this in the Laws of Chaos, where he says that first there are separations into individuals/bodies, then this MUST give rise to the perception that each individual is different and therefore lacking, and this MUST then give rise to a sense of competition because others have something you lack, and this MUST mean every individual is sinful for the attack that their "independence" inflicts on each other, and you then end up trying to "get" from others what you lack, by valuing what they lack and trying to possess it - which is the purpose of "specialness" and leads to all special relationships. All of this is a completely logical progression. It's simply what must happen and must unfold based on the separation having taken place.

Another example is what happens right after separation in terms of the split mind and how it becomes at war with itself. If the mind believes in separation, in order to be separate from God, it MUST have separation within itself. There is nowhere else for the separation to be. So the mind becomes divided, believing in "self and other". This MUST mean that WILL is also split, and this MUST mean that both of those parts are in conflict. There are two wills operating seemingly separately or with separate goals, since they logically cannot be the same or in agreement otherwise they could not BE separate. They MUST be at war with each other. They MUST be in a state of conflict. This conflict leads to ALL expressions of war and attack and vengeance and eventual death. It all progresses completely logically.

The metaphysics also shows that what once was a single whole mind, or whole self (Christ), must have become divided and split apart following separation. This mind that believes in separation thus gave rise to multiple illusions of individuals. The illusion of these individuals BEING individual is completely dependent on a strong illusion of the ways they are different, and as this illusion of difference becomes stronger and more established, it turns into what we call "form", which is what the BODY is. So a body is actually a logical progression of the thought system of separation and MUST come about if the separation has happened. Bodies are just very strongly-believed-in fragments of mind appearing separate and unique in order to maintain the ongoing breakdown of wholeness. This is also why bodies are a "picture" of the destruction of Christ, made as separation devices to keep individuals apart and therefore keep Christ from being whole.

There is no guesswork here. There are no opinions. There is no interpretation. This is simply a completely logical, consistent development which takes place. If there is a separation, it has "features" which come from it quite "naturally" and which are completely unavoidable. They are not optional. Bodies, worlds, special relationships, death, sickness, it is ALL a "natural" part of a thought system of separation. The metaphysics recognizes this and gives a perfectly consistent structure to it. The metaphysics can explain WHY all of these things come about.

As you learn the metaphysics, which is somewhat deeper than just "the words" of the Course, you will acquire a kind of template or set of simple laws which you understand to make perfect sense. These can be somewhat abstract so it can require some learning to "generalize" the learning and realize that it's all based on a simple set of logic. But once you then "get" the simple logic, you can now USE that simple logic to examine absolutely any aspect of life, any activity or purpose or way that something happens, and describe it in terms of what the METAPHYSICS says about it, which will be the truth. Irrefutable truth. Provided your grasp of the metaphysics is clear and consistent and you're not making subtle logical errors, the metaphysics gives you VISION to be able to see the truth of what's happening or where things fit together.

For example, recently there have been discussions about whether you can be at peace with death. There were many opinions given. None of the opinions were relevant. The only truth is in what the metaphysics says. In the metaphysical truth, the body is a separation device, it is an illusion, and it is within the mind of Christ. It blocks and hides what is behind it and its only function and purpose is to maintain the illusion of the mind being separate. The metaphysics also tells us that since God is life, and being opposite to God is the separation, separation MUST be death. It also must be a fiction of death - a dream of death. It HAS to be. It also tells us that therefore when the body is "alive", the body is still inside a dream of death. This also tells us that the death which occurs at the end of "life" is just a symbol for death, because what happens before it is also death. This is why Jesus says "death is not an end, it is a continuation."

Also since the metaphysics teaches that death is the opposite of life, and life and peace are one, and therefore death is not peace, we VERY SIMPLY can conclude that it is IMPOSSIBLE for there to be death and peace at the same time. This is irrefutable, perfect logic. This is the truth that the metaphysics tells us. It has nothing to do with anyone's opinion, anyone's lack of understanding, anyone's version of what they think is true based on their so-called experiences, or anything else. It CANNOT be true that death and peace are the same thing or that they truly can be 100% experienced at the same time. Yet many people have tried to justify that they are at peace with death or have come to accept it. They MUST be in denial. The metaphysics makes this clear.

Another simple truth which you can conclude based on the simple metaphysics of separation, is that the split mind is in a state of war BUT it also simultaneously NEEDS that war to continue, in order to maintain a sense of being less than whole and of having an opposite. If truly the opposition were completely wiped out of existence, there would be no more possibility of being at war, and war is entirely founded on being separate and having a split will. So on the one hand, the ego now is constantly trying to attack and be opposed to the "other", but at the same time, it MUST KEEP the other as an enemy for as long as possible. It does not want war to actually SUCCEED, it wants war to be CONTINUOUS.

This is a simple logical conclusion based on the metaphysics of separation. It's not my opinion or someone's interpretation. Therefore all states of conflict and war entail people choosing to suffer for as long as possible. It also means that if one group of people wins the war and totally wipes out the opposition, there would have to be PEACE, because without an opponent there is no basis for fighting. To end the war would thus truly undo the separation, it would be the undoing of those who tried to wage war, and this is not what the ego thought system wants. This is all simple logic. So if someone comes along and has a discussion about war or conflict or attack, if you grasp the metaphysics you can use it to explain what MUST be true about war and conflict.

The separation from God is an entirely CLOSED SYSTEM. There is no room for accidents, there is no room for multiple opinions or interpretations. There is only the FACT of what has happened. You can accept it or you can deny it. If you have a solid grasp of the metaphysics you can DEPEND on it so much that you can TRUST it and you can use it to discern whether people are saying bullshit or whether they are aware of the truth. It also however requires that YOU not be in denial and you not be making logical errors. And the fact is there are a lot of people making a lot of logical errors. Sometimes they are quite subtle. But when someone thinks they know what the truth is but have not quite got it, they will defend it to the death and it must produce war.

Metaphysics reveals that there is only one truth. There is no room for error. There are facts, and that's it. You don't get an opinion. You don't get to interpret it to fit what you want it to be. You don't get to change it. In fact, this extends to your relationship with God and the fact that you keep trying to believe that God has changed His mind about you, or that you can change God. Both must be logically false. But that doesn't stop us believing otherwise, because we are insane. To not get the metaphysics is insanity, and the ego will use it to confuse you and delude you.

There is so much "insight" which can flow out about all kinds of topics if you will just learn the fundamental basic structure of separation. It also reveals to you that there really is only one problem, one dream, one solution. Illusions of how certain things seem different or unique or unlike each other, calling for a special explanation, can be "seen through" if you have the metaphysics right. You will know what to trust, and how to discern. You will be clear about what is true and what is false. You will also be amazed at how you're able to use the metaphysics as a powerful TOOL to give you the truth - what MUST be true - based on what you have learned is logically consistent, EVEN IF you have never thought about the particular topic before. The metaphysics will tell you WHAT IS the truth of the situation, and MUST be true about it, regardless of whether you even believe it yourself.

This logical consistency also builds upon itself. It's like, if you have this blueprint and you use it to place the first few pieces exactly where they belong, then you start being able to draw further logically consistent conclusions from it. It's like a jigsaw puzzle, where if you start out with the correct corners and the correct edge pieces, all of the other pieces can be correctly positioned and discerned, leading to a completely consistent whole picture. It's almost like effortless learning. You don't need to keep learning lots of individual separate modalities or pieces of information. You just get this one 'guidance system' which is the light of truth, the thought system of the Holy Spirit, which puts into perspective absolutely everything else. You switch on this one light and ask IT what is the truth, instead of being in the business of MAKING UP what you want the truth to be all the time, and it will very obviously and clearly tell you exactly what the truth is, from a clear and consistent perspective.

This is also why it is imperative to surrender your egoic attempt to always be the one who decides everything, to always be the one who decides what things mean, to always have your own opinion, to always be running "your own life" which you see as a possession of your own separate from God's will. Trusting Holy Spirit/God is trusting the metaphysics of the truth. The metaphysics completely correlates to the Holy Spirit's thought system. As you trust IT, you are trusting HIM. And as you begin to THINK WITH it, you are thinking WITH HIM, and you will start to have thoughts which are in line with, compatible with, and consistent with, HIS way of thinking, which is perfectly supportive of the metaphysics. The metaphysics of truth IS the way that the mind functions from a true perspective.

So our opinions mean absolutely nothing. Our separate viewpoints are an act of war. Thinking we know that our interpretation of the Course is right, unless it actually IS in line with Holy Spirit's thought system, MUST be a state of denial and MUST entail the authority problem - the ego trying to be the one who determines what is true or not. Only the truth is true. We can accept it, or we can be in denial. If we are in denial, believing we know the truth, we are mistaken. You can accept God's love, or you can reject it, but you cannot change it. You can deny that God is real but that won't change the metaphysics of reality whatsoever. You can pretend all you want, but ultimately, all of reality is a CLOSED SYSTEM with no options and no alternatives. It is what it is. Trying to make it be something it is not, is ego, and WILL produce the illusion of death.

Let's take a good hard look at something that very few people want to ever admit. Something dark and awful, but true.

Planet Earth, and the rest of this universe, were made in a thought of opposition to Heaven. This was an attempt to make hell real, by dreaming up a world that runs completely opposite to the beautiful divine nature of the Kingdom.

To do this, an opposite to life had to be invented - death, and the entire system of thought had to be based on not only the belief in this but the attempt to make it as real as possible. To bring it about. This alternative world was an attempted weapon to destroy the Kingdom and destroy God, if that were possible.

"The world was made as an attack on God."

Because of this, everything in this world runs contrary to life and is governed solely by the laws of death and destruction. The world is an attempt not to exist and to destroy the Son of God.

"The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son."

The world wasn't made in order to have a place to live forever. Heaven is where you live forever. The world was made to kill you. Everything in it, even those things which seem to begin or are born, are automatically infused with death right from the outset.

Death, separation, limitation, spacetime, conflict, attack, are all built into every single part of the system. Even the most beautiful flower, the cutest puppy, the loveliest sunset, are made of the illusion of death. They take on forms whose appearance is designed to tempt you to believe they are desirable, valuable, wanted. But they are nothing but illusions, designed to distract and deceive you and keep you in hell.

The fact is, that everything in this universe dies sooner or later. It does not matter what it is, or how long it takes. Planets die. Galaxies die. People die. Animals die. All of it. Sooner or later, death is going to fully express itself, as the entropy and decay gradually erode whatever illusion of life there is. And as Jesus says, this world is "at best an illusion of life, at worst death", since it cannot be alive at all.

"There is no life outside of heaven."

Jesus asks that we take a good hard look at this, because we seem to be quite deceived and deluded in believing that the world can offer us something valuable. We are constantly tempted by its attractions and exciting adventures. It offers us toys and objects and pointless things to keep us entranced. But most of it, is attempts to convince us that avoiding death here is possible, if we will just put our faith in the ego a little while longer, until death arrives.

And so one of the biggest problems we have, is that we do not recognize this world is ENTIRELY made of death, or that ALL its roads lead to death, or that there is NO ESCAPE from this hell if you play by its rules. The idea of "living here" is ridiculous. It can never be experienced as a true home. And everything it does is a murderous attack on your happiness and wellbeing. The world eats you alive. And it is designed to do nothing but destroy you. At least, eventually, when it's done pretending to be your friend.

The problem we have is that in our deception and rose-tinted blind optimism, we keep believing that this world can be or do something that it can never be or do. We keep trying to turn it into heaven. We keep trying to wrap it up and dress it up to be what it's not. In a state of denial. One more flavor, one more combination, one more appearance, one more new distraction, one more toy, one more desirable temptation to lure you in. And by believing that you can achieve some kind of escape from death through this means, the world has deceived you for a while, and you think you like it here. Until it fails. Which it will.

Make no mistake. This world was designed to result in, lead to, culminate in, and guarantee, one thing only. The death of God and his son. It has no other ambition. It has no other direction. It will always enforce this ambition sooner or later. You might spend most of your life pretending that this is not the case, avoiding the inevitable, but regardless of your outlook the world is run by laws of death.

When you don't recognize the world's "nature", its complete failure to accomplish anything, its automatic built-in destruction, and its inability to be heaven, you enter into wishful thinking, delusions, denial, and start down a fairy-tail road of spiritualized egos and thinking that this time you'll win. If you play in the ego's sandpit you will die, by its rules, when it wants you to die.

Expecting the world to be something it's not, can only make you frustrated, and disappointed. You might hope that it can be something, that you can succeed, that you can have your cake, that you can win, that you can escape somehow, but sooner or later it comes crashing down, it turns out to be an empty promise, something you don't really want, and then it breaks, and it fails, and it dies again. Wanting it to be otherwise will only frustrate you. Not recognizing that this is the only way it can be, and letting go of the wish to have it be different, simply traps you in it more.

The world WILL disappoint you, if you try to build your house on its unstable rock. It WILL disappoint you if you forget for a moment that perfection is impossible here. It WILL disappoint you when you start to become attached to hopes and dreams which are later dashed against the rocks. And it WILL disappoint you when you thought that next toy you buy was going to be your salvation, only to discover it was the wrong one, or it broke, or it didn't quite do what you thought it would do.

Nothing really works in hell, it's all broken. How many times will you have to go through the same lesson of expecting it to not be hell, only for it to result in hell, before you you learn? And no this is not an attempt to make hell REAL, it is a reminder that hell IS AN ILLUSION, and to not fall for its tricks. Because hell's biggest weapon is to make itself seem like heaven, something you want, and somewhere you want to live forever.

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

We need to at least acknowledge this. We need to recognize it, see it, notice it. We need to realize this is its nature. The world is not a perfect living place. It's a place of destruction and conflict and incompletion and damage and problems and everything going wrong. It can't be any other way. All illusions have this nature built into them, because they lack the harmony, perfection and love of the Kingdom.

THE WORLD JUST SUCKS It simply does. It can't not suck. But by recognizing it inherently sucks, you can at least let go of the expectation of it not sucking. Which in fact is a truer perception, a more accurate way of looking at it. The world was made to be hell. If you can recognize that, you can be free of it. NOT recognizing illusions deceives you. And "Illusions recognized must disappear."

You are only trapped in it if you resist it, make it real, believe it's true, consider it heaven, or mistake it for God's creation. And you only keep holding onto it if you think you want it or it offers you something of value. But it cannot. Ever.

"This world holds nothing that I want."

"Teachers of God are willing to give up all the pleasures of the world."

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

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

Jesus isn't being negative here. He isn't being judgement or closed-minded. He's not in ego. He's being very truthful and honest and sane. He's simply pointing out what the world's nature is, without flinching or looking away or being in denial about it. The world was made from the idea of death and everything in it is designed to fail and die and cease existing. That's just how it is. It can't be any other way.

Even in the happy dream, or the real world, the laws of the physical world still remain in effect. Trees still die in storms. Animals get eaten. Planets die in supernova explosions. Stars get swallowed in black holes. Your car rusts, your shoes wear out, your food rots, and people die. It's supposed to happen this way. It's not fate, but it is an illusion of fate, based on the idea of sin being real. The wages of sin is death, and everything in this world is designed to make death and sin real.

"The world of bodies is the world of sin. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains to keep a separated world in place?"

"From the world of bodies, MADE by insanity, insane messages seem to be returned to the mind which made it."

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death. Children are born into it through pain and in pain. Their growth is attended by suffering, and they learn of sorrow and separation and death. Their minds are trapped in their brain, and its power declines if their bodies are hurt. They seem to love, yet they desert, and are deserted. They appear to lose what they love, perhaps the most insane belief of all. And their bodies wither and gasp and are laid in the ground, and seem to be no more. Not one of them but has thought that God is cruel."

"Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem. Is it not madness to think of life as being born, aging, losing vitality, and dying in the end? We have asked this question before, but now we need to consider it more carefully. It is the one fixed, unchangeable belief of the world that all things in it are born only to die. This is regarded as "the way of nature," not to be raised to question, but to be accepted as the "natural" law of life. The cyclical, the changing and unsure; the undependable and the unsteady, waxing and waning in a certain way upon a certain path, - all this is taken as the Will of God. And no one asks if a benign Creator could will this."

When you "get excited" about something, there's a very high likelihood that you will enter into disappointment. Maybe it's a new car. Maybe you're going on a wonder vacation. Maybe it's a new pet or some new food you're trying. And maybe it will seem to you that these things are great and enjoyable and nothing to complain about. But then, maybe ignorance is bliss and you didn't notice the experience of HEAVEN that you did not have, while these falling-short substitutes came to drag you into hell.

I got a new car. Winter came. The snow and salt fucked up the interior. Oh well. I got a new fish tank. A fish died, plants died, it didn't go quite to plan. Oh well. I ordered items online, they came, they were the wrong items. Oh well. This is the kind of stuff that happens here. But if you expect it NOT to happen, you are expecting some kind of spiritualized salvation and external perfection, which is setting you up for total disappointment. The more you worship idols and seek for external saviors, the more you will be let down. And even your most valued teachers have their skeleton-full closets hidden away.

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. It is a conscious choice. For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. ***They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die.*** Yet they are not deceived by what they see."

Even for a teacher of God, a highly healed and awakened individual, the world continues to SUCK AND DIE!

THE WORLD SIMPLY SUCKS ASS! It was designed that way. It will never not suck. Even if you are happy. Even if you are truly forgiving and loving. It will still keep doing what it does until it finally vanishes into nothingness. Waking up doesn't stop the world from killing 130,000 people a day. Waking up doesn't repair everyone's broken limbs. Waking up doesn't make waterfalls flow uphill or prevent planets from colliding. Stuff still keeps ticking over, per the laws of death, and there is no hope here.

This is essentially the crux of the matter. The belief that there is hope, faith, trust, in the ego and its death world. That it has a redeeming quality, some possibility of being heaven or home, and a chance of escape from God. It's this wishful thinking that just maybe, you can get away with murder, just maybe you can be God, and just maybe you can overthrow the Kingdom and prove the Son of God is dead. Or that this world can be perfect. But you can't. And you never will. So the whole endeavor is pointless.

There is no hope in the world. Hope is of God. There is only hop because the wrold is NOT real and its illusions of hell are fictional WHEN RECOGNIZED. If you want hope, you have to look beyond the world, and forget the world and all its twisted ways. We can but recognize the world's limitations and laugh at them. The world will end in laughter because it is a place of sorrow. In laughter we will shine it away because of its fundamentally unhappy nature. The world will never be your home. You do not belong in hell.

Is it not far saner to recognize and accept that no matter what you do in this world, its laws will steer it towards failure? Because if you expect the opposite, you will be disappointed, again and again and again. This does not mean there is no hope at all. Only that trying to find it where it is not, cannot work. God and His Kingdom are your only home and your only happiness.

"The thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE."

"A Son of God is happy only when he knows he is WITH God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond ANYTHING that he can make."

"To be without a body is to be in your natural environment."

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

"There is no life outside of Heaven. 2 Where God created life, there life must be. 3 In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. 4 At best it seems like life; at worst, like death. 5 Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. 6 Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. 7 Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. 8 Illusions are but forms. 9 Their content is never true.

T-23.II.20. The laws of chaos govern all illusions. 2 Their forms conflict, making it seem quite possible to value some above the others. 3 Yet each one rests as surely on the belief the laws of chaos are the laws of order as do the others. 4 Each one upholds these laws completely, offering a certain witness that these laws are true. 5 The seeming gentler forms of the attack are no less certain in their witnessing, or their results. 6 Certain it is illusions will bring fear because of the beliefs that they imply, not for their form. 7 And lack of faith in love, in any form, attests to chaos as reality.

T-23.II.21. From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. 2 It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. 3 The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. 4 Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth. 5 Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. 6 The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. 7 And where your thinking starts, there must it end.

T-23.II.22. Brother, take not one step in the descent to hell. 2 For having taken one, you will not recognize the rest for what they are. 3 And they will follow. 4 Attack in any form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads from Heaven. 5 Yet any instant it is possible to have all this undone. 6 How can you know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? 7 Quite easily. 8 How do you feel? 9 Is peace in your awareness? 10 Are you certain which way you go? 11 And are you sure the goal of Heaven can be reached? 12 If not, you walk alone. 13 Ask, then, your Friend to join with you, and give you certainty of where you go."

Is there a power OTHER than the mind that can cause things to happen to us? What causes sickness? What makes death happen? Do we actually have any control over this world? Do we have a power, to such an extent, that we can actually determine what happens or doesn't happen? Can we actually CHOOSE to cause or not cause sickness and death?

This is an important issue because if we are not the ones orchestrating everything that occurs, everything we experience, then that places us in a rather vulnerable position. If there is a power or cause or law or something that drives stuff to occur, without our consent, without our choosing it, this basically means we are capable of being victims. Stuff can happen to us against our will.

It may seem SUPER radical to suggest that you could be in a position of having so much deliberateness, so much choice, so much power, that you could be orchestrating an entire dream. That the things that happen are what YOU decide will happen. That nothing else happens, because you haven't chosen it. It really then boils down to, are you actually able to choose not to suffer, to not be sick, to not die? Can you choose that events don't occur at all? Do you have the power to CAUSE these to not happen, and do you have the power to cause them TO happen?

This then really becomes a question of RESPONSIBILITY. Who or what is responsible, in every case, for what happens in your life? Do you shift responsibility and therefore "blame" onto others, onto the body or the world itself? For what seems to happen TO you? Who is responsible for whether you are attacked or not? Who is responsible for whether your body becomes sick, or is healed, or just carries on being sick without hope of relief? Because ultimately someone or some "thing" HAS to be the cause. It's either you, or it's something else. There are NO effects without causes.

If you look at the teachings of ACIM closely you will see that there is a huge theme of EMPOWERMENT. This empowerment is saying that you are so powerful that you literally are the dreamer of the dream. It says that you are ruler of the universe. It says that you can be attacked by nothing but your thoughts. It says you cannot die without your own consent. It says that you are not the victim of the world you see. All of these themes point towards you having POWER OVER what happens. YOU CHOOSE!

"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."

"Here again is the paradox often referred to in the course. To say, "Of myself I can do nothing" is to gain all power. And yet it is but a seeming paradox. As God created you, you have all power."

Indeed it leads to what ACIM calls "the secret of salvation". This is quite a radical passage because it basically says that unless you were to go into a kind of unconscious state of denial in which you disown power and see the dream as "happening against your will", NOTHING In the world can do anything to you - no matter how vicious it seems. And in fact, that the secret to being SAVED FROM all forms of suffering, is to realize and own fully that you are "doing it to yourself." That takes great OWNERSHIP of power.

We immediately start to bark with objections about how this can't be true in all situations. But the passage tells us that no matter who is the victim or victimizer, it is true. No matter who seems to do what to whom, or what the apparent severity, it is still true. So it's then telling us that despite any appearances, despite what may look like external causes or separate people acting in certain ways, no matter what it looks like on the surface, it is ALWAYS TRUE that you are doing it to yourself.

And it calls this the "secret of salvation" because it talks of how this is the ONE LESSON the holy spirit is teaching to SAVE YOU from ALL forms of suffering. That the cause of ALL forms of suffering, no matter what form it takes, including physical sickness, is the fact that you are the one doing it to yourself. And because you are doing it yourself, you can change your mind and STOP doing it.

"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise."

Because in truth, really, UNLESS you are actually the one with the power to CAUSE anything to happen, you would not be in a position to be able to USE that power to NOT cause it to happen, or to undo it. It is because you DO cause it, that there is IS hope for salvation. There is a way out of hell and suffering and sickness and death BECAUSE you are the one that keeps putting it in place. And if you weren't the one putting it in place, you'd be stuck having to tolerate it, experience it, suffer from it, and go through it, without any hope of relief, ie no salvation.

This is quite a radical teaching and it is extremely central to the entire A Course in Miracles view of cause and effect, of who causes what, and of how POWERFUL you are. It rests on the fact that you are an immortal being, a permanent changeless being, who is always the same and is incapable of change or of being changed. A being that is NOT AFFECTED by the world.

"The world does nothing to him. He only thought it did."

Forgiveness rests on this immortal fact, because obviously if you are immortal nothing can happen to you, so you have no grounds for playing at being a victim, no grounds for believing that something is happening against your will, and no grounds for suffering. If you are immortal then you quite literally are invulnerable to the entire world, and there is not a single thing in all the world that has even the slightest power to cause anything that you do not want. In fact it means you have power OVER DEATH, because you cannot die.

This is what the entire teaching of ACIM is leading to. The total identification with spirit as Christ, the immortal son of God. The total owning of RESPONSIBILITY FOR BEING CAUSAL - a causal CREATOR. The total reclaiming of absolute unlimited POWER, which can do literally anything. The reclaiming of the power to work miracles, to heal sickness and to prevent death, and to change the world if needed. It is asking of you to reclaim a role and position of nothing LESS than TOTAL ABSOLUTE POWER.

By having such a power, a power so great that literally the entire dream is being dreamed up BY your mind, a power that puts the world in place and makes it spin, a power that materializes bodies, a power that causes events to transpire, we're talking about you being extremely DELIBERATE and CHOOSING everything that occurs or is experienced. And this does mean without exception. Not one single thing occurs that you do not choose, and because the power of decision is yours, you CAN CHOOSE not to have the body be sick, or die. YOU make the world go round.

This isn't a course in leaving any room open for some kind of fictional "alien will", a separate power, an external power, some kind of power the "dream" seems to have over you, some victim consciousness, some kind of external causation that can do things to you against your will, some kind of power that puts sickness into your body without your asking for it, or some kind of power other than your choice that seems to make death happen.

These are all the views that the EGO has, in its sense of weakness and powerlessness and vulnerability and fear. It sees itself as utterly at war with a separated-off power not within itself, that does things to it against its desires. And it sees itself as having no control or real power over anything, so instead to uses "force" and "doing" to try to make things happen.

"All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the FEAR OF AWAKENING. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of CONSCIOUSNESS. This is a pathetic way of TRYING NOT TO KNOW by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual."

We are being asked to own up to being immortal beings. Beings who are purely CAUSAL and CREATIVE. Beings who express from love and whose expressions come out as what you want, and as what you create and thus as what happens or exists. Where you are constantly choosing WHAT shows up and what occurs. There is no room in the mind of a creator/co-creator for stuff happening "by some other means", or of your choices being unheard, or of your decisions lacking power, or of your causation lacking effects.

This is a course in TAKING BACK YOUR POWER. And that means and includes the total responsibility and ownership of being THE CAUSE OF all your suffering, in every form it takes, INCLUDING the condition of the body, all of its forms and sickness and suffering, and even over death itself. You even have the power to literally move mountains and to make worlds. Only in this extreme of absolute ownership of the POWER OF GOD, which is your inheritance, is victimhood and vulnerability and pain and misery snuffed out forever. There is no power OTHER THAN the power of God that you share with him.

The question is whether you are willing to go all the way to accept this power, to take on this role and position of being ruler of the universe, whether you are willing to OWN this power and regain access to USE it consciously. Whether you are ready to let go of all victimhood roles and all sense of not choosing or not being the one who makes things happen. It's putting you in the hot-seat. If you are to reach the resurrection and FINISH the curriculum, you MUST gain the absolute power over death, which gives you the ability to cancel and reverse and prevent it EVEN on a physical level.

"I raised the dead by KNOWING that life is an eternal attribute of everything that the living God Created. Why do you believe that it is harder for me to inspire the dis-spirited or to stabilize the unstable? I do not believe that there is an order of difficulty in miracles: YOU do."

If you believe that sickness happens through some other reason, by some other cause, something in the world or body, something environmental, something someone else does to you, if events happen on their own chaotically or randomly, if death chooses for you when you will die, if sickness happens to the body, if sickness can remain within the body against the mind's choice, and if you believe that you do NOT have the power to do anything about this, that IS an egoic position of victimhood and powerlessness. And we are all-too comfortable playing this role.

It means you are "playing the game of death", as an immortal being, PRETENDING that you do NOT have the power of God, and trying to pull off a stunt of making it look AS IF you are not the one causing everything to occur. When it appears you did not choose something, it is an illusion. You are ALWAYS choosing what you experience, what you feel, what happens with the body, what events transpire. NOTHING happens without your consent. This is because you are an infinitely powerful being with an extremely powerful unlimited mind capable of creating entire worlds.

"There are no accidents in salvation."

"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."

Owning up to this power - the shared Power of God - which is UNLIMITED, and there is NOTHING that this power (thus your holiness) cannot do .... places you in a position of being co-creator with God. For a creator there is nothing that comes IN to you from the outside, there is ONLY an outflowing from the inside outward. An extension so strong it cannot be stopped. The unlimited will of God.

You cannot have things coming at you, attacking you, changing you, affecting you, choosing for you. YOU are the master. You dominate everything. You are the ultimate cause. YOU are in charge of your destiny. You are NEVER a victim, and NOTHING happens without your choosing it and causing it. OWN THIS, and you will be free from suffering and death forever.

"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."

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

"No one can suffer loss unless it be his own decision. No one suffers pain except his choice elects this state for him. No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants, and no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish, and nothing is omitted that you choose. Here is your world, complete in all details. Here is its whole reality for you. And it is only here salvation is."

"I can be hurt by nothing but my thoughts."

"When you are weary, remember you have hurt yourself. Your Comforter will rest you, but YOU cannot. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW, for if you did, you could never have grown weary. Unless you have hurt yourselves, you could never suffer in ANY way, for that is not God's Will for His Son. Pain is not of Him, for He knows no attack, and His peace surrounds you silently."

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF. No matter what the form of the attack, this STILL is true. Whoever takes the role of enemy and of attacker, STILL is this the truth. Whatever seems to be the cause of any pain and suffering you feel, this is STILL true. For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."

"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. 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."

"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. You play the game of death, of being helpless, pitifully tied to dissolution in a world which shows no mercy to you. Yet when you accord it mercy, will its mercy shine on you."

"Your holiness reverses all the laws of the world. It is beyond every restriction of time, space, distance, and limits of any kind. Your holiness is totally unlimited in its power because it establishes you as a Son of God, at one with the Mind of his Creator. Through your holiness the power of God is made manifest. Through your holiness the power of God is made available. And there is nothing the power of God cannot do."

"Say ONLY this, but MEAN it with NO reservations, for here the power of salvation lies: ... I AM responsible for what I see. I CHOSE the feelings I experience, and I DECIDED ON the goal I would achieve. And everything that SEEMS to happen TO me, I ASKED FOR and received as I had asked. ... Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done TO you. Acknowledge but that YOU have been mistaken, and ALL effects of your mistakes will disappear."

The "tiny mad idea" was an idea of madness, leading to an entire thought system of insanity. Within this thought system there is a sense of self that we call the ego. The course refers to this as yet "unmanifested" thought system as "the first dream", which was then projected out as a "second dream" as the physicality of spacetime.

"The first dream has been seen and understood for merely an illusion of the fear on which the world was based." UrG3A9

The ego projected out, ie "mis-created" from fear, a world from the INSANE mind, symbolising in form its ideals, preferences, beliefs and attitudes. This produced the physical world, which symbolises the ego's "attack on God." A sort of solidified defence against the truth. And now the physical world SYMBOLIZES the ego thought system in all its ways.

"The world was made as an attack on God. It symbolizes fear." UrW240W32

"This world IS a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son. And until you realize that God's Son CANNOT be crucified, this is the world you will see." UrT11J4

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless "laws," and without meaning of ANY kind. For it was made out of what you do NOT want, projected FROM your mind, because you were AFRAID of it." UrT11D10

"The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. Look carefully at this world, and you will realize that this is so. For this world is the symbol of punishment, and all the laws which seem to govern it are the laws of death." UrT11J2

"It can indeed be said the ego MADE its world on sin. Only in such a world COULD everything be upside down. This IS the strange illusion which makes the clouds of guilt seem heavy and impenetrable. The solidness this world's foundation SEEMS to have is FOUND in this." UrT19C6

This means that the way the physical world is set up and how it functions - its nature, the relationship of separate objects, what it seems to mean when things happen, was all originally a symbolic representation of an ego idea of madness. And this isn't with any kind of judgement or negating entering into it. Just its nature and how it functions is NOTHING like God's Kingdom.

"For this world IS the opposite of Heaven, having been made to BE its opposite. And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true." UrT16F3

For example the ego sees you as a separated off person, and in its insanity (which is sin), this insanity led to the making of the body, giving the body eyes and senses, and regarding the body as a real person.

"Sin gave the body eyes, for what is there the sinless would behold?" UrW250W41

"The body is the ego's idol; the belief in sin (egoic insane thought system) made flesh, and then projected outward. This produces what SEEMS to be a wall of flesh AROUND the mind, keeping it prisoner in a tiny spot of space and time, beholden unto death, and given but an instant in which to sigh and grieve and die in honor of its master." UrT20G11

Similarly the ego believes that there is a separation between giving and receiving, between cause (God) and effect (Son). Thus it perceives that to give is to lose, and means deprivation and sacrifice. This plays out PHYSICALLY by virtue of the fact that if you give someone something physical you DO NOT have it any more and have lost it. This is a simple fact. Any object you give you lack.

The idea of SHARING (oneness), natural in heaven, is pretty much obliterated on a physical level. So too is any idea of oneness or real love or creation or extension or sanity or harmlessness or safety or any other property of God. This is why the world is so opposite to heaven and so dysfunctional on a physical level, regardless of any judgements about it. It is designed by the ego to be "physically insane." And yes - that confusion of mind and body is what the ego is all about.

"Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN." UrT28D2

"The world provides no safety. It is rooted in attack, and all its "gifts" of seeming safety are illusory deceptions. It attacks and then attacks again. No peace of mind is possible where danger threatens thus." UrW153L1

Also on the physical level, when a body is regarded as a person, and if the body dies, this is a statement of the ego belief that death is real and the son of God is dead. Its whole system is anti-life and death promoting. It is against health and wholeness in every way possible.

"For vengeance is not part of love, and fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain." UrW190L3

The entire notion of physical space is an idea opposite to omnipresence and depends on separation. You can't even have particles of matter without separation. While time is an attack on eternity, attempting to make everything that existed before stop existing (die). Change itself is the idea of uncertainty (fear) and instability and impermanence - the opposite of immortality. As such everything in the physical world is mortal.

"They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die." UrM13A6

"Death (physical) is the symbol (physical symbol) of the fear of God. His Love is blotted out in the idea, which holds It from awareness like a shield held to obscure the sun. The grimness of the symbol is enough to show it cannot co-exist with God. It holds an image of the Son of God in which he is "laid to rest" in devastation's arms, where worms await to greet him and to last a little while by his destruction." UrM28A3

"The world you see is merciless indeed, unstable, cruel, unconcerned with you, quick to avenge and pitiless with hate. It gives but to rescind, and takes away all things that you have cherished for a while. No lasting love is found, for none is here. This is the world of time, where all things end." UrW129L2

Everything in the physical world is a SYMBOLIC VERSION OF THE EGO THOUGHT SYSTEM. Like a physicalised MIND. That's why it was made, that's who made it, and that's how it is set up. So it is indeed a PHYSICALLY INSANE world, so to speak. Riddled with separations, contradictions, attacks, death, murder, lack and loss, suffering of every kind, etc. All ideas the ego made up.

You can see throughout all these quotes that there is clearly a level of mind post-separation which is an insane thought system, which houses all of the ego's fearful beliefs. That mind is mad and dark and horrifying. That mind MADE spacetime and everything in it as a physicalised, condensed version of that thought system. You can see in the quotes sometimes references to the underlying "ego mindset", and in others to the physical world that was made FROM that.

"You do not realize the magnitude of that ONE error (the insane ego mad idea thought system). It was so vast and so COMPLETELY incredible, that from it, a world of total unreality HAD to emerge (the physical world/spacetime illusion projected from it). What else COULD come of it? Its fragmented ASPECTS are fearful enough, as you begin to LOOK at them (physical things). But nothing you have ever seen BEGINS to show you the enormity of the ORIGINAL error (underneath the surface, the ego mindset that made it), which seemed to cast you out of Heaven" UrT18B12

"That was the first projection of error outward (the physical world was a symbolic projection of the mental error). The world (spacetime, physical) arose to hide it (to hide the underlying mindset of ego), and became the screen (like a physical screen) on which it (the ego mindset) was projected (as a second projection onto the world AFTER the world was projected), and drawn between you and truth." UrT18B3

The ego thus projects its mindset out, making an insane world, which symbolises TOTAL INSANITY and a TOTAL OPPOSITE to heaven, as physical form and spacetime and galaxies. And then it projects its underlying insanity ONTO that world in its purpose and USE OF that world. To sort of "operate it", make it real and believe that what happens physically is what it means. The physical world is a MEANINGLESS world, and has no meaning of its own, because it is really nothing, like a void.

"Recognition of meaninglessness arouses intense anxiety in all the separated ones. It represents a situation in which God and the ego "challenge" each other as to whose meaning is to be written in the empty space (void) which meaninglessness provides. The ego rushes in frantically to establish its own "ideas" there, fearful that the void (spacetime) may otherwise be used to demonstrate its own unreality. And on this alone it is correct." UrW13L2

You can see clearly that 1) We were in heaven ("level 1") and believed the mad idea, 2) This produces a whole thought system of insanity ("level 2"), 3) Ego symbolises this thought system, 4) Ego insanity projects out as spacetime ("level 3") a physical fake "universe", 5) That universe is meaningless and nothing, and now the ego tries to project its MEANINGS onto that spacetime world, using the SAME insanity it used to make it.

So now the ego's thought system, mindset, beliefs, attitudes, identification, starts to PERCEIVE (through the body) the physical world IT MADE, from its vantage point, with a psychological false perception that MATCHES a PHYSICAL false perception (physical sight).

It sees it through a thought system of insanity and darkness and evil. And so it believes that the physical world is reality, it believes people are bodies, it believes there is no level of mind (the physical denies the mind, hides the ego thought system), and basically regards physical things as the symbolic version of itself.

Thus even the body symbolises the ego, the egoic mind identifies with the physical, and believes this is all that exists, hiding in the body as "its chosen home." The ego in the mind sort of now "takes up residency" in the body it projected.

"The body is the symbol of the ego, as the ego is the symbol of separation. UrT15I8

"For your beliefs converge upon the body, the ego's chosen home, which you believe is YOURS." UrT23B3

So now you've got the underlying ego thought system which is insane still, a physical world being projected by that thought system as an hallucination, and then further projections of insane egoic meaning ONTO that physical world by that thought system to try to keep the separateness going.

For example it says that a physical person is the son of God, and when the physical body dies the son of God is dead. That death is a hard ending from which you cannot return. That's the egos idea of a total and utter permanent destruction and cessation of all creation. Putting a STOP to God. So it sees the death of a body as a total ending, after which there is nothing, and no coming back from it, producing horrendous loss. And there should be loss if a part of reality itself has been lost.

But this is the ego's insane perception of the world that IT set up to look this way on the surface. There is ANOTHER WAY to perceive the physical world thought because the insanity in the MIND can be corrected, causing the mind to USE the world for a higher purpose. You can see it without the ego, without the insanity, without the murderous thought system of separation. You can see it with the Holy Spirit with Christ Vision and forgiveness.

This forgiveness looks upon the highly malfunctioning lacking world that your ego made, and OVERLOOKS the ways in which it falls horrendously short of an immaculate creation. It does not BELIEVE the forms of the world. It does not interpret change as death, or the death of the body as a finality. I takes no meaning FROM the world, because it knows it HAS NONE. It recognizes that what is real is NOT OF THIS WORLD, and is utterly unaffected by what happens in form. Thus death is nothing and the world is nothing.

To this mindset of sanity and reason there is no death at all, and all physical things are illusions not to be believed. A mere MIS-creation produced by a MAD mind. It can be forgiven and reinterpreted and UNDONE by sanity. And then it must disappear, when an ego insane thought system is no longer upholding its separations and its physicalised lies and literal physical madness. The world is a mistake, not a sin, and mistakes can be undone.

"The world is false perception. It is born of error (a projection from an insane mind), 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 (insane mind) has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world (physical) be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, where all the world must disappear (physical literal disappearance), and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and its effects are gone as well." UrW240W31

Even death can be reinterpreted and seen as "not meaning" what it means to the ego. It can mean nothing more than that the illusory form has changed and the soul/mind has left the body to continue its eternal existence. That is a thought and perspective of permanence and immortality and continuation, rather than a thought of death and endings.

And so thoughts of eternal life replace the egoic thoughts of death and interruption, and this causes us to PERCEIVE the physical world as "the forgiven world", overlooking its nonsense and disregarding its physical falsity. Such a healed mind RUNS OPPOSITE to the nature of the world, and the entire thought system and physical nature is REVERSED.

"The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely." UrM29A2

"The only effort you need make, to give this world away (earth, physical, spacetime, bodies) in glad exchange for what you did NOT make (Kingdom of God, heaven) is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE (cus ego made it FROM falseness)" UrT12G3

"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." UrU5A7v "Without the idea of death there is no world. All dreams will end with this one. This is salvation's final goal; the end of all illusions. And in death are all illusions born. What can be born of death and still have life? But what is born of God and still can die?" UrM28A6

"The ego made the world as IT perceives it (how it perceive it is the SAME AS how it is designed physically), but the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETER of what the ego made, sees it only as a teaching device for bringing you home." UrT5E15

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.

"Let us not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus twice removed from reality." ALL words in ACIM are symbols TWICE removed from the truth.

The word "apple" is twice removed from reality. The thing it represents, the actual apple itself sitting in your fruit bowl, is once removed from reality. Notice that words are symbols OF SYMBOLS. Therefore the apple itself is a symbol, and is NOT reality. Everything in this world is symbolic, just as all dreams are made of symbols.

"The body is the symbol of what you THINK you are."

"The body DOES appear to be the symbol of sin"

"The body is the symbol of the ego"

"As nothingness cannot BE pictured, so there IS no symbol for totality."

"Give welcome to the Power beyond forgiveness, and beyond the world of symbols and of limitations."

"The body can become a **sign** of life ... and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that ***it represents***." (symbolizes)

Symbols are not an end in themselves. They don't have their own identity. They represent something else. They serve as a reflection or representative for something they point to. The body for example is not a THING in its own right, it is not an end. It SYMBOLIZES something else, and therefore is an effect of something else.

"Regarding the body as an end, it has no real use for it at all, because it is not an end. "

The metaphysics of ACIM does not really exist at the level of words twice removed. The metaphysics is once removed from reality. The words themselves, SYMBOLIZE, the metaphysics. They are expressions FROM or structured BY the metaphysics. Behind the words, deeper than the words, there is a core metaphysical structure which the course's expressed statements are BASED ON or coming from.

Or to put it more accurately, the ACTUAL metaphysics takes place as STATES OF MIND, as REALITIES, as WORLDS, playing out in the mind as SYSTEMS of logical thought. A THOUGHT of separation produces an ENTIRE WORLD representing that LOGICAL STATE. So what is this "deeper" metaphysics? There is a perfectly pure LOGICAL SYSTEM, underlying both reality and illusions. But the system is not a concept. It actually takes places as STATES of mind. As experiences of "realities". Conclusions have effects because PREMISES ARE CAUSES!

Both God's thought system and the ego's thought system are based on a LOGICAL premise. God's premise is Himself. His nature establishes the laws of what is TRUE. As He expresses/creates, His thought SYSTEM functions, and follows the laws established in his nature. The OUTCOME or "logical conclusion" of His system of thinking, MUST be in accord with his nature and be THE ONLY possible outcome that could come from such a starting point.

Because God is eternal, the outcome of His thinking must be eternal. Because God is alive, His thoughts must be alive. Because God is love, His thoughts must be made of love. Because God is happy, His thoughts must be happy and lead to happiness. Because God is a creator, the living beings He creates must be creators also (co-creators).

Everything that comes FROM Him is in accord with His Will and nature, and is in his perfect LIKENESS. It HAS to be in His likeness because in a logical system, everything that comes from the ORIGIN of the system stays WITHIIN the confines of the system and thus is governed by the same laws.

These FACTS, have nothing to do with interpretations, ideals, made-up spirituality, theory or theology, or any other kind of conceptual make-believe. These are ACTUAL FACTS of reality. And "metaphysics" is based on irrefutable FACTS. It is a fact that God is a creator, and therefore it MUST be a fact that God's creation is also a creator. Regardless of whether ACIM ever mentioned that in its words at all, that HAS to be true.

ACIM happens to say "A co-creator with the Father must have a Son." But you can DEDUCE this, LOGICALLY, by following God's system of thought. Simply, God is a creative father. He passes on Himself to whatever He creates. Therefore, logically, if God Himself has a nature which results in a Son, then the Son MUST have a nature which results in a Son of a Son. YOU, as a Son, MUST therefore have creations. This isn't true just because ACIM says so in its words. It's true LOGICALLY. And that is the deeper metaphysics. Jesus has BASED those quoted statements ON that logic.

Let's look at another example, the separation from God. Without even considering anything ACIM says about separation, let's assess it with purely impeccable logic and see what we get.

Ok so God wills eternal life because God IS eternal life. God wills happiness. God wills a total lack of limits because He is unlimited. God gives freedom, because God IS freedom. The co-creative living entities that God MUST create, therefore must have His freedom. But this also means, they are free FROM any kind of limitation or restraint. The only truth is that they must function WITHIN the system of God. They cannot leave God. BUT, they can exercise their co-creative ability to freely choose to try to DENY or oppose God's will and nature, thus opposing their own. What would HAVE to happen if you did that?

Look at it purely logically. Reality is ..... light, life, happiness, peace, love, unlimited, constant, unchanging, equal/harmonious, permanent, truthful, open, immortal, etc. BECAUSE, this is what God is. So everything IN God's system must be this too. What would an OPPOSITE to this be? What would you get, if you DENIED this system and tried to bring about an OPPOSITE system?

Well, an opposite system would have to be based on the "belief" that all of the nature of God is NOT true or real. It has to be a PREMISE, that OPPOSES God's premise. So the premise is, ... darkness, death, unhappiness, conflict, hatred/fear, limitation, change, inequality/difference, impermanence, everything is false, closed, mortality, etc. Because these are the LOGICAL opposites to God's nature. And if this collection of "unpleasant" CONDITIONS is the PREMISE of the entire ego SYSTEM, everything WITHIN this "line of thinking" MUST RESULT IN, all of these things. DEATH, is the logical outcome of the ego thought system.

So the question is, does this logical conclusion LINE UP with what A Course in Miracles says. And the answer is YES. It does. In fact Jesus even says so.

"From the belief in sin (the premise), the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a ***logical conclusion***; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos ***DO follow neatly from their starting-point***. Each is a different form in the **progression** (logical thought process) of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and away from truth."

"The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily, and as well, as does the ego, except that HIS conclusions are NOT insane. They take a direction EXACTLY opposite, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death."

"The logic of the world MUST therefore lead to nothing, for its GOAL is nothing."

So what you find is, if you can get a grasp of the PURE LOGICAL BASIS of God's system, and if you can then grasp the idea that the "separation" is simply the idea of AN OPPOSITE TO REALITY, you can LOGICALLY come to conclusions. And the fact is, that these conclusions EXACTLY MATCH what Jesus has described in A Course in Miracles. WITHOUT ERROR. They totally correlate to the separation, the result of separating, the OUTCOME of starting on a basis of sin.

"The wages of sin is death - ie, if you start with sin (which is the idea "an opposite to God is possible", you must end with death". Death is the suppression and denial and NEGATING OF, God's reality. It is the "end of life" because it OPPOSES GOD'S WILL which supports life.

Therefore, and this is a metaphysical FACT.... a belief in separation MUST LEAD TO a seeming "world" or "logical state of mind", wherein everything is based on an idea of sin and death. e.g. "Without the idea of death there is no world." "The world is a picture of the crucifixion of God's son" - ie its the idea of God's LIVING son, pictured in a condition OPPOSITE to living. Similarly "the world was made as an attack on God" is based on the LOGIC that by trying to OPPOSE THE TRUTH, you "attacked" the premise of the truthful thought system (God), by trying to establish another SYSTEM that was totally opposite.

For example, Jesus says "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way". Why is Earth OPPOSITE to Heaven? Because it is part of a "world" or STATE of OPPOSITION to THE TRUTH. The world is thus a logical outcome of the ego thought system. It is MADE OF DEATH. It is made of denial. It is made of sin. This isn't something I need to say based on ACIM saying it. I can make this "claim", IMPERSONALLY, WITHOUT OPINION, because the METAPHYSICS accurately indicates that this MUST be the case.

Now, here is the interesting thing about metaphysics. The underlying core logic describes VERY accurately, PERFECTLY, not only the nature of God's "system" or world, and the nature of any world that tries to oppose it. Through LOGICAL REASONING, which must be "impeccable", you can actually make "statements"- symbolic word expressions once removed from the metaphysics, that were never written IN the Course itself, but which are TOTALLY in line with it. This is not an opinion or a matter of making something up. The LOGIC tells you, BY ITSELF, WHAT MUST BE TRUE.

For example we could say, anything that is opposite to God who is eternal life must be incapable of living forever. It doesn't necessarily explicitly SAY that in the course, but it MUST be true. It does however say basically the same thing in other words, e.g. "there is no life outside of heaven."

We could also say, "everything in this world opposes reality". It doesn't necessarily say that in the course. But it MUST be true. The metaphysical LOGIC, the impeccable reasoning, TELLS YOU, that it MUST be true because it is perfectly sound logic. And this world IS A LOGICAL SYSTEM BASED ON AN ENTIRELY LOGICAL PREMISE.

The really interesting thing is, the metaphysical LOGICAL SYSTEM completely removes the need for OPINIONS. Of any kind. If God is truth, anything not of God is not true. That is purely logical. It's not an opinion. In fact the LOGIC is such a COMPLETE system, with no strange fuzzy exceptions or loopholes or things unaccounted for, totally black and white in its perfect clarity and precision, that it leaves NO ROOM for ANY INTERPRETATION. NONE.

And this is why the multitude of "interpretations" of the course, ALL of which are NOT really based on pure logic, are faulty and OF THE EGO. And this inevitably results in conflict and arguments because it inherently leads to CONTRADICTIONS. The ego cannot even reason correctly. Our normal ego thought processes don't even typically function "LIKE GOD THINKS", and therefore comes to FALSE conclusions about His system of logic. Frequently. And you can see by all the debate and WAR in this forum the sheer extent of this CONFUSION, which has resulted from NOT SEEING THE METAPHYSICAL FACTS CLEARLY, errors in logical reasoning, and false conclusions that EGOs have arrived at. There is ONLY ONE TRUTH.

All we can do is look at the logical system and let IT TELL US, what the truth MUST be. If we don't, and we start trying to MAKE UP TRUTH, or DECIDE what the truth is, we are now delusional and are not following the logic and are not having REASON. We then will not MAKE SENSE and this leads to all confusion. That means, the logical conclusions being drawn here, or by anyone who can reason impeccably, COMPLETELY TRANSCENDS opinion. It REFLECTS the truth. It is FACT. That means it is not MY opinion, or yours, or anyone's. It is how things actually are.

Therefore, if you can grasp this and SEE the sense in it, you can USE the metaphysical logical BASIS of everything the course says as a TOOL. You can USE it, practically, to inform you of what the course MUST BE MEANING. You can actually hold up a quote, and COMPARE IT, to the metaphysical structure, and provided your grasp of the structure is accurate, it will TELL YOU the context in which the quote is placed, the meaning of the references, what it is referring TO, and thus what it MUST MEAN.

If you get used to doing this, you will find gradually that everything Jesus says in the course is BASED ENTIRELY ON logical reasoning. Jesus is an absolute MASTER of this. And you will then realize that all of the WORDS in the course are in fact expressions OF the metaphysics. The number of ways and forms of expression OF those FACTS, is largely unlimited. Jesus wrote a huge book expression FROM the facts. He could've written more. If you "get the facts straight", and are not in denial or making logical errors, you can evaluate everything the course's WORDS say, and CORRECTLY RECOGNIZE what they MUST MEAN, in light of what the logical truth says MUST be true.

This however is one area that we are all struggling with, because most of us do NOT think logically or impeccably enough. We make a lot of errors. And the main reason for that is simply NOT SEEING the core logical BASIS behind the ENTIRE metaphysics of the course. And so instead, we'll try to "put together the pieces" from the bottom up, starting with loose ends, trying to assemble a cohesive picture, and making a lot of errors along the way. We then depend too heavily on the WORDS. The wordings. The phrasing. What it SEEMS like it says. And we will find that sometimes the CHOICE of words can seem misleading, when you compare it to the metaphysical meaning.

What the logic can do for you though, is it can provide you with a powerful tool for discernment, it can guide you, it can tell you what Jesus's words mean, it can clarify what the words CANNOT mean, and it can help you to get past all the nit-picking arguments and disagreements that come from MULTIPLE OPINIONS, all of which result from a LACK OF true facts and too much faulty reasoning or "blindness" to the LOGICAL METAPHYSICS. All of the discussions about "is it this or that" come from this "difficulty" with seeing the logic behind it.

Does A Course in Miracles line up with a PURELY LOGICAL set of conclusions, a logical system of black and white conclusions? YES. It totally does. Was this world made as a result of a LOGICAL conclusions? YES. Does death occur because of the conclusion that MUST come "inevitably" from a premise of real sin? YES. Would we make BODIES as a logical CONCLUSION in a thought system? YES, because they are the "natural outcome" of WALLS THAT BLOCK TRUTH, as "separation devices". Bodies ARE the idea of the rejection of wholeness. They ARE limitation, as an experiential idea or state of mind.

The atonement is logical too. It is nothing but the recognition that only the truth is true. There is no real sin. An opposite to what is all encompassing does not exist. It is the TRUTH. It represents God's PREMISE and therefore results in the resuming of the extension of creation. IT HAS TO. That's part of its logical basis. This is also why by "denying the denial of truth", you LOGICALLY cancel out the denial. Because you took what is FALSE, and you tried to make it TRUE, in order to deny that the truth is true. So if you REVERSE that by DENYING that the false is true, you deny the denial of the truth, restoring the truth as the only truth. This is entirely logically based.

To restore you to reality, you must UN-OPPOSE God. You must stop "negating" the truth". You must stop believing in sin, which is the idea of God's system having been destroyed and opposed. You must surmount death, which means resurrection is nothing but an assertion of TRUTH, which is life. Everything to do with God's creation, everything to do with the separation, everything to do with the descent into the ego and death, and everything to do with healing and awakening to reality, is all ENTIRELY the interplay of PURELY LOGICAL SYSTEMS or states.

Awakening is even logical and inevitable because you, being an effect of God, must FOREVER be an effect of God, since God never changes, and therefore CANNOT ever stop being God's son. Your reality is SECURED as a result of the logic of the system. The ending of death is just as inevitable, because when you get yourself into a logical STATE of ONLY TRUTH, there cannot be a state of an opposite to life, and death is therefore "snuffed out" as Jesus puts it.

Jesus's choice of words is masterful, but sometimes potentially misleading. There is a lot of material to digest. There seems to be a lot of stuff to figure out. Sometimes things seem contradictory which are not. And our egos make a TON of logical errors. Error, ie sin, is nothing but a logical mistake. You cannot oppose God's will, so it is "error", logically, to CONCLUDE you can. Healing is therefore the undoing of error, by re-establishing the facts of reality and accepting God's premise as the only true one.

This is all the metaphysics. It's behind the words. When you GET it, you can express FROM it, and be coming from the truth. You can express 100,000 books BASED ON this and every single one will be in line with ACIM. We're inside a logical system of thought, albeit based on a FALSE starting point, resulting in FALSE experiences, and FALSE outcomes. A false outcome is SUFFERING. Suffering is inevitable when the entire SYSTEM is founded on opposition to health and life. Suffering means you are "suffering from" being mistaken about the facts of reality.

If you want eternal life and happiness, you must open up to accept the REASONING of the Holy Spirit, which is the SAME as God's SYSTEM or WAY of thinking. Thought BASED ON TRUTH will set you free.

ALL of the conflict in the ACIM community is based on NOT SEEING and NOT ACCEPTING the purely LOGICAL CORE TRUTH in A Course in Miracles. All of the disagreement about what it says, what it means, what it implies, is all based on NOT being logically sound. ALL OPINIONS ARE MUTE! Your opinion has no value, and nor does mine. We are supposed to get away from having opinions. We are supposed to recognize the FACTS OF REALITY, instead of trying to MAKE UP interpretations. Interpretations are entirely ego. The course HAS NO INTERPRETATIONS. The course is based on FACTS. It is based on TRUTH.

And truth is not an intepretation. It is an expression FROM THE PURE LOGIC SYSTEM OF GOD'S THINKING. When everyone finally recognizes this and accepts the ONE CORRECT metaphysics, there will be no more NEED for conflict, no more BASIS for confusion, no more REASON to fight about it, and no more DEBATE about what it means. Behind all the seemingly varied WORDS in the course, behind all the many EXPRESSIONS, behind the choice of phrases and the language and the way Jesus speaks, there is a PURE METAPHYSICAL CLARITY.

Do not be DECEIVED by the ILLUSION OF DIFFERENT FORMS in the course. Do not be deceived by taking the WORDS too literally. The WORDS ARE NOT THE METAPHYSICS. They are only based on it. And if you base your entire understanding on THE WORDS, you will very likely come to false inconsistent conclusions. When you get bogged down in isolated quotes, inconsistent reasoning, things taken out of context, and all the rest of it, you are missing the CLARITY of the course's truth.

Go deeper. Get behind the words. SEE the logical structures. Recognize the metaphysics. It's beyond words. It's beyond those symbols. The course is PURE TRUTHFUL FACT and it is totally consistent without contradiction. If you are confused, wondering about meanings, uncertain about structures, or any other reaction to what's said, you are not using logical reasoning and so are using blind ego interpretation. If you see contradictions, you made a logical error.

If something doesn't fit, you haven't seen the logic behind it clearly enough. And if you conclude things OUT OF ACCORD with what the LOGIC says, you are mistaken, regardless of what the words seem to say. Jesus is 100% perfectly ACCURATE in every single thing he has expressed FROM a PERFECT GRASP of the PERFECTLY CLEAR metaphysical basis of truth. HE has not made any errors. His expressions in words are not erroneous. He is PERFECTLY CORRECT. Our only challenge is coming to SEE, RECOGNIZE and ACCEPT, the CORE TRUTH behind the entire course. REASON will allow you to literally SEE SENSE.

"The introduction of reason into the ego's thought system is the beginning of its undoing. For reason and the ego are contradictory. Nor is it possible for them to co-exist in your awareness. And reason's goal is to make plain, and therefore obvious. You can SEE reason. This is not a play on words, for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. Vision is sense, quite literally. If it is not the body's sight, it MUST be understood. For it is PLAIN, and what is obvious is not ambiguous. It CAN be understood. And here do reason and the ego separate, to go their different ways."

I really like this term - "sinlessness". It feels good. It feels the way "there is no sin" feels when I say it. That my sinlessness is guaranteed by God, is right up with there "I am still as God created me." It specifies not only what I AM, it also specifies what I am NOT. I am not sinful, because I am sinless. I am free from the sinfulness that I am not.

Sinlessness is more than merely the absence of sin, as well. It is the presence of immortality. It is strength and innocence. It is invulnerability and fearlessness. Where there is sinlessness there is no reason to be afraid. If your brother is sinless, he is not threatening you. If the world is sinless, it is doing nothing to you. Sinlessness is safety. Sinlessness is your purity as Christ!

Sinlessness is also the end result of forgiveness. When forgiveness is completely, you are in sinlessness. When you have forgiven your brother, you recognize and can see his sinlessness. The sinlessness in him is your own. It is the light of Christ. It is the guaranteed purity of God, which was given you in your permanent creation. You are sinless because God created you sinless forever.

The juicy quotes...

"Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Over and over this must be repeated until it is accepted. It is true. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. Nothing can touch it, nor can change what God created as eternal. The self you made, evil and full of sin, is meaningless. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God, and light and joy and peace abide in you."

"Salvation requires the acceptance of but one thought; you are as God created you, not what you made of yourself. Whatever evil you may think you did, you are as God created you. Whatever mistakes you made, the truth about you is unchanged. Creation is eternal and unalterable. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God. You are and will forever be exactly as you were created. Light and joy and peace abide in you because God put them there."

"If a situation arises which seems to be disturbing, quickly dispel the illusion of fear by repeating these thoughts again. Should you be tempted to become angry with someone, tell him silently:

"Light and joy and peace abide in you. Your sinlessness is guaranteed by God.""

"Brother, come and let me look on you. Your loveliness reflects my own. Your sinlessness is mine. You stand forgiven, and I stand with you."

"If you but knew how much your Father yearns to have you recognize your sinlessness, you would not let His Voice appeal in vain, nor turn away from His replacement for the fearful images and dreams you made. "

"True light is strength, and strength is sinlessness. If you remain as God created you, you must be strong, and light must be in you. He Who ensured your sinlessness must be the guarantee of strength and light as well. You are as God created you. Darkness cannot obscure the glory of the Son of God. You stand in light, strong in the sinlessness in which you were created, and in which you will remain throughout eternity."

"How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so."

"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."

"And so you walk toward Heaven or toward hell, but NOT alone. How beautiful his sinlessness will be, when you perceive it! And how great will be YOUR joy when he is free to offer you the gift of sight God gave to him for you."

"Your brother's sinlessness is given you in shining light, to look on with the Holy Spirit's vision, and to rejoice in, along with Him. For peace will come to all who ask for it with real desire and sincerity of purpose, SHARED with the Holy Spirit, and at one with Him on what salvation IS."

"Be willing, then, to see your brother sinless, that Christ may rise before your vision, and give you joy. And place NO value on your brother's body, which held him to illusions of what he is. It is HIS desire to see his sinlessness, as it is YOURS. And bless the Son of God in your relationship, nor see in him what you have MADE of him. The Holy Spirit GUARANTEES that what"God has willed and given shall be yours."

"My sinlessness protects me from all harm."

"My sinlessness ensures me perfect peace, eternal safety, everlasting love, freedom forever from all thought of loss; complete deliverance from suffering. And only happiness can be my state, for only happiness is given me. What must I do to know all this is mine? I must accept Atonement for myself, and nothing more. God has already done all things that need be done. And I must learn I need do nothing of myself, for I need but accept my Self, my sinlessness, created for me, now already mine, to feel God's Love protecting me from harm, to understand my Father loves His Son; to know I am the Son my Father loves."

""You who created me in sinlessness are not mistaken about what I am. I was mistaken when I thought I sinned, but I accept Atonement for myself. Father, my dream is ended now. Amen.""

"I choose to see my brother's sinlessness."

"I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother's sinlessness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light."

""What could restore Your memory to me except to see my brother's sinlessness? His holiness reminds me that he was created one with me and like myself. In him I find my Self, and in Your Son I find the memory of You as well.""

"I can attack but my own sinlessness, and it is only that which keeps me safe."

""Father, Your Son is holy. I am he on whom You smile in love and tenderness so deep and dear and still the universe smiles back on You, and shares Your holiness. How pure, how safe, how sacred, then, are we, abiding in Your smile, with all Your love bestowed upon us, living one with You, in brotherhood and Fatherhood complete; in sinlessness so perfect that the Lord of Sinlessness conceives us as His Son, a universe of Thought completing Him.""

"Let us not, then, attack our sinlessness. For it contains the Word of God to us, and in its kind reflection we are saved."

"Remove your focus on your brother's sins, and you experience the peace that comes from faith in sinlessness. This faith receives its only sure support from what you see in others past their sins. For their mistakes, if focused on, are witnesses to sins in you. And you will not transcend their sight and see the sinlessness that lies beyond."

"Therefore, in practicing today, we first let all such little focuses give way to our great need to let our sinlessness become apparent."

"We enter in the time of practicing with one intent; to look upon the sinlessness within."

"And we will also use these thoughts to keep us safe throughout the day. We do not seek for long-range goals. As each obstruction seems to block the vision of our sinlessness, we seek but for surcease an instant from the misery the focus upon sin will bring, and uncorrected will remain."

"The world which once proclaimed our sins becomes the proof that we are sinless. And our love for everyone we look upon attests to our remembrance of the holy Self Which knows no sin, and never could conceive of anything without Its sinlessness."

"Our sinlessness is but the Will of God. This instant is our willing one with His."

"The self you made is not the Son of God. Therefore this self does not exist at all. And anything it seems to do and think means nothing. It is neither bad nor good. It is unreal, and nothing more than that. It does not battle with the Son of God. It does not hurt him, nor attack his peace. It has not changed creation, nor reduced eternal sinlessness to sin and love to hate."

"I need but look upon all things that seem to hurt me, and with perfect certainty assure myself, "God wills that I be saved from this," and merely watch them disappear. I need but keep in mind my Father's Will for me is only happiness, to find that only happiness has come to me. And I need but remember that His Love surrounds His Son and keeps his sinlessness forever perfect, to be sure that I am saved and safe forever in His arms. I am the Son He loves. And I am saved because God in His mercy wills it so."

"Father, Your holiness is mine. Your Love created me, and made my sinlessness forever part of You. I have no guilt nor sin in me, for there is none in You."

"Behold his sinlessness and be you healed"

"Father, today I would let all things be as You created them, and give Your Sons the honor due their sinlessness; the love of brother to his brother and his friend. Through this I am redeemed."

"I will forgive all things today, that I

May learn how to accept the truth in me,

And come to recognize my sinlessness."

"In holiness were we created, and in holiness do we remain. Your Son is like to You in perfect sinlessness, and with this thought we gladly say 'Amen'."

"And with this choice I see my sinlessness, my everlasting Comforter and Friend beside me, and my way secure and clear."

"Forgiveness looks on sinlessness alone, and judges not. Through this I come to You. Judgment will bind my eyes and make me blind. Yet love, reflected in forgiveness here, reminds me You have given me a way to find Your peace again." "Surrounding me is perfect safety. Can I be afraid, when Your eternal promise goes with me? Surrounding me is perfect sinlessness. What can I fear, when You created me in holiness as perfect as Your own?"

"In quiet may forgiveness wipe away my dreams of separation and of sin. Then let me, Father, look within and find Your promise of my sinlessness is kept; Your Word remains unchanged within my mind, Your Love is still abiding in my heart."

"Today I would behold my brother sinless. This Your Will for me, for thus will I behold my sinlessness."

"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. I was created as the thing I seek. I am the goal the world is searching for. I am God's Son, His one Eternal Love. I am salvation's means and end as well."

"Our Father, let us see the face of Christ instead of our mistakes. For we who are Your holy Son, are sinless."

"Now let His true perception come to me, that I may waken from the dream of guilt and look within upon my sinlessness, which You have kept completely undefiled upon the altar to Your holy Son, the Self with Which I would identify."

"And we, God's children, rise up from the dust and look upon our perfect sinlessness. The song of Heaven sounds around the world, as it is lifted up and brought to truth."

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

"Their patients can but be seen as the bringers of forgiveness, for it is they who come to demonstrate their sinlessness to eyes that still believe that sin is there to look upon. Yet will the proof of sinlessness, seen in the patient and accepted in the therapist, offer the mind of both a covenant in which they meet and join and are as one."

"The prayer for enemies thus becomes a prayer for your own freedom. Now it is no longer a contradiction in terms. Rather it is a statement of the unity of Christ and a recognition of His sinlessness. And now it has become holy, for it acknowledges the Son of God as he was created."

"Now, without needs of any kind, and clad forever in the pure sinlessness which is the gift of God to you, His Son, prayer can again become what it was meant to be."

"Creation is the opposite of all illusions, for Creation is the truth. Creation is the holy Son of God, for in Creation is His Will complete in every aspect, making every part container of the whole. Its oneness is forever guaranteed inviolate; forever held within His holy Will, beyond all possibility of harm, of separation, imperfection and of any spot upon its sinlessness."

"What he has done now must God's Son undo. But not alone. For he has thrown away the prison's key; his holy sinlessness and the remembrance of his Father's Love."

"I am God's Son, complete and healed and whole, shining in the reflection of His Love. In me is His creation sanctified and guaranteed eternal life. In me is love perfected, fear impossible, and joy established without opposite. I am the holy home of God Himself. I am the Heaven where His Love resides. I am His holy Sinlessness Itself, for in my purity abides His own."

"Now prayer is lifted from the world of things, of bodies, and of gods of every kind, and you can rest in holiness at last. Humility has taught you how to understand your glory as God's Son, and recognize the arrogance of sin. A dream has veiled the face of Christ from you. Now can you look upon His sinlessness."

"He will hear his sinlessness proclaimed around and around the world, setting it free as God's final judgment on him is received. This is the judgment in which salvation lies. This is the judgment that will set him free. This is the judgment in which all things are freed with him."

"In His perception of the world, nothing is seen but justifies forgiveness and the sight of perfect sinlessness. 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."

"Now He can remind the world of sinlessness, the one unchanged, unchangeable condition of all that God created. Now He can speak the Word of God to listening ears, and bring Christ's vision to eyes that see. Now is He free to teach all minds the truth of what they are, so they will gladly be returned to Him. And now is guilt forgiven, overlooked completely in His sight and in God's Word."

"All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. All that is false proclaims his sins as real."

"Do you not see the OPPOSITE of frailty and weakness is sinlessness? INNOCENCE IS STRENGTH, and nothing else is strong. The sinless cannot fear. And fear of any kind is weakness."

"It is HIS sinlessness that eyes that see can look upon. It is HIS loveliness they see in everything. And it is HE they look for everywhere, and find no sight or place or time where He is NOT. Within your brother's holiness, the perfect frame for YOUR salvation and the world's, is set the shining memory of Him in Whom your brother lives, and you along with him." "In this one fact is sinlessness proclaimed to be forever part of everything; the central core of its existence and its guarantee of immortality."

"Your special function is a call to Him, that He may smile on you whose sinlessness He shares. HIS understanding will be YOURS. And so the Holy Spirit's Special Function has been fulfilled. God's Son has found a witness unto his sinlessness, and NOT his sin. "

"To serve THIS end, the body MUST be perceived as sinless, BECAUSE the goal is sinlessness."

"The means of sinlessness can know no fear, because they carry ONLY love with them."

"Your home is built upon your brother's health; upon his happiness, his sinlessness, and everything his Father promised him. No secret promise you have made INSTEAD has shaken the Foundation of his home."

"His holiness gives life to you, who CANNOT die because his sinlessness is known to God, and can no more be sacrificed by you than can the light in you be blotted out because he sees it not."

"And as we see the sinlessness in him come shining through the veil of guilt that shrouds the Son of God, we will behold in him the Face of Christ, and understand that it is but our own."

"Give me your blessing, holy Son of God,

I would behold you with the eyes of Christ,

And see my perfect sinlessness in you."

"Consider once again your special function. ONE is given you to see in him his perfect sinlessness."

"You still are holy with the Holiness which fathered you in perfect sinlessness, and still surrounds you in the arms of peace. Dream now of healing. Then arise and lay all dreaming down forever. You are he your Father loves, who never left his home, nor wandered in a savage world with feet that bleed, and with a heavy heart made hard against the Love that is the truth in you. Give all your dreams to Christ and let Him be your Guide to healing, leading you in prayer beyond the sorry reaches of the world."

"Only Christ forgives, knowing His sinlessness. His vision heals perception and sickness disappears. Nor will it return again, once its cause has been removed."

"Yet it is He Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it. It is He Who answers what His Son would contradict, and keeps his sinlessness forever safe."

"Your question should not be, "How can I see my brother without the body?" Ask only, "Do I REALLY wish to see him sinless?" And, as you ask, forget not that HIS sinlessness is YOUR escape from fear. Salvation is the Holy Spirit's goal. The means is vision. For what the seeing look upon IS sinless. No-one who loves can judge, and what he sees is FREE of condemnation. And what he sees he did NOT make, for it was GIVEN him to see, as was the vision which made his seeing possible."

"The sinless give as they received. See, then, the power of sinlessness within your brother, and share with him the power of the RELEASE from sin you offered HIM."

"What danger can assail the wholly innocent? What can attack the guiltless? What fear can enter and disturb the peace of sinlessness?"

"No one remains in hell, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. You will find Heaven. Everything you seek but this will fall away, yet not because it has been taken from you. It will go because you do not want it. You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness."

"Christ cannot doubt Himself. The Voice of God can only honor Him, rejoicing in His perfect, everlasting sinlessness."

"Defenselessness is all you need to give Him in return. You lay aside but what was never real, to look on Christ and see His sinlessness."

It's really impossible to separate from God, given that God is everywhere and there is nowhere else to go. But the ego mind believes that the impossible is possible. It thinks it can actually succeed in being separate and can have an existence somewhere that God doesn't exist. To be separate from God, if it were possible, would have to mean you exist somewhere that God is absent, and that is why following the separation, God seemed to no longer be present.

But this is all really an illusion, being impossible in truth, and only by some illusory interpretation of what is happening could you believe that you have actually succeeded in achieving this separation. It's as if you found some kind of loophole or exception or special interpretation which allowed the impossible to become possible. There must be an illusion that God does not exist, otherwise you couldn't possibly believe that separation is possible, it would make no sense, and you would not believe it. Only by hiding or denying the truth does an illusion seem to make sense to you.

This mentality carries on through all stages of separation from sin to guilt to fear to death. At every step, we actually believe that if we buy into the ego's illusion, we're actually becoming capable of succeeding at doing something impossible. We then believe that doing it actually "works", that we're actually getting away with it. And because in this illusion there doesn't seem to be any reason why you can't do this, it seems justified and as though you have the freedom to do it. Nothing therefore seems to be stopping you from getting away with murder - the murder of God and His Holy Son.

It's not that you're an inherently evil person. You don't automatically see things in a twisted way. You're not fundamentally broken. You actually keep with you at all times an attempt to maintain some semblance of truth. You also always retain an attempt to make sense out of what you are experiencing, using some kind of logic or reasoning to explain it, to come to conclusions based on it, and to then act on those conclusions. Decisions are actions based on all previous conclusions.

You're actually just in the business of trying to make sense of your experience of reality (or unreality), and base your conclusions on all of the information that you are aware of. You look around you at everything you can see, and you look within at everything you aware of taking place within yourself, and you look at other people, and often it seems to just make sense that they must be the cause of your upset. You do not see what the real cause is because you do not see fully, or the whole of what is happening, but you believe you do.

At all times you believe that whatever is within the scope of your awareness is all that exists, is all that is true, and is all that is happening. This is true whether you are fully with God or whether you are hiding in a dark corner in an unconscious state. The extent of your awareness determines what you can SEE, and therefore the scope of your idea of "wholeness". You believe, even if you are not whole and are in denial of a great many facts, that you are a whole person, with a whole perception, seeing the whole situation clearly.

Given that you believe this is true, and you do not suspect there is anything hidden from you, you then attempt to make sense from the evidence. You look at it and examine it and judge it and then conclude certain things based on that. The trouble is, you're not really in a state of wholeness or full awareness, and there are many important facts and pieces of truth which are hidden from your awareness.

Whatever the scope of your awareness is, you'll also find that this correlates to your sense of identity. You will ALWAYS be believing that you are a whole self, regardless of how limited you are. However, when you become more conscious, to be aware of parts of you that you were blind to before, you become aware that you are more than you thought you were.

Your awareness uncovers not only the truth that love is present, but it also uncovers the rest of your hidden identity. And if you are unaware, you do not fully or clearly perceive who you really are, and so do not see all of your motivations or beliefs, or the full extent of your will, or the full extent of what you might be doing in the situation.

If you are having any kind of experience of unhappiness, unlove, unforgiveness, fear or guilt, punishment or suffering or upset, it is guaranteed that you must be in some kind of state that isn't really whole. Love and forgiveness and happiness come from true wholeness, so if this is absent, then immediately it means that you have some blocks to your awareness which are preventing you from being aware of those conditions. And yet you will believe that you are whole, in your partiality, and that there is nothing more to see.

Whatever is outside of your awareness you will believe does not exist at all, and you might not even suspect that there IS anything else. Whatever is unconscious to you is outside of your conscious awareness, as though it is nowhere, and so you do not see it. Any evidence it might provide you will dismiss. That is, unless you are willing to look deeper for the truth.

If you are upset or unhappy, and given that happiness is wholeness, you cannot truly be whole. There must be something blocked or something you are unaware of. But you will believe you are aware of everything. You don't see what you're choosing or why you're choosing it. You don't see what you're doing to yourself. You don't see who is truly responsible for what you are experiencing. You don't see how you might be using your reactions or behaviors for a secret motive. And you don't remember having asked for suffering.

Along comes what appears to be a situation which seems to attack you, and you look inside the confines of your awareness to examine all the possible causes or influences or reasons why it is happening. You use your ego mind's logic to try to come to some kind of understanding, to try to make sense of what you are experiencing. This is quite natural and everyone does this at all levels of awareness. Whatever you are aware of and are experiencing is the truth to you - reality, and its truth equates with 'sense' or with rationality or sanity, and so you attempt to make sense out of your limited viewpoint.

So you're now experiencing attack and you look around, you do not see that you are involved, you do not see that you're choosing it, you do not see that you're using the other person as an opportunity to get rid of a hidden sin, and you don't realize what you're doing to yourself. You see this other person is present and when they showed up the attack seemed to start and you started to suffer, and not seeing your involvement it seems to "make sense" that they are the cause of it. You seemed innocent, being unaware of any guilt or causality on your part, so it MUST be their fault.

It simply makes sense to you, based on your limited evidence which you think is the whole evidence, that they are the culprit and so you are now justified in being angry. You didn't seem to ask for this, it was unwanted and uncalled for, and it seems real. Given this fundamental basis for your deciding what the truth of the matter is, it seems only logical, sensible, understandable and rational, to be upset about what this other person apparently is doing to you against your will.

Anger becomes justified and so does a counter-attack, which is an attempt to defend yourself. You believe you are acting in self-defense, given that you did not seem to be the one to start all this. You see yourself as upholding your innocence, as having been needlessly and unfairly treated, at which you are outraged. You do not in any way see that your anger has another motive, or that it is self destructive, or that it does not work to alleviate your suffering. Instead, your unawareness of some key facts has led you to be MISTAKEN, so now you actually believe that your angry retaliation can succeed in achieving the impossible, once again.

If you could retaliate against the attack and prove them wrong, it would seem to prove you right, and thereby uphold your obvious innocence and keep you justified in maintaining your sense of identity and wholeness. Your enemy came to attack your truth and you must defend it. The trouble is, the goal being the defense of yourself and the maintaining of your truth, all of that is thrown into jeopardy as soon as you justify your anger.

Your belief in attack attacks yourself and undermines your innocence. Your counter attack therefore renders you guilty, which destroys your innocence and shakes the foundation of your truth. What you thought would "work", does not work. And yet in unconsciousness you may not even realize it is not working, and will just carry on with this device believing that it is helping your situation.

Only with a lack of information and a lack of truth could you continue using a device which is broken, does not work, isn't bringing about the peace you lost, and is working against your own goal. Yet you won't stop using it while you continue to fail to correctly recognize the faults in your system, the lack of truth in your reasoning, and the mistakes that you are making. You don't see them AS mistakes because you believe you're totally logically, naturally, and inherently justified.

This is how we continue to use the ego in the same way we did at the separation from God, all the way through our progress towards death, believing that whatever we are doing with the ego makes sense, is understandable, is justified, it works, it can succeed, and that if you will just do more of it you will reach your goal. It is extraordinary, however, that given how obviously the ego's promises are lies, and how they constantly fail to deliver, and how they always make your situation worse while pretending they will help, that we can so easily "overlook" the truth and believe that we're getting away with the impossible.

We'll keep using the ego this way, keep falling for its traps, keep reacting with anger and justification, and keep remaining in denial, simply because it all seems to make sense and seems rational given what we're aware of. So long as we are keeping our illusions and keeping the truth out of awareness, we're really just doing our best to respond to situations in a way that makes sense to us.

We're simply very mistaken and are making "errors" in perception and judgement, without realizing it. It's not as though we are fully aware of the whole entire truth and are then making a deliberate decision to defy it and ignore it and act in insane ways. We do not SEE them as insane. We've blocked out so much truth that we simply are not aware of the ways that our beliefs and perceptions are mistaken.

If we had all the evidence of what's really going on, and were aware of it, it would once again make sense. We'd evaluate it and look at all of the pieces and see how they fit together. Without any denial, it would be obvious and clear exactly who caused what to happen, why it happened, and what the effects were. There would be no confusion within that context. Everything would be completely clear and obvious and easy to accept.

And you would accept it, because you will always be accepting of whatever you have ALLOWED into your awareness. Whatever is inside your awareness and not outside of it, you have accepted into your mind, and it therefore becomes part of you and is your truth. You can only accept what you believe is true, and anything you believe is not true or of which you are not aware, you will see as false and dismiss it as false evidence.

If you had the whole truth, you'd see the part that you play in all of your experiences. You'd see exactly who it is that is doing things to you - it's yourself. And you'd see the entire chain of cause and effect stemming from your own initial decision to separate from God and all the way through to all of the forms of suffering you are experiencing. You would not be ABLE to deny that it is all coming from you. It would be so obvious. The only sensible conclusion you would be able to draw from it is that you did all of this to yourself and no-one else was ever to blame.

The trouble is, key evidence and key truth has been blocked from your awareness. You do not know what you do not know. And even in a state of profound denial and unconsciousness, whatever little amount of awareness you have left seems to you to be "all" that there is. And whatever you see, from that perspective, seems to show you a reflection outside of you which you also believe is "all there is". And since that is truth to you, that presents to you a world which seems hostile, unfair, confusing, dramatic, upsetting and unsafe.

These are conclusions which you must come to, albeit mistaken. You can't conclude anything else because you have no other evidence to the contrary. All of these beliefs and perceptions about how the world is against you, life is unfair, people are victimizing you, you are alone and afraid, you're suffering against your will, you're constantly in conflict with other people, etc... it all comes solely from a lack of awareness and a lack of truth. It all seems to make sense to you and you believe in it, even if it is very upsetting.

People believe in the inevitability and un-avoidability of death, simply because of a lack of truth and a block to awareness, which seems to show them that they have no say in the matter and no power to choose otherwise. Such power is unconscious, such ability to decide is unconscious, and such truth that shows them that they cannot die because they are really immortal is also unconscious.

Without those key facts, death seems like something that happens to you against your will and it just "makes sense" to you that you must die. You see no other way out of the dark maze of hell and will therefore ACCEPT it and allow it, even if you seem not to want to.

This is also why when things happen to you seemingly against your will, you experience them as upsetting and unwanted. And yet, simultaneously, you experience them. You can't seem to make them go away, because you don't see that you are choosing them. You'll be very upset or afraid or suffering and experience it as though you really, really do not want this and are not in any way choosing it. And death is the ultimate expression of this - the idea that you are not choosing what you experience whatsoever, and therefore have become a passive victim of fate.

You'll experience these upsetting situations as being so against your will that you resist them and hate them and wish they would stop. You'll kick and scream all the way to the grave as though someone else is deciding for you what will happen to you. You seem not to want to be a victim, that you don't want to be afraid, you don't want to be sick, you don't to suffer and die. But it seems to be happening. And given you are unaware of the secret fact that you can CHOOSE for or against all of this, you don't believe you have any power to stop it. And that is terrifying and very upsetting.

You'll then set about trying to change others, trying to stop events, trying to resist life, trying to prevent bad stuff from happening, and trying to defend yourself from all the ways that some "other will" - an unexplained influence - seems to be deciding when you are or are not happy. You want all those bad influences to just go away so that you can carry on being innocent and harmless, to enjoy your "life", but bad stuff keeps cropping up. You don't see what you are doing to yourself so it seems entirely unwelcome and you just wish it would stop. Why is life so unfair? Why can't they just leave you alone and let you live in (an illusion of) peace?

These dramas and stories of suffering and unfairness will continue until you become willing to look at how you might be mistaken. It takes for you to become a little bit open minded about the possibility of something which seems very unlikely. If you are experiencing that you are a whole person, that you are fully aware of everything that's happening, and that you know everything there is to know about what is causing what, then you may not be willing to entertain this idea. But the idea is, that you MIGHT NOT BE WHOLE, and you MIGHT NOT BE FULLY AWARE, and there MIGHT BE MORE TRUTH than you are currently aware of.

Sometimes this is expressed in the form of "there must be a better way". This can be a natural reaction to the experiences of unfairness and strife and misery which all SEEM to happen for no good reason, which perhaps after a while don't seem to make sense, which perhaps seem so unbearable and stupid that it surely can't be the truth. When life becomes too painful and unmanageable, there can be a stirring of awareness or a desire for peace of some kind that prompts you to start to question whether what's happening - your experience of it - is really the truth, or whether there must be some kind of "deeper" truth or meaning that you just aren't seeing.

This requires a willingness, however small, to consider that you MIGHT be mistaken about what you're experiencing, or about the conclusions you keep coming to based on the evidence you have. It means literally a willingness to question your SELF, your own righteousness and your own sense of knowing everything. It even means questioning the truth of your identity - who you are - and what is the basis for yourself. To the ego this seems like self-attack, but in truth it is a willingness to dismantle your false self to reveal the "True You".

It's the beginning of humility, it's the beginning of honesty, and it's the beginning of opening up to a possible truth that exists in 'addition' to your current idea of Self. In other words, you are beginning to make ROOM for the truth in your life, creating a space where a larger truth can dwell where you are not filling that space with all of your own egoic conclusions and interpretations. It means you are making room for God, stepping aside a little bit from your ego mind and becoming willing to LOOK AT the situation from a slightly different perspective. And that means, you are starting to ALLOW a bigger truth to enter your awareness - therefore you are starting to wake up.

Illusions will be kept so long as they make sense to you, so long as you do not see their real purpose, and so long as they seem to work. Or at least, even if they don't work, you keep them because you believe they CAN work, if you will just use them hard enough. You think for example that in your justified anger, your anger will somehow bring about happiness.

If you can be angry enough at someone else for what they did, and thus prove that you are right and justified, then there will be some kind of acceptance by the other person, a backing down of their attack on your truth, and you will get the respect and recognition that you believe your truth deserves.

In their acceptance and admittance of how they were wrong and you were right, you'll feel vindicated and satisfied having "proven" that your truth is true. It's as though you need others to admit to YOUR truth and accept it and humble themselves, in order for YOU to believe your own truth more - that you've given them the power to accept your truth for you, which is what you want because it's part of your disowning of responsibility for you own decision-making.

You think then that you'll find peace and satisfaction from this. But does anger ever produce peace and happiness? No. It does not really work. Getting someone else to admit to your truth for you will not cause you to be happy indirectly, but you think it will. And most likely their ego will not be humble enough to accept your truth on your behalf, meaning you cannot gain the happiness that lies in their hands. To admit to that fact is to admit to the truth, which means you are allowing a greater truth to shine its light on this response and to show that it is false.

Everything that you do in the ego thought system has a justification, a purpose, a reason behind it, a motive, a secret plan and an attempted goal that it would achieve. Just as in the truth everything you do is deliberate and intentional, producing exactly the results you ask for every time, this still holds true in your use of the ego. Every decision you make to believe in the ego's interpretation and follow its advice, is based in a deliberate, intentional decision to do so. You have a purpose and a use for every ego device you use.

Generally speaking the overall purpose of the entire ego thought system is to get rid of yourself by becoming an artificial self that doesn't exist. To replace yourself with non-existence. To replace God with death. And because your attempt to do this is based in your belief in SIN, the attempt to get rid of your sin is just another part of your attempt to get rid of yourself. Every step of the way, in every ego device that you use whether it be denial or projection or anger or reactions or suppression of guilt or punishment or death, all of these "tools" have a purpose for you, in furthering your attempt to get rid of sin and to get rid of yourself.

So when you are angry with someone, even though you are angry because it seems completely justified and sensible, given the (lack of) facts, this anger is actually also serving this goal. It is an attempt to get rid of sin by finding someone else guilty. Behind this anger, in greater truth, you actually are the one who believes YOU sinned, you have accused yourself of a horrible crime, and subsequently felt extremely guilty. You are trying to cover that up and get rid of it, because you believe deep down that YOU are the one who "did it".

When someone comes along and SEEMS to be the one who must have done something to you, instead of seeing that you believe that YOU are the sinful one, you take the opportunity quickly, based on the lack of awareness and the presence of denial, to scapegoat the person and put all your sense of guilt onto them. You might seem as though you are projecting onto them because "clearly" they did something to you against your will, and it therefore seems justified, but the rest of the evidence shows that you actually are USING that person to get rid of your sin and ultimately yourself.

In light of that additional information, it would also show you that your attempt to use them to get rid of sin is actually an attack on YOUR part, towards someone who is NOT the cause of your sin, and they in fact are the one who is innocent. So now you have committed a further crime, for which you will feel guilty. Even if you think your anger is justified, you will not be able to explain why you feel remorse and guilt and "bad" about having done so.

The truth would also reveal that you in fact WANTED that person to "seem" to attack you, because you wanted to have an opportunity to get rid of your sin. Even if it seems to you as though you did not want it, did not choose it or ask for it, and that it was completely uncalled for, you in fact DID call for it, ask for it, and were given what you asked for. You hired the person to play the role of attacker so that you could use them. Even if you suffered, even if you didn't SEEM to want it in your semi-conscious state, you really DID want it. You wanted to be hurt so that you could make out that you are not the one who is guilty.

Without this key information, without the awareness of what you are doing to yourself, without realizing and recognizing how you are using these ego devices for an ego purpose, and how everything is a deliberate part of your plan to get rid of yourself, it is easy to see how and why you would conclude what you do. It also then becomes easy to see why you are MISTAKEN, and are making an error, and why you therefore need CORRECTION. You need the truth in order to see what is REALLY happening here, and to have any hope of being set free.

If it is true that you did not ask for suffering, then you are stuck. Suffering is going to happen against your will and you will not be able to stop it. If it is true that you did not ask for death, then death will happen against your will and you will have no power over it. But if it is true that you made sickness and death and suffering, and have chosen them, and are using them for a special purpose (to get rid of yourself), and you want them, and you yourself are using them against yourself, then at least now there is potential for you to CHOOSE AGAIN and to decide to stop doing this to yourself.

It also means realizing that because you are doing this all to yourself - this is the truth which you have been keeping hidden from yourself - there is a possibility now for SALVATION. If you are doing it to yourself, you can change your mind. You can stop your self attack. You can forgive yourself. Your mistakes can be undone and corrected by your willingness to become more aware of the whole truth, and you can be free of all suffering and death. It also means you will realize that no-one else ever attacks you, there is no other will acting against you, and therefore you are perfectly safe forever.

The secret to salvation is that you are doing this all to yourself. But until you can become aware of and admit to this truth, allowing this truth into your awareness, you will not be aware of it and will not be able to use it to make sense out of what you are experiencing. If it also remains in the realm of intellectual concepts, you will not be able to experience it and know it and feel it and trust it.

You have to actually be willing to shift your experience by expanding your awareness, becoming more conscious of what was unconscious, admitting to or owning up to what you have been doing yourself, and bringing your unconscious mind back into your conscious awareness. That is only going to be possible if you are willing to question or doubt your current experience, reconsider whether what you think is true is really true, undermine your own beliefs which hold the truth prisoner or judge it wrongly as "false", and be willing to be corrected in your mistakes.

Essentially this means you need to be willing to surrender and let go of your ego's illusions, its holding onto false truths, its blame and denial, and its various ways of convincing you that you can actually get away with or succeed at using its tools to produce a desirable outcome. It is only because you do not see what the ego's outcomes are (always worse, leading to death), that you think they must work. And even if they don't work you'll still keep using them, insisting that they MUST work because they seem to make sense to you. You won't question what makes sense to you because you trust it as the basis for your whole reality.

But what makes sense in a limited ego consciousness makes no sense in a greater expanded awareness. And even if you believe that you know all there is to know or are aware of all there is to be aware of, both within you and without you, you need to be willing to question that. There IS stuff outside of your conscious awareness, stuff you have denied, stuff you have forgotten, stuff you have deliberately avoided wanting to admit to or allow into awareness.

Even if you see yourself as whole, complete, innocent, truthful, loving and caring, or seeing completely clearly, be assured that if there is something in your unconscious mind - if you have an unconscious mind - your facade of innocence and perfection WILL NOT hold up to the truth. And it will not be capable of stopping bad stuff from happening to you. Being ultra perfect and ultra pure is not going to stop your unconscious separate will from attacking you, and it's not going to keep you safe, and it's not going to prevent you from attacking yourself indirectly.

So if you think you are perfect and your life is still filled with suffering of any kind, you must KNOW that this means you have something outside of your conscious awareness, some way that you are attacking yourself and therefore you need to become willing to question whether your idea of perfection is really sound. There must be some way that you are in denial and there must be some truth you do not want to admit to. There must be some false belief you have which you think is true but which is not. And your sense of identity - of who you even ARE - must be not quite whole or complete or as true as you thought.

It can be difficult to look more deeply for a greater truth, and it can seem at first to be pointless given how much you are convinced you are all of yourself. But you have attempted to get rid of yourself, in a big way. You are Christ, maker of this universe, pretending to be a little suffering self in a body that dies.

There is much more to who you are than you are AWARE of, and that means that there is more to BE aware of than you are aware of right now. And that means it is highly likely you are going to be mistaken and come to false conclusions about what things mean and what sense it makes. It means you will act and respond to "reality" based in false perceptions and will make errors, and these will seem to hurt you against your will. But there is a way out.

The Holy Spirit, maintainer of truth in your mind, protector of your connection to Truth as God, is always with you and is the very truth in which you are recognized as being set free. Even your sin isn't real. Even your self attack isn't happening. And even your real identity has not been lost or changed or damaged. There is much truth that awaits you in which you literally will be set free from all suffering forever. There is no real death. There is no real sin. The Son of God is free.

A little willingness is all it takes to invite the truth into you - to invite Holy Spirit into you. A little willingness to put aside your ego identity and make room for the truth. A little willingness to open up to receiving a truth from beyond your little ego self, which also means receiving love. A little willingness to let go of what you thought was real, what you valued and what you thought was important, based only on false conclusions you came to just because you didn't have all the information.

There is more to your identity and more to your sense of self than you may be currently aware. Even if you think you are the whole of you, there is more to you than this. You are bigger and more magnificent than you realize. And you are far more free from suffering and death than you realize as well. There is no cause for fear because sin is impossible and separation is impossible. There is only cause for gratitude to God, that because of what God is, you can never be anything other than how He Created you.

You are innocent and holy, forgiven because you have done nothing wrong, are immortal and invulnerable, and permanently reside in Heaven as One with your Creator. And all is well.