"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."

It can be difficult letting people suffer. Although that said, suffering is an illusion. The thing is.... we have lessons to learn and this is a classroom. Merely having an attitude of "take the suffering away" could also remove form someone a "painful lesson" they might need to learn.

If you remove the challenges or the limitations or the form that the lesson has taken, the person might not rise to the occasion. They might not question certain strongly held beliefs, they might not have a breakthrough, they might not learn to see their life differently, they might not change their priorities. Not to say that people should suffer, because God does not will that anyone suffers, but we've placed ourselves in a difficult situation where we believe all kinds of stuff that's mistaken.

And so we need to learn, which means we need scenarios to learn in. So if we were to seek to just "have it easy" all the time and have no seeming stimulation for growth or awakening, we might just linger in a lack of progress for longer. You could say perhaps that since people consent to everything, those who are suffering perhaps have agreed to go through something because they'll in the long run benefit from it.

When the soul knows that the ultimate goal is awakening and reunion with God, they can be prepared to take on tremendous challenges to help them move toward that. A person having a particularly hard life may well be making a lot more progress spiritually than someone who has it easy.

Not that you can't be a "happy learner" who learns without severe suffering but, it seems to be often the case that when people are mistaken about the truth they tend to mis-create some pretty bad-seeming scenarios because they haven't learned, and now the scenario acts as a way to help them learn. Perhaps a repurposing of the suffering they've consented to. The ultimate goal of course is learning that you cannot suffer and choosing not to, which does mean there is a way out when the lesson is learned.

Not long ago I had a dream in which I had to go through an extraordinarily arduous obstacle course, riddled with difficult terrain and hurdles and dangers and all manner of suffering. As I got to the end and emerged into the open, exhausted and strung out and weak, a guide appeared and asked me "What would be so important that you'd be willing to go through all that, if it meant that you could achieve a goal?" The revelation that suddenly came to my awareness was that this was all designed to serve a very big long-term goal of returning to God. No matter what it takes to learn the curriculum.

"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."

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."

Since my wife "died" in January, my perspective on this world and the body, sickness and death has changed drastically.

My wife (her body) was afflicted with various disabilities and medical conditions for over 12 years. For the past 4 years she lived in a bed, and unable to walk. We're talking amputations and strokes/paralysis and heart conditions and sleep disorders and cancer and diabetes and kidney failure, brain damage and dementia, eye problems, breathing problems, digestive problems, multiple trips to the ICU, declared brain-dead one time and barely making it through a triple-heart-bypass another.

The horror show compelled me to want to perform miracles, to heal her body and undo her limitations. Like any person would, driven to alleviate suffering and to make things easier. Avoiding death became the whole focus. And obviously this revolved around my mistaken belief that she was at least in part a physical body. A body with seemingly "real" sicknesses and serious problems.

For years we had this dynamic of me trying to get her (body) back to health, to keep her (body) going, to keep her (body) alive, to resurrect her (body) and fix her (body) and undo everything that happened to her (body). But it all took a toll and over time her body's condition deteriorated. It just couldn't function enough anymore to keep her going. While I helped in some ways, I failed.

Just before she passed, I reached a point where I finally found a willingness to consider, maybe I should just stop trying to keep her (body) alive. Maybe I should just let her go and let her die. All the years of fighting against it, resisting it, avoiding both sicknesses and interventions, trying to prop her up and keep her ticking, it all just kind of came to a point of surrender. It was long and cruel and stressful and fear-inducing. She'd had enough long before, and so had I. Eventually it becomes so ridiculous you just can't keep going.

It was then within a week or two that her body was really giving out, and quickly led to a brush with death, and then a very rapid but mostly peaceful passing. All the time spent resisting death, trying to stop the body being sick, and trying to keep it going indefinitely, culminated in what seemed to be a total failure. A failure to raise the dead, a failure to be miraculous, a failure to stop death itself. But despite appearances, it turns out that wasn't a bad thing.

Actually death turned out to be liberating for both of us. It wasn't what I thought it would be like, and nothing like I feared. In fact, as she continued to live in spirit and communicate me on many occasions in many ways, it proved to me that she was far better off now. She was thrilled and excited and happy, peaceful and calm, liberated and empowered. After she went through a kind of rehabilitation period, she showed up even more, refined and purified and centered in her soul.

Meanwhile her body was on ice shoved in a cardboard box, awaiting cremation. As I looked upon it I could shift perceptions back and forth between believing it was her and that it was nothing to do with her. Clearly something had left it, regardless of how convincing it looked and seemed to have all her features intact. But it wasn't her.

I deliberately viewed the corpse a few times to make the most use of the opportunity to forgive and see it correctly. To distinguish that the body was not her, and to separate out her spirit from the form. So now I was presented with this intense contrast between - the body says she's dead, and the reality and experience of spirit/mind says she's totally alive. And they can't both be true.

It became apparent while communicating to her and thinking about the soul's journey, spanning lifetimes and many bodies, that it never really was 'the plan' in this life for her body to reach an resurrected state. We had this dream that we would ascend to heaven together, and that was a total flop - but partly because in the big picture plan of atonement she is due to wake up in another lifetime, and I'm due for some radical change.

And that was ok, because there was a bigger picture. The really big picture has souls using bodies across many lifetimes, and they are just as easily discarded when no longer functioning well as they are picked up in the first place. They are just tools, devices, vehicles, that we temporarily use for a purpose and then throw away as worthless.

The destruction of the idea of saving her body from death, the complete failure to cause her to avoid death, the surprising discovery that death was liberating and "not all bad", the experience of her continuing to live and interact, the expansive perspective of the soul and its use of bodies, and the way her passing into the light lifted me into the light also, has altered how I look at all this.

What has become super clear is that as soon as we identify with bodies, we immediately go into fear, and start feeling compelled to defend the body against its own nature - its ultimate purpose of dying. As a body we want the body to carry on forever. I wanted to be with my wife's body forever. Then the body snuffs it. Good luck with that, cus you're all gunna die, unless you stop being a body.

By believing a person is a body we develop an entire culture of body preservation, keeping people in their bodies as long as possible, freaking out when the body is attacked or sick, not allowing anyone to leave their bodies voluntarily, trying to stop the body being sick, and generally just resisting the body's death at all costs. It all adds up to a mindset of the fear of death and an attempt to protect and defend the body at all costs. Until that entire mindset goes crashing against the rocks and is smashed to smithereens.

That's what's happened for me. The whole mindset of "lets keep the body going forever" has been destroyed. All the cultural and social ways that we have concern for it, fear of dying happening, avoiding things, trying to create security and safety, freaking out when "someone dies", valuing the body, wanting it to live, even the idea of using miracles to rescue the body endlessly, all has been destroyed for me. And that's a good thing because it was all rooted in believing bodies are people, valuable objects, and something to keep.

I've shifted from a horizontal to a vertical perspective. I would even go so far now as to say "let it all die". Not just the bodies, but all the things of the world. It's dying anyway, and it's going to. All the resistance I had and the fear of it happening was pointless and worthless and ended in a total inability to stop it. It was actually good that I ended up at the end of this lesson surrendering and "letting death happen". Because funnily enough, that was a key to stopping preserving it through the wish to defend the body at all costs. I'm guided now to simply "let her be dead". Because in truth, she isn't.

Trying to prevent death induces it. And I also realized that trying to stop sickness is just making it real and fueling it. So you can imagine that being exposed to someone with many severe sicknesses for a long time has drilled this home for me. I had to get past her body, get past believing she was sick, get past trying to resist the sickness, and get past believing she could even die. And she's proven to me many times over now that she absolutely has not died.

That then becomes a strange irreconcilable contrast. On the one hand the body is sprinkled in the wind as ashes and is no more, seeming to suggest the person is totally destroyed, and yet there she is even more alive than ever, happier than ever, having a great time. When I told her it would be great to be able to see her walking again, and she showed me herself running through fields, she even said "I can fly!". So she's having a great time, and what appeared to be "death" on a physical level did nothing but leave her better off.

So now my whole perspective on bodies and the world and sickness and death is different. I've used her death against death. I see people believing they are bodies, when it's been shown to me that people are not bodies. I see people fearing the body's vulnerabilities, when it's been shown to me that this is because they think they are bodies. The whole culture of body preservation and trying to stop people being sick is a joke. And even in this world the idea of voluntarily going to heaven is illegal and taboo, forcing people to suffer horrible conditions until they "naturally" snuff it.

I know this sounds a bit potentially anti-miraculous but, the hard lesson has actually been to let someone die and to stop fighting it. It was actually less spiritual and much more psychologically unhealthy to believe someone was a body and to be constantly worried for their safety and fearing for their life. What dies is not even a real thing, its not the person, and they cannot die. What dies is a lie, and death is a lie, and the whole basis for avoiding it is a lie.

So now I am much more flippant. Not to say like, okay, go ahead and die on purpose just so you can realize that being in heaven is totally amazing. Because we are still using bodies to learn shit. But in the big picture souls don't give a shit about the body really, they just use them temporarily as learning devices. Then they throw them in the trash. In and of themselves they are worthless junk. They are nothing. They are not people and they are not life.

My view now is much more aligned with my wife's view, seeing from her perspective and from the vantage point of the bigger picture. Souls coming and going, taking on bodies and then discarding them. Not identifying with them. Not falling into the trap of believing they are people, or the nightmare of fear that comes from that. My fear of death has melted because a) dying and going to heaven is wonderful and b) I can't die. Just as my wife can't die.

I've lifted up out of the body-identified body-worshipping death-avoiding culture of the world. Avoidance of death is definitely the same thing as promoting it. Nothing real can be threatened. The whole problem of the world is people believing they are a body and not knowing they are spirit, which results in a nightmare of danger and threat and attack and vulnerability. Then everyone starts barricading themselves in trying to avoid the bad stuff happening, and the sicknesses set in and the people want it to all go away so they can stay in their bodies forever and never go home to God.

I couldn't care less about stuff dying now. It's everywhere and relentless. It's the way of the world, driven by laws of death. Stuff is dead before it's even born. Everything here is guaranteed to end, to rot and decay and turn to dust. So I say, let it. Fuck it all. Who gives a shit about it anyway. It has no effect whatsoever on our reality as spiritual beings. And trying to stop it happening is madness. But what does it matter when an illusion dies? It really means nothing at all. The death of an illusion means nothing.

No-one who believes that bodies dying means something can work miracles. No-one who believes that a person is really sick can work miracles. No-one who believes that death can actually change the sons of God can work miracles. And no-one who fights against it happening can have any power over it. I had to go through the lesson of associating my beliefs in sickness and death with my wife's body, so that as her body died so too did my beliefs in these things.

I failed to raise the dead or to stop sickness happening, and it was the best thing I could've learned. The lesson is that death doesn't matter. But the key is to let death be what it is, because in truth it is not anything. Surrender the fear of death and let it all go, let it all die, and you'll be free from it. And then maybe you'll be ready to be a miracle worker. To surmount death is to transcend it, and you can't do that while you're resisting it. But letting it be also lets it go, and then you can rise above it and have power over it.

"But time, with its illusions of change and death, wears out the world and all things in it."

"But this you do not see; that you made death, and it is but illusion of an end."

"Behold the body, and you will believe that you are there. ⁴And every body that you look upon reminds you of yourself; your sinfulness, your evil and, above all, your death."

"There is a risk of thinking death is peace, because the world equates the body with the Self which God created."

"And fear, denying love and using pain to prove that God is dead, has shown that death is victor over life. ⁷The body is the Son of God, corruptible in death, as mortal as the Father he has slain."

"The “reality” of death is firmly rooted in the belief that God’s Son is a body."

"This is what death should be; a quiet choice, made joyfully and with a sense of peace, because the body has been kindly used to help the Son of God along the way he goes to God. ²We thank the body, then, for all the service it has given us. ³But we are thankful, too, the need is done to walk the world of limits, and to reach the Christ in hidden forms and clearly seen at most in lovely flashes. ⁴Now we can behold Him without blinders, in the light that we have learned to look upon again."

"False healing rests upon the body’s cure, leaving the cause of illness still unchanged, ready to strike again until it brings a cruel death in seeming victory. ²It can be held at bay a little while, and there can be brief respite as it waits to take its vengeance on the Son of God. ³Yet it cannot be overcome until all faith in it has been laid by, and placed upon God’s substitute for evil dreams; a world in which there is no veil of sin to keep it dark and comfortless. ⁴At last the gate of Heaven opens and God’s Son is free to enter in the home that stands ready to welcome him, and was prepared before time was and still but waits for him."

"The “self” that needs protection is not real. ²The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. ³Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?"

"From here the body can be seen as what it is, and neither less nor more in worth than the extent to which it can be used to liberate God's Son unto is home."

When shitty stuff happens, you want it to stop.

But it's a lesson. It's trying to teach you something. Its motive of teaching is very much for you and supportive of you and helping you. It is not a motive of attack. At least, if you decide to use it this way.

What if this thing is trying to educate you, to give you training, so that you will learn something you didn't know, so that you can become able to help other people who you later encounter who are going through the same thing?

Perhaps then you will have transitioned from being a student to being able to teach what you have mastered.

Life will throw you first-hand challenges. Like, right in your face, when you don't want it. And your ego will claim it wants it to go away. Why does it want it to go away? Perhaps it doesn't want you to use it for forgiveness? Perhaps it doesn't want you to listen and learn and grow and wake up?

Would you welcome the lesson if you knew it was designed specifically, and solely, to help you, and through your willingness, end up helping others as well? What if it is for everyone's highest good? What if Holy Spirit wants you to be learning this and it isn't some kind of evil curriculum given you by the devil?

Why do 'lessons' show up in your life as negative, unwanted, like things are going wrong, or something bad is happening?

Whatever your current beliefs are, your idea of truth is what you think of as 100% true. If there is anything that happens that seems to agree with these beliefs, you see those things as truth. You welcome them, see them as an ally, experience them as wanted and desirable. They reinforce your belief and confirm or provide evidence that your belief is the truth.

Even if something bad happens, let's say that you have a belief that you are unworthy of love. You will create in your life an experience where someone is mistreating you perhaps. But at first you won't really be able to see that this person is doing that, instead you'll believe that they are treating you how you are supposed to be treated, because you agree that you are unworthy. In contrast, if someone comes along and loves you unconditionally, you will recoil and attack them, certain that they are lying to you, deceiving you, and must have some secret ulterior motive. Your belief in suffering does not and cannot understand a healing presence.

So like any thought system or belief, whatever agrees with your belief you will experience as welcome and true, and anything that seems to be against your belief you will experience like it is your worst enemy. You will see everything 'false' in them and will reject them. This has nothing to do with whether they are actually the Real Truth or not, and hinges entirely around what you believe the truth is.

So now because you have a false belief, there is something that you believe falsely and so you are in need of 'learning' what the real truth is. It wouldn't really be helpful to you to send you a situation or event or person who simply exactly mirrors your own false belief, because you would see that as highly agreeable, as proof that what you believe is true. You would welcome them and learn nothing from them.

In the interests of your spiritual growth and awakening, it serves you to, instead, be given events and situations and people who seem to represent a Real Truth, or who 'carry a potential' to teach you a Real Truth, so that you will be challenged. When they show up, however, you will initially believe they fall into your 'false' category, you'll experience them as though they're your enemy, or exactly what you don't want, or you didn't ask for this, or you hate it when this happens etc. You do not yet recognize the opportunity or the benefit that's hiding in the presence of this thing. You don't recognize it AS a bringer of truth, so you think it's just there to piss you off.

Each thing that shows up in your life, that seems to be what you don't want, is put there by arrangement to help you awaken. But that means that you're going to have to go through some kind of transformation of your perspective. Your idea of truth is going to have to be challenged. It is directly challenged by what you think of as intolerably false, showing up and being *experienced* by you as unwanted, because of what you currently believe you want. You will hate and reject it and wish it weren't happening and like it's unfair and everything sucks. But, this thing, whatever it is, is actually there as your savior, attempting to help you to awaken to a shift in allegiance, from what is Truly false, to what is Truly True.

So this thing will trigger off and push your buttons and disturb your sense of status quo. It will put a crow bar in your resistance to Truth and leverage it to try to open you up. And often this happens because the thing that comes along to bother you practically 'forces' you to have to change your perspective, in order to deal with that stimuli.

For example, perhaps someone close to you becomes sick and you absolutely can't stand the fact this is happening, and it keeps triggering you, and you get upset about it a lot. Obviously this is very upsetting as though some curse has come upon your life. BUT, over the course of time, you will find that, if you are working some program of purification, healing and honesty, that this thing is triggering you only because you've got some kind of false belief or unhealed pain stuck in your awareness that needs to change.

The stimuli triggers that pain and it keeps coming up, so if you keep trying to make it go away, or if you keep trying to fix the seeming cause of the trigger - the other person or event - you are actually avoiding learning the lesson. And you WILL have this resistance to some extent especially at the beginning. Nobody in their right mind who believes they know what the truth is, would accept and not reject something that appears to be completely false. It's just that we're very mistaken about what its actually true and false.

Over time, in this example, you might come to realize that in order to not be upset and triggered, YOU need to change something about yourself. You need healing, correction, light, and a higher truth. You need to, and are often forced to, confront your own inner mental condition and belief system and bring it into question. You might even have to get down on your knees and be pleading with God before you become willing to surrender your false view of reality. But eventually, it will transform you and you will come to realize a greater truth, and you will actually let go of your false belief, and you will open up to a higher level of functioning that you never thought you were even capable of. You will find an unconditional love that you never thought you were capable of. And this was what the challenge came to give to you.

It's not until this so-called 'problem' has finished transforming you, or has 'completed the mission' that it has to stimulate your errors and to get you to look at and transform your false ATTITUDE, that it will be 'done with'. It's actually there to help you wake up, but it definitely doesn't look like this at first. It can take some time. And if you ask Holy Spirit for guidance along the way He might tell you, this is a lesson. And it's not as though the answer to the lesson is being concealed from you or made to be especially hard to 'get'... and many times you'll find yourself saying "I just don't get it!" "what am I supposed to be learning here?!".... it's just that, you need to be transformed by the situation and the transformation isn't quite complete yet. And whatever it is supposed to provoke in you, or push out of you, or get you to question, or however it's meant to open your heart or deepen your unconditionality, it has to DO that and finish doing that before the lesson is learned.

So let's say, someone comes along into your life with an attacking angry attitude. Maybe they accuse you of stuff. They seem like your enemy. They hate you. This provokes and upset you a lot and you seem victimized. You may find it unacceptable to allow them to be this way. And you may find yourself angry and having reactions and being triggered, because you believe deep down some of what they're saying. And maybe it takes time for you to realize and heal those deep-down beliefs that you have. And maybe you'll find yourself admitting, I just can't love this person.. there is just no way I can forgive and love them, I am very limited in my love.

And then if you STICK WITH IT, and persevere with learning, you will actually become willing to DIG EVEN DEEPER to find even more love and patience and unconditionality, such that you thought perhaps you could never access. And so you 'learn' how to love and forgive this person, not necessarily for their benefit, but so that YOU learn to receive and express unconditional love in the face of what appears to be an attack. And this is a GIFT that is hard-won, and this is what the attacking person was trying to GIVE you, through their role play.

So then after you've got past all the victimhood and 'why me' crap, you come to realize, the person has helped you. The person actually forced you to grow and to become more forgiving or loving or whatever. You actually gained in strength, you grew in patience, your heart opened. And that is what you needed to LEARN from this lesson. And then you can be grateful that this person came along to provoke the shit out of you, because now, on a spiritual level, you can recognize that what appeared at first to be the exact opposite of your truth, has transformed your truth to where you can now SEE, that this person is actually welcome, lovable, acceptable, forgiven - i.e. you now see Real Truth where you once saw something false.

This is why shit happens. We only see it as shit because we don't yet realize how it is not only helping us to wake up, but it is also a gift and blessing, in the bigger picture, disguised as something unwanted. It's important not to try to get rid of your lessons, or other people's lessons, or 'bad stuff', if it's meant to be there to transform you. This is not to say you have to suffer, but IF you need to grow, sometimes you need a catalist to coerce you into that growth. Into awakening. And eventually you will be grateful for every 'bad thing' that ever happened. And you can even then be grateful for what we call 'the ego', for having supplied us with every opportunity for awakening. This is how the Holy Spirit USES everything for His purposes.

Eventually it is the end of victimhood when we learn everything about the Real Truth that we need to experience it constantly. Thank you God for that.

Another ego trap with forgiveness is believing that you need to be at peace regardless of what's going on in life. While this might ultimately be the goal, meanwhile the things that happen in life are there because they are lessons.

They're not just happening at random. Each of us has a curriculum. That means, whatever point you are at right now in your spiritual path, which is extremely unique to you, and whatever you are experiencing now, there are certain things you are going to have to learn or discover in order to move forward.

And the way that you learn those things is that you have learning experiences, ie lessons. And usually these lessons are things that you seem to NOT WANT. And so a great big steaming SHIT comes along in your life and dumps itself on your foot and you just go about trying to shake it off, but it's really trying to help you wake up.

There is something involved in your interaction with the shit and how you deal with it and look at it and experience it, which is going to bring stuff up for you, trigger you, and cause you to have certain kinds of perceptions and thoughts and ideas. And you might not have had those if it were not for this stimuli. But before you just try to get rid of the shit for coming along to disturb you, realize that this is actually an opportunity to grow and heal and become more awake spiritually.

So you don't necessarily want to be in the business of making life SEEM to be like it doesn't have anything upsetting happening, or that it's just one big smooth ride, because that can be a form of denial, avoidance, and disassociation. And it can keep you stuck. Not saying you have to suffer willingly, but willingly is better than unwillingly, lol

Anyway... so ... forgiveness isn't about avoiding bad stuff. And it isn't just about transcending it and being at peace about it. The bad stuff is there FOR A REASON, because its a lesson in the curriculum, and you not only need it but have asked for it. And that's why it's come. Because you are ready for it. And now you need to learn a lesson from it. And if you don't learn it this time, it will come back again. You don't have a choice in that.

Be aware that the ego, especially the persona part of the ego, wants to get rid of all bad stuff and create an ILLUSION OF BLISS, which really plays into the idea that "ignorance is bliss", because in ignorance ie unconsciousness, you think you don't have any issues because you're in incredible denial. You don't want that. You don't really want a life of total ease and an easy ride, at least not until you genuinely have woken up all the way and don't have any curriculum left. Then it's truly plain sailing.

So 'doing forgiveness' should not be about making bad stuff go away, even though that's what most of us use it for most of the time. It's really to help you learn lessons and to undo what you have taught yourself already, which is mistaken. It is unlearning, which is how lessons are completed - the question is unlearned to reveal the answer. There was no problem until the answer became obscured by the separation, see.

Sometimes bad things seem to happen. And usually our reaction is to want to get rid of them, stop them, prevent them, fix them.

But we have spiritual lessons to learn. And usually a lesson means that something starts out appearing to be something unwanted and upsetting. It seems like something has gone wrong.

Especially if this wrongness involves someone close to you or someone you're in a special relationship with, or someone you feel protective of or attached to, you'll feel compelled to want to 'take away' the problem.

But whatever it is that's happening, even if it looks bad, typically it is part of a person's 'script', and it is meant to be happening. It is something that was chosen at some point. Because this thing is happening, many things are going to be learned. It may seem painful to learn them, and indeed unwanted. That's in fact the ego resisting awakening.

So bad things happen, people come along to attack and provoke you, things go wrong, and shit hits the fan. This stimuli provokes and triggers stuff in YOU that represents areas of your unconsciousness. Maybe a sense of guilt that you have not released causes you to feel guilty that the person is suffering, and then you try to fix them instead of deal with your guilt. Or maybe the person attacks you such that you feel you cannot love them, and yet, this is your challenge to learn to love them in spite of their attack, as part of your lessons in unconditional love.

Lessons are not usually very pleasant. And the ego has this propensity to try to create and maintain the illusion of a nice, tidy, 'nothing is going wrong' life. This isn't a life where you genuinely are invulnerable or genuinely are experiencing a smooth flow of beautiful divine guidance, but rather a state of 'ignorance' and unconsciousness and specialness where all challenges to the ego's status quo are avoided.

So we develop this reflex reaction of wanting to 'take away' someone's pain, solve someone's problem, fix the situation or restore it to what we think it's supposed to be - i.e. free of anything 'going wrong'. But maybe what we're actually doing, is taking away the person's lesson. And maybe that will keep them asleep. And maybe that's not helpful.

And so this may mean, learning YOUR lessons that are being triggered by the problem you see in someone else. If you are upset, that's your lesson too. Someone else's lesson may be triggering lessons for you. And they might've chosen to experience those problems JUST SO that you will have an opportunity to wake up, by facing your own lessons in response to it. There are people who come into this world with disabilities and so on to 'teach' others to be more loving, patient and understanding, and they can't teach that if their disability is taken away.

So we need to learn our own lessons and that means, learning acceptance, learning to let go, learning unconditional love, etc... that MIGHT include bringing healing to the person through those more aware states of consciousness. Maybe you're meant to learn YOUR lessons in reaction to the other person's apparent difficulty, SO THAT you become able to heal the other person. And maybe if you don't do that, and you focus on fixing them, you won't ACTUALLY be able to help them.

All is not as it seems on the surface.

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

The PURPOSE of a "course", is that you TAKE the course, so that you can learn how to do something, and then AFTER you have taken the course, you are now ABLE to do that thing WITHOUT needing the course itself any more. A course in "mind training" trains your mind, so that ONCE TRAINED, your mind is able to DO something it could not do before.

But with ACIM, a lot of our focus is taken up with struggling TO learn the course, arguing about what it even says or means, and believing that to learn it is to understand what it says. We're fixated on and lost in the pages instead of USING it to undo the NEED for it.

The whole POINT of it though is to TURN YOU INTO A MIRACLE WORKER. And having GRADUATED from the course, you should then be able to perform miracles and be a teacher of God like Jesus.

We spent a lot of time being hung up with the words, what it says what it means, what the metaphysics are, the implications, taking it like a kind of philosophical study, sometimes using it, applying it, as if applying it or doing the lessons is the PURPOSE of the course. But the purpose of the lessons etc is change your mind to get it into a state WHERE you are THEN able to USE what you have learned.

The lessons teach you something and then LATER you USE what has been taught. And yet people get so hung up on the idea that the lessons themselves, or applying the principles, IS the whole course. Well, within the context of the course itself yes, but the whole purpose of even doing this "mind training" is so that you END UP with a trained mind that CAN ACCOMPLISH something.

We shouldn't get so hung up on the course ITSELF. It's there for a reason to serve as a tool and mechanism to guide and direct us and give us tools to work on our minds and heal our hearts. But that's only within the context of "learning it", ie taking the curriculum. Once you get past the course, so to speak, or you graduate from it, you then are in a position to really USE it consistently AS a miracle worker. That was the whole point of taking it, to FINISH IT, and move on.

Like if you were spending 4 years in college or whatever learning how to be a car mechanic, you don't spend the rest of your life in college learning how to be a mechanic. You go BE one. You take what you learned, you rely on your training, and you USE it to accomplish things you could not do at the beginning.

A Course in Miracles is no different. It's a course in learning how to perform miracles to help those who are less able. If you are just aiming to spend your whole life in a love-affair with its words or dwelling on what it says and how it's written then you are STUCK in the classroom not wanting to go out into the big wide world and "get a job" as a miracle worker. The course is meant to be GRADUATED FROM at some point. You're not meant to become a "lifer" who just dwells on it all the time. Put the wheels on the car and make it go!

"Forget this world, forget this course, and come with wholly empty hands unto your God."

"This course is a beginning, not an end. Your Friend goes with you. You are not alone."

There are different teachers for different students at different points on their path. The teaching that is given to the students at any given stage are appropriate learning for what that student can accept at the time. The student is only able to learn what is 'next' on their path and according to their willingness.

At some point if the student has learned something beneficial, they will increase in awareness and will begin to see flaws and cracks in the teacher's teaching that they did not notice before. This indicates teaching has been accomplished in some way. It may be necessary for the student to then move on to a different teacher who has the ability and appropriateness to teach the next lessons that the student is ready for.

There are teachers who teach to large numbers of people and many of those teachers are not necessarily teaching the whole truth. Now, the ego jumps in here because the ego is fantastic at drawing comparisons, measuring-up who is who and who is saying what and whether said persons are being 'as truthful' as others. It loves to make a competition out of everything.

The are two sides to this. From the student's point of view they will start to compare teachers and find ways that their current teacher is flawed and become disillusioned with this teacher. They are recognizing that the teachings being offered have been outgrown, but they are still expecting that this particular teacher is meant to be the teacher of ALL lessons, and that they're failing to be 100% authentic. This comes about because the student has become attached to the teacher and has set them up with idol worship in some way, which is part of what caused them to come together initially.

The other side is from the teacher's point of view - remembering that as the student progresses they become a teacher also to those who "have less light" - and so the teacher is now aware of the flaws and shortcomings of the message being given by other teachers who seem to be 'behind' them on the path, and begin to downgrade them as inferior students and as being wrong for teaching what they're teaching. This is all ego and is driven by insecurity that their own teaching and learning is incomplete.

Now, what we need to recognize here is this. "Those who are to meet will meet" - ACIM. There are appropriate teachers and appropriate teachings for everyone, based on exactly where they are at, their individual curriculum, what they need to learn and can learn and are open to learning at the time. Everyone is very different and has their own path. There is rarely a single teacher who teaches everything to everyone, because usually the ego is too strong in novice students to accept full exposure to the truth that might come from a 'higher' place. So instead the Holy Spirit works with everyone where they're at and sends them the appropriate lessons and teachers at the right time, to take the next small steps on their path.

Without an ego comparison entering into it, those who are therefore 'teaching less truth' have perhaps volunteered to fulfill the role of building bridges between those who are teaching even less truth and those who are teaching more. Just because these teachers do not have all the answers doesn't mean we have to hold them accountable or find them guilty. They're providing a service. Even Hitler is a teacher. Even Saddam Hussein was a teacher. Even Jack the Ripper was a teacher. For the appropriate students, these people taught what needed to be taught and what could be learned by the appropriate students, who agreed to be exposed to those lessons because they needed to.

So instead of us saying, well, ok Marianne Williamson, Wayne Dyre, Deepak Chopra, Oprah, etc.. instead of saying like they all teach only part of the truth or they're not totally pure or they're guilty for peddling lies - and technically they are not telling the whole truth so that's true - instead of them being guilty for falling short of perfection, recognize instead they are the right teacher for the right students and the people attracted to them will naturally be drawn to do so because thats what those students need, psychologically. They're not ready for a greater truth. They're not willing yet to open up to a greater truth. They need a bridge. They need stepping stones. And therefore these teachers are being really helpful by positioning themselves as the bridges to a higher place.

So what you can take away from this is... recognize that it's okay to like who you like and to learn from who you're learning from and you don't have to listen to certain people if you're not resonating with them. You will naturally flow to the company of the people that you are ready to be receptive to and that you can open up to and learn from, regardless of where those teachings lie in the big picture. Everyone finds their way to God eventually and it doesn't matter that it takes a very long time or that people are 'deceived' temporarily along the way. When students become aware enough in their own true learning they WILL learn to recognize a greater truth and WILL discern and WILL know when there are flaws and WILL move on when they're genuinely ready. So let them have their teachers and their lessons and where they're at. And let yourself have your teachers and your lessons and where you're at.

Do this without trying to force yourself to always be absolutely perfect and whole before you're ready, and without making yourself guilty for liking who you like or not liking who you don't - that's your guidance system - your program for today's performance. Trust where you are at. You are in the right place at the right time doing the right thing with the right people. You are on the right path. You have the right teachers, unless you're transitioning to a new one which in itself is also right. And so is everyone else. The freedom to let others be where they are at without pressure to be where they're not, gives that same freedom to you.

You always have free will. Your mind always has the power to change anything. Your thoughts influence the body and the world. You can change your relationships at any time. You are not tied down in a rollercoaster ride as a passive observer of some prerecorded movie.

That said, there is an atonement plan. Sometimes referred to as a "script". But beware this term, because a script is not a performance. It's an outline of arranged proposed situations and encounters and happenings which is still partly open-ended so that it's up to the individual actors how they operate within that loose framework.

In course terms for example "those who are to meet will meet", because they have the POTENTIAL for a holy relationship, but may or may not use it for a holy relationship. People are brought together in ideal teaching/learning dynamics, to learn lessons and so on, but not so that they are forced or coerced or have no say in the matter. Everything is always consensual.

Now, consider that the course says "I place the future in the hands of God." And consider also that "those who are to meet will meet." Consider also that the time of your awakening is set, and the Holy Spirit gently orchestrates all events in order to lead to you eternal life. There is a curriculum, but the time you take it is up to you. There are also no accidents in salvation.

"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?"

"Therefore, the plan includes very specific contacts to be made for each teacher of God. There are no accidents in salvation. Those who are to meet will meet, because together they have the potential for a holy relationship. They are ready for each other."

If you recognize that the Holy Spirit has a big-picture plan, and you WILL meet those that you are meant to meet, there is a DEGREE of predetermination in your future. Your life path and mission in this lifetime, your lessons that you agreed to before you incarnated, also play a part.

"Your passage through time and space is not random. You cannot but be in the right place at the right time. Such is the strength of God. Such are His gifts."

So through God's strength, and through the Holy Spirit's atonement plan, various things are "set" to occur, various encounters are going to happen, various people are going to be met, and you are going to arrive at certain lessons.

After all, imagine if it had been designed that you were meant to meet the love of your life and get married for a long term relationship .. but through some randomly chaotic pointless bullshit you did not meet that person and did not experience any of the lessons you were supposed to experience with that person. God doesn't leave things up to such chance when the relationship is carefully chosen as a perfect balance conducive to learning.

If it's in the plan for you to meet a person, you WILL meet them. The dream events will be arranged and manipulated by Holy Spirit and Jesus, even rearranging space and time, in order to make sure that the encounter happens. The dream is malleable and the world is not objectively real. It is easy for them to steer events, inspire thoughts, create impulses and inspirations, and directly alter the world, to nudge everything in its right direction so that the plan does happen.

This doesn't mean you're totally stuck or that you have to go along with something or that you will even necessarily learn from it if you choose not to. It doesn't mean your freedom is taken away or that you can't influence anything, or that even your thoughts are predestined to the extent that you have no power at all. You are always a willing participant, a student, who is simply going through an agreed-to obstacle course of consentual happenings so that you MIGHT make progress.

What this does mean then is that you should recognize that there are going to be some things happening in your future which are "planned". There are some people that you are going to meet. There are some events which are going to transpire. As though the universe itself is colluding to make sure things unfold as they are supposed to.

That being the case, if it's true that you are scheduled to meet certain people and do certain things and experience certain lessons, then you should relax and TRUST that this is for your highest good. You should "go with the flow" and recognize that you ARE always in the right place at the right time, and you are where God "wants" you to be. That you are being guided, prompted and gently manoeuvred by loving hands to put you in touch with the right encounters at the right time, for the purpose of atonement.

And in seeing this, you can then cease a lot of the egoic behaviours. Such as trying to plan everything, trying to figure out what to do, fantasizing about who you might meet or what they might be like, trying to make all decisions on your own, trying to predict what's going to happen, and trying to run the whole show yourself. You can put the future into the hands of God and let him orchestrate your life.

You have to therefore make room for God and for his plan, to not interfere with it, and instead to be a willing participant in the happenings. Going where you are directed, performing the miracles you are instructed to perform, learning the lessons that have been carefully designed for you, and so on.

It means letting go of all the tight control and fear and resistance against what's happening. You are where you are because you're supposed to be, and there are people you are going to meet whether you think you will or not. You can't mess this up, unless you want to interfere with it. And you are always free to procrastinate.

"Free will can temporize, and is capable of enormous procrastination."

So ultimately yes, there is a certain kind of destiny, a plan, a script, to help organize your life and passage through spacetime, for the highest purpose. But at no point are you forced against your freedom to have be stuck or having no wiggle room. There is always room for your own freedom to express itself. And indeed it is always up to you to determine what you make of it.

Ultimately this leads to the reawakening of your true freedom, your unlimited power, and at that point you don't need a script anymore. But you will be of service to spirit, following the will of God and doing the Holy Spirit's work in the world while it's needed.

"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."

"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."|

"I place the future in the hands of God."

"ALL miracles mean Life, and God is the giver of Life. He will direct you VERY specifically."

"Everyone who is sent to you is a patient of yours."

"And bring with you all those whom He has sent to you to care for as I care for you."

For many, ACIM is about self help and doing the lessons and trying to get back to a simplified idea of God/reality. But the scenario of what is happening in this world, why we're here, and what we're returning to, is part of a big picture "story" that I don't really see talked about a whole lot. At least not in fully encompassing terms.

Basically we existed as eternal beings in heaven, God's sons, and he had also created the angels etc... and everything was groovy, and then this separation thing happened, there was "war in heaven", a split, and the descent into "hell" through the making of hierarchies of illusions, levels, dimensions, worlds etc... and we ended up with this physical universe.

And now God has created the Holy Spirit and is sending his angels to guide and support and educate us, to help us to come back home to our heavenly home. Which means... drumroll.. this entire world is like a DEVICE which heaven is using as a mechanism for bringing home all of the lost souls who attempted to war against God. And the whole purpose of this world is for the lessons and learning - the curriculum, which has been set up by God, by which we might learn the truth and return willingly to cooperation with God's will, freely.

When people for example have near-death experiences they go and encounter these situations, where they are having life reviews and meeting with God and talking to spiritual beings and all this stuff, and then being sent back and "its not your time" and so on... script to be fulfilled, lessons to learn etc.... and so you get this overall picture that this world is not just some random world that we're trying to wake up from, and we're not just trying to wake up to an nice sanitary idea of "reality" or "oneness" or "non-duality".

There's way more to this story. And there's an entire foundation for "the fall of man" and how we got into this mess, and realizing that this world IS the mess we made of reality, and how we now need to clean up the mess and go home. And that means that despite all the theories that various people have, despite all the religious beliefs, despite all the concepts of why we are here, the scientific models, bla bla bla, agnostics, atheists, whatever, basically underneath everything it's TRUE that we all descended from heaven, fell in the "tiny mad idea" which really was a huge monstrous idea, are now having go through a special curriculum for salvation, and eventually will be ready to return to God's Kingdom.

So all this sort of Christian-religious stuff about heaven, making hell, believing in sin, suffering, death, illusions, trying to be separate from God, authority problem trying to oppose his will, angels helping us, there being scripts and curriculums, life lessons that are orchestrated before birth, all this stuff, it's all actually quite correct. It's all part of this huge PLAN, the atonement plan. And all because of what went on in heaven, the fall of man, the descent into hell, and the subsequent need for the atonement to correct us and restore us to awareness of love's presence.

But I think we get really out of touch with this a lot in the course community, drifting off into these intellectual models of what the course is about, vague ideas of oneness/reality, somewhat clinical God-less models, and a whole bunch of skepticism about anything not "explicitly" mentioned in the course text. We get rather narrow and start to see things through a kind of "ACIM filter", through which we filter OUT stuff that doesn't seem like it's mentioned in course lingo etc. But if you look all this stuff is in there. It lines up quite significantly with what the bible says albeit that a lot of the bible stuff is somewhat distorted. But it has the basics down.

We are part of a giant classroom, in which the atonement plan/curriculum is playing out. And this is precisely the same atonement plan that is to do with our incarnations, our themes and scripts for our lives, our lessons that we agree to, the mighty companions and angels that help us, spirit guides, the astral plane and other dimensions, and the fact that no matter what anyone in the world believes they are ALL part of this same scenario. We're all in the boat of "wanted to be separate from God" and "made worlds to live in apart form God" and are all in various ways trying to find our way back because that's what God wants.

For some it's more accepted than others. For others they don't even think any of this is true, and fixate on various other explanations for why we exist. For many ACIM is just some nice little tiny behind-closed-doors self-study "course" with very little to do with this huge big story of how we got here.

But we can't change the facts. We're living the curriculum that God established to correct the separation. This world isn't just some scientific experiment. It's not some virtual reality. It's not just a random chaotic environment. It's a school - repurposed from the hell we made, designed to lead *everyone* of *every kind* of civilization back towards the reality of heaven, our true home. There's no way to avoid this fact. We can deny it and believe other things but this is the underlying "framework" that encapsulates this whole world.

God is using this world as a device to bring us back to God. The whole thing. It's one giant school for learning, to lead us back to awareness of love - back to God, back to the Kingdom that we fell from - where we are safe in God, dreaming of exile. This world is the exile. Going home to God is the goal for everyone, regardless of how much they accept it or are aware of it. This is why Jesus calls it "the universal curriculum". Everyone is part of the plan. There are no exceptions. Even people not "doing ACIM". Even the atheists and scientists. Everyone is part of this. "The great awakening".

It may seem at first that all events in this world are random, sometimes negative, difficult, cruel and should not be happening. We try to avoid some events and promote others. We want the bad stuff to go away and escape into only the good stuff, to prolong the good stuff as long as possible and have some sense of control.

But one thing that has become glaringly obvious to me in recent weeks of turmoil and trust-development, is that there absolutely is a higher plan whose reach spans everything that happens here, including the timing of meetings between individuals and groups and everything that occurs.

The plan of atonement, or the universal curriculum, orchestrates all events, encounters and occurrences. "Those who are to meet will meet". The Holy Spirit has laid out this plan, and it includes both what seem to be positive and negative events, or rather, the re-purposing of them for awakening.

"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."

We are willing to endure "trials" and "lessons" only because, in the much bigger long-term picture, we know that the outcome of these, when we elect to learn the curriculum of truth, brings us closer to God. No one in their right mind would deliberately choose to endure suffering and difficulty, except if they knew that such things would educate them and eventually persuade them towards a better way.

"***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."

This world is not a collection of random occurrences. I see it now more as a winding, twisting dream sequence, with threads of stories and encounters and happenings, where designated people are supposed to be exactly where they are, where environments and events transpire on purpose to present lessons, in the hope that we will use these situations with the Holy Spirit towards the goal of awakening rather than as a way to strengthen our belief in hell. The world is just one big school of classrooms in which to unlearn the lies of the ego. And all of this is planned, somewhat like a form of voluntary destiny.

Before our lifetime we consent to various such classrooms. We may agree upon a body, a family, a location, a lifestyle. We may even agree that certain physical problems arise at certain times, seemingly triggered by certain events. But we have to realize that behind these seemingly random events, such as a car-crash for example, there is orchestration. There is purpose. It is meant to happen, because these trials need to be revisited so that certain stimuli will be presented to offer an opportunity for spiritual growth. And we sign on the dotted line to say, ok, I will be willing to go through all this if it will lead me closer home to God.

Sometimes really awful stuff happens. If a person is in a car crash and even perhaps dies for a while, perhaps this is to facilitate that they can visit Heaven, be healed, be restored and enlightened to some degree, so that upon returning they are a new person and live in a new way, making possible new avenues of expression and help. We might think some things happening are horrendous and cruel but when it's part of a much bigger plan, even the most awful of occurrences might well be divinely intended, not to cause suffering but to create circumstances and consequences that are ultimately beneficial spiritually.

In the really big picture, everything that happens here is entirely designed and repurposed as a tool to bring you home. The whole world is one big rescue mission, gently trying to get us to become willing to see sense and let go of our ego toys. God has protected us and is using space and time to present a curriculum that applies to all entities here, using scripts and events to present lessons that we agree to, so that we will gradually learn of the truth and awaken from our sleep.

We would only be willing to go through difficulties if we knew that it was in fact a purposeful lesson, and one which would point us eventually in the direction of love and happiness. Lessons that make us grow and present opportunities for forgiveness. We learn by applying the truth and forgiving what seems to occur, which in turn collapses periods of time and scripts that we no longer need.

The appearance that events and encounters and meetings are entirely at random is complete fiction. The Holy Spirit has control over all of this, with his plan for salvation. As you atune to this plan and trust it rather than fight against events, it becomes more obvious that He speaks through a variety of persons, He works through a variety of happenings, and that regardless of surface chance, some things simply are meant to happen a certain way, and will, by His will.

How else could we develop trust than if it were true that there is a plan to trust in, an ability of the Holy Spirit and God to guide and direct what transpires, and not just some chaotic random mishmash of cruelty and crime that we keep trying to escape. To trust in the plan is to learn the curriculum. To overlook the chaos and see the order is forgiveness. Everything happening here is an intricate symphony of education and opportunities to choose once again. And all of it continually points us towards reunion with God.

I asked Jesus some questions about "the script", what it is, how it works, what freedom we have, etc.

He pulled together information from all over the Course in ways I would have never imagined. Here are the key points.

1) Scripts, as sequences of events or arrangements to meet, set up in what seems to be "before" incarnation but which is somewhat in parallel to it, are better described as "templates". They are frameworks which present lessons which you may, or may not, learn from.

2) You ALWAYS have the freedom to choose WHEN you will take the curriculum. You can deny it, you can avoid it, you can prolong suffering, you can fail temporarily to learn a lesson, and then it will be presented at a later date. That means you are not 100% "locked in" to being "forced to wake up" against your will just because it's written into some kind of premeditated sequence of events.

3) YOUR MIND has to choose when it will awaken. Awakening cannot be forced upon it, and the script cannot MAKE the awakening happen, because you have to wake up FROM scripts. The scripts can only contain an exit point, a doorway, through which you must still willingly walk by free will.

4) The Holy Spirit's script is also referred to as the curriculum, and it is considered Holy. The curriculum means that the truth is OFFERED, just as love is always offered, but it is up to you when you will accept it. You can choose to delay accepting it. But sooner or later you will accept it, depending on how much tolerance for pain you have or how much willingness to elect to give.

5) In the Holy Spirit's curriculum, all events are planned by Him in general. This is also referred to as the "plan of atonement", which Jesus is in charge of, and which you are to become a PART of. This is reflected upon here: "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? 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."

6) The Holy Spirit came into the dream in a sense, with us, "this world has two makers" and reorganized what we made in order to GUARANTEE that we would eventually return to God. Thus events and life situations and people you meet ("those who are to meet will meet"), and the general themes of your life, and certain things you have chosen to "work on" in this life, are presented at the appropriate time when learning is optimally possible.

7) Challenges and what seems at first to be difficult situations or lessons, are only difficult due to what has NOT been learned yet, and present an opportunity to change what you believe, when seen correctly and accepted as helpful. When the lesson is not accepted or learned but resisted, now you are into the ego's script. What that means is, you are now choosing to interpret the world using the ego and plan or enforce selective attitudes about the world which influence your perception and adjust your experiences in isolated ways. Since the ego thought system generally leads towards death, participating in this way of being puts you "under tyrannical rule" and you now become sort of "subject to" the consequences of that decision. Not because you are forced to, but because you choose to.

8) Because those who are to meet will meet, the manual for teachers talks about 3 types of relationships, short term, mid-term, and long-term, depending on how much learning is possible, whereby the long-term ones are the ideal balance of teaching and learning for both involved, such that a great deal of progress can be made over a long time period without destroying each other.

9) Within the scope of the "template" of your life, there is room to maneuver. Because you have free will and can choose whether to learn or not, there MUST be some degree of freedom of mind not just to manipulate your perceptions or thoughts but also your actions, because your actions stem from your thoughts and beliefs. While "people who meet" may be scripted, and while certain properties of those people or why those people were chosen is scripted, to present an "opportunity", the fine details of how you interact and physically move and what you do in situations or whether you are willing to change, is up to you.

10) You are not locked into a rollercoaster ride which forces awakening upon you or enforces that you will learn a lesson or implements experience into your mind. Lessons are PRESENTED, but it is up to you how you USE them. We should not concern ourselves with being so locked into some kind of pre-recorded "movie of time" as to think there is no flexibility of outcome or that you "must succeed" in that sense. What makes you succeed is the Holy Spirit's infinite patience in presenting further lifetimes as needed until you are finished resisting the truth, by your free will.

11) You decide on what your script for your lifetime will be before you incarnate into it. You decide which family to choose, the type of body, your name, your astrological background, how your brain will function, any special bodily conditions you might be "born with" or manifest early, any scenarios which will arise, who you will meet and when, what lessons/trials you will be exposed to, and so on. Sometimes people's life lessons turn out to be too strong and the person is allowed to "die early" in order to "rest" between lifetimes. Love is compassionate not cruel. It's like we're all people with mental illness who are gradually going through a healing process and there is give and take and always a gentleness in terms of "mercy" from God about what you can tolerate.

12) There is some truth to the idea that God only gives you lessons you can handle, although this speaks more to the script you chose knowing what it would likely entail and also knowing the long-term outcome if you were to be successful at learning from it. Since you know, when not incarnate, the long-term goal of being with God, and can see sense in "whatever it takes to get there", you are WILLING to expose yourself to all manner of positive and negative situations AS NEEDED in order to awaken. What seems like short-term suffering can ultimately be a blessing in the long-term plan.

13) In the biggest possible picture, there never was a real separation or any real time. However our belief in it made it seem real to us, which is why we "need" these "scripts" to help us learn that it is not so. We wrote the need for the scripts, the Holy Spirit provided the curriculum for the correction. That means we wrote a script with the ego for what we wanted to be true, and Holy Spirit wrote a counter-script of lessons and learning which would lead us back to what is really true. The time you elect to LEARN His curriculum is up to you. No-one is forcing you to be awake and no-one is keeping you asleep.

14) Ultimately free will is only free when it is embracing freedom which means embracing God's Will. It is free in Heaven. It is free to willingly choose to agree with God's will and to extend it in joy and love. That is why it was given you, that you would share and increase it. When you will against yourself/God, you are trying to NOT will, which renders your will ineffectual, and stops your will. Thus your will seems to become powerless and you turn to wishful thinking which produces no effects. As you regain your power and your will becomes more whole, you become stronger in the truth and more miraculous, and more able to consciously will whatever you want to happen. Ultimately you can master this to the point where EVEN in this world, what you desire happens and what you do not desire does not happen. At that point, you do not need corrective scripts because you are not writing ego scripts.

15) While from a high vantage point it seems all of time was "written" at once, or all possible moments of time were expressed simultaneously, they were organized by the Holy Spirit into a linear sequence NOT as an ego creation but as part of His plan of atonement, in order to USE TIME for the purpose of learning, and when time's usefulness for leaning is done, it will be UNMADE. Our ego self perceives time as linear in an attempt to believe in appearances, but time is not inherently linear.

16) From a high vantage point, the time that you began dreaming and the time that time began and the time that you stop dreaming and the time that time ends, are all essentially seen as happening at once. Dreaming began and God answered it with the Holy Spirit who has already succeeded in undoing it all. We are guaranteed to return to God because God's Answer is perfect and cannot fail. That doesn't mean that "in time" our experience will be as if all of time's events or sequence is pre-written. There is some flexibility built-in. There are multiple "dimensions" to time, parallel timelines, and you can skip between slices of time depending on your willingness to awaken. Nor does it mean that within each slice of time there are only certain pre-scripted actions you can make. YOUR MIND HAS FREE WILL and it can choose to ignore the script if it wants to. That's why the time you take Holy Spirit's curriculum is voluntary. Ultimately, one way or another, from the highest perspective, "all paths lead to God", and Holy Spirit has ensured that they will.

17) Miracles are the only means at your disposal for controlling time. Also miracles entail a shift into vertical perception which positions you and the person you heal further along in time than you were, having skipped an interval. This tells you that since miracles happen within the world `in time`, that they are capable of manipulating time and thus essentially take you out of the script. Ultimately they lead to revelation and atonement, because they are the means of the atonement, and so miracles must be performed in order to receive and give and share the truth, to have it.

That's all for now.

"If you can accept the ONE GENERALIZATION NOW, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons."

Effectively what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach you is ONE LESSON. This one lesson is to learn how to "teach only love", because you are only love. It's to have a single response of love in all situations, to use love's miraculous power to heal all sickness and to solve all problems. To recognize no orders of difficulty or hierarchies of illusion, to see all forms of suffering as the same effect having the same ONE cause. One problem with one solution to rule them all.

Over time, in the application of what may seem like more specific lessons, ultimately what you are LEARNING is really to simply be as God created you. To be loving. To be singular, or ONE. One in character and substance and nature and identity and attitude and response. One single way of always consistently being the same, in complete disregard for any illusions of forms or differences. Completely ignoring orders of magnitude or difficulty or importance or seriousness or size or duration or any other property.

As we gradually "polish" our minds from seeming to be fragmented, with different responses for different people, different relationships with different individuals, different reactions to different objects, different meanings for different things, we gradually GENERALIZE the learning and move into a much more ABSTRACT state of mind. A much more singular state of mind, whole and one and unified and undivided and free from conflicts. Being so one, this state of mind - miracle mindedness, houses the power of love and truth and sees all things from a single perspective.

This is the ONE LESSON which the Holy Spirit is teaching, behind all the lessons in the workbook, behind all the text material and all thoughts and life lessons/trials, behind all relationships and dramas, the simple movement away from complexity and multiplicities of action, towards simple unification, integration, wholeness and oneness. This lays the groundwork for one-mindedness, which is a state of complete abstract purity and wholeness, in which the entirety of everything acts as one with no conflict or difference or adjustment to conditions.

Unconditional love is completely ignorance of conditions. It ignores the form of problems, the shapes of bodies, the types of sickness, the reasons for their supposed causation, the worldly powers, the forces of nature, the laws of physics, the many rules and regulations. It doesn't even care to need to know how something came about, to analyze it or diagnose it or figure out the complicated pathways of cause and effect. It simply APPLIES ITSELF singularly by giving itself and sharing itself, to increase itself and to supply the lack - the lack of love, the lack of unification, or seeming unwholeness, which is the basis for all suffering.

Learn this ONE LESSON, and you are done with the curriculum forever. See past the illusion of separations, which gives rise to countless numbers of bits and pieces. Look to the one vision to show you the one true reality. And you will rise above the fragmented battlefield into the wholeness of light.

"The secret of salvation is but this: That YOU are doing this UNTO YOURSELF." "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."

"My one lesson, which I must teach as I learned, is that no perception which is out of accord with the judgment of the Holy Spirit CAN be justified." "That is why you must teach only ONE lesson. If you are to be conflict free yourselves, you must learn ONLY from the Holy Spirit, and teach ONLY by Him."

"We said before that the message of the Crucifixion was teach ONLY love, for that is what you ARE. This is the ONE lesson which is perfectly unified, because it is the only lesson which IS one. And only BY teaching it can YOU learn it."

"As the teacher of God advances in his training, he learns one lesson with increasing thoroughness. He does not make his own decisions; he asks his Teacher for His answer, and it is this he follows as his guide for action. This becomes easier and easier, as the teacher of God learns to give up his own judgment."

"But the Holy Spirit teaches one lesson and applies it to ALL individuals in ALL situations. Being conflict free, He maximizes ALL efforts and ALL results. By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS. Its application does not matter. It is ALWAYS maximal."

"Thus is YOUR healing everything the world requires, that it may be healed. It needs ONE lesson that has perfectly been learned."

"As you perceive more and more common elements in ALL situations, the transfer of your training, under the Holy Spirit's guidance increases and becomes generalized. Gradually, you learn to apply it to everyone and everything, for its applicability IS universal. When this has been accomplished, perception and knowledge have become so similar that they share the unification of the Laws of God. What is One cannot be perceived as separate, and the denial of the separation IS the reinstatement of knowledge."

"The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another."

"the impairment of the ability to generalize is a crucial learning failure" "Place cause and effect in their true sequence in one respect, and the learning will generalize and transform the world."

"The specificity of the ego's thinking, then, results in a spurious kind of generalization, which is really not abstract at all. It will respond in certain specific ways to all stimuli which it perceives as related. In contrast, the Soul reacts in the same way to everything it knows is true, and does not respond at all to anything else."

"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized ONLY by its RESULTS. Its GENERALIZATION is demonstrated as you use it in more and more situations. You will recognize that you have learned there is no order of difficulty in miracles, when you have applied them to ALL situations. For there IS no situation to which miracles do not apply, and by applying them TO all situations, you will gain the REAL world."

"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. Perceiving His RESULTS, you will understand where He MUST be, and finally KNOW what He is."

It is to clearly recognize when something is an illusion and when it is reality.

It is only because we have become convinced that illusions are real, that they have truth to them, and give them credit, that we are experiencing sleep.

Unconsciousness is denial, which is an attempt to not be aware of the factual truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Instead we have attempted to block the truth, so that we might have an opportunity to believe that something else is the truth, without the real truth distracting us or reminding us of what the truth is.

We had to hide from God, which seems like hiding God, in order to be as close as possible to forgetting the truth. Otherwise we could not possibly give even a moment's attention to illusions which are unreal.

We wouldn't be able to even potentially believe illusions are truth while the real truth was glaringly obvious, but with the real truth out of sight, illusions appear to be plausible.

Unawareness of the real truth makes it "easier" to believe in an illusion of truth. The purpose of the illusion then is to hide the real truth and substitute for it, replacing it with some other form of meaning.

Even though spiritual lessons may show up in a variety of forms and feature different people and problems, they are all still basically the same one lesson. They are all exercises in learning what is true and what is false. Learning to recognize an illusion for what it is, rather than make it real and react to it.

When we believe an illusion has truth to it, we will have a whole cascade of reactions and counter-perceptions which arise out of that fundamental sense of reality. We might think our lesson is to deal with those reactions or overcome them, but ultimately the lesson is only learning to "see through" the illusion.

To overlook the claim of an illusion and not see it as the truth, to not believe in it, and to not fall for its tricks, is simply an act of forgiveness. Forgiveness is therefore the answer to all lessons. To put it even more clearly, forgiveness is the ONLY answer to ALL problems. It is not one of many options, it is the only option.

To remain deluded is unforgiveness, judgement, and attack. To forgive is to learn to see clearly what the truth is, which will put everything into its proper perspective and show the illusion for what it is. When the truth is present, there is so much obvious evidence that the illusion is false, you can't help but recognize it as false. It's obvious, without any particular effort or skill needed to see it as such.

Forgiveness isn't an interpretation of illusions. It's not an attempt to twist your way of looking or to strain or make effort to see in a certain way. Forgiveness is completely effortless and natural. It looks upon illusions in stillness, doing nothing, and simply recognizing them for what they are. They are false. They are untrue. They are not reality.

This is how simple it all comes down to. Every lesson is a lesson in forgiveness. Every lesson presents illusions which you initially believe are true, are dangerous, are able to affect you, or prove that God is dead. Learning to sort out the evidence and become aware of a greater truth is the only way out of the lesson. Learning to discern true from false.

All lessons are learned the same way. Once forgiveness has come to establish a clear perception - true perception - of what the truth really is and what is false, the lesson is over, and the need for the lesson is over. Forgiveness is a permanent correction of sight.

To forgive or not to forgive, that is the question. Forgiveness is the answer.

Jesus merely asks us to choose again. To keep choosing again until we make the correct choice.

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

He tells us that whenever we are not at peace, ie suffering in any form, it is because we have chosen to do so, and this resulted from making a wrong decision. We chose to suffer, and this was a mistake. He now invites us to try again to choose heaven, heaven being a choice I must make.

"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.""

We are exercising our free will at all times, our ability to choose freely. Anything that we experience other than peace and joy and love is because we chose it. We can only attack ourselves and are the only one able to seem to hurt ourselves through a mistaken choice. And we have just as much power to choose otherwise.

"And you will understand that miracles reflect the simple statement, "I have done this thing, and it is this I would undo.""

"Mind is the mechanism of decision."

At all times, we are simply deciding. We are simply choosing. Do I want to accept that I am as God created me still, and therefore accept the whole Atonement principle and return to awareness of my soul, or do I want to continue choosing to suffer in various ways. It is up to me.

"God does not coerce."

"Learn of His happiness, which is yours. But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth, and joyously laid down, by hands open to receive, not closed to take. Every dark lesson that you bring to Him Who teaches light, He will accept FROM you, BECAUSE YOU DO NOT WANT IT. And He will gladly EXCHANGE each one for the bright lesson He has learned FOR you."

Lessons are nothing other than choices. By choosing that you want something, you put yourself into a psychological position. You have taught yourself that something seems to be true which is not, through a mistaken choice. Now the lesson is that you must unlearn this mistaken choice and re-learn or remember what the truth really is.

All lessons have the same outcome of re-accessing God's truth, because the only universal curriculum (which is mandatory) is the same for everyone - learning the single simple truth of God and awakening to acceptance of it.

What seem to be trials are simply present conditions that have been chosen, or scenarios arranged, offering an opportunity to change your mind about what you want, to learn to forgive and overlook rather than to use these mistaken selections to hurt yourself.

Always it is simply a matter of, what do I want. Do I want the world more than I want God? What do I value? What do I accept as true? What am I willing to do and accept? Do I want heaven today or do I want hell? It's up to you, you have the freedom always to come and go as you wish. And God waits patiently for you to freely choose to return Home to Him.

If you are suffering, you chose to. If you are experiencing unlove, you chose not to love yourself. If you are sick, you wanted to be for a reason. If you are happy, you chose only happiness for yourself. If you feel attacked, you decided to feel attacked. If you are in pain, the pain is serving your wishes. Only if this is true is the secret of salvation true without exception, and only if this is true is there any kind of hope for escape from hell by your own choice.

"In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity you face, Christ calls to you, and gently says, "My brother, choose again.""

"Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His holy sight."

"For you WILL hear, and you WILL choose again. And in this choice is everyone made free."

"The power of decision is my own. .... 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."

"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. For thus am I led past this world to my creations, children of my Will, in Heaven where my holy Self abides with them, and Him Who has created me."

Where could be absolutely no sympathy for victims, IF you could clearly see that the victim is 100% choosing everything that happens to them.

If someone is suffering with sickness and disease, you might feel sympathetic toward them, but would you feel this way if you could clearly see that the person was causing this themselves on purpose? If they were deliberately putting the sickness in place and making it happen, would you feel sympathetic as though it were happening against their will?

If someone is afraid, you might feel sympathetic and sorry for them, but would you feel this way if you knew that this person was completely making up every single part of this fear? That they did not really have any need to be afraid and were just pretending to be afraid?

If someone is feeling guilty, you might feel sympathy for them, but would you feel sympathy if you knew they were totally making up all of the guilt, had absolutely no real need to be guilty, were just pretending to be guilty and it was all just a big lie?

If someone were riddled with sinfulness and remorse over some terrible thing they did, would you feel any sympathy for them if you could clearly see that, in fact, and in truth, they had not only not done anything wrong whatsoever, but also you could see clearly that they were just pretending to be sinful, were putting on a big show, and were totally faking it?

See .... we have all these ways in which we support, protect, reinforce, and make real, all of these layers of suffering... all of these experiences, in which it SEEMS like the person is not choosing, does not want it, did not create it, hasn't contributed to it, and therefore they are this sort of innocent victim.

The fact is that the APPEARANCE of someone being an innocent victim is nothing more than an ILLUSION. It's an illusion, because it seems to paint a picture that could be believable ONLY IF you were unaware of the whole picture of what is going on. You only fall for it and have a response of sympathy, based on the fact that YOU were fooled by their trickery, YOU fell for the deception, and YOU failed to have the ability to see through/past/beyond/overlook what APPEARS to be a "real problem".

Your unawareness causes you to react to things that you see as though they are real, ONLY because you do not recognize that it is an illusion, and you do not SEE what is really going on. You don't have all the information. And only when you are lacking information could you believe, for an instant, that someone is ACTUALLY a victim. If you do not see the ways they are choosing, and if you do not recognize their immense power, and if you forget that they can create anything, and if you are unaware of how they've set up the entire event - EVEN IF within the event it looks totally obvious that the world has transpired against the person - against their seeming will - it's STILL an illusion. The person is STILL choosing it.

Nothing happens against your will. Nothing happens to anyone against their will. Absolutely every event in 'life' is planned, orchestrated, chosen on purpose, and set in place, and set in motion, and ENACTED BY, every person that is involved. Cooperatively, deliberately, and on purpose. Because it serves the overall intention of spiritual growth, learning lessons, proceeding in awakening, and the ULTIMATE goal of returning to God.

This goal is so far-reaching and so long-term and so FIXATED on being accomplished, that we even create scripts in which we suffer and die and have disease and are attacked brutally JUST SO THAT there will be something that will happen to our mind, something that MIGHT just trigger us to take steps towards truth, towards God, towards love. These are just lessons. Horrible nasty painful lessons, sometimes, but STILL chosen. Still agreed to.

The days of the innocent victim are numbered. Its game is up.

In A Course in Miracles, there is a sequence of workbook lessons which clarify this point, and which specifically contrasts Heaven and Earth, even using the term "Earth".

The lessons are:

128: "The world I see holds nothing that I want"

129: "Beyond this world there is a word I want"

130: "It is impossible to see two worlds"

131: "No-one can fail who seeks to reach the truth"

128: Refers to what you see with false perception, a distorted view of the Earth, which shows you what seems to be "hell" due to your misinterpretation.

129: Refers to the possibility of seeing the Earth in a different way. It refers to true perception. It suggests you would want to see the forgiven world rather than hell. It ALSO touches upon there being ANOTHER experience even beyond true perception, a third kind of world, which you will at some point go to... a place which is difficult to describe, but this basically is a reference to Heaven.

130: Tells us that we will either see the world of false perception or true perception - hell, or the "real world" (which is not real). This lesson helps you to get into the swing of practicing distinguishing between the world you don’t want (false perception) and the one you do (true perception).

131: This is the clincher. Jesus now speaks of the contrast between BOTH of these worlds, and Heaven. It literally makes statements about "Earth" using that word, and how this place YOU MADE, is not the likes of which God would create, nor can there be an opposite to the "Heaven" which was introduced in Lesson 129. It contrasts Heaven vs Earth in black and white terms, to teach you that even beyond the Earth that you see with true perception, there is ANOTHER PLACE - Heaven - which is the ONLY PLACE that GOD CREATED.

Let’s look at 131 closer.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made (Earth) and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself 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."

This clearly is telling us, that Earth (the physical planet) is the TOTAL OPPOSITE to Heaven. Not your perception of Earth. Not false perception or true perception. EARTH. Planet Earth. Solid matter. God did not make two minds, whereby Heaven is one of those minds, and Earth is the other. God ONLY CREATED HEAVEN.

This is what is BEYOND the world of perception, beyond true perception (forgiven/real world) and beyond false perception (hell). Heaven is NOT the Earth. Heaven is NOT hell. Heaven is NOT the real world. Heaven is BEYOND ALL OF THIS.

He continues:

"How could the Son of God make time to take away the Will of God? He thus denies himself, and contradicts what has no opposite. He thinks he made a hell opposing Heaven, and believes that he abides in what does not exist, while Heaven is the place he cannot find."

He (the Son) thinks he made the Earth, which Jesus just told us is the OPPOSITE of Heaven and opposite to God’s creation. He abides in it (planet Earth) and cannot find Heaven (because Heaven is beyond the dream). Here Jesus also tells us that the hell we made DOES NOT EXIST, refering to the entire EARTH as not existing. And it is exactly this that "there is no world" means!

Jesus also goes on in this lesson to tell us how to practice finding the door to heaven and to go there, where Angels will, light the way and that we cannot fail if we seek to find the truth.

These lessons also correlate directly to Jesus teaching us that God could NOT have created a cruel world where children are born and lose love and wither and suffer and die, which is another reference to EARTH, not perception.

In so many ways, the course tells us that God did not create this world, this planet, or this universe, and that heaven is the ONLY HOME He created, which is beyond all form and beyond this world. Beyond Earth.

Earth, the strange world you made, is simply going to fall away into the nothingness from which it sprang. It is not going to be converted into Heaven, or kept in any way, because it is a world YOU DO NOT WANT, is an opposite to Heaven, and Love HAS NO OPPOSITE. Therefore, Earth does not exist. Hence, "THERE IS NO WORLD" is the she thing as "THERE IS NO EARTH".

You do not want this world. Heaven is EVERYTHING compared to this nothingness.

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.

If all moments of time were expressed all at once before time existed, then it seems to make sense that "the future" has already been determined because it has already been expressed.

If the "script" of all moments in time was "written" ie put into place, all at once, then within linear time the future is essentially pre-written.

Also if you time travel, whenever you go into a moment in the past, you will find that you experience it as though it is the present - as if "now" is 1952. Similarly in the future, no matter what the date, it will seem that "now" it is that time.

This seems to suggest a sense of "fate" or destiny, whereby whatever will happen or is happening or has happened was all written at once, not on a moment-by-moment basis.

The Holy Spirit nevertheless is able to collapse dimensions or segments or time, based on your learning of lessons.

There are references to "all the dimensions of time" in the Course, suggesting that there are perhaps multiple timelines - all pre-written, and you might shift between them.

It is also said that when we separated and made the world, Holy Spirit came with us and had a hand in organizing it. "There are two makers of the world". So now all the stuff we made, that we pre-wrote, has been restructured in some way to lead to heaven.

This all seems to suggest that we're just strapped into some kind of rollercoaster ride with no choices, as though we are just the movie itself playing. If this were the case, there is absolutely no "choice" or freedom in this scenario.

Yet think of Jesus performing miracles, undoing and reversing sickness, overcoming death, becoming free of the script entirely, able to manipulate objects and defy all of the laws that were made by the ego. It would seem that he attained freedom and the flexibility to not be bound by the script. We would say now that He is completely free of it, able to do anything.

So, the script is only in play if you are in the ego and remaining unconscious? Based in the perception that stuff (script) happens to you against your will? How can there be any victimhood script when you are choosing not to be a victim, not to play along?

It's not as though you are forced to be a victim to the same degree and intensity right up till the moment of awakening. And let's remember that events are designed by the one who has your best interests, Holy Spirit.

It is also said there are two scripts. Since Holy Spirit had a hand in reorganizing and repurposing what we made, not just as a 'way of looking at it' but to actually rearrange time and the sequence of events, there was the ego's attempted purpose for what it made, and then there is Holy Spirit's use of it. A use which we need to learn to trust.

If all events here are lessons and we're not supposed to be hanging out in a make-believe world anyway, it seems to suggest we are to simply follow Holy Spirit's plan and trust Him and eventually this will lead to the gates of Heaven.

If we are simply "wearing" a lifetime, like a piece of clothing, for purposes of waking up, to use it as a choice to experience a certain set of events as a certain person, then it doesn't seem quite so restrictive.

Has everything been made already, or can you change anything at all? It would seem you can change things. Miracles, right? Miracles reverse what we made. Miracles undo the script.

Holy cow...

Workbook lesson 38.. ONLY number 38... and yet.... this powerful message:

"There is nothing my holiness cannot do."

Talk about hitting the ground running. It also says:

"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."

So early in the book and I know for a fact that when I went through these earlier lessons I felt so new to all this terminology and stuff, talking about me being "holy" .. I probably could not really relate to it or believe it. It seemed so lofty and advanced. It still does somewhat, but maybe I have made some progress ;-)

There is NOTHING my holiness cannot do because its unlimited power comes from God!

Suck that, ego world.

Very often, Jesus would say to me, "it's fine". And I would be like, "how is this fine?" I would be upset about something, there'd be some physical medical issue to deal with, some seeming tragic loss, something going wrong. How can it be fine? Then my wife died and once again he was like "this is good", "it's fine". And again I was challenged to try to be open to accepting this, somehow.

I see now that the reason that "it's fine", no matter what happens, is because there is a bigger picture. There is a journey that the soul goes through across multiple lifetimes. The soul is immortal and cannot be truly hurt or lost or damaged. It certainly can never die or be sick. So that radically changes the perspective on what physical matters really mean or whether they're fine or not. Souls use bodies for a purpose, and that is all.

Everything is "fine" because nothing can really hurt who we really are, and we're just using this world as a temporary classroom to learn lessons. Sometimes we leave the classroom and then return at another time, in another body, with other people, in another place with another life. It's all fine. It's even fine if the person seems to die. How can it really be wrong or a fault or something bad if it's part of the soul's journey, even what they want, even chosen, and even part of a much bigger plan of salvation? Death doesn't mean anything good or bad, it is meaningless.

Recognizing the sheer reach of the soul on its journey through many lifetimes, its involvement in multiple serious relationships, having multiple bodies, experiencing many locations and families, many sets of parents, many lovers, many children, many conflicts, etc, it's a vast and deep and far-reaching story. Souls come and go many times with many relationships.

The much longer-term purpose is that the soul wants to reunite with God and awaken from the dream permanently, and to that end it will practically be willing to experience anything and everything if it helps toward that goal. No matter what it looks like. That puts a very different perspective on whether the things that happen, the disabilities we have, the limitations, the hardships, are really "wrong" or whether they are for a bigger purpose that we consent to. And we must remember the soul itself can never be hurt.

We only think that something is wrong when we have a special-relationship kind of viewpoint. Our ego becomes invested in this world, in bodies, in physical relations, and identifying as a human body. And then all manner of self-interest arises, attachment to other bodies, wanting to avoid death at all costs, an entire culture built around bodily living etc.

But death really is just an exit from the world as the soul carries on and continues its much, much longer path toward God. In fact death can be a liberating event for many because it represents escape from physical suffering. It is only the "dying" and being trapped in a body while it malfunctions that seems to bring suffering. As the body appears to degrade and suffer and die it seems the person does also, but in truth nothing changes the soul. Only the mind needs changing.

When Jesus tells me enthusiastically that it's "good" that a person has died, or "its fine" that someone has gone through a sickness, or "okay" that someone has had an amputation, I trust it to mean that in the really, really big picture it really is fine. Jesus was telling me it was fine when the doctors wanted to chop half her leg off. I couldn't grasp it whatsoever, but I see now it really was no big deal, as far as the soul is concerned. Who cares about bodies anyway?

Yes it seems like temporary setbacks, as the world judges it. It seems like a horrible suffering and an awful tragedy, as the world judges it. Sometimes it seems completely unfair and horrifying and terrifying, as the world judges it. All revolving around trying to keep people bodily identified and staying in this world for as long as possible. But there is a much higher purpose, a much longer-term goal, and a much deeper willingness at work. And being here for a long time isn't even that important when you're a multi-dimensional, multi-lifetime being.

I once had a dream where I seemed to go through a tremendously long obstacle course. It was fraught with difficulty and cuts and scrapes and bushes and barbed wire and mud and all kinds of upsetting scenarios. It seemed to go on forever. It was like a long and hard struggle, seemingly filled with suffering and difficulty, and by the time it was done I was pretty much exhausted and traumatized.

But then I came out into a clearing, and a guide or angel was there. And I asked, why did I have to go through all that? Because it seemed pointless and cruel and stupid. And the answer was in the form of a question - "what purpose might there be that you would be willing to go through all that, if it meant that you could achieve a goal?" And I thought for a moment and realized, that if the goal were the return to God, and if I needed lessons and challenges to get me there, then I would be willing to go through just about anything in order to attain that ultimate prize, the ultimate reunion with my creator. Even if it meant what the world would think of as horrendous suffering.

That's the perspective of the soul - a willingness to endure hardships and seeming limitations and even sickness and death if it means, potentially, the opportunity for learning, growth, for developing holy relationships, and for ultimately awakening from the whole dream. Nothing happens without a reason or a purpose. And it's all designed to carefully, and consensually, lead us toward the end game of reunion with God.

There is an atonement plan specifically designed by God to get us home efficiently and as gently as possible, but it does mean we're going to have to go through some challenges. There is an entire curriculum at work, many people that have to be encountered, many events which have to transpire. All designed carefully through the Holy Spirit to guide us home as quickly as we are willing. A hard life isn't a wasted life, it's a life used constructively for significant growth towards the final goal. Anything here can be used for the Holy Spirit's purposes.

"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."

"All things are Lessons God would have me learn."

It's important to realize the role of the Holy Spirit. We have A Course in Miracles, a book, which has teachings and theory and lessons and so on. And you could conclude this means all you need to do is use the book. But there are two things much bigger than the book.

1. The universal curriculum, is the plan of atonement, which applies to everyone in the universe regardless of backgrounds or beliefs or life experiences or religions, even if they've never heard of ACIM. Everything that happens, all lessons, all encounters, are orchestrated for a purpose of atonement. This goes way beyond the book. It includes everything that happens every day.

2. The Holy Spirit is God's literal answer to the separation. His function is not only to maintain an unbreakable bridge between your wandering mind and the Christ mind, guaranteeing that you will come home. He also is a healer, therapist, teacher, guide, helper, comforter, and friend. His presence isn't like some person sitting at the top of a mountain waiting for you to go up there to join him. He has an active function.

He is there to help you. He has been appointed to you, given to you, added to you. He is not just some principle or concept. He doesn't just sit there shining a light and asking you to join him. He actively comes INTO your dreaming mind. He can extend through the body. He can heal the body. He can perform miracles - he is the mechanism of miracles.

He enables you to do things which are so supernatural they are clearly not of this world and break all the laws of space and time and physics. He is the way by which Moses parted the oceans, and the way by which Jesus raised the dead. He can come into your body, into your emotions, into your thinking. He can influence you, direct you, guide you, even literally speak through your mouth. He can move your limbs. He tells you very specifically what to do. He counsels you and advises you and corrects you and steers you in the right direction.

He has the power to reverse death and sickness and all forms of suffering. He is a living spirit, with a mind, a Holy Spirit, able to literally guarantee the correction of every illusion, every form of mental or physical illness, to reverse death, and ultimately to completely undo the separation. He is the initiator of the atonement, he has the power to part oceans and to move mountains. There is nothing he cannot do.

So as we go forth working with the course, doing lessons and studying and discussing and so on, we really should be trying to get in touch with and develop trust in the Holy Spirit as much as possible. We need to be having a daily relationship with him. To talk to him, to ask questions, to have conversations. We need to be listening to and following his guidance with trust. We need to be allowing him to heal us and to heal through us, even physically.

The Holy Spirit is the power by which the disciples of Jesus go out to be physicians of the lord, healing the sick, casting out "evil spirits", raising the dead and so on. He was made accessible to all people when Jesus ascended, to stand in for Jesus and to be a way by which we can all express the same miraculous powers that Jesus demonstrated. We are to be livened and infused with him. Lifted up by him.

He is the power by which our physical bodies are supposed to be healed, for all signs of sickness and death and attack to be undone and reversed, so that He can use our bodies as "living examples" of harmlessness, symbolic eternal life, aliveness and health. To use our bodies to communicate the only thing that he can communicate - healing. We are to share his function with him on earth, which is healing. We are to be healers, using him and working with him to heal through us to help others be alleviated of suffering and darkness.

So the Holy Spirit is really super important. More important than the book. The book is only a beginning and a major goal is to put you in touch with and develop trust in the Holy Spirit so that he can continue to be your Teacher going forward, to continue to develop your miracle working abilities and to strength and support you. We are supposed to be using this help that God has sent to us, which absolutely means not doing everything yourself, not thinking of it as a "self study", opening ourselves up to rely on, depend on and trust the support of this living being that has been sent to guide us home.

It is our task to listen ONLY to the Voice for God and not to the ego.

"What the Holy Spirit enables you to do is clearly not of this world."

"The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles."

"The Holy Spirit can use ALL that you give to Him for your salvation."

"The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations"

"Power is of God, GIVEN by Him, and re-awakened by the Holy Spirit"

"When you hear the Holy Spirit, you merely feel BETTER, because loving seems POSSIBLE to you."

"Christ's Second Coming gives the Son of God the gift to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is false, and what is true has never changed."

"Whatever your appointed role may be it was selected by the Voice for God"

"Henceforth, hear but the Voice for God and for your Self when you retire from the world, to seek reality instead."

"Be very still, and hear the gentle Voice for God assuring you"

"If you cannot hear the voice of God, it is because you do not choose to listen. "

"He will direct you VERY specifically. "

"Ask Him very specifically: "What would You have me do?" "Where would You have me go?" "What would You have me say, and to whom?" Give Him full charge"

"Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS."

"The happy dreams the Holy Spirit brings"

"Healing IS the Holy Spirit's form of communication, and the ONLY one He knows."

"Healing is the change of mind that the Holy Spirit in the patient's mind is seeking for him. And it is the Holy Spirit in the mind of the giver Who gives the gift to him."

"There is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks YOUR help, if you would have HIS."

"We have said that the Holy Spirit is the MOTIVATION for miracles."

"Right-mindedness listens to the Holy Spirit, forgives the world"

"To you who still believe you live in time, and know not it is gone, the Holy Spirit still guides you through the infinitely small and senseless maze you still perceive in time, though it has long since gone."

"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."

"Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

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

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

I WILL to decide 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."

As usual, the ego has a version of whatever the Holy Spirit has, seeking to replace it and obscure it.

It has its own version of healing, its own version of forgiveness, its own version of helpfulness, its own version of service, its own version of happiness, its own version of love, its own version of life.

If you are involved with the ego's version of any of these things, then you have lessons to learn and a clarity to attain.

The ego has a version of being helpful which involves destroying others through service.

The ego has a version of love which involves trying to take away from others what you want them to do for you.

The ego has a version of happiness which entails complete dependency on the random whim of chaos.

The ego has a version of healing based on attack and sacrifice and making sickness more real.

The ego has a version of service based on self-sacrifice and disownership of true responsibility.

In every way the ago has formed a new version of everything, even with its own version of God.

The ego's version of God is a parent who dictates and condemns and wills that you be dead. Fun.

For karma to be possible, you'd have to believe that you are capable of really doing something to someone else.

The only thing that can ever really be shared is love. You are only ever attacking yourself. And you do not really have any ability to effect another person. They are incapable of being attacked by you unless they first attack themselves and then put the effects of the attack onto themselves using their own mind.

Nobody has ever really attacked anyone because it's impossible. There are no real victims.

So this idea that you actually "do something" to someone, and have to then "pay for it" with some kind of revenge-balancing system, is bogus.

The only way it might operate is that if you believe that you are attacking someone else, but are actually attacking yourself, IF you don't learn that you are attacking yourself and undo YOUR OWN self attack, then you might need "lessons" that show up externally in order for you to learn to love yourself. But it can't be happening as some kind of attempt to "balance" a debt or to ATONE for some sin that you really committed. The only purpose can be the UNDOING of the belief in sinfulness.

Karma is a belief that sin is real. Sin is not real.

The only "karma" you need be concerned with is what you are doing TO YOURSELF.

There is only one curriculum. It is God's curriculum. It applies to EVERYONE, no matter how awake or asleep or in what walk or life or following what religion, even people who have never heard of A Course in Miracles. There is a difference between ACIM - the book, the course - and "the universal curriculum", which applies to everyone, book or not.

The curriculum is REQUIRED, in that there is only ONE truth, and every single soul has to find their way TO that one truth eventually. The truth is non-negotiable. "The time you take it is voluntary", and you can go closer and retreat and get lost and come back again etc but generally speaking "the truth" is the curriculum that you need to learn, ie the atonement, and either you learn it or you avoid it for a while, but *everyone* HAS to learn it. Because it's God's guarantee that you WILL wake up from dreaming.

God's ANSWER to the separation, which includes ALL PEOPLE, is the Holy Spirit, who he created AS the answer. Not just a bunch of information. Not just some "optional path". He is IN YOUR MIND as a spirit being, and he forms the Christ Mind, which ALL souls share. It is *IMPOSSIBLE* to be awakened and to exclude the Holy Spirit. The truth that you learn, true perception, IS HIS perception. You can only "learn it", by joining YOUR perception with HIS and aligning with His way of seeing. There is NO OTHER way, other than the ego's.

So essentially the Holy Spirit, sooner or later, is going to form a relationship with you, you are going to develop trust, you're going to open up to Him and work with Him. He is your TEACHER. Jesus also calls him "the only therapist", due to His position of knowing the truth. There is only one truth no matter who you are.

This applies to all Christians, Jews, Muslims, Catholics, Buddhists, Hindu folk, you name it. The Holy Spirit is *unavoidable* in the curriculum process. Indeed Jesus says that you must learn to join your mind with His and SHARE His mind. You cannot avoid Jesus either. And that's probably something that might piss off some people following the FORM of other paths. That is why Jesus CORRECTLY and truthfully said, "I am the way the truth and the light and no one comes to the father but by me."

Additionally, though some will not like this fact either, being a miracle worker is a God-given right and *completely natural* for anyone who is joining with the Holy Spirit's thought system and waking up to the truth. Removal of blocks to awareness releases or rather stops interfering with miracles, and "miracle working" becomes your natural profession. As Jesus says also, once you accept the atonement you become PART OF the atonement plan and then you PROFESS HIM... ie express Him, because "atonement is the natural profession of the children of God." And that applies to ALL SOULS, no matter how ACIM-oriented you seem to be right now.

The fact is that as you approach the truth and merge with love etc, you WILL, MUST, CANNOT AVOID, becoming miraculous. It is your nature. God created you miraculously and you are miraculous forever. And so you WILL perform miracles as part of your function of healing on Earth. Anyone who "doesn't like" the idea of performing miracles FOR OTHERS (professing Jesus) is going to run into a roadblock at some point because miracles are NATURAL and *EVERYONE* is supposed to be doing them.

So long story short, the curriculum is not optional, nor is becoming intimate with Holy Spirit, nor is having a direct relationship with Jesus, nor is miracle working. This is why Jesus also says you MUST join the great crusade with Him as an active worker. It's not even something you would want NOT to do. It's a given. Part of the metaphysics. You become part of the atonement PLAN which goes far beyond yourself and helps others.

So all this stuff IS MANDATORY. You can, however, avoid it. You can be in denial of it. You can try to reject it. You can refuse to accept it. But it does not change the facts or the truth. At some point, everyone is going to return to God through the universal curriculum. They MIGHT not necessarily do it through the FORMAT of "A Course in Miracles", the book, with the lessons etc... they MIGHT come to it through what SEEM like "other paths", but no matter the appearance of the path, it is ALL part of God's curriculum for awakening, which MUST include the Holy Spirit, joining with ALL brothers including Jesus, and taking lessons to learn the SAME truth as everyone.

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.

Notice here that Jesus says that you CAN use meditation as a way to go ALL the way to atonement. Without a holy relationship. But that a holy relationship is perhaps "more efficient" because it provides a learning environment in which both can benefit quickly.

"Nor is a lifetime of contemplation, and long periods of meditation aimed at DETACHMENT from the body necessary. ***All such attempts will ultimately succeed***, because of their purpose. But the ***means*** are tedious and very time consuming, for all of them LOOK TO THE FUTURE for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy.

Your way will be different. ***NOT in purpose***, but in means. ***A HOLY RELATIONSHIP IS A MEANS*** OF SAVING TIME. One instant spent TOGETHER restores the universe to BOTH of you."

So a holy relationship is a way to SAVE TIME, compared to other pathways to God, but it is not the only way, or a required way. You can get there solely through meditation/contemplation as well. You can get there in a cave, or you can get there in a crowd. It doesn't matter.

PURPOSE is what's important. "because of their purpose" ..... if meditation is used for the PURPOSE of reaching God then it will succeed. If a special relationship is used for a PURPOSE of reaching God (ie a holy relationship) it will succeed. If the WORLD or the BODY are used for a purpose of reaching God, they will succeed.

It's always about the repurposing of what the ego made, which covers not just relationships but also the world and the body and perception and time and space and illusions. The whole thing is a MEANS for getting you home. And all such approaches CAN work.

A Holy Relationship can save time because it can be kind of a crash course, an intensive, a cooperative mirroring scenario in which two people are striving for the same purpose/intention, and so can help each other and support each other. That can work more effectively than "going it alone". But going it alone also can work.

Everyone's path is different and a holy relationship is not REQUIRED as such. But IF you are having relationships (special ones), converting them into holy relationships will be beneficial for achieving the goal. And they are nothing more than a MEANS to an end, not an end in themselves.

Jesus also talks about how some people realize the truth on their death bed, alone. Some realize it through many other paths. Some realize it through doing the lessons and the course. All of it is valid. Every repurposing of ANY aspect of the world is a way to go home. Any re-use or reinterpretation of ANY aspect of "life" here is a way to go home, because it moves you closer to true perception. Relationships with our brothers etc is just one part of that, one example of that.

It may be true that in the atonement plan, some individuals have chosen/agreed to meet due to having the potential for a holy relationship. And it may be that many "pairs" (or more) may come together in the final stages of awakening to wake up together. Which is a beautiful thing. But not an exclusive thing, or a mandated thing. Anyone, no matter their relationships, can always return to God.

The requirements for ascension is only your sole responsibility to accept atonement for yourself. How you GET THERE, is up to you. Whether through relationship transformations or teaching or writing or meditation or strange yogic practices or religion or whatever. Many will get there without ever running into the term "holy relationship" or having a clue what one is. The curriculums are individualized.

Using your relationships as a hotbed for awakening and practicing forgiveness is always a good thing. But ultimately forgiveness is the forgiveness of THE WHOLE UNIVERSE, not just select people, or objects, or pets, or certain bodies, etc. Your entire perspective on this realm has to be transformed. Your entire relationship to the planet, to the galaxy, has to change. Your relationship to time and space has to change. Your mind has to become whole and the entire world has to become "the forgiven world" to you. That is beyond the scope of just your relationships with other people, although they are INCLUDED in it.

Whatever way works for you, whatever is in your curriculum, whatever path you've chosen or lessons you've agreed to undertake, and whatever form that happens in, be it through your intimate relationships or strangers or not even involving other people at all, it's all good and it's all moving you closer to God. Because the only thing stopping you from going home is your willingness to do so. And nothing can hold you in the dream against your will. There is no requirement for entry to heaven other than to get your mind straightened out so that you can accept the Kingdom without reservation.

Everything in the Course makes so much more sense to me now that I see there are MANY INDIVIDUALS in God's creation.

1) Recognizing that you and your BROTHER each have your own mind and your own free will

2) Recognizing that bodies were made to ISOLATE you from your brother

3) Recognizing that healing and miracles take place when you JOIN with your brother

4) Recognizing that what you thought applied only to yourself applies to BOTH of you (golden rule)

5) Recognizing that atonement is chosen be EACH brother individually and you therefore become PART OF the atonement plan to help OTHER brothers

6) Recognizing that miracles are a maximal service you can render A BROTHER, because there are others

7) Recognizing that there is not just one dreamer of the dream and therefore you can wake up while others sleep.

8) Recognizing that you have a self - a soul, which DOES exist, and you DO have a self, and your self IS NOT the ego.

9) Recognizing Holy Relationships - you have to HAVE a brother to have a relationship WITH.

10) Recognizing that YOU have a choice for which you are 100% responsible and to whom nothing happens without your choosing.

So many of the course's teachings RELY on the recognition or multiple brothers. It's got NOTHING to do with the illusion of multiplicity of egos or the separation of bodies. Every teaching becomes FAR clearer and makes much more sense when it very naturally acknowledges that OTHER PEOPLE have their own soul, mind, will, freedom, choice, path, awakening, atonement, lessons, etc.

How we ever could have taken on board the idea of us all being just one big blob with multiple personality disorder is quite bizarre really, and we did it in the name of thinking this was more spiritual.

I've been finding myself lately starting to 'take it to the people'. I don't know how this happened, it was sort of a subtle thing that just seemed like the next right thing.

I find myself in situations where I'm starting to bring what I know of ACIM to help people who are not into ACIM. I don't explicitly state ACIM stuff or quotes or lingo as such, but it's sort of like stepping outside the box and taking it to the streets.

I've had some focus on Jesus's "great crusade" which I posted about recently, about being an active part of the atonement and taking the miracles to the people. Obviously it's not right to only stay 'isolated' within ACIM circles, or to only talk to ACIM people, and to not reach out to those who need help.

It's possible once you have generalized Holy Spirit's lessons, and have grasped the abstract nature of truth, to articulate it in ways that are appropriate for different people. I could target only ACIM people or focus on ACIM 'beginners' which is helpful, but this is very narrow.

I'm not saying I'm leaving ACIM behind at all. I am firmly rooted in it and in Holy Spirit's thought system which becomes clearer all the time. Instead I'm seeing that these truths apply to people all over the place, whether they are into ACIM or not. I am also seeing that certain people, if they are receptive, can be helped with some form of this teaching without them having to explicitly be ACIM students.

The metaphysics in A Course in Miracles is the 'Truth', and is the same truth that applies to everyone everywhere regardless. It's God's laws. It's how things work. Yes there are other paths and other descriptions but there is only really one metaphysics, one Truth. And that gives it universal appeal.

Ultimately this is all about unconditional love, unconditional acceptance, unconditional truth. And that is something to experience within and to express without, including all our brothers.

As within, so without.

This means that when someone is in ego and is trying to attack you, you love them.

This means that when terrible disasters are occurring on the news, you love everyone involved.

This means that when someone is portraying themselves as sick and a victim, you love them.

This means that there is never really anything 'personal' in you that gets engaged with the story or illusion of what seems to be happening.

This means there is only this extending of love and at no point in this is there ever need for concern or fear or wondering what to do or figuring out how to speak or what to say or how to react differently to each situation.

The call for love requires a response of love, and nothing else. But we are extremely conditioned to respond to seemingly individual, separate illusions, with individualized, separate responses, coming from an individual that is separate, in separate ways.

The unification of our response, becoming "always love", is the aim of awakening. It may seem to be a tremendous challenge, to be free of ego reactions and upsets and involvement and interference, especially in the midst of 'temptation' by someone else or when someone's ego or pain is trying to distract your mind or to tempt you into conflict. But even then we are asked to only love.

This is difficult for me to do, and yet this is part of the lessons I am learning now. To choose to love ANYWAY, even if it does not seem called for, even if it is not asked for, even if it doesn't seem warranted or justified or deserved, and even if I am all upset and pissed off because my ego has gotten triggered.

I cannot love all the time. I can only partly love part of the time. But I am learning how loving fully all of the time is the truth of God and the light in which I am set free of my own unlovability. Because the lovability I see in others, is the lovability of myself, and my failure to love them is a failure to love me.

Always love.

There are two approaches to ACIM. One is to learn the theory about what is true or false. The other is to actually change your mind and transform your awareness so that you wake up to experiencing it.

Theory is learned on a horizontal level. It involves the intellect. It involves trying to understand what ACIM says and means. It's analytical and it studies the words, the levels, the structures, the relationships of things, the definitions of words and the "description" of the truth. it dwells on the form and the word choices and so on.

Some people have an easier time learning the theory than others. Some people are not as intellectually able to get their heads around the intricate depths and nuances of Jesus's genius. For some the theory seems complex and off-putting. And many people get the theory profoundly wrong, while others are very accurate in their discernment of it.

Sometimes there are debates and fights about what the course says and means. This is all to do with the horizontal approach. It's an intellectual battle in which sides try to convince each other that their understanding of the course is the correct one. And in many cases some people may well be correct while others are very lost. There are some people who are so incredibly lost on the theoretical level that they are practically learning a totally different belief system. They think they're heading toward reality while heading away from it.

Then there is a vertical movement away from hell toward heaven, away from darkness toward light, away from ego towards the Holy Spirit, away from the body towards the soul, and away from the world towards the Kingdom of God. This is a transformational movement which does actually require a vertical change of mind, an awakening, a willingness, an opening, and a trust.

In the vertical learning we actually have to apply the theory. The mind has to be transformed. Beliefs have to be undone. Healing has to take place. Your life and your curriculum presents you with challenges and lessons which you have to learn. Your relationships have to change and your sense of identity has to alter. This is not achieved through theory.

Some people struggle to accurately understand the course's theories on the horizontal level, and turn a blind eye to this fact by trying to focus on something more experiential. They may focus on love or feeling. This can produce progress upwards to some extent, but then the faults in the theory hold them back.

It can hold them back such as, for example, someone believing that Earth is God's Kingdom, which is going to pull the person in the completely wrong direction. So while they're trying to go up, faults in the theory are pulling them down. It's like a handicap. There are some quite loving-seeming people doing ACIM who nevertheless say things which are profoundly wrong and delusional.

On the flip side, there are also people who become expert at the horizontal theory. Great intellects and scholars and theologians who are very good at discerning accurately the logical structures and relationships of things. Of realizing how everything fits together and correctly putting everything in its proper place. Some people are very good at this. But at the same time, those same people can at times become lost in this understanding and fail to apply the course to move vertically. The "study" of the course then becomes a handicap that keeps them from opening their minds and actually encountering reality.

I think for the most part the ideal is to be proficient at both. We need theory in order to help us to make sense of things, to guide us in the right direction, to clarify meanings, to have a proper framework so that you know what you're supposed to be doing and why. But to also then take that and use it, apply it, live it, look at how it works in your life, use it to change your mind, to develop trust, to actually open up to reality, to a different kind of vision, and to shift your sense of identity away from the body. As the workbook begins:

"A theoretical foundation such as the Text is necessary as a background to make these exercises meaningful. Yet it is the exercises which will make the goal possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of these exercises to train the mind to think along the lines which the course sets forth."

So yes you need to be pretty accurate with the theory, but the purpose of that is so that you can be more effective and efficient in your application of it to your life. Your living curriculum of lessons, holy relationships and life events is where you will be having to apply the principles.

"The miracle is the means, the Atonement the principle, and the healing is the result."

It's not enough to be excellent at the theory and not apply it to change yourself. It's not enough to try to change yourself while being absolutely all over the place on the theory. If you really want to shoot for the stars you need to understand the course in principle, and apply it in practice. The two work together to atone your mind correctly, heading in the appropriate direction for the appropriate reasons. Otherwise it's like sailing your boat in the wrong direction.

As Jesus once said to me, "you understand it, now you just need to apply it."

I think most of us are heavily doing a spiritual bypass. We are not asked to do a spiritual bypass. We are not asked to throw course quotes at the world to make it go away. We are asked to REPURPOSE the world and the body, in time, to USE them differently for a higher purpose. Using the body for a higher purpose does not mean throwing the body in the trash, or throwing course insults at it.

We are asked to first become able to see this world through forgiving eyes, to see the forgiven world. If we cannot see the forgiven world, which is a beautiful sight in the present where we see FROM love and light, then our mind cannot be in a sufficient state of forgiveness and healing to be able to awaken FROM the world. Seeing the forgiven world FIRST is a REQUIREMENT, not an option. We cannot bypass this, or just write the world off as "not real" at this point.

The only point at which the world is acknowledged as completely unreal and forgettable is when you are ready to leave it completely. That's the only point at which these proclamations become valid and experiential. When the world is ACTUALLY disappearing from your sight. Until then, harping on about how there is no world or how it's all unreal or the body doesn't exist is a spiritual bypass. Its DOES exist for you while it's there.

We have work to do, there is healing to be done, there is therapy that is needed, there are miracles that need to be performed, there are relationships which must be experienced, there are lessons that must be learned, there is mind-training to be accomplished. This is accomplished HERE IN A BODY, in this life, in this world.

We are asked to express the LOVE OF GOD through the body, from us to another, in this world, using the body for what we call communication which really means healing. We are asked to be teachers of God in this world, to be healers, and to bring the Holy Spirit and Christ to others. To follow his directions and to be truly helpful, HERE, in this world.

There is an atonement plan for our lives and our future. We are supposed to placing our future in the hands of God and trusting the Holy Spirit's guidance. We are supposed to purify and forgive our grievances and undo our secret sins and hidden hates so that we can become able to SEE again, but NOT at the expense of just sacrificing and hiding from life here. We approach the forgiven world FIRST, WITH a body, before we can get fully out of it.

There is a huge amount of spiritual bypassing in the ACIM community and probably in a lot of spiritual paths, where the ego is quite happily and arrogantly trying to shoot for very lofty ideals and advanced spiritual theories and states. Trying to act and express and live as if it is already completely advanced and awakened, spouting off quotes and statements as if they are dispensing with the world which is still hated and believed in, with coldness and lifelessness and no spirit. A denial of life and a total bypassing of WHERE WE ARE AT RIGHT NOW.

We are supposed to be becoming happier people, not just more peaceful and certainly not more conceptual. We're supposed to be laughing more, enjoying more. We're supposed to be LIVING more. Both in terms of spiritual force and health and also in terms of this life on this planet. We have to find a way to LOVE THIS WORLD, even if "it is unreal" in the ultimate sense.

There is far too much drive to dissociate from the world and body and disappear off into the intellectual realms of righteousness, as though this means we are making progress. We need GROUNDING. We need to stop trash-talking the body and world and find a way to USE IT properly, as intended by Jesus, not as intended by a wide variety of misled students and teachers who are heavily bypassing and use the course as an ego weapon.

We're here for a reason, we have a life for a reason, we have a body for a reason. We all keep wanting to skip to the end, to have no body, to have no ego, to be done with all this. We are NOT READY to do that, and we don't want to admit it. We definitely are not ready if we can't even see the forgiven world, if we can't even extend God's love through the body, if we can't even perform miracles that heal other people. We are not the advanced amazing superhero spiritual ego that we want to think we are.

We are NOT at that level of advancement, in a genuine way. We need more time, we need more lessons, we need more training. And that means we're going to have to HAVE A LIFE in this world for some time longer. And the ego, which is largely "doing the course" in most cases, really hates the insulting idea that it is not spiritual enough, not advanced enough, not awake enough, not ready enough. Always skipping ahead and wanting the end to happen now.

We're all trying to run before we can walk. Pulling up all these advanced lofty ideals and trying to hold them as wholly true and make them apply, when we can't even love each other properly. Or even to love ourselves properly. When we can't even heal anyone. When we can't even let the Holy Spirit work through us yet. We're like still operating with training wheels but trying to hurl along at 100 miles an hour like we're some kind of ascended master or something. It's gotta be slowed down, and we have to admit we are NOT THAT ADVANCED YET. And for most of us we may never be that advanced in this lifetime. That's the sorry fact.

There is much purification work to do. Miracles and mystical healings and advanced christ vision and total forgiveness and disappearing the universe and all that is lovely and cool but hardly anyone is ANYWHERE NEAR that point. I know I'm not. We need a whole heck of a lot more therapy and inner work and forgiveness practice before we can even approach the kind of states necessary for seeing the forgiven world, or performing supernatural miracles, or overcoming death forever. We will get there, but we're NOT there now, or even close. We don't need another even loftier concept or ideal to chase.

We need to take a breather and just relax and be a bit more normal and have a normal life, have a body, enjoy things, play more, laugh more, have fun and lighten up about all this serious spiritual study. We're missing some major point here - that we are supposed to be more full of LIFE. How can we be more full of life when we're not even willing to life THIS life and keep trying to escape from it on the basis of some high-level metaphysics?

We're just making another ego persona out of this whole thing. There is an atonement plan that we need to trust. A plan for our lives, here, in a body, which we agreed to before we came. We have to live that out, instead of trying to escape from the classroom at every turn. Gotta bring this whole course waaaay back down to Earth.

The ego in each of us acts like a gatekeeper, or controller, who decides what will be accepted or rejected. Everything has to go through it and meet its approval. It acts like "the boss" who has authority and who gets to decide whether something is true or false.

We feed everyting through this "opinion maker", and if we decide not to agree with something we’ll push it away. This really is the ego’s arrogance in trying to be that which decides what the truth is. If it decides something is false, it is false, and will not be acceptable.

So with regards to ACIM, Jesus has written various things and all of them are true. It is our job to actually trust Jesus and trust what He has said is true. But our ego is not happy about that. It wants to decide whether it is true or not, or what it means. It will accept some things, and reject others. It will only "approve" certain things that meet its criteria.

But what we’re supposed to be doing is to trust that Jesus is being truthful, which means, instead of asking ourselves whether what he says is true or not, to put aside the function of deciding if Jesus can be believed, to "blindly accept it" through FAITH, and to THEN spend time figuring out how it MUST be true.

Do we trust Jesus? Is he always telling the truth? Does he lie? Does he contradict himself? Do we have faith in his word? Do we put aside "trying to be right" or "being the decider", and let Him be the authority? This is part of surrendering our ego role of defensiveness and reluctance and having a heartfelt trust and willingness to accept the truth. To accept it not because we even necessarily understand it, but because it’s coming from Jesus.

I trust that what Jesus is saying is true, and then try to learn how and why it is true. I accept it first, and explain it later. And where I fail to trust and want to decide what the truth is myself, those are my lessons in trust.

Jesus is the man.

The things that happen in the world don't really matter. All the efforts to build things, reach goals, assemble cities, improve governments, it's not really the point. It's not why we're here. We're here because we're stubborning refusing to live with God. We have lessons to learn and the purpose is to get to a point where we leave the world permanently. It's not about building a wonderful human civilization on the planet. There is no real benefit to doing that. We're not really supposed to be here. We belong in heaven. This world is just a temporary outpost, a corner in which we're hiding, while we delay being with God. Don't get too comfortable, because it was never meant to last.

"Salvation is no more than a reminder this world is NOT your home; its laws are NOT imposed on you, its values are NOT yours. And nothing that you THINK you see in it is REALLY there at all."

"Yet who can build his home upon a straw, and count on it as shelter from the wind? The body can be made a home like this BECAUSE it lacks foundation in the truth. And yet, BECAUSE it does, it can be seen as NOT your home, but merely as an aid to help you reach the home where God abides."

"The world I see has nothing that I want."

"God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the Face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No-one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice which its values would demand of him."

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

"I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body's worthlessness to the world."

"The body is hardly worth the least defense."

"The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?"

Truth = Reality.

So if you change what is true, and you believe something that isn't really truthful, it will change your reality.

Your reality changing is what we call hallucination. You believe something is true which isn't. You believe something is out there which isn't.

"I am upset because I see something that is not there" is one of the first workbook lessons.

You see something that is not there because you believe it is a part of your reality. You believe it's part of reality because you believe there is truth in it. You justify it, explain it, prove it, emphasize it, focus on it, magnify it, rationalize it, and create it, all to demonstrate it is the truth - and you will then experience it.

When you "make" up the truth, you make illusions. You will experience those illusions as if they are real. And you'll think this is reality.

So because your perception, your mind, has to experience a reality that exactly matches what is true for you, if your belief about what's true changes from God's truth and turns false things into a truth substitute, then your mind is going to have to hallucinate in order to match that belief.

When you're experiencing your so-called reality, if it is not completely God's reality, you're still going to think it's real. You will take it for granted like it's just a given. Without questioning your truth you will just stay right there in your private hallucinated world.

The only way you can shift "reality" back to God's reality, is to change the truth. You need to look at, discover, realize and recognize what is true and what is false. Like, the real truth, not just something you want to be true.

This "sorting out" is a big part of the awakening process. What is true, what is false. And to transition from false to truth you're going to have to have "a little willingness" that maybe your "reality" is actually not showing you the whole truth - that you're seeing things that are not there - and that this is upsetting to you.

It's totally understandable that you would be upset by seeing something that doesn't exist. Scary as hell. To return to peace you need to stop hallucinating, which means you need to get really straight about what the truth really is. You can't keep playing ego games. You need to get super honest and discerning and find out, with Holy Spirit's light, what's really going on here.

I've come to realize, through painful lessons and helpful support, that I've for a long time now been using my learning about 'truth' as a way to justify being 'right' about that truth.

It's a trap. It's not just that in some situations I am 'actually right' based on the facts of the matter, and that therefore I get lost in being 'right' about being right. It's not just about that form of blindness to and use of the ego situation to make myself look even 'righter'.

It goes way beyond that. Because the fact is, the ego has taken all of what could be considered 'truth', A Course in Miracles truth, even very high lofty metaphysical truth, and this ego in me has used it repeatedly to make myself ultra-right whenever anyone ELSE is not complying with this 'truth'.

When someone else is not matching up to this lofty truth, I start to spout off this truth to them. I start to correct them. I even judge them as 'doing it wrong' or 'failing to be truthful' or whatever. The more 'insanely wrong' they seem to be the more I react with 'noooo, that's not the truth'. Doesn't help.

I've been pushing and enforcing 'truth' onto people for a long time. Correcting people. Analyzing situations to prove why someone is not being truthful. Using what seems to be 'honesty' and 'clarity' as tools to point out where other people are being less than honest, so that my ego mind has an opportunity to jump all over them.

Yes we're talking 'holier than thou' with a capital H.

This is the ultimate ego trap, using the highest-possible 'truth' to make others wrong, by pointing out how they are 'incorrect' or using their mistakes to point out how they aren't 'doing it right'. And all along, it's me not 'doing it right', because I'm stuck in the ego.

Being stuck in my ego mind and relying on its accumulated concepts, causes me to attack others with this vantage point, seeing them as stuck in a place of listening to the ego too much, when in fact its me listening to the ego.

Hmmmmm.

And all of this is a substitute for trusting God.

"Fear is trusting in your own strength"

I have almost as much trouble figuring out how to forgive something now as I did years ago when I started the Course.

When the ego comes up with some problem, it seems to be just as confusing and just as obscuring and distracting. I still seem to have to 'start out' the forgiveness process in a state of blindness and ego allegiance and in the midst of a learning difficulty.

Each time a new lesson comes along, you can bet it's just as 'new' to me as lessons that I learned a long time ago. As the next layer of the onion pops into my awareness, it's just as confounding and unobvious and difficult to deal with as the last one was to begin with. Its a new challenge. A new deception. And when this is happening, it seems that everything I have supposedly 'learned' about ACIM is thrown out the window and I can't even remember how to do a basic forgiveness.

This can make it seem as though I have made no progress whatsoever, because each time a new lesson pops up its back to square one. I can accumulate an intellectual understanding of the Course and evolve my grasp of the metaphysics over time, but when it really comes down to 'how well can I apply it', not a lot has progressed. I know I have gotten better 'skilled' at it if you will, but each challenge is still challenging.

I guess this is because there is simply a lot of 'work' to do, a lot of correction needed and a lot of stuff to sort out. The sorting out can take a long time, and just because you already sorted out 15 boxes of junk and 3 boxes of 'keepers' doesn't mean the next box of junk is any easier to decipher. Here I am, still shoveling shit.

Its not glamorous. It's not what the ego wants or expects, preferring to 'make a constant upward climb' in really noticeable ways. It's not something the ego can master like, some course you can take where you master a module and move on. You're having to constantly reapply the same learning and find ways, in seemingly very real new situations, how to transfer your learning to this new scenario. It's always difficult. And the ego is always resisting doing it just as much if not more than before. It's an ongoing struggle.

Someday I presume the pile of shit will reach the bottom and there won't be any more shit to shovel. Till then, you gotta keep on digging your way out and finding that extra ounce of willingness and extre desire to open up to Holy Spirit and develop more trust. It does get better over time, but it never fails to amaze me how each new lesson is just as much as hassle as the last. There's a lot of layers to the ego onion.

Sometimes, we can use the truth to deny what we really believe. We can say, ok in theory I get it, there is no world, people are not bodies, death isn't real, sickness is a lie etc. It all makes sense. But, that doesn't mean we really really deep down believe it. If we really believed it we wouldn't be here in sick bodies trying to die.

So then the truth is that at this time, right now, we do believe in death and sickness and that people are bodies. We can bring in the truth as a concept that people are not bodies, and that which gets sick is not really a person, and if the body dies the person hasn't really died. But at the same time the mind is still actually believing that people are bodies that get sick and die, and that still generates suffering. I'm doing the course, but life still sucks, and this is why.

Given that we do believe all kinds of lies, all kinds of mistakes, all kinds of illusions and falsehoods, as if they are real, we could be using these higher loftier truths, these theories, to hide from how we're doing right now. We could be hiding behind it and using it as a shield to cover up and deny and not look at and not recognize what we ACTUALLY believe right now. More of a spiritualised-ego wishful thinking, in love with the ideas but not living it.

I suppose that's some kind of a "bypass". We are giving lip service and partial belief to something higher, but are then using it to deceive ourselves into thinking that we no longer believe anything else. As if just by getting it intellectually that's going to undo all of our investment and belief and commitment to suffering and death. And doing a few lessons is going to fix it overnight. And just because I read some text it means I have no ego left.

There is in fact part of me still that does believe, for example, that my wife was a body, and that the body became horribly sick, so sick that it died completely, and now she is dead. That's an actual ongoing belief that I have, even if I strive towards higher truths that death is not real and she is still living in Spirit eternally. And that belief does still generate suffering.

Avoiding the fact that we do still believe in all kinds of ego bullshit, is a way to keep those beliefs protected. Covered over with a layer of garnish in the form of higher truths and platitudes. We keep telling ourselves we don't believe these things over and over again but deep down we still do.

And so the ego uses the truth to hide the lies, and keep them as sacred treasures. We can look and sound and seem all spiritual and as though we're clever at grasping metaphysics and are doing the lessons and all that to try to wake up. But it can easily be used by the ego, which is totally committed to the reality of death, to avoid admitting to what we DO believe. We're perfectly adept at using ACIM to add another layer of denial over everything the ego treasures in order to keep it going.

We do believe in suffering and death and sickness and pain and misery. We do believe Earth is reality and is God's cruel creation. We do believe that death is salvation and suffering is atonement. We do believe that guilt is justified and fear is totally rational. We do believe that we're not safe and that we are in constant danger. We do believe that the death of a body is an absolute loss of a part of reality that can never be regained.

We can't get past these beliefs if we aren't willing to at least admit that we do believe them. And we can't get past it by just going into denial and trying to take on a higher truth in order to COVER OVER those beliefs and pretend they're not there. A thorough investigation of what you DO believe in all honesty is required, to at least admit that you DO believe in it, in order to change your mind. Otherwise why would you bother.

This is also why Jesus says that we are supposed to admit that we DO believe the separation from God happened, that we DO believe we are a body, that we DO believe in things going wrong. But only so that we can THEN, in light of that, realize that we need and want to do something to correct it, and can properly undo those beliefs. If we just cover it up, Jesus refers it to a "misuse of denial".

"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay." UrT2E50

So we do need to accept at least temporarily that we do not want anything to do with God. That we DO believe we are separate from God living apart from him devoid of him and that we do not want him. We hate God and want him dead. We have these beliefs. We find ourselves in spacetime in a human body pretending to be flesh and bones and believing this it is what we really are. We have to admit that this is our position if we want to get out of it. We can't get out of it by just hammering ourselves with theories and statements about what is true while keeping these beliefs going.

For me, I recently looked at this and recognised that I do in fact believe I am separate from God. And therefore, because of that, I need to now find a way to return to God. Almost like the very beginning of the journey, starting from scratch. It was as though I hadn't wanted to look at the fact that I did squarely believe in being separate, and had spent years avoiding that belief and pretending that I didn't believe it.

What keeps us from awakening and reality is the hidden desires we have to want nothing to do with it, and that has to be uncovered and relinquished. In effect, we don't get to God by just trying to go there, we have to unshackle ourselves from the chains that bind us to hell first. The ego commitment to death and the fact that you do want to die, has to be looked at. You want the opposite of God, which is why you're here in the first place. Just smothering that with shiny icing isn't going to make it go away.

Similarly in grief and loss I was not feeling happy, and had to admit that I was not happy, and that therefore because I wanted something else i wanted to be happy. And that was a stepping stone to seeking out that happiness, and realising that God is that happiness. I might not have done that if I would have kept pretending that I was happy. I didn't want to admit I was not happy because I thought that was "being more ego", but in fact it's merely admitting to how much ego I already believe in. I was trying to cover it over with denial and illusions of truth and fanciful ideas and lofty metaphysics.

We have to realise we're in the shitty stinky pig-pen if we want to realise that you're the prodigal son and want to go home. The way out of hell requires realising that you're in there in the first place. And the fact is that most of us in the world are so in denial that we don't even believe we're really suffering at all. Suffering has to be recognised AS suffering before you'll be willing to want something else. So long as it is kept hidden behind an illusion of the truth, you'll keep it going.

"It is NEVER God Who coerces you, because He SHARES His Will WITH you." God has given you freedom. This cannot be revoked. You are free to create, or to mis-create. God cannot oppose your will because it is part of his own freedom.

This means that you have to decide to go back to God, of your free will. You can't be forced, coerced, manipulated or made to do anything you don't want to. You have to willingly choose heaven again.

"The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING."

"But to accomplish this, all your dark lessons MUST be brought willingly to truth"

"Heaven is a choice I must make."

Does this mean that you can take forever? Does it mean that you can decide NEVER to return to God? Does it mean that you could stay in separation and never wake up?

Given that you have total freedom, it should mean that you can take as long as you please, and even to never return.

The thing is, that while God wills that you be free forever, he also wills that you be one with him forever. And here we have signs of a "natural limit" placed by God.

"Free will does not mean that you establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what to take when. It is just because you are not ready to do what you should elect to do that time exists at all."

"Free will can temporize, and is capable of enormous procrastination. But it cannot depart entirely from its Creator, who set the limits on its ability to miscreate by virtue of its own real purpose."

The way I read this, "will" always has an element of freedom to it, even when will is being USED to try to be unwilling. You cannot escape willingness. You will always have some willingness even if you are highly unwilling, which means that you will eventually will to be back with God.

"He can wait, delay, paralyze himself, reduce his creativity almost to nothing, and even introduce a real developmental arrest or regression. But he CANNOT abolish his creativity. He CAN destroy his medium of communication, but NOT his potential."

God has also placed a limit on spacetime, ie the separation. It has been repurposed as a classroom to learn lessons, which involves consent. And we have all willed freely to participate. In effect, there is a guarantee that we will wake up eventually.

"The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief, and ultimately to make learning complete."

"For if you could REALLY separate yourselves from the Mind of God, you WOULD die."

Another thing is that trying to be away from God is painful. It is a rejection of happiness and love and ease and joy. A rejection of health and wholeness. It is a state riddled with suffering. And eventually this is intolerable, especially when it becomes extreme.

The more extreme the separation, the more it hurts. The more you try to be evil, the worse your life gets, and the more you become insane. The harder you try not to exist, the more you repress and hate yourself. And it does not feel good. Some people have extreme tolerance levels but not unlimited.

"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."

This is part of the fact that there is a safeguard built into free will. Basically, in order to fully will something, you have to be fully willing. If you become unwilling, ie try to use will to NOT will, you are arresting the will. This causes you to shut off access to your power to create, and you become "weaker".

Effectively, if you oppose God's will, you become powerless. If you deny your freedom, you imprison the will. It all gets automatically shut down because by choosing separation you're literally denying freedom and power.

""Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul."" ... "If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, because such are the dictates of tyrants."

The end result is that you cannot use will to attack will, or to attack or change God. Or to change the truth or anything real. When you try to, there is a lack of will, which shuts it down and causes nothing to happen. You might hallucinate that the nothing is something, but nothing is really created.

Also the Holy Spirit has been created to guarantee holographically that the whole is always in the part, and thus no matter how many times mind tries to split itself the whole of God is still there. You cannot leave eternity or really separate.

"There is another Maker of the world, the simultaneous Corrector of the mad belief that ANYTHING could be established and maintained without some link that kept it still within the Laws of God. NOT as the Law Itself upholds the universe as God created it. But in some form adapted to the need the Son of God believes he has. Corrected error IS the error's end. And thus has God protected still His Son, even in error."

So God has naturally caused a number of things all which guarantee you are not only protected and safe (immortal) and have not really done anything, but also has the side-effect that when you choose away from him you do not like it, and inevitably choose against it. It's almost like saying the impluse to return is built-into the attempt to leave. And you never did quite leave in the first place.

"I CAN offer you my will to make yours invincible by this sharing, but I CANNOT oppose yours without competing with it and thereby violating God's Will for you. Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God GAVE your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His."

We could say then that, we are always free, and can choose when to return to God, but at the same time staying away from God is fundamentally unpleasant, and eventually you will seek to return.

Another aspect of this is that God is so certain and so powerful, and the Holy Spirit shares his infinite power, such that he CANNOT FAIL in helping us to return. In his repurposing of the world we made, he guarantees that we will return to heaven. There are no loopholes in God's plan for salvation.

The Holy Spirit has effectively already finished the job.

"His task is mighty, but the power of God is with Him. Therefore, to Him, it is so easy, that it was accomplished the instant it was given Him for you."

"God's promises make no exceptions. And He guarantees that only joy can be the final outcome found for everything. Yet it is up to us when this is reached; how long we let an alien will appear to be opposing His."

"God's guarantee will hold against ALL obstacles, for it rests on certainty, and NOT contingency."

"Reality observes the laws of God, and NOT the rules you set. It is His laws which GUARANTEE your safety. All illusions that you believe about yourself obey NO laws."

"The Atonement is the GUARANTEE of the safety of the Kingdom. Nothing good is lost, because it comes from the Holy Spirit, the voice for Creation."

"The world WAS a way of healing the Separation, and the Atonement is the GUARANTEE that the device will ultimately do so."

"No force except your own will is strong enough or worthy enough to guide you. In this you are as free as God, and must remain so forever."

"The truth is still that the attraction of God is irresistible at ALL levels, and the acceptance of this totally unavoidable truth is only a matter of time. But you should consider whether you WANT to wait, because you CAN return now, if you choose."

"God" is the most frequently occurring regular word in ACIM. It occurs 4687 times in the Urtext edition. You could practically say that A Course in Miracles is also A Course in God.

Starting in a state of separation from God, our whole path is really one of reintegrating into God and letting God into our minds and awareness, restoring us to a state in which we are ONE with God and SHARE everything with him.

The ACIM workbook has a surprisingly high number of lessons whose titles include the word "God." You can see a trend of restoring your relationship with God and sharing everything with him. Here is a selection:

"My only function is the one God gave me."

"There is no will but God's."

"I am under no laws but God's."

"I am as God created me."

"God's will for me is perfect happiness."

"I share God's will for happiness for me."

"God's peace and joy are mine."

"I rest in God."

"Let me remember I am one with God."

"In quiet I receive God's word today."

"There is no love but God's."

"My mind holds only what I think with God."

"I walk with God in perfect holiness."

"I am entrusted with the gifts of God."

"There is one life, and that I share with God."

"There is no cruelty in God and none in me."

"God is but love, and therefore so am I."

"The name of God is my inheritance."

"I want the peace of God."

"The peace of God is shining in me now."

"I feel the love of God within me now."

"I choose the joy of God instead of pain."

"I am the holy Son of God himself."

"I have a function God would have me fill."

"There is no peace except the peace of God."

"I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me."

"God is with me. I live and breathe in him."

"God is my life. I have no life but his."

"God is my father, and he loves his son."

"God is my father, and his son loves him."

"God has condemned me not. No more do I."

"Now I will seek and find the peace of God."

"I give my life to God to run today."

"Now would I be as God created me."

"This day is God's. It is my gift to him."

"Let every voice but God's be still in me."

"God is the only goal I have today."

"Let me remember that my goal is God."

"God is my refuge and security."

"I am surrounded by the love of God."

"My heart is beating in the peace of God."

"The stillness of the peace of God is mine."

"The word of God is given me to speak."

"I am forever an effect of God."

"Today the peace of God envelops me, and I forget all things except his love."

When I used to see people making mistakes with the course - "believing the wrong thing", not understanding it right etc, I would see that as a sin. I would react to it and pounce on it with a correction.

Somehow over time "it's not a sin" has taken hold, and I see people as being simply mistaken, and at many varied stages of learning. In the past I would have even chastised a beginner if they sounded stupid or were not getting it right away, without recognizing people are at different places in their path.

By moving past "it's a sin", expanding past "my ego says so", and becoming more allowing of differences, I see more that everyone's at different places and with different learning. A person making a mistake is given more gentle credit and their mistake is more recognized without it meaning that they are "wrong" for it.

After all, if this is a classroom and we're all children who are rather unwise and have lost our way, then we're all at different places on our path and have different mistakes to overcome. The people who are newer or are making classic mistakes or whatever might not have yet even read enough material to get past it.

Sin tends to isolate and exclude, and it narrows perception down. It focused on what one small fault a person has, draws a fence around it, makes it separated off, and then focused purely on that one thing, as if that is the whole of the person. Do one thing wrong and they're totally sinful. The sin shuts out all love and so obscure all good things about the person, casting them in darkness with no light.

Forgiveness breaks down these tiny boxes and looks at more of the big picture, more of the whole picture, to see other areas where the person is to be credited and is correct and not mistaken. It's more inclusive and open minded and recognizing calls for love rather than attacks. And without all the "taking it personal" it makes things a lot easier.

More forgiveness, less judgment. More acceptance less rejection. More love less hate. More inclusion less exclusion.

"And faith in innocence IS faith in sin, if the belief excludes ONE living thing, and holds it out, APART from its forgiveness."

"Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks which keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal."

"Each one must share one goal with someone else, and in so doing, lose all sense of separate interests. Only by doing this is it possible to transcend the narrow boundaries the ego would impose upon the self. Only by doing this can teacher and pupil, therapist and patient, you and I, accept Atonement and learn to give it as it was received."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks Jesus/Holy Spirit.

With A Course in Miracles, for most of us the journey starts in darkness. The lessons are designed to gradually lift us up out of the darkness into the light. As we read the text and learn of its instructions, we gradually piece together a clearer picture of what is true and real. Our learning begins to generalize. Things which made no sense before become internally supported and consistent.

Over time you move from the state of an intense focus on the form of the words, the surface layer, to the much deeper messages. You start to see the correlations between passages spread across different chapters. Gradually you get in behind the words and the clear-cut metaphysical basis for the course's expression comes into focus.

At that point you'll start finding yourself becoming more of a authority and more able to base things you express on the truth. As your intimacy with the truth increases you begin to come from it, built upon it, and start to act from the top down. That means you're beginning to shine your light and remember who you are, expressing from the inner awareness of love and from the higher plane of sanity.

Particularly if you look into the metaphysics of God's Kingdom you'll find there not only clarification about the end goal, but also clarification about where it all started. And as you understand better the mechanics of heaven you can really start to grasp the underlying basis for the entire systems of thought - both that of God and that of the ego. Seeing where it all originated and how it progressed and how it is then reversed gives you great perspective.

You're then able to let go of the "bottom up" approach and begin to fulfill your function more from the top down, acting on a basis of guidance and trust, remaining in the light, holding true to what's real, overlooking the lower rungs of the ladder through forgiveness. The mind and perception are stabilized and the root of your being begins to reveal itself.

You can now utilize this intimate knowledge of the underlying immortal Kingdom as a foundation on which ti build. On which to extrapolate. On which to base your expressions. And then once it has all become so much simpler and refined you are able to express in countless ways and words all of this stuff that emanates out from a forgiven mind, from a state of simpler love and wholeness and clarity.

What that essentially means is you have become the truth, aligned yourself with it, are expressing from it. Both through a metaphysical logical basis and through the extension of love and miracles. A mind that has aligned itself with its Creator now possesses the power of authorship, and that means you now speak for God just as the Holy Spirit does. This is where you have become a teacher of God, able now to be a representative of His Word and the light of the world. Heaven's emissary. An ambassador for eternal life. A messenger of peace. And a holy influence.

We need to learn to not believe anything we see in this world.

We must learn it is all FALSE. Nothing more than an illusion that isn’t really there, is completely powerless, and cannot resist your undivided will.

We must stop seeing people as bodies.

We must learn to overlook ALL FORMS, because they are deceptive illusions, images of lies which the ego made to cover up the truth.

We must walk around this world as though this world is not even here.

We must IGNORE every sign and signal which suggests that the ego’s "laws" are in effect and that they have real power.

We must learn to completely OVERLOOK absolutely every deceiving appearance, including all sickness (which is fake), all suffering (which is fake), all victimhood (which is fake), and even death (which is fake).

This is quite an unusual state to exist in. Being in a world but not of it. Being here and showing up as a miracle worker, BUT not believing anything you see. Not listening to any ego lies. Not believing the sob story of victims. Not believing the reasons people have for why they are sick. Not believing anything that isn’t OF GOD!

If it’s not aligned with God and God’s Will, and if it is not absolutely TRUE, then it is FALSE!

In this way, we BRING the truth, the light, the love, the power, and the will of God, TO those who falsely believe they "need help", and so shine upon them and HEAL THEM through the MIRACLE WORKING POWER OF LOVE.

Love overlooks all illusions of sickness and suffering because love is *forgiving*. It is not confused about what is real and what is an illusion.

As a miracle worker, YOU must learn to distinguish clearly what is reality and what is illusion. If you are thinking that someone‘s sickness is real, you have lessons to learn. Once you have learned that all sickness is a LIE, and there is no such thing as "real sin", you will be able to say as Jesus did many times, "all your sins are forgiven", because all of your OWN sins have been overlooked as false.

Love then becomes extraordinarily powerful. It can heal anything. There is nothing your holiness cannot do. Your willingness to fixate only on God’s truth and to NOT BELEIVE the ego’s truth at all, makes you extremely powerful. All of the ego’s laws are NOTHING to you. They are all entirely illusions, just puffs of smoke. So EASILY you will be able to bend them to your will, to bring healing to the sick, to restore sight and hearing to those in need, to raise the dead, and to move mountains, LITERALLY.

Love is all you need. Love is the power. And that means, you must accept the atonement for yourself so that you can be open to loving to such a high and truly unconditional degree. Unconditional love knows no orders of difficulty. You are UNLIMITED in what you can do.

Your whole mind is supposed to be everywhere.

The mind inside your body seems to be your conscious mind. The mind outside your body seems to be your unconscious mind.

While what is within your body seems to be different and separate from what is outside your body, you will see yourself as being the limits of your conscious self. Parts of you which are unconscious will be seen as outside of you.

Guilt which you put into your unconscious, so that your conscious mind can pretend to be innocent, will come up as seeming "events" in the outer world which come to teach you lessons. You will see them as attacks on your identity, at least at first, depending on your willingness to use them differently.

When what is within you is the same as what is outside of you, and when there is no further need for a separation to keep the two apart, the body will have no purpose and will disappear.

When what is within you is seen as also being within others, whereby what is in both of you is the same Christ mind, the same Self, your whole mind will be experienced as everywhere. That's because, like God, you are omnipresent.

The body was made only to create a sense of separation in the mind, a split between what hides within it and what hides outside of it. Its only purpose was to maintain an illusion of division so strong that it suggests the limits of your conscious self is the confines of the body.

You built a wall around the conscious self which, through a condensing of that idea, formed the illusion of bodies. Bodies are a barrier between what has been retained - the little innocent self - versus what has been rejected - the larger body of unconscious guilt which is disassociated from and appears to comprise "other people", i.e. "not self".

What is happening outside of the body is just a drama being orchestrated and run by the unconscious mind. Your unconscious mind. Events which happen in it represent the content of your own mind coming up into awareness to be reconsidered for forgiveness.

Forgiveness must entail a repair of the inner joining with the outer, of the separate embodied self rejoining with and beyond the embodied selves of others. What is in you is in them. What you are is what they are. You are one.

Joining of minds, which is miraculous, causes the body to be healed, because the body temporarily disappears. Its shift into invisibility, in light of the truth of oneness, heals it of its use as a device for separation.

Attempting to anchor self more heavily into the body and to tie the self to the body, simply makes the body more real and reinforces the separation between yourself and yourself. Such is the purpose of sickness which defends against unity by reinforcing separation, i.e. reinforcing the reality of the body as a wall that comes between you and your brother.

Your brother IS yourself. Those "others", those "not me"'s outside of you, ARE you. They are parts of the split mind of the sonship. You are to be reunited with them and share with them and join with them. This overlooks the body and it becomes meaningless and non-existent. It must disappear as inner and outer, self and not-self, become One.

In oneness there can be no separations.

You are everywhere. You are the whole sonship. You are the One Omnipresent Son of God.

Holy Relationships occur when a person recognizes that the other does absolutely nothing to them, nether good nor bad, neither beneficial or harmful, neither special or hurtful.

In specialness, you believe the other DOES things to you, causes you to feel a certain way, pleases you, attracts you, helps you, loves you for you, etc. But along with that they will hurt you, offend you, annoy you, attack you and reject you.

It's always a package deal, because to be at the effect of another you MUST be in the victim mindset even if those effects are something you think you want. You will select someone as special who SEEMS to give you as much of what you want as possible, and as little of what you don't want, but the illusion is that they MUST give you both if you are to be at the effect of them.

If they can do anything to you at all, if you are to "receive" from them "against your will", so that you can be changed by them and affected by them, you are a victim, regardless of whether it seems like a positive desirable effect or a negative hurtful effect.

You do not want to be at the effect of others whatsoever. To do so means you are vulnerable and attackable and dependant and in the ego thought system.

You are meant to be invulnerable, completely causal, never affected by anything, and certainly not at the effect of someone else, no matter how special they seem to be.

If you are to relate to the person in a holy way, you must be whole and complete in yourself, not trying to have them complete you or make up for your lack or do stuff for or to you that you can't do yourself.

It's okay to be with someone and to have support and encouragement and to learn lessons together, etc, which can take a lot of time. That's why you come together, to learn how to love yourself (lol). But the unraveling of that specialness will be the lesson you need to learn, and it may be upsetting at first as the specialness comes into question.

One way or another, special relatioships can turn into holy relationships by the undoing of the "relationship" based in the ego, which is really NOT a relationship. You are not communicating or relating to someone, really, unless you are whole and coming from love. There is a fiction of communication and sharing but its based on mutual hallucinations and private worlds.

Real communication and real relationship and real sharing can only ever be based on love, because only love can be shared. An absence of love is an absence of sharing and is isolation. You can have a special relationship and believe that you are so profoundly affected by another person, yet in actual fact be completely isolated from them and not really genuinely joining with them at all.

To relate from holiness you need to relate to yourself with holiness, and to God with holiness. Then you can relate to the other's holiness and join with their mind. Joined minds are real relationships. Love is the only connection. This is why the Holy Spirit, who is love, is the "highest communication medium", being completely open to share and extend love.

There are multiple levels/dimensions to the overall dream, of which the physical world is just one. The dream is not just the physical world. And awakening from the physical level is only one step in full awakening. For example:

Heaven

Christ consciousness (one son)

Higher Selves (realm of the sonship)

Spirits/souls (astral plane)

Physical (solid form)

Maybe I missed one or two.

Basically, the physical world IS NOT the only realm of the dream. There are higher levels of the dream also.

But also WITHIN the physical level, there are also levels. This is because there's a hierarchy of illusions. And also because there is time.

The levels within the physical realm are to do with where you are on your personal spiritual path/curriculum and what is the 'next' thing for you.

When you try to jump too far ahead of where you're at without genuinely completing the lessons needed, you 'bypass'. Typically this includes denial.

This also happens when a teacher, who is further along the path, comes along and exposes you to a light that is more inclusive than your current awareness.

They've appeared in your dream because you're ready to learn and they are ready to teach. But they might only show up for a short time, or a longer time, or a very long time depending on the relationship (see manual for teachers).

Sometimes you will be exposed to teachers who are way further along the path than you are. This will induce a lot of resistance, threat, unwillingness, guilt/inadequacy, and especially comparing yourself to them and finding yourself lacking.

So you need to be careful that you aren't trying to 'take on' too much before you are ready. So yes, this actually means, sometimes you will try to force yourself to be where a more advanced person is at, before you are ready, end up 'shoulding' yourself to bits, and this will only make you SUFFER.

So in this way, there are 'steps' or levels - sub-levels - within the level of the physical world. So when you try to skip a level/step and jump ahead too fast, you'll just get confused, frustrated and scared.

One step at a time. One foot in front of the next. If you try to skip ahead to future stepping stones, you'll slip and fall in the water.

As much as you are willing and ready to accept, given where you're at. And it's ok if you are slow. And it's okay if you do not get what the advanced teachers are expressing - they're not meant to be your teacher yet.

"Those who are to meet will meet". So let Holy Spirit decide what is the next right thing for you to learn and from whom. And you might also find that you begin to attract the right 'students' as well, who just appear out of nowhere because they're ready for what you're offering. You can help those who are a few steps behind you. But those who are far behind, maybe its okay to let them be taught by someone closer to where they are.

Gently does it.

When you look back upon your life and remember all the bad shit that happened, the things that made you suffer, the stressing out and the fearful horror, the intense drama, the pain and misery, all the times that you felt threatened, and the whole litany of confrontations you had with other people, they all had one thing in common.

You may not have realized what this one thing is, but in every single encounter there was one thread running through it that made them all the same: YOU BELIEVED IT WAS REAL.

It was in fact ONLY because you believed it was real, that you ever had any upset, any suffering, any stress, any misery, any horror or fear, and anger or conflict. If the world were recognized as NOT REAL, you would remember to laugh at absolutely everything. You, as real, cannot be hurt or upset or oppressed or influenced in any way by an unreal world. The world is just a dream, not a reality, and it cannot hurt you unless YOU GIVE IT REALITY.

So all those times, all those lessons, all those difficult situations, all that turmoil and worry and loss of peace and grief and every sorrow, it was all the result of the same one problem. You thought separation was real. You thought a separated world was real. You thought you were really separated from others, from God, and from yourself. Believing separation was real was the ONLY PROBLEM. It was the cause of EVERY form of suffering you've ever experienced.

Which means, if you take reality away from the world, withdraw the power you gave it, and stop believing it is even really happening, you are finally rising above the battlefield, into a transcendental space where you can never again be hurt or upset or unhappy. The key to the undoing of suffering is simply the recognition that it has no properties of God. It is not real or true or existing or causing or powerful or permanent or unchangeable or a fact.

"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. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

"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."

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."

Jesus says: "I am the teacher of the ego."

He also says "The ego is the idea of selfishness."

Now, consider this. Your mind is either in a state of sanity or a state of mental illness. When mentally ill, YOUR MIND is "being selfish". It believes in specialness. But when that SAME mind chooses not to be selfish, that mind returns to sanity. The selfishness itself is gone, and the mind remains.

So if the ego is the idea of selfishness, the ego is also the idea of or a label for "the illness" that seems to be occurring when YOU are mentally ill. It is perhaps far more accurate, then, to consider "the ego" to be more of an ATTITUDE, than a THING.

We should not think of the ego even as "the ego", because there is great temptation to label it as a "something" that "is not me" and to then seek to identify with Spirit in an effort to "dis-identify" from "the ego". There is some positive benefit to that "positive separation", but this implies the ego is a distinct something that exists separately from you. This results from putting the ego in a box and not realizing it is coming FROM your mind, and part of your mind is being thrown out in that same box.

The ego is not "separate from you", it has to live within your mind because ideas leave not their source. "The ego" is your bad attitude. It is better to think of it as "your egotism" than "an ego". Or similarly as Jesus says, it is YOU BEING SELFISH. And being not-selfish does not erase your self, nor does it require you to "separate from" the mind that was being selfish. The mind itself is not the problem, its attitude is the problem, and there is temptation to throw out the mind right along with the egotism.

Someone or something needs to learn. Someone or something is taking the course, learning the lessons, pursuing a curriculum. Who or what is learning? In a sense, the self - you, your mind, is the one learning. And this mind is learning "not to be egotistical". So its egotism is coming under scrutiny and it's having to learn to adopt a more loving attitude.

When the mind is believing things which are false, it is believing "in the ego", but moreso, is "believing in something false". This doesn't mean there is now an entirely separate ego "entity" that has come into existence. Or even really what we can label as a "false self".

Your self never becomes false, it is permanently in the sight of God, holy forever. What becomes false is your relationship with reality through the mind and YOUR attempt to block it. And that's more a matter of YOUR attitude and YOUR attempt to change reality into something else. It's still entirely within the realm of your will and your power of decision, as to whether and when you take the curriculum and learn your lessons.

It is YOU that is being educated, and while you are mistaken, you are "being an ego". ie you are ATTEMPTING to be ego. In pure purest most logical condition, "the ego" is really another word for "non existence". It's the logical opposite of existence, reality, truth, life and God. But such an idea literally does no exist, it is nothingness. You cannot go there, you cannot be it. So even in our egotism we HAVE NOT become "a non-existent self", or purely real death. It's literally impossible.

Our egotism is merely the ATTEMPT to, and failure to be, separate. It's our desire and belief and wishful thinking to be something we are not, but in such a way that can never succeed. You can't destroy yourself, and the only way to be purely ego would be to not exist. We attempt to get as close to that as possible, in death, but even that doesn't do it. We can't get outside the bubble of God's all encompassing love.

So what is an ego? It's not really anything. There are just some people who are confused. There are just some people whose minds have taught themselves things which aren't true, and whose minds need correction. And so those minds, although being egotistical and selfish, and seeming to therefore exhibit signs of "the ego", are really just minds in a state of denial and being mistaken. And mistaken minds can be corrected and healed.

So that means our egotism can be healed. Our mistakenness can be forgiven. We can be taught. Our "egoic selves", really a mind having an egocentric attitude, can be adjusted so that the egocentricity is "undone", the distortions of the mind untangled, and the mind restored to a state of accord and wholeness. This essentially means in a way that "our egotism can be converted to holiness".

"Ego", more as a label for "being egotistical", can be undone. And "our ego" is kind of "transformed" along the way BACK to the state of a holy mind that it was in previously. It can become untwisted and untangled. Corrected and healed. Not because the illness is changed into reality, not because the egotism ITSELF is maintained and becomes holy, but because the egotism or illness is just a label for the temporary states we APPEAR to get into when we're mistaken.

If I have mental illness, the illness could be called "ego". But when my mind is healed of the illness, it's not that "the illness" is still an illness but in a healed configuration. The illness is gone, the illusion of egoic stuff is gone, and the mind that "had" the illness is restored to sanity. As "the ego evolves" out of sin into innocence, the ego is simultaneously undone and transcended. IT doesn't become holy as such, we let it go. But "the ego" was always OUR mind's attitude, and our mind is what becomes transformed.

We could try to put all of the ego stuff into a box and label it "the ego" and then try to recognize that our self is really our soul and not the ego. This is sort of true. But this can be a form of bypass because the only thing maintaining the ego is the mind. There is some mind MIXED IN with the egotism.

The mind is "having" an ego, just as it has mental illness but is NOT the mental illness. Mind is not the ego but HAS egotism. When "separating" ourselves off from "the ego", we could risk trying to separate ourselves off from the mind that HAS the ego, causing a further split in the mind. And so this can be another form of disassociation, and another way that "the ego" tries to remove the ego.

This is also why we are responsible for all our choices, all our suffering, and all our mistakes. They are not real sins, but it IS us that is mistaken, not "the ego". Our mistakenness IS just another word for "the ego". Our false beliefs may seem to gather together to form "a sense of separate self" but this is of course an illusion. It can seem like you are letting go of "that self", but the mind that was producing "that self" is not let go. It is healed.

The world plays into this in the same way. The world is a symptom of the presence of mental illness in the mind. "The world is false perception". When the mind is healed, it no longer produces the world of separation. While producing the world, the mind thinks the world exists and it seems to be "a thing", with a label.

But the "healing of the world" or "saving the world" really means saving the mind that was producing the world, from its own selfish egocentricity, so that its dream is a happier dream. The world then appears to transform from hell to a reflection of heaven. Or as Jesus says, it is "translated". And the holy spirit is the "great reinterpreter" of it. A mind that is corrected and healed does not make hell and does not make ego errors, and in this view there "is no ego" because the egotism is gone.

So is Jesus teaching the ego? In a sense yes. He is teaching the mind that is trying to be an ego, that it is not really an ego but a holy mind. The ego, the mistakes, are not taught. They are corrected. Because true learning is correction and undoing, just as to atone is to undo. To truly atone or fix the ego problem, the ego must be undone, meaning the egotism must end, meaning the mind is freed from believing it is "an ego." Thus is "the ego" undone and the condition of the mind changed back to ego-free holiness.

Can the ego wake up? No, because it can't maintain what makes it ego at the same time as experiencing awakening. But the mind can wake up FROM the ego, or rather, FROM attempting to be egocentric. As "your egotism" or "the part of mind trying to be separate" learns not to be separate, the mind that was being ego DOES wake up, but it does not take the egotism with it. It wakes up BECAUSE "the ego" is left behind, ie by recognizing there is no ego within it. We do not "separate from" the ego. We erase it from ourselves so that there is nothing to separate from.

Ultimately there is no ego, and the Holy Spirit knows this. His is the mind that reminds us of our true condition of holiness. The recognition that we are sane and whole and true. And in that holiness there is no selfishness, specialness, or egoic attitude. Only an attitude of love and forgiveness. And a loving forgiving mind is ego-free.

"Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus KEEPING it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your minds AT ALL, or you will also believe that you must UNDO what you have made, in order to BE forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit, the effects of error are TOTALLY non-existent. By steadily and consistently cancelling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT."

"Thus is Christ's strength invited to prevail, replacing all your weakness with the strength that comes from God, and that can never fail. And thus are miracles as natural as fear and agony appeared to be before the choice for holiness was made."

"God is my strength."

This is a relatively "new" idea to me and perhaps to others. But this is a very powerful and significant component not only of miracle working but of fulfilling your function as a powerful Son of God.

There is a strength in you. The strength of Christ - the strength of the Holy Spirit - the strength of God. God put this strength IN you by giving it TO you in your creation. You HOST His strength. Therefore, what seems to be YOUR strength, is actually HIS strength. HE makes you strong. HE gives you power!

Whenever you attempt to do anything based on your OWN strength, you really are depending on littleness and weakness. And this little weakness is NOT very strong. It has not much power in it and is not very capable. Depending on your own strength makes you AFRAID, because your own strength is tiny and insufficient and not really capable of doing or dealign with much at all.

As you are developing trust, putting aside your authority problem, and coming to DEPEND ON God, opening up to the fact that God is in you, at your inner altar, and as you progress through the lessons etc, you'll encounter this idea that God is your strength. And that Christ lends you His strength. And it is their strength that makes miracles possible through you.

When you are trying to be a miracle worker, if you look at it like you're the one who has to muster the strength, courage, power, to accomplish a miracle, and you're going to have to be very brave and strong in order to "make something happen", not much is going to happen. Because really this is a state of fear and an attempt to be brave in the face of insurmountable difficulty and weakness.

A key element in miracle working has to be that you have opened up to recognize and allow and invite the power of God to be in you. Which means making room for the power of God/Holy Spirit/Christ IN you, to BE strong FOR you. To be your strength. Rather than relying on your own strength. Their strength is OFF THE CHARTS unlimited power. And it is their strength that gives miracles their unlimited power.

So your function isn't to be "strong on your own" or some kind of super hero. The hero is always attempting to be an amazing miracle worker with super powers. But really to ACTUALLY perform miracles you need to depend on the strength of God and allow HIM to have the strength to accomplish the task. He is the one who will supply your strength and make YOU strong. Without Him you are too weak to give anything or accomplish consistent healing.

So this idea that your strength is given you by God, that God SUPPORTS you, strengthens you, makes you powerful, but not OF yourself, is key in both miracle working and awakening.

What is more important?

To spend huge amounts of time studying and analyzing sickness to try to describe all the ways that it is behaving and all the possible causes and all the remedies that may or may not work, only to likely just apply a bandaid that barely conceals the damage and doesn't really improve the situation long-term...

or

To fricking heal the problem once and for all in its entirety right NOW?

How about being DONE with sickness instead of dwelling on it? How about an immediate healing miracle which SOLVES the problem without fuss of fanfare and without the need to constantly dwell on or tolerate or suffer from all the justifications for why this sickness has to remain?

God has the power to heal anything. And provision has been made for how we can accomplish this healing by working with Holy Spirit. And Holy Spirit can and will heal anything in an instant.

The ego loves for us to lament on how long a sickness has been around, for how long we've had to suffer with it, all the reasons why it can't be cured, all the explanation for what is happening, the laundry list of artificial causes, the big long story about how all of this suffering wasn't asked for in victimhood, all the depth and detail of medical history that everyone loves to dwell on etc.

The ego also loves the fact that the ego has made sure there are no real 'cures' in its world of suffering. The cure would be the undoing of the ego, the restoration of God's will and the complete healing and wholeness brought back into demonstration. The ego will not allude to or align with that. It will instead come up with ways to KEEP the suffering, maintain the sickness, not address the real problem, avoid cause (God), and patch it up with archaic, bizarre, blind 'medical treatments' which may or may not help, and often can have fatal side effects.

The ego would trade one sickness for another, it would have you accept a new problem as an alternative to the one you had, wagering that if you do so you will be better off. It has no cures. It has no hope for your continuation of life. It wants you dead.

God has another answer. God has miracles. God can heal. And God is not interested in any illusions that talk about how serious or difficult or long-lasting or incurable a sickness is. God simply heals, completely, now. God is permanent health. Divine health. And we are actually entitled to experience and demonstrate divine health 'in the body' in this world even if it's an ego illusory world. We CAN bring divine healing to our own body and that of others, here in this crazy dream, even if that is not the ultimate goal of awakening. God doesn't want us to suffer.

The only reason we have stupid contracts of suffering and 'scripts' in which we're supposed to learn certain lessons, is because we want to take our sweet time in suffering and going through experiences in order to slowly accept God. But God is available for complete acceptance right now. And God wants to heal completely right now. And God has made it possible, through the Holy Spirit, to heal all sickness right now, regardless of whether people are even anywhere remotely ready to wake up yet and regardless of whether they are riddled with sin.

God just wants to love. We're the ones who think we're supposed to suffer with valid reasons to do so. And we're quite capable of being extenders of God's healing power, even while we're in this strange world.

Isn't it time we stopped focusing on sickness and all the reasons for it and all the explanations of it and all the ways to attack it that don't really heal, and to instead spend at least as much time focusing on learning how to work with God to permanently erase this problem forever? What do you want? A life of torment or a life or joy and gratitude?

Doctors, dentists, hospitals, clinics, nurses, pharmacies, they're all substitutes for a disconnection from God and an unawareness of His divine intervention. We are severely out of touch with the Holy Spirit. We are severely disempowered. We need to get plugged back into the source of LIFE!

It seems like a tall order to not believe this world is real. I've been immersed in believing it's real for so long.

A result of believing it's real, and trying to become more spiritual, is that I sometimes judge the world or label it. For example I'll say this world is bullshit. Well, technically it's true. But if I look carefully, I have actually made the world real first while believing that I'm taking a higher ground, and am then "separating myself" off from it by judging or labeling it as wrong.

I have to be careful now to notice whether my responses are to a belief that this world is real, like, "its really insane", versus, recognizing that it is not real. I see that many of my "spiritual" perspectives are actually based in pushing this world away.

I've felt a strong sense of inspiration towards the things of Heaven, wanting to be with God, etc.. .but at times the ego comes into this and uses it to try to create separation between me and the world. The world may not be real, but there is a difference between me understanding it intellectually, and whether I am actually recognizing and perceiving and experiencing it as unreal. And if it is unreal, then I have no real basis for having these "spiritual reactions".

Sometimes for example I've been labeling the world as wrong or insane or bullshit or an illusion or that sickness isn't real or there is no death etc, only to then turn around and "react" to a perception of the world by trying to move into a space of "being more spiritual". This is really a form of denial. If the world really isn't real, then it should not create these compulsions to "escape" from it.

Saying the world isn't real is one thing. Actually getting to the place where I believe it solidly and don't react to its appearances is another.

There is a series of workbook lessons which I feel encapsulate the whole transition from 'world is real' to 'world is not real' and the various stages.

128: "The world I see holds nothing that I want."

129: "Beyond this world there is a world I want."

130: "It is impossible to see two worlds."

131: "No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth."

In 128, Jesus highlights how we are not seeing 'this world' correctly, and instead are projecting 'hell' onto it. That means we are making separation real.

In 129, Jesus talks about another world - a perceptual world of true perception, in which this world is seen "as is", revealing the "real world" aka forgiven world. Coming to see this world as harmless and forgiven is the challenge I talked about above.

In 130, Jesus talks of how you can't see the world as sinful and innocent at the same time, or as real and not real at the same time, highlighting that we need to be careful to discern if we're making it real still.

In 131, Jesus talks about Heaven, a world beyond this world, which we can reach if we seek to do so, and cannot fail to do so. But coming to see 'this world' as innocent is required first as a stepping stone, a gentle dream of awakening, which prepares the way.

I do see at least that if I can discern that there is a world I'm making real that I react to, and that if I don't do that, then I will gradually learn that this world is NOT real, and the truth will emerge in my awareness that only heaven is real. And that seems to me to be a straight path which leads right to God.

It also means I have to stop believing the world is an enemy. It is nothing because there is no world.

The separation HAS occurred.

Denying this is an improper use of the mind.

The separation is the BELIEF, that it is possible to separate from God. This BELIEF has produced what this belief WANTS to see, which is spacetime, a world of bodies and objects. This is "the separation."

This is not ACTUAL separation because we cannot separate from God. The separation, and separation from God, are two different things.

We HAVE believed in being separate and we are now living INSIDE of that belief. The tiny mad idea has turned into a universe.

To DENY that we have done this, which actually IS something we've done, because we've HAD the thought, AND believed it - two acts which have in fact occurred in the mind and are NOT fiction, is an improper use of denial.

The mind IS dreaming of spacetime. The mind IS making a world. It IS calling out for love and for help and needs correction. It's a mis-creation, in an attempt to "create destructively", but it is still something we're "doing" nevertheless. Denying this is pointless and denies the power of the mind.

We are told in fact to ACKNOWLEDGE that we have done this, SO THAT we can thus stop being in denial, and THEN having acknowledged what we'e made, moving toward atonement in the mind to 'fix' this mental state that's causing the world.

There is no point in denying the world that we made. In fact to do so is to deny the power in the mind that makes the world. If we deny what we mis-created we are denying HOW we mis-created. It takes IMMENSE power to make planets and galaxies.

Instead, as a pathway towards awakening, we are asked to find a different way to LOOK AT what we made, in a more forgiving light, so that we can change what it means to us and how we use it. Or toward what goal. Re-purposing it is the way of TRANSLATING our experience of it.

No amount of asseting "its not real, its a dream its an illusion, it's not happening" etc is going to actually undo it. We're asked to develop a different attitude about it and to find a way to see heaven reflected in it FIRST, as a necessary step toward a HAPPY DREAM, so that our mind can be ready to stop dreaming.

Attempting to jump all the way to "its nothing, its not real" is a spiritual bypass which is trying to jump to the end condition without doing the work, without healing in the world, without performing miracles, without finding the forgiven world or the real world. And it produces a lot of level confusion.

We have to deal with where we are at and how we're going to use where we're at for a higher purpose, rather than attempting to escape off to live on a cloud in ignorance of what our mind is experiencing here and what other minds are experiencing here. People are in great need of help - that's not fictional because minds HAVE become insane.

We DO have to find a way to love the world and forgive the world and to help heal others IN ORDER TO heal ourselves, BEFORE we can wake up to the truth that "there is no world". We DO have to become miracle workers, serving in the atonement plan, BEFORE we can accept atonement fully.

There are steps to be taken in time, BEFORE we can be ready to fully embrace eternity. There is a curriculum. There are lessons to learn. God's plan does not ential you bypassing the curriculum and not living your life.

Often our idea of love is special love, which means exclusive or conditional love.

That means, it's relatively commonplace and 'normal' to only feel loving toward things that you approve of, while you spend the rest of your time rejecting everything else. But this isn't unconditional love.

Sometimes it takes some difficult lessons in which to learn to be unconditional toward others. But it also works the other way - if you are going to be yourself at all times and not enter into fake persona identities or putting on a facade when around certain people, you're going to need to learn to be unconditionally yourself, no matter what.

So that's going to take a lot of honesty, to be true to the truth about you at all times.

But as you become more yourself, more loving toward yourself in all situations, you will also become more loving toward others in all situations.

Sometimes the people who you do not like, or who are your enemy, or who offend you or even attack you, are the ones who have come to try to prompt you to love unconditionally.

What they do for you is they push your buttons and give you signals that say they do not love you, so that you will come to confront the limitations and conditions that you've placed on your own response. Will you hate them in return?

You will come face to face with your own inability to love them unconditionally, perhaps your patience wore thin and you lost your cool, or you just can't accept people being that way. But why.... the why is, really, that you can only love conditionally, and you can only therefore love yourself conditionally.

You may then find yourself, in the face of such opposition, realizing and exclaiming that you CANNOT love them. There is some reason, so strong, as to why your love stops and you seemingly refuse to love them. Particularly if you feel justified in resentment or anger or hurt. But then this will bring you face to face with your limitations. WHY can't you love them? Why can't you overlook and forgive them? What is it that you think is 'about them' that you can't love, which REALLY is about YOU that you can't love? Why do you have a limitation of conditionality placed on your ability to love?

Because what that will mean is, if you can't love them, you can't love yourself. But here is the marvelous opportunity.

If you can somehow dig even deeper, put aside your resentments and grievances, and find SOME way to above and beyond to love EVEN MORE, even beyond what you thought you could love, you will be breaking through the barriers of your conditionality - your conditioning - both towards others and towards yourself. Your love will GROW.

And then you will find yourself in situations noticing that you feel stronger and more loving towards all people, even strangers. That you feel more open to them, compassionate toward them, and more understanding of them. You will realize that somewhere somehow you put aside some kind of barriers that you had erected around yourself which always kept people at a distance or made it seem difficult for you to be around anyone that wasn't your special chosen ones.

Your sense of trust and certainty will skyrocket, you will find a renewed confidence and fearlessness due to the removal of a sense of separation, and you will genuinely feel in your heart a feeling of love for people that you never knew was possible.

To accomplish this, therefore, we need our own limtiations to be confronted, we need our own conditionality to be pointed out, we need our own 'reasons' for not being able to love someone - with all our justifications as to why - to be brought into question so that we will put them aside and find a way to love that goes beyond specialness and beyond confinement. This is our gift to others but also is our gift to ourselves, because we deserve to be the love that we really are at all times and this light shouldn't be kept under a rock called specialness.

As Jesus said a long time ago, love your enemies. Otherwise the walls you erect to keep them out keep your love in a prison, and being a prisoner makes you feel unloved as well. Unconditionally loving yourself is a much more deeply satisfying place to be.

I've recently been noticing that my work with the course has shifted to the undoing of guilt. And that this was not the case in previous years. Overall it seemed I was working on undoing fear much more often.

Just theorizing here, but maybe when we're starting out with forgiveness our mind is just too "low" in its degree of truth and light. Sin and guilt still seem too buried and unconscious, hidden behind blocks. Our conscious mind may more likely find itself so blocked that it deals with fear and punishment on a daily basis more than anything else.

Over time, we work on forgiving, and it gradually chisels away at this overall "large block" of mind-junk. From the bottom up, we are gradually removing layers of stuff and raising our overall level of awareness and mastery. While there may be some issues or lessons where we undo fear, or guilt, or sin, or are working on sickness perhaps, overall we're still deeply immersed in "the lower levels" of mind.

I've done such a lot of work on fear that I think I have a much better grip on it now. And while fearful challenges still arise, I am much less deceivable. So I feel that my focus is "rising-up" or "going deeper" into the prior level that comes before fear - which is guilt. If you recall basically we get into sin first, which demands guilt, leads to fear of punishment etc.

So my focus now, or what I'm most often presented with, is the undoing of guilt. In fact I recently seemed to be only just starting to become aware that I even feel guilty at all. I did not recognize it. I did not know that I was guilty and the guilt I was feeling didn't seem to fit into a common definition of what guilt is. I am learning about it first-hand as I dig into it. Because for example guilt can often express as anger or a strong desire to project, and can feel like being offended even.

What I have noticed is that in working on this guilt, which is dredging up a lot of old crap as well, fear goes bye bye very quickly. You can't be afraid of punishment if you are not guilty. Without guilt there is no fear. So I now experience that as I work to undo guilt about stuff, it seems to have a "more powerful" effect in lifting me upwards towards light and truth. It feels more rapid in its consequences, and the fear literally just vanishes without a trace without having to do anything to work on it.

I noticed this when one day, I suddenly recognized I felt very guilty that I thought I caused someone to be sick, although this was not true. I still felt it. And I acknowledged it and spoke about it and let it out. And since bringing that to light, the next day I immediately noticed I felt much less afraid. A whole swath of fear melted.

And then I also was working through some feelings about when my wife was in the hospital etc and how that felt, and suddenly was recognizing that it felt so hellish because I was actually feeling guilty, which was causing fear. Undoing that guilt has really shifted things quickly. It in fact removed what seemed like a looming resistance and sense of dread about what would happen next, that was hanging around all the time.

I know also from experience that if you go straight to the core, the belief in sin, which is really the ultimate turning point of a total change of mind, it has the power to undo not only fear but guilt as well, very rapidly. But you have to be able to unearth and look at the feeling and belief in sinfulness. Sinfuless feels pretty awful. I got in touch with it one time and it felt like a desire to be dead, so bleak and desperate and so strongly believing that I was criminal or evil or had done something so terrible there was no other way out.

But at the moment I think that level of ego crap is still mostly buried beneath the "guilt layer". As I move through the guilt and clear it out, I rise up in mind closer to complete forgiveness and atonement. And as I rise up I go deeper within and uncover the secret sins and hidden hates.

Overall there seems to be the stuff we go through to try to forgive specific issues, which vary a lot, but in the big picture there seems to also be this very gradual movement towards God, truth, light, forgiveness, which takes you through these clouds of ego crap. First through layers of fear, then through layers of guilt, then through layers of sin, and then into the light. We seem to be undoing this from the bottom up, gradually ascending as we do.

Perhaps one of the greatest miracles of all performed by Jesus was simply that He made his body permanently disappear. He did not die because He was not his body at all. His body didn't lay in the tomb rotting. He - immortal Spirit, Christ, made the body disappear completely because he no longer believed in any of the illusions that it was made to uphold. He did not have to "go through death" in order to exit the world. As ACIM says, the world is not left by death, but by TRUTH!

He had withdrawn absolutely all belief in separation, all belief in the body being the cause of anything, all victimhood, all belief in being at the effect of the world, and that means the body to Him had absolutely no further sense of apparent reality. He knew it was - LITERALLY - nothing at all. It wasn't that it still existed and was something special, or a special communication device (that was a pre-ascension state). He recognized the complete absolute truth, that there is no world and there is no body. It is NOTHING other than an illusion that isn't real.

And with that, His body literally disappeared from existence. This was the final demonstration, the final statement, that He had overcome death, that He was not a body at all, and that the body is just an illusion.

It is our task, similarly, to learn to DISAPPEAR the body, to learn to disappear sickness, to disappear death, to overcome all material laws, to reverse every sign of sin, and to recognizing that all of the things of this world are literally NOTHING. They are not a special something, or a God-filled something, or a real-something, or meaningful, or important.

"There is no world. This is the central thought the Course would aim to teach". Quite literally, Jesus's disappearing of His body foreshadows the "Disappearance of the Universe", which WILL happen when the brotherhood is again united in truth, because this world is NOTHING more than an illusion and God did not create it.

You do not need a body to exist. You do not need this world to exist. You are Immortal Spirit, forever.

Below is the quote from Jesus where He described this from the additional material given to Helen.

"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 is understood as nothing must disappear.

I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body’s worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand. But now I talk to you and give you the same message. The death of an illusion means nothing. It disappears when you awaken and decide to dream no more. And you still do have the power to make this decision as I did.

God holds out His hand to His Son to help him rise and return to Him. I can help because the world is illusion, and I have overcome the world. Look past the tomb, the body, the illusion. Have faith in nothing but the spirit and the guidance God gives you. He could not have created the body because it is a limit. He must have created the spirit because it is immortal. Can those who are created like Him be limited? The body is the symbol of the world.

Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there anytime you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so. And then, and then… I cannot speak of that.

A body cannot stay without illusions, and the last one to be overcome is death. This is the message of the crucifixion; there is no order of difficulty in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection: Illusions are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains.

These lessons needed to be taught but once, for when the stone of death is rolled away, what can be seen except an empty tomb? And that is what you see who follow me into the sunlight and away from death, past all illusions, on to Heaven’s gate, where God will come Himself to take you home."

I received this inspired definition of what A Course in Miracles is today.

A Course in Miracles says it is a "required course", that you do not have any option on whether or not to take it, and that only the time that you take it is voluntary. It says there is a curriculum which you must follow which you do not have any say in defining, meaning there are no other curriculums.

This is a point of much controversy and misunderstanding. But Jesus is telling the truth.

The "Course", if you will, the actual Course that Jesus is referring to in the book "A Course in Miracles", is not a Course that exists AS the book, but the book is REFERRING to the Course.

The Course, the one curriculum, is referring to every metaphysical truth and every metaphysical step which must at some point be taken in order to return to God. This applies to everyone, everywhere, all the time. There are no exceptions or options. It doesn't matter who you are, what religion you belong to, what you believe, you do NOT have a say in determining what the metaphysics of existence is, how it operates, what the laws are, or how you are meant to function.

There IS only one truth. And from that One Truth, following the separation, extends all of the metaphysical levels and layers and facts, which are on an absolutely colossal scale in the trans-personal, trans-temporal mind of the One Son of God. The structural composition of the levels of mind, the stages of separation, the steps that you have to go through in order to fall asleep, the things you MUST experience if you take those steps, are all absolutely irrefutable FACTS. There is a "WAY", there is only ONE way, and it is this one way that Jesus has labelled "A Course in Miracles".

Stop right there before you associate the book form with what the Course is. Jesus, outside of the book, is referring to the metaphysical structure of reality and the illusion and everything that can possibly take place in it, the "true nature" of existence, and in His book titled "A Course in Miracles" He has chosen to NAME that experiential metaphysical structure "the curriculum." There is no room for bending the rules or breaking the laws of the curriculum.

As a result of choosing separation, certain things came into existence which have a certain structure, a certain behavior, a certain inter-relationship with each other, and it is all entirely based on metaphysical facts. Everything that seemed to happen after the separation happened according to completely clear-cut causes and effects. Basically, by choosing ego, you MUST experience very exact "effects", and it is only by reversing those exact effects that you can be free of the ego. You took 3 steps forward, you MUST take 3 steps back.

Therefore there IS only one real curriculum. Either you are moving away from God or toward God. Movements toward God are the curriculum. This applies to everyone in all walks of life regardless of whether they heard of "A Course in Miracles" or not. In a way, though, Jesus has associated the term with the curriculum, because at the beginning He says:

"This is a Course in Miracles. It is a required Course."

Therefore Jesus is really referring to the one universal curriculum, the one universal metaphysics, and the steps required in order to follow the curriculum, as "A Course in Miracles". Not the book per se. The metaphysical structure of the dream and all of its levels and layers and facts and side-effects is all what defines the fixed curriculum, and taking a "course" in that, is the "Course in Miracles".

It is called a Course in MIRACLES because if you take an actual step in following the curriculum, making actual metaphysical progress in awakening, no matter what belief system you are surrounding those steps with, you are performing miracles. Corrections of mind.

It must be true that you are ALWAYS inside of the curriculum, you are always taking the curriculum, and you are alway bound by its rules. However, the option you have is whether or not to LEARN, i.e. take the curriculum, and so you are free to choose WHEN to learn it, i.e. when to take the next steps toward God. You do not get to choose what those steps are because they are based on the metaphysics. You can continue to be in DENIAL of this truth, which is an attempt to not take the curriculum, but you cannot CHANGE this truth, and sooner or later you MUST take it.

The curriculum therefore exists outside of the "book" of the Course, and applies in ALL belief systems at all times. There is only one "real" path to God. There are corrections necessary in order to awaken to the one truth. Whatever so-called path you are using, even if you never heard of A Course in Miracles, it MUST contain at least some metaphysical truth IF it is going to WORK at all. If it is not in alignment with the metaphysical truth and if it does not advance you along the ONE curriculum, then it CANNOT work.

Also different belief systems and religions either make the metaphysical truth clear, or obscure it, to varying degrees. Some belief systems obscure more than others and may obscure heavily. For example, satanism most likely is going to be very effective at denying the curriculum and electing "not to take it yet". Similarly there are many other delaying maneuvers.

However, what we see as the BOOK, "A Course in Miracles", the FORMAT it takes, and the way it describes the metaphysical truth, is perhaps one of, if not THE, most effective, clear, inspired, ACCURATE, least obscuring, and maximally EFFICIENT formats on the planet today. It can save significant time, because it very closely aligns to the one curriculum, and very effectively teaches about what the metaphysical truth is.

The BOOK, "A Course in Miracles", is piggybacking, or describing, the "real course", which is the curriculum, which is experiential and applies to everyone at all times. The book itself is not necessarily "required" to be read or followed in order to awaken. HOWEVER, whatever FORM of a path you choose, whatever the belief system, whatever theology, it MUST, *ABSOLUTELY MUST* correspond to the metaphysical truth taught in A Course in Miracles if it is going to WORK at all, and if it does not, it will NOT work and will only delay your awakening by producing more delusions.

You can wake up to the ONE TRUTH, through many many many paths. In fact, "all paths lead to God" is true because even the most obscure, highly delaying, extremely denying paths still have at least some amount of the curriculum applying to them, still present lessons, still offers the truth in some small way, and is still governed by the same ONE metaphysical system.

For example, Christianity's interpretation of the metaphysics is correct in some areas and a little off in others. It is correct that there is One God, and that Christ is God's One Son. It is also true that as Jesus (as Christ) said, He is THE way, THE truth, and THE light. Not one of many. THE ONLY ONE. And it is also true that no-one can come to the father but by Him. HOWEVER, Christianity is mistaken in its claim that this means you are forever separate and non-equal with Christ, that other FORMS of paths to God are wrong, that the Christian religion is the only "way" to God, and that all other paths are evil. That's not true.

Christianity CAN be an effective path to awakening and to becoming equal with Christ, but in many many of its flavors and interpretations, it is riddled with a heavy weight of delusion, illusion, confusion, and deception, which masquerade as truth but actually are part of the delaying maneuvers which attempt to PUT OFF the true curriculum. The only way Christianity can WORK is when it is in correct alignment with the truth that has been described in the book "A Course in Miracles", and is following the ONE CURRICULUM which Jesus has basically named "A Course in Miracles" (beyond the book).

Effectively that means that anyone who takes the Christian path (or any other religion or system), CAN ONLY wake up to the truth IF they have actually either inadvertently or on purpose taken the One Curriculum, which IS actually A Course in Miracles. Remember that Jesus begins the Course with "This is a course in miracles. It is a required Course." He goes on to say this is the only curriculum and that you do not have an option about what the curriculum entails. That means, if you woke up "through" Christianity, you actually DID take A Course in Miracles - the metaphysical, experiential, spiritually corrective path back to God, which is present in EVERYONE's mind and MUST be followed in order to return to God.

In this respect, A Course in Miracles, the one true curriculum, IS the only way to God, it IS the way that Jesus is referring to that HE woke up to being Christ, it IS the way that Buddha woke up, it IS the way that any other ascended master woke up, and It MUST be the way that everyone wakes up.

All of the rest of the descriptions and forms and formats and supposed ILLUSIONS of separate paths that people seem to be taking, where they might claim "I am not doing A Course in Miracles", or that they don't believe in it, or that they aren't taking the One Curriculum, are heavily clad in ILLUSIONS that make it seem like they are not taking the One Curriculum, BUT THEY ARE.

*cue meme with "there is no escape" and evil laugh*

Either you are taking A Course in Miracles and learning the metaphysical truth and following the one curriculum and are waking up to God, which is THE ONLY WAY, which does not necessarily have to entail having anything to do with the book whatsoever,

OR

You are delaying the one curriculum, are attempting not to take the "Course", and are in denial.

THAT is the true nature of A Course in Miracles. It is not just a Course that you are only taking IF you are doing your forgiveness or IF you own the book of IF the book is in your hands with you studying it. It is ALWAYS the course, whether you like it or not, and you are always taking it, whether you like it or not!

It is not just a book. It is not just a bunch of text and a set of lessons and a manual. That's just one format. One expression of ACIM. It's one way of explaining what the Course is, one way of TEACHING what the Course is. The Course is the one metaphysical curriculum for awakening which applies to everyone at all times. There are many ways to teach it. The BOOK "A Course in Miracles" is Jesus's way of teaching it, and is a very accurate way. There are an unlimited number of ways of teaching it. Some will appear to be extremely close to the true nature of the one curriculum, and some will seem to be so far removed that you would not say it is the one curriculum at all. But there is no escaping the one curriculum.

This is the metaphysical nature of A Course in Miracles. And this is why it is REQUIRED, and this is why Jesus said it is required. He is not lying. You just have to get your definition of what the "Course" is correct so that it makes sense.

If Christians are making ANY headway towards God, they are taking A Course in Miracles. If Muslims are making ANY headway toward God, they are taking A Course in Miracles. If Hindu's are making headway toward God, they are taking A Course in Miracles. What Jesus has described AS A Course in Miracles is the one, the only, the profound metaphysical teaching, which is completely factual and 100% FIXED and cannot be changed and has no exceptions. That's what He has revealed to us and has attempted to outline and teach in the book. Whether you opt to use the book or not, you are still bound by the curriculum and you still cannot take any other curriculum that works without it being a curriculum in miracles.

A couple of days ago, I rubbed my eyes a bit too much and triggered some swelling. Maybe a small blood vessel was broken or something. My upper eyelid swelled up and was red and sore and uncomfortable all day.

I at first wasn't sure whether to try to perform some kind of miracle on it or not. I knew that if I were to "fight it" I would be making it real and making a drama about it, which wouldn't help. At first that made me feel like I had to just accept it and live with it.

But part of me also wondered, what is it that stops me from accepting a complete and total healing instantaneously right now? Why should I tolerate this? How can I accept it and have it disappear as well?

So then I went to Holy Spirit. I asked, should I do something about this?

He said no.

But I had this sense that, I hadn't asked the right question. I indeed needed to DO nothing in the truest sense that, really, this thing had not really happened. But this also keyed me in to realize that, I needed to believe that it had not happened in order to truly embody the need to do nothing.

So I set about cancelling it by collapsing every belief and sense of truth about what had caused it. I told myself plainly that it did not exist, was not there, was already healed, there was no swelling, no soreness, no discomfort, no damage.

I undid all belief in the various causes that I'd convinced myself of such as "because I rubbed it" or "too many tears" or "didn't want to see something" or that issues about certain people were responsible.

When there were no more imagined "reasons why" it should be there, I really got into the sense that it is gone already and did not exist at all. This is an important point because we need to assert the state that we choose to manifest right now, not something off in the future. It's like painting a new picture of what you believe is real now - a vision of divine health and present happiness - rather than in any way accepting that sickness still exists.

So as part of that, I started to affirm gratitude to God that He had already healed this, that it was already resolved, already undone, had already disappeared, and that there was now a completely restored and healed eyelid free from all problems.

This was when I think Holy Spirit stepped in and suddenly I started with the energetic shaking. But also something 'new' happened, right after I thanked God for having healed it already.

Thanking God for healing in effect invites the receiving of healing while simultaneously affirming that the problem is gone, which is the proper mental "direction" for allowing God to extend and flow. God works in the now and in the awareness that the problem is solved already, so we need to learn to shine "thank you that it is healed already" (acknowledgement of receipt) rather than "please heal it because it's not healed".

Note that in the bible there is a phrase about asking, and that if you believe you have received it, you shall have it. The believing it is received, through thanks to God, and therefore acknowledgement of its PRESENCE, is the key to miracles flowing.

The area in question suddenly was filled with what I can only describe as an extremely high "heat", so hot and intense that I wondered for a moment if something had burst or become worse. It was very intensely focused right in the middle spot where this issue was located. It seemed to cover an area no more than a couple of millimeters, and held there in one spot.

I just observed it for what seemed like maybe 20 seconds or more. It didn't move or change. It was just there. It seemed hotter than any physical heat you could experience. Yet it didn't burn and was not uncomfortable at all. It was not pain. It almost felt like an intense presence, hard to ignore. Like some kind of "liquid fire".

I've heard some Christian healers etc talking about Holy Fire and this idea that Holy Spirit can bring some kind of intense healing "fire" from heaven or something, which heals stuff. I am presuming this was my first encounter with it.

I then relaxed and eventually went to sleep. I could already tell even then, that it was much less sore, I couldn't barely feel it anymore, and it was much more comfortable. This morning the problem has almost disappeared. It looks and feels a lot better.

Sometimes I am grateful for little, relatively minor physical issues, because they can present good opportunities for practicing miracle-working and healing. They indeed are lessons when used appropriately.

Every person is an equal member of the Sonship, meaning that everyone is your brother or sister. Everyone exists on an equal playing field, and the one "parent" is God.

This means that whether you are a parent or a child, and no matter the nature of the relationship between the two, everyone involved is still a brother or sister in the Sonship.

In order for this to express itself fully, it means that all relationships must end up where everyone is equal, no-one has power over anyone else, no-one is anyone else's property, no-one is controlling towards anyone else, no-one blames anyone else, no-one depends on anyone else, no-one expects anyone else to provide for them or decide for them, and no-one is more or less than anyone else.

This is the natural order of the family of God. We are all equals and all have the same inheritance. We all have the same parent and we're all identical in our true nature.

Typical chlidhood and parenting tends to lean much more towards inequality, control, protection, dependence, blame, manipulation and ownership. Those are not modes of relationship that are natural, and are rooted in the ego thought system.

When a child is born and begins to grow, they see themselves as completely dependent on the external world and on parents to supply their every need. And indeed the ego has set up this world so that it's practically impossible for a child to exist independently without starving to death. They have apparent "needs" and need help to survive. This doesn't mean the parents need necessarily own or control or be attached to them, but that's usually what happens.

Later, the child still believes they are dependent on the parent and that it is the parent's fault that so many things are the way they are. They will blame the parent, seeing them as causal, while at the same time attempting to break away from being under their thumb. "The thumb" is usually maintained far too long because the parents tend to form an identity around their role and don't want to let it go. They want to keep having the same relationship of parent to child, ie based in ownership, protection, control and so on. This generally works against the child becoming "independent" and an equal.

Often the case is that the child never really becomes an equal to the parent and there is a constant umbrella of control, dominance, shame and guilt under which the child remains, never breaking through to the light. The parent may not want to let go of the identity they've formed and it can be extremely painful to do so, especially if the raising of children has been the intense focus of their lives for many years and has entailed a great degree of self-sacrifice, leaving a gaping hole in their lives if the role were to end.

The child also will continue to blame the parents well into adulthood, because this is all part of the child's perception that they are a victim at the effect of the external world. They cannot really be independent until they have severed ties with their own ego identity, which means uncovering the true nature of themselves, healing all past hurts resulting from the dysfunctional relationships, and becoming aware of their true relationship to God.

It is, however, possible for the child to eventually stop projecting onto the parent and for the parent to stop projecting onto the child, and for both to give up on "specialness" which has kept the relationship strangled and suffocated in layers of denial and resistance and judgement. Special relationships can turn to holy relationship when forgiveness is used to undo the illusions of the relationship, which are many.

At some point it's possible for the child to become equal with the parent, which must also entail the recognition that the parent is a "temporary guide" who was there to help with lessons and adaptation to being in the world, but who ultimately is an equal brother/sister. Both child and parent are children of God, on exactly the same footing and terms. If the relationship between them can reflect holiness and forgiveness and equality then it has "matured" all the way that it can. If this doesn't happen, the fictional roles and dynamics of parent-child domination and submission will continue, and there will be further tension and conflict.

Acknowledging our equality in the Sonship requires acknowledging that God is the Creator/Father/Mother, and that what applies to oneself applies to all other people including our parents and children. When we go before God, we all go together and our relationship to God is direct, one to one for each of us, with no go-between.

We must learn to undo all of the illusions of the typical parent-child relationship, the entire social structure based on it, and learn that we are all equal under God. This could eventually result in a radically different kind of society, if this were understood and practiced on a mass scale. It need not be that children are property or that they are forced incessantly against their will to comply and obey, rather than being empowered and set free. It need not be that only two people are burdened with the entire upbringing of the children. We are all in this together.

"For the present IS forgiveness." UrT17D11

This was an eye-opener for me, that you have to be IN THE PRESENT in order to be forgiving. Not only that, but the state of mind that you're in when you're in the present, truly, without a past, is the forgiving state of mind.

There present is where you have no grievances, because all grievances are to do with the past. What someone did or didn't do in the past, past hurts, old arguments, unforgiven conflicts, things which "happened" - past tense. Without a past you cannot have grievances. This is why "the miracle" and the vision of christ ONLY exist in the present.

This also means that when you move into the present, you have to have let go of the past, and brushed it off, and dropped it. So if you had grievances toward a person, you would have to be willing to completely let that go and "forgive" them ie no longer hold it against them as a sin. Because sin is always in the past, along with guilt, and the ego. Only if THERE IS NO PAST is your brother forgiven.

Without a past you see people as they are now, without any history of faults and failures and offences. Being fully and squarely in the present moment of time, with no concern for the future or the past, that's where you find the light. It's where you find the real world, because it means you're taking a look at "reality as it is now", rather than disappearing off into a dream of memory. True accurate perception requires total present attention.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone saying or teaching that forgiveness has to take place in the present moment. And this doesn't mean that when you "do your forgivenesses" you are doing them now in the present. We are not in the present, typically, most of the time, or when we're reciting lessons or quotes or trying to apply the course. Most of the time we're lost in he past and giving lip service to the STATE of forgiveness.

To really forgive, just as Jesus says that miracles are seen in light and the light is in the present and miracles heal only in the present, your mind has to let go of the whole of the past. In fact it has to let go of time, past and future, to experience a holy instant. Being in the "now" is the only way to be actually freed from all forms of suffering, which are always rooted in the past.

You can't really be forgiving toward someone if you still believe they did something, which doesn't just mean writing off what they did and keeping the idea of time. It means actually getting out of time, out of the past, realising the past doesn't even exist, and being in the present. In the present you are taking a fresh new look at a person, immediately and without a history.

"The miracle enables you to see your brother WITHOUT his past, and so perceive him as born again. His errors ARE all past, and by perceiving him WITHOUT them, you are RELEASING him. And since his past is yours, you SHARE in this release. Let no dark cloud out of YOUR past obscure him from you, for truth lies ONLY in the present, and you WILL find it if you seek it there. You have looked for it where it is NOT, and therefore have not found it. Learn, then, to seek it where it IS, and it WILL dawn on eyes that see. 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. Judgment and condemnation are BEHIND you, and unless you bring them WITH you, you WILL see that you are free of them." UrT12F5

To be in the present is to be forgiving. You can't have any sense of a record of sins people committed, unless you are focused on the past. When you focus on the past you're not really seeing anything at all because you're looking at something that is not there anymore. And so you lose vision. You regain vision, sight, Christ vision, in the light of the present, when you are here now, aligned with the always-now of eternity.

In ACIM there are lessons surrounding the idea that God is my strength. It's a very simple 4-word sentence. But in it you can also see the dynamic of relationship between you and God, in terms of the power that you have.

Specifically, MY strength, IS GOD, AND is myself.

Which means, that within you, there is a strength, which you experience as YOUR strength. But, at the same time, this strength that is in you, could be said to BE God himself. It is not one or the other, it is both.

This is because of the chain of cause effect that happens in creation and extension. When God creates a child he doesn't just deposit a new thing in an environment. He doesn't walk away and leave it alone. He doesn't disconnect from it unbilically.

Instead, He extends himself out and shares himself, RETAINING his thought in his mind, keeping his creation WITHIN his being, and the two are one, shared. Which means that God does not let you go, or disconnect from you, and you effectively don't leave the womb.

Therefore you kind of have God embedded in you still.

Therefore, anything you have, is indeed truly YOURS, because it is fully given to you and fully shared without conditions. But at the same time, it is fully GOD's, because he gives it to you not by losing it but by SHARING it. You overlap and share the same space, and everything there belongs to both of you.

So now the strength you have in you is yours, AND it is God's. The power that is in you, which makes you ALL POWERFUL, is God's power.

It is also not appropriate to suggest that the power that is in you is ONLY God's power. Nor that ONLY God wields that power. Or that only God does anything. This is the flipside of further ego thinking that God and you are separate.

The power that is in you is indeed HIS power, and He is all powerful, as well. But this power IS also yours. And his. At the same time. Together you SHARE the same power.

Power MUST be shared to BE power. It does not belong ONLY to you. But this also doesn't mean it DOESN'T belong to you, ONLY to God.

God has given it to you fully to use AS YOUR OWN, and freely. But only provided that you use it WITH everyone AS everyone. Everyone has the same power because everyone was created BY and WITH power.

It's tricky to understand because our mind wants to separate things off and assign ownership to one and not another. Our power is God's AND ours. We as children of God ARE all powerful. There is nothing WE cannot do. We do it WITH GOD. We AND God are all powerful.

But without God, if you take God out of it, you end up with NO power, because HE has all power. Without him you have NO power. With him, you BOTH have power. Without God you have nothing. With God you have everything.

God AND Christ are all-powerful. Jesus acknowledged God as the source of his own power, giving God FULL credit for the power, because he knew the power did not COME FROM himself. But this did NOT mean that Jesus had NO power, because he had inherited ALL power from God, and so WAS and IS extremely powerful.

"I am not helpless but all powerful."

"YOU did not make this power any more than I did. It was created to BE shared, and therefore cannot be meaningfully perceived as BELONGING to anyone AT THE EXPENSE of another. "

"My Father gives all power unto me"

"Your Will can do all things in me, and then extend to all the world as well through me. There is no limit on Your will. And so all power has been given to Your Son."

"You are part of Him who IS all power and glory, and are therefore as unlimited as He is."

"God has one Son, and he is the resurrection and the life. His will is done because all power is given him in Heaven and on earth."

"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."

"All power in Heaven and earth is therefore given him and he will share it with you when you have completed yours."

"By teaching the power of the Kingdom of God Himself, He teaches you that ALL POWER IS YOURS."

"All power is given you in earth and Heaven. There is nothing that you cannot do."

"Knowledge is power, and all power is of God. You who have tried to keep power for yourselves, have lost it. You still HAVE the power, but you have interposed so much between it and your AWARENESS of it, that you cannot use it."

"He understands all power in earth and Heaven belongs to him because of who he is."

"They will always be treasured by God, because they belong to His Beloved Sons who belong to Him. All power and glory are yours because the Kingdom is His."

"My mind will always be like yours, because we were created as equals. It was only my DECISION that gave me all power in Heaven and earth."

"But the truth is very simple; ALL POWER IS OF GOD. What is NOT of Him has no power to do ANYTHING."

"Sickness is idolatry, because it is the belief that POWER CAN BE TAKEN FROM YOU. But this is impossible, because you are part of God, Who IS all power."

One of the simplest but biggest lessons is learning that people are not bodies. And nor are you.

The human body is an illusion which is bring projected by the minds of those who seem to inhabit them. The body is a wall of flesh around the mind designed to keep others out, and to imprison the soul. It is a device for separation.

The purpose of its image and form and shape is to blind you when you look at it, so that you do not see the real person. When you look at a person "as" a body, you are not seeing them. You will see the outer surface of their body, which seems like a person, with shapes and eyes and a mouth and so on, but these are actually decoys. They hide the spirit.

The big problem the world has is identifying with bodies. That means both identifying or associating other people with their bodies, and also identifying or associating your own "self" with your own body. This is a state of mental illness because you are not a body. While you see yourself as one, you will see other people as one also.

The senses of the human body were also designed so that you DO NOT know what exists. The eyes were made to fixate only on the surface of objects so that you would be blinded by appearances and unable to see God. The ears were made to listen to artificial sounds which are all illusions, in order to block out the Voice for God. All body senses do the opposite of what they seem to do.

"To sense is not to know." So when you use your body senses to sense other people, including seeing their bodies, you *seem* to sense them but you are in fact sensing illusions - things which are not there, as if they are. This is insanity. The body is not really there. It is a projected 3D image like a thick layer of clothing hiding the spirit and it doesn’t really exist. You have to be mentally ill to see one. Which accounts for most of the planet.

If you have "special rules" or values or judgements which apply to some types of bodies and not others, you have egotism. This is unloving. Relating to special bodies is not love. The body is in fact designed to reinforce specialness, exclude others, and block wholeness. A special relationship with a special body is based on separation and exclusion. This doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice, or that you should be special with all bodies. You should relate soul-to-soul, mind-to-mind, heart-to-heart.

It is not possible to have some bodies be special while others are less so or different, and maintain that there is equality. It is also not possible to accept all bodies equally. Bodies are NOT equal. They are fundamentally different and unalike. They were designed to BE different so that you would isolate yourself and others to specific locations in space, identified by and separated by the differences in their forms. To be equal is to not relate to bodies at all, but to the Christ beyond them.

It is literally impossible to have unconditional love for bodies. Bodies cannot be SEEN, or maintained, when love is truly present. When love is present, there must be wholeness, in which partial bodies made of parts are impossible. This is why "to see a sinless body is impossible." It is also why "a mind and body cannot both exists." You cannot see the body and behold spirit. It is also why "God cannot enter a body, nor can you join him there."

It also means that if you have issues about some body types, preference for some body types, favor toward or against some body types, or any kind of special belief about some particular body and not others, you have a split mind and are blinded by sight of form. Worse, you have blocked sight of yourself, have identified yourself with a body, and no longer seeing your brother at all. Unconditional love goes beyond sexual preferences as well.

Absolutely all body preferences must be put aside. Jesus says that you must not have issue with certain "body forms" or "body structures". The PERSON, is not the body. You are to love ALL PEOPLE, ALL THE TIME, EQUALLY. And to do that you need to generalize the learning that NONE of the appearances of bodies are true. That differences are not really there. That forms are lies. And to look past ALL bodies to the Christ within/beyond, which requires paying literally no attention to bodies at all.

So if you think you cannot or will not love certain types of people, all that has to go, because there AREN’T certain types of people. "You cannot enter into relationship with any of God’s children unless you are willing to love them all and equally." This includes loving murderers, rapists, paedophiles, warmongers, criminals of all kinds, your arch nemesis, all enemies, everyone from your past, your neighbors, the government, people of other races and genders, and absolutely everyone regardless of any reason why not. Because they are NOT thsoe things.

Jesus loves everyone equally. Holy relationship means WHOLE relationship with THE WHOLE of God’s Kingdom. And in God’s Kingdom there are no bodies at all because we are all perfectly identical in the image and likeness of God, as One. "Healing is when two minds perceive their oneness and become glad."

Love the heart, not the hologram.

When I write or read ACIM stuff, after a while I'll start to feel upset. I may feel overwhelmed, or agitated, even hurt, and might feel like I want to cry. It's almost like someone just said a whole string of lies about me.

I look at what part of me feels this way and I acknowledge what it is likely feeling. It feels offended by everything the truth says. It feels threatened by it. It does not want anything to do with the stupid-ass course and does not want to wake up at all. It wants it all to go away. It wants the truth to shut the hell up. It sees it as constantly attacking it, and it won't leave it alone. It feels victimized and threatened and hurt. It is offended by everything the truth said, as if it were all a personal insult and attack. It is frightened about the notion of the truth being true, and hates the Holy Spirit.

This "part of me" does not want anything to do with ACIM, or any spiritual path, or any kind of waking up, or anything to do with God. It just wants to be the way it is. It is reluctant to have anything to do with God or making truthful statements or reading what is true and or studying. It just reacts to it all from an ego perspective.

This is something maybe not spoken about by many people but it happens with me all the time and I think it probably does with most people too.

This stuff happens because the ego's vantage point is actually totally opposite to the truth, opposite to God, opposite to reality. It interprets everything to do with God as false, wrong, bad, evil, vengeful, an attack, offensive, abusive, hurtful, to be avoided, etc. Every possible attribute of "evil" is assigned to God by the ego. Every possible way to want nothing to do with it is given him. This is simply because the ego believes that what is true is false, and what is false is true, and in this it is actually insane and confused.

Then, there is my mind, which is "doing this ego", or is identified with the concept of it. So part of MY mind or self is latched onto this perspective, caught up in it, identified with it as if it is true of my own self, as if it IS me. So part of my mind is turning my back on God and is peering back at God through highly negating opposing ego glasses, and everything it sees is backwards and upside down and inside out. But it doesn't realize this. And so as I look "through" the ego, everything true is false, and everything real is an illusion, and God is death and death is life.

We have this stuff going on in us so long as we are identified with the ego/body. A bodily identification, an ego-thought-system identification, a sense of limitedness or exclusion or specialness. That collections of vantage points seems to form "the ego self" or false self, an "area" of our mind that is temporarily flipped inside out. And so long as we're still bound to it in that way, exposure to the light will be experienced as attack by darkness. And moving closer to truth is experienced as reality falling apart. And trying to open up to love and sharing and union is interpreted as a threat to my very life.

It's tough to go through this because on the one hand the majority of me is wanting to awaken and be loving and spiritual while this ego portion wants the exact opposite. And so doing the course, reading the words, doing the lessons, writing about the topics, whatever related to it, sooner or later pushes these buttons and out comes the tears and the tantrums and the emotional breakdowns and the resistance and the procrastination and all the rest of the dysfunction.

We perhaps have to be gentle with ourselves, with the part of our self that is still confused, still bound and identified with a way of perceiving that is backwards. And some times that part of ourselves needs a break, it needs a rest from course shit, it needs to stop reading and writing and thinking about it 24/7, and it needs to just live and do some basic earthly ego things for a while, to cool off, to feel less threatened and pressured. Because that self, typically filled with childhood traumas and twisted early beliefs, is completely confused about God and truth and everything real.

It wants nothing to do with it. And actually it can become seemingly "happier" when you ease up on threatening it. Gotta throw it some bones sometimes. Relax, take a study break, go shopping, eat some fun food, whatever. Be "normal" for a while. This can actually bring you a feeling of peace, at the ego level, temporarily. Then when you are rested and ready to press forward, go exposure yourself to what the ego interprets as "its demise" all over again.

"NO evidence will convince you of the truth of what you do NOT want."

""Give up what you do not want, and keep what you do." How simple is the obvious! "

"When you think you are projecting what you do NOT want, it is still because you DO want it. "

"You must have noticed that the emphasis has been on bringing what is undesirable TO the desirable, what you do NOT want to what you DO. "

"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.

If it's true that you choose everything that happens, making it possible to find salvation by choosing eternal life and denying death, then everything you choose you must WANT.

Wanting, desiring, allowing, accepting, believing in, is all an act of positively electing something, in the belief that it appeals to and attracts you. Meaning you want it.

To accept atonement you have to want it. This is a matter of willingness. If you want to suffer you will suffer because you want to. If you die, you want to die. If you are sick its because you want to be sick. If you are unloved you do not want to be loved.

Look at the world and look at in the light that everyone is a powerful creator or miscreator, creating exactly what they want in every case. See how there are no victims, only willing participants who consent to everything that happens. A world of ameteur creators who have not yet perfected the constructive use of their powers.

Everyone is in fact getting exactly what they want at all times. Each wanting or choice is a prayer, and all prayers are always answered - by you. You always receive what you give.

"No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible."

If you want salvation nothing can stop you. If you want God nothing can stand in your way. If you want health it shall be yours. If you want to never die you will live forever. But you cannot be in two minds or in denial.

If you think something is happening that you do not want, you are denying it which is why you think you don't want it. You really secretly do want it, otherwise your single minded decisive power would rid you of it. Complaining about it is a decision NOT to change your mind and to stay in suffering.

Everyone is always getting what they want. The problem really is not one of receiving things you didn't ask for, but of being unmasterful of your asking such that you keep asking for things that don't bring you happiness. You still ask for them because you ask for hate, because you want to hate.

Not recognizing what you actually are choosing is half the problem. It requires a lot of honesty to admit you want to hurt yourself, want to be afraid, want to be sick or want to die, especially when on the surface this induces fear which makes you recoil from what you are choosing. Or to admit you are NOT doing what you think you're doing.

The only reason people seem to not want all the shit they keep wanting, is because they keep wanting to threaten themselves. They keep seeking ways to be punished and hurt, yet recoil at the hurt. This is just the two-faced nature of the ego. We keep choosing in a confused state of mind and end up making a poor choice.

"I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace. I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise."

When you want only health, happiness and wholeness you will have only that, and nothing else will you have. If life sucks, congratulations on getting what you wanted. Then choose again if you want something else.

We simply are immature creators with confused minds who keep causing hell to happen by mistake. On purpose. Because we think its what we want, because we don't recognize what things are, because we're insane. But all you have to do is change your mind about what you want.

"This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it. But YOU think that you HAVE changed it, as long as you learn through the ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which SEEMS contradictory: you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless."

"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."

"He has asked for what will frighten him, and bring him suffering. Let us resolve today to ask for what we really want, and only this, that we may spend this day in fearlessness, without confusing pain with joy, or fear with love."

"You were at peace until you asked for special favor, and God did not give it."

"In peace he needed nothing, and asked for nothing. In war he DEMANDED everything, and FOUND nothing."

"What you have asked for cannot be denied."

"If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God's teacher can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has condemned himself. He can be sure as well that he has asked for depression, pain, fear and disaster to come to him."

"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."

"For NEITHER will recognize that HE HAS ASKED FOR HELL, and so he will NOT interfere with the ego's ILLUSION of Heaven, which it offered him TO INTERFERE WITH HEAVEN."

"NOTHING can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the hands of His Father. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep, and the Soul remembers its Creator. All sense of Separation disappears, and level confusion vanishes."

"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."

"I could not atone for MYSELF ALONE. Listening to one Voice implies the decision to share It in order to hear It yourself. The Mind that was in me is still irresistibly drawn to EVERY MIND CREATED BY GOD, because God's Wholeness is the Wholeness of His Son. You cannot be hurt, and do not want to show YOUR BROTHER anything except your wholeness. Show him that he cannot hurt you and hold nothing against him, or you hold it against yourself. This is the meaning of turning the other cheek."

"Oneness is simply the idea God is. And in His Being, He encompasses all things. NO MIND (implying there are many) holds anything but Him (therefore he created many minds)."

"Miracles make MINDS one in God. They depend on cooperation because the SONSHIP is the SUM OF ALL THAT GOD CREATED. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time."

"God speaks for you in answering your question with these words: I walk with God in perfect holiness. I light the world, I light my mind and ALL THE MINDS WHICH GOD CREATED ONE WITH ME"

"ONE CHILD OF GOD (implying there are many) is the only teacher sufficiently worthy to teach ANOTHER (there are many!). One Teacher is in ALL YOUR MINDS, and He teaches the same lesson TO ALL. He always teaches you (one such mind) the inestimable worth of EVERY SON OF GOD, teaching it with infinite patience born of the infinite love for which he speaks."

"The Holy Spirit is the spirit of joy. He is the Call to return which God blessed THE MINDS OF HIS SEPARATED SONS. This is the vocation of the mind."

"Let us not wander into temptation, for the temptation of the Son of God is not Your Will. And let us receive only what You have given, and accept but this INTO THE MINDS WHICH YOU CREATED AND WHICH YOU LOVE. Amen."

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I don't know about you guys-n-gals but it sounds to me very clearly that there are MULTIPLE SONS and MULTIPLE MINDS. And that the presence of multiple minds is completely natural and normal because God CREATED THEM. Therefore EACH ONE has its "own mind". Each mind may well be "one" or in harmony with other minds, but there are still many minds, and each still has its own potential to choose whether to do God's will or not.

This is why some parts of the Course refer on ONE LEVEL to the ONE SON OF GOD, and on another level to the MANY INDIVIDUAL SONS (or souls).

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References to BROTHERS who are one with God:

"You are afraid of God because you fear your BROTHER. This BROTHER who stands beside you still seems to be a stranger."

"Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only BROTHER to the world. Forgive him your illusions, and behold how dear a BROTHER he would be to you. For he will set your mind at rest at last and carry it with you unto your God."

"To know your BROTHER is to know God."

"Miracles unite you directly with your BROTHER."

"One moment of real recognition makes everyone your BROTHER."

"Any BROTHER with whom you have a limited relationship, you hate."

"Don't deny yourself the message of relief that every BROTHER offers you now."

"It is not up to you to change your BROTHER, but merely to accept him as he is."

"In your BROTHER is the light. See him as sinless, and there can be no fear in you."

"The miracle enables you to see your BROTHER without his past, and so perceive him as born again."

"Your BROTHER does not have to be aware of the Holy Spirit in himself or in you for the miracle to occur."

"What you acknowledge in your BROTHER you are acknowledging in yourself, and what you share you strengthen."

"The miracle acknowledges everyone as your BROTHER and mine. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God."

"Because the miracle worker has heard God's Voice, he strengthens It in a sick BROTHER by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does not share." (again confirmation that your brother can refuse healing even if you are healed)

"Where there is love, your BROTHER must give it to you because of what it is. But where there is a call for love, you must give it because of what you are." (similarly again, you give love to those who lack it)

"How willing are you to forgive your BROTHER? How much do you desire peace instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the same, in different form."

"Trials are but lessons you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one. In every difficulty Christ calls to you and gently says, My BROTHER, choose again."

"If you attack error in another, you will hurt yourself. You cannot know your BROTHER when you attack him. Attack is always made upon a stranger. You are making him a stranger by misperceiving him, and so you cannot know him. It is because you have made him a stranger that you are afraid of him. There are no strangers in God's creation."

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your BROTHER did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is the will of God."

"Not one does Christ forget. Not one He fails to give you to remember, that your home may be complete and perfect as it was established. He has not forgotten you. But you will not remember Him until you look on all as He does. Who denies his BROTHER is denying Him, and thus refusing to accept the gift of sight by which his Self is clearly recognized, his home remembered and salvation come."

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It seems to me what the One Son of God, as Christ, is considered a BROTHER to the MANY SONS, who were also created (souls?) as extensions of him/god, ... and that at times the course refers to them on an equal footing because they are made of God-stuff equally, even though Christ appears to be a "larger" identity than the individual sons. But Christ+the individual sons make up "the sonship". So the sonship is not just the individual sons, it also includes the one son, and all are considered equal brothers in that sonship.

When we typically experience the world from an ego viewpoint, we might encounter lessons and people and problems. And then we attempt to forgive these things. And we think we are then done with forgiveness. And then another one comes along. And then we do another forgiveness. And this gives you the impression that you are doing forgiveness.

But over time, you are really moving horizontally through the world, encountering obstacles, one at a time, and these obstacles always seem specific. The form of the obstacle is what deceives you. The problem with your mother, the problem with the plumbing, the problem with the sick brother, the problem with your boss. Each one seems specifically different and unrelated to the rest. And so you perform a string of seeming forgivenesses through time.

But as you perform each forgiveness and move towards truth, you are in fact moving UPWARDS, towards the light. And this upwards movement may seem to be more subtle and gradual, such that it isn't even specific and it may be difficult to realize whether you are making upwards progress. But over time, it will start to occur to you that each of the seemingly different "forms" that problems take, is itself an illusion.

You will start to see that each of these forgiveness opportunities have something in common. Common characteristics. There's always some problem with your belief in who is causing who. And there's always some issue of authority and power. And there's always fear and reaction involved. And there's always the same stresses. And as you progress you start to generalize the learning and start to transcend the forms and differences. And then it starts to occur to you that these are not all different situations.

What forgiveness reveals to you, is that you aren't really in fact having to deal with a multitude of totally different problems, but that in fact the whole world, ALL of the problems, are doing the same thing. And ALL of the problems have the same characteristics. And ALL of them are forgiven in the same way. And this starts to show you that it's not really a specific problem with specific people, or specific groups, or specific situations, it's a problem with THE WHOLE WORLD.

And then you start to question the nature of the whole world. Maybe the WHOLE world is a collection of attacks. Maybe all of it, regardless of the form it takes, is ONE problem. And now you are starting to not fall for the illusion of form or the shape that a problem takes. You are realizing that either you move downwards into the darkness of hell, or upwards into the light of heaven. And either you are lost in the battlefield of stress and misery, or you are above the WHOLE battlefield in light and happiness.

Forgiveness starts to now take on a different direction. Its not so much to do with having a DIFFERENT way of handling each situation, but of developing a SINGLE "way" of dealing with them all. And you start to see through the deception or form that each one presents. And you stop falling for the obvious temptations. And now forgiveness is seen as vertical, in which either you are moving into hell or out of it, as a whole. And the qualities of the whole WORLD are now being brought into question.

You are now asking yourself, whether ANY of the things that happen are real. Whether ANY problem is really happening. Whether ANY person's attack has anything to do with you. Whether there even IS anything specific or different about any of it. And as you broaden your horizons to learn very large abstract truths such as that there is no world, this is just a dream, NONE of it is happening to you, loving everyone equally is the way to holy relationship, unity is the truth, sharing with everyone is unconditional love, etc... you move away from the specific towards the abstract.

And now it boils down the real "root cause" of the WHOLE of suffering, the reason for EVERY reaction, the purpose behind EVERY sickness. And you discover there not only really is only one problem, there is also only one solution. One solution to rule them all. And only one lesson that the Holy Spirit is teaching. Either the world is real or its not. And if it is real, you will suffer. And if it's not, you are free. If it's a dream, you have no basis for reactions or fear. If it's not a dream, you cannot help but react in fear. This is a fundamental lesson in the generalization of the teaching. That every form the illusion takes is just as DECOY to distract you from realizing that it's ALL the same.

This causes you to also start realizing that the hierarchy of illusions is a lie. Some things are NOT harder or more difficult than another. The form of a problem lies about its severity. You start to question whether a giant cancer is really any more threatening than a headache. You see how the ego tries to correlate the seriousness of a cause with the appropriate level of reaction, and you stop falling for this lie. The hierarchy starts to flatten, and all of the deceptions that make it seem like a world-sized maze of confusing corridors and disjointed pieces, simply start to fuse into each other as they're all seen as ONE DREAM. One problem, one solution.

"Miracles entail a sudden shift into vertical perception".

"Yet they are all the same and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted."

"Without the values from the past you WOULD see them all the same"

"We will try to realize that we have only one problem, which we have failed to recognize. We will ask what it is, and wait for the answer. We will be told."

"Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution."

"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."

Why do we try to keep bodies from dying? This is a very deep question. ACIM tells us we are immortal beings, incapable of sickness or death. That God has created us to live forever, because nothing real can ever be threatened.

It also tells us that we "play a game of death" by pretending to be something which can seem to die - a body. By believing we are mortal, our mind enters into identification with the body. We believe the body is our self, something vulnerable and limited and capable of being attacked.

"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

Identifying as a body brings immediate fear. The body is fundamentally vulnerable and can be destroyed. If you are a body, you can never be safe. We know this, deep down. It produces a compulsion to then try to preserve and protect the body, believing that if the body dies we will die.

Anything which now seems to threaten the body is a threat to our existence. If the body becomes sick we are terrified that we're going to end. If a body dies, we feel it is the loss of someone real. This "fear of death" now turns into an entire death-worshipping culture in which we are constantly trying to keep bodies from dying. Constantly trying to deny that we believe they WILL die, and us along with them. Fearing whenever sickness strikes.

All our laws are set up to preserve bodies, to protect bodies, to defend them, to keep them going. We see sicknesses as defeat. We see death as total failure. We see all forms of attack as a threat to our existence and our health. We don't even live in a safe environment, surrounded by danger constantly. And yet we constantly try to surround the body with protections and shelter, all of which are guaranteed to fail.

"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

If someone becomes sick, we feel afraid for their life, wanting their body ("self") to keep going. If someone is attacked, we rally around them and try to make them better. If someone is in a war, we see it as a tragedy, and how dare so many people be killed. Always essentially exalting the body, preserving the body, keeping the body going, worshipping the body, wanting the body to last forever. Wanting to avoid anything happening to "body-people" ever.

But the whole compulsion to have the body last forever is driven by the fact that bodies CANNOT last forever, the sheer terror this produces when you identify with it, and the NEED that arises to protect it to "save your life". We're not then trying to keep real people alive, we're trying to preserve a fake body person so that an otherwise immortal being can keep pretending to be mortal while denying they are mortal.

This applies not only to bodies but to the entire world and all physical life forms. Every single thing in this universe was made to be mortal, to lack, to lose, to suffer and to die. All the world's roads lead to death eventually, and all bodies and planets will die. That's just how it is, because this world depends on denying eternal life.

"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

That fact is that we spend our entire lives trying to keep bodies going for as long as possible, avoiding all attacks, avoiding the weather, avoiding sicknesses, trying to end suffering, trying to stop the bodies from dying. But why? It is not necessary to stop bodies dying, because it has NO EFFECT on the immortality of the soul. Maybe we should stop resisting death so much, because resisting death induces it.

From the perspective of the immortal soul, the soul simply USES the world and the body for its higher purposes, as it attempts to awaken from the dream of death. It comes and goes, into one body, out of it, into another, until it learns its lessons. From its perspective, the body's purpose is to SERVE the soul's goal of reunion with God. And the body has no purpose or life of its own.

"Everyone can use his body best by enlarging man's perception, so he can see the real VISION." UrT1B40J

As far as the soul is concerned, it knows that certain lifetimes cannot last, and will not be the lifetime in which it awakens from the dream of death. It determines to use a body for a certain amount of time and for a certain purpose, and then puts it aside. It was never necessarily the goal to resurrect the body in that lifetime or to make it healthy. It was not a part of the plan or "useful" for the soul's lessons at that time.

Yet when we are so heavily focused on bodies and believing people are bodies, with "one lifetime and then you die", we constantly and obsessively try to avoid the body's demise at all costs. It is a faulty approach because it identifies the person with their body, trying to keep them in it for as long as possible. And always to avoid the fear of "ending".

You'll do everything you can to fix the body and save the body, thinking that by doing this you will avoid loss and death. But this isn't how the soul uses the body at all. Instead of letting souls be free, we imprison them in bodies for as long as possible, not wanting the body to go because it would mean the loss of a body-person. A body that a person is not.

"As long as you believe that, to be with a body, is companionship, you will be COMPELLED to attempt to keep your brother IN his body, HELD THERE BY GUILT." URT15H12

"The test of EVERYTHING on earth is simply this: "What is it FOR?" UrT24H6

"I am not a body I am free, for I am still as God created me." UrW219

The big question then is what is the body FOR, and how is it being USED, and WHY it is being used this way, and for what purpose? The body is NOT an end in itself or something to be kept for its own sake. The ultimate goal for the soul is reunion with God and total spiritual awakening to heaven's reality. Its goal IS NOT to keep bodies living for as long as possible. The soul does not care about bodies whatsoever, because it knows they don't even really exist.

Sometimes bodies no longer serve the soul, no longer function well enough, and become unhelpful. When bodies become severely sick and disabled they may no longer prove "useful", and the soul will want to move on to a new one. Sometimes it is simply "time" for a soul to leave a body, even if the body is NOT in a state of health or a symbol of eternal life, because it is no longer realistic or feasible to keep using that same body for awakening. This isn't a failure, bodies just don't last long enough for the soul to fulfill its very long road to awakening.

We need to drop the idea of constantly defending, fixing, saving, trying to cure, and trying to preserve bodies as if they are supposed to be eternal entities. They were never designed to last forever. They are not made of immortal spirit. They are always temporary at best. The mind attacks them and they break down and die, and this does not matter in the big picture. There will be a "second coming" of the soul, and another, and another.

But more importantly, the mindset and belief that people ARE bodies is the whole problem. This leads to an automatic sense of threat to your existence, which leads to automatic fear, which leads to a compulsion to "not die". Thinking of bodies as people, as though when anything "happens to" a body it's an awful tragedy which should never have happened and is real and must be avoided, is not in any way forgiveness. It is being "blinded by perception of form". It is a guilty worshipping of an idol and a mistaken sense of who and what someone is and what's important.

Actual souls CANNOT BE HURT, cannot suffer, and cannot die. All suffering and sickness and death is an illusion. That's the soul's view of bodies. Souls do not care whatsoever for whether bodies carry on or not. They are valueless and meaningless and are nothing. They are not worth anything. They are just tools that we're using temporarily towards an end. The end is not death. The end is transcendence of bodies and a permanent awakening to spiritual reality.

"The "self" that needs protection is not real. The body, valueless and hardly worth the least defense, need merely be perceived as quite apart from you, and it becomes a healthy, serviceable instrument through which the mind can operate until its usefulness is over. Who would want to keep it when its usefulness is done?" UrW135L9

You'll continue to see that the world will remain obsessed with body preservation, worshipping of babies, attempts to avoid death, and the frankly inhumane notion that letting someone die is never in their best interests. People should be allowed to come and go as they will. Sometimes it is better to depart than to stay. And they do anyway, because a death is always consented and planned by the soul. It does not care about keeping bodies going or avoiding death, and death can be a liberation.

Avoiding death isn't really a miraculous viewpoint. Trying to have bodies always be resurrected and healthy isn't really a miraculous viewpoint. Making death real and then trying to rescue a person from it, is not a miracle-minded viewpoint.

These things are okay if they happen as side effects of the mind healing, and indeed we are to demonstrate symbolic bodies representing eternal life. But not because bodies are important whatsoever, and in an attempt to avoid death, or to try to use miracles as a way to DENY that we believe we are going to die. To falsely resurrect bodies in the name of body preservation is anti-miraculous. Resurrecting the MIND, such that bodies may also be healed indirectly is miraculous. Mind's belief in bodies must end.

"Whenever you attempt to reach a goal in which the body's betterment is cast as major beneficiary, you try to bring about your death." UrT29H4

Let the bodies go. Let them die if they're going to die. Someone dying does NOT always mean it's the worst possible outcome or a total tragedy or even something to be upset about. Don't mistake bodies for people or for souls or beings. They are nothing but artificial pictures, empty voids, vehicles and tools, used temporarily by a higher power and worth nothing in themselves. They have no meaning and no life of their own, and nothing worth keeping. They are only useful until they're not.

We need to drop the idea that "staying in a body" is the only valid and sane choice. Or that we need to preserve the body in order to protect the self. Souls leave bodies when the body is no longer useful, and never again do they give the slightest interest in what becomes of the corpse. Souls will use up a bazillion bodies and throw them on a scrapheap, across countless lifetimes, it if means being able to eventually wake up from bodies entirely.

"The ultimate purpose of the body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only real reason for its creation." UrT1B40J

I found myself in a conversation with Jesus last night about whether or not it's okay to pray for someone if they have not 'given permission'. I wanted to pray for someone to attempt to help them and heal them, but I wondered, what if they did not want this?

I thought about how we're not meant to violate someone's free will and how maybe it would incur some kind of 'karma' if we try to do this. I also thought about ethics and about how everyone has 'rights' and that we're supposed to be respectful and all that.

I seemed to be getting hints from Jesus that it was still okay to pray, and in fact it had been Jesus who initially had suggested to me "pray". Jesus has been trying to get me to experiment more with 'true prayer', since prayer is the medium of miracles, and to learn more how to extend God's miracles to people. But I felt a bit awkward about 'doing a prayer to someone'.

I wondered if it was some kind of manipulation. But somehow it seemed plausible that maybe it was helpful, that maybe anything that truly comes from God is perhaps useful and uplifting and a blessing of some kind.

So then I started wondering about whether in the higher realms there might be some kind of special 'rules' or 'laws' in place which govern this kind of thing, whether I should ask Jesus or God or someone not only IF it's okay to pray for someone, but also what to pray for. It seems at least to make sense to ask for guidance as to what will be helpful, rather than just launch into an ego 'I think this should happen' sort of thing.

Then it started to occur to me that perhaps there is a difference between horizontal and vertical thinking, ie that most of our worries about violating someone's free will are to do with things we would 'do to someone' in a horizontal, ego-logical way, on the level of form and separation... and that perhaps when you go into 'vertical' mode (which is conducive to miracles), you are perhaps transcending that entire scenario... it occurred me to also that everything in this world is basically illusion and part of ego-world laws, and yet in truth, "I am under no laws but God's".

Having spun my wheels around all of this I then turned to Jesus and just asked, why or how is it okay to pray for someone when they haven't asked for it and maybe don't even want it?

In his becoming-increasingly-common fashion, he replied with a single short sentence which cut through absolutely all of the bullshit and confusion like a knife.

"Since when was it a crime to love someone?"

:-)

Praying with God and receiving God's love and extending God's love, which is the 'mechanics' of miracle working, is entirely within the realm of loving people. It's not really 'about' the miracle as such, or the outcome, but really just about loving people. The love that inspires the miracle is important, more than the miracle itself. The miracle is almost a side-effect of love. So with a focus on simply praying as a form of a) thanking God for love, b) receiving love, c) extending love to others, where's the possible harm in that? And if a miracle comes of it, that's fine too... because "miracles are natural expressions of love, when they aren't happening something has gone wrong".

So I focused on love. And I prayed for the person. And I even prayed for the person to receive healing, which may even entail changes in their body. But rather than it seem like an act of control, manipulation, non-acceptance or overstepping boundaries, it simply became an affirmation of truth, an exclamation of the lovability of the person, and a restoration of how God would have things be. In this sense it can only be a blessing. And this made me think of...

"Miracles are the maximal service you can render to another". So if a miracle is the absolute BEST that I can possibly offer to someone, as a natural component of love through prayer, than where is there room in there for doubt or ideas of 'not supposed to' or 'respecting separate will' or whatever. And I guess it boils down to this..... miracles from God's love are ALWAYS a blessing, are ALWAYS welcome, are ALWAYS justified, are ALWAYS allowed (per God's will), and are a kind of 'right' that we each have to bestow upon each other.

We are, in our miracle working, extending God's authority and using that authority to have authority over ILLUSIONS, not so much over the person. The person is NOT the illusion of sickness, the person is NOT the life challenge, the person is NOT what their ego is up to or the lessons they have. So we cannot really do anything TO the person anyway, because they already ARE perfect love in truth. And we are not really in fact healing the real person because the real person needs no healing. All we are doing is calling for love to come in and set a person free from illusions, which is a divine blessing.

Okay so I realize this may sound like potentially a lot of rationalization or justification... but really just clarity. Coming into awareness that we ARE extensions of God's authority, we DO have the ability to give love, Jesus DOES perform miracles as "intercessions for your holiness", and doing this IS allowed and normal and loving, regardless of whether someone asks to be helped or not. Divine help is TRULY HELPFUL. Ego help is the kind of help that has side-effects and boundary-violating properties. There is a difference. Provided we are putting God/Love first, all is well.

It's okay to work miracles for those who are not able to help themselves, and for those who are temporarily weaker, and for those who are temporarily more resistant to love. But you should probably still seek Spiritual guidance as to whether this is in accord with the Plan of Atonement. As Jesus says, indiscriminate miracles are not always helpful, and that you should consult with Him first. I guess that's as good a basis for 'what to do' as any.

It all comes back to that funny old adage ... "what would Jesus do?"

ACIM: "The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end." (clarification of terms, chapter 5, paragraph 1).

Other religions that teach that the physical world is nothing but a dream/illusion...

1. Hinduism (Advaita Vedanta)

Concept: Maya (illusion) – The material world is an illusion created by ignorance (avidya), and ultimate reality (Brahman) is formless and unchanging.

Teachings: The Upanishads and Adi Shankaracharya’s Advaita Vedanta philosophy teach that individual identity (atman) is identical to Brahman, and the world of appearances is like a dream. Only through knowledge (jnana) can one realize this truth.

2. Buddhism

Concept: Śūnyatā (emptiness) & Māyā (illusion) – All phenomena lack intrinsic reality and are conditioned, much like dreams.

Teachings: The Buddha compared the world to an illusion, a mirage, and a dream in texts like the Diamond Sutra. The Madhyamaka school (founded by Nagarjuna) and Yogacara school (which emphasizes "mind-only" reality) both argue that what we perceive as reality is shaped by mental constructs.

3. Platonism & Neoplatonism

Concept: The Cave Allegory – The material world is a shadow of a higher, true reality.

Teachings: Plato described the sensory world as mere reflections of the eternal Forms. Neoplatonists like Plotinus argued that the material world emanates from the One and is a lesser, dreamlike version of true reality.

4. Gnosticism

Concept: The material world is a deceptive prison created by an ignorant or malevolent demiurge.

Teachings: Gnostic texts (like The Gospel of Thomas and The Apocryphon of John) describe the world as an illusion that traps the soul. True knowledge (gnosis) allows one to awaken from this illusion and return to the divine.

5. Taoism

Concept: The relativity of perception and the dream-like nature of experience.

Teachings: Zhuangzi’s famous parable of the butterfly dream questions whether reality is absolute or a shifting illusion. Taoism often portrays distinctions between waking and dreaming as fluid. 6. Sufism (Islamic Mysticism)

Concept: The world as a shadow or veil obscuring divine reality.

Teachings: Rumi and Ibn Arabi describe the world as an ephemeral illusion, with God (Al-Haqq, "the Real") being the only true existence. Sufi thought emphasizes awakening from worldly distractions to experience divine unity.

7. Christian Mysticism & Idealism

Concept: The world as a temporary illusion compared to eternal divine truth.

Teachings: Some Christian mystics, such as Meister Eckhart and Jakob Böhme, emphasized that the physical world is fleeting and that true reality is found in union with God. Later, philosophers like George Berkeley argued that reality exists only as ideas in the mind of God. 8. Sikhism

Concept: Maya (illusion) – The world is transitory and deceptive, keeping people from realizing God.

Teachings: Sikh scriptures, including the Guru Granth Sahib, emphasize that attachment to worldly things is an illusion. True reality is found in devotion to God and spiritual awakening.

9. Hermeticism

Concept: The material world is a lower reflection of the divine mind. Teachings: The Kybalion and other Hermetic texts describe reality as mental in nature ("The All is Mind") and suggest that the physical world is a projection of higher consciousness.

10. Kabbalah (Jewish Mysticism)

Concept: The material world is a lower, imperfect manifestation of divine reality.

Teachings: In the Zohar, the world is described as a series of emanations from the Ein Sof (Infinite). The material realm is an illusion in the sense that it veils the deeper truth of divine unity.

11. Rosicrucianism

Concept: The physical world is a veil hiding spiritual truths. Teachings: Rosicrucian teachings, influenced by Hermeticism and Gnosticism, describe reality as a temporary, symbolic projection meant to teach spiritual lessons.

12. Manichaeism

Concept: The material world is a trap created by a lesser, evil power.

Teachings: This ancient dualistic religion, founded by Mani, teaches that the physical world is a deception created by darkness, while the true realm of light exists beyond it.

13. Jainism

Concept: The material world is impermanent and a source of bondage.

Teachings: Jainism teaches that the soul is trapped in illusion and karma. Liberation (moksha) is achieved by transcending attachments to the physical world.

14. Some Indigenous and Shamanic Traditions

Concept: Reality is fluid, dreamlike, and shaped by spiritual forces. Teachings: Many indigenous traditions, such as those in Native American, Aboriginal Australian, and Amazonian cultures, describe reality as a dream, a shifting landscape influenced by spirits, ancestors, or cosmic forces.

15. Pythagoreanism

Concept: The world is a mathematical illusion.

Teachings: Pythagoras and his followers believed that reality was structured by numbers and harmony, with the material world being a lesser, imperfect reflection of the perfect, mathematical order.

16. Theosophy

Concept: The physical world is an illusion created by spiritual ignorance.

Teachings: Helena Blavatsky and later Theosophists describe the world as maya, emphasizing that true knowledge comes through spiritual enlightenment and connection to the higher planes.

17. Catharism (12th–14th Century, Medieval Europe)

Beliefs: The Cathars, a dualist Christian sect, saw the physical world as an evil illusion created by Satan. They believed that the true, divine world was purely spiritual, and human souls had to escape material existence to reunite with God.

18. Eastern Orthodox Hesychasm (Byzantine Christianity)

Beliefs: Some interpretations of Hesychasm (a mystical tradition within Eastern Orthodoxy) suggest that the material world is not truly real compared to the divine presence of God, which can only be known through inner contemplation and prayer.

19. Christian Science (Founded in 19th Century)

Beliefs: Founded by Mary Baker Eddy, Christian Science teaches that the material world, including sickness and death, is an illusion. True reality is purely spiritual, and healing comes through understanding this truth.

20. Some New Age and Esoteric Christian Movements

Some modern Christian esoteric groups, influenced by Theosophy or the New Thought movement, teach that the material world is a mental construct or illusion, similar to Hindu maya.

There’s quite a lot in the course about the Holy Spirit having a function. A role which he is supposed to fill, where he does something that you do NOT do.

I think this becomes largely ignored by most people doing the course, and I KNOW that I definitely have not fully respected the importance of allowing him to play his part. I think we’re not realizing just how much we’re supposed to depend on Him to help us and do things for us.

I think most people are doing the course on their own, without him, not turning to him, not listening, not hearing his voice, not working with him. Especially not surrendering the ego position of being the one who “does it all alone.”

Instead there’s a lot of discussion about each of us doing forgiveness work and making decisions and fixing our lives and so on, but very little about surrendering to Him and having him do everything for us. Yet alone having him heal us, or heal others through us. HE is the one who performs miracles through us.

“What he enables you to do is clearly not of this world.”

It seems a lot of folks think ACIM is a self study where you just read the book and do some lessons and chat about it with others. But I think there’s a tremendous amount of unawareness of the Holy Spirit, who is supposed to be our ONLY teacher, our ONLY therapist, and is “the idea of healing”, GIVEN to us by God as HIS solution to the separation. We should heed this.

He is supposed to fill the function of healing us. We’re not supposed to be “doing it ourselves”. Healing has to be RECEIVED. There’s actually a position we’re meant to be in where we have a little willingness, and he does all the rest. Where we let him heal us, literally. We’re not supposed to be doing all the work by ourselves.

In effect, we are more or less to “channel” the Holy Spirit and allow him to be the one to do everything for us and for others, through us. The Holy Spirit has a much larger function, and a far greater power than your own. He is here to help and it’s our function to LET HIM be the one we turn to for help. To BE helped, instead of self-reliant.

We need to have more humility, open up to the Holy Spirit, allow and receive His help, and allow him to operate through us and for us. This is all part of letting yourself be loved, and allowing love to radiate to others. The Holy Spirit’s function is forgiveness, your function is to share it with him.

“No needs will long be left unmet, if you leave them ALL to Him Whose FUNCTION is to meet them. This is His function, and NOT YOURS.”

“The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE.”

“Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God.”

“ANY attempt you make to correct a brother, means that you believe correction by YOU is possible, and this can ONLY be the arrogance of the ego. Correction is of God, Who does not know of arrogance. The Holy Spirit forgives everything, BECAUSE GOD CREATED EVERYTHING. Do not undertake HIS function, or you will forget YOURS.”

“He knows the need; the question and the answer. He will say exactly what to do in words that you can understand and you can also use. Do not confuse His function with your own. He is the Answer; you the one who hears.”

“Never approach the holy instant AFTER you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is ITS function. Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven.”

“Be very still, and hear God's Voice in him, and let It tell you what his function is.“

“The Holy Spirit never refuses an invitation to enter and abide with you. He will give you endless opportunities to open the door to your salvation, for such is His function. He will also tell you exactly what your function is in every circumstance and at all times.”

“The preparation for the holy instant belongs to Him Who gives it. RELEASE yourselves to Him Whose function IS release. Do NOT assume His function FOR Him. Give Him but what He asks, that you may learn how LITTLE is your part, and how great is HIS.”

“The curriculum is highly individualized. And all aspects are under the Holy Spirit's particular care and guidance. Ask and He will answer. The responsibility is His, and He alone is fit to assume it. To do so is His function. To refer the questions to Him is yours. Would you want to be responsible for decisions about which you understand so little? Be glad you have a Teacher Who cannot make a mistake. His answers are always right. Would you say that of yours?”

“By steadily and consistently canceling out ALL its effects, EVERYWHERE AND IN ALL RESPECTS, He teaches that the ego does not exist, and PROVES IT. Follow His teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness IS His function, and HE knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what we meant when we once said that miracles are NATURAL, and when they do NOT occur, something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow HIS plan of Salvation, in recognition of the FACT that you do NOT know what it is. His work is NOT your function, and unless you accept this, you CANNOT learn what your function IS.”

This is a simple idea. Since the world is neutral, and since you are having a subjective view of it, your mind is able to see it in different ways. And this means that there is always more than one way to look at something.

Sin is the idea or state of mind in which you see an illusion and combine it with reality, resulting in the perception that it cannot change. That perception is fixed. But this suggests there is only one way to look at something. And here it's meaning seems locked into the form it takes.

In truth there is another way to look at everything, because the Holy Spirit and Christ has given an alternative dream. There is always a "bright side to life" which is different to the "dark side of life." There is always another way to see it, other than how the negative ego sees it.

No matter what it is, how severe it seems, what form it takes, there are always at least two interpretations of it. One of them coming from ego makes the things seem dark and stressful and dangerous and unpleasant. The other provided by Christ Vision through Holy Spirit sees the same thing in a very different light.

The higher way to see, Christ Vision, is what the workbook lessons are geared towards developing. The whole process of forgiveness is of shifting from one thought system to another, or simply making a choice between seeing heaven or hell reflected in what you see.

For everything you see that you do not like, there is a miracle of sight which can look on this exact same thing and see it as beneficial and harmless. For everything which seems to be locked into meaning based on its form, there is another view which frees meaning from its form and uses it for a higher purpose.

So in all things, you can simply say to yourself, that you want another way to look at this. There MUST BE a higher way to look at everything. And when that way of looking is what you do consistently and what you choose to move into regularly, you'll develop Christ Vision.

Since Christ Vision is a gift of Christ that you share with him, your alignment with the Holy Spirit to see how HE sees grants you a viewpoint which is much more charitable and benevolent, which then sees this benevolence reflected back to you.

"What the world is, is but a fact. You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose how you would see it. Indeed, you must choose this."

"There is another way of looking at the world."

"There is another way of looking at this."

"Since the purpose of the world is not the one I ascribed to it, there must be another way of looking at it. I see everything upside-down, and my thoughts are the opposite of truth. I see the world as a prison for God's Son. 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."

"The Holy Spirit is one way of choosing. This way is in you BECAUSE there is also another way."

"I came to your minds because you had grown vaguely aware of the fact that there is another way, or another voice. Having given this invitation to the Holy Spirit, I could come to provide the model for HOW TO THINK."

"I WANT another way to look at this."

"Perhaps there IS another way to look at this. What can I LOSE by asking?"

"Yet can he learn to look on it another way, and find the peace of God."

"For you have learned of Christ there is another way for them to walk."

"Who would be willing to be turned AWAY from all the roadways of the world, UNLESS he understood their real futility? Is it not needful that he should BEGIN with this to seek another way instead?" "Belief that there IS another way is the loftiest idea of which ego-thinking is capable. This is because it contains a hint of recognition that the ego is NOT the self."

"Yet reason looks on this in another way."

"How COULD there be another way to solve a problem which is VERY simple, but has been obscured by heavy clouds of complication, which were MADE to keep the problem unresolved?"

"Alternatives are in your mind to use, and you CAN see yourself another way."

"No one who has learned from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs much conditioning. The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process, because the process itself DEMONSTRATES that there is another way."

"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."

"Some of them are shared illusions, and others are part of your personal hell."

It's a very common belief that there is only one dreamer of the dream of separation. This is not true.

Nor is it true that "the one son" dreamed the dream. Only individual portions of the sonship chose freely to entertain the idea of separation, not all of them. And some angels also bought into it and others did not.

The dream has MANY AUTHORS. This is possible because we OVERLAP, because we share minds. So there can seem to be one dreamer or it can seem in an awakened experience that you are responsible for "all of the dream", but *ALSO* others are responsible for all of the dream as well! You overlap, you share, you collaborate, you join wills and join forces and this world was made by MANY MINDS.

The misunderstanding of this, due to poor reasoning, has led to many people to be CONFUSED and to adopt beliefs about what ACIM is teaching that are mistaken.

For example, people say "other people are me" or "we're all one person" and therefore, this leads to conclusions like... I am responsible for what other people are doing. Or, I must be responsible for making someone sick. Or, if I change my mind about the dream, it will automatically somehow magically "heal" everyone and all of the sicknesses will magically disappear and I'll be looking at a world where everyone is healthy and happy. NOOOO. That does not happen.

You waking up as "author" of this dream only means that you are a CO-AUTHOR, and you've waked up from the PART you played in its making. This is why Jesus was able to wake up FIRST without others waking up, and it's also why you must accept atonement for YOURSELF. Many individuals have to accept the atonement, otherwise if "one" of them accepted it, it would literally be instantly accepted for all, and we wouldn't be sitting here 2000 years after Jesus atoned still deciding whether or not to wake up.

This has led to some quite distorted conclusions about what needs to happen to your perception in order to produce a forgiven world or a happy dream or a world without sickness or bodies. It makes people OVERLY responsible for the choices of other FREE WILLED INDIVIDUALS. This is actually a fault, because YOU are supposed to be claiming and taking full responsibility for what YOU are choosing or doing to yourself, and you can't DO that if you're telling yourself that you are responsible for the other PARTS and CAUSES that are in the world. If you tell yourself, you're responsible for someone else's choice to die, because it's so-called "your dream", then you're going to be in for a surprise.

This has also led people to conclude that when Jesus was performing miracles, he somehow "did not see" bodies or was not able to discern "sickness" at all, and they've justified and rationalized and explained this away as some strange twist of perception, that he could not SEE what was "wrong" with them and could not tell that they needed help. This is CLEARLY not in accord with what ACTUALLY happens in experience, and even people who have had awakenings through ACIM have said that they still can SEE. Perception merely becomes MORE ACCURATE, it doesn't make you BLIND to what OTHER PEOPLE ARE CHOOSING.

Miracles would not be able to supply a lack to those who temporarily have less from those who temporarily have more, if we did not have free will. There could be no teachers or students or people meeting to learn lessons. There HAS to be a provision for individual choice, in terms of what YOU are responsible for and what OTHERS are responsible for.

This is why Jesus says that when you accept the atonement for YOURSELF, you become part of the atonement and then must go help OTHERS. Many people now believe that when you accept atonement you are accepting it as "the one son" and therefore it ENDS the whole process, the dream disappears and "your dream" exists no more, therefore you're done with your task. This is NOT what happens. You become part of the atonement PLAN, and you must then go HELP OTHERS, help those who HAVE NOT YET ACCEPTED IT. This is only possible because everyone has free will and because we are CO-CREATORS of this dream.

You can wake up from YOUR dreaming or your BELIEF IN the dream being real, but that doesn't mean other people have woken up, it does not force them to wake up, nor does it mean the dream is over. The only reason people have come to believe that there is ONE DREAMER or ONE SON is because of FALSE TEACHINGS that have been perpetuated about the course, from even the most famous of teachers. It makes sense to the ego, but the ego is insane, so it is nonsense. It also is based on denial of souls and individual free will, which is the underlying foundation for WHY what other people choose is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS.

Your ego is a device, a kind of machine, similar to how your car is a machine.

You designed it to perform in a certain way and to carry out your instructions.

Just as a car can only do what it is designed to do, the ego can only do what it is designed to do.

When your car is doing what you ask of it, driving you from A to B, it is fulfilling its function. Similarly when your ego is doing what you asked it to do, it is fulfilling its function.

It was the ego's function, as you designed it, to skew awareness away from God and to fixate on the opposite of God. Its function is to be unforgiving. Its function is murder.

Now, don't expect your ego to carry out some other function. You wouldn't expect your car to suddenly start washing your dishes and cooking dinner. It can only do what it was designed to do. And you would be nuts for condemning it for failing to come up with a 3-course meal.

Similarly with your ego, don't expect it to be not ego. Don't expect it to attempt to do anything other than it was designed to do. It's still carrying out your orders and doing what you wanted. It's something you made, just as people make cars.

Do you think the ego is ever going to turn around and say "you should apply forgiveness now", or "god loves you" or "there's nothing to be afraid of"? It's not meant to. That's not its job function. It's supposed to remind you how separate you are from everything and how death is life and how attack is salvation and all the rest of it, which it does very well.

What you can learn here is not to be afraid of the ego, because it's actually not 'against' you for no reason. It only seems to be against you because you asked it to be. You designed it to be. And its just doing what you wanted at one point in time. What you want now may be different but the ego, like an old machine, is still doing the same old thing that old machines do. They can't change.

So, in a way, don't take it personally when the ego is retaliating or being vicious. Don't think the ego is out to get you or has a will of its own or power over you. You are its master. Also don't think the ego has some kind of say or power over you as if it's deciding 'new things' about you. It's a one-track pony. It just keeps on doing what the ego does. And since you set that in motion yourself, it's actually being very faithful, a faithful servant, giving you exactly what you asked it to give you.

So now the ego is not so much your enemy, or necessarily a friend, but it is a friend in the sense that it is obedient and is doing what you made it to do. Don't be getting all up in its face about why it's being the way it's being, when you're the one who chose it. Recognizing it is serving you helps you to not only be grateful for the opportunities it presents, but also stops you from seeing yourself as victimized by it.

Maybe think of it like someone who has a serious disability or mental disorder and they really can't help it but keep blurting out swearwords... and so there they go again, swearing, but you understand they can't help it, their body is programmed to make it happen. So then it's not personal, and its forgivable because they know not what they do, and you're not a victim of it because you understand there isn't a malicious 'will' or intent that's running this. It's not someone out to get you. It's just a device mechanism behaving in a certain way.

So the ego is not your enemy, because in a way it is helping you to have lessons, to be asleep, to have a chance to choose again whether you want to be with God or not. And you hold all the power and the on-off switch to the ego machine. You get to choose whether to use the ego in the way it was designed to be used - to divide and separate and make illusions real, or whether to use it with Holy Spirit.

To use the ego with Holy Spirit is to look upon the ego simply for what it is, and recognize it as a faulty broken mistaken machine, which has no will or power of its own, which is just ticking along and doing its role. And here you are, in Holy Spirit, hearing the ego's voice and its assertions but taking the opportunity to listen to Holy Spirit's version of events.

Your sole task now is to simply choose not to listen to or believe what the ego is saying. You may hear it still, because it's not going to change its tune, but don't buy into it. Don't get caught up in it. Don't get lost in blaming it or fearing it. And don't keep using it for the original purpose you designed it for. You need to use it for forgiveness and as an opportunity to be triggered into healing, learning to listen to the Voice for God instead. The ego is just a limited mechanical robot. It's really nothing at all.

Thank you ego for being ego and for being a faithful servant of my awakening. And thank you for your efforts to attack so that I have an opportunity to learn to forgive. And thank you for guilt and fear so that I can learn that I am guiltless and fearless if I take those opportunities and work with them correctly. And I accept you as you are for what I made to you to be, and release you in freedom and gratitude.

When you are done using the ego and buying into this notion that it has power to do stuff to you that you didn't ask for, which is like a farmer saying "I didn't plant those stalks of corn" when clearly he did because they didn't get there into neat rows all by themselves, you'll set it aside as a 'toy' that you no longer want to play with or have a use for. It's as simple as that.

You're not a victim of the ego you made.

God is the state in which there is perfect healing all the time, not that there is 'something to heal' due to there being sickness, but that there is `pro-active healing` which PREVENTS there from being sickness, all the time. So God is in a state of health and grace forever.

God is also the source and creator of who I am as His Son. So, I extend from God. And everything I have must therefore have been given me BY God. Jesus says that the only difference between Him and us now is that he does not have anything OTHER than what God gave Him... meaning that the rest of us cling to what we think is 'other' stuff that we got from somewhere 'else', because we made it up separate from God. And none of it has any power.

Love inspires miracles and miracles are all based on love, and therefore they are expressions of love, and therefore they are expressions of GOD. They start in God. God is perpetually in a state of CHOOSING health by pro-actively always creating health. And by health I mean, a healed state in which sickness is impossible because there is only love. All true healing must then either flow from God or involve us entering INTO God to share in what God is.

So it comes down to a matter of what seems to be, two vantage points. 1) Healing flows FROM God TO where we are, and 2) We go TO God in order to share IN healing.

Most of what we seem to attempt to do in our awakening process is to go TO God in the knowledge that as we get closer to God we open up TO the healing state that is in God, so that we can share in health. However, God also is coming to us :-) God is extending constantly, and wants total health at all times, and shares total health at all times. He has no desire to 'make sick' or to 'keep sick'. And, given the chance, he would immediately flow His health to us and share it with us, healing us of all sickness.

When some portion of ego 'meets' God, God transmutes it into love and healing, or rather, health, is restored. It seems however that we live in a world where there is all kinds of sickness happening which appears not to have been 'corrected' by God yet, as if somehow it has some kind of power over God or that God for some reason does not attempt to 'heal' it or correct it. And this can lead to confusion as to exactly how it's possible that God is total health but the world is full of sickness.

Part of the issue is that we each have written 'agreements' i.e. 'scripts' before each lifetime, which were essentially sequences of events that we would 'allow' and which we would be at least a little willing to use as learning devices, to bring us ultimately closer to God, WILLINGLY, rather than necessarily being 'forced' into love. And because we did not want healing, having rejected God in the separation, it seems we now have to go through the plans that we lay out to learn our lessons and become more 'receptive' to God's love. And that can take time, and it can also seem to mean we 'have to suffer'.

However, God has no intention of making you suffer or of it having to take a long time to heal. God's Spirit works NOW. God is spontaneous and immediate and has absolutely no reason for delays of any kind, being of absolute confidence and certainty. He would heal the world in an instant. He does, however, honor the wishes of each of us to dream and pretend, up to a point. However, let's be clear, that our scripts and our excuses as to why we will not accept healing, is OUR issue, and not God's. God is not the one who keeps resisting healing or the provision of it. God wants to heal ALL THE TIME.

Because of this, I do believe it is possible that God is perfectly open to 'bypassing' your script, if an appropriate request is made. I asked Archangel Raphael about this and was surprised when he said "there is a process", and that a "petition" must be made to God. Because, how everything is sort of 'set up', we have all these agreements over many lifetimes to go through various processes to gradually awaken. God doesn't really care how long that takes, having infinite patience and knowing we're not really separate. But God is also still very immediate and instantaneous. AND, God only wants to LOVE US all of the time.

So since God is in constant love with us, and wants for us ONLY to return to Him as soon as possible so that WE can experience love and not suffering, as an act of compassion, God is perfectly capable of bypassing the script and enacting 'gifts' or 'blessings' or 'miracles' which are capable of healing someone or bringing them closer to Him 'in spite of' the ego contracts. It is possible for Holy Spirit, who has the power of God (!), to enact miracles of healing and restoration of health on all levels, at any time and to any extent. As we awaken and open to love we become co-facilitators of this and miracles become more common and natural. However, Holy Spirit is not held back by us and does not depend on us to be able to heal.

It is possible to pray for someone and to request healing for them. And this prayer basically entails you going to God in some fashion, with whatever amount of openness you currently have, and first of all emphasizing the nature of God, which is to be grateful for what already is. Grateful that God loves us, grateful that God already loves the other person, and grateful that healing and health are natural and are ALREADY TRUE. "Thank you God" is very appropriate, up-front.

We thank God profusely for having already accomplished our full and total healing, which may not be apparent in TIME but has already been accomplished in eternity. And then we might take action to EXTEND God's love (which we then are feeling) to others. We might simply ASK God/Jesus to heal someone, acknowledging and being thankful that it is DONE ALREADY (you could call this having faith), and you could even command this healing occur now.

Holy Spirit and Jesus are then perfectly capable of healing ANYTHING RIGHT NOW, and that means, correcting you FOR you, or correcting another person FOR them, without them necessarily knowing HOW to correct themselves or being capable of enlightening themselves. It is an 'intervention', a blessing and a gift. It is an extension of love. If healing is possible, it has to mean that it can occur IN SPITE OF the ego and TO UNDO THE EGO, meaning we are not really required to necessarily become miracle-minded in order to receive a miracle... IF someone else is willing to request the miracle for us. We can even request it ourselves and receive more than we asked for.

God loves us very much. We do not need to suffer. And unconditional love has NO CONDITIONS that prevent its extension.

I was asking God sincerely last night, that He heal a specific person. I explained that this person had been limited for a long time with suffering and needed help. I went to quite some lengths to detail the things they were experiencing and why it was all so unnecessary. I finished with a definitive question, can you please just heal them? What do you think God's answer was?

No.

I wasn't very happy about this. I confessed that I'd been trying to get healing for this person for a long time and just wanted to be helpful, so how was it possible to be helpful?

I was then told that when someone is ready, they will receive it.

Then Jesus popped in, and what I was shown was that everyone is choosing* everything* that happens. Even down to the suffering they experience or the things they seem not to want. It's all chosen, deliberate, intentional.

This then revealed the question, is it then possible to help anyone if they don't choose something themselves? How can anyone get any kind of help when they are not able to choose their own healing?

Jesus then spoke to me about how there were several villages which He had to pass by where He could not perform any healing whatsoever. He said the people were so adamant in rejecting Him that they did not want anything He had to offer. He had to respect their decision and move on.

He then told me, clarifying, that love isn't forceful. That you can't force someone to heal against their will. You can offer love and love has tremendous power to heal, IF there is some amount of willingness to receive it.

There is a correlation between how 'open' someone is to receive, and how much they may receive. Not because there are orders of difficulty in miracles, but because to truly RECEIVE the benefits, the person has to be WILLING, otherwise love cannot enter where it is not welcome.

Jesus reminds me now of the saying, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.

I also was then reminded of a couple of parts in the Course where Jesus says, that if you are ready and willing Jesus will help you, but if you are not, he will wait until you are. I also was then reminded that God has infinite patience and while He is willing to welcome us immediately, we may not yet be willing to allow it, putting up defenses against it.

God's love is powerful and it is unconditionally given, and it can heal miraculously. But people can choose whether they want to accept it or deny and reject it. Being on planet Earth we've for the most part rejected it, which is why we're asleep. It's not that a tremendous miraculous power isn't being given, it is given all the time. It's that we don't want it.

I felt sad about this, because it means that certain people are choosing not to want to be helped. And that meant, I was going to have to let go and "allow them" to suffer for longer, due to their own unwillingness to receive help.

But then Jesus commented that their situation was a lesson, meaning that it wasn't a loss or necessarily an unfair suffering as such, it was actually an educational tool which was being used to help the person learn the truth, no matter how it looks. In that sense, it is helping them, but also in that sense, they "need" the lesson in order to learn to be open to receive healing.

Our desire to take away people's lessons, given the ultimate truth that no-one needs to suffer for any reason, can compel us to want to fix and heal and help and to stop people's suffering. But there is some lack of wisdom there. Time is needed. The person may simply not be ready or willing yet to be able to accept the help.

It's not that you help can't help, or that it can't do something for the person that they must do themselves. A person with serious disease could approach Jesus and have some faith and ask Jesus to help, and He could remove the disease - something which they didn't seem to be "able" to do. Miracles are gifts from those who temporarily have more given to those who temporarily have less.

This means that a person doesn't have to necessarily "choose" the entirety of the healed state all on their own. If they have enough willingness or a little faith, or even just a little willingness, the "open door" can be used to bring in much more help and healing than the person could muster on their own.

We can get help from outside, which really brings us to the point that the Holy Spirit is here as our Divine Helper. He can help in powerful, "supernatural" ways, IF we are willing and ready to receive that help. And that actually often entails surrender, more than a 'doing', in order to be open to receive the help.

Help is available, love loves to love, and love heals. But if we reject it and don't want it, it will not "hurt us" by doing something to us that we don't want, and even healing and help can be experienced as unwanted.

This is a difficult lesson for me and probably for many. We want to take away the suffering of the world. People are dying. Bad things are happening. But these are our own illusions and our own issues and reactions to perceptual errors that we need to correct.

There is a plan in place, the plan of the Atonement, which Jesus is in charge of. He knows who is ready to receive miracles and He can direct us to those people at the right time.

The idea that we can use our EGO to go around healing people "against their will" left right and center is really the ego's attempt to use the Power of God for its own entertainment. I'm not in ANY way saying not to perform miracles for people, just that they need to be properly framed in service to God and respecting "free will."

This does mean realizing that you might not be able to help a whole group of people if they are not really willing enough to be helped. Which means that miracles aren't imposed upon people against their will, they must be receptive to them, and if they're not then.... you don't get to work miracles for them.

I was also then told by Jesus that something I needed more of in order to be more miraculous, is to trust God, and the key point that God must be involved for miracles to happen. Holy spirit - God's Voice/expression - is the mechanism of miracles. He must be a part of it. And that means, miracles don't come from ourselves as some special power that we gain, although it is an "ability" which we can develop.

"This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the ***two types or levels of perception*** is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."

Since starting to do ACIM almost 2 decades ago, what has NOT changed, is my ability to see physical objects.

What some people believe is that you have one mode of perception, and as you become more spiritual you're supposed to "shift your perception", and no longer see what you saw before. And therefore you are supposed to become kind of BLIND to the world. This DOES NOT HAPPEN.

People also claim that because you have ONE way of perceiving, when you shift perception you can NO LONGER SEE what you saw before. This is obviously NOT TRUE, otherwise everyone's course books would be disappearing from sight and no-one would finish reading them.

Another GIANT fallacy is the belief that "if you see it, it's yours", which is not true. It would be true if you only had ONE WAY of perceiving, but you don't. You have two. And they function SIMULTANEOUSLY until one completely overrides the other.

Everyone doing ACIM, me included, is still perfectly capable of reading the words on the pages of the book, and still just as able to do workbook lessons, and still just as able to see and respond to facebook posts. None of that changed. Why?

Because the physical sight IS STILL IN USE for anyone who has a body, REGARDLESS of changes that are taking place in the mind. And that's because the mind decides on THE MEANING that it gives to the incoming signals from the eyeballs.

While initially the mind categorizes physical sensations as REALITY, it learns through spiritual application that the sensory inputs are FALSE and what you see with the body is UNREAL. This doesn't in any way mean you DO NOT see it anymore, only that what it MEANS to you has changed.

This is also because you have a second mechanism for sight, which is the spiritual eye. The spiritual eye is direct mind-based seeing, which does not depend on the physical eyes. It allows you to see anywhere and at any time without limits of physical form, boundaries, distances, materials or conditions.

But while this spiritual eye is reawakening, and while the mind becomes able to see PAST the body sensory inputs, the body still continues to function as before, it still senses the world and sends signals to the brain, and it's still up to the MIND to INTERPRET those signals. To regard them either as TRUE, or as FALSE.

Once the mind learns that the incoming bodily signals are FALSE, this doesn't necessarily STOP the mind from USING the body to sense the world, or to see physical objects. This includes the fact that the mind STILL sees physical sickness, war and death. It's just that the mind has to learn to RECOGNIZE that these inputs are MISLEADING, are false and unreal. Recognition that an illusion is an illusion, is sanity. And this is not the same thing as becoming "unable to see it".

"They (God's teachers) ****watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die.**** Yet they are not deceived by what they see."

"The body's eyes will continue to see differences. But the mind that 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 healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal."

Jesus in fact was perfectly capable of physically seeing people in bodies with physical problems, and talking to them, and interacting with them physically, because despite the advancement of his mind and his recognition of truth, he STILL was able to use the physical body senses to interact with the physical world. And so can you. And anyone who disputes this is really in denial because you can easily look at the fact that you can STILL SEE the physical world, no matter how long you've been doing the course.

As the mind progresses in its healing, it learns that the physical world is unreal, and so it REINTERPRETS the signals coming to the mind from the senses. And so it learns to categorize them as UNREALITY, rather than reality. And now the MEANING of what it senses through the body has changed.

What you PROJECT onto the world, is MEANING. "I have given everything I see all the meaning it has for me." It is FALSE MEANING that you attack the world with. Or rather, you receive sensory inputs and then you give them meaning. And when you give them FALSE meaning, you think you see a world shrouded in hell and darkness. Because your mind is filtering out the truth.

When your mind is more awake and does not fall for the temptation of the sensory inputs, it now PROJECTS a meaning of truth, which frames the world as FALSE, because it recognizes what is true and what isn't. And the world simply is false. So when you are SANE, you recognize that your body inputs are always FALSE, but that doesn't stop you still being able to sense them.

This is why the experience of the TWO types of simultaneous perception can become ACUTELY CONTRASTED, because on the one hand you've got your mind telling you that nothing you see is real, while still seeing it. So now you are perceiving a FALSE world, an AWARENESS OF DREAMING, which you still nevertheless see fully, and this can be a very acute contrast to the mind. That everything you see is a lie.

At least, not until your mind is so purified that you see THROUGH and PAST and BEYOND all sensory inputs, which is equivalent to being past physical matter. And you see the light of the real world, the face of christ, beyond all form. The reinterpreted physical inputs become "the forgiven world", and the light seen BY THE MIND DIRECTLY beyond them, overlooking (forgiving) them, is the "real world".

Once the mind is SO fully focused on the real world, the face of Christ, the "veil of illusions" parts, becoming so thin and transparent the mind sees through it so much it can no longer dwell on it at at all. AT THAT POINT, the mind is ready to leave the body and return to heaven. Because it is now at that point that the mind COMPLETELY FORGIVES or overlooks the physical inputs, and thus the whole world, and looks ONLY at the face of christ. Just for a short time, while God whisks you off to heaven.

Until you get there, and until you are confronted with ONLY seeing with the spiritual eye, which is VERY advanced, you WILL still register the presence of the images and senses from the body, of a physical world, and you will STILL be in a position of being a teacher of God that helps others. Someone who is in the world but not of it. Someone who recognizes this is a DREAM, not a reality. But can still function within its parameters physically.

The body is a separation device. It was made to section off and fence in a SMALL PORTION of mind, which seems then to find itself housed "inside" the body, while the larger portion of mind appears to be "separated off" or unconscious, outside the body. The sense of being isolated, separated, limited, partial, not whole, thus belongs to the "inside the body" experience, which is an experience of being only PART of yourself. To return to wholeness you have to thus transcend the body, erase the body, have no separation devices in the mind, and therefore collapse the gap between the outer and inner. The body symbolizes the split in the mind and once the split is erased the body is erased.

"God cannot come into a body, nor can you join Him there. Limits on love will ALWAYS seem to shut Him out, and to keep you APART from Him. The body is a tiny fence around a little part of a glorious and completely limitless idea. It draws a circle, infinitely small, around a very little segment of Heaven, splintered from the whole, proclaiming that, within it, is YOUR Kingdom, where God can enter not. Within this kingdom the ego rules, and cruelly. And, to defend this little speck of dust, it bids you fight against the universe."

Since the body itself is a separation device BETWEEN parts of mind, designed to keep one part of mind sectioned off from the other part, it can only seem to EXIST at all while there is a sense of separation. If the mind is split, the split shows up as a body coming between "you" (within the body) and the rest of you (outside the body, in others). The body is thus a symbol of separation in the mind, and when the mind does not have separation in it there cannot be a body at all.

This is why God cannot enter a body, because that's like saying you can keep a separation device, something which sections off inner and outer, and keeps them apart. It's like saying the whole of God which is everywhere (within and without) can be stuffed inside a container which is less than everywhere, and all of God can thus be housed inside a box and be ABSENT from the outside. This is utterly impossible because God is unlimited and infinite and all encompassing.

Thus God, all of God, cannot enter a body or dwell in a body entirely. Nor can you, who find yourself to "be in a body" or rather, who have a split mind which shows up AS a body coming between you and the rest of you, join with God fully while maintaining a body. The body can only be there IF there is separation in the mind. If the mind has NO belief in separation it utterly not only transcends the body but ERASES the body. There can be no body at all without a belief in separation. Total wholeness wipes the body away completely. Meaning that to truly be whole you cannot be inside a body. And you therefore cannot fully MEET, join, be one with all of God, while there is a body present. You have to leave the realm of bodies entirely to be infinite and unlimited.

"Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form. Yet what is needed here is given here as it is needed. In this form you can fulfill your function even here, although ***what love will mean to you when formlessness has been restored to you is greater still.***"

This is similarly why you cannot be Christ in a body, IMO. Christ is similarly unlimited and whole and infinite. Just as is your soul. Your soul cannot enter a body either. "The body neither lives nor dies because it cannot contain you who are life." Christ cannot directly in a first-person way be CONFINED in a body or sectioned off and found to be isolated to one place and not another. However, I believe ACIM is saying that you can "channel" Christ in a body, to some extent. You can be close to Christ and you can extend His love and miracles, but it's like he is working "through you" once removed, not directly.

I don't think Jesus was thus "Christ in a body" because if Christ could be in a body, fully, with no limitation at all, bodies could coexist with Christ and be his equal, and bodies would then have to exist in heaven as creations. Christ is unlimited, infinite, everywhere, and bigger than the universe. In ACIM Jesus lets us know that he "was a man who remembered his soul" and he remembered it in the atonement and ascension to heaven. And prior to that, he still had some trials and lessons, not least of which was the crucifixion. He BECAME identified fully with Christ, but not until getting out of here.

"To roll the stone away is to see beyond the tomb, beyond death, and to understand the body’s nothingness. What is understood as nothing must disappear."

"The death of an illusion means nothing. It disappears when you awaken and decide to dream no more."

"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."

In forgiveness, we usually start out the "fixing" of our mind by believing that someone ELSE is at fault. That the cause is external. It's usually a split minded state, riddled with dissociation, denial and projection. Scapegoating is happening and fingers are being pointed.

The general consensus is that you then work on unravelling this "confused" state of mind, recognizing your part in it, taking back the projecting, undoing the inner sin and guilt beliefs etc, to return to a state of love and peace.

What occurs to me though, is that over the much larger course of time, we are moving gradually out of "general false perception" towards "general true perception". And that entire process takes a considerable amount of effort. And there is a parallel to what we seem to do in our "little forgivenesses".

In effect, we all start out in quite heavy false perception, body identified, projecting often, filled with guilt and sin, fearful and blameful, confused and dissociated, in denial and scapegoating all over the place. We are "low" on the ladder.

Even if we do a forgiveness in that state, which may seem "complete" if done well, we still basically are quite low on the ladder. There is much more to be corrected and undone than can be done in one little forgiveness effort.

Over time we sort of "accumulate" the effects of all these forgivenesses and gradually move our mind, in general, up the ladder towards the atonement. Or towards "consistent forgiveness".

It takes a lot of purification work, dealing with life lessons, working through our personal curriculum, meeting people, forming and breaking relationships etc, to move all the way up to the forgiveness state of atonement.

In effect what we're really doing is just one BIG LONG forgiveness, in bite sized chunks, based on specific seeming situations, taking small steps gradually up the ladder each time.

As a result of this, I think, we start to "in general" lift up out of the darkness, so that overall, or most of the time, we're not quite as low and dark as we used to be. And as we chisel away at the granite block of sin, we gradually lift up higher. We're really moving slowly away from false perception - the starting point of unforgiveness - towards true perception - the final climax of TOTAL forgiveness.

So we can say, forgiveness is really not "finished" per se until your mind is in a complete forgiveness state, which would mean accepting the atonement IN FULL. And each forgiveness we do, tends to be in little pockets or bite sized chunks. We take each as far as we can shifting from false to true perception, but there is still a lot of baggage in the background - more stuff to be forgiven, before we can consistently live in an elevated state.

If you do a particularly strong and deep forgiveness, you can in fact take it all the way to atonement truth, in which sinlessness is recognized, innocence is accepted, healing is received and God's love is welcomed. This can be quite intense and profound and curative. But most likely it's not the end of your work, because there's a lot of other stuff buried in the mind, like layers of an onion, the next one being lined up for you to start working on right away.

Gradually we move up towards total forgiveness, just as in EACH forgiveness effort we're trying to get OUT of false perceptions into TRUE perceptions. If we REALLY did a really powerful super-deep thoroughly extensive forgiveness, we would perhaps wipe out all our ego in one swoop. But is that really likely for most of us? Not really. We take bites out of it. We deal with the current "form" of the overall one lesson, and we gradually generalize the learning.

"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."

So really, until we reach total complete and unconditional forgiveness as a constant state, we have not really finished forgiving, and have not really completely moved out of our false perceptions. Mind correction can be a long road and take a lot of time, depending on where you're at. But eventually, gradually, we inch closer to the whole truth and each forgiveness effort we undertake helps to boost us a little more further towards it.

We could say, honestly, that the notion of doing a TOTAL forgiveness, fully successfully, having just forgiven one person or one problem or one form, is highly unlikely. Even if you feel that you forgave someone and let go, there's likely plenty more in your mind to forgive yet. In all truth, forgiveness is a gradual and unfolding process of many bursts of correction in many areas, until the whole thing culminates in a climax of perfection.

Probably the notion that "you're done" when you feel good about ONE problem, is really based on the blocks to awareness, whereby the conscious mind is not yet aware that there's a shitload more to work on yet buried behind denial. Just because you clear out your conscious mind at this time, doesn't mean you have dealt with your entire psychological baggage, or the totality of the ego thought system. There's plenty more where that came from!

In time, we are gradually brightening our light, sharpening our reason, clearing our mind, and ascending upwards towards heaven.

Say you have some illusions. Something that isn't true. It could be a physical thing, or some belief or whatever.

If your mind is open, it is open to the possibility of being mistaken, the possibility of not knowing, the possibility that the thing could be true or false. The mind isn't locked into some position or defending some viewpoint or prior belief. It's open to considering possibilities.

This openness allows you to "see" all of what is there, without filtering anything out with some kind of bias. It lets you recognize what things are, without distortions and without preferences. It's just sort of a way of saying, "tell me what you are", "what is this really?". it requires honesty and a willingness to be mistaken.

Open mindedness can allow you to see a mistake, recognize it as a mistake, and recognize that it needs correcting. It is a light which is open to everything, so it can see all sides and all angles, all perspectives. Including being able to see from a perspective of wholeness, which holds things in its light and in its true perspective to reveal what things really are.

Open-mindedness could be said to be the same thing as forgiveness. It's a mind that is willing to accept the truth regardless of what the truth is, and is not deceived by appearances. It's open to questioning what it sees and considering that it may or may not be true or real. It's the same thing as true perception - openness to the whole truth.

Sin on the other hand is a state of close-mindedness, which we could call false perception. You could call it narrow-mindedness as well. The mind narrows down and instead of being open to the whole, to everything, it becomes very focused and specific. It shuts out the peripheral vision, so to speak, and focuses only on what things appear to be on the surface.

A closed mind is not open to considering that anything is mistaken, or to questioning the reality or truth of anything at all. It takes everything at face value. Illusions are taken to be reality, lies are considered truth. Whatever seems to happen is believed to be really happening.

A closed mind also narrows down and homes in on specific things, so will focus on "what someone did" to the exclusion of all else. Even if the person has merit or does good dees in addition to their mistakes, sin focuses only on the mistakes and shuts out the good deeds.

Thus a closed mind becomes a darkened mind, focusing only on what people are doing wrong - given that everything in form is basically a mistake it turns everything into a sin. It mistakes illusions for truth and believes that whatever appears to be happening is permanently irreversibly true.

Sin has no openness to correction, to healing, to another viewpoint. It is very rigid and stuck and fixated on nothingness. It will not budge or allow any change to its viewpoint, or any way by which anything can be questioned. It takes everything as gospel and without question at all, accepting illusions into the mind without any sense of real perspective.

A sinful false perception therefore, a closed mind, does not see that there is even a possibility of mistakenness, a possibility of unintentionally, or of a need for gentle correction. It sees only deliberate evil acts, which appear to be utterly unforgivable, and sees that there is no other way to look at anything. It does not allow any openness to consider its position being flawed, or to register any sense of sin itself being a mistaken view.

As such a closed mind is an unforgiving mind, a mind which will not allow forgiveness because it will not question whether or not what happens is really happening. Whether that it sees is really there to see, or the truth at all. It believes it knows everything already, has all of the truth already, cannot be told anything new, and will not listen to reason. It won't consider the possibility of any alternative viewpoint, because to sin there is only one factual truth - you sinned and you should die for it.

As we awaken, we are moving from the viewpoint of sin - or closed-mindedness, and are opening up the mind and expanding our viewpoint so that we are more inclusive, more open, considerate, willing to question, willing to be mistaken, and willing to recognize that other people's choices are mistakes and not sins. This requires broadening the focal point and expanding it out to see the whole picture. To reframe everything in the light of the whole.

In forgiveness, everything false is recognised as false, without judgement. And everything true is recognised as true without distortion. It recognizes that all illusions are just mistakes, and there is no sin, because there is nothing closed off from the light of truth. The whole is recognised, perception is open to wholeness, and the whole informs everything. To forgive, you must open your mind and question illusions and let go of trying to make everything into a sin. There is no sin.

"What is forgiveness, but a willingness that truth be true? What can remain unhealed and broken from a Unity Which holds all things within Itself? There is NO sin. And EVERY miracle is possible the INSTANT that the Son of God perceives his wishes and the Will of God are One." UrT26H9

"Our lessons now are geared specifically to widening horizons, and direct approaches to the special blocks which keep your vision narrow, and too limited to let you see the value of our goal." UrW180 "Only by doing this is it possible to transcend the narrow boundaries the ego would impose upon the self." UrP3C8

"And if I need but stillness and a tranquil, open mind, these are the gifts I will receive of Him." UrW365

"It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgment, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied." UrW3L2

"Accept atonement with an open mind which cherishes no lingering belief that you have made a devil of God's Son." UrW101

"Dwell not upon the past today. Keep a completely open mind, washed of all past ideas and clean of every concept you have made." UrW75L5

"An open mind is more honest than this." UrT12D3

"Healing will flash across your open mind as peace and truth arise to take the place of war and vain imaginings." UrW136L16

"The Savior's vision is as innocent of what your brother is as it is free of any judgment made upon yourself. It sees no past in anyone at all. And thus it serves a wholly open mind, unclouded by old concepts and prepared to look on ONLY what the present holds." UrT31G13

"It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is." UrT31E16

Whatever you see in something, if you think it is inherently offensive, it is not. The offensiveness is in your own mind, and you put it there.

That can be hard to accept because it means that you've been used to this idea of an objective reality outside of yourself all this time. A reality which has its own inherent qualities and which reports them to you as though they are distinct from your perception.

What it implies now is that what you're experiencing as reality, is in fact a hallucination that's part of your own mind's malfunctioning, that you literally are inventing everything that bothers you, that you are doing all that to yourself.

This implies also that there is no fixed reality out in the world, and therefore there is no inherent truth based on form. You literally give everything the meaning that it has for you.

ACIM lesson #2, right at the start: "I have given everything I see…all the meaning that it has for me."

This means that you are basically inventing every single justification that you think is truth, or that you think is based on objective facts outside of you. It means that, if you want to, and when it suits you, you MAKE UP everything that you think is true.

If you are in favor of something, you will make up reasons why it is a good idea, to support it and lend weight to your conviction that it is somehow inherently right. And if you are against something, you will make up reasons why it is a bad idea, in order to continue to support your belief that the reality outside of you is fixed and has nothing to do with your experience of it.

It can be perhaps alarming to discover that you are literally making everything up as you go along, and that all the things you thought were factual or true are really just your rationalizations. You decide what stuff means. You lend it credibility and pretend that this credibility comes from outside of you.

You think that other people's opinions, authority, certifications, education, experience, or even physical evidence, are all ways in which the world has an inherent truth. You have come to depend on this notion that you are not experiencing the results of your own made up subjective fantasy, but that everything that's going on is happening "on its own" without your input. And because you do not see the ways that you contribute to it or indeed create it, you do not accept that IT HAS NO TRUTH.

This leaves you in a kind of limbo like state where you're kind of just hanging there with no sense of what the truth outside you is anymore. If you're making up all the meaning, and quite literally the entirety of humanity is totally making up the meaning of everything in society as it goes along, then really there IS no inherent meaning outside of your mind.

This means the world is basically either neutral or insane, and that, based on the ego, it CANNOT make sense. There cannot be truth to it, and since it is a mental hallucination, it is nothing better than a chaotic illusion. Trying to "understand it" is an attempt to discover that it has an inherent meaning of its own, separate from your mind. We are very addicted and conditioned to continually look for meaning outside of ourselves, in the world, in order to disown true meaning (God/Self).

This is what happens when you try to figure things out, diagnose sickness, analyze situations, look for what is really happening, try to find proof, explain the background of something, try to identify causes, look for rational explanations or depend on the opinions of other people's authority. This is you attempting to turn an illusion into a reality, trying to convince yourself that you are NOT the one who has given it all the meaning it has, or that it is not just some blank canvas onto which you've projected an entirely fantastical world.

What this means for your mind and your sense of reality is that you cannot continue to claim that there is an objective world out there, and nor does that world have its own meaning at all. It is in fact a meaningless world, and this meaningless world cannot be understood unless you transcend it.

ACIM lessons 10 through 14:

"10 My thoughts do not mean anything."

"11 My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world."

"12 I am upset because I see a meaningless world.

"13 A meaningless world engenders fear."

"14 God did not create a meaningless world."

If the world is meaningless, and God did not create it (thus it is not objective reality), then this shows you that every meaning you see in it is made up but your thoughts, which are themselves meaningless and contain "pretend meanings". These pretend meanings attempt to give meaning to a world which has none.

What you may be afraid to admit is that it is not possible to find truth in any way shape or form in the world, because the world is not real. And that means your mind, your sense of reality, has been believing that it's had nothing to do with what you perceive all this time. When in fact it is the sole inventor of all the meanings that you think the world has.

Everything supposedly "out there" is neutral and therefore if you think something is good or bad or right or wrong or acceptable or unacceptable it is ONLY because you're making up a truth which you try to turn into reality and try to justify to yourself as being objective. It is not. It is subjective hallucination. So if there's no truth out there, it leaves you sort of hanging as to how to deal with reality.

It is as though you create your own reality, which is a popular new-age concept, which also leads on to manipulating the world. But this really is denying the fact that you do not create reality. You are creating UNREALITY. But it's a step closer to realizing that what you are experiencing is coming from you, and therefore what you perceive is not necessarily objectively real.

You're dreaming, and only God creates reality!

This is why in your awakening journey you then have to go through the process of recognizing the part that your mind plays in inventing meaning, how it distorts perception, how you contribute to what shows up outside of you, how you use it, how completely subjective you're being, and how everything that you thought was objectively real is in fact not real at all.

As you do this you will gradually realize more and more that there IS an objective reality, it's just not "out there" as a physical world, and instead it is within, in your Oneness with God. Formless, timeless, spaceless, ageless. The ONE and only meaning. A meaning that has not been fragmented into a billion conflicts. A meaning which hasn't been artificially attributed to an illusion. A meaning which ACTUALLY IS MEANINGFUL to you - that you can feel in your heart, in your very being.

God is true meaning. God is the one and only meaning. All else is meaningless.

In order to perform a miracle, your mind has to be in a state of love, because miracles are expressions FROM love. Miracle mindedness is a state of love, and when you express from that state your expressions have power, capable of healing others. Love is strong and "there is nothing my holiness cannot do." Being miracle minded is the same thing as being right minded, which is equated with true perception. It's quite an "advanced state".

It's not enough to be slightly loving. It's also not enough to just be caring for someone or feeling enamored. Love has to be felt deeply and strongly. I have to admit that I spend almost all of my time not in this state. I can at times push myself to receive love and experience it, but typically there is too much fear and blocks to awareness. It's not possible to perform miracles in these states, and people who are working on purifying their minds are not miracle workers. "Miracles are everyone's right (in a state of love), but purification (to get to that state) is NECESSARY first."

I've had a few times where, for whatever reason, I've felt especially filled with love. In those moments I also feel strangely powerful and miraculous, as if the love itself is capable of doing anything. Without love, miracles are impossible. Love is literally an absolutely required ingredient for miracle working. It's through being intensely loving and EXPRESSING from that place of strength, that you can literally perform miracles. You can heal the sick and raise the dead.

I used to think miracle working entailed far more complexity, saying the right words, having the ego be more aggressive, being adamant, being commanding etc, but without love nothing happens. Holy Spirit became very excited one time when I was sending love to someone and He said "that's all you need!". It seems too simple but it's not. Real love has a POWER in it. It's a supernatural power. It can cause really extraordinary things to happen. A mind in a state of love is very strong.

The challenge then, is getting yourself into a state where you are loving enough. It's not merely an intellectual state. Strong love must be present and being felt. Often it is quite difficult to get into that state, to really really love, because of all the blocks and fears that we have. It might even be quite an alien state seemingly so far out of reach that we just can't seem to be loving enough. It requires a suspension of fear, which is love's absence, for long enough to be able to perform the miracle. Jesus even says that you might well go back to being afraid afterwards, but so long as you can get yourself into a loving state, you can work miracles.

Miracle DOING is an active expression, an act, FROM a state of love. Miracle mindedness is the readiness to express love, by being in a state of love. Love is wholeness. The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness. Perception has to be whole, purified, and true, in order to be loving enough to be miraculous. It's really so simple... all you need is love and you instantly are capable of performing incredible miracles, but getting yourself into such a holy state is all of the "work" of purification, learning to forgive, healing and letting go of past hurts and all the rest of it. All of the workbook lessons, which aimed toward developing Christ Vision, are trying to get your mind to be loving enough that it is miraculous.

Miracles EXPRESS only from love and love is powerful.

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression."

"The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another."

"The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is truly used it will inevitably BE expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver, not the giver. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, MUST be expressed in a language which the recipient can understand without fear. It does not follow by any means that this is the highest level of communication of which he is capable. But it DOES mean that it is the highest level of communication of which he is capable NOW."

"Miracles ... They occur naturally as an expression of love."

"ALL expressions of love are maximal."

"Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love"

"Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the Created with the Creator. Through prayer, love is received, and through miracles love is expressed."

"Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, man accepts God's forgiveness by extending it to others. "

"The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability. I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE. Conviction really comes through accomplishment. Remember that ability is the potential, Achievement is its expression, and Atonement is the Purpose."

"Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift which you received of Him, increase its power and give it back to you."

"We have emphasized that the miracle, or the EXPRESSION of Atonement, is always a sign of real respect from the worthy TO the worthy."

"The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of his Atonement. "

"Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the extension which maintains it in wholeness and peace. Miracles are AN EXPRESSION OF THIS CONFIDENCE. They are reflections both of your own proper identification WITH your brothers, and of your own awareness that YOUR identification IS maintained by extension. The miracle is A LESSON IN TOTAL PERCEPTION. By including ANY part of totality in the lesson, you HAVE included the whole."

"The answer is NEVER perform a miracle without asking me IF you should. This spares you from exhaustion, and because you act under direct communication the trance becomes unnecessary. Because miracles are expressions of love, it does NOT follow that they will always be effective. I am the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement. You have a ROLE in Atonement, which I will dictate TO you."

"Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned BELONGS to them."

"We once said that there is no order in miracles because they are all maximal expressions of love."

"Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it."

"I KNOW that miracles are natural, because they are expressions of love."

To put your money where your mouth is, requires that you step up and DEMONSTRATE the truth, by showing in PHYSICAL FORM, PROOF AND EVIDENCE, that what you believe you REALLY believe, it cannot be refuted, and no-one can deny it. We have to learn to SHOW what we have learned.

I love this list of demonstration-related quotes, because it really speaks to how we are to SHOW people that the truth is true through PHYSICAL manifestations of miracles. Jesus providing there is no death by resurrecting the body, is the ultimate example.

ACIM:

"The resurrection of the world awaits your healing and your happiness, that you may DEMONSTRATE the healing of the world."

"Pain is a sign illusions reign in place of truth. It DEMONSTRATES God is denied, confused with fear, perceived as mad and seen as traitor to Himself."

"The world recedes as we light up our minds, and realize these holy words are true. They are the message sent to us today from our Creator. Now we DEMONSTRATE how they have changed our minds about ourselves and what our function is. For as we prove that we accept no will we do not share, our many gifts from our Creator will spring to our sight and leap into our hands, and we recognize what we received."

"This does Atonement teach, and DEMONSTRATES the oneness of God’s Son is unassailed by his belief he knows not what he is."

"Sickness would prove that lies must be the truth. But healing DEMONSTRATES that truth is true."

"So healing, never needed by the truth, must DEMONSTRATE that sickness is not real."

"Healing is freedom. For it DEMONSTRATES that dreams will not prevail against the truth. Healing is shared. And by this attribute it proves that laws unlike the ones which hold that sickness is inevitable are more potent than their sickly opposites."

"It is this fact which DEMONSTRATES that time is an illusion."

"Concepts maintain the world. But they can not be used to DEMONSTRATE the world is real. For all of them are made within the world, born in its shadow, growing in its ways, and finally "maturing" in its thought."

"The miracle is means to DEMONSTRATE that all appearances can change because they are appearances, and cannot have the changelessness reality entails. The miracle attests salvation from appearances by SHOWING they can change."

"The miracle is proof he is not bound by loss or suffering in any form, because it can so easily be CHANGED. This DEMONSTRATES that it was never real, and could not stem from his reality. For that is changeless, and has no effects which anything in Heaven or on earth could ever alter. But appearances are shown to be unreal BECAUSE they change."

"Like EVERY lesson that the Holy Spirit requests you learn, the miracle is clear. It DEMONSTRATES what He would have you learn, and SHOWS you its effects are what you WANT. In its forgiving dream, are the EFFECTS of yours undone, and hated enemies perceived as friends, with merciful intent."

"Pain DEMONSTRATES the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL."

"Health is the witness unto health. As long as it is unattested, it remains without conviction. Only when DEMONSTRATED has it BEEN proved, and MUST compel belief. No-one is healed through double messages. If you wish ONLY to be healed, you heal. Your single PURPOSE makes this possible. But if you are AFRAID of healing, then it cannot come through you. The ONLY thing that is required for a healing is a lack of fear. The fearful are NOT healed, and cannot heal. This does NOT mean the conflict must be gone forever from your mind. For if it were, there were no NEED for healing anymore. But it DOES mean, if only for an instant, you love without attack. An instant is sufficient. Miracles wait not on time."

"The holy instant is the miracle’s abiding-place. From there, each one is born into this world, as witness to a state of mind which has TRANSCENDED conflict, and has reached to peace. It carries comfort from the place of peace into the battle-ground, and DEMONSTRATES that war has no effects. For all the hurt that war has sought to bring; the broken bodies and the shattered limbs, the screaming dying and the silent dead, are gently lifted up and comforted. There IS no sadness, where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just ONE instant of your love WITHOUT attack is necessary, that all this occur."

"Forgiveness is not real UNLESS it brings a healing to your brother AND yourself. YOU must attest his sins had no effect on YOU, to DEMONSTRATE they were not real. How else COULD he be guiltless? And how COULD his innocence be justified UNLESS his sins have no effect to WARRANT guilt?

Sins are beyond forgiveness just BECAUSE they would entail effects which CANNOT be undone and overlooked entirely. In their UNDOING lies the PROOF that they were merely errors. LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect."

"God gives no special favors, and no one has any powers that are not available to everyone. Only by tricks of magic are special powers "demonstrated."" (talking about psychic powers/magic vs miracles)

"Healing is always certain. It is impossible to let illusions be brought to truth and keep the illusions. Truth DEMONSTRATES illusions have no value."

"When this occurs, the body becomes its weapon, used AGAINST this Purpose to DEMONSTRATE the "fact" that separation HAS occurred."

"The holy instant is the shining example, the clear and unequivocal DEMONSTRATION of the meaning of EVERY relationship, and EVERY situation SEEN AS A WHOLE."

"This power INSTANTLY transforms ALL situations into one sure and continuous means for ESTABLISHING His purpose, and DEMONSTRATING its reality. What has been DEMONSTRATED has called for faith, and has been GIVEN it. Now it becomes a fact, from which faith can no longer BE withheld."

"Concern yourselves not with the EXTENSION of holiness, for the nature of miracles you do NOT understand. Nor do you DO them. It is their extension, far beyond the limits you perceive, that DEMONSTRATES you did not do them."

"Miracles demonstrate that learning has occurred under the right guidance, for learning is invisible, and what has been learned can be recognized only by its RESULTS. Its GENERALIZATION is DEMONSTRATED as you use it in more and more situations."

"That is why the recognition of your OWN invulnerability is so important in the restoration of your sanity. For if you accept your invulnerability, you are recognizing that attack HAS no effect. Although you have attacked yourself, and very brutally, you will DEMONSTRATE that NOTHING HAPPENED. Therefore, by attacking, you have NOT DONE ANYTHING."

" Thereby you teach yourself that fear does not exist IN YOU, for you have in YOURSELF, the means for removing it, and have DEMONSTRATED this by GIVING it."

"To teach the WHOLE Sonship WITHOUT EXCEPTION DEMONSTRATES that you PERCEIVE ITS WHOLENESS and have learned that it IS One."

"If the mind can heal the body, but the body cannot heal the mind, then the mind must be STRONGER. Every miracle DEMONSTRATES this."

"That is because the Holy Spirit IS one, and anyone who listens is inevitably led to DEMONSTRATE His way for ALL."

"The ego cannot withstand the conditioning process, because the process itself DEMONSTRATES that there is another way."

"My trust in you is greater than yours in me at the moment, but it will not always be that way. Your mission is very simple. You have been chosen to live so as to DEMONSTRATE that You are NOT an ego."

"We said before that the purpose of the Resurrection was to "DEMONSTRATE that no amount of misperception has any influence at all on a Son of God." This DEMONSTRATION EXONERATES those who misperceive, by establishing beyond doubt that they have NOT hurt anyone. "

"The Resurrection DEMONSTRATED that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness. The Atonement is thus the perfect lesson. It is the final demonstration that all of the other lessons which I taught are true."

"Death is a human affirmation of a belief in hate. That is why the Bible says "There is no death," and that is why I DEMONSTRATED that death does not exist."

ACIM: "Miracle Principle 7

Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first."

DICITIONARY: "the process of making something spiritually or ceremonially clean."

What is purification? It is the process of removing "impurities", so that you end up with something that is "pure" and has no impurities in it.

What is it we are purifying? Our minds. We are removing "impure thoughts", beliefs, values and attitudes, so that we can be pure. Or rather, aware of our purity in God.

What are examples of impurities? All of the ego stuff, including evil thoughts, attack thoughts, grievances, unforgiveness, blame, anger, murderousness, all forms of sickness and death, separation ideas, body identification, guilt, fear, a sense of sinfulness, unworthiness, etc.

Heaven is a state of perfect purity. Another word for purity is innocence. It's a state completely devoid of any kind of sin or evil. It's so pure, that there isn't even a tiny trace of desire to attack or hurt, there isn't the slightest hint of anger or resentment, and absolutely no sense of fear resulting from seeing others as attackers.

Heaven is SO pure, it is very likely far more pure than you can imagine. And in order to enter awareness of heaven, you have to purify yourself of all states and attitudes that are impure. This actually entails being willing to give up a whole bucketload of ego things, which you may not be currently totally happy about giving up.

You have to give up ALL anger. You have to give up ALL attacking. You have to give up ALL guilt. You have to give up ALL sin. You have to give up ALL temptation to see yourself as victimized. You have to give up ALL desire to hurt other people. You have to give up ALL guilt, shame, and sense of not being good enough. You have to give up ALL motives relating to trying to get stuff. You have to give up all specialness, all selfishness, and all trace of conditional love. You have to give up unhappiness, sickness, suffering and death. And you have to give up the entire ego thought system.

The end result of this relinquishment, is a state of PERFECT PURITY. It is a purity SO pure that it is utterly immaculate, undefiled, and completely holy. The degree of holiness is off the charts in the extreme. You cannot enter such a state with any trace of malice in your heart or any amount of unforgiveness. You have to have forgiven absolutely everyone and everything, and hold nothing against anyone, and see yourself as utterly absolutely sinless.

Only through the complete removal of the belief in sin can you achieve this, because it is the atonement. It is the recognition that there is no sin anywhere, not in you, and not in anyone or anything. It is a state of TOTAL SINLESSNESS. That doesn't mean like, sin is real and evil is real and you have to stop being that through repentance, but more like, the recognition that these things are NOT real and you CANNOT BE them. That sin does not exist for you. There is only total harmlessness, gentleness, softness and love.

The most holy and pure, the most innocent and harmless, the most gentle and clean, the most unwilling to hurt, the most beautiful and new, are those who have purified themselves of the ego, of temptation and of death. It is the purity of the angels. It is absolute allegiance to God. It is a complete and total surrender of all control and egotism and all false ideas of self. It is the complete letting go of all false goals and made-up laws and artificial identities, and any attempt to be other than God created you.

So ACIM is saying that in order to become miraculous, to access the miracle-minded state in which you can PERFORM MIRACLES, which is a very loving state of sinlessness and holiness, you have to FIRST purify yourself. Your mind has to be decluttered and washed out with the spirit and ALL ego in you has to be utterly removed. You have to be cleansed and spiritually renewed. Jesus refers to this in ACIM also as a "rebirth", like becoming new again, as if nothing had ever happened to turn you into an evil monster.

You purify through whatever process works for you. But let's also realize that forgiveness is really the state OF purity, of atonement and of true perception. We are trying to reach that state. Because "only christ forgives" and that means we need total acceptance and alignment and awareness of Christ, TOTAL, MAXIMAL LOVE, in order to be in a state of forgiveness. Anything we do towards that goal is our "practice" or "application" of course principles in which we are trying to move ourselves CLOSER to that state.

This is why ultimately our entire work with the course up to its end goal of resurrection, is really a process of PURIFICATION, which RESULTS IN a state of total forgiveness. In which you have completely forgiven yourself, ie, have recognized that there is absolutely zero ego or sin or death in you. Where your mind is completely open and clear and in the service of spirit. Where Christ can now move through you, and Jesus can perform miracles through your hands.

To purify, you do whatever works, provided it entails the successful progress of moving closer toward total purity. Closer towards God, who is utterly pure, sinless and innocent. You can't be having attitudes of ego, attack, anger, blame, guilt, shaming, destruction etc, if you are to be pure. You can't be a keyboard warrior on facebook. This is the part the ego in you does not like or want, because it means giving up the things the ego CHERISHES and wants. Its way of relating to others through murderous attitudes. It does not WANT purity or holiness, it wants to be evil and wrong and bad, vulnerable and unhappy and destructive.

You can use catharsis, letting go, surrendering, development of trust, opening your mind, trusting God, various modalities of healing, practicing performing miracles, tuning into the love and light in you, prayer, asking for help, receiving love and healing, inviting the Holy Spirit to operate on you (mind/body/emotions), affirmations, cancelling error, reprogramming yourself, convincing yourself, reminding yourself, doing workbook lessons.

You can purify by forgiving people, polishing up your relationships to make them holy and equal and sharing, learning to be more unconditionally loving, working with the angels, giving the day to the Holy Spirit, seeking out blocks to love and removing them, digging out old hurts and unforgivenesses, getting rid of secret sins and hidden hates in the light, handing stuff over to the Holy Spirit, receiving guidance, doing Christ's work etc.

Whatever works. However you purify, however it is you can get yourself into a state of PURITY, of innocence and holiness. A state where you no longer WANT to hurt yourself, or others. A state where you see your TOTAL SINLESSNESS, and therefore project sinlessness onto others and the world, seeing them as sinless, and therefore having no grounds for fear or blame. Purity gives you harmlessness, just as it also puts your mind into a supernatural state of being invulnerable and IMMORTAL.

The innocent are strong and powerful. They are protected by God. They cannot BE hurt and DO not hurt themselves. "You cannot be hurt unless you hurt yourself." "My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability" etc. They feel safe and secure and protected and guided. They cannot be attacked and are above the battleground. Nothing can intrude upon them because of the strength of spirit. And they can bestow healing and miracles and life upon those who are not yet purified - those who believe they are the living dead.

Once purification is reached, in part or in whole, you will have access to miraculous power. You will have the innocence with which to love, and the light with which to see. You will have the purity of heart and the total angelic harmlessness and gentleness with which to heal others. "Those who are healed become instruments of healing." You will become a miracle worker, able to raise the dead and resurrect the impure.

You will be able to actually purify others for them. "It is the privilege of the forgiven (pure) to forgive (purify)." And now you are doing God's work, until you go home to heaven, to the state of total and utter purity and innocence forever.

When someone says or does something that you judge and perceive as wrong, you become upset.

In your upset, you claim that you are upset because they said or did something that was wrong - i.e. something incorrect, something that is a mistake, or something untrue.

But, even though YOU are claiming to believe that this thing is untrue and wrong, you are still upset.

Why are you upset, if what the person said is not true? Why do you become upset when someone says something untrue about you, something that seems to attack you, to slander you, to accuse you, to portray you as unfairly guilty, or to label you with something derogatory? Why are you upset if its not true?

The truth is, even though you are to some degree aware that it is not true, you're upset because some part of YOU does believe it is true.

If you didn't believe it, you'd just laugh. You wouldn't take it seriously. You'd KNOW with so much certainty that it's just ridiculous and completely false, that it wouldn't even seem to touch you or engage with you at all.... like it's got nothing to do with you.

But you DO think it's got something to do with you. On some level, deeper down, there is some part of you that actually thinks there is truth to what someone has said about you, even if you are simultaneously horrified and upset and are claiming that it's completely false in a very intense way.

You could be experience a very intense sense of it being unfair, of the slander being vicious, of the person being totally nuts in their accusations, and all of this other framing of the situation that makes it looks like they are wrong and you are not... and yet, you're still upset, despite your claims about how mistaken they are.

You don't really, really, really believe that they are mistaken, you actually believe that they are REAL, and what is real is true. So if you are 'really' being attacked, then you are being attacked with truth, and you believe in this truth so you will be upset. What you receive as real will strike you as the truth and you will accept it. i.e., you took it seriously and didn't overlook/forgive it.

And so this boils down to this simple fact: you are upset because YOU believe these things about YOURSELF.

So then it's really not so much anything to do with what anyone else has said or done. It's not really that they have accused you of something so incredibly - potentially - hurtful. It's not that there is even some kind of inherent attack-power embedded into their slander, or some kind of force in their words that can actually come into you and MAKE true whatever they are judging you for.

Instead, it all boils down to your own beliefs about yourself - your own sense of identity. Has this *attempted* attack got anything to do with what I AM? If it hasn't, because I'm clear about what I am, and I am immortal spirit, and I am eternally innocent, then in that clear identity I have absolutely no grounds for even thinking that it's got something to do with me.

But if I do not believe in my own innocence, if I myself am actually in some way AGAINST MYSELF, or have undermined myself, or think of myself as unworthy or not good enough, or think that I don't deserve love, or I don't like something about myself, you can bet that when someone comes along to appear to provoke you, you WILL think that it has something to do with who and what you are - you will think that they're talking about YOU and you will 'take it' as an attack on that identity.

So you can see this in people who are very against themselves, who have a lot of self-hate or self-loathing or low worth etc. When someone seems to attack them or judge them, they become very upset very quickly. This is because they themselves very strongly believe in and AGREE WITH what the other person is claiming is true of them.

The person is so upset by the stimuli because they themselves are very upset about their own self, they are upset about how they see themselves, they are already walking around with a huge baggage of pain and suffering within themselves that they feel very badly about, and this is now tapped into by the other person.

The pimple then seems to pop and the cover of denial laid over the top of this mountain of self-attack is taken off, and out pours the gush of a "reaction"... which typically is then blamed on and projected on and targeted at the other person, as though they created all of it.

But all the other person is doing.... is nothing. Absolutely nothing. They're just showing up and mirroring back to you a reflection of what YOU think of yourself. People will come into your life "as if by magic", attracted to the vibrational frequency or mental focus of content in your mind, that reflect to you what you currently think of yourself. And you will hate them for doing this, because you hate yourself. And each time they come along and seemingly do TO you what YOU are already doing to YOURSELF, you don't like it. And the only reason you don't like it is because they are doing to you exactly what you're already doing to you.

And so even if you are upset, deep down you in some way must agree with that person, even if they seem to be a horrible enemy, otherwise, why would you be upset? Why would you be having a reaction, if their judgements were completely false and you knew it? Why would you lose your peace and blow up in a rage or whatever if you're calmly certain that that person is very mistaken about who you are, and you are very clear about who you are? And I don't mean, clear about your ego self, but clear about your REAL self as God created you - innocent immortal spirit. Your real identity.

So every time you get upset, and it seems like someone caused it, it just means that YOU HIRED SOMEONE to come along (attracted them mentally) to come and point out, within you, what it is that you believe is true, about yourself and God, so that you will become aware of what is in you, and get an opportunity to question it. Is it really true? Do I really want to hold onto this belief? And if all you're doing at that point is falling for the appearance that someone else is causing everything you're feeling, then you've totally missed the point. And you're being dishonest.

It's more honest to step back and look at why you are upset. You are upset because you believe that your worst enemy's attack is actually true of you and deserved by you. You actually want it. You chose it. You asked for it. Yes you did. And that means that they're not actually doing it 'to' you, as much as YOU have done it to you. And since you're the one who actually believes this bullshit about yourself, YOU are the one who needs some correction. The other person is only there to "trigger" you, to draw your attention to areas of yourself where you thought you were pure but are not, or areas where you believe bullshit that needs to be purified. They're helping you. They're actually on your side, in the bigger scheme of things. And you hired them to do so. All those enemies of yours? They're your servants.

So at some point you have to get past this fireworks of blame and denial and projection, and take some responsibility. It's you that believes you suck and are not worth shit. When someone does something to highlight this, you should be thanking them. AND then you should work on undoing YOUR belief that this is true. If you are upset, you DO believe it is true, and you DO agree with them, no matter what you are experiencing and no matter how much you think this is not the case. If you are upset, you are believing something untrue about yourself, and the only way to be not upset is to undo that.

So yes, it's not anyone else's fault that you're upset. Look at yourself. What have you decided about yourself? What is it you believe about yourself?

Because if what the other person has 'done to you' is not the truth, then why are you still upset? It MUST be because you actually don't FULLY believe that it's not true. Some part of you agrees and some part of you has attacked your own self.

And what this will lead to is the simple insight, that ALL of your upset is really the result of your own belief about yourself, and NONE of it is really because of other people. And therefore, if you can change your own attitude about yourself, and learn to love yourself, you will be learning your LESSONS and will wake up to the truth about who you are. And then you will have peace, and you will stop putting 'helpers' in your life to provoke you "painfully". Instead your way will be made straight and Holy Spirit will go before you to smooth the way, such that nothing is about your little ego self anymore and you are fully convinced of your own innocence.

Not until you are fully convinced of your own innocence will you cease to be upset when other people accuse you of guilt. But when you get there, you will experience invulnerability, confidence, empowerment, peace and immortality.

When you think of guidance you think of you being separate from the source of guidance - God, and attempting to receive some kind of communication. You hope at first to get any kind of communication at all, and later that you MIGHT actually listen to it and act on it.

I can tell you honestly and personally that even though I receive a lot of guidance in this way, in which it seems to be a separate communication to me, I do NOT always believe it or act upon it, because I still have an ego. Sometimes I struggle with it significantly or outright resist accepting it, and can fight with it for days or weeks before finally doing what it says.

There is a vast spectrum between what you could call a state of 'no guidance' and a state of 'total guidance'. The ego separated state, in which you are identified with ego and see yourself as very separate from God, is a state of no or low guidance. And because of how separate you believe you are, and how unconscious you are, you would be scared by more direct forms of guidance and intimacy. So in that state, it can be appropriate for you to receive guidance in a 'form' that you can accept. And at first that might be simply some synchronicities or some subtle intuitions or insights. Whatever you can accept. And likely you will be quite confused by it and mis-trusting of it and not very likely to listen to it.

It takes a lot of ego-undoing, a lot of surrendering, a lot of developing of trust, a lot of healing, a lot of relinquishing control of 'your life', a lot of opening up to love, and a lot of waking up, in order to get to a point where the 'gap' between you and God closes to such an extent, that there is no longer any NEED for guidance. Instead, in the ultimate state, God is one with you, lives through you, your will is God's will, you simply DO God's will immediately and spontaneously, and you have no need to get some kind of special messages that you might be prone to reject. Instead, you have full acceptance and full openness and trust, so you simply LIVE a divinely directed, divinely orchestrated, and divinely 'guided' life. This is God living in and through you, and you expressing and extending His Kingdom. Total oneness.

So most people are somewhere in-between these two extremes. And depending on where you're at, you're going to have various spiritual lessons and things that you're going to have to go through in order to 'enhance' your guidance. That is, to open up to and trust most in ... what essentially is... your relationship with God. Guidance is just another word for communication, and communication is just another word for your direct experience of and intimacy with God. So to whatever extend you are open to God, that is how much you are going to be guided, and the extend of that guidance, and what form it will take. So long as you are heading in the direction of HEALING your relationship with yourself and God, you are moving in the direction of enhanced guidance, or rather, an enhanced UNITY with God, joining with and accepting His will as your own.

So you don't need to necessarily have 'courage to act' on guidance, as such. You only are doubtful because you don't yet trust its source enough. Which really means you still listen to the ego or trust the ego too much, or rather, you rely on yourself - your own guidance - too much. It's a toss-up between whether you will follow the guidance or whether you'll do what 'you' think is better. You learn to trust guidance by getting in touch with guidance that comes from TRUTH, and which is based in LOVE, otherwise you cannot develop trust. So the source has to be loving. Or at least, more awake than you are. You need to keep discerning that it is acting in your best interests or is on your side or is 'trust-worthy', and not just blindly trust it at first without having some scrutiny. The scrutiny comes from your ego but you kind of need it at first in order to sort of prove to yourself that it CAN be trusted. Ultimately each step you take towards trust development is a step in your willingness to let go of the ego and to become more 'dependent' on the guidance. If the guidance has your best interests in mind and does not hurt you and does not deceive you and, over time, helps you and heals you, then it will earn your trust and you will open to ever increasingly deep levels of... communion with its source.

So if at the moment you are at the stage where you are experiencing what you call 'noise', and are trying to discern what is guidance or what is not.... I am guessing the ego is interfering with your efforts, which is normal. In other words, parts of you still rely on your own mind. Your mind, your intellect, because easily engaged in trying to figure out stuff on its own. Make it shut up. Make it quiet. Or rather, watch for it trying to do that. Stop trying to fix and solve and figure out. You can't be guided if you are trying to figure out what to do of your own capacity to understand the problem or know what to do.

So to some extend the mind that you have, has become 'posessed' by the ego and is being used for control. This is not natural. And it does this because it is DISCONNECTED from Holy Spirit. Or seems to be. He who perceives and experiences himself as 'separate' HAS to depend on his own ego abilities, the ego use of the mind, to try to survive and get through life or make sense of things. But you're not MEANT to be in that mode of functioning. The mind is supposed to be in service to God, in which God - Spirit - informs the mind of what it needs to know, and USES IT, utilizes it, like a tool, to work THROUGH.

This is the natural, healthy use of the mind, and it requires that the ego is not trying to control the mind or use it for its purposes. So you have to practice this, and this is ultimately all to do with your entire spiritual path and growth - learning to trust Spirit, to trust God, learning to let go of ego control, learning to surrender, learning to LISTEN, learning to DISCERN THE TRUTH, etc. YOU need to learn to discern what is true and what is false so that you can be open to the truth, which means the truth can then direct you, NOT so that you can then act on it in separate isolation.

As the Course says a few times, you will be told SPECIFICALLY what to do. And this is also why this prayer has deep meaning:

"I am here only to be truly helpful.

I am here to represent Him Who sent me.

I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do,

because He Who sent me will direct me.

I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.

I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal."

This is kind of a statement of what it is like to be in TOTAL UNION with Holy Spirit, where your mind is completely under the direction of spirit, with no ego. You won't be able to really 'get' or 'do' this prayer and actually act this way until you've completely surrendered the ego - which I have not.

Miracle principle 4: "All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His Voice will direct you very specifically."

Being directed specifically is ultimately what we will experience when we becoming willing enough, trusting enough, open enough.

If you are in a state of having too much 'noise' then you are listening to the ego too much and still believe the ego too much, which means it's just going to have to take some time (not essential but likely) to continue waking up and developing trust, in order for that noise to become... sorted out.... for you to USE the opportunity of ego interference to continue to discern what is true, what is false. Over time your guidance will become stronger and clearer and you will experience it more as your open invitation for Spirit to live through you rather than you getting occasional text messages.

In other words, don't think of the ego noise as just interference - that's the ego's use of it - instead USE it as an opportunity to sharpen your discernment skills, what is true and false, to sharpen your listening skills, your surrendering skills. Use it to improve your TRUST in and DISCERNMENT OF real guidance. The ego is really just there to stimulate you, to act as a catalyst, to help point you in the right direction by tempting you in the wrong direction - if you use it that way.

Living with God is your natural way of life.

Lately I feel like I have found a whole new sense of identity, and that I've discovered God.

I have been dwelling on two workbook lessons, 91 and 92. They talk about how I am not a body, and asks therefore, what am I? The focus is put on discovering who I really am if I am a not a limited, separated self, and begins to reinforce the various attributes of what must be my real self.

Then in 92 it builds on this by suggesting that all the attributes of my real self are actually shared with God. That for example God's light is my strength, that I see in God's light, that I share God's mind, that my strength is actually God in me etc.

These to me seem to be a kind of two step leap in identity - 1) That I am not a body and am something above and beyond this level and world, and 2) That all my real attributes are actually PART OF GOD. That my actual self is SHARED with him and everything true of my real self is INHERITED and simultaneously one with him.

That means that to claim my real self, to be not a body or an ego, I actually have to realize that I am part of God himself, that everything I have comes from him, that there is a strength and a power IN me which is actually HIM. That I am host to him, that he is in fact the life and the light in me, and that I can kind of step back into him and merge with him. Even my self, my soul, is actually an extended part of God himself which HE DWELLS IN.

I cannot really explain it but there has been a strange leap in confidence, sense of outward expression, of certainty and fearlessness, which has suddenly erupted as a result of this. It seems like a major shift in who and what I AM, away from "I'll do this all by myself" to "God and I will do this together." A leap from exclusion to inclusion, and from selfishness to sharing.

I've been having some .. bright and clear views of the world, in which it looks quite beautiful, which seems to effortlessly come by affirming that all MY attributes are actually God in me. That I see in his light, think with his mind, that my strength is his, that I forgive with his love, that I SHARE with him. And through this acknowledgement of him in my mind, I leap further to seeing God in everything. And this is also about TRUST.

I have to say that the degree of seeming 'light' that these visions entail is far beyond anything that any other course practice has ever revealed. And it seems so simply accessed through the acknowledgement of God in me, and that my SELF is embedded in him and a part of him. I am an extension of God. Everything I am comes from him and IS HIM!

By opening up to that, which is WITHIN myself, kind of behind myself, all of the sense of happiness and love and power and light and so on just seems to switch on like a lightbulb and flood my perception with 'forgiveness'. This isn't an intellectual exercise or a concept or theory. It's an immersive experience. I am putting myself into God's hands and am seeing myself as united with his attributes. That anything I have is OF him and not of me.

What I am is not just myself. What I am isn't an isolated, fenced-off me. The walls are dropping. What I am is shared with the whole. What I am is given to me by something much larger. And it seems the blessings and gifts of God are FAR FAR FAR in advance of any sense of "me and mine" that I could possibly come up with as a body-identified ego.

It also seems so very simple. Just stepping back and sinking into a sense of self that is made of God himself. Allowing myself to host him. Accepting that I am what he has created me to be. Recognizing not simply that I am some kind of spiritual self, but that I ONLY have what God has PUT in me, and what he has put in me is HIMSELF!

This also leads to the recognition that everyone else, all other children of God, also have God in them. And I am seeing this in the course more and more. To attack another is to attack God because they are host to God. To recognize that they are HOST to God, is to recognize their sacredness and to honor the power of God in them.

I cannot join with another WITHOUT joining with God and the Holy Spirit in them, because all must be included! I can't exclusively join with just one person, to the exclusion of God. God has to be part of the joining because he is the love. And his entire Kingdom must be there as well. To love unconditionally is to love the whole sonship at once.

To be an isolated, separated, exclusive, body-identified self, is to be HOSTAGE to the ego. You can be hostage to the ego or host to God. This is our choice. To host God is to have him be in you and through you, in which all he shares with and gives to you, is given FOR you and FOR others. And thus does it extend beyond yourself alone, because nothing is for yourself alone.

"Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom YOU invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you." "I who am host to God AM worthy of Him.

He Who ESTABLISHED His dwelling-place in me created it as He would have it be.

It is not needful that I make it ready for Him, but only that I DO NOT INTERFERE with His plan to RESTORE to me my own AWARENESS of my readiness, which is eternal.

I need ADD nothing to His plan,

But to RECEIVE it, I must be willing NOT to substitute my own IN PLACE of it.""

"You who are host to God, are also host to THEM."

"Thus will He make you ready to acknowledge that you ARE host to God, and hostage to no-one and to nothing."

"For He is Host to God. And you need but invite Him in Who is there ALREADY, by recognizing that His Host is One."

"We asked you once before, "Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God?" Let this question be asked you by the Holy Spirit in you, EVERY time you make a decision. For every decision you make DOES answer this, and invites sorrow or joy, accordingly."

"It is not true that you can make decisions BY yourself, or FOR yourself alone."

"Do not forget you do not answer for yourself alone." "Remember that you learn not for yourself alone, no more than I did."

"The Holy Spirit enables you to PERCEIVE THIS WHOLENESS NOW. You can no more pray for yourselves alone than you can find joy for yourself alone."

"And sight of bodies becomes the sign that sacrifice IS limited, and something still remains for you alone."

"The gifts you have are not for you alone. What He has come to offer you, you now must learn to give."

"It will NOT be for you alone, for therein lay its misery. As its UNholiness kept it as a thing apart, its HOLINESS will become an offering to everyone."

"Atonement is for all, because it is the way to UNDO the belief that ANYTHING is for you ALONE."

"Salvation IS His Will BECAUSE you share it. NOT for you alone, but for the Self which IS the Son of God."

Quite a lot of quotes here about LETTING the Holy Spirit do stuff for you and through you…

“I will step back and let Him lead the way.”

“Then let him turn within to his Eternal Guide, and let Him Judge what the response should be. So is he healed, and in his healing is his pupil healed with him.”

“Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven.”

“Let Him fulfill the function that He GAVE to your relationship by ACCEPTING it FOR you.”

“When you feel the holiness of your relationship is threatened by ANYTHING, stop instantly and offer the Holy Spirit your willingness, IN SPITE of fear, to let Him exchange this instant for the holy one which YOU would rather have. He will NEVER fail in this.”

“I rest in God today, and let Him work

In me and through me, while I rest in Him

In quiet and in perfect certainty.”

“Trust all things to Him. Let Him reveal all things to you, and be you undismayed because you are His Son.”

“The unredeemed cannot redeem. Yet they HAVE a Redeemer. Attempt to teach Him not. YOU are the learner; HE the Teacher. Do not confuse your role with His, for this will NEVER bring peace to anyone. Offer your empathy to Him, for it is HIS perception and His STRENGTH that you would share. And let Him offer you HIS strength and HIS perception, to be shared THROUGH you.”

“He gives the miracles my dreams would hide from my awareness. Let Him judge today. I do not know my will, but He is sure it is Your own. And He will speak for me, and call Your miracle to come to me."

“The Holy Spirit will teach me this, if I will let Him. And I will understand it is impossible that I could have a problem which has not been solved already.”

“Let Him be Judge of what you are, for He has certainty in which there is no doubt because it rests on Certainty so great that doubt is meaningless before Its Face.”

“Let Him be Judge as well of everything that seems to happen to you in this world. His lessons will enable you to bridge the gap between illusions and the truth.”

“Let Him evaluate each thought that comes to mind, remove the elements of dreams, and give them back to you as clean ideas which do not contradict the Will of God.”

“Follow His light and see the world as He beholds it. Hear His Voice alone in all that speaks to you. And let Him give you peace and certainty, which you have thrown away, but Heaven has preserved for you in Him.”

“The CAPACITY to empathize is VERY useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way. His way is very different. He does NOT understand suffering, and would have you teach IT IS NOT UNDERSTANDABLE. When He relates through you, He does NOT relate through the ego to another ego. He does NOT join in pain, knowing that HEALING pain is NOT accomplished by delusional attempts to ENTER INTO IT, and lighten it by SHARING the delusion.”

“The Holy Spirit asks only this little help of you. Whenever your thoughts wander to a special relationship which still ATTRACTS you, enter with Him into a holy instant, and there, LET HIM RELEASE YOU. He needs only your willingness to SHARE His perspective, to give it to you completely.”

“Call upon Him, for Heaven is at His call. And LET Him call on Heaven FOR you.”

“God's Voice alone can tell you how to heal. Listen, and you will never fail to bring His kindly remedy to those He sends to you, to let Him heal them, and to bless all those who serve with Him in healing's name. The body's healing will occur because its cause has gone. And now without a cause, it cannot come again in different form. Nor will death any more be feared because it has been understood. There is no fear in one who has been truly healed, for love has entered now where idols used to stand, and fear has given way at last to God.”

“The teacher of God must, however, learn to use words in a new way. Gradually, he learns how to let his words be chosen for him by ceasing to decide for himself what he will say. This process is merely a special case of the Workbook lesson "I will step back and let Him lead the way." The teacher of God accepts the words which are offered him and gives as he receives. He does not control the direction of his speaking. He listens and hears and speaks.”

“And now I place you in His hands, to be His faithful followers, with Him as Guide through every difficulty and all pain that you may think is real. Nor will He give you pleasures that will pass away, for He gives only the eternal and the good. Let Him prepare you further. He has earned your trust by speaking daily to you of your Father and your brother and your Self. He will continue; now you walk with Him as certain as is He of where you go; as sure as He of how you should proceed, as confident as He is of the goal, and of your safe arrival in the end.”

“I place you in His charge, and let Him teach you what to do and say and think each time you turn to Him. He will not fail to be available to you each time you call to Him to help you.”

“They will not hear another voice but yours, because you gave your voice to God and now you rest in Him, and let Him speak through you.”

“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.”

“It is the message that the Holy Spirit is holding to the mirror that is in HIM. He recognizes it, because he has been taught his NEED for it, but knows not where to look to FIND it. Let him, then, see it in YOU, and share it WITH you.”

“Then turn to Him who shares your function with you, and let Him teach you what you need to learn to lay all fear aside, and know your Self as Love Which has no opposite in you.”

“He is the strong protector of your innocence, which sets you free. And it is HIS decision to undo EVERYTHING that would obscure your innocence from your unclouded mind. Let Him, therefore, be the only guide that you would follow to Salvation. He knows the way, and leads you gladly on it. WITH Him, you will not fail to learn what God wills FOR you IS your will. ”

“The Holy Spirit points quietly to the contrast, knowing that you will finally let Him judge the difference FOR you, allowing Him to demonstrate which MUST be true.”

“The Holy Spirit is the ONLY therapist. He makes healing PERFECTLY clear in ANY situation in which He is the guide. The human therapist can only LET HIM FULFILL HIS FUNCTION. He needs no help for this. He WILL tell you EXACTLY what to do, to help ANYONE He sends to you FOR help, and will speak to him through you, IF YOU DO NOT INTERFERE.”

“But the Holy Spirit, too, has use for sleep, and can use dreams on BEHALF of waking, if you will let Him.”

“Your creations are protected FOR you because the Holy Spirit, Who is in your minds, knows of them, and can bring them INTO your awareness whenever you will let Him.”

“The Holy Spirit knows NO-ONE IS SPECIAL. But He also perceives that you have MADE special relationships, which He would purify, and NOT let YOU destroy. However UNholy the reason why you made them may be, He can TRANSLATE them into holiness, by removing AS MUCH FEAR AS YOU WILL LET HIM.”

“For here is both his pain AND his healing, for the Holy Spirit's vision is merciful, and His remedy is quick. Do not HIDE suffering from His sight, but bring it gladly TO Him. Lay before His eternal sanity ALL your hurt, and LET Him heal you. Do not leave any spot of pain hidden from His Light, and search your minds carefully for any thoughts which you may fear to uncover. For He will heal every little thought that you have kept to hurt you, and cleanse it of its littleness, restoring it to the magnitude of God.”

“Leave, then, what seems to you to be impossible, to Him Who knows it MUST be possible, because it is the Will of God. And let Him, Whose teaching is ONLY of God, teach you the ONLY meaning of relationships. For God Himself created the only relationship that HAS meaning, and that is His relationship with YOU.”

“Thank God that He is there, and works through you. And all His works are yours. He offers YOU a miracle, with every one you LET Him do through you.”

“But the Holy Spirit has saved its meaning FOR you, and if you will LET Him interpret it FOR you, He will restore what you have thrown away.”

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.

"To forgive is to OVERLOOK"

"Everything the body sees is an illusion."

Years ago when I began the course, I thought I understood forgiveness. I thought it basically meant not blaming people, and trying to learn that everyone is innocent. It's kind of that. But over time and with deeper study my grasp of forgiveness kept expanding.

I realized at some point forgiveness is a state, a high state of mind, in concert with true perception, and that our efforts "to forgive" move us in the direction of that state. At some point we would achieve a truly forgiving state of mind as an end result or goal. And this state recognizes there is no real sin.

And so then "doing forgiveness" to me was more to do with purification, healing, release, not judging, taking responsibility, embracing the secret of salvation etc. I made effort to forgive myself and others through various means and to move out of fear into guilt, out of guilt into sin, and out of sin into innocence. But this still wasn't the whole story.

It gradually became clearer that the entire world needs to be overlooked. Particularly because the world itself is an illusion, it wasn't enough to undo my mistaken ideas and beliefs about it, somehow I had to learn to "see past" the world to a light or reality beyond it. And this is significantly challenging. The world hangs like a veil before the face of Christ, a granite block of sin, designed to tempt you to believe everything you see.

It became clearer that the entire physical universe, all forms of matter, all bodies and planets and objects, are there as temptations, appearances and deceptions. That seeing something seem to happen in the flesh was in fact untrue and unreal. That people are not bodies, but something beyond their physical form that I'm meant to see. And so my efforts shifted toward trying not to be deceived by the world in general.

This is where things seem to become quite difficult. When you consider that we've lived in a physical body for many years, assuming the world is real, reacting to everything the body senses as if it's happening as proof, there is a lot of conditioning to undo. And it starts to go into a territory where you have to literally question fundamental reality, whether events are even really happening, whether sick bodies even exist, whether all of the hierarchy of illusions really testifies to bad things happening or if it's just some awful dream. And that means questioning even what your body senses say is happening.

For me lately the challenge has been intensified because I've been presented with some very difficult "physical" scenarios with my wife that present powerful temptations. Temptations to believe that awful things are happening, that there is physical loss, that body parts are malfunctioning, that there is seriousness and heaviness and fear-inducing problems. I've been extremely pushed and impressed upon by the apparent reality of these horrors.

Just the mere act of seeing something physically "wrong" and believing it is truthful, real, happening, or a danger, is enough to incite fear and reactions. When the world is dangling "proof" that sin is happening, attack is happening, that bodies seem to be real, in front of your face, proving that sin is real, what do you do? Because this is where we really get into some major need for forgiveness.

It has become more and more apparent that everything physical is an illusion. All body states are fictional. The ego uses forms to hold the idea of death in front of our noses, asking us to believe that it's really happening. It asks us to regard people as bodies as though, when parts of the body are threatened or lost, the person is threatened or lost. And if you buy it, you will be very upset. And this is why the world is so unhappy.

Presented with a torrent of nightmarish happenings, my challenge has been to try to learn to disbelieve them. To not buy the appearance. To trust a bigger plan. To see beyond the short-term nonsense. To not believe it means something. To not go into fear as a reaction to my own belief that something is very wrong. From what I've been shown through these trials and lessons, not only that our immortal reality the only truth, but also everything bodies testify to is an illusion.

My wife had to have an amputation of her left foot. At first this was horrifying. Just the idea of it made me guilty and afraid. I feared the "loss of her" because if her foot was gone, part of her was really gone. That's what the ego teaches through form. Physical loss means something real has been destroyed, which automatically leads to loss and grief. And so I entered into loss and grief and had to struggle to get out of it. It was induced by the belief that what the body was showing was true of her. That a) she was a body, a b) she was attacked and really suffering and c) it was an irreversible sin.

This is where forgiveness really meets the road. I've had to learn to try to see past and disbelieve all physical events, happenings, states, conditions, people's expert opinions about how serious it is, the physical testimony that "it really is happening", all proof, and all suggestion by the ego world that something is terribly wrong. It is not easy. The level of temptation has been so high and so frequent that I've been thrown far off-center and struggling to get back a sense of truth.

But I do realize through all of this that the opportunity has presented me with a "test", a way to find out if I will be willing to not buy into this problem and laugh it off with love, perhaps to even become miraculous and healing through that love, or whether I will sink into fear and forgetfulness. To say that the road has been extremely bumpy is an understatement. And so the challenge to forgive is to NOT BELIEVE that any of this is even happening at all. To disregard it as illusions and as lies.

Somehow through the clearing smoke, it seems I disbelieve the physical with more certainty now. And as I see other people's sick bodies, somehow I now see them with the same attitude that I see my wife's body with. Her example has changed my perception. Whatever the education has been, it now applies to a transformation in my vision. I can't by any means claim this is total or even halfway to where it needs to be, but it's clear that forgiveness has evolved way past what I thought it was, and now onto a more living experience of not being deceived by form. Even the suggestion of physical death now seems like a ridiculous lie.

It's no small undertaking. We literally are being asked to not believe ANYTHING in this world. That all forms, appearances, bodies, objects, are mere illusory appearances designed to tempt us, causing us to have to learn NOT to be deceived by them. It's very difficult to not buy illusions when someone close to you is seriously ill with visible and "serious" physical symptoms. But this is what we have to do. The body is a denial of the truth. We have to deny the denial of the truth. We have to learn not to buy a single thing the world says is happening, and look beyond the world to the light. We are safe in God, merely dreaming of exile.

In this view, our task is to overlook the world, which transforms it into the forgiven world. And a forgiven world cannot last. "A forgiven world cannot last. It was the home of bodies but forgiveness looks past bodies." We look beyond the forgiven world, beyond the real world, to the Kingdom of God. We regard the Kingdom as the only reality. We are vigilant only for its truth and immortality. We are not deceived by lies of mortal death or suffering. Nothing that the body senses can distract us from an unwavering fixation on God's truth. We are under no laws buy God's, and only the truth is true and this world is not true.

This is what we are asked to do. This is how we forgive. We overlook the false world we made and see it not. We ask to see only the reality of the Kingdom. Nothing else is real. Nothing else has value. Nothing else attracts us. Nothing else satisfies. Only in the forgetting of the world and the complete overlooking of its transparent veil of lies can we look upon the face of Christ and finally move beyond to our True Home.

"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.

Consider the Kingdom which you have made (Earth), and judge its worth fairly. Is it worthy to be a home for a Child of God? Does it protect his peace, and shine love upon him? Does it keep his heart untouched by fear, and allow him to give always without any sense of loss? Does it teach him that this giving is his joy, and that God Himself thanks him for his giving?

That is the only environment in which you can be happy. You cannot make it, anymore than you can make yourselves. But it has been created for you (Heaven), as you were created for it. God watches over His children and denies them nothing."

"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."

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

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

To truly be a student, you have to be willing to recognize and admit that you DO NOT KNOW.

If you do not know, then you are in a position of NEEDING TO LEARN.

Because you do not know, YOU CANNOT teach yourself what you do not know, so MUST resign as your own teacher.

Therefore you need a teacher who DOES KNOW, other than yourself, and you must turn to them, listen to and trust them.

If you can accept that you do not know, then you will be willing to turn to the Holy Spirit and ask for his Help. He is there to help and to guide, to comfort and to heal. He is there to provide therapy and to teach you what you do NOT know.

But here is the problem. Everyone who does not know, does not recognize that they do not know, and believes that they do know.

Similarly everyone who does not know, believes that they DO know, and thinks that they are CAPABLE of telling themselves what they need to know.

So now you have a person who is blind to knowledge, who does NOT know what anything really is, who is turning to themselves and whispering IN THEIR OWN EAR, TELLING THEMSELVES what things are.

How can a person tell themselves what anything is, if they do not know what anything is? But this is what we are all doing all of the time.

It's like saying, I have no clue what anything really is, so I'm going to tell myself what it is anyway. This is obviously insane and a mistake. But we keep doing it over and over, telling ourselves what everything is.

We judge on our own, we decide on our own, we depend on our own strength and experience, we tell ourselves what we think is true, we make it all up as we go along, and we convince ourselves that we're experts.

We then develop a kind of pride in believing that we are in a position of authority, that we are educated and knowledgeable, with all the facts and trivia and information that we need, along with greatly developed "judgement", allegedly autonomous and capable of discerning anything and everything.

But we're totally clueless. We're lost in the dark, we're completely out of touch with real knowledge - which is an aspect of heaven only, we have no real clue what anything is or means, we're making up all these meanings as we go along, and we're trying to constantly talk ourselves into things.

It's obvious therefore that we all "start out" doing this course in a position of believing that we are the ones who are going to get ourselves to the goal. It is even a widespread teaching that we OURSELVES need to "do a forgiveness". That WE ourselves are going to figure out what's wrong with us, how we are insane, and what we need to do to fix it.

But ACIM is quite clear that we are in fact supposed to surrender and admit that we do not know, recognize that we are in a position of NEEDING HELP, and then TURN TO the Holy Spirit to join with him FIRST, BEFORE we even attempt to overlook sins.

We are not going to do that if we are not being true students. We are so busy being teachers. So in fact we start off believing we know, with fake authority and made-up knowledge, and ponce around as if authoritative teachers. And it isn't usually until much LATER in our progress that we start to relinquish the role of "fake teacher" and adopt a greater role of being a true STUDENT.

To be a true student, or happy learner, we have to have enough humility and humbleness to drop the ROLE of trying to do everything on our own. We have to be willing to admit that we cannot judge anything correctly, we are rather stupid, we have no knowledge or true certainty about anything, have no clue what anything really means, and have failed at teaching ourselves.

This then gives way for opening up to LISTEN and to hear the Voice for God, to direct us, to decide everything for us, to tell us what everything means, to direct us what to do, where to go, what to say. To even step aside enough to allow him to use our body, to speak through it, to manipulate our hands, to heal through us. Such that we become more like a medium for God and Christ.

All of this takes the removal of the egotism, the arrogance, the pretentiousness, the righteousness, the self importance, the pride, the holier-than-thou, and all of the sense of self-reliance and not needing God for anything. We are here to do God's will, not our own separate will. We are here to serve, not to dictate from our own sources.

We are not our own source. Anything and everything we have is part of God and has been LOANED to us through sharing and inheritance. Our strength is the strength of God in us. Our power is the power of God is us. Our light and love are God's light and love. We are symbiotic and dependent on God. We should not be taking a position of standalone agents, thinking we have something exclusively of our own, something special, that others lack.

To be a student is to drop the role of being an exclusive teacher. Then only as a student can you truly become a teacher of God. A teacher of God is a student of the Holy Spirit and not their own ego.

"Resign NOW as your own teachers. THIS resignation will NOT lead to depression. It is merely the result of an honest appraisal of what you have taught yourselves, and of the learning outcomes which have resulted. Under the proper learning conditions, which you can neither provide nor understand, you will become excellent learners AND teachers." UrT11F11

"EVERYTHING you have taught yourselves has made your power more and more obscure to you." UrT14G1

"The lessons you have taught yourselves have been so overlearned and fixed they rise like heavy curtains, to obscure the simple and the obvious." UrT31A3

"You taught YOURSELVES the most unnatural habit of NOT communicating with your Creator. Yet you remain in close communication with Him, and with everything that is within Him, as it is within YOURSELF. UNlearn isolation through His loving guidance, and learn of all the happy communication that you have thrown away, but could NOT lose." UrT13H16

"Do not attempt to teach YOURSELVES what you do not understand, and do not try to set up curriculum goals, where yours have clearly failed. For YOUR learning goal has been NOT TO LEARN, and this CANNOT lead to successful learning." UrT11F6

"The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world's learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. This is not an opinion but a fact. In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future. Who is in a position to do this? Who except in grandiose fantasies would claim this for himself?" UrM11A3

"When your peace is threatened, or disturbed in ANY way, say to yourself, "I do not know what anything, INCLUDING THIS, means. And so I do NOT know HOW TO RESPOND TO IT. And I will not use my own past learning as the light to guide me now." By this refusal to attempt to teach yourself what you do not know, the Guide Whom God has given you, will speak to you. HE will take His rightful place in your awareness, the instant YOU abandon it, and offer it to Him." UrT14G7

"Never approach the holy instant AFTER you have tried to remove all fear and hatred from your mind. That is ITS function. Never attempt to OVERLOOK your guilt BEFORE you ask the Holy Spirit's help. That is HIS function. Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven. On your little faith, joined with HIS understanding, HE will build your part in the Atonement, and MAKE SURE that you fulfill it easily. And WITH Him, YOU will build a ladder planted in the solid rock of faith, and rising even to Heaven. Nor will you use it to ascend to Heaven alone." UrT18F2

I think this runs somewhat against the expectations of many ACIM students, but at the physical and personality level we are all considerably different. No two bodies are identical. There are many many sub-types of human bodies, brains, nervous systems, outlooks, orientations, races, gender identities, etc. We are not all the same in terms of human bodies, never were, and never will be. Everything physical is, at best, similar, but not equal.

When there comes to be a social "norm" where we think there's a normal way to be, a normal type of person, a normal interaction style, a normal behaviour, a normal way to process information etc, it becomes a way to create a "closet". People start to feel ashamed for being different, ashamed for having difficulties matching up to the expected behaviour.

An obvious example is in the case of gay/queer people whereby, quite literally their bodies and brains are different. A gay person does not have the "wiring" to produce experiences of excitation and attraction to members of the opposite sex, or at least this "ability" is altered and in a different ratio. A trans-sexual person may have a wildly different sense of gender identity compared to their physical biology. There is science to confirm that gay people have different pheromones, different brain structures, different chemistry.

Another example is in terms of the differences between extroverted and introverted people, or those who are highly sensitive compared to those who are not. The extroverted people find release and stress-processing through social connection and external ways to work through things. This totally does not work for an introverted person who needs to go within, withdraw, process deeply and reflect. When either of these become an expected "norm" the other group becomes ashamed and repressed.

It's far better that we realize that on the physical and personality level, the human level, and to a degree in the mind as well since it is influenced by the brain wiring, that we are a collection of highly discordant, highly differentiated "persons". There is not a norm, there is not a standard, there is not a one-size-fits all, there is not a "we are all one" on this level. There is no such thing as physical oneness or physical equality. The idea of making the human race have a "physical oneness" must be completely destroyed. Oneness only works in the mind, not the body, and trying to make it work for bodies is insane and backwards.

I've been working with ACIM for over 20 years now and have gone through a lot of healing and transformation. But in spite of this, my body is still largely wired the same way it was years ago. It is still highly sensitive and introverted, my nervous system is still wired to process deeply rather than broadly, I still need down time to catch up with the processing, I still at times am shy and finding it harder to push out expressions and open up emotionally. These are physical traits rooted in how my brain is structured, regardless of my spiritual aspirations at the mind level. I work in abstracts and symbols and metaphors and subtle nuances, which is not true of most people.

You'll notice that as people work on spiritual awakening their body stays much the same. It may heal, it may seem more alive, it may seem healthier or younger, but it still has its accent, it still moves with similar mannerisms, there's still the same collection of language, there's the same eyes and mouth, the same height, the same weight, the same muscles and sense of motion. These things aren't really going to change because they're part of the body. Waking up more doesn't suddenly turn your body into a spiritual thing because it can't be that. It's a body, not a spirit.

Trying to expect bodies to be more spiritual is a spiritualisation of the physical, which is a form of level confusion. The physical can't be spiritual because it is not spirit. Trying to expect human physical persons to shed the wiring and uniqueness and differences that are hardwired into their physical makeup is highly unrealistic. Trying to act spiritual or look spiritual or trying to get the body to stop having its quirks is going to be extremely difficult if not impossible.

I would say that to some degree I have become more understanding of, at peace with, and perhaps a bit more masterful of working WITH the limitations of my physicality, but I wouldn't say that the physical has stopped being the way it always was. My mind has changed and that perhaps means that I now operate the body differently, but it still largely looks similar, moves similar, processes information similarly as before. I still have high sensitivity and am easily overwhelmed with too much input. I still fart and pee and shit and sleep and all that.

I see sometimes that people expect that they're going to turn into a butterfly or something as they work on their spiritual path. Doing workbook lessons for example doing meditations, starts to seem like it's going to cause a persons perception to change so much that they become non-physical. And in other words, that they won't be able to function on the physical level anymore. And yet, there they are, using the same physical body and the same eyes and the same brain to physically perceive the same book which still looks exactly the same with the same physical pages as before. The physical stuff barely changes at all.

So I think it would be healthy for us to acknowledge that we each are working with a distinct, specific, limited, quirky, and DIFFERENT type of physical body to everyone else. And this physical body brings with it unique challenges, unique wiring, unique preferences, unique pros and cons, unique talents and limitations. We're NOT all the same on this level. And it's okay to sort of embrace the way that you are different, the kind of body device you are having to work with, and it's okay to treat "your self" with kindness and acknowledgement even if it does not work for other people.

If your body has needs, if your brain has needs, if certain types of interactions or relationships or environments or people or whatever don't work for you, that's fine. It's likely to do with how your body is wired. Yes you can change some things psychologically but the body itself cannot actually ever be whole, cannot be spiritual, cannot be like as swiss army knife, cannot do all things in all ways with all people and all situations, and does not have every ability that everyone else has.

Letting "yourself" off the hook for it to be okay to be NOT like other people, to have your own path, to go your own way, to do things in your own style, to have your own needs and boundaries, to dislike some things that other people like, to not want to participate in certain things that other people tout as ideal, is totally fine. Most of these "preferences" are totally rooted in how the physical body is made up and how the brain is connected, how the personality is structured and what that makes you feel comfortable with (or not).

We're all working on transcending these limits and things but we shouldn't be in denial that the body has its own very unique persuasion which is not very likely to completely match anyone else on the planet. I like most spiritual people want to 'become' or remember being the perfect soul that God created, my true self, my real self, but I highly highly doubt that this is going to change the nature, shape, color, style, orientation, workings, mannerisms, cycles, or character of my physical body in any significant way.

The body is an encounter suit. It's not you, but it IS a major limit and it does have major differences to other bodies. We can't pretend that's not true at this level. We're trying to rise above it and not identify with it and not use that to keep us from God, but at the same time we also don't want to get into people-pleasing and trying to fit into something that we are not comfortable with. It's okay to be different while you're working on trying to become "all the same" and "one" with everyone in spirit.

I've yet to see a single awakening person whose speaking voice suddenly sounds like it's a whole other person. Same accent, same intonations, same pacing, same emphasis, everything. That's not going to change anytime soon. We are not bodies, but bodies ARE bodies.

For me I am going to just be DIFFERENT, and NOT the same, until I can find a way to transcend the LEVEL of differences and be truly equal in mind and spirit. And I do not expect my body will ever suddenly turn into a rainbow, will not tolerate expectations to fit in with any body-oriented category, and will stick out like a sore thumb until the soreness is healed in my mind.

"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" UrM5A1

"There is a way of living in the world that is not here, although it seems to be. You do not change appearance, though you smile more frequently, Your forehead is serene; your eyes are quiet. And the ones who walk the world as you do recognize their own. Yet those who have not yet perceived the way will recognize you also, and believe that you are like them as you were before." UrW155L1

"The tendency to invest the physical with non-physical properties. This is essentially magic, and tends more toward anxiety-proneness." UrT1C12

"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. " UrM9A6

"Yet, in the dreaming, has this been reversed, and separate minds are seen as bodies, which ARE separated, and which cannot JOIN." UrT28D2

"For the body IS a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was MADE to limit the UNlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical; for it was made to limit YOU. Can you who see yourselves WITHIN a body, know yourself AS AN IDEA? Everything you recognize you identify by EXTERNALS, something OUTSIDE itself. You cannot even think of GOD without a body, or some form you think you recognize. The body cannot KNOW. And while you limit your awareness to its tiny senses, you will not see the grandeur that surrounds you." UrT18I1

"The union of bodies thus becomes the way in which you would KEEP MINDS APART. For bodies cannot forgive. They can do only as the mind directs." UrT15H12

"God made not death. Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion. This the stand we take today. And it is given us to look past death and see the life beyond."

You can say that death is bad, and everything should be moved towards life. That includes healing the body and mind. There should be resurrection happening, a reversal of aging, an undoing of the effects of space and time. A return to life from death.

But this can also be mixed in with an active avoidance of death, a fear of it happening, and a wish to stop a suffering that seems real. If a person's body is real, and it is sick, you'll be motivated to "perform miracles" to heal and rescue them from death. You just want it to all go away.

This attitude of death avoidance can seem like it is in support of miracles, and even can compel and entail attempts at healing. But it's still the behaviour of an unhealed healer - a mixture of trying to resurrect the dead while still believing death is real. If bodies are real, then fixing them becomes a priority.

I went through this whole phase over the course of many years, presented with an endless supply of pictures of my wife being sick and disabled. It was practically an embarrassment to a budding ACIM miracle-worker, the amount of assistive devices we had to use - lifts and wheelchairs and special beds and medicines.

Here I was, trying to stave off death at all costs, keep the body going, undo the sickness, reverse the symptoms, resurrect the dying and make it all better. But this too was driven by a belief that my wife was a body, constantly mixing her spirit and mind with the physical form, where references to "her" always included the body.

I resisted the sickness and the death. I didn't want it to happen. I wanted to keep the body-person around for as long as possible, and couldn't even conceive of any other way of living. Keeping her ticking over was a constant struggle and a daily effort, thwarting wrong diagnoses and fending off stupid medical staff. Trying to keep the death-mongers at bay.

But eventually it got to a point where it was all exhausted, and it occurred to me that I really should just let her die. And that seemed totally against everything I believed. Not that it was up to me anyway, but I had to stop fighting it. I realised I should stop trying to keep her here, and stop trying to prevent all hell breaking loose. She didn't want to really be here any more and we were both quite done with the daily drudgery of bodily upkeep.

It was within a week of that surrendering that she died. Well, I should say, she went to heaven. Her body for sure died, and she for sure did not. Which presented its own confusing challenges to get my head around. But a few things became super clear to me.

My entire attitude about death being "a really bad thing" was totally bullshit. It was fuelled by a belief that the body was the person and must be kept alive. My fear of it and avoidance of it just attracted it. My belief in the sickness just fuelled it. But all of a sudden she was in a state of extreme freedom and happiness, relieved and grateful, totally stunned yet overjoyed.

All the suffering simply switched off. All the daily grind came to an end. All the resistance to it happening was blown out of the water. And it seemed nothing but wonderful for her. I was really thrilled for her to be free at last, which she exclaimed to me "I'm free!" and "I'm happy".

So death really wasn't that bad, after all. In fact, it appeared like a kind of liberation and mercy, given how much she'd suffered for years. I wouldn't wish her for a second to return to that body, and her joy just made me realise more how cruel the world was in not allowing her to leave sooner. The whole idea of keeping someone in a body for as long as possible was shown to be utter bullshit. A multi-lifetime soul doesn't give a shit about it.

It taught me many things all at once. The bullshit of my anti-death pro-miracle deception. My demonising of death and making it out to be a terrible thing. My resistance to the fact that everything in the world dies. It all just popped the bubble. I stopped fighting against it, and that was liberating in its own right. If you try to stop it happening, you make it happen more. But if you stop resisting it, life can take over.

It's another one of those kind of paradoxes. If you make death out to be a bad thing you will choose it. If you don't make it out to be a bad thing, people will think you're anti-miraculous and a death worshipper. But giving it any reality, importance, meaning or value, even if its negative meanings, is just more ego. Death is supposed to be nothing, nothing whatsoever. Meaningless. It's not supposed to be the opposite end of some spiritual warfare between good and evil.

I still recognize and fully believe that death in any form is not supposed to happen. It is not God's nature. Nothing real ever dies. And pretty much everything in the world does. But we also can use the mind to reverse the world's laws and perform miracles, which does still include raising the dead and healing the sick, even to the extent of bodies recovering. In fact Jesus would like for us to demonstrate bodies so healthy and lovely and filled with life that they become symbols of immortality in the dream.

Still, you're not going to get there by opposing death. And when you decide to stop opposing death, that doesn't mean you condone it. It just means you stop fueling it and stop believing in it. Avoiding it just keeps it around. And believing in it while trying not to resist it just condones it. You have to stop believing in it entirely if you want to raise the dead, and believe only in life.

I have perhaps become more truly miracle-minded now that I am no longer fighting against sickness and death. I've stopped making them my enemies. I've stopped resisting them. Well, at least to some extent. My attitude is kind of, "let it all just die", but that too could sound like some murderous idea. The world is hell-bent on dying anyway, so fighting that is bullshit. But at the same time, in that same attitude of letting it go, we can also step into a power that's able to reverse those laws and undo death.

In effect, you bring an end to death by not making it out to be an ending. You withdraw your belief in it being some terrible tragic thing that everyone must avoid at all costs. So shit dies, so what. Fuck it. Who cares. Souls don't care. They just move on and have more lifetimes with fresh healthy new bodies. And being out of the body is fantastic in comparison to coming into one.

This is not in any way to glorify death or sickness, or to suggest to let people keep suffering and not be helpful. But make it real and you die alone with it. Only the living can raise the dead. We are still called to be miracle workers, to raise the dead and heal the sick where possible. To be truly helpful to everyone, to choose not to die ourselves, and to be an example of resurrection. Even to the extent of having our bodies become incapable of death.

But we don't get there by first believing in death and then trying to forgive or undo it. We're the ones that make death have power over us by believing in it. And having made it out to be a power that we can't prevent, which is a projection and disowning of our own power, all we do is end up fighting with ourselves in turmoil. I'm not interested in trying to come off as having some kind of saviour complex, wanting to heal and save everyone from dying.

Most people are going to snuff it in this lifetime because they'r not ready to go all the way. I spent decades trying to heal my wife and reverse her amputations and paralysis and heart disease and brain damage, but bullshit to that because, as it turns out, that was not the plan anyway. The plan was to use the opportunity to learn that making sickness and death real and then resisting it is not the way to be miraculous. To use the sickness as a way to learn to stop believing in it. The plan was never to radically zap her body into a state of perfection. Not in this life.

I totally failed to raise the dead, and it was a great lesson. It almost couldn't have gone any better. In the big picture, this is what I was ready to learn, not that I was some hero that could just zap away death with miracles all over the place. That heroic rescuer bullshit had to die as well. You're far better off letting shit go sometimes. Just as Jesus kept saying to me, "let her."

So some people are not meant to be resurrected in this life. The bigger plan might not call for it and they might not be willing. The Holy Spirit knows what's best and what's possible or appropriate. Some people don't want healing. Some are not ready for an "undiluted miracle." Some want to die too much and aren't ready to forgive themselves. Some are there to play a role for a while and then leave, perhaps to rejoin at a later encounter and carry on. It doesn't all have to happen in one lifetime, and most of the time doesn't.

So I have a much looser attitude now. I recognise the world is just full of disappointment and death so I get much less attached to the bullshit of temptation. I am no longer so mistaken to get all wound up if someone is sick. I'm not feeling like trying to fix and save and stop it happening out of some inability to let it be. Jesus was forever telling me "it's fine" even as my wife's leg was getting chopped off, even as she had a stroke, even as she was in the ICU twice and on her death bed. "It's fine" he said, because ultimately it doesn't matter whatsoever. Nothing real can be threatened. No-one ever dies. Just the body.

This has shown me that from the soul's perspective this world is just here for us to use temporarily. To repurpose. We go through bodies like water. We take on roles and challenges, lessons to learn and people to meet, and we move on. Probably across countless lifetimes. None of the physical shit really matters. It's not important at all. If people are to come and go and die off and leave, so what, you'll see them again. They were never a body in the first place, and the body is worthless anyway. This whole world will be thrown down the toilet and flushed away eventually "as the world spins into the nothingness from which it came."

So yeah. Be miraculous and overcome death by not believing in death and not resisting it. Gotta not resist it if you want there to be any freedom there. If you want to replace it with life you can't be dimming your light with death-believing thoughts of resistances rooted in a fear of loss. This is why we let the dead (in mind/heart) bury the dead (in body). It doesn't matter. Graveyards aren't even real. All of us are spiritual immortal beings who will live forever, and we will never ever be separate or alone.

When we're ready to surmount death and stop dying entirely, we'll resurrect the body and make it disappear. The body then becomes incapable of being sick or dying, so it can only leave by vanishing. The mind overlooks the illusion of death and recognises it as nothing, and away it goes. Then the body is no more, and never was, and you will never again go through death, or birth for that matter. I'm no longer an anti-death spokesperson. Death doesn't exist.

"There is no death. The Son of God is free."

"We call it death, but it is liberty. It does not come in forms that seem to be thrust down in pain upon unwilling flesh, but as a gentle welcome to release. If there has been true healing, this can be the form in which death comes when it is time to rest a while from labor gladly done and gladly ended. Now we go in peace to freer air and gentler climate, where it is not hard to see the gifts we gave were saved for us. For Christ is clearer now; His vision more sustained in us; His Voice, the Word of God, more certainly our own."

The ego is a devious, cunning, manipulative, deceptive monster, acting in deep unconsciousness, unaware of truth, unaware of the present, threatened by everything, threatening to everything, vicious and vile, mean and hateful, deeply suspicious, riddled with terror, certain of the death of itself and everyone else, deeply sick, distorted and distorting, murderous, vengeful and spiteful, dark and twisted, powerless, victimized and a victimizer, deeply sorrowful, alone, separate, lost, confused, uncertain of anything, knowing nothing, and thoroughly deluded.

This 'mind', when present in another person, will attempt to 'tempt' you to agree with it. Particularly if the 'pain body' of another person has activated and is taking over their consciousness, or rather, rendering the person unconscious and unaware of who they are or what the truth is. The ego will distort everything and yet is seemingly extremely cunning and clever at knowing when to strike, how to do so, and how to get what it wants. It can be seemingly formidable and a vicious enemy.

It wants to 'tempt' you to believe what it believes, by attempting to pull you into a drama, to lower your awareness, to distract you from truth, to mislead you, to push your buttons, to trigger off your unhealed upsets which may even entail triggering things that are deeply buried in yourself of which you are also mostly unconscious, just so that it can get you to react negatively and to enter into a state of separation. Once accomplished the ego is then 'feeding off of you' by attempting to take power from you, to possess you with its 'evil' intentions, to convert you to its thought system, to get you to be persuaded that its version of truth is the real truth, and to essentially corrupt you and diminish your light.

It is therefore a significant, deep challenge, to be around someone who is strongly in this kind of mindset, or who is having a pain-body attack, or who has a lot of negative emotion that is unhealed, or who has identified strongly with their ego self. Everything the ego does through another person or in them attempts to 'attract' you out of your peace and out of your mind, to 'tempt' you to believe things which are not true, and to get you to basically side with it so that you are resonating with it. Even as you begin to resonate with it, it is aligning with you and merging with you and thereby accessing you and absorbing you into it like a sponge. It is magnetic in its appeal that death is real and that you should be at war, in conflict with the other person, resisting of them, hating of them, rejecting of them, judging of them, reacting to their lies, or being drawn to basically lose your cool over the way the ego is behaving.

This is especially hard to deal with when you are attached to the person and depend on them, or when you rely on them being sane and sensible, or when you have expectations that the person should be a certain way in order to please your own unconscious bullshit, or that you have 'special bargains' with them in your 'special relationship' that you are still trying to fulfill but which are being ripped apart by the ego's refusal to honor the 'facade' or 'persona' that covers up its darkness (the shadow). When the gloves are off, all hell seems to break loose and at this time it can be extremely difficult to remain unaffected.

It is, however, a tremendous opportunity for learning and growth. Like it or not you will be driven to have to confront the things in yourself that cause you to become deceived by the ego in the other person, including having to examine and let go of attachments, having to look at and release and let go of special relationships and artificial ways of relating, to question why you have reactions or are deeply triggered by certain behaviors, to seek out God even more fervently in order to stay present in the truth, to come to realize that unconditional love is called for at all times because nothing else works, to be confronted with the ways in which your own ego is powerless to solve problems and how you yourself cannot fix anything, to question the motivation for fixing and saving, to be confronted with why it is that you fall for temptations or buy into the drama which is being put there as a deliberate provocation, to recognize where you are coming from your head and not your heart, to find levels of surrender and letting go that you never thought was possible, and to propel you into a greater awareness of God and yourself.

See, the bullshit drives you to awaken, when you allow it to, and when you use it to do so, by deciding that you will learn the lesson that it presents and that you will use it for the purpose of becoming even more honest. As such then it is not a curse but a blessing. And what may at first seem to be a horrendous terrifying unwanted attack may turn into a reason for salvation and a doorway to awakening. It is a catalyst (thank you for that word Holy Spirit). A catalyst for awakening, by getting you to be heavily triggered and to have to look at all the reasons why you are reacting so that you can heal and take responsibility for yourself.

All the ways you fail will be highlighted intensely because the ego in the other person will be very suspicious and rejective and quick to point out your faults and failures. It will not tolerate even tiny suggestions that you are innocent and will insinuate and accuse you of a great many things, some of which you are in fact doing that you do not want to admit to, and some things which you are in fact not doing which still cause you to react in some way.

The ego is like a highly highly untrusting scared sensitive little mouse that has absolutely no trust and no allegiance and no willingness to live or to see anything other than your sins. And because it powerfully highlights your sins, this presents a wonderful opportunity for you to confront false beliefs in yourself and to seek healing for your own sins. It is intense and painful and unpleasant, perhaps, but at the same time, you could think of it as a service, helping you to awaken by being as provocative and triggering of and pointing out all the ways you are being even slightly unloving, so that you will be forced to have to 'cunjour' up other-worldly amounts of love and forgiveness and unconditionality.

Ultimately it is for your good, even though being faced with the profound unconsciousness of ego and its pain can be terrifying and disempowering. For that you can be thankful, if you can finally let go enough to learn that the other person, who seems to have this evil ego inside them, is in fact NOT that ego, and that everything they believe is true about themselves and you is FALSE. They then become your savior, or at least, they provide the 'material' which you can USE to learn to recognize what is true and what is false. They can provide the catalyst for awakening and give motivation to your heart. And you can learn to forgive them, and overlook them, and see instead the light in them, and dismiss and filter out all of the ego's noise and screeches of suffering, which can be very difficult.

In this way and this way alone you could say that the ego is there to wake you up, or at least to provide the 'curriculum' and learning materials and role-play that may be necessary for you to be forced to take a really hard, deep look at yourself and what you believe. And it may be that the ONLY thing that seems to possibly 'work' with an ego-driven person is to COMPLETELY ignore what their ego is asserting, to learn to RECOGNIZE the sometimes subtle deviousness of the ego so that you can stop listening to it, and so that you can become aware that unconditional love is the ONLY TRULY HELPFUL REMEDY that you can offer.

In a way, the vicious 'evil' ego in another person is like a 'test' or exam, a very hard one, in which even slight unholiness in yourself will be pointed out in a big way and used against you. In fact, all of the ways in which you are yourself unconscious or unholy will become your own undoing, as you fall into a cascade of reactions and ego drama, trying desperately to 'fight off' the attacks that you believe are coming from the other person, but which in fact are your OWN self-attacks that you are now projecting onto them. The person in 'pain' is now like a final examiner, determining whether you are still easily fooled, whether you fall for ego lies, whether you still believe dark things about yourself, whether you still use ego yourself, and therefore whether you are truly 'clean' of ego to be in any kind of position to judge the other person. In this way, the ego becomes your motivation for admitting to and healing yourself, rising out of your own ego attitudes, removing your own darkness from your own mind, and stepping into light and power at an entirely higher level of functioning.

There is a way out of hell, but we have lessons to learn and a curriculum to undertake and things that we need to let go of and stop doing and there are also things we have yet to 'access' and become empowered by that we have yet to develop trust in. It's a journey - a journey without distance, and we are guaranteed to find our way home to love. Only in the context that the ego is helping you to awaken, to recognize how the ego is completely false, how it is INSANE, and ultimately does not exist, is the ONLY way it in which it is ever by any stretch of the imagination 'your friend'. Only be using it as a MIRROR or 'tester' to weed out the unconscious darkness within yourself, and to then correct it with Holy Spirit's truth, can you then be 'using' the ego for awakening. Coexisting with it is not the goal, or possible. Freedom from the ego is the goal and it is perfectly attainable. In a way, you 'need' the ego to help you awaken, but you awaken FROM it's and in spite of it.

And then you return to who you really are: invulnerable, unassailable, immortal, unconditional, innocent and holy.

God doesn't have an attitude of making you guilty for doing certain things. He isn't up there judging and condemning. He isn't holding grievances or hating you for your choices. Nor does he forcibly stop you from doing whatever you want. Even if it's something that is seemingly hurtful to you and others.

When God created you, he extended his infinite unlimited freedom, giving you total free will. This was like a granting of permission, that you are free to create and do whatever you want. God placed NO LIMITS on your freedom. There are no clauses or exceptions, and no small print. You are completely free. It is because of this giving of total freedom that you are a fully created individual being.

That automatically means God isn't sitting there revoking your freedoms, judging you as guilty for the choices you make, regretting giving you freedom, wanting to enact his wrath because of the sins you commit, aiming to punish you for poor choices, or any other kind of control or coercion or attempts to stop you against your will.

God cannot go against your will because your will is actually shared with his own. To deny your freedom would deny his freedom. He isn't in the business of putting you in chains or binding you to certain rules and regulations.

With God there is always a sense of.... you can come and go as you freely wish. No-one is forcing you. You can choose heaven, you can choose hell. You can choose harmlessness or harm, peace or war, life or death.

One thing you cannot do is alter the laws of God, you cannot undo the golden rule, you cannot influence what reality is, you cannot alter what is ultimately true, and you cannot attack anything real. This is because God wills that reality be perfect and immortal and eternal forever, and reality is his creation, not yours.

You also cannot undo the fact that rejecting God results in illusions of pain and suffering, not because God punishes or makes you suffer for trying to violate his will, but because you choose and induce it upon yourself when you try to deny his nature. You literally assert that you want to suffer rather than be happy.

In granting you total freedom, you were also given the freedom to "mis-use" will, to try to will not to will, to attempt to deny what is still true, to try to use creative power to create nothing, and to attempt to repress and disempower yourself as much as you like.

God did not STOP you from believing that you could be separate from him, even though you can't. He didn't stop you from trying to attack him and his kingdom. He didn't stop you from trying to die, or making war and terror, or trying to enforce sickness, or anything else that ego would consider a sin. He doesn't WILL it for you, but he also doesn't force you not to.

Since you've been given total freedom, nothing that you choose is ever a reason for guilt. If you are free, you have been given permission when you were given freedom. God isn't holding you on a leash or binding you in chains. Nor does love enter where it is not welcome, nor does God demand or control or force anything.

God never says "you shouldn't have done that, you're sinful for breaking the rules". You cannot break the rules because you cannot violate your freedom. There are no rules because there are no limits on your freedom.

You actually are totally free to come and go, live or die, be happy or unhappy, be awake or asleep, whatever you want. But this also means that because you are totally free, you are also totally responsible for your choices. Total freedom IS total responsibility.

When you are willing to take total responsibility for your total freedom, you are also taking responsibility for the power of decision to choose what you want. You are now exercising your will to choose whether to will one thing or another, and whether to go home to heaven. This is why heaven is a choice that you have to make freely and willingly. It cannot be forced upon you.

This also then means that you can never blame anyone else for doing anything to you, because in your freedom you cannot have anything done to you against your freedom. You can attack your own freedom, in illusions, but no one can ever be guilty. Because everyone is always free. And you are always free from attack.

The secret of salvation then comes in, because in total responsibility you are the one who must have denied your own freedom. Attempting to be guilty is an attempt to deny that you are free, accusing self and others of violating God's rules and sinning against his law. But this has to be false because God has granted you the freedom AND POWER to do absolutely anything.

The ramification of this is that you could potentially choose never to go back to him. You could choose to be evil and murderous. You could choose destruction and sickness and death. Just as freely as you could choose healing and love and life. And you have done so - although you can always choose again.

This then reveals that whatever you are getting, you must be choosing, because you are free. And since freedom is power and responsibility, you must be choosing AND CAUSING everything that happens. This includes all forms of suffering, which must be doing to yourself freely. This is why you are master of your own destiny, and why you are ruler of the universe, and why nothing happens without your consent.

The question then is, does God just sit in heaven watching all this, allowing you to suffer for as long as you wish? In a sense, yes, except that God is also loving. God does not will that you suffer, or even believe that you suffer. God wills perfect happiness. God wills eternal life and deathlessness. God wills love not fear.

In his love, God has INVITED you freely to return your awareness to him. God isn't coercing you to go there. God HAS placed an atonement plan in place via the Holy Spirit, to gently orchestrate events and repurpose the world to lead you back to eternal life. And because the Holy Spirit is perfect and powerful, succeeding in doing so is effortless for him.

This doesn't mean you are ever forced to return or to give up your dreams. You STILL have to have a little willingness. You still have to be willing to learn - because the time that you take the curriculum is voluntary. But there is a PLAN in place to ENCOURAGE you to return to God. This plan is gentle and wise.

People are arranged to meet because they have POTENTIAL for a teaching/learning situation - for a holy relationship. There are no chance encounters. Events are organised by the Holy Spirit to be conducive to education and healing. This is why we have 'lessons', which appear as trials, so that we can learn to choose again.

None of this is forced. Before we incarnate we CONSENT to plans and events and encounters based on our current needs and wants. We give free permission for things to occur so that we can learn. We exhibit willingness, to whatever degree, sometimes more than others. And our life in the school unfolds accordingly.

But at NO TIME is there ever force, or requirements, or pressure, or sneering down the nose, or judgement, or reprimand, or punishment, or keeping score, or enforced karmic punishment, or any kind of "you're wrong for doing that".

As best as is GENTLY possible, God through Jesus and the Holy Spirit orchestrates time and space to make its events as conducive to change and spiritual progress as possible. As the therapist, the Holy Spirit knows how to do this expertly and perfectly. He knows how to GUARANTEE that everyone will eventually wake up to reality, and it is only a matter of time before we all do so.

You're still free. You will eventually freely return to God because you want to. Because you see no other alternative. Because you recognize that you gained nothing in leaving and will regain everything in returning. Not because anyone has the whip out. Not because there's hell to pay. Not because there is any kind of bully in the sky waiting to kick you in the ass if you take a step out of line.

It's all very loving and gentle and consenting. This is also why the "script is written" pertains to an OPT-IN free-willed curriculum where there is an outline "plan" for atonement but not a FORCED awakening. Nor are you locked into some kind of rollercoaster you can't get off, or some kind of replay of hell that you have no say in choosing.

This is simply because YOU ARE ALWAYS FREE. Your freedom is permanent. There are no restraints, no special rules or terms and conditions, no requirements, no punishments for your choices, and no judgement from God. God does care about you and wills that you awaken, and you will do so because your will is shared. But WHEN you do is still up to you just as it always has been. And this is why accepting atonement is your sole responsibility, because no-one else can do it for you.

"It is crucial to say first that this is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what to take when. It is just because you are not ready to do what you should elect to do that time exists at all." UrT1A1

"The sole responsibility of God's teacher is to accept the Atonement for himself." UrM19A4

"When you are willing to accept sole responsibility for the ego's existence YOURSELF, you will have laid aside all anger and all attack, because they COME from an attempt to PROJECT RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR OWN ERRORS." UrT7I8

"Your will is as free as mine, and God Himself would not go against it." UrT8E9

"The latter required the endowment of man by God with free will, because all loving creation is freely given" UrT9A9

"The "Princes of this World" are princes only because they are really angels. But they are free to establish their kingdom where they see fit." UrT1B30N

"No one CAN be "taken over" unless he wills to be. However, if he places his mind under tyranny, rather than authority, he intrudes the submission/dominance concept onto free will himself. This produces the obvious contradiction inherent in any formulation that associates free will with imprisonment." UrT2A30

"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." UrT9K9

"Nothing God created can oppose your will, as nothing God created can oppose His. God GAVE your will its power, which I can only acknowledge in honor of His." UrT8E9

"Awaking unto Christ is following the laws of love OF YOUR FREE WILL, and out of quiet recognition of the truth in them. The attraction of light must draw you willingly, and willingness is signified by GIVING." UrT12F12

"Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a LITTLE wish that what is true be true. A LITTLE willingness to overlook what is not there. A LITTLE sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world which death and desolation seem to rule." UrT26H9

"Your part is only to offer Him a LITTLE willingness to LET Him remove all fear and hatred, and to BE forgiven." UrT18F2

"Heaven is the decision I must make." UrW138

"Knowledge will be restored when YOU meet its conditions. This is not a bargain made by God, who made no bargains at all. It is merely the result of your misuse of His Laws on behalf of a will that was not His." UrT8A2

"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." UrT2B69

"Perception ALWAYS involves some misuse of will, because it involves the mind in areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active because it has will-power. When it willed the Separation it willed to perceive. Until it chose to do this, it willed only to know. Afterwards, it had to will ambiguously, and the only way out of ambiguity IS clear perception." UrT3F13

"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." UrW135L19

"The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. In fact, both TIME and MATTER were created for this purpose. This appears to contradict free will, because of the inevitability of this decision. If you review the idea carefully, you will realize that this is not true. Everything is limited in some way by the manner of its creation. Free will can temporize, and is capable of enormous procrastination. But it cannot depart entirely from its Creator, who set the limits on its ability to miscreate by virtue of its own real purpose." UrT2B68

A selection of quotes (with mostly my emphasis) talking about how this world ends and how you move beyond it to Heaven...

"Now He waits but that one instant more for God to take His final step, and TIME HAS DISAPPEARED, taking PERCEPTION with it as it goes, and leaving BUTthe Truth to be Itself. That instant is our goal, for it contains the memory of God."

"And as we look upon a world forgiven, it is He Who calls to us and COMES TO TAKE US HOME, reminding us of our Identity Which our forgiveness has restored to us."

"You dwell NOT HERE, BUT IN ETERNITY. You TRAVEL BUT IN DREAMS, while safe at home."

"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 s 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."

"Across the bridge, it is so different! For a time the BODY is still seen, but NOT exclusively, as it is seen here. For the little spark that holds the Great Rays within it, is ALSO visible, and this spark CANNOT BE LONG LIMITED TO LITTLENESS. Once you have crossed the bridge, the VALUE OF THE BODY IS SO DIMINISHED in YOUR sight, that you will see no need at all to MAGNIFY it. For you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER there."

"The WORLD WILL END when its thought system has been completely reversed."

"And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. IN BLESSING IT DEPARTS, for it will not end as it began."

"The WORLD WILL END when all things in it have been rightly judged by His judgment.The WORLD WILL END with the benediction of holiness upon it. When not one thought of sin remains, THE WORLD IS OVER. It will not be destroyed nor attacked nor even touched. It will merely CEASE to seem to be."

"And WHAT you see is only what YOU HAVE MADE, with the blessing of your forgiveness on it. And, with this final blessing of God's Son UPON HIMSELF, the REAL perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.

The STARS WILL DISAPPEAR IN LIGHT, and the SUN, which opened up the world to beauty, WILL VANISH. PERCEPTION WILL BE MEANINGLESS, when it has been perfected. For everything that has been used for learning, will HAVE NO FUNCTION. Nothing will ever change; no shifts nor shadings, no differences, no variations that made perception possible, will occur. The PERCEPTION OF THE REAL WORLD WILL BE SO SHORT, that you will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly, when you have reached the real world, and have been made ready for Him."

"From the FORGIVEN WORLD, the Son of God is LIFTED easily TO HIS HOME. And THERE he knows that he has ALWAYS rested there, in peace."

"Even SALVATION WILL BECOME A DREAM, and VANISH from his mind. For SALVATION IS THE END OF DREAMS, and, with the CLOSING OF THE DREAM, will have NO MEANING. Who, AWAKE IN HEAVEN, COULD DREAM that there could ever be NEED of salvation?"

"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.

The edges of the circle disappear, and what is in it no longer is contained at all. The light expands and covers everything (not earth), extending to infinity, forever shining, and with no break or limit anywhere. Within it, everything is joined in perfect continuity. Nor is it possible to imagine that anything could be outside. For there is nowhere that this light is not. This is the VISION of the Son of God, whom you know well. Here is the sight of him who knows his Father. Here is the memory of what you are; a part of this, with all of it within you, and joined to all of it as surely as all is joined to you.

Accept the vision that can show you this, AND NOT THE BODY."

"When the thought of separation has been changed to one of true forgiveness, will the world be seen in quite another light; and one which leads to truth, WHERE ALL THE WORLD MUST DISAPPEAR and all its errors vanish. Now its source has gone, and ITS EFFECTS HAVE GONE AS WELL."

"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. "

"No one remains in HELL, for no one can abandon his Creator, nor affect His perfect, timeless and unchanging Love. 2 You will find Heaven. 3 Everything you seek but this WILL FALL AWAY. 4 Yet not because it has been taken from you. 5 It will go because you DO NOT WANT IT. 6 You will reach the goal you really want as certainly as God created you in sinlessness."

"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. 2 God made no contradictions. 3 What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. 4 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."

"Put out your hand, and see how easily the door swings open with your one intent to go beyond it. 2 Angels light the way, so that all DARKNESS VANISHES, and you are standing in a light so bright and clear that you can understand all things you see. (not earth) 3 A tiny moment of surprise, perhaps, will make you pause before you realize the world you see before you in the light (heaven) reflects the truth you knew, and did not quite forget in wandering away in DREAMS."

"He offers thanks to you as well as him for you arose with him when he began to save the world. And you will be with him when TIME IS OVER AND NO TRACE REMAINS OF DREAMS of spite in which you dance to death's thin melody. For in its place the hymn to God is heard a little while. And then the Voice is gone, no longer to take form but to return to the ETERNAL FORMLESSNESS of God."

"LIKE ALL THINGS IN THE WORLD, ITS MEANING IS TEMPORARY AND WILL FADE INTO THE NOTHINGNESS FROM WHICH IT CAME when there is no more use for it. Now its real meaning is a lesson. Like all lessons IT IS AN ILLUSION, for in REALITY there is nothing to learn. Yet this illusion must be replaced by a corrective device; ***ANOTHER ILLUSION*** that replaces the first, SO BOTH CAN FINALLY DISAPPEAR. The first illusion, which must be displaced before another thought system can take hold, is that it is a sacrifice to give up the things of this world. What could this be but an illusion, since this world itself is NOTHING MORE THAN THAT?

It takes great learning both to realize and to accept the fact that THE WORLD HAS NOTHING TO GIVE. What can the sacrifice of NOTHING mean?"

"God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No one who has escaped the world AND ALL ITS ILLS looks back on it with condemnation. Yet he must rejoice that he is free of all the sacrifice its values would demand of him. To them he sacrifices all his peace. To them he sacrifices all his freedom. And to possess them must he sacrifice his hope of Heaven and remembrance of his Father's Love. Who in his sane mind chooses NOTHING as a substitute for everything?"

"Today the lights of Heaven bend to you, to shine upon your eyelids as you rest BEYOND THE WORLD OF DARKNESS. Here is light YOUR EYES CANNOT BEHOLD. And yet your MIND CAN SEE it plainly, and can understand. "

"When the light comes, and you have said, "God's Will is mine," you will see such beauty that you will KNOW it is not of you. Out of your joy, you will create beauty in His Name, for YOUR joy could no more be contained than His. THE BLEAK LITTLE WORLD WILL VANISH INTO NOTHINGNESS, and your heart will be so filled with joy that it will LEAP INTO HEAVEN and into the presence of God. I cannot tell you what this will be like, for your hearts are not ready. But I CAN tell you, and remind you often, that what God wills for Himself He wills for YOU, and what He wills for you IS yours. "

"THE WORLD YOU SEE IS AN ILLUSION OF A WORLD. GOD DID NOT CREATE IT, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is NOTHING IN THE WORLD you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when ALL THINGS VISIBLE WILL HAVE AN END.

The BODY'S EYES are therefore ***NOT THE MEANS BY WHICH THE REAL WORLD CAN BE SEEN***, for the ILLUSIONS THEY LOOK UPON must lead to more ILLUSIONS of reality. And so they do. For EVERYTHING THEY SEE not only will not last, but lends itself to thoughts of sin and guilt. While everything that God created is forever without sin and therefore is forever without guilt."

"THE WORLD STANDS LIKE A BLOCK before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as NOTHING MORE THAN JUST A FRAGILE VEIL, SO EASILY DISPELLED that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for ONLY WHAT IT IS. And now it CANNOT FAIL TO DISAPPEAR, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant IS THE WORLD FORGOT, with TIME FOREVER ENDED AS THE WORLD SPINS INTO THE NOTHINGNESS FROM WHICH IT CAME."

"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 A WORLD OF SIN***, for only if there were a body is sin possible. From sin comes guilt as surely as forgiveness takes all guilt away. And once all guilt is gone what more remains TO KEEP A SEPARATED WORLD 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."

"O my brothers, if you only knew the peace that will envelop you and hold you safe and pure and lovely in the Mind of God, you could but rush to meet Him where His altar is. Hallowed your Name and His, for they are joined here in this holy place. Here He leans down to lift you up to Him, OUT OF ILLUSIONS INTO HOLINESS; OUT OF THE WORLD AND INTO ETERNITY; out of all fear and given back to love."

"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 SO 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. "

"There is nothing you CAN hold against REALITY. All that must be forgiven are the ILLUSIONS you have held against your brothers. Their reality HAS no past, and ONLY illusions can BE forgiven. God holds nothing against ANYONE, for He is INCAPABLE of ILLUSIONS of ANY kind. Release your brothers from the slavery of THEIR illusions, by forgiving them for the illusions which YOU perceive in them. Thus will you learn that YOU have been forgiven, for it is YOU who offered THEM illusions. In the holy instant, this is done for you IN TIME, to bring to you the true condition of Heaven."

(in true perception) "The BODY'S EYES WILL CONTINUE TO SEE DIFFERENCES. 2 But the mind that has let itself be healed will NO LONGER ACKNOWLEDGE THEM. 3 There will be those who seem to be "sicker" than others, and the BODY'S EYES WILL REPORT THEIR CHANGED APPEARANCES AS BEFORE. 4 But the healed mind will put them ALL IN ONE CATEGORY; ***THEY ARE UNREAL*** 5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories are meaningful in sorting out the messages the mind receives FROM WHAT APPEARS TO BE THE OUTSIDE WORLD. 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as REALITY IS WHOLLY REAL, APART FROM SIZE AND SHAPE AND TIME AND PLACE—FOR DIFFERENCES CANNOT EXIST WITHIN IT—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all ILLUSIONS is truth."

If a person is a body, and the body dies, there is no denying the fact that the body is gone. If it is buried or cremated, it's gone. it's not coming back.

It does not matter how much forgiveness you do, how you look at it, how you frame it, how you justify it or anything. The physical fact still remains that the body is gone.

The body is absent. The body will stay absent. It is not coming back. Where is the body? It's dead forever.

So regardless then of what your state of mind or perception is, the body is NOT THERE. And this is now the PROOF that death HAS happened. This is what the Course calls "the proof of sin." ie, the physical presence or absence of something PROVES that sin occurred.

If I spill milk on the floor, the fact that there IS milk on the floor testifies that milk was spilled on the floor. This is undeniable. It doesn't matter whether you laugh or cry at it. If the milk IS STILL THERE, it proves there was a "sin" of spilling it. The sin is STILL proven so long as the PROOF remains. In course terms, if there is an "effect", THERE MUST STILL BE AN ONGOING CAUSE. And you cannot have effects without causes.

Similarly if the body is attacked and loses a limb, and now has an arm missing, the very physical fact that the arm is missing PROVES that the arm WAS LOST. This is undeniable. It doesn't matter how you forgive it or whether you love it or hate it. If the arm is not there, it PROVES there was a sin.

The presence of "the evidence" shows that something has happened. And so long as the evidence remains, the sin remains. This also leads to the conclusion that when ANYTHING happens in this world, it is a sin, and it is IRREVERSIBLE. Which is why ANYTHING that happens becomes locked in as the PROOF that sin occurred. The evidence is there permanently. And the idea that it CANNOT BE UNDONE is precisely what sin means.

"But sin, were it possible, WOULD be irreversible."

If the body is dead and gone, the fact that it is NOT HERE, acts as proof. It is utterly undeniable. And the world would say there is nothing you can do to change it. Death is locked in. Once it all goes to shit there is no turning back.

So it can't be that you just have to find a way to look at shit in the physical world differently in order to be happy. No amount of looking at it differently is going to bring the body back. Not unless you're going to go gather up all the little pieces and stick them back together at a molecular level. Or - the only exception to this - is if you perform a miracle of resurrection that UNDOES THE PROOF.

However, if the physical proof of sin is TRUE AND REAL, there is NO ESCAPE from the fact of it. It cannot be denied if it is reality. If it is the truth, there is no escape. and no hope and no peace.

It is impossible therefore for anyone to ever be at peace with someone dying if the person was their body. And now the body is gone and it's not coming back, and that slaps you in the face over and over again.

You will never be at peace if this is the truth because the absence of the body will always be there, and the loss of a "real thing" cannot be denied. If the person HAS DIED, you will FOREVER SUFFER LOSS. That means there is permanent suffering and loss with no escape. And on top of that, if the world is real, you'd be INSANE to ever even contemplate "getting over it", because for as long as you live the fact of the death is still undeniably real.

If this physical world is reality or God's creation, and if it is accorded truth, and if the truth is that a person is a body, and the body is dead, the person is dead, and there HAS to be loss because in all honesty there HAS been a loss. There is PROOF of it.

No amount of smiling at it will change the fact. Which means if this world in its physical configurations is ultimate reality, there is absolutely no hope and no escape from hell. You can look at it askew, think about it in various ways, but you cannot deny that IT HAS HAPPENED. And the physical fact of it will haunt you forever.

ONLY IF this world is unreal and untrue, and ONLY IF the evidence - as slapping you in the face as it is - is still NOT true, ONLY then is there any hope of peace. There is no escape from a world whose evidence and proof testifies constantly to supposed "facts."

ONLY IF Earth is NOT REAL, do you ever psychologically have any hope of freedom or peace of mind. Because that now means that if you can not simply have a direct experience of this world's facts and instead are seeking to experience "a different reality", you would be considered as though going into denial or escapism. Avoiding the facts. And that means forgiveness is now an act of denial and AVOIDANCE of reality.

Only if Earth is not reality is there any hope of peace ever. Because the PHYSICAL facts of what happens proves over and over again that there has been loss and death. People have been obliterated from existence. Only if this is NOT REAL, can there be any hope of happiness about this situation.

Therefore the world must be questioned and its reality brought under scrutiny. Its proof, even its physical testimony, even the presence or absence of the flesh and bones matter, has to be questioned. Even if it's glaring you in the face, it has to not mean that it is God's given truth. Even the proof of sin has to NOT MEAN that there has been a death.

But obviously if the physical testimony is that the body is destroyed and is no longer here, that still is PROOF that death has happened ... UNLESS none of it is real. Even the physical absence of the body says "death has happened." The only way for it to NOT be true, is if this ENTIRE WORLD is not true.

If peace even exists at all, there has to be another world that is more real than this one, and in comparison this world must be completely unreal. That is the ONLY WAY that anyone can ever find peace and escape from the proof of sin. The physical testimony of stuff having "happened", has to be written off as NOT TRUE.

A dead body on the ground, must be regarded as NOT TRUE. It must NOT prove that death has occurred. A sick body with malfunctioning parts has to be regarded as NOT TRUE. Otherwise if there is any truth to any of this, you SHOULD be terribly upset forever.

If mind believes a person is a physical body and the body is then gone, mind HAS to believe there has been a loss of something real. And it MUST feel a loss and grieve it. It has no choice. Its own belief in the reality of the thing makes it suffer. ONLY IF the death has NO reality at all, can the mind be happy.

So it doesn't even matter that you're forgiving the world or the sights you see or trying to see the world in a happier way. If there is still physical proof of death staring you in the face, and you accost it REALITY, you are in DENIAL to pretend that you're okay with it. You cannot be okay with it.

You cannot be okay with hell being real. You cannot be okay with death having really occurred. You cannot be okay with real loss. The ONLY hope you have is that this entire world of such things, the world of sin, is utterly unreal and just a dream. Just a nightmare, an illusion of a world. A spacetime that doesn't even exist, in which even the physical objects pretending to be proof are TOTALLY FAKE. An illusion of a world, an illusion of evidence.

Only in recognising its utter unreality can you find peace and freedom from it. Which is why planet Earth CANNOT BE reality if there is a God at all. And unless it is utterly false there is no grounds for peace anywhere. Earth is a world of constantly PROVEN DEATH, with physical undeniable facts that what once was "alive" is now dead. And what seemed healthy is now a rotten corpse.

And you can't deny that it does this all the time. So either it's real and you are locked into hell, or there must be a heaven that is NOT this world and is opposite in nature. A heaven where death is IMPOSSIBLE. Where everything is immortal, attack cannot happen, problems don't exist, suffering is impossible, and there is never even a possibility of a PROOF that sin or death has occurred.

Only by recognising that this world is FALSE and UNREAL can you allow an idea of peace to enter. And then you can be at peace IN SPITE OF the proof of sin, in denial of the death, and ignoring the visual-lies of matter. Only by admitting that the world of bodies is NOT TRUE, can the proof of sin become void and irrelevant, allowing heaven's peace to descend upon it.

The ONLY way you can be at peace is to recognize heaven's reality and this world's total unreality. You can only find peace here, be being not from here. You can only see this world with peace, by knowing it is not of God. That in truth, there is no death, and all the physical lies which say otherwise cannot be believed.

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Peace is impossible to those who look on war. Peace is inevitable to those who offer peace. How easily, then, is your judgment of the world escaped. It is not the world which makes peace seem impossible. It is the world you see that is impossible. Yet has God's Judgment on this distorted world redeemed it and made it fit to welcome peace. And peace descends on it in joyous answer. Peace now belongs here, because a Thought of God has entered. What else but a Thought of God turns hell to Heaven merely by being what It is? The earth bows down before Its gracious Presence, and It leans down in answer to raise it up again. Now is the question different. It is no longer, "Can peace be possible in this world?" but instead, "Is it not impossible that peace be absent here?"

"The world will end in joy because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven is the function of God's teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected."

One of the major teachings of A Course in Miracles, also present in Buddhism and Hinduism and many other belief systems, even present in the very first lessons of the Workbook, is that the physical world is a world of illusions. That many different objects only appear to be different, and their differences are meaningless.

In effect, the teaching is that you cannot judge a book by its cover, and you absolutely cannot take the objects of the world at face value. While most of the world believes that the world contains many many different things, different forms, objects, bodies, types, shapes, sizes, configurations, combinations etc, in truth there is actually only one thing here.

At first, to a person who is somewhat "blinded by perception of form", the world appears to be a tremendously complicated place filled with many different things. The differences are identified by how they appear, or what materials it seems to be made of, or how it behaves, or how it's constructed, or what it is used for, or what the symptoms seem to be etc. But these are all disguises.

Such a person will then believe that there really is a major real difference between a hammer and a screwdriver, between a car and a house, between a man and a woman, between a cake and some icecream. Places will all seem to be different and offer different seeming experiences. The next new toy will appear to be something you've never seen before. And everywhere you turn every single object seems to be distinct, separate and unique.

In such a view, uniqueness is valued highly, as though being unique and different sets you apart and identifies you and defines you. As if you stand out and be yourself by being unlike anything else. This merely emphasizes the sense of separateness between things and reinforces the belief that space and time are real.

The more a person thinks that there really are real differences between things, the more they will buy into what we call the "hierarchy of illusions". That is where some things are considered to MEAN something different to others, such as that a death is far "worse" than a mild headache, or that a million dollars is better than 1 dollar, or a burning house is a far worse problem than just that your fingernails need clipping.

For such a person, the world is seen as having the power to cause them, to victimize them, to do things to them. They see the world as both offensive and attractive. Some parts of it they will separate out and label as desirable, wanted, meaningful and valuable. At the same time other things which induce more unpleasant reactions will be relegated to hell and labeled as unwanted.

A person then will be living half a life, separated off, trying to maximize the good stuff and minimize the bad stuff. Always on the run and living in fear, trying to hide from and prevent all the terrible suffering and tragedies that happen, while simultaneously strongly investing in, believing in and wanting to keep, the very same world which induces these things - for its supposed benefits.

This is clearly an insane state of mind, in which a person is in a relationship with a fickle, unpredictable, demanding, controlling, overpowering world, which sometimes throws them a bone and gives them something to seemingly celebrate, while quickly turning around and slapping them in the face the next day with some horrifying problem.

Such a life is a rollercoaster of constantly being thrown around by the waves of whatever's next, with no real peace and no consistency and no true invulnerability. It is a life of fear, wrapped up in an interpretation which frames parts of it as a life that is wanted. A life of judgement, in which some aspects of the world are despised and rejected while others are overly embraced and absorbed into. This is not a spiritual life, it's a life of contradiction and conflict.

What we have to all come to realize, and what a person generally WILL realize given enough time, is that the offerings of the world are not REALLY different things. It may take exposure to a great many things the world seems to separately give, in order to "tire" of the lure of these differences, to transcend them, to see through them, and to realize they are all the same.

This is real spiritual progression, where a person begins to see that the differences between objects are all artificial and meaningless. That having that super precious rare gem is not really that important, versus having a glass of water. Where the extremes of the values of things versus others, flattens out, and a person becomes far less attracted to, or put off by, any particular "temptation" that the world is offering that day.

What this means is that the learning becomes generalized. As a person matures more spiritually they will realize there isn't really a significant difference between things. That in order to retain a sense of integrity, peace, consistency and honesty, the difference forms of things have to be ignored. In order not to be constantly thrown around on the rollercoaster of hell, reacting to everything as if it means something, you have to learn to become more stable and unconditional.

Not changing moods based on conditions, not adapting to what's happening, not allowing the world to do things to you, not seeing yourself as either victimized negatively OR positively, not giving power TO the world to change or define you, not allowing circumstances to dictate what will happen, not giving away power to the extremes of the hierarchy of illusions, and no longer falling for the temptation to believe that the world in certain configurations means hell on earth.

Being deceived by the forms and differences of the world is unconsciousness. It is a state of unawareness and spiritual irresponsibility. It indicates a person who is selfish and wants to get things from the world, but at the same time doesn't want the world to give them the wrong things. It's a person whose relationships are all based on specialness and unholiness, a person who is themselves not whole, who is in denial of wholeness and therefore distanced from God in their "independence."

In order to wake up to reality, a person has to learn that this world isn't really offering anything different. It is really regurgitating the same stuff. It spews out the same illusions in different forms. Masses of materialistic products are made in which everyone now tries to create every single possible variation of a thing. And how many such variations does anyone really need? Their differences are insubstantial and superficial. Their different appearances are regarded as the defining factor as to how valuable they and what price tag they come with. But it's all made of the same lies and untruths.

The real truth is that there IS no difference between anything in the world. All appearances are illusions. All forms and shapes and sizes and amounts and values are utterly deceptive. They are all designed to tempt you to believe, to deceive you into believing, that physical reality is real when it isn't. That there is a world of many things, all of which are unlike the others, offering you constant distractions and side-quests and tempting pathways, all of which lead to the same ultimate end in death.

The truth is that there is not really any choices in the world. ALL of the things the world offers lead to death and destruction. Whether it appears to temporarily give you something you want or to take it away quickly, all forms end in death. They are made of death because they are made of the attempt to separate things out, to attack the other, to be unlike, unequal, in a constant state of war and conflict, incapable of peace and never offering anything consistent.

Fluctuating illusions cannot be reality. If something can change its form and be something one day and something else the next, it has no real permanent identity. A flower goes from a seed to a bloom to a wilted mess and not one of those states is reality. It is all the same thing. Be not deceived by what you see in the world. The world presents a picture of nothing pretending to be something, and it has absolutely no meaning.

The entire drive of A Course in Miracles is to teach us and help us to practice NOT being deceived by physical differences, by appearances, or by any sense of there being any variation in importance or relevance between one object and another. As we look around the room and OVERLOOK any particular reason to categorize things or to say they are more or less applicable to the ONE truth, we are training ourselves to no longer be deceived by the world and its lies.

"The belief in order of difficulties is the basis for the world's perception. 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. Look not to them for peace and understanding."

"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."

"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. The miracle is means to demonstrate that ALL appearances can change BECAUSE they are appearances, and CANNOT have the changelessness reality entails. The miracle attests salvation FROM appearances by SHOWING they can change."

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

"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?"

"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived."

"Applying the same idea to each of them separately is the first step in ultimately recognizing they are all the same."

"Everyone in this world seems to have his own special problems. Yet they are all the same, and must be recognized as one if the one solution which solves them all is to be accepted."

"This world SEEMS to hold out many purposes, each different, and with different values. Yet they are all the same. Again, there is no order, but a SEEMING hierarchy of values."

"The spark of beauty, or the veil of ugliness; the real world, or the world of guilt and fear; truth or illusion; freedom or slavery, - it is all the same. For you can NEVER choose EXCEPT between God and the ego."

Jesus said this:

"The world, in the original connotation of the term, included both the proper creation of man by God and the proper creation by man in his right mind."

Here we’re told that God created "man’ (souls) and gave man (souls) the ability to create, when in his right mind (as God intended). All of this is taking place within God’s realm, the Kingdom of Heaven. Heaven also IS God’s Creation and everything in it including the souls.

The souls together comprise "the sonship" and since they share oneness with all of Creation, they are all "the One Son" ie the one/united creation. At this point it has absolutely nothing to do with physicality or planet Earth or separation.

"The latter (man’s ability to create in his right mind) required the endowment of man by God with free will because all loving creation is freely given."

So we know that it is natural to have free will, for each "individual soul", who is part of oneness, and who is also christ. Each individual soul is therefore "free" to independently dream or not.

At this point, pre-separation, in my opinion all of this is encompassed within God’s Kingdom, Heaven, which IS the sonship and IS creation and INCLUDES all souls. All as one Sonship, one creation, on being, on sense of identity yet still many parts. (I know I know, suspend disbelief).

All of this content, is what the Course originally refers to as WORLD. This was God’s world, God’s creation. What really exists. (Not the "real world"). This is the same thing as "the universe" of God.

God gave a world to His Son, spoken of here:

"The statement ‘For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life’ needs only slight correction to be meaningful in this context; ‘He gave it to His only begotten Son.’"

I believe, the world referred to is simply the Kingdom of God, heaven. It is the only place where there is everlasting life. This is true in both versions - that "God gave His Son" = world (God’s created universe, not earth, God expressed/gave the Sonship), and that "God gave the world to His Son" = God’s creation, heaven, given "to" his Son to SHARE and be a part of as God’s Kingdom/expression. This has nothing to do with the physical universe, a world made by separation, or planet Earth in any way.

At this Level, Heaven, Creation, God, Sonship, The Son, The Sonship, Souls, Reality, Universe, World, Eternity, Oneness, Christ, Children of God, and Christ’s Creations, and the creations from Souls, are essentially all part of a single experiential realm or state of mind/being in which there is perfect sharing, multiple minds, yet all sharing and reflections of God’s mind as well.

"God has but one Son, knowing them all as one."

"It should especially be noted that God has only one Son. If all His creations are His Sons, every one must be an integral part of the whole Sonship. The Sonship in its oneness transcends the sum of its parts."

ie, "the son" IS the sonship, which contains multiple sons of God, all equal, and perhaps there is no single "first begotten son" kind of identity. Just the multitude souls? Yet every soul is fully one with the whole sonship, sort of implying two levels or aspects to identity? "Soul-self" and "shared-self’? And that when the "sharing" is severed, what’s left is the soul estranged as a separated son, still having its own identity but seemingly disconnected from the whole.

Then there was the separation...

"All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that man has the ability to usurp the power of God."

Or to put it another way, each soul can choose to sleep (or they all slept at once?), and "dreaming" (authority problem, separation, sin, level confusion, fear) is the mis-creation of each soul’s free will. Each soul tried to "withdraw" from the unity of the whole sonship, going into a state of isolation with artificial walls around it (later to become bodies), seeming to no longer be part of oneness, no longer sharing, no longer connected.

Jesus says this:

"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, possible of both accomplishment and real effects."

Notice it says "the son of God". Given all souls form the sonship and together they are collectively "the son of God", along with whatever else God created (angels etc?), does this not mean that all (or some of?) God’s "Creation" collectively had the tiny mad idea? Ie we’re not just talking about a single son, but many sons "falling" together?

We’re also told this:

"What God does know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His children are wholly joyous….God's extending outward, though not His completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thought, "My children sleep and must be awakened."

So we’re told there that when some parts of the sonship (souls) are blocking, the entire sonship is affected and so God then knows he needs to create the Holy Spirit.

Here is the version from the urtext, which is more clarifying:

"It should be noted that God has begotten only one Son. If you believe that all of the Souls that God created are His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul must be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have too great difficulty with this. The Sonship in its Oneness does transcend the sum of its parts. However, it loses this special state as long as any of its parts are missing. This is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved until all of the individual parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then, in the true sense, can the meaning of wholeness be understood."

When the sonship, or even one part of it, still believes in separation, is dreaming, unaware of the whole, or rejecting the sonship, the sonship is incomplete. In this state, what the sonship experiences now is the "fall" into, and the dreaming OF, collectively, the "second world".... the world of death and separation.

This second world comprises everything that is "inside" the tiny mad idea, all thoughts of sin and death, the entire physical universe which was made a "place" (actually a state of mind) in which God seems not to exist. This second "world" is the world in which we experience perception (of all kinds). This "world" is the entire physical universe. It may additionally comprise further fake universes in higher dimensions because the separation from God progressed through various stages.

So then there are two worlds. God’s universe/creation/heaven, and the illusory universe/what we made/physical universe which is artificial ("Earth is opposite to heaven in every way"). We typically think of world as the planet, but it means the entire realm in which we seem to exist. All of the "universe" we think is the universe, all planets and stars, all galaxies and nebula and civilizations. And all of the massive expanses of space and time. All of this is "the world" - the world WE MADE, which God DID NOT CREATE. A world of separation. And within this world, this realm, planet Earth is just one of many illusory locations.

There is a series of workbook lessons, I posted about this recently, which tell us 1) we’re experiencing a hell of false perception laid on top of the world we made, 2) true perception is then introduced as an alternative way to view "this world" (this fake universe), 3) we’re guided to experiment with discerning true from false, 4) we’re then told about how HEAVEN is ANOTHER world (a 3rd experience, beyond false and true perception) reachable when "this world" is left behind (the world/realm/universe we made).

The lesson "No one can fail who seeks to reach the truth" specifically describes us leaving this "world" and returning to Heaven, to the realm of Creation, to God’s universe. Which is not the Earth or even the physical universe.

This also means that, the collective "Son of God" dreamed the fictional "world" which houses the fictional planet earth (there is no world). This also means then that if true perception shows you the "accurate perception" of the world YOU MADE (physical universe), to see accurately/truly the world you made is to see what THE SON projected. Since this "world", the physical universe, is the "One Son’s dream" or, the collective dream of the Sonship, which we all made together, and since the course says "The world IS perception", seeing this world with true perception is us perceiving PERCEPTION. Perception twice removed!

As individual souls we’re looking upon what the One Son projected as a fake universe. Within this context alone, we EACH have a false perception OF the One Son’s perception. A false perception of "the world" (and you can include Earth in that world). False perception ADDS a "personal layer" on top of the world we made, true perception removes that layer and reveals what is "there" without distortion. Yet this world we’ll see, the "real world", is STILL within perception. It is STILL the 2nd world, the one WE MADE, not the one God created.

We will disappear this 2nd world. This 2nd world is one we made up, invented, it is a DREAM. An illusory universe. It doesn’t really even exist at all. IT is the opposite to the nature of heaven in EVERY WAY. It is not a part of heaven now, and it will never be. Being an illusion, it must disappear entirely. Being literally NOTHING, it never was, does not exist NOW, and never will. It simply will vanish when recognized in the light of truth. The light will shine it away. It will be no more because it never was. We don’t need it.

God has created a "world" - Heaven - a "place" (as much as any, though different to the physical experience), "fit for a King" ... a realm of permanent joy and love and eternal life. It is EVERTHING, where the "world" we made is nothing. The world we made is not real. "There is no world" is a direct statement speaking to this - this world we made, which includes planet Earth and more, does not exist. "The world holds nothing that I want" ... not just the world of false perception, OR the world of true perception. The world we made, to replace God’s world, holds nothing that I want. The "real world" is an illusion, not a reality. God’s reality is the REAL, real world.

These are, to me, essentially the two worlds. And within the world we made, because perception is selective and has degrees, there is a really screwed up state of false perception (hell), and a much more preferable and closer-to-reality state of "true" perception. As clear a state of perception as we can possibly have while still being OUTSIDE of heaven. And "there is no life outside of heaven", because the world we made is not life.

I guess I’m just putting this out there. FInding my way to a clarity about this which makes sense to me. Take what you like leave the rest.

What does it mean that you are not the body? It's not what you think.

What you are, is whole, within. Like you are this little orb of light which contains the whole of God.

As a whole self, you increase by extending and creating.

When the separation idea was introduced, it was suggested that there was something separate from you or outside of you, or indeed that you were separate and outside of yourself.

This was the idea of sin, and it ultimately led to the invention of the body through OUTWARD PROJECTION FROM THE MIND. "The body is the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards."

The body then is sort of this "shell", really an IDEA, which you have surrounded yourself with as a result of this belief that a) you are outside of yourself and b) there is something separate from your inner self.

It has thus formed a picture which seems to surround and enclose you. This is why when there is a body showing up it seems like you are "inside" it.

But it also then simultaneously seems as if you "are" the body and the stuff inside you is invisible and not yourself. This leads you to build a "bodily identity", to be identified with the body. In more extreme cases the outer bodily self seems to be the ONLY self, and the inner self is very hidden. We need to reverse that.

So the part of your mind that you split off and think of as separate from your inner self, forms a fake identity composed of a body image, which you now think is yourself.

So what happens when you stop having a split mind?

What is the purpose of saying "I am not a body I am free"?

The purpose is not to deny the body. It is not to identify yourself as being that which is inside the body while the outer bodily image remains either. It is not to disassociate from the body. It is not to escape the body. And it is not to think of yourself as "only mind and not a body."

The state you are meant to be returning to, is a state in which there is no separation in you, there is no sense of something having been split off as outside of you, and therefore of being whole "within" yourself. When you do that, what is going to happen to the body which was "outside you"? How is it going to even show up if there is no part of you that identifies AS IT because there is no part of you which exists outside of your inner self?

IT IS GOING TO DISAPPEAR.

It was only showing up there because your inner self projected it (the idea of sin projected outward) and it is only showing up because part of you believed that you were outside of yourself.

Your sense of identity formed a "bodily identity" or an identification not just with a body but AS a body. You can also think of it as an "external self". And however the mind is relating to its own identity, that is how it shows up. If the mind is thinking that it has separation in it, ie walls, it will materialize a body! And yet if the mind does not believe it has any walls within itself, the body will disappear because the mind is seeing itself as a WHOLENESS, not a split-off self.

This is also correlates to the creation of sickness. When the mind is more strongly believing that it is separated from itself, split in two and part of itself is outside the inner self, this belief in separation attacks yourself and makes you SICK. And that sickness will now manifest IN, or more accurately, is projected outward AS, a sick-looking body, which is really just a mental image of yourself as sick. The less you believe in separation, therefore, the less your mind is split and the less you believe you ARE an external self, the less your body image will show up as sick, and thus sickness will appear to disappear as well, leaving a "holy" and "immortal" body, just prior to its complete disappearance.

When that externalized identity is returned to your true "inner" identity, the "outer" illusory separate self is not there anymore. It's been integrated into the whole of what you are within. So there is no basis for the body. It has no grounds, no function, no purpose, no reason to be there. SO IT DISAPPEARS. The mind is not seeing itself AS one, it does not believe it has a second identity, so it STOPS PROJECTING THE BODY.

The presence of a body is simply a symptom or side-effect of you believing that you are not pure spirit and therefore you have a separate second identity. Identification "with" the body is nothing more than the strength of your belief that you MUST BE a body, because you must be outside of yourself , having gone "out of your mind."

It's not that the body exists on its own and you happen to "come into it" or incarnate into it or that it was there before you arrived or that it will remain after you leave. If you seem to go through that process of discarding bodies, you will reincarnate, because the discarding process (death) is really an attempt to SEVER yourself from yourself. What that means is, you have tried so hard to DISCONNECT your inner self from the part of you which became "outer", the part which identified with being "a body", and so CUT OFF part of yourself and destroyed it. All death occurs to the "projected self", not the inner self. And all death is just a testimony to how much SEPARATION and therefore false identification there was within you. And that mental state REMAINS, and will CAUSE ANOTHER BODY to be desired and projected.

That's what causes all death. Death is the self-attack of the inner self upon the outer self. Or to put it another way, what we think of as "mind" seems to be the inner self only, and we say that this mind-self attacks the body self, but the body self is actually another PART of your mind which is temporarily identified with being an external illusion. So one part of mind is attacking another part of mind. Mind is not just the part of you that is INNER, and it is not just the part of you which is INSIDE the body.

The body IS WITHIN THE MIND and it is an image being thought of, projected, imagined WITHIN the mind as a whole. One part of mind attacks the other and tries to destroy it, and that results in the illusory sickness and death of that other part of mind, but does not heal the desire to attack, and so the mind "makes" another body (reincarnation) and proceeds to attack it again. This will keep on happening until both parts of mind are rejoined as one so that there is no separation, then there will be no more bodies materializing as ideas of sin.

So then having destroyed part of yourself and yet still believing your identity WAS the outer self, your inner self is still projecting and split and MUST manifest another body. And this forms the basis for reincarnation - that you still believe you are a body and must have a body and so this magnetizes you to a body or causes one to materialize. YOU put your body into your mother's womb and YOU grow it and YOU cause it to show up the way it shows up. Sperm and egg coming together does NOT CAUSE bodies to appear. It is an illusion. Mind causes bodies to appear and arranges FAKE JOINING on an ego level (which must be an illusion of joining) to pretend that you are inherited from the dream.

So death is not a way to leave the dream, or to heal separation. It cannot accomplish this because it means that you simply attacked part of yourself with hatred and tried to destroy it and had identified strongly with "being a body" at least in part. The only way out of the dream is NOT THROUGH DEATH. "The dream is not left by death but by truth."

The dream is only left by truth by re-integrating the part of you which you split off and associated with a body, and returning its identity to be identified with the INNER self which remains hidden behind the body or seemingly trapped inside the body invisibly. You do not withdraw FROM the body, you withdraw the body itself. You withdraw belief in BEING a body. You must not try to "separate yourself from the body"!

If you do that all you're doing is adding denial on top of denial. Denial of the body is an unworthy form of denial - that's what this means. If you believe the body exists ON ITS OWN and HAS ITS OWN WILL and you then try to get away from it to "be only mind", you are SEPARATING YOURSELF MORE. You are trying to separate yourself off from the separate self which you already split off from yourself, adding another whole layer of denial and separation. This will make you more sick. The body in a sense should be embraced but only up to the point where you recognize that you are projecting it and therefore can un-project it through its PROPER UNDOING, by reversing your belief in separation. Without a belief in separation, there is no sin, and therefore sin cannot be made flesh and projected outward. No more body.

You withdraw the PROJECTION of the body through re-owning yourself and identifying with Spirit. This does NOT mean that the body exist at the same time as the spirit. It does NOT mean that the body WILL REMAIN once you have shifted identity to being ONLY spirit. It means the body MUST DISAPPEAR. It is only showing up because it is what you believe about your identity and what you think you are. When your mind is no longer believing that you are a body AT ALL and is completely whole and healed and no longer split or divided or separated off, there is no NEED for a body, no BELIEF in a body, no PROJECTION of a body, and your mind will STOP MAKING ONE.

That is when you are free. Not free of a body that carries on existing. Not free through deathin which the body CONTINUES. Not free because you laid the body down to die and then headed on over to God's party. But simply free of MAKING bodies at all. If you want to be free of reincarnation, and free of DEATH, you MUST STOP BELIEVING YOU ARE SEPARATE FROM YOURSELF, which means you must stop believing you are, or need to be, a body. And thus you will stop making bodies and your body will disappear entirely.

Doing this alleviates all signs of sickness and makes the body temporarily invulnerable and useful only as a communication device. Just prior to the body disappearing completely, it becomes a sign of immortality. Jesus writes about this clearly here:

"Perhaps you do not realize that this removes the limits you had placed upon the body by the purposes you gave to it. As these are laid aside, the strength the body has will always be enough to serve all truly useful purposes. The body's health is fully guaranteed, because it is not limited by time, by weather or fatigue, by food and drink, or any laws you made it serve before. You need do nothing now to make it well, for sickness has become impossible."

And here...

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. 2 Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. 3 Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies. 4 Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. 5 Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. 6 When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. 7 The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition."

Note that when he says "laid by" here he is not talking about making it die and laying it on the ground and letting it rot while you whiz off to heaven. He means literally, you stop making it, as evidenced by his statements about how he did exactly that.

Jesus already accomplished and demonstrated this through the PROPER UNDOING OF THE BODY through truth and the DISSOLVING of it through spirit identification, not "escape" from it through death or separation or denial or thinking that it still exist OR making it still exist. We are responsible for making ourselves show up as bodies, WE made the body with our mind and can un-make it! We made all sickness, all death, and the body itself. " "You made sickness and death and can therefore abolish both."

Here is what Jesus has to say about this whole process, which ultimately is the completion of the atonement and the RESURRECTION.... and guess what... not just the disappearing of the body, but the disappearing of THE WORLD (this universe), which is only showing up based on the exact same principle of mind believing in separation, and MUST DISAPPEAR when mind has returned to spirit identification.

""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 is understood as nothing must disappear.

"I did assume a human form with human attributes afterwards, to speak to those who were to prove the body’s worthlessness to the world. This has been much misunderstood. I came to tell them that death is illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion. They did not understand. But now I talk to you and give you the same message. The death of an illusion means nothing. It disappears when you awaken and decide to dream no more. And you still do have the power to make this decision as I did.

"God holds out His hand to His Son to help him rise and return to Him. I can help because the world is illusion, and I have overcome the world. Look past the tomb, the body, the illusion. Have faith in nothing but the spirit and the guidance God gives you. He could not have created the body because it is a limit. He must have created the spirit because it is immortal. Can those who are created like Him be limited? The body is the symbol of the world. Leave it behind. It cannot enter Heaven. But I can take you there any time that you choose. Together we can watch the world disappear and its symbol vanish as it does so. And then, and then — I cannot speak of that.

"A body can not stay without illusion and the last one to be overcome is death. This is the message of the crucifixion; There is no order of difficulties in miracles. This is the message of the resurrection: Illusions are illusions. Truth is true. Illusions vanish. Only truth remains.

"These lessons needed to be taught but once, for when the stone of death is rolled away, what can be seen but an empty tomb? And that is what you see who follow me into the sunlight and away from death, past all illusions, on to Heaven’s gate, where God will come Himself to take you home"

For me I want a course that can be learned, is accessible, easy enough to understand, and can be applied without too much hassle. I think A Course in Miracles does this, and that Jesus is an excellent teacher. I think he knows what he's talking bout.

I think he is very masterful and wise and has taken huge efforts in the writing of ACIM to try to be as clear and obvious and relatable as possible, so that as many people as possible can learn the course and use it correctly. After all, it would be a pretty awful course if it was so obscure and difficult and hard to fathom that no-one could actually succeed at it.

"Contradictions in MY word mean lack of understanding, or scribal failures, which I make every effort to correct."

"...a host of related fallacies, including the misbelief that God rejected man and forced him out of the Garden of Eden, or that I am misdirecting you. I have made every effort to use words which are ALMOST impossible to distort, but man is very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around."

For me, I recognize that Jesus makes some VERY SIMPLE straightforward statements. He states facts, in the clearest way possible. He uses words which are familiar to us, and which have associations with things in our world that we recognize. He isn't speaking some foreign gobbledygook language, or trying to make things obscure. He is very direct, factual, honest, obvious and clear.

So for example in the course he uses some terms such as "Earth". I think we ALL recognize that a reference to Earth is talking about the physical planet that we're on, the ball of rock, which is floating in space. Planet Earth. I think 100% of readers should agree that Earth refers to that object. If you think that it DOES NOT refer to that object, or that "Earth is NOT really a physical planet and has some other kind of reality", something is wrong.

Similarly he talks often about the body. Even already as I write this sentence you have an association in your mind which recognizes I just mentioned the human flesh-and-bones body. That's what the body is. My human body, your biological body, the bodies of people walking down the street.

This isn't rocket science. This does not have to be difficult or hard to understand. And it especially shouldn't call for us to have to perform massive mental gymnastics, get subtle nuances, re-word things, redefine meanings, shift things around, or have massive long debates about what it means. For fucks's sake, the body is just the body!

So for example if he gives a simple statement such as: "At no time does the body exist", we're supposed to learn that he really does mean that literally. The human flesh and bones body that we're used to walking around in, does not really exist. That's the teaching. That's the fact. That's his intention.

When he then also tells us for example that "The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist", the most obvious thing to learn is that once again, this human flesh and bones body does not really exist. Everything about it is geared towards separation, and it DOES NOT EXIST. NOTHING about it exists, in any way, to any degree, anywhere.

He goes on to reiterate the same simple truths in many ways, in many forms, in many statements. e.g. "As nothing, which it is, the body cannot be meaningfully endowed with the attributes of Christ." or "The body's nothingness", or "God did not create the body." etc. All of these tell us the same exact thing. The body is nothing, it doesn't exist, it's not really there. There is NOTHING ELSE to learn from this. There is NO OTHER MEANING.

You SHOULD be learning therefore that because of the many times Jesus has reiterated this simple teaching, one of many, you should be trying to learn and accept that "your body" is not really there, the bodies that you see around you don't really exist, and there are no real bodies. You should NOT be attempting to SKEW this, or to find loopholes, or ways to keep the body.

You should not be trying to explain how there is some VERSION of the body that is going to be kept. Or how references to the body are NOT really referring to the body. Or how the body is "not really physical" but is something else. Or how when he talks of the body he is only talking about it "as the ego sees it", or "as you perceive it". We have to stop tacking on all these extra clauses and exceptions and ways of DISTORTING the very basic most obvious teaching. The body is NOTHING. It's not there.

This means that all of the atoms, do not exist. It means that, the flesh and bones and organs and eyeballs and hands and feet, do not exist. Not one single part of its energy exists. None of its fluids or chemicals, none of the gut bacteria, none of the cells, nothing that gives it space, or takes up space, or is made of matter, or energy, or thought, or ANYTHING, none of it is there. That we should not be attempting to redefine it, keep it, view it differently in order to have it still exist somehow, or anything else. We need to learn to accept, THERE IS NO BODY. Zero. Totally non-existent in all places at all times in every way forever.

This is a simple teaching. It's not hard. It's not meant to be hard. You aren't required to study this course deeply for decades in an attempt to fathom the deeper mysteries of what these simple statements mean. It does not take for you to do the workbook lessons. It does not require for you too read the text 100 times. You should get it as soon as you read it the first time. The body is nothing and does not exist. It's not that hard. Jesus is not being obscure or clever or mystical or difficult or trying to tell us something in a very obscure context which only advanced students can ever get. This course is for YOU. ANYONE. To learn easily.

Statements about the body have implications. If the body is nothing, then it stands to normal sane reasoning, that anything the body is "made of" does not exist. For example if the body has carbon atoms in it, which it does, then carbon does not exist. And this by extension means, that trees which are also made of carbon, do not exist. Any if the skin cells fall from the body and become dust and contribute to the soil of the earth, then also the soil of the earth does not exist. And if the body breathes the air and depends on it, then so too is the air not real either. And as you take foods into the body and digest them and they BECOME the body, this must indicate that those foods, and their original forms, and the plants and trees and sources they came from, ALSO must not exist.

This is very simple reasoning, it's not rocket science. It's simple common sense. If your body doesn't exist as Jesus spells out clearly and easily, then it also MUST mean that anything around the body does not exist, the body's environment does not exist, and the entire cosmos does not exist. This is a very sensible and sane and rational conclusion. It's all made of the same stuff, so it applies to all of it. That means therefore that planet earth, does not exist. We could rephrase Jesus's statements to EASILY mean the same thing. e.g. "At no time does the planet Earth exist. It is either anticipated or remembered, but never exists just now." "The planet earth is a dream." "The planet earth's nothingness." "As nothing, which it is, planet earth cannot be meaningfully invested with the attributes of christ." "God did not create the planet earth."

The course is NOT meant to be ANY more complicated than this. All readers should be coming to the same conclusions. In fact there shouldn't even really be much of a process involved in "drawing conclusions". You should be seeing that Jesus has already done most of the work for you. He's already EXPLICITLY telling you outright, LITERALLY, that the body is nothing and does not exist. And he extends that in many ways to include the world as well.

"There is no world. "Earth, the other's sorry outcome, which is heaven's opposite in every way." "The place where it is reflected is not real." "The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it." etc. Very simple, the course teaches normal everyday readers that planet earth does not really exist. Which is a very profound teaching. And it's our job to ACCEPT this and recognize it. But it becomes incredible at times the lengths that some students will go to, to avoid this. It is driven in part by the STRONG belief that people bring with them TO the course, based on prior experiences, that the planet seems to them to be real. All the pain, all the misery, all the experiences, the memories, all the bodies, all the relationships, all the events, which all seem to contribute in our minds to suggesting that Earth really does exist. But ALL of that is FLYING IN THE FACE of what Jesus is telling us, and so we have a lot to learn, or rather a lot to UNLEARN. Because we've taught ourselves a lot of stuff that is NOT TRUE, and is NOT what the course is teaching us.

That means we have to be willing to be mistaken, we have to be willing to question our beliefs, we have to be open minded to consider an alternative, and we have to also keep sight of THE PLAIN AND OBVIOUS. And of what makes simple logical sense. When we are reading something like the body being nothing and not existing, and we can't quite bring ourselves to accept it is true, because of our commitment to identifying with the body, we will DEFEND AGAINST what Jesus is saying. And then even a simple statement such as "the body does not exist" will be met with doubt, suspicion, questioning, deception, distortion and attempts to have it NOT mean what it means. Our egos will try to CHANGE its meaning and NOT SEE the obvious.

"We will use this simple lesson in the obvious because it has results we cannot miss."

Even the most obviously, BLATANT statements can be distorted if the mind is not ready or willing to listen to it. We can quite easily project onto the course a vast array of false perceptions. We can mangle it out of all recognition. We can take even the simplest clearest statements and FIND WAYS in which we can try to justify that they DO NOT mean what they mean. We can even take statements and give them completely OPPOSITE meanings, and feel "okay with that", as if it makes sense to us. As if it doesn't seem to contradict OTHER things we believe, because in our arrogance we think we already know what is true and don't want to question it.

To accept even the most simple truths in the course sometimes may require us to go through a tremendous purification process, letting go of faulty beliefs and backgrounds, discarding old baggage and world views, even questioning our most deeply held beliefs about who and what we are. And we do not WANT to do that. So we will resist it, and will instead NOT SEE the most simply obvious truths in front of us. Because we don't want to. We want the truth to be something else. And we do not TRUST it, because we trust something else.

So we have to sort through and sort out ALL of our other beliefs and find out if they line up with what Jesus is telling us. And that's going to be some rough territory because we COULD start trying to educate ourselves as to "what he means", and teach ourselves things that he DOES NOT mean. After all, if we don't even really know what is true, and are supposed to learn from him, then we need to really be willing to put aside out OWN teaching of ourselves and open up to BEING TAUGHT and actually learning something new. Otherwise we're not really being students, we're just being spewers and projectors of what we already decided is true.

Not that it takes rocket science to grasp the basic facts. Many things in ACIM are NOT supposed to be difficult. It's just that sometimes the truth is so profound and deep and intense that we do not LIKE it and do not WANT it. So we avoid it with an incredible array of creative means. An incredible arsenal of distortions, twists, defenses, manipulations, bandaids, and all manner of other strategies to not directly see or recognize or accept the simplest facts. No one with an ego wants to accept "there is no world" at its fullest intensity. And no one who believes they are a body REALLY wants to accept fully that their bodies don't exist.

But even with all these obstacles, even with learning disabilities, self inflicted filters, and all manner of unwillingness and denial, there are STILL some very, VERY basic aspects to Jesus's teaching that we all should really learn and agree to. The SIMPLEST of truths. Such as that the human physical biological body has absolutely no reality, value, existence, or meaning. It is NOT THERE. And also by extension, that this planet, the physical world, which is like the body and of the body, also is NOT THERE. These are fundamentally two cornerstone principles of ACIM. To not at LEAST accept them intellectually is going to produce a huge array of distortions of the course's teachings, and it has already done so.

Let's clear this up.

For the entire time that you have a physical body with working eyeballs, you will physically see the physical world based on the laws of physics. The body functions biologically based on photons of light entering the retina etc and sending messages to the brain and mind.

THIS WILL NOT CHANGE NO MATTER HOW MUCH FORGIVENESS YOU DO, how many workbook lessons, or how much you've read. Your physical eyes will continue to report the same exact differences, conflicts, problems, wars, destruction, sickness and death. This will NOT change. If you point your eyeballs at the physical world, of which they are a part, they will SHOW YOU exactly the same PHYSICAL world.

Meanwhile, you are working on forgiveness, and on changing your mind in order to change your perception. But this is to do with your MIND in terms of what it believes. What it believes determines what it projects in terms of MEANING, and thus how it categorizes the true and the false, the real and the unreal. It puts everything into a category, and so as the body SENDS IT physical messages of physical sights, the mind INTERPRETS those signals.

It is then up to the mind to decide what to DO WITH those signals that are coming in from the physical eyes. Initially, realize that the body is LOCKED IN to false perception. It CANNOT SEE reality and it never will. The body can ONLY look upon illusions and GIVE them reality, regarding them as equally of the same material and nature as ITSELF, and therefore one with them, and thus regarding them as REAL.

"These eyes made not to see will never see."

"The body is not the means by which the real world can be seen."

Consider also then that if your mind BELIEVES everything it is shown by the body's eyes, it will categorize all illusions as reality, which is "false perception". A failure to recognize that illusions are illusions, that dreams are dreams, and that the world is not real. Taking the body "at its word" is false perception and unconsciousness.

The mind therefore has to open up to another WAY of seeing, which is the spiritual eye, or the mind's eye. The mind can see directly without photons and does not rely on the body's eyeballs to do this. True vision can see anywhere and everywhere at any time without limit, even the other side of the universe in the past or future. The mind, as it begins to OPEN UP to reality, which requires transcending the physical world, starts to IGNORE the physical sight messages and tunes into another world.

As it does this, the mind is going to start categorizing everything the BODY claims is real, as unreal. It has to in order to awaken and move into true perception. Everything the body reports is a lie because the body is blind to reality. So the mind starts to open up to seeing without the body, and seeing beyond the body, and beyond form, and beyond the world, and beyond space and time. This means it is opening up to seeing light and reality, at the same time as DENYING AND CLOSING DOWN to the physical signals coming in from the body.

However, so long as you have a body, you will STILL CONTINUE to receive signals from the physical sensory equipment. You will STILL be shown images of a broken world, images of faulty bodies, images of war and death and sickness and suffering. The body CANNOT HELP IT but keep showing this to you all the time. As soon as you open your eyelids you're going to be shown this, every single day for as long as you have a body.

So the interesting thing is then that mind is changing but the body is not. Mind is still USING a body, at the same time as learning to see WITHOUT a body. And this means that the mind is going to have to deal with TWO CHANNELS OF INPUT at the same time, in parallel. The physical sight is being phased out, so to speak, while the spiritual sight is phased in, but until you reach total atonement and awakening to heaven's reality you're going to see BOTH AT ONCE. As Jesus confirms:

"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. The alternating investment in the two types or levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time, and can become very acute."

So this now means that you as mind are going to be getting inputs from a physical and FALSE sensory apparatus, which is going to KEEP remaining fixated on the PHYSICAL world for as long as it persists, while simultaneously it's going to get inputs from BEYOND the physical which the physical body CANNOT see. The mind is closing off to unreality and opening up to reality's at the same time. So you have a kind of DOUBLE VISION, at least for as long as the body persists.

If you think this is not true then you should consider the fact that you are STILL perfectly capable of reading every single workbook lesson no matter how many of them you've done or for how long. The words on the page have not changed, the color of the text has not changed, nothing about it has changed. It is PHYSICALLY THE SAME BOOK as when you started reading. This is because the physical sight has not changed. But your MIND'S SEEING HAS changed.

So what this means in worldly terms is, you're going to have to deal with the fact that you're going to STILL get input from the unreal physical world, claiming all kinds of things to be true which aren't, while at the same time opening up to a new reality BEYOND the physical world which the body can't even see.

This means that if you see a physical body with your physical eyes and your eyes report an image of that body which has a broken leg and skin cancer and bad hair and a limp and some blubber, you're going to KEEP ON SEEING THAT for as long as it's there physically, REGARLDESS of whether you are more spiritual or not. 10 years from now you will still look upon that same physical body and see the same physical symptoms. But what it MEANS to you will be different and what you make of it will be different, as well as your mind will be opening up to OTHER sights and sounds from beyond the world. Jesus again confirms twice:

"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."

"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 use PHYSICAL SIGHT to watch the dream figures suffer and die, BUT their MINDS ARE HEALED. They have done forgiveness work. Their mind is opening up to unlimited spiritual vision and seeing BEYOND physical bodies, but the physical body is STILL reporting the same shit as before. This is not going to change just because you're waking up.

So if you see someone with your physical eyes and they report a certain condition or state, that's because your physical eyes are still functioning true to their design. Just because your MIND is different and is seeing from a more inclusive loving vantage point does NOT mean that you will no longer see the same physical sights! It does not mean that graveyards are going to disappear, or that the wars will be gone, or that people aren't writhing in agony and screaming for help. They will still physically do this and your body will STILL physically report it. But your mind will INTERPRET it different because it will OVERLOOK it and look PAST it, beyond it to the light of truth.

So you see, you can't say that "if you see it it's' yours". And you can't say that if you see someone doing something you are judging them. And you can't say that just because you're seeing it your mind is not healed. That's all bullshit. That's a denial of the mechanisms of perception. Many people think that perception is ONE THING and that you change this ONE perceptual mechanism and EVERYTHING you see will just transform and shift away from suffering towards some kind of beautiful world where nothing ever dies. That's SORT of true in that the mind opens up vision to seeing the real world, but it's NOT true in the sense that this causes you to NOT SEE the physical world UNTIL THE VERY END.

That's because you're in a state of transition BETWEEN the two ways of seeing, which will continue for as long as you have a body, and until you see the face of christ, and forget the world entirely, as the veil of illusions lifts from your sight and you see ONLY with vision, and completely VANISH the body from your existence. ONLY THEN will you no longer see the physical, and only then do the physical signals stop bombarding your mind. UNTIL then, until you are DONE, you're going to have to continue dealing with FALSE MESSAGES coming to you from a false world, at the same time as tying to look past them psychologically.

So no, if you see bad physical stuff happening, it's NOT because you are projecting bad stuff. It's not because you are not healed or are guilty. It's NOT YOUR STUFF. Your stuff isn't physical, it's mental. Your baggage of stuff to be healed in your false perceptions, which you project ONTO THE PHYSICAL SIGNALS, is an added layer of meaning which you GIVE TO the signals coming from the physical world. It's how you INTERPRET them. You can read into them and put hate and guilt and sin onto them, or you can OVERLOOK them and diminish their power and see them as false and sinless and nothing.

If I see a person walking past with a broken leg, that's because their leg is broken physically and it will carry on being broken physically whether I'm in a good mood or not, whether I'm lining up with the holy spirit or not, and regardless of anything else I do. OTHER than to say that if I move towards the light I WILL extend healing and this will INFLUENCE the other person, and may indeed miraculously heal their broken leg, but that's a whole other story. If I have physical eyeballs I WILL SEE the physical world. And I will keep seeing it until my mind is 100% totally committed to seeing ONLY reality. That's why you can still find your way to the toilet!

This is the point at which the physical stops showing you pictures of impossible worlds:

"The world stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as nothing more than just a fragile veil, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last for only what it is. And now it cannot fail to disappear, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant is the world forgot, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."

Note then that spiritual sight only very "lightly" touches upon the physical "veil of illusions", the world, earth, as it LOOKS PAST it and beyond it to the light of heaven or the real world. It sort of lightly sees the forgiven world (to forgive is to overlook) as a result of not looking heavily AT it, and instead looking THROUGH it and past it. This makes the world gradually more transparent until eventually the veil of spacetime lifts entirely, revealing christ's face. ONLY THEN will you stop seeing the physical (forgiven OR unforgiven) world. And then you will use ONLY vision and see ONLY reality.

"By focusing upon the "good" in him, the body grows decreasingly persistent in your sight, and will at length be seen as little more than just a shadow circling round the "good."

So can we please try to stop saying that everything you see is because of how you're seeing, and stop saying that if you see something you're judging, and stop saying that every single claim is a projection, and stop saying that seeing a broken body means your mind is not healed, and stop being CONFUSED about the fact that there are TWO PARALLEL CHANNELS OF INPUT coming into your mind. One of them is true, and one of them is false. And the false channel can and will show you earth EXACTLY AS BEFORE, until you no longer have a body to look at it with. And this has NO BEARING on how healed your mind is other than to say that only in TOTAL healing will you stop USING the body at all.

"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."

In the separation from God, we introduced an idea of "separateness" into wholeness. We believed it was possible for there to be a lack of wholeness. This produced the idea of "over here" and "over there", each distinct and different and seeming to lack the some part of the whole, setting them apart.

This laid the foundation for both space and time - notions that what is here is not there, or what is there lacks what is here. And so each seeming part of it seems to have a different form, a partial collection of attributes which sets them apart from each other. And neither has everything.

"You who believe that God is fear made but ONE substitution. It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of fragmentation for wholeness." And then we continued to subdivide and split the mind. We tried to assign certain collections of properties, aspects, characteristics, to some parts, and others to the rest. To break wholeness into seeming isolated chunks of form.

Each part took on a different form and meaning. Various forms or examples or versions of the same one error of separateness. This caused a multitude of differences to seem to appear, each held apart from the rest and separated out as if many things.

This inevitably produced an entire universe of many "forms of error", where each object or body is different to the rest. Each lacks what the others have, rooted in sacrifice and limitation. Not one is whole, and every one is partial.

And so each form appears to comprise different materials, shapes, structures, behaviors, colors, textures and appearances. From these scattered fragments of illusion, entire worlds seemed to arise, each unlike the others and unique in its appearance. Including every human body and every atom.

An illusion is the appearance that something is other than what it actually is - seeming to be something it is not. The single idea of separation, the one problem, shows up as multiple things and multiple problems. It is really one thing, but separateness leads to many forms. And every form is an illusion that the one error is many errors.

Each form says, "look at the ways I am not the same as the rest". And so as one form pulls itself away from sameness, another form does the same. And the two forms try to disguise the fact they are one thing.

And now each form seems to vie for attention. Every form is different, and therefore in conflict and competition. Some are larger, smaller, more or less important, more or less valuable, more or less serious, more or less difficult to deal with.

And now we have an entire hierarchy of illusions, from the gigantic to the tiny, and everything in between. The form that each form takes deceives by distracting you with its claim that it is not like the rest. My car is not a house. My boat is not an airplane. My trousers are not shoes. My ice cream is not a burger.

Every form is designed to assert a deception, a temptation, an illusion, that if its form is real and true, then it IS NOT the other things. This was founded in the simple premise that this world is NOT reality, or the negation of God, and so everything appears to be NOT the rest.

If you believe it, you are deceived. Because every form is a form of deception, an illusion that a singular idea of separation is many things.

One part says, I am not like the other part. Look at how I am different. Look at my different shape, color, size and makeup. Look at what sets me apart. Look at what I have which the other lacks. Look at our differences. Look how we are separate and not the same at all.

And to believe this is to be completely blinded to the the truth. Because if you fall for this and take sides, if you come to prefer one form over another, or think they are truthfully unique and valuable, then you have fallen for the ONE temptation of the world.

Every form is a lie. Every physical object and every body is a lie. Every planet and every star and galaxy is a lie. They are all designed to hide and disguise the one single illusion of separation.

So long as you are caught up in a life where the worshipping of DIFFERENCES prevails, where you prefer some forms over others, where you think that two things are not THE SAME, you are deceived and blinded. There is nothing so blinding as to fixate your vision on the perception of FORM, making the separation real.

The body's eyes look only upon the forms of error. Only the body makes the world seem real. Its fixation on differences, changes, inequalities and comparisons, blinds you to seeing any kind of singular truth. It sees a world of a billion truths, none making any sense or meaning anything at all. The whole message of ACIM is that we need to transition AWAY from a world of differences, towards wholeness. To repair the sense of fragmentation in the mind and restore singular oneness.

This requires seeing THROUGH the deception of form, and not believing it. Not believing that a car and a house are real differences. Not believing that a living body and a dead body are real differences. Not believing that some objects are more important or valuable than others. Realizing that we gave the world of forms ALL the meanings that they have.

To flatten the hierarchy of illusions is to recognize that ALL illusions are one illusion. A single error presents itself to you in every conceivable form of deception. If you buy into it, you think there is an order of difficulty, where some things are harder to deal with or change than others.

To recognize there IS no hierarchy, is to recognize that all forms are the SAME. That every form of suffering is the SAME. That every form of sickness and death and life is the SAME. That there is ONE thing here, not many. That the manyness and the differences are entirely untrue. That one thing is sneakily showing up as a massive multitude to HIDE its true nature of being just one thing.

This is why there is really only one lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, that ALL FORMS of suffering have a SINGLE cause. This is why the workbook lessons have us NOT be selective in which forms we apply things to, so that we will learn that forms are meaningless decoys. This is why we are to recognize there is ONE problem not many. And this is why there is ONE truth and ONE law and ONE atonement.

Every form that the world takes is a lie. Every time it says you should want this form or that form, it is trying to get you to take sides. Every time you take sides there is war. Every difference of form IS conflict. Everything you see with the body IS conflicted, with objects vying for attention, some nearer some further, some louder some quieter, some more "appealing" than others.

All of this is ONE thing, one effort, one scheme, to TEMPT you to believe in the differences so that you will not recognize they are ALL THE SAME. That this whole world is entirely unreal. That not one form is more real or important or valuable than another. That there aren't billions of choices, there is only one choice.

ALL illusory forms are like two characters who act and speak and present themselves differently to try to create the illusion that they are not ONE actor. The mind is ONE actor, taking on the role of multiple simultaneous parts, pitted against each other. So long as you do not recognize that ONE mind is playing ALL the roles, of both victim and victimizer, you will be deceived by form.

In a world of forms, all the forms are untrue. Not one of them IS reality. And none of them show you what is true. To see only physical form is to see nothing but error and sin. True vision will show you that their many appearances are lies, and that there is a singular truth behind them. We are addicted to a world of forms, believing in specialness and made-up values. Made-up worth. Made-up importance. Goals and toys and special jobs and relationships and things you want and things you don't want.

All designed to keep you locked into a hell of form and separation. To keep you tempted that the next big thing will save you. That the next form the illusion takes will be the one you've always wanted. So that you never realize NONE of them are true, NONE of them are real, and NONE of them are what you really want.

That without deception, lies, falsehood and temptation, there is NO WORLD HERE AT ALL. Without form, there is no planet and no body. And behind all forms is the one lie that started it all, which the world of forms was made to hide - that separation is even possibe.

"A problem can appear in MANY forms, and it will do so while the problem lasts."

"It is not a thought which judges an illusion by its size, its seeming gravity, or anything that is related to the form it takes. It merely focuses on what it is, and knows that no illusion can be real."

"For how can one illusion differ from another but in attributes which have no substance, no reality, no core, and nothing that is truly different?"

"Today's idea is another giant stride in the perception of the same as the same, and the different as different. On one side stand all illusions. All truth stands on the other."

"Illusions battle ONLY with themselves. Being fragmented, they fragment."

"Illusions CAN conflict, because their forms ARE different. And they do battle ONLY to establish which FORM is true."

"The meeting of illusions leads to war."

"EVERY illusion is an assault on truth."

"Bodies may battle, but the clash of forms is meaningless."

"The gap is carefully concealed in fog, and misty pictures rise to cover it with vague, uncertain forms and changing shapes, forever unsubstantial and unsure. Yet in the gap is NOTHING."

"The thought of sacrifice gives rise to all the forms that suffering appears to take."

"Sickness takes many forms, and so does unforgiveness. The forms of one but reproduce the forms of the other, for they are the same illusion."

"For time and space are ONE illusion, which takes different forms."

"The dream is but illusion in the mind."

"The forms the broken pieces seem to take mean nothing."

"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."

"You are so used to choosing between dreams, you do not see that you have made, at last, the choice between the truth and ALL ILLUSIONS."

"This course attempts to teach no more than that the power of decision cannot lie in choosing different forms of what is still the SAME illusion and the SAME mistake."

"Death is a thought which takes on many forms, often unrecognized."

"Whatever form it takes must therefore be illusion."

"Those who are special MUST defend illusions against the truth."

"Guilt ASKS FOR punishment, and its request is granted. NOT in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions BUILT on sin."

"What is perceived takes many forms, but NONE has meaning. Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent."

"Yet has God given Answer to the world of sickness, Which applies to ALL its forms."

"NO illusion has ANY truth in it. Yet it appears some are MORE true than others, although this clearly makes no sense at all. All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is PREFERENCE, NOT reality."

"What relevance has preference to the truth? Illusions are illusions, and are false."

"Illusions HAVE no witnesses, and no effects. Who looks on them is but deceived."

"The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone. Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is separate, and has a different set of thoughts which SETS HIM OFF from others. This principle evolves from the belief there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are MORE valuable, and THEREFORE true."

"For this establishes degrees of TRUTH among illusions, making it appear that some are HARDER to be overcome than others."

"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."

"The laws of chaos govern ALL illusions. Their forms conflict, making it SEEM quite possible to value some above the others."

"This illusion can take many forms."

"Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth.""

"The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth."

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

"Though the dream itself takes many forms, and SEEMS to show a great variety of places and events wherein its "hero" finds itself, the dream has but ONE purpose, taught in many ways."

"Bring, then, all forms of suffering to Him Who knows that every one is like the rest. He sees NO differences where none exist, and He will teach you how each one is CAUSED. None has a DIFFERENT cause from all the rest, and ALL of them are easily undone by but a SINGLE lesson truly learned."

"Not once do the advanced teachers of God consider the forms of sickness in which their brother believes."

"The gap that is not there is filled with toys in countless forms."

"The body's eyes see ONLY form. They cannot see BEYOND what they were MADE to see. And they were made to look on error, and NOT see past it. Theirs is indeed a strange perception, for they can see ONLY illusions, unable to look beyond the granite block of sin, and stopping at the outside FORM of nothing. To this distorted form of vision, the OUTSIDE of everything, the wall that stands between you and the truth, is wholly true."

"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?"

"You are advancing to love's MEANING, and away from ALL illusions in which you have surrounded it."

"You who believe that God is fear made but ONE substitution. It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of fragmentation for wholeness. It has become splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one, and still IS what it was. That ONE error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made. Your whole world rests upon it. Everything you see reflects it. And every special relationship you ever made is PART of it."

"Temptation has ONE lesson it would teach, in ALL its forms, WHEREVER it occurs."

"Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing forms that shift with time and place, is an illusion that has no meaning."

"Never foster this illusion in yourself, or encourage it in others. An "object" is incapable of release, because it is a concept which is deprived of creative power."

"What is seen as "reality" is simply what the mind prefers. Its hierarchy of values is projected outward, and it sends the body's eyes to find it."

"All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is PREFERENCE, NOT reality."

"Fear is the emotion of the world. It has but one. Its forms are many - call them what you will - but it is one in content."

"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. ... Nothing so blinding as perception of form. For sight of form MEANS understanding HAS BEEN obscured."

"Before a holy relationship, there IS no sin. The FORM of error is no longer seen."

When you are having true perception.... "M-8.6. The body's eyes will continue to see differences. 2 But the mind that has let itself be ***HEALED*** will no longer acknowledge them. 3 There ***will be those who seem to be "sicker"*** than others, and the *******body's eyes will report their changed appearances as before*******. 4 But ***the healed mind*** will put them all in one category; they are unreal.

5 This is the gift of its Teacher; the understanding that only two categories (false and true) are meaningful in ***sorting out the messages the mind receives from what appears to be the outside world.*** (through the body's eyes) 6 And of these two, but one is real. 7 Just as reality is wholly real, apart from size and shape and time and place—for differences cannot exist within it—so too are illusions without distinctions. 8 The one answer to sickness of any kind is healing. 9 The one answer to all illusions is truth."

As you begin your journey towards truth and are using the body's eyes, which SEEM to see the physical world, but isn't REAL sight, and is actually a state of not seeing anything real, you start to open the spiritual eye and develop christ vision. The whole workbook is designed for the purpose of developing christ vision, which, by the way, entails the simultaneous use of the body's eyes to READ the workbook lessons ;-)

The body's eyes, made not to see, are always functioning as biological machinery in the same way. They are sense organs, which pick up photons of light which are DENIED by surfaces of objects, and bounce into your retina, sending "signals" of "images" into your mind. The eyeballs obviously do not see at all even at the physical level, they are just relays or sensors, which pick up light and transmit it to the brain, where the mind then "sees" the images. Only the mind really sees.

The thing is that, if you BELIEVE these images depict truth or reality, that you are seeing reality when you see physical objects, you are deluded IN your mind, and your MIND is having false perception. That is, your mind is believing in, investing in, and "making real", the images coming from the body's eyes. So now the body is fixed having false perceptions of an unreal world, it's trying to send these pictures to the mind and the mind is deciding one thing: "are these images real, or are they unreal?" "are they true, or false?".

So yes, you can continue to SEE THIS WORLD.... EITHER as "it is real" or as "it is unreal". It's not a matter of "do I see the world or not", at the level of perception. Perception EITHER sees the ILLUSORY WORLD and BELIEVES it is true (false perception), or it SEES the SAME illusory world and BELIEVES it is false (true perception). In both cases, the world IS SEEN STILL!! It's a dream! Either you are seeing the nightmare dream of false perception or the HAPPY DREAM. A happy dream is the illusory world RECOGNIZED as being UNREAL!!! You are happy BECAUSE You know it is BULLSHIT!!! How else COULD you be happy but to recognize that images of hell are NOT TRUE?

In order to come to realize that these images are false and unreal, that the physical world is an illusion, the mind has to learn to FORGIVE. "To forgive is to OVERLOOK". Through forgiveness, you train the mind to recognize illusions as illusions, to NOT believe they are real, and to NOT see value or truth in them. This results in the continual transmission of images into the mind by the body's eyes but when the mind looks AT these images, it learns to OVERLOOK the ILLUSIONS they are trying to present, the temptation, and the mind learns to CATEGORIZE ALL of these images as UNREAL. Yet, the mind STILL IS SEEING THEM. It simply shifts its vantage point and sense of TRUTH, to be able to discern that NONE of these images depict truth or reality.

Therefore Christ Vision is gradually developed in parallel to having body eyesight, and the more that you progress in forgiveness of ILLUSIONS, which means THE WORLD, the more your mind is able to recognize the world is FALSE, and the world now registers with you experientially as something false. You still SEE IT, but it doesn't seem believable. It doesn't strike you as "really happening". In this state, your mind can be SIGNIFICANTLY HEALED, and very very close to awakening, while STILL seeing simultaneously with the body's eyes.

So what now is happening is, your mind is being STILL presented with images of hell - physical world - which it can still see, but these images become so OVERLOOKED, that they start to become transparent as if you are literally looking THROUGH them rather than stopping at the surfaces. You start to glimpse the face of christ BEYOND the physical images, beyond the universe, beyond the body. And so now you are starting to see God "in everything you see" because you are seeing God BEYOND the physical illusion of objects.

In this state, you are a teacher of God, who is still in the world, having a body, SEEING WITH the body's eyes, AND simultaneously seeing with Christ Vision which OVERLOOKS what the body sees. In this state, it is TOTALLY NORMAL to be able to still see the bodies of other people, moving around, doing things in the physical world, while ALSO overlooking them and recognizing them as unreal. Since the body's eyes do not "Switch off" at this point, it's kind of like you're getting bombarded with images of hell at the same time as trying to approach heaven. And so you have to learn to NOT BELIEVE what the eyes are showing you. BUT YOU DO STILL SEE IT "mixed in" with your Christ vision.

Jesus speaks of this again in this statement:

"M-12.6. Oneness and sickness cannot coexist. 2 God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while. 3 It is a conscious choice. 4 For they have learned that all choices are made consciously, with full awareness of their consequences. 5 The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? 6 Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. 7 They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. 8 Yet they are not deceived by what they see. 9 They recognize that to behold a dream figure as sick and separate is no more real than to regard it as healthy and beautiful. 10 Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. 11 And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

Notice how it says that such persons are AWARE of dreaming, which means they can SEE the dream world - the physical world. Notice how it says THEY WATCH DREAM FIGURES come and go, shift and change, AND ... SUFFER AND DIE! All seen from A HEALED MIND!!! They CAN SEE bodies being sick, they CAN SEE "people" suffering, they CAN SEE DEATH, EVEN THOUGH they themselves are having a very healed mind, a very "sick free" mind, which does NOT BELIEVE IN sickness, and IS NOT PROJECTING SICKNESS ONTO OTHERS. And this is because the body is still dangling in front of the mind picking up signals from the dream world. The body will continue showing the mind pictures of sickness and death EVEN IF the mind does not believe in sickness and death. The result is that the images are SEEN, but they are NOT BELIEVED. They register as UNREAL, FALSE, NOT TRUE. It's a shift in vantage point which makes the whole world be RECOGNIZED as an illusion, instead of BELIEVED to be real.

In this state, it is perfectly possible for a teacher of God to be "in the world but not of it". To walk around the Earth, seeing bodies still, but overlooking them as well. Seeing people with broken legs, severe diseases, missing organs and so on, or even states of death. But the miracle worker in their right mind DOES NOT BELIEVE any of these things are true of any brothers, and they do not AGREE WITH what those brothers ARE BELIEVING about themselves and their bodies. The brothers ARE recognized as calling for love, since it is forgiving to recognize this and not that punishment is real, and as such there is EFFORTLESS perception of the "need" that people SEEM to have. And that means, you recognize who is viable as a recipient of A MIRACLE. It means you CAN SEE A CALL FOR HELP.

This combination of body vision and christ vision is precisely why JESUS was able to walk the Earth, SEE people sick and dying, and DO SOMETHING. He could tell that someone's body was showing up to his mind as "it is in the form of sickness", EVEN THOUGH he did not BELIEVE in sickness being TRUE. He did not merely "switch off" the ability to SEE the body at all, at that point. He did not have a state of "if I see sickness, I am sick". You have to remember there are TWO functions of seeing happening at once. In His mind, in his Christ Vision, he OVERLOOKED the sick body and it registered to him as NOT REAL. But in his body vision he could still SEE the state the body was in. And this is how he was able to SEE, those who were suffering and sick, even though HIS MIND did not believe the images he was seeing. HE was not sick. HE was not projecting sickness. HE was not MAKING people be sick. He knew the were not REALLY sick. But he also knew he could SEE that THEY believed they were suffering. So he HELPED THEM!

This is precisely the scenario that sets up a foundation for being a MIRACLE WORKER. Because now a teacher of God is HEALED, and yet CAN SEE those who are NOT healed. The teacher of God now has an abundance of love, while recognizing that those whose dream bodies still seem to suffer, are SEEMING to LACK love, and are "in need". That they are, from their own perspectives as individuals, suffering. Their minds are sick, their bodies are sick. And this establishes the dynamic where the miracle worker IS HEALED, but OTHERS ARE NOT. Thus, "Miracles supply a lack". and "Miracles are given by those who temporarily have more, to those who temporarily have less." It would be absolutely impossible to EVER be in a situation where you HAVE MORE, while others HAVE LESS, if the commonly-held mistaken view of how perception works were correct. And it would VIOLATE numerous miracle principles.

See, this is how most people think of perception, and it's wrong... the idea that "I have perception", it's one thing, it looks upon the world, and "I need to shift it". And the idea that projection makes perception, implying that whatever I see, I am putting there. So now it's like, my perception was aiming at hell, because I was putting hell there, and I need to redirect it towards heaven, so that I will perceive heaven and NOT SEE HELL at all. This is a big problem. Because if that's your model of perception, it means you become BLIND TO what is happening in the world as soon as you no longer believe in it. So like, if you stop believing sickness is real, in this model, you would literally expect to not be able to SEE anything that is sick, ever again. And this would imply, if you see sickness, YOU are sick, or you are attacking, or you are trying to make your brother be sick. That their sickness is your sickness. And this essentially makes you TOTALLY INCAPABLE of seeing whether or not your brother is in need of help.

Also in this broken model, it results in a situation where there is total inner and outer equality between what you believe and what you see. Therefore, you will assert that the outward picture (equated also with what the body sees) matches my inner condition and the world is like a mirror. So I see only myself. I'm all that exists (narcissistic, selfish). And thus you can never be in a position where "you have more" and someone else "has less". It means thus you never see any reason to help or heal or supply a lack for others, because you think "their sickness" is just a reflection of "your sickness." You think if you see sickness at all (e.g. broken leg), YOU must be making it be broken, and you need the healing, and no-one else needs anything. This is in TOTAL DENIAL of the way the body's sight functions continually in parallel to spiritual sight.

This is a very prevalent belief about how perception works, and it is totally bullshit. Or rather, it's only one half of the picture. It leads to a justification for NOT PERFORMING ANY MIRACLES FOR OTHERS. It completely WIPES OUT, the entire situation where miracles given to others could EVER be seen as "needed" or "making sense" to "called for", because the person now thinks that all they see is themselves. That the whole world is their own self. This thus becomes SELFISH. And it cancels the entire practice of miracle working in the world. It completely obliterates any reason why you would be able to SEE the "call for love" of another, yet alone giving a reason to respond to it. And this model of perception is treasured by those who do not want to work any miracles ever. It is a miracle-fearing, course denying paradigm of a mistaken understanding of how perception functions.

There is SOME truth to this false model, in the sense that it IS describing the transition from false perception to true perception. It is describing the healing of the BELIEF IN sickness being real or true. It IS a movement towards healed perception and christ vision. It IS the opening up to forgiveness and the overlooking of illusions and lies. It is recognizing the you DO project stuff onto others and see it. And it recognizes that YOUR MIND DOES need healing when you see illusions AS REAL. But that's a far cry from believing that you must not see the world AT ALL in order to be healed, which denies what the body's eyes are doing. It is taken in isolation to mean, THE BODY STOPS SEEING ANYTHING, or that, you will see through the body's eyes and NOT SEE AND BROKEN BODIES, with is totally a level confusion. It completely IGNORES and shuts out the FACT, that the body's eyes CONTINUE to send images from the physical world into the mind, right up until the atonement is accepted and you leave the world behind.

The result is that the body still sees "the veil", which is the physical world, while the mind is overlooking those images and seeing THROUGH them to the light of heaven BEYOND the physical. In that state, let's say the veil/body images are registering with 1% visibility and perception of heaven is registering at 99% visibility. You DO transition from one to the other, but body vision does NOT END until christ vision is TOTALLY 100% PERFECTED. seen.9

The result is that the body still sees "the veil", which is the physical world, while the mind is overlooking those images and seeing THROUGH them to the light of heaven BEYOND the physical. In that state, let's say the veil/body images are registering with 1% visibility and perception of heaven is registering at 99% visibility. You DO transition from one to the other proportionately, linearly, because "you cannot see two worlds", but body vision does NOT END until christ vision is TOTALLY 100% PERFECTED. Meaning you're going to HAVE TO still keep seeing the physical world UNTIL you are practically ready to ascend to heaven.

WHEN Christ vision is absolutely complete, the face of Christ appears. That means, heaven becomes "visible". And it also means, Earth become "invisible." Literally. If you look upon the face of christ it should last merely an instant before God takes you to Heaven. The forgiven world has disappeared from your sight. "Forgiveness does not look upon bodies." And then perception ends entirely, the body's vision ceases to send anything to the mind, because the mind is now free of bodies forever. And that's what it means to be 100% spirit identified. And ONLY THEN, when you no longer HAVE A BODY AT ALL, ONLY then do you no longer have a PERCEPTION with which to see the illusory world of hell and death.

UNTIL THAT HAPPENS, you WILL continue receiving images from the body's vision! You WILL continue being able to see bodies in various states of health. YOU WILL be able to discern "who" is calling out for love and who isn't. Who is SICK, and who isn't. Who is DEAD, and who isn't. Who is mistaken and delusional and who isn't. But your mind will recognize these things are not REAL. The people BEING sick DO think it is real, but you do not agree with them. And this is how you are able to set them free and weaken their belief. This is how you are able to PERFORM MIRACLES IN THE WORLD. To help others, to heal the sick, to raise the dead. To let the Holy Spirit USE YOUR BODY'S EYES for HIS PURPOSES! Because he is very much ready and willing and desiring to PERFORM MIRACLES IN THE WORLD TO HEAL THOSE WHO ARE IN THE WORLD. And that DOES include healing of sickness in mind AND body!!

Only when you ascend to heaven and leave the body entirely will you cease to be able to see the suffering of others in this world. And until then, you are to be a miracle worker. And if you're not doing that, you're in denial and being selfish.

I'm trying to clarify what the real world is or it not. I'm just going to waffle on about it here as I look at each quote.

"The real world is a symbol, like the rest of what perception offers. Yet it stands for what is opposite to what you made.

This suggests the real world is something perceptual because dreams contain symbols, and since perception does not exist in heaven (only knowledge), this suggests the real world is not heaven. Yet it appears to be a "reflection of reality". (As I typed this, Jesus said "true").

"The real world holds a counterpart for each unhappy thought reflected in your world"

Suggesting it is also a reflection, or at least opposite to all illusions and lies. As real as perception can get?

"The real world shows a world seen differently, through quiet eyes and with a mind at peace. Nothing but rest is there. There are no cries of pain and sorrow heard, for nothing here remains outside forgiveness. And the sights are gentle. Only happy sights and sounds can reach the mind that has forgiven itself."

It sounds quite advanced that in this state of mind, there is no apparent registering of pain and sorrow coming from other people. These things are perhaps seen in a different light, as calls for love, and therefore there is a recognition that there is no "real sorrow". "The sights are gentle" seems to suggest you wouldn't even see war and death happening? But perhaps it is the WAY you look at them which shows them to you in a way which isn't upsetting any more. OR, possibly, the real world is seen AT THE SAME TIME as perception sees the physical world, since it is like "looking at heaven" vs looking at the world of form. This would be similar to the Holy Spirit being "fixated on God" while also perceiving.

"The real world is the symbol that the dream of sin and guilt is over, and God’s Son no longer sleeps. His waking eyes perceive the sure reflection of his Father’s Love; the certain promise that he is redeemed. The real world signifies the end of time, for its perception makes time purposeless."

Again the real world is referred to as a SYMBOL, meaning it is part of the dream. And also it is referred to as a REFLECTION (not the actual thing, but a reflection of it, once removed). This suggests the term "real world" refers not to that state of mind being "real" in the truest sense, but "real-er" than other ways of perceiving.

"Its perception"... tells us it's something perceived, so we are still in the realm of the world and are not in heaven yet.

"Across the bridge, it is so different! For a time the body is still seen, but NOT exclusively, as it is seen here. For the little spark that holds the Great Rays within it, is ALSO visible, and this spark cannot be limited long to littleness. Once you have crossed the bridge, the VALUE of the body is so diminished in YOUR sight, that you will see no need at all to MAGNIFY it. For you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER there."

This lingo sort of seems confusing because it seems you cross a bridge and are on the other side (as if in heaven?) and yet you are still in a body, and yet the ability to remain in the body is very limited due to the magnitude of the mind. So this suggests a state of being still in a body and perceiving but being as pure of mind as is possible while in a body. Again a reflection of heaven rather than pure heaven.

"Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself, "The real world is not like this. It has no buildings, and there are no streets where people walk alone and separately. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever." This world you see MUST BE DENIED, for sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision. YOU CANNOT SEE BOTH WORLDS. For each of them involves a different kind of seeing, and depends on what you cherish. The sight of one is possible because you have DENIED THE OTHER."

In this sense, it seems that Jesus talks about the real world as if talking about heaven. If he is being very literal (which he usually is) then a state of mind where there are no buildings and people and stuff, ... does not really sound like the world or forms. Above he spoke of only seeing gentle sights and so on, as a "way" of seeing the world. Here he talks of a "place" where there IS no buildings or streets or other forms. This suggests to me that when He speaks of the real world he is a bit "loose" in terms of what it means. ie, the "real world" literally is Heaven, but when we are in a body and still perceiving we see a GLIMPSE of it and a REFLECTION of it, and so it now sounds "as if" the real world is within perception still, but more like... it is just touching on perception lightly and is actually mostly beyond perception and beyond bodies and beyond this world. Like peeking its head in the door. This also reminds me of "the kingdom of heaven is laid out upon the world but you do not see it" and "god is in everything I see because God is in my mind"... referring to states of perception still (seeing the world) but starting to glimpse a heavenly "reality" or "real world" beyond it.

The one word that confused me here at first was "shines forever". If the real world shines forever, that makes it permanent. If the real world were permanent it must be the same thing as heaven. And so since Jesus uses the term to refer sometimes to the reflection of heaven and sometimes to what is fully heaven, since the "real world" in perception reflects reality, it can seem to imply a real perceived world is permanent, but it is not. Because the UNREAL world is let go and disappears, the real world builds a bridge to heaven, and then the true real world is fully experienced as heaven, forever.

"Yet 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. Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it from every part of this strange world you made but do not want. The only effort you need make to give this world away in glad exchange for what you did not make is willingness to learn the one you made is false."

Like here, Jesus says the real world "touches you even here", suggesting that it is NOT here, but is heaven, and yet it is so close that it "touches you" like when two worlds bump up against each other, but you are not yet IN IT. Which again suggests the real world is actually heaven (not this universe whatsoever), but can be "touched upon" while here.

"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. Knowledge needs no correction. Yet the dreams of love lead unto knowledge. In them you see nothing fearful, and because of this, they are the welcome that you offer knowledge. Love waits on welcome, not on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore, the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you have not lost. Praise, then, the Father for the perfect sanity of His most holy Son."

The "dream of peace" also sounds like another way to say that "perceiving" the real world while here in a body is still a dream of reality - that's why its a reflection or symbol, and not the actual thing. The real world seems like a bridge that bridges the gaps between heaven and earth, or at least is a joining place or state of mind which is sort of experiencing both temporarily.

"The bridge itself is nothing more than a transition in your PERSPECTIVE of reality. On this side, everything you see is grossly distorted, and COMPLETELY out of perspective. What IS little and insignificant is magnified, and what is strong and powerful, cut down to littleness."

Jesus does refer to a bridge, which suggests that the perception of the reality (truth, heaven) while still in a body is a glimpse of the real world that is on the other side of the bridge, and you can sort of position yourself on the other side and be very close to having heaven in your awareness, but still remaining temporarily in the world. This also correlates to what Jesus says about the body being able to be supernaturally protected, and a sign of immortality, while it is useful, and when used to bring the word of God to those who have it not.

Also I want to make a note about perspective. When there are clouds, the sun is above the clouds and always shining. When you are up there above the clouds, from that perspective, clouds are not blocking the light (awareness). When you move below the clouds however, from "this side", looking back towards the light having been separated from it, it SEEMS as if the clouds block the light. The bottom of the clouds become dark symbolizing their ability to block light and having resulted in the illusion of darkness.

When you are in a state of perception which is level confused, backwards and upside down, ie in the ego more, you see this way and regard darkness as a real block and as if light is hidden. But when you get past the clouds and are aligned with the light and ORIENTED in the direction the light is shining, then you no longer are limited by the clouds and see only light everywhere. From this vantage point or perspective, this is similar to seeing "from" the real world. So you could say that the bridge Jesus refers to, is really the "transition" from being in the dark to being in the light, shifting from false to true perception, and another word for true perception is perception of the "real world". Being on the "other side" of the bridge thus could be referring to being in true perception, since the bridge is somewhere between true and false perception, rather than between the perceptual world and heaven.

"Both are not true, yet either one will seem as real to you, as the amount to which you hold it dear."

Here Jesus refers to both the real world and the fictional world as "not true". So again he's saying, the real world is kind of a term for the "slice" of reality which is partly seen while still in the fictional physical world. The glimpse of reality will become real to you and then act like a bridge TO heaven. The real world is what's perceived when perception is true and accurate, showing you that this world is false and unreal, and opening up to see Christ "beyond" it or "in" it. And eventually the world itself disappears and what was "beyond" and "in it" now becomes a fully present (and only) experience.

"God loves His Son forever, and His Son RETURNS his Father’s Love forever. The real world is the way that leads you to remembrance of this one thing that is wholly true and WHOLLY YOURS. For all else you have LENT yourself in time, and it WILL fade. But this one thing is ALWAYS yours, being the gift of God unto His Son. Your ONE reality was GIVEN you, and BY it, God created you as one with Him."

Here he said "the WAY that LEAD YOU TO remembrance"... like a bridge, or as the meeting point of two worlds or sort of the preparation for going to heaven.

"Love waits on welcome, NOT on time. And the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you have NOT lost. "

Welcoming what always was is sort of an invitation or openness to it, but not necessarily being in it yet.

"Is it a loss to find a world instead where losing is impossible, where love endures forever, hate cannot exist, and vengeance has no meaning? Is it loss to find all things you really want and know they have no ending, and they will remain exactly as you want them throughout time?

The world mentioned here I think is heaven. But it could apply apply to "Real world".

Yet even they will be exchanged at last for what we cannot speak of, for you go from there to where words fail entirely, into a silence where the language is unspoken and yet surely understood. Communication, unambiguous and plain as day, remains unlimited for all eternity. And God Himself speaks to His Son as His Son speaks to Him. Their language has no words, for what they say cannot be symbolized. Their knowledge is direct and wholly shared and wholly one."

Here then Jesus speaks of what happens when you make the transition FULLY to heaven, which is a world that you cannot see while seeing the physical world (you cannot see two worlds, you cannot behold the world and see heaven). In heaven, fully and completely, BEYOND perception, and BEYOND the slice of the real world that you saw as a reflection (also referred to as the face of christ - his FACE, not his WHOLE SELF), is the world God created which is Heaven, where all is one, and the "real world's" lack of buildings and streets and people is fully experienced.

"Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone."

Bye bye planet Earth and the physical universe.

"The world will end in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in peace, because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will end in laughter, because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. In blessing it departs, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven is the function of God’s teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is reflected. And now sit down in true humility, and realize that all God would have you do you can do. Do not be arrogant and say you cannot learn His Own curriculum. His Word says otherwise. His Will be done. It cannot be otherwise. And be you thankful it is so."

In A Course in Miracles, the truth is completely consistent. It represents a thought system of Oneness, in which everything correlates perfectly. There is no contradiction in Oneness or in the Truth.

Everything about the thought system of the Holy Spirit, of God, is completely LOGICALLY consistent. It is also true, that the thought system of the ego is completely logically consistent. The only difference is that the ego’s system is based on a fallacy, a premise which is not true - the idea that separation is real and possible with real effects.

Because the truth is 100% consistent, it is not necessary to guess, wonder, be confused, misunderstand, interpret, warp, figure out, avoid, speculate, or otherwise be less than certain about what the Course is teaching. This means the Course CAN be learned and understood with 100% consistency, 0% guesswork, and 100% certainty.

The Course itself is written in very exacting LOGICAL terms. Jesus contrasts what is true, versus what is false. This is very deliberate. Our main problem is we have CONFUSED what is true and what is false. We’ve mixed them up and switched them around. In our confusion, we NEED clarification as to what is actually true, and what is actually false. This is achieved by contrasting, in very black and white, clear, irrefutably LOGICAL terms, the difference between them.

e.g. "This is only this, and this is not that, therefore that is not this." This is logic.

e.g. "This is all that exists. That is the opposite of this. That does not exist." This is logic.

e.g. "Only heaven exists. Earth is opposite to heaven in every way. Therefore, Earth does not exist." (There is no world). This is logic.

e.g. "The opposite to love is fear. Yet love has no opposite. Therefore fear must produce a state which DOES NOT EXIST". This is logic.

Logical FACTS cannot be denied. They must be accepted if you want the truth, even if it means letting go of stuff you long held to be true, given that it is NOT consistent.

Jesus very specifically, and intentionally, uses extremely intensely black and white language where it is appropriate. He does not blur boundaries. He does not umm and ahh about what things mean. He is very intense in His absoluteness, certainty, clarity and consistency.

He very deliberately uses language which intensely draws lines between what is true, and what is false, so that we are left with as little confusion as possible. This *contrast* clarifies the DIFFERENCE between what is true and what is false in no uncertain terms. Jesus is deliberately extreme. This lends the Course much of its black and white, all or nothing, life or death "intensity". I have a hunch this is why many people experience *overwhelm* when reading the course, because it stretches the mind to extremes so much, and seems very "intense" because of the extreme contrast.

This is what we NEED, because our only perceptual problem is that we do not RECOGNIZE what is true, versus what is false. We do not recognize God (truth), because we think that when we see an illusion (lies) they are in fact true. This is because we’ve attempted to turn God into an illusion. We then believe illusions are God (ie real). This LACK of discernment between what is actually true and false, is the sole basis for our confusion and unconsciousness.

Just by the mere act of even exposing yourself to the "book" itself, reading its extremely LOGICAL words, its black and white CLARITY, you will experience CORRECTION. Simply from reading it, even if you don’t "get it" or do anything else with it. Simply reading for example something absolute like "there is no sin", is capable of inducing RELIEF. It is healing.

I can’t begin to tell you the number of times just merely reading phrases like this has melted me. The very FORM of the language itself is designed TO HEAL, by bringing CLARITY to what is true, and what is false, which corrects our false perception, undoes our confusion, and alleviates fear.

The very SPECIFIC, deliberate, intentional LOGICALITY of the Course is very important. Not only is it healing due to its ability to bring clarity, it also means that if you understand the logic *correctly*, it is completely CONSISTENT throughout the truth. Everything Jesus says about truth MUST be consistent with everything else He says. IT MUST.

If something does not seem to fit or correlate, it’s because there is some LACK OF AWARENESS of the LOGIC that is being expressed. This often is due to level confusion and false conclusions.

To put it simply, the Course contains a metaphysics which is a system of TOTALLY LOGICAL thinking, which transcends all words, and which is a "structure" so completely logical that IF you grasp even part of it correctly, you can RELY ON the part you learned and form ADDITIONAL CONCLUSIONS based on it, which are absolutely consistent with what Jesus is teaching. This, however, ONLY works IF you are perfectly grasping the LOGIC, otherwise you will make errors, which will produce FALSE conclusions and confusion.

This means, if you learn the METAPHYSICS, the "core" structure of reality and the ego, everything will "fit together" and be consistent. It will also build upon itself as you gain more clarity. You will be able to REFER TO that which you already learned which is 100% true, using it as a REFERENCE, to compare and contrast..... is this new information *perfectly consistent* with what you already know to be perfect truth, or not? In black and white terms, if it IS, it is true. If it is NOT, it is not true.

A grasp of the metaphysical LOGIC provides you with a tremendously powerful tool, because you can build upon what you already know is 100% true. This makes your grasp of truth STRONGER with every step. And this in turn makes the truth CLEARER. One seed of perfect clarity is all you need to be able to DEDUCE whether everything else is *completely consistent*, logically, or not.

This is your automatic barometer or "bullshit meter", for determining whether what people or the Course say is true or false. This means you do not need to "figure out" what is true. You ONLY need to come to CLARITY enough to see and understand LOGIC, so that you can let the truth itself tell you whether something is consistent with it or not.

Without something to refer to which is 100% absolutely true, we do not have anything TRUE to compare things to. There is no context or perspective into which to put things. That puts us in the dark. We will then be UNCERTAIN, lost, confused, unsure what the truth is or is not, and will then enter into tremendous debates trying to figure it out. And most of that time will be spent in either speculation, or make-believe, or wishful thinking, or ego-based conclusions, which are NOT CONSISTENT.

This is because WE are trying to author the truth, instead of ALLOWING the truth’s OWN built-in consistency inform us as to whether something is true, or something is false.

Since the full picture of "every topic ever talked about" is quite large and complex, it can take some time to logically compare and contrast what the course is saying in terms of its WORDS, versus making sure that the MEANING is completely CONSISTENT without contradiction when we keep everything ELSE the course says in mind.

We should realize that the whole truth is in every part of the course, but in FORM, often it SEEMS like taking one part of the course in isolation "means" something which it CANNOT MEAN, IF what the truth says elsewhere is true. If there is not a logical consistency, and if anything does not FIT PERFECTLY into the overall picture, into the thought system, SOMETHING IS IN ERROR.

What we need to learn about the Course, is that the metaphysics are ONCE removed from the truth. The words in the course are TWICE removed. Transcending the words is the only way to learn what IT MEANS. Or in other words, the logical FACTS of the Holy Spirit’s thought system have absolutely no wiggle room for interpretation or denial. Only the truth is true.

It is our job only to DISCERN CORRECTLY what is true, and what is false. This can ONLY be accomplished by a full appreciation of the METAPHYSICS, not the words. The words should only be there to reveal pieces of the truth and to point to aspects of the LOGICAL CONSISTENCY. If what we are reading is confusing or does not 100% comply with the rest of the truth, we are in error.

One of the biggest struggles with learning the Course’s metaphysical foundation, is when we THINK that our grasp of the Course’s statements IS logically consistent. If we are actually 100% onto the truth, which is possible, then good for us. If we are "off", but believe we are "on", THIS ITSELF is due to a CONFUSION about what is true, and what is false.

Anyone with an ego WILL BELIEVE that they already know what is TRUE. This is of course a trap. The ego is no different to God this way, in that both stand by whatever is true. The only difference is the ego believes something is true which actually is FALSE. It will defend it just as vehemently as God would, believing that to do so is to protect "self" and continue logical consistency. The problem is since the ego is blind to truth, and therefore limited and incapable of seeing the WHOLE truth, it comes to false conclusions based on its LIMITED awareness of information.

When the ego is believing it knows what is true in the course, defending it "to death", its blindness MUST make it mistaken. It will believe it knows or gets the course. But the ONLY way to grasp what the Course REALLY MEANS, is to have a PERFECT GRASP of the LOGICAL CONSISTENCY of the METAPHYSICS. Otherwise if you have DIFFICULTY with PERFECT LOGIC, you will come to false conclusions. Everything else is storytelling, fiction, interpretation, ego opinion and guesswork. And a whole lot of confusion.

The question then is, whethere YOU are truly being LOGICALLY CONSISTENT in every way possible on every Course topic. If there are "holes" in the logic alone, this is the only criteria for being in error. Not because of someone’s experience or authority or way of writing or years spent doing the course or how many workbook lessons or how proficient with miracles or how old you are or how publicly recognized.

The ONLY barometer for whether you are grasping the Course CORRECTLY, is that you can SEE a highly UNIFIED picture, in which all pieces fit perfectly, with NO CONTRADICTIONS, and an ability to DISCERN even the subtlest of nuances. Fortunately, the metaphysics TELLS YOU what somethig MUST MEAN, based on what is LOGICAL. You can rely on it, depend on it, and refer to it.

And you are supposed to. THE TRUTH IS YOUR GUIDING LIGHT. IT tells YOU what is true. The metaphysical logic TELLS YOU whether a given course quote means one thing or another. Not the ego’s ability to figure it out. Not a person’s prowess or personality. Only the truth is true.

There IS only one true metaphysics. There IS only one truth. Jesus HAS given a PERFECTLY LOGICALLY CONSISTENT COURSE. If we do not SEE the logical consistency, it’s because of our ego. Use that as a MIRROR therefore to show you where you MUST be in denial, with a willingness to be MISTAKEN, so that if the Course says something is TRUE, and it is consistent, you must ACCEPT IT. That means dropping your ego’s personal opinion.

We do not get to decide what the truth is. God established the truth. The metaphysics of the course reflects the truth. The WORDS of the Course are BASED ON the metaphysics. Grasp the metaphysics and none of the words will confuse you!

For example.

Fear is the opposite of love. Yet love has no opposite. An opposite to love must produce a state which does not exist.

This is LOGICAL. Similarly, Heaven has no opposite, "earth is opposite to heaven in every way", therefore IT IS PERFECT LOGIC to say that "earth does not exist." The logic itself tells you this must be true.

For example.

What is not love is murder. Anything which is not 100% perfect love, is murder. Even slight disagreements or even "agreeing to disagree", which is an illusion of peace, IS MURDER. You can deduce WHY this makes sense, if you look at the logic, and why this is *black and white*.

In the thought system of Oneness, what applies to you applies equally to everyone. There is nothing true about you which is not true about everyone. Everyone shares the truth (God). In truth, logically, you cannot attack your brother WITHOUT directly attacking yourself. DIRECTLY. Because what is true of them, INSTANTLY and ALWAYS is true of you. If they are hurt, you MUST be hurt. If you "cause" them to change, YOU must experience the effects.

...WHICH MEANS LOGICALLY.... if there is a thought system in which something applies to an other which does NOT apply to you, a separation has been introduced. This separation MUST logically come between you and your brother. It then means, what applies to you, SEEMS not to apply to them. SO.... if you were to attack your brother, it would SEEM, you can "cause them" to experience effects, which YOU do not experience! This is 100% logical.

This therefore means, in the ego thought system, you can seem to attack/cause your brother and ESCAPE ALL CONSEQUENCES (effects). This LITERALLY MEANS, logically, you can "get away with attacking", ie, escape the attack, ie you can attack without being affected. With no repercussions. This is PRECICELY the meaning of "getting away with murder."

And this is why, if there is any SHRED of belief that what appleis to someone else does not apply to you, because you are not ONE, that you are not perfectly equal in every way, you ARE being MURDEROUS! Hence, logically, what is "not love", MUST be murder, even if it seems to be a tiny degree of difference. Every argument on this forum is murderous!

Every difference of opinion is murderous! People being in separate bodies is murderous! This also means, the logical truth of the Course REDEFINES the meaning of "murder", by clearly demonstrating FOR US what murder MUST BE. Murder is not ONLY one person stabbing another to death. It is ALL degrees of attack.

It is also easy to logically conclude, that even though in a thought system of "cause being separate from its effect" (Father separate from Son), even if it SEEMS like you can get away with murder, YOU DO NOT. Because it is TRUE, that the thought system of Oneness ALWAYS APPLIES. Oneness has no oppposite, so its thought system has no true opposite. Which means, logically, even if you think you CAN get away with being murderous, YOU DO NOT escape the effects of what you cause! Therefore, you ARE attacking yourself when you attack your brother, and your body WILL suffer and be sick if you use it to attack others. Not my opinion. Perfect metaphysical logic.

All of this is LOGICALLY DEDUCED. It is a perfectly logically consistent conclusion. THIS MUST BE what the course says is true. This is METAPHYSICS. There is NO opinion here. This is not my personal viewpoint. If you see ANY logical fallacy, by all means let us know so that we can find a TRUER and MORE CONSISTENT truth.

It is possible to use simple logic to understand EVERYTHING that Jesus is telling us in the Course, in terms of what the Course MEANS. This DOES include the correct recognition of what ANY kind of terms mean, including often hotly contested CONCEPTS such as "worlds" or whether God could have created the Earth or what the Earth even IS. It SHOULD tell is EXACTLY whether there can be multiple sons and what perception IS. LOGIC can even tell you what death must be, and explain WHY the separation‘s "end result" was the manifestation of FORM as a "physical universe" with illusory planets and bodies. This is concludeable by LOGIC ALONE with zero opinion. The ONLY correct meaning of what these things really are, MUST BE LOGICALLY CONSITENT. Otherwise it is conjecture, aka ego bullshit.

The same is true for all Course theology, all creation stories, determining whether there are multiple sons or God, how the entire ego thought system functions, what is heaven, what is not, and everything in between. The only question is, WHAT IS LOGICALLY TRUE AND CONSISTENT?! The Course’s TRUTH is absolutely 100% consistent.

If we are not seeing HOW it is consistent and something seems not to fit, it comes down to our ego - our own ability or lack of to LOGICALLY RECOGNIZE what is true, vs what is false. If we have difficulty with logic, or dealing with black and white statements, we WILL have difficulty understanding the course, and MUST come to false conclusions. That too is part of the logic.

It is also true, that the Course CAN be learned, the Truth is NOT obscure, the Truth is NOT mysterious, it IS possible to understand what Jesus means on ALL topics, and there should be NO confusion or disagreement about what Jesus is teaching. The only conflict comes from different ego’s attempting to have their truth be the one truth. Only the truth is true. We can ONLY ACCEPT IT, together, in agreement. We cannot MAKE IT.

Learn the metaphysics, and you will see what the Course is really saying, meaning, intending, and what is TRUE. This will transcend ALL words, all people’s opinions, even your own. If all you want is to let the truth TELL YOU what is true, you will learn the Course. To learn it REQUIRES that you put aside all of your own ego, otherwise you will misunderstand it.

"The Course" is not in the book. It exists as metaphysical states of mind whose relationships and interconnections are 100% logically defined. Everything about the ego can be described with perfect logic. Even creation is logical. Jesus is nothing if not EXTREMELY LOGICAL, because only that kind fo black and white clarity will show you what is TRUE, and what is FALSE.

IF we were to only ever talk of *metaphysics*, there would be no ROOM for opinion and no room for the ego. Then there will be peace.

"A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at ALL levels. Illness, which is really "not Right Mindedness", is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the misbelief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another."

"All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rested on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter, which can control the mind."

"It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents."

"The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it. If the mind believes the body is its goal, it will distort its perception OF the body, and by blocking its own extension BEYOND it, will INDUCE illness by FOSTERING SEPARATION. Perceiving the body AS A SEPARATE ENTITY cannot but foster illness, because it is not true. A medium of communication WILL lose its usefulness if it is used for anything else. ... To use a medium of communication as a medium of attack is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer?"

"The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND'S FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND'S JOY."

"LET yourself be healed, that you may be forgiving, offering salvation to your brother AND yourself. A broken body shows the mind has NOT been healed. A miracle of healing proves that separation is WITHOUT effect. What you would prove to him you will believe."

"All sickness comes from a confusion of the levels."

"Sickness is but another form of guilt."

"Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not true. Free your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility, and your full awareness of its complete impossibility, lies your only hope for release."

"Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself."

"Sickness is a defense against the truth."

"Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. Now are you sick that truth may go away, and threaten your establishments no more."

"The body cannot heal, because it cannot MAKE ITSELF SICK. It NEEDS no healing. Its health or sickness depends ENTIRELY on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it FOR."

"The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use it for attack it is harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you. If you use the body for this, and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion IS. "

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you.Use it for sin or for attack, which is the same as sin, and you will see it as sinful. Because it is sinful it is weak, and being weak, it suffers and it dies.Use it to bring the Word of God to those who have it not, and the body becomes holy. Because it is holy it cannot be sick, nor can it die. When its usefulness is done it is laid by, and that is all. The mind makes this decision, as it makes all decisions that are responsible for the body's condition."

"The IDEA of separation PRODUCED the body, and remains connected TO it, MAKING it sick because of its identification WITH it. ... "You THINK you are PROTECTING the body by HIDING this connection. For this concealment SEEMS to keep your identification safe from the "attack" of truth. If you but understood how much this strange concealment has hurt your mind, and how confused your own identification has become to you, BECAUSE of it! You do not see how great the devastation wrought by your faithlessness. For faithlessness is an attack, which SEEMS to be justified by its RESULTS. For, by withholding faith, you see only what IS unworthy of it, and cannot look BEYOND the barrier to what is joined with you."

"Sickness is but another name for sin. Healing is but another Name for God. The miracle is thus a call to Him."

"Thus are you JOINED in sickness, to preserve the little gap unhealed, where sickness is kept carefully protected, cherished, and upheld by firm belief, lest God should come to bridge the little gap that leads to Him."

"Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. "

"Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh which it can not surmount."

"Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you MAKE whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health, is to recognize in hatred the call for love."

"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. Yield not to this, and you will see all pain in every form wherever it occurs but disappear as mists before the sun."

"Only the wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus. What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful, and very dangerous. See no illusion of truth and beauty there."

"Illusions carry only guilt and suffering, sickness and death, to their believers. The form in which they are accepted is irrelevant. No form of misery, in reason's eyes, can be confused with joy."

"Any form of mental illness can truthfully be described as an expression of viciousness. We said before that those who are afraid are apt to be vicious. If we were willing to forgive other people's misperceptions of us, they could not possibly affect us at all."

"Pain, illness, loss, age and death seem to threaten me. All my hopes and wishes and plans appear to be at the mercy of a world I cannot control. Yet perfect security and complete fulfillment are my inheritance. I have tried to give my inheritance away in exchange for the world I see. But God has kept my inheritance safe for me."

"The guiltless mind cannot suffer. Being sane, it heals the body because IT has been healed. The sane mind cannot conceive of illness, because it cannot conceive of attacking anything or anyone."

"For example, do not say, 'God did not create illness', but, 'God did not create cancer,' or heart attacks, or whatever may arouse fear in you. ... This is your personal repertory of horrors at which you are looking.These things are part of the world you see. 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. Therefore, it has no meaning."

"The gap IS little. Yet it holds the seeds of pestilence and every form of ill, because it is a WISH to keep apart, and NOT to join. And thus it seems to give a CAUSE to sickness which is NOT its cause. The PURPOSE of the gap is all the cause that sickness has. For it was made to keep you separated in a body which you see as if it were the CAUSE of pain. The cause of pain is separation, NOT the body, which is only its EFFECT."

"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. As you perceive the harmlessness in them, they will accept your holy will as theirs. And what was seen as fearful now becomes a source of innocence and holiness."

"Pain is the thought of evil taking form, and working havoc in your holy mind. Pain is the ransom you have gladly paid not to be free. In pain is God denied the Son He loves. In pain does fear appear to triumph over love, and time replace eternity and Heaven. And the world becomes a cruel and a bitter place, where sorrow rules and little joys give way before the onslaught of the savage pain that waits to end all joy in misery."

"Pain demonstrates the body must be real. It is a loud, obscuring voice, whose shrieks would silence what the Holy Spirit says, and keep His words from your awareness. Pain compels attention, drawing it away from Him, and focusing upon itself. Its purpose is the same as pleasure, for they both are means TO MAKE THE BODY REAL. What shares a common purpose IS the same. This is the law of purpose, which unites all those who share in it within itself. Pleasure and pain are EQUALLY unreal, because their purpose CANNOT be achieved. Thus are they means for nothing, for they have a goal without a meaning. And they share the lack of meaning that their PURPOSE has. "

"Sin shifts from pain to pleasure, and again to pain. For EITHER witness is the same, and carries but one message, "You are here, WITHIN this body, and you CAN be hurt. You can have pleasure, too, but ONLY at the cost of pain."

"Pain is a wrong perspective. When it is experienced in any form, it is a proof of self-deception. It is not a fact at all. There is no form it takes which will not disappear if seen aright. For pain proclaims God cruel. How could it be real in any form? It witnesses to God the Father's hatred of His Son; the sinfulness He sees in him, and His insane desire for revenge and death. Can such projections be attested to? Can they be anything but wholly false?"

"Pain is but witness to the Son's mistakes in what he thinks he is. It is a dream of fierce retaliation for a crime that could not be committed; for attack on what is wholly unassailable. It is a nightmare of abandonment by an Eternal Love Which could not leave the Son whom It created out of love."

"If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

"Of one thing you were sure; of all the many causes you perceived as bringing pain and suffering to you, your guilt was NOT among them. Nor did you, in ANY way, REQUEST them for yourself. This is how ALL illusions come about. The one who makes them does NOT see himself as making them, and their reality does NOT depend on him. Whatever cause they have is something quite APART from him, and what he sees is SEPARATE from his mind. "

"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. "

"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. "

"Delay will hurt you now MORE THAN BEFORE, ONLY because you realize it IS delay, and that escape from pain IS REALLY POSSIBLE. Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this. You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in ANY special relationship here."

"This makes it an end and not a means in your interpretation, and this ALWAYS means YOU STILL FIND SIN ATTRACTIVE. No-one accepts Atonement for himself who still accepts sin as his goal. You have thus not met your one responsibility. Atonement is not welcomed by those who PREFER pain and destruction."

"You are accustomed to the notion that the mind can see the source of pain where it is not. The doubtful service of displacement is to hide the REAL source of your guilt, and KEEP from your awareness the full perception THAT IT IS INSANE."

"This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. 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."

"I cannot suffer any loss or deprivation or pain because of who I am. My Father supports me, protects me, and directs me in all things. His care for me is infinite, and is with me forever. I am eternally blessed as His Son."

"Every illusion carries pain and suffering in the dark folds of the heavy garments with which it hides its nothingness. Yet, in these dark and heavy garments, are those who seek illusions covered, and hidden from the joy of truth. Truth is the opposite of illusions, because it offers joy."

"No risk is possible throughout the day except to put your trust in magic, for it is only this that leads to pain. There is no will but God's."

"And to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause, and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God."

"To the ego, the body IS TO ATTACK WITH Equating YOU with the body, it teaches that YOU are to attack with, because THIS IS WHAT IT BELIEVES. The body, then, is not the source of its own health. Its condition lies solely in your interpretation of its function. "

"These are not laws, but madness. The body is endangered by the mind that hurts itself. The body suffers that the mind will fail to see it is the victim of itself. The body's suffering is a mask the mind holds up to hide what really suffers. It would not understand it is its own enemy; that it attacks itself and wants to die. It is from this your 'laws' would save the body. It is for this you think you are a body."

"Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to YOU. UNLESS you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly WANT them."

Looking for love outside of yourself is the primary function of the ego and one of the toughest lessons to overcome. We all seem to want other people to love us. We have some kind of need to have parents and children love us, to be loved by another special person or persons, to be surrounded with friends who love us, etc.

Being loved by a lot of people is a trap, if you depend on it. And if you haven't become willing to NOT be loved by others, you still are in the ego. You will not be able to be true to yourself or to speak the truth or demonstrate love's reality if you are not willing to allow others to reject it.

God is the source of love, as are all your brothers in Heaven, but the love they share with you is no different to the love that is in you, which you are created from. You already have this love inherently, so do not really need it at all from anywhere else. You are not being loved by God due to some "need", you are loved by God as an act of sharing His love with you who are already love. You were created by love, as love, to love, and there is no lack of love in you, therefore no neediness.

What happens is, due to the separation ie egoic blocks to the awareness that we already have all the love we need, we perceive a lack of love in ourselves. This is the same thing as believing God is absent - that we ourselves are absent. This perceived lack is a darkness, and it compels us to want to alleviate the unhappy sensation of that absence.

But the ego counsels, instead of actually questioning if the blocks are real, or that the love might STILL be present behind them (if you were to just remove them), to believe the blocks have really made the love go away and to then seek for a solution somewhere else.

This seeking is a sense of false neediness, which believes that the only way to have salvation is by finding it anywhere other than within yourself. The ego suggests it is not in you already, so you better look elsewhere, and that by looking elsewhere there is some kind of hope or possibility of finding it. This is a lie.

So then begins the external searching, and since you are not responsible for or aware of the love in yourself, you now look to make others responsible for providing it for you. So now they automatically are perceived as having to fulfill this "function" of being the source of love and salvation for you. Absolutely everyone will perceive this function as belonging to others if there is any block to awareness or ego present in the mind, guaranteed.

First of all, there is a fundamental problem with this. By believing there is not already the love of God in you, you believe it is absent due to some kind of unworthiness or impossibility. That belief, which is an error, when left uncorrected, lingers in the mind and asserts that you will NOT ACCEPT love within yourself. Separation from the awareness that love is in you already was an act of rejection, not acceptance, so now you are not willing to let there be love in you.

So even though your mind is now making others responsible for supplying the lack due to the belief that it's not inside you, and cannot come from God (this is one of the ego's "laws of chaos"), even IF someone external were to try to supply you with love, you would not be willing to actually let it enter you. You will do what you can to try to get it inside of you, but so long as you believe in your inner lack of it, and therefore the need for it, you are actively blocking its receipt. So then people could be surrounding you with the most magnificent love and you STILL would not believe you are loved enough.

The other part to this then, is that by believing the only possible location of love is "not in you" ie outside of you, you depend entirely on other people or objects or idols or false Gods or specialness to do FOR you and TO you what you refuse to do yourself. This is another step in the ego's laws of chaos - seeking for this "special something" which is supposed to solve your inner lack, by finding it outside of you in people or drugs or alcohol or possessions or money or success or idol worship etc.

IF those external sources, for some reason, seem to be willing to give to you something that you think you want, be it specialness or some kind of semblance of "love", your ego will to some degree seem to be satisfied. The problem is, you won't be able to fully receive it. Not only is it impossible to get fictional special love into you, you are not really wanting to receive it anyway. So now you will go back and forth between delighting in what this person "does to you", and resenting them for failing to undo your emptiness. You'll think that them loving you is the most wonderful thing you ever experienced, but it still falls short of the love of God or, more importantly, falls short of your own willingness to accept love for yourself.

IF on the other hand, the person or external source is taken away or denied or there is a refusal or rejection, well now you are really up shit creek. Because now your mind is believing the only source of salvation is external, you have this huge pressing need to "get" it, and the external is saying "no" and sticking its middle finger up at you. So now you are left hanging. You have this huge unconscious self hatred, a huge sense of neediness and lack, and no-one is willing to supply something to fill the hole.

That leaves you in a state of unfulfillable turmoil, like there is absolutely no way to solve your problem, and that throws you into a rage. This is essentially the definition of hell - a state in which you need something and the need can never be filled, so you have absolutely no hope of "escape", there is no one to save you, you are left suffering alone and with no way to solve it, and so you are more or less eternally damned. That is, unless you question the lies this is based on.

The unconscious self hatred will then surface as "special hate" and will blame the other for not doing to you what they are supposed to be doing to you. It will be all their fault that they are not "loving you" or giving you what you think you want. And this can be in the form of a bad parent or an abusive partner or a job that makes your life suck or the government sucking off all your money or whatever. When the love is denied you, you go off the rails with insanity because all you can see before you is a hopelessness and an impossibility of meeting your need.

This can also be the driving force behind people turning to crimes like rape and murder in an effort to forceably "take" from others what they are refusing to give you. It's a state of desperation. The ego has convinced the person they are so lacking in love that they are so empty and so unlovable that there is a really, really strong neediness and dependency on others to supply it, and no-one seems willing to supply it, so other people must be evil hoarders of the "specialness'' and it now has to be wrestled from them against their will.

This is the culmination of the ego's laws of chaos, in which it inspires attack and rape and murder and hatred in an effort to get from others what they refuse to give. And such a person will see those others are being entirely to blame for failing to love them, and they will see themselves as completely justified and entitled to take what they want, as if it is what they deserve and are being unfairly denied. They will believe that others have "stolen" what is theirs, and that they must rightfully take it back. Things get pretty vicious at this stage.

If you look at this with compassion and understanding you can see that when people get really desperate and needy for external sources of salvation like this, which is mental illness (inner peace is healthy, external searching is mental illness), they are really just trying to address this sense of lack and emptiness and the absence of love within themselves. They are just going about it in the only way that their broken perception tells them is possible - getting it from outside - and if the sense of it being denied is too great internally, they will feel *dependant* on getting it from outside and driven to HAVE to take it by force, almost like someone who is gasping for air and trying to stay alive.

Therefore the attempted rape and murder of others is actually someone who perceives such absence of love within themselves that no matter how hard they try they can't get the love into themselves, and so claw at others viciously and violently trying to take it, as if their life depends on it. All that's happening is their perception is very backwards and they are so convinced of their unworthiness and unlovability that they see others are unworthy and unlovable and so deserving of being taken from. It is really that the person has taken away from themselves and now perceives this denial of love as if coming from others.

So while some of us are in sort of in-between states of feeling a neediness or "why it is unfair that other people don't love me" and "surely I'm lovable, why are people not liking me" and "if only they would love me more" or whatever... we are still on the downward spiral towards viciousness. We just didn't become quite so desperate yet as for it to turn into a violent attempt to take it from others, but we're doing basically the same process. A perceived absence of love within, leads to an automatic quest to get it from without. And then it is everyone else's responsibility to supply it, and if they do not, it is their fault not ours. "What is not love is murder" because when love is perceived to be absent it produces a murderous desire to take it from someone else against their will.

Even if others were to supply huge amounts of love to us, if we are not willing to accept that it is deep inside of us and therefore has been deeply received and acknowledged as something we are worthy of, we will reject it. You can be surrounded by people loving the heck out of you and still believe there is something wrong with you. It's really got nothing to do with whether someone else loves you or not.

Them loving you does not make you believe you are lovable. Them not loving you does not make you believe you are lovable. The only way to believe you are lovable is for YOU to believe it ABOUT YOURSELF, IN SPITE OF what anyone else believes or does. And this boils down to simply accepting that love is INSIDE you, it is present, and it's there because God is there, and God is love, and God is the ONLY SOURCE OF LOVE. "There is no love but God's". God IS the only source of love, you cannot get it anywhere else, it does not exist separate from you, and seeking for it externally is absolutely guaranteed to fail every time because it is NOT OUT THERE.

So we all go through this dynamic and to varying degrees, some of us accept God's love more than others. It's all about degrees of awareness of the presence of love within us, and therefore a WILLINGNESS to ACCEPT that it is there and that we are worthy of it. We ARE worthy of God's love, but even though we are worthy of it, we can still choose to deny it believe otherwise if we want to. In other words, love does not FORCE us to be loved.

Love does not enter where it is not welcome! And that means, love from other people CANNOT get into you if it is not welcome. And so in order to welcome and receive the love from others, you HAVE to be willing to have love be welcome WITHIN YOU FIRST, which means you then accept there is love within you ALREADY, are aware of it (God's Presence in your mind and heart), and therefore DO NOT NEED TO GET IT FROM ELSEWHERE.

Opening up to accept the atonement, which is the acknowledgement and recognition and acceptance and awareness of the CONSTANT LOVE being shared by God and your TOTAL WILLINGNESS to receive it and accept it as the truth about you, is the *ONLY SOLUTION* to this problem of love's absence.

And once this problem is solved, there is no further need to get love from anywhere else, no need to have people love you or not love you, no need to be special, no need for special attention, no neediness or attention-seeking or acting out or being a sexual slave or selling yourself out or abandoning yourself or people pleasing or vicious attempts to take "yourself" from those who supposedly stole YOU from you. Since you are love, you believe that if others have the love and are supposed to give it to you, you believe they are supposed to give YOU to you and therefore are responsible for making you what you are. And it doesn't work.

You ARE love. Accepting that you are love accepts the love is IN YOU and therefore there is no LACK and therefore no NEED to seek for it where it does not exist, and therefore you couldn't GIVE A SHIT what anyone thinks of you, whether they love you or hate you, it has absolutely no bearing on whether you are happy or not. YOU are responsible for choosing your happiness, no-one else is responsible for your happiness, and no-one else has any power to take it from you.

Getting your love from within/God gives you thus tremendous psychological strength and invulnerability and resilience and confidence and certainty and knowing, which cannot be swayed or affected by anything external. Having not GIVEN anything external the power to give TO you the love you are lacking, you also have not given anything external the power to deny your lovability on your behalf, and therefore you are NOT at the effect of the world. Accepting the atonement is the key to immortality.

Once you accept it from God, it's a done deal. Permanent love within you and flowing through you. Then it becomes more about you extending love to others through you so that you SHARE IN IT and thus experience it as having been received by you from God (to have all, give all to all), rather than trying to manipulate others into making this decision for you. Now that you are able to love IN SPITE OF whether other people are loving you back or not, that is unconditional love. To love others even if they hate your guts, are attacking you, are pushing you away, and want nothing to do with you. Even if they don't see you, or acknowledge you, or recognize you. To love them anyway. Teach only love because that is what you are.

God loves you right now 100%. Can you accept it? You already ARE it, whether you accept it or not.

MY SICKNESS IS MY RESPONSIBILITY

OTHER PEOPLE'S SICKNESS IS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY

YOU CAN’T WAKE PEOPLE UP FOR THEM

Jesus has the power to undo all sickness in a brother right now, BUT WILL NOT if they do not want it. Love cannot enter where it is not welcome!

I am responsible for everything I experience. Other people are responsible for everything they experience. This is directly supportive of the secret to salvation, that "we are doing this to ourselves".

All sickness we are experiencing is something we are doing TO OURSELF.

Right now, God is 100% awake, and because of this, it IS IMPOSSIBLE that there be sickness in any mind anywhere. In reality anyway. However, Sons of God have the illusory "ability" to DENY GOD. When they do so, they put denial in place, which is a block to life, which implements sickness. This is a FREE WILL CHOICE.

Love does not force anyone to be healed of this against their will. Jesus will simply WAIT for us until we are ready to accept the truth.

This is also why we must have A LITTLE WILLINGNESS, because only when we are WILLING to receive the truth, can the Holy Spirit take the opportunity to heal us. And he WILL take any opportunity we give him, no matter how small. But if we do not give that willingness, we will stay in our illusions of sickness for as long as we choose to against His will.

If we are not willing with God, doing God's will, we are willing against God. That's the entire point of the separation, the idea of sin being that we willed against God (yes, its fiction). If we BELIEVE it, individually, we will enter into a dream of suffering and death. And sickness will feature heavily in that dream because it is what we choose. It won't be real sickness at all, but we'll believe it is, using it as a device for keeping God's love at bay. Sickness is a DEFENSE against the truth. A block to awareness.

To understand this correctly REQUIRES that you believe that there are multiple sons of God, each with their own individual free will. Because if you don't, it will not make sense. To be able to have "your own choice" as to whether you are WILLING to receive healing, your own choice as to whether to ALLOW LOVE IN, is necessary in order to have a "separate will" which acts against God's will. There are many separate wills.

This is also required in order to understand how Jesus could wake up completely and yet that the rest of us are dragging our feet in snoozeville. We do not have the free will to set the curriculum ("learning to love"), but we DO have the free will to DELAY it or to choose WHEN to take it. That means we can choose NOT to accept God's will or God's healing. We can deliberately KEEP sickness if we want to, against God's will, and against Jesus's will. And it is true that there is NOTHING they will or can do about this, except gently lead us to see the error of our ways over time.

Jesus tells us that our will is AS POWERFUL as His, and that this is why he cannot forcibly take away our fears or sicknesses against our will. If we want them or hold onto them, he cannot take them. We have to be WILLING TO LET GO. Just because we are using our powerful will to make an illusion of being weak and little and powerless, doesn't mean our will is diminished at all. Mind retains its creative power at all times. Jesus CANNOT and WILL NOT go against this.

This means that even though AWARENESS OF LOVE can be complete in one brother (e.g. Jesus), it can be highly absent in another, at the same time. "Miracles are gifts given by those who temporarily have more, to those who temporarily have less." This is because IT IS POSSIBLE in illusions for some individuals to be MORE AWAKE THAN OTHERS. That means, it is NOT TRUE, that one person's healed perception automatically heals everyone. It does not. It OFFERS healing to everyone, but other people CAN REFUSE IT. And they CAN retain forms of sickness as long as they want "against your will."

Awakening to the awareness of love's presence cannot extend to the entire sonship UNTIL the sonship is FREELY WILLING to receive it, every single "individual son" has to choose it and be willing to accept it. IF they do not, the sonship remains incomplete, and there's nothing it can do about it other than to keep OFFERING love and waiting patiently for the rest of the sonship to wake up. Love is not forceful. It has INFINITE PATIENCE, which would not be NEEDED unless people weren’t so resistant.

It is true AT SOME LEVEL that your mind is ONE with the mind of others. That you share a mind. You share a mind with Jesus. However, awareness of that sharing can only be fully experienced when both of you are completely purified and healed. And then you will SHARE that state of love.

But until then, it is perfectly possible within illusions for you to REJECT that union, to deny reality, and to choose against God's will. Thus you will retain your own freely chosen sickness and problems, regardless of whether you are surrounded by infinite love and healing or not. God surrounds us RIGHT NOW with unlimited healing, and yet we STILL keep projecting images of sickness in order to REFUSE IT.

This is also why it was possible for Jesus to go around giving a GIFT OF HEALING to those who were suffering, sick, missing limbs, blind, even dead, unable to help themselves due to their own unawareness that they were doing this to themselves, and yet who had enough FAITH in HIS ability, enough trust, enough willingness, to ALLOW Him to heal them for them. You do NOT need to be fully awake in order to receive a miracle! And you CAN only receive it if you TRULY WANT IT.

"The miracle is taken first on faith, because to ask for it implies the mind has been made ready to conceive of what it cannot see and does not understand. Yet faith will bring its witnesses to show that what it rested on is really there. And thus the miracle will justify your faith in it.."

Having enough FAITH i.e. trust and WILLINGNESS to receive HELP, from outside of yourself, from a brother who has more love than you do right now, who is more ABLE to help right now, is enough to RECEIVE help from beyond your own current abilities. All you need is ENOUGH trust to allow the Holy Spirit HIMSELF to perform the miracle FOR YOU, from beyond your awareness, showing up as demonstrations of TANGIBLE CHANGES (witnesses), which helps you to learn that HE REALLY IS THERE, and HE REALLY CAN HEAL. This develops trust.

Jesus went around performing miracles for those who temporarily had less, who temporarily were blind, who temporarily were sinful, who temporarily were UNAWARE of the whole truth. He did NOT do this by having a mind which was "pure yet contained sick people". His mind could NOT have been WHOLE, if it was "one with sick people", or had "sick parts" in it. The presence of sick parts in his mind would've rendered him UNCONSCIOUS, just as the presence of ego persona/shadow in our own mind right now renders us UNABLE to be aware of the WHOLE of our identity. Mis-identifying with ego BLINDS YOU. Jesus was WHOLE MINDED, and yet could still perceive the "unwholeness" others were experiencing, without their unwholeness affecting HIS.

Jesus had true perception. Jesus could SEE. He was aware of the truth. He was able to RECOGNIZE that sickness is a complete illusion, not real, and posing no problem whatsoever. This gave HIM this ability to extend the HOLY SPIRIT who is the mechanism of miracles, to perform a healing WHERE it was welcome. And where it was not welcome, HE COULD NOT PERFORM ANY MIRACLES. He had to leave entire villages in suffering because their minds were too resistant to receive healing. His state of awakening did not FORCE anyone else to wake up!

Even if He saw those other people as one with Him, even if He knew them to be "himself" or "ourself", even if He was connected to the entire Power of God, there was NOTHING he could do to help those, at that time, who DID NOT WANT IT. This is because, YOU are responsible for YOUR sickness, and for your willingness. If you are unwilling, healing will not "happen to you". Sick people, with broken limbs and defective organs, will not be healed by your true perception, UNLESS they want it. And thinking that you are "healing yourself" by healing what is showing up "as their sickness" is NOT going to work if they do not want it, because IT IS THEIR RESPONSIBILITY. THEY MADE IT, NOT YOU.

You are responsible for choosing the atonement for yourself. You are responsible for being WILLING to REJOIN the sonship's oneness for yourself. You are responsible for every sickness you experience within yourself, NOT outside of you in others. You are responsible for your own belief in sin. You never attack anyone else, you never affect anyone else, you never do anything to anyone else. And the reverse is true. No-one ever affects you, no-one ever does anything against your will. You are not at the effect of the world. And no-one is at the effect of you. Your attack does not affect others whatsoever, and nor does your love, unless THEY CHOOSE WHAT THEY WILL EXPEIRNCE.

Love can be shared, WHEN it is welcome, and when it is welcome, the person is effectively giving it to themselves. It can be given to those who have a "lack" of it, BY those who have an abundance of it, BECAUSE people are in different states of perception simultaneously. This IS possible because people have an individual will and mind, even if at the highest level they are the One Son. Jesus’s resurrection DID NOT CURE EVERYONE because they did not want to be cured. YOU MUST CHOOSE IT.

Trying to bring about healing by assuming that other people are "you" and therefore their sickness is "your sickness" and that if you undo "that sickness" it will heal the other person, is a twisting of what happens. First of all, it's true that you and your brother are one, yet you are BROTHERS, with your own free will. Secondly, "their sickness" is THEIR CHOICE, not yours, and it is NOT PART OF YOUR MIND, and it is NOT YOUR SICKNESS OR SIN.

When you project YOUR sin, it DOES NOT LEAVE YOUR MIND. Ideas leave not their source. IT stays inside of you. You become split minded and perceive this sin as a separate attacker, attacking some other split off part of yourself. You interact with it as though it is outside of this part of you, as though not yours, but it is ALWAYS IN YOU. It never ever even leaves you and goes over to someone else.

It does NOT put sickness into other people against their will! To suggest you can heal someone else’s sickness "because its really your own" is actually to suggest YOU CAN MAKE SOMEONE SICK AGAINST THEIR WILL AND TAKE IT AWAY AGAIN. This is FALSE! If someone else were choosing never to be sick, your attempted projection of sin could not put sickness into them. And if someone else was choosing never to be sick, YOU COULD STILL be believing that you are a sinner and STILL be trying to project your sin and STILL seeing it in the other person. Your projection has NOTHING to do with other people’s state of mind. Withdrawing your projected sin WILL NOT HEAL THEM, if they have chosen to be sick on their own and want to keep it. Go ahead and try to heal someone who does not want to be healed. It will fail!

Otherwise, if someone could be causing someone else to be sick against their will, which is an EGO BELIEF, someone's sickness would INFECT JESUS by the power of their will. This is an extension of the idea that we CAN sin and hurt God, which is impossible. Our sickness is OUR CHOICE against ourselves. Thirdly, just because you RECOGNIZE that their sickness is entirely an illusion, that does not disappear it FOR THEM if they continue to WILL TO KEEP IT. You cannot override their will. You getting healed WILL NOT wake everyone up. You will wake up FROM them, FROM the illusion, FROM the ego, INTO a state of awareness, but if other people choose to stay in the ego, THEY WILL.

The ACT of attempting to undo that sickness, by cancelling it or not believing in it or asserting it is not there or pushing it away or shining love onto it or whatever, that ACT of trying to FORCE IT TO GO is actually the EGO attempting to have power OVER something it made real. This is the attempt to "heal to destroy", to first make real then try to undo what you made real. That’s you fighting with your own sin. It won’t heal the person’s sickness or yours.

The Holy Spirit MUST BE INVOLVED in all miracles, because He is the mechanism of miracles. HE is the one who heals. HE is the one who is capable of raising the dead. He must be the one who performs the healing of the mind because healing must come from outside of separation. While He does not perceive sickness as REAL, He still nevertheless KNOWS that people are experiencing nightmares and that they NEED HEALING, in spite of the fact that HE is already in a state of TOTAL AWARENESS AND LOVE. He will not FORCE himself onto anyone, and just because HE is healed/healing it does not mean PEOPLE WANT TO RECEIVE HIM. This is why we have to CHOOSE to be willing to listen to his voice rather than the ego. It’s up to us.

It is difficult to accept that some people DO NOT WANT TO BE HAPPY. It is difficult to accept that some people WILL AGAINST GOD AND REFUSE TO ACCEPT LOVE. It is difficult to accept that PEOPLE CHOOSE TO BE SICK and that they want to keep being sick to protect themselves. It is difficult to accept PEOPLE DON'T WANT A MIRACLE, and they DON’T WANT YOUR HEALING. And that's their right. And their freedom. And we are to respect that and be patient in waiting for them to BECOME willing. Love isn't forceful. Miracles don't happen to people against their will.

Believe me I've tried... I've tried many times to heal someone who is very sick, and who was not ready to heal, and it did not work. It was very upsetting to me that I could not heal it. It was a difficult lesson personally, but a necessary one, because until we can see how healing might FAIL (be blocked by the recipient), we may not come to LET GO of the belief in sickness for ourselves.

I eventually asked Jesus why this wasn't working. Despite many prayers and attempts at miracles. Even one time I did a miracle-working act where angels came to help and I felt it was very powerful, and Jesus said that "it was fully given". But.... just because it was fully given, DOES NOT mean it was fully received. I asked Him, why didn't it seem to work.

Why was the person still sick?! And I don’t mean... why was I still believing in sickness... the question was, why did that person still maintain an illusion of symptoms of sickness.

His answer simply... "they are not ready to receive it."

This was discouraging, because I used to believe, like many, that it SHOULD BE POSSIBLE to HEAL EVERONE if I just learn HOW. But it does not work that way. It was, however, encouraging to me to also be told that at some point THEY WILL become ready to receive it, which is heartwarming, but we still have to learn, just because WE are waking up to love and are willing to be miraculous, it does NOT mean other people will suddenly stop being sick or unloving. It is their lesson. It is their choice. We have to allow other people to be sick IF they want to. It's not God's will, but it's that person's will. God does not condone sickness, he offers to HEAL IT RIGHT NOW, but people refuse.

Trying to heal everyone, or to "perform miracles indiscriminately", is what Jesus tells us NOT to do. He knows WHO is willing and ready to receive them, and He will send the appropriate WILLING people to us. This won't be EVERYONE. It will only be those who are ready to receive. Some people are, some people aren't. We won’t get to be hero saviors or "ego healers" because other people are NOT playing along with our fantasy.

And just because Jesus COULD POTENTIALLY heal everyone in an instant, THEY DO NOT WANT IT. I asked Jesus time and again to heal someone and do you know what he said, "I cannot". And I asked why - why would someone so powerful and capable and miraculous NOT be able to heal it. "They don’t want it."

Sorry to say... this is why TIME is still ticking over with events happening and lessons being learned RATHER THAN God simply snapping his fingers and waking everyone up RIGHT NOW "against their will". God ALLOWED US to have our free will dream illusion of separation, knowing that at some point we would return to him unscathed. It is not happening because God wills it. If God had his way we never would’ve even DREAMED of separation. But WE had the free will to choose to pretend it’s possible, and it’s still our free will to keep doing that, EACH OF US, if we want to. Individually.

So please let's get off this perspective that if you heal YOUR perception, everyone else will suddenly be free of sickness. That if YOU don't perceive "sickness", you will not SEE anyone suffering with sickness. That if you gain true perception for yourself, you will be incapable of seeing anyone suffering. Or that their sickness is part of your own mind and therefore you need healing. You are only responsible for what YOU DO TO YOURSELF. And even though at a HIGHER LEVEL they are one with you, THEIR CHOICE is their own.

You will still see the form of people’s bodies being projected with sick characteristics, because that's the will of you brother! But you won't see it AS real sickness, you'll see THROUGH it, and recognize it is JUST AN ILLUSION. Just because you don’t believe sickness is REAL, doesn’t mean you will be incapable of seeing that OTHER PEOPLE still think it is real, or that they are still projecting bodies that are sick. Jesus was perfectly CAPABLE of SEEING people who were in need, people who were suffering, and people who were dying or dead, EVEN THOUGH His perception did not INTERPRET those things as reality. Your recognition of it being an illusion WILL NOT BE SHARED by them until they are WILLING AND READY.

Believe me I've tried many many times to heal indiscriminately and to alleviate suffering and it's not necessarily because I can't, but because the people involved were not willing to be healed. THEY HAVE THE POWER TO REFUSE LOVE. They already HAVE refused love. They already DID reject God's eternal life and totally healed condition. They already HAVE attempted to block miracles and to reject life. (Yes, its an illusion) Even GOD did not overthrow their free will to do this. (yes I know its an illusion, didn't happen)... but God RESPECTS free will and will ALLOW people to keep being sick IF THEY WANT TO. And so did Jesus.

This unfortunately is a hard lesson to learn, that some people simply do not want to be well, want to be sick, want to keep being sick, and there IS nothing you can do about that right now. All you can do is keep praying and offering and extending love that MAYBE they will accept and receive it BY their will, and therefore CHOOSE to be well BY THEIR OWN WILL, and therefore CONCUR with the will of God, and thus RECEIVE the love that heals them. Receiving is a choice. You can still attempt to perform miracles, but even if you give a bucketload of love, it STILL won’t produce effects if it is not welcome or goes against the person’s will.

Until you can receive the atonement or even a small piece of atonement on one particular issue you will not be willing to RECEIVE LOVE AT ALL. The first time that I did a really thorough forgiveness and took it all the way to the atonement principle, becoming WILLING TO ACCEPT THAT IT IS TRUE that I was innocent on a particular topic, I became willing to RECEIVE LOVE FROM GOD finally on that topic, and Jesus said to me "Now you will be able to perform miracles". Because I had be WILLING TO RECEIVE for myself. "You can only give the miracles you have received".!

We can offer healing. We cannot force it. We will not undo everyone’s suffering just by undoing our own. Even if we go to Heaven as Jesus did, knowing sickness is impossible, brothers will STILL be dreaming of sickness for as long as they want to. We can but OFFER love to them and pray for them and send miracles to them, but it’s up to them to let go of their resistance, to CLAIM the healing that has already been given.

God has ALREADY GIVEN ALL HEALING, He has already given eternal life, and yet we refuse it. It’s our choice

God who is love created you lovingly, with love, through love, as love. You are permanently made of immortal love. When you are being true to yourself, you know that the love you are is shared with God, who is your love and who loves you and with you.

God is in you, and you are within you. There is only this inner experience of inclusion. In heaven, given God is everywhere, creation can only increase INTERNALLY through sharing. God shares his INNER being with you and HOSTS you inside of himself. Creation increase inwardly by adding hosts who share that which already is.

In heaven there is no such thing as "outside" or "external" or "excluded" or "separate". When you are everywhere, you encompass everything inside yourself. There, your brothers are not really outside of you surrounding you, they are WITHIN you and share your innermost being. This is the only real way to be intimate - to welcome your brother INSIDE of you psychologically.

"God who encompasses all being..."

The separation, or as I like to think of it more accurately as "the opposition or denial of God/reality", was an attempt to deny that you are inside of God, and to deny that you are host to him. It was an attempt to LEAVE God and go BEYOND the Kingdom, as though stepping OUTSIDE OF reality.

This produced the mad belief in spacetime, which is the idea of being EXILED from heaven, outside and external to the Kingdom, in a place where God could not exist or enter, seemingly separate and a kingdom you rule without him. The opposite to inner reality is obviously outer reality, which produced a kind of EXTERNALIZED idea of existence. The idea of this "world".

Basically, "you are at home in God, dreaming of exile", which means you are imagining that you are not WITHIN, and are WITHOUT. That you are outside of heaven in some other weird dimension (spacetime). It's an illusion of a separate realm outside the Kingdom. And everything in it is focused on the EXTERNAL.

"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." "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."

Whereas in heaven, your brother is inside of you, as is God, because everyone shares and hosts the same stuff, "on earth" (in exile) it appears your brothers are OUTSIDE of you. It seems you are the only one allowed to inhabit your little speck of existence inside the body, the body fences you off from the universe, and everyone else is kept at arm's length. "The body is OUTSIDE you, and SEEMS to surround you, shutting you off from others, and keeping you APART from them, and them from you."

"The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built to separate parts of his Self from other parts. It is within this fence he thinks he lives, to die as it decays and crumbles. For within this fence he thinks that he is safe from love."

So now the body experience becomes one of isolation and imprisonment inside a fence, where the fence ("the body is clearly a device for separation") comes BETWEEN you and others. It's designed like a thick wall to keep them out and keep you in, safe from love (joining/sharing).

You then focus entirely OUTWARD towards the external, as if the external world is all of reality. As you'll notice, all the body's senses are directed to the detection and validation of WHAT IS EXTERNAL to you, and not what is inside you. In fact, the inside of you is considered invisible. Yet it is the INNER WORLD that is the only reality. Heaven's reality is IN YOUR MIND, and God is inside your mind.

"The changelessness of Heaven is in you, so deep within that nothing in this world but passes by, unnoticed and unseen." "And what attracts you from BEYOND the veil, is also deep WITHIN you, unseparated from it, and COMPLETELY One." "He calls to you from deep within your mind where He abides. Hear Him today."

"Only at the altar of God will you find peace, and this altar is in you, because God put it there."

"For still deeper than the ego's foundation, and MUCH stronger than IT will ever be, is your intense and burning love of God, AND HIS FOR YOU."

God is really not external to you. Nor is heaven. It's not out there in the world. God only temporarily seems to be "in everything you see" ONLY because God is IN YOUR MIND FIRST, not because he is outside of it in the world. You don't look out there WITHOUT him in order to see him, and looking WITHOUT him you WILL NOT see him. This is also why such a large portion of workbook lessons are devoted to you going INSIDE behind your clouds and blocks and denials to try to find the door to heaven. Inside your mind, not outside you.

But when you have blocked access to God, who is inside your mind, your experience is that your "inner world" is lacking love and that the awareness of love's presence is blocked there. Because you seem not to have God IN you, as though you are denying your hosting of His love, you see yourself as deprived. Then you project this outward.

This projection of the seeming absence of love forms a dark hallucinated world, the unforgiven world, in which externals are the primary focus, body identification is emphasized, you cling to the physical, and you see yourself and others as separate objects. The body, external to you, looks on the external aspects of others ie their bodies, and regards this as total reality.

"Only the body makes the world seem real." What that means is that the body is designed to make the idea of "outside the Kingdom" real, to make EXTERNALS real, and to focus on illusions of exile, separation, exclusion, isolation and the absence of love (sin).

"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."

Failing to invite, welcome, and experience the love and presence of God INSIDE your mind, you reason that cause and love and presence and God must be OUTSIDE. If you are not the cause, then you are effect, and now you are a victim, at the seeming effect of an external world that you are putting there. Thus you are doing it to yourself. And yet you are convinced the world is externally objectively real, when it is nothing more than an illusion of BEING OUTSIDE the Kingdom.

"Sickness is a method, conceived in madness, for placing God's Son on his Father's throne. God is seen as outside, fierce and powerful, eager to keep all power for Himself." "What is seen outside must lie beyond forgiveness, for it seems to be forever sinful. "

"The good is seen OUTSIDE; the evil, IN."

"An idol is a wish, made tangible and given form, and thus perceived as real, and seen OUTSIDE the mind."

While you may have ideas of God being way out in the far reaches of the universe beyond the stars, I have news for you. God is SO close to you that he is under your skin, behind your body, deeper inside you than even your own split mind and ego, and so close to your soul as to represent the ultimate INNER intimacy. He calls to you FROM WITHIN, not from without. He's not calling to you from the mountain tops or in some external special body or through toys or favorites or any other idols.

This you see is the problem with external salvation. All forms of external searching result in sickness ie mental illness because they take you AWAY FROM where the answer it. The cause and the answer to your problems is INSIDE YOU not outside.

"Peace is an attribute in YOU. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of EXTERNAL searching. Mental health is INNER peace."

You cannot find peace by looking FOR it outside of yourself, in the bodies of others, in the planet, or in space or time. The truth IS NOT out there. The truth is an INNER truth. And the peace of God dwells ONLY INSIDE you in a shared inner experience.

You see, mind can only really experience INSIDE the confines of itself. It cannot go anywhere or be anywhere or experience anything that is truly beyond its own reach. Everything it sees and experiences has to be INTERNAL. And this is also why "ideas leave not their source." And also why you are an idea IN the mind of God, not outside of it.

When you see yourself as lacking love you WILL reason that it was caused to be lacking, as an effect, or an EXTERNAL cause. And now you will project cause, and see causation happening against your will by others doing it to you. And thus you accuse them of sin. And this is not forgiving. But to forgive them has nothing to do with reframing what they're doing, and everything to do with looking INSIDE YOURSELF for the responsibility of causing your own suffering. Just as also inside yourself you'll find freedom from your self-inflicted harm.

Seeking outside you WILL NOT FIND what you are looking for. Because in fact, the more you seek outside, the FURTHER AWAY you become from the thing you are trying to find. This is the ego's entire mantra of "seek and do not find."

It makes sense to you to seek ELSEWHERE when you fail to acknowledge, or be aware of, or accept or be open to, that which IS WITHIN you (God, light, truth, your soul etc). Because if it's not regarded as within, surely it is somewhere ELSE. And so you look somewhere else, and do not find it, because it is not there.

"...everyone who believes that the ego is salvation is intensely engaged in the SEARCH for love. Yet the ego, though encouraging the search very actively, makes one proviso; - do not FIND it. Its dictates, then, can be summed up simply as, "Seek and do NOT find.""

"Such is the ego's plan for your salvation. Surely you can see how it is in strict accord with the ego's basic doctrine, "Seek but do not find?" For what could more surely guarantee that you will not find salvation than to channelize all your efforts in searching for it where it is not?"

""Seek but do not find" remains this world's stern decree, and no-one who pursues the world's goals can do otherwise." You will not find God outside of you. You will not find God in the world or in a book or in a body or in a planet. You will not find God in this universe. This is the world of EXILE, of EXCLUSION, and of EXTERNALIZATION. It is an hallucination precisely because you DO "project out" what you wanted to see IN PLACE OF what is within you.

Searching to find love's SOURCE, will turn up empty handed, when you look to the idea of EXILE FROM the source, which has manifested as EXTERNAL "reality". What is outside the body is not there. Even the body itself is outside of you. It's constructed from the idea of the avoidance of your soul. This is why you can either identify with the body or with spirit - which really is a question of whether the EXTERNAL is real to you, or whether the INTERNAL is real to you.

You will not get love from external people. You do not want to. If you were to succeed in doing so you would no longer look within to find God and would be without him. This is the ego's promise and deception. Real love is not out there. You have to FIRST find it within, if you want to be IN it, enough to be able to EXTEND it, so that you can then RESULT in perceiving it. Remember that "perception is a RESULT not a cause". PROJECTION is the cause. And you project from what you have WITHIN. You can only seem to see God in the world IF you FIRST look within and find God, before projecting his love.

"It also shows some glimmering of sight into perception's law that what you see reflects the state of the PERCEIVER's mind."

"You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this."

Realize then that you first must look INSIDE, and your INNER state of mind is all important. This is also why you have to become miracle minded in order to GIVE miracles. You cannot give what you do not have. "I can only give the miracles I have received." This is also why Jesus says you should look within and find out "there is no sin". You are supposed to find the love INSIDE YOU, which is where love IS. It is not separated off and made external.

When you are IN that INNER love, you are in God. You are IN the light. You are IN the heavenly experience. Then you can EXPRESS that love miraculously. You can SHARE it, but you have to be plugged into it. You cannot go looking for the end result outside of you and then hope this will trigger off the cause.

God is NOT in the world, the world is the idea of existing without him. But if God is IN YOUR MIND, then you will look inside and see God, and project God's love outward, and look upon the LOVE that you have projected, which you put there TO see. It it will reflect God. Not because an illusory world is made of God, but because God REPLACES the illusion of exile with presence.

It is so easy to be deceived by the dangling carrot of spacetime. The great TEMPATATION to draw you AWAY from yourself, to suck you OUT of your mind, to hurl you INTO the world, and to make you FIXATE on bodies. To draw you into hell and away from the heaven of your mind. But what if we simply say, THERE IS NO EXTERNAL WORLD?

"You are not the victim of the world you see because you invented it. You can give it up as easily as you made it up. You will see it or not see it, as you wish. While you want it you will see it; when you no longer want it, it will not be there for you to see."

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal? Could you have FAITH in what you see, if you ACCEPTED this? AND WOULD YOU SEE IT? "

There is no life OUTSIDE of heaven. Outside of heaven life is an ILLUSION of life at best, at worst death. Outside of heaven is a sensless, lawless place, of space and time, governed by laws of death. Because God is not there. The "out there" is NOT OUT THERE. The "in here" IS IN HERE. You must go WITHIN, turn away from the world of distractions, find what you have BURIED deep in your mind, welcome Got back into your awareness, and open up the deep inner doorway to heaven. God is waiting for you INSIDE YOU. He always has been. He did not go anywhere. It's you who wandered off into exile. Turn around and go back to where you came from.

"At last the gate of Heaven (within you) opens and God's Son is free to enter in the home that stands ready to welcome him, and was prepared before time was and still but waits for him."

"The world was made as an attack on God." "The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible." "The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it" "The world is the picture of the crucifixion of God's Son". "The world was made as a place where God could enter not." "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way." "The hell you made".

Okay so, apparently, we MADE some kind of a world, which was designed to attack God, is made of illusions, tries to shut God out, depicts the death of God's Son, and is totally opposite to heaven as a form of hell, where bodies sin and try to prove death can happen.

So now we're in a position where we can ask a really interesting question. What do we do about this? How is this resolved? What's the Holy Spirit's solution? How should we be regarding or viewing this hellish realm of sin and attack and death that we made? What is the way to return to Heaven? How does God deal with this situation?

There are many significant parts of the Course which talk about the fact of what this world IS. It's nature. As described above, an illusory hellish dream of sin and death. In some of the perspectives Jesus gives, he reminds us of how meaningless, pointless, non-existent, purposeless, substanceless this world is.

This seems to be a very important aspect of how we overcome it. A recognition of what it is and what it is not. No rose tinted glasses, no fluffy romantic language, no trying to make it out to BE Heaven or to BE God's creation. Just a simple recognition of its illusory nature, a picture of impossibilities and nonsenser. Just a straight forward honest appraisal of what we made and why it is not real. For example:

"(mind) ... 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 substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

"There is no world" "The world sill spin into the nothingness from which it came." "Eternity will shine away the world." "A world forgiven cannot last."

"Without the idea of death there is no world."

"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 healed mind will put them all in one category; they are unreal."

"God's teachers choose to look on dreams a while." ... "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." ... "Yet they are not deceived by what they see." ... Unity alone is not a thing of dreams. And it is this God's teachers acknowledge as behind the dream, beyond all seeming and yet surely theirs."

So in this perspective, Jesus teaches us that this world we made, is an illusion of a world, which we mistakenly think is REAL. And we're supposed to recognize it's an illusion/dream and not believe in it, we're supposed to recognize it holds nothing that we want, that it is unreal, that we are not of it, the body is not who we are, and really that none of it is happening. "All events are nowhere." It has no consequences, nothing that happens causes anything real, there is no real sin. "All changes wrought are substance-less." And this proceeds all the way to the world disappearing. "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came."

There is no particular love-loss for the world in this view. It's just simple honest recognition of the fact that it is a world made from the denial of the Kingdom, dreamed in an attempt to attack God and His Son, it is illusory and has no real effects, no part of it is valuable or permanent, and it doesn't really exist.

There is, however, also an additional component to coming to recognize "awareness of dreaming of hell". To realize the world is not the real world. And this has to do with the Holy Spirit's reinterpretation of what we made.

The world we made, was made in total "false perception". The body was made to be fixed in a state of false perception, where it does not overlook/forgive ANYTHING. It is blinded by perception of forms. Its vision stops at the outside surface of nothing. It "sees" only what BLOCKS vision. "These eyes made not to see will never see."

The body's eyes can only report that "the world seems real" "it seems to exist" "it seems to be happening." They only see "sin is real" "bodies are sinful". We jumped all the way from perfect Heaven to total hell. We designed the world to be a total opposite to reality. "Earth, heaven's opposite in every way." But what does the Holy Spirit do with this hell that we made?

What he represents and makes possible, is an alternative way of looking at the hell we made. A re-interpretation of it. This doesn't really CHANGE IT, because it can't BE anything other than an illusion. You can't make it BE Heaven - God already accomplished Heaven's creation. But you can learn not to be deceived by it, so that when you see it, you don't BUY INTO IT. You don't MAKE it real to you.

"the Holy Spirit, the RE-INTERPRETER of what the ego made".

"This world is full of miracles. They stand in shining silence next to every dream of pain and suffering, of sin and guilt. They are the dream's ALTERNATIVE, the choice to be the dreamer, rather than deny the active role in making up the dream. They are the glad effects of taking BACK the consequence of sickness to its cause. The body is released, because the mind acknowledges "this is not DONE TO me, but I am doing this." And thus the mind is free to make another choice instead. Beginning here, salvation will proceed to change the course of every step in the descent to separation, until all the steps have been retraced, the ladder gone, and ALL the dreaming of the world undone."

His goal is to UNDO the dreaming of the world. To take back the cause of it. To stop the making of it. To cancel it, reverse it, dissolve it, erase it, disappear it. To STOP DREAMING. This is His aim and guarantee. But before this happens, something happens to how you experience the world you made. We're introduced to this idea that the WAY YOU SEE, perception, can be modified and repurposed, so that you gradually invest in the dream less, believe it's illusions less, are convinced it is a picture of real sin and death less, and so learn to overlook/forgive/forget it.

This means that initially, it seems as if the world is really hell. Unforgiven, it is a "real nightmare". The body is designed to fixate on the nightmare and make it seem real. But we have the ability to change our mind, which changes our beliefs, which change our perceptions. We can choose again and NOT believe in what the world is showing us, and to regard the body as DECEIVING us. It's still a picture of hell. It's still "the strange world you made." It still seems to run by ego laws of death and everything in it still is limited and flawed, per the laws of illusions/death. But if you don't BELIEVE IN IT, you don't take these appearances at face value. You are not deceived. You are not tempted.

"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."

"Be never fearful of temptation, then, but see it as it is; another chance to choose again, and let Christ's strength prevail in every circumstance and every place you raised an image of yourself before. For what appears to hide the Face of Christ is powerless before His Majesty, and disappears before His holy sight."

"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."

"And he will reinterpret ALL temptation as just another chance to bring him joy."

"I am the light of the world" "It is the perfect answer to all illusions, and therefore to all temptation. It brings all the images you have made about yourself to the truth, and helps you depart in peace, unburdened and certain of your purpose."

We're also told that God loves the world. Even though the world is an imaginary illusion of death, a picture of hell, somehow God still loves it so that He does NOT believe in it or mistake it for Reality. But let's be clear, that loving the world does not MAKE the world BE love. It doesn't MAKE it holy. It merely looks upon it WITH love and holiness, forgiving what is there, not believing in what it depicts. The picture of crucifixion turns into an empty MIRROR, in which you see YOUR reflection. In this, the world is meaningless in and of itself, so by taking away its meanings you reflect only Gods' meaning INTO it. This makes the world SEEM holy or heaven-like.

"The world you see cannot be the world God loves, and yet His Word assures us that He loves the world."

"What the world is, is but a fact. (it is a picture of hell) You cannot choose what this should be. But you can choose **how** you would see it."

"God offers the world salvation; your judgment would condemn it. God says there is no death; your judgment sees but death as the inevitable end of life. God's Word assures you that He loves the world; your judgment says it is unlovable. Who is right?"

What he's clearly saying here is that you have dreamed of hell, in an attempt to destroy God and His son. And Earth is still Heaven's opposite. But this hell only seems to have any reality while you believe it is real, while you are judging and deceiving. God does not believe in hell being real. He knows there is no real sin or death. So he looks UPON hell and does not make it real, does not see any proof of real sin in it, sees no evidence of real death happening, and so has no grounds for being anything other than loving. Laughing at it. Shining it away.

So now in the Holy Spirit's true perception, everything about the world is OVERLOOKED, ie not taken at face value. The world is regarded as a thin veil of nothingness hanging over the face of Christ. Substanceless, causeless, not doing anything, imaginary. An image of crucifixion still, but depicting nothing but a fantasy. An image of death and sin still, but depicting only an idle wish that sin and death can happen. It's not taken seriously. And so he does not see REAL sin in it. In this way, the picture of crucifixion is forgiven.

Here before your eyes is a vision of hell, a veil of death, which the body wants to report as real, but which the Spiritual Eye recognizes is entirely fictional and absurd. Not even worth paying attention to. But because the Holy Spirit does not see "real sin" in it, he does not project sin onto it, or judge it, or condemn it, or mistake it for reality. It is now a picture of death, interpreted as nothing, depicting fake sins, containing no real sin, and so it is forgiven. It is not seen as "full of sin". Nor is it sinless. It is a forgiven illusion, seen through and disregarded,.

And so instead it seems to symbolize innocence and holiness. If no attack or hate or judgement is laid UPON it, it's merely seen as a thin veil of illusions. It has lost its heaviness and darkness. It is now a very light picture of darkness. A thin picture of solidity. A loved picture of illusions of hatred. Because the world you made is always an illusion, always artificial, always not real, always false, always a depiction of impossibilities, and always nothing. Not taken seriously, it ends in laughter.

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

"Can what has no beginning really end? The world ***will end** in an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness, ***will cover it***, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ***ends the world*** that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone."

The illusion of forgiveness covers the evil world by not BELIEVING that it is real. By recognizing SIN does not exist. So this picture of sin is false. The perspective of the big picture reveals the world's illusion, and correctly perceives it as a deception. It REPLACES the world's meaninglessness. It SHINES AWAY the world because illusions recognized must disappear. A forgiven world is a world recognized as FALSE. A FALSE world, perceived WITH love, which overlooks and shines away the world. God erases the world with love. You cannot love it and keep it. A world forgiven cannot last.

"This aching world has not the power to touch the living world at all. You could not give it that, and so, although you turn in sadness from it, you cannot find in it the road that leads AWAY from it, into another world. But the REAL world (heaven) HAS the power to touch you even here, BECAUSE YOU LOVE IT (heaven). And what you call with love WILL come to you. Love always answers, being unable to deny a call for help, or not to hear the cries of pain that rise to it, from every part of this strange world you made (Earth, illusion), ***and do not want.*** The only effort you need make, to give this world (Earth) away in glad exchange for what you did NOT make (heaven), is willingness to learn THE ONE YOU MADE IS FALSE."

"Until forgiveness is complete, the world does have a purpose. It becomes the home in which forgiveness is born, and where it grows and becomes stronger and more all-embracing. Here is it nourished, for here it is needed. A gentle Savior, born where sin was made and guilt seemed real."

"When not one thought of sin remains" appears to be a long-range goal indeed. But time stands still, and waits on the goal of God's teachers. Not one thought of sin will remain the instant any one of them accepts Atonement for himself."

"***The world will end*** when its thought system has been completely reversed. Until then, bits and pieces of its thinking will still seem sensible.The final lesson, which brings ***the ending of the world***, cannot be grasped by those not yet prepared *****to leave the world and go beyond its tiny reach.*****"

"The world will **end** in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will **end** in peace, because it is a place of war. When peace has come, what is the purpose of the world? The world will **end** in laughter, because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep? And only complete forgiveness brings all this to bless the world. **In blessing it departs**, for it will not end as it began. To turn hell into Heaven (symbolically) is the function of God's teachers, for what they teach are lessons in which Heaven is ***reflected*** (symbolic)."

To turn hell into heaven simply means, to learn to recognize that the world is not REALLY hell, it is not REALLY anything. It's claims are ignored. It's proof is thrown out. It's picture of death are laughed at. It's sins are not taken seriously. It's illusions do not deceive. The picture of crucifixion is SEEN WITH love, and a **reflection** of love and holiness is seen "in it". As if looking upon a picture of devastation and war in an extremely happy mood. What it claims to be is not what it is. You override it. And then the world disappears completely.

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

"Eternity will **shine away** the world."

"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."

"The world (Earth) stands like a block before Christ's face. But true perception looks on it as ***nothing more than just a fragile veil***, so easily dispelled that it can last no longer than an instant. It is seen at last **for only what it is.** (an illusion of a sin/attack/death world.) And now ***it cannot fail to disappear***, for now there is an empty place made clean and ready. Where destruction was perceived the face of Christ appears, and in that instant ***is the world forgot***, with time forever ended as the world spins into nothingness from where it came."