This is a pretty deep and abstract passage from lesson 167, "There is one life and that I share with God." It speaks of how immortal mind is permanently awake, it thinks of being asleep in which it dreams of a world of spacetime, everything in that dream is nothing with no consequences (there is no world) because it’s a dream of NOT existing and NOTHING happening, and then it simply awakens, the dream world disappears, and it resumes creation with God. You have to read it slowly to really get a feel for it. So I added some commentary...

"The mind (shared with God in heaven) can ***think*** it sleeps, but that is all (has a THOUGHT of sleeping - tiny mad idea). It cannot change what is its waking state (can’t change the truth). It cannot make a body, nor abide within a body (cannot make a REAL body). What is alien to the mind does not exist because it has no source. For mind creates all things that are (all creations in heaven), and cannot give them attributes it lacks, nor change its own eternal, mindful state. It cannot make the physical (literally impossible to REALLY create the physical). What seems to die (the illusion of the physical) is but the sign of mind asleep (mind can only imagine physicality, it cannot create it as a permanent creation, and we are currently "living" within that IDEA).

The opposite of (eternal) life can only be another ***form*** of life (a real opposite is impossible, the physical is not completely opposite, it’s still within God - safe in God, dreaming of exile). As such, it can be reconciled with what created it, because it is not opposite in truth. Its form may change; it may appear to be what it is not. Yet mind is mind (mind is still mind even if it experiences wakefulness or THINKS OF a sleeping state) awake or sleeping. It is not its opposite in anything created (mind MAKES the illusion that mind is absent, free will is used to make the illusion of imprisonment), nor in what it seems to make when it believes it sleeps (even death is a deliberately chosen idea by a *living* mind).

God creates only mind awake. He does not sleep, and His creations cannot share what He gives not, nor make conditions which He does not share with them (not possible to make an actual separation, death, body, etc) The **thought** of death is not the opposite to thoughts of life (absolute death is not possible at all, the thought of death is just an idea WITHIN the awake mind and are illusions, love has no opposite, so death is not a true opposite, it’s just a state of thought). Forever unopposed by opposites of any kind, the Thoughts of God (souls etc) remain forever changeless, with the power to extend forever changelessly but yet within Themselves, for They are everywhere.

What seems to be the opposite of life (eternal life) is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not (e.g. trying to be a world or body), and to assume an alien power which it does not have (made-up ego laws or ability to really sin), a foreign state it cannot enter (illusions of vulnerability, sickness, suffering, death), or a false condition not within its Source (nightmares, attack, sickness etc), it merely ***seems*** to go to sleep a while. It ***dreams*** (thinks of) of time (this whole universe); an interval in which what *seems* to happen never has occurred (tiny tick of time, nothing in this world ever happened), the changes wrought are substance-less (no real consequences, no sin), and all events are nowhere (nothing ever really happens because its a thought of "nothing happening"). When the mind awakes (to the Kingdom of God, and stops dreaming up a world), it but continues as it always was (in heaven).

Let us today be children of the truth, and not deny our holy heritage. Our life is not as we imagine it. Who changes life because he shuts his eyes (failure to acknowledge reality, denial of God), or makes himself what he is not (trying to be a dead body) because he sleeps and sees in dreams (this world) an opposite to what he is? (Everything you see in this world is OPPOSITE to reality - "Earth, heaven’s opposite in every way.") We will not ask for death (this world - "without the idea of death tehre is no world") in **any form** today. Nor will we let imagined (bodies, planets) opposites to (eternal) life abide even an instant where the Thought of Life Eternal has been set by God Himself.

His holy home (heaven) we strive to keep today as He established it, and wills it be forever and forever. He is Lord of what we think today. And in His Thoughts, Which have no opposite, we understand there is one life (eternal life with God), and that we share with Him, with all creation (the Kingdom of God, not this world), with their thoughts as well, whom He created in a Unity of life (all created beings in heaven) that cannot separate in death and leave the Source of Life (God) from where it came.

We share life because we have one Source (God), a Source from Which perfection comes to us, remaining always in the ***holy minds*** which He created perfect (yes God DID create many minds!). As we were, so are we now and will forever be ("we" existing within reality). A sleeping mind must waken (individually) as it sees its own perfection mirroring the Lord of Life so perfectly it fades into what is reflected there (sees the real world, reflects holiness here). And now it is no more a mere reflection (when you go to heaven). It becomes the thing reflected, and the light which makes reflection possible. No vision now is needed (vision/perception has no purpose IN heaven/reality - "Indeed, you cannot remain in the world with this knowledge."). For the wakened mind (awake in heaven, not in a body or in this world any more, not in the dream, not having dreams, not having the thought of the world, not asleep, fully awake in God) is one that knows its Source, its Self, its Holiness."

"Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return."

Recognize in this passage, further confirmation that when the mind is healed, the body CANNOT BE SICK.

Elsewhere Jesus tells us that sickness is merely another form of guilt. If a guiltless mind cannot suffer, it is because without guilt, there cannot be sickness.

Jesus tells us "sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return." ... telling us that it is literally IMPOSSIBLE for sickness to remain or come back, because without guilt, it is impossible. Sickness is MADE OF guilt. It is a thought of sinfulness.

Sickness does mean separation from God. Separation from God does include the mental belief in separation, AND it includes the physical universe and the physical body. All of the content of the ego’s dream of separation is part of "sickness". All of it is governed by this same irrefutable law that when mind is healed, the sickness cannot stay.

This applies to all levels and forms. And it is because of this, that the entire physical universe WILL DISAPPEAR when the entire sonship relinquishes the last ounces of guilt and sin. This is also why when the body is finally recognized as an idea of sin ("the idea of sin made flesh and projected outwards"), it too will DISAPPEAR - not die. The dream is left by truth, not death.

This does NOT mean that the mind transcends sickness and the sickness remains, with the mind being all happy and peaceful "in spite of sickness". A broken body PROVES the mind has not been healed, and a healed mind shows it’s PROOF of healing by demonstrating a body free of sickness.

While sickness remains in the body, we are accusing our brothers and the whole world of attacking and causing us to suffer. We are being victims, defending against truth, and are in denial of awakening. We also put sickness into the body in order to PROVE that we can be hurt. Why would we do that, if we are at peace and awake? We not only would not, we could not.

It is easy to say that sick bodies and healthy bodies are all the same. However, this is the experience of the final atonement of the entire sonship, and if it is not being experienced, it remains a concept. To experience your own body with a HOLY mind, causing the body to be free of sickness, is the first step in "personal atonement".

To undo and disappear the body is a major accomplishment. But until ALL BODIES ARE HEALED because ALL MINDS ARE HEALED, only then when *everyone is experiencing holiness* does it matter that all bodies are the same illusion. Only then, as the entire sonship wakes in union, is it experientially true that all bodies are the same illusion, and at that point, there CANNOT BE ANY SICK BODIES.

No one dies without their own consent. No one is sick without their own consent. The secret salvation is that you do it all to yourself. You choose it. Somewhere, somehow, you choose it. Consent to suffer is not awakening. Consent to be sick and die is not peace. If people do not wish to continue to suffer, they must CHOOSE AGAIN. And they have the power to do so.

Everyone has the power to undo ALL of the suffering of the world. Otherwise, how will you be the light and salvation of the world if you are half dead or worse? Suffering is optional, provided you want the conditions that accompany health. Healed mind, healed body.

"The central lesson is always this; that what you use the body for it will become to you. Use if 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." - ACIM

Look at the pivotal second line. "What you use the body for it will become to you."

So this literally means, the body *exactly matches* what you use it for.

This means, if just a moment ago you were using the body for one purpose, and you change your mind, the body MUST change. If you then change your mind back to how it was before, the body MUST change back as well. There ARE no other causes of the body’s condition besides the mind.

The state of the body directly matches, is tied to, and absolutely has NO SEPARATE WILL OR POWER over the mind’s choice of what it wants to express.

If the mind chooses to express beliefs in sin and death, the body will SHOW UP as a picture of sin and death.

If the mind chooses to express acceptance of atonement, the body will SHOW UP as a picture of perfection and immortality.

The body is a projection from the mind. Mind changes, body changes. Mind is cause, body is effect.

It is ONLY the belief that the body has a mind of its own, a will of its own, that it persists without your input, that it came to exist without your decision, and that it can die *against your will* - - all of which is a belief in MAGIC and VICTIMHOOD, that ever sustains the idea that the body can still be sick when the mind awakens.

There is no loophole in cause and effect. The idea that there are some effects which "escape" the influence of the mind’s causality, somehow caused by "some other power" - alien will - is a belief in *separation* between cause and effect, which is an illusion.

There are no OTHER reasons why the body can sustain sickness "on its own" or "because of the world" or "because of a pre-existing sickness". The body is ONLY ever a picture projected by the mind, REFLECTING its beliefs perfectly. If the mind changes, the body changes.

No-one dies without their own consent. The only way this is POSSIBLE is by mind having ABSOLUTE POWER over the body at all times. Otherwise, death could happen "for some other reason". It would also mean, when the mind wakes up, the body can STILL BE DESTROYED by some "other" will or force. This is impossible if no-one can die without their own consent. Their own consent is THE ONLY CAUSE of sickness.

Therefore, a sick body cannot possibly be maintained at all if the mind is free.

"A broken body is PROOF the mind has not been healed."

We cannot optionally, or technically, demonstrate sickness if we are to awaken fully to the truth. It is metaphysically impossible, meaning it is literally impossible for the body to be sick if the mind is not sick.

"Because it is holy it CANNOT be sick, nor can it die."

What our minds really need is a paradigm shift. That means a really radical sweeping upgrade in terms of premise, context and outlook. Some kind of system-wide "shift" out of an entire field of form into some radically greater perspective.

It's not enough to be dwelling in the realm of problems and trying to solve them. We have to get our minds out of the entire belief in problems. That's a paradigm shift, a refusal to engage with the level of suffering and a desire to completely transcend it.

This is why Jesus tells us for example to not to try to find freedom in the body, or in the world. It doesn't exist there. Or to not seek for love outside yourself, but within.

We've been looking to solve problems and suffering at the level of the problems and the suffering, which at best makes illusions of solutions but doesn't stop it happening. If you want it to all stop completely you have to stop the entire system, to not play the game.

The same applies with death and sickness. Questioning whether such things even exist at all, instead of dwelling on how to solve them. It's the withdrawal of power from illusions that undoes them, just as forgiveness is an entire perspective above the battlefield that renders the whole system obsolete.

The ego for example counsels that a war is real, and that you should play the game of war, and that if you take a side you will win, or alternatively you will lose. What it doesn't tell you is that both sides of the war is a loss, because to exterminate anyone is to lose yourself, because you are one. It is not interested in oneness only in separation. If you play the game, you lose, regardless of the outcome. The only way to shift the entire paradigm is not to play at all.

All reactions to a suffering world that you've made real, which compel you to change it so that you don't seem to suffer, are faulty. They might seem to produce some changes and make the illusion more palatable, but it doesn't really wake you up. What wakes you up is questioning the entire premise of the thing and whether or not it's even possible.

Shifting from a premise that this world is real, to a premise that it is just an unreal dream with no real consequences, is a total paradigm shift. It's always about adopting a much broader and higher context which completely reframes everything. A whole new paradigm, a new thought system, a new perception, a new truth, which is so far reaching and deep that it completely redefines the meaning of everything, and puts everything in its proper perspective.

"Freud was more clear-sighted about this, because he knew a BAD thing when he perceived it, but he failed to recognize that a bad thing cannot exist. It is therefore wholly unnecessary to try to get out of it. As you very rightly observed yourself, the thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE."

"Yet freedom of the body HAS no meaning. And so the mind is DEDICATED to serve illusions."

"Fear not to cross to the abode of peace and perfect holiness. Only there is the completion of God and of His Son established forever. Seek not for this in the bleak world of illusion, where nothing is certain, and where everything fails to satisfy. And, in the Name of God, be wholly willing to abandon ALL illusion."

"Judgment is but a toy, a whim, the senseless means to play the idle game of death in your imagination. But vision sets all things right, bringing them gently within the kindly sway of Heaven's laws."

"The world you see is an illusion of a world, God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself."

1. God is permanent. Earth is not. Earth will end.

2. God is eternal. Earth is not. Earth does not last forever.

3. God can only create by extending himself, and so whatever He creates has to be LIKE Himself in EVERY way, having extended from His own nature. For God to create Earth, God has to be a planet.

4. God, being eternal, never changes. He is changeless. And everything He creates CANNOT change. Earth changes all the time and at NO TIME has a permanent identity.

5. God is eternity, in which there is no time, because there is no beginning or end. He is everywhere at once. In God, there is no space or time. Earth 100% relies on the seeming existence of space and time without which it cannot show up as a 3D planet. And spacetime is just a belief.

6. Nothing God creates can ever be sick or decay or die. Nothing real can be threatened. Everything real last forever. On Earth, everything is sick, decaying and dying.

7. God can only create ONE Kingdom or world. That world has to mirror His nature. Earth, is opposite to Heaven in every way, and God would have to have a contradictory split mind in order to produce TWO DIFFERENT worlds. "Earth, Heaven's opposite in every way."

8. In God's perfect extension, He can only create like Himself, and so creates CREATORS, who in turn have the ability to create like God. Everything on Earth CANNOT CREATE, cannot pass down all of its own qualities and abilities, and everything on Earth is a dead end.

9. Knowledge is only possible in God, where there is no perception, and nothing to perceive. Earth requires perception in order to see it, and without a body it cannot be experienced. "To sense is not to know", and the body is a sensor. Knowledge is not possible in a body. "You cannot remain in this world with this knowledge." It requires the end of perception, and the end of the body.

10. Immortality is God's nature. Nothing real can be threatened, attacked, changed or hurt. Everything about Earth can be threatened, attacked, changed and hurt. It cannot be real.

11. Because God creates/extends only Himself, in His likeness, everything He creates is equal and identical. There is no difference between any Son of God. On Earth, everything is different, unequal, there is no harmony and therefore inherent war.

12. Life means eternal life, that which is sustained forever. God sustains it forever by His permanent will that there be eternal life. Real life never ends. On Earth, all life has a non-existence, followed by an illusion of a beginning, followed by illusory suffering, followed by an illusory death, followed by a non-existence. That is not eternal life.

13. God, being forever, is always the same. Eternity is always the same. It never changes. Time, is the idea that nothing is EVER the same, and everything always changes. It is totally opposite to eternity. Earth, governed by time, is never the same and always changing. Earth is not eternal.

14. God creates only the perfect, being perfect, and creates them perfectly. This perfection is flawless, has no damage, no imperfections, no lack, nothing missing, no corruption or limitation. Everything on Earth is flawed, damaged, imperfect, lacking, missing something, and severely limited.

15. Holiness is a quality and condition possible only in the Kingdom. Holiness comes from wholeness. In God, who is whole, He creates wholes, who create wholes. Wholeness only begets wholeness. On Earth, nothing is whole, because everything lacks what everything else has. This is what makes all thing unique and different. The world cannot be holy.

16. Only the truth of God is true. And God is everywhere. This is why love has no opposite. There is nowhere for an opposite to exist. That which is false is unreal and nothing unreal exists. Earth is opposite to truth, being an illusion which attempts to oppose reality. Everything about it is false. This is why it doesn't exist.

17. In God, there is only love. The extension of God's likeness produces the Golden Rule. What is true of one Son is true of all others. What applies to one, applies to both. Earth is an attempt to break this law, by making it seem possible that what applies to one thing does not apply to another. That you can cause, and escape the effects. That something can be true of another and not you. This is the idea of getting away with murder. Earth is the idea of the crucifixion of God's Son. "The world was made as a picture of the crucifixion of God's Son." The planet is murderous.

18. Life in God is eternal. It is real. Life means eternal life, life without end. Everything in the Kingdom has eternal life. That which does not last forever is the idea of death. That which can be attacked is the idea of death. "The world was made as an attack on God." "Without the idea of death there is no world." Earth is the idea of death, a dream of death, and is not life. "An illusion of life at best, at worst, death." Earth is not alive or dead, it is nothing.

19. The world God "projected" ie extended or created, is the Sonship. God's ONE SON, is God's ONE CREATION. The Son, is God's world. "You are the Kingdom of Heaven." "We are creation, WE, the sons of God". When the son sleeps, God creates the Holy Spirit. This forms the TRINITY. God never creates ANYTHING ELSE. Father, Sonship an Holy Spirit are all that exist. There is no Earth in this equation.

20. God's world is reality. The Kingdom is real. Because it is permanent and never changes. Anything as an alternative to reality must be unreality, or illusion. Another word for illusion is dream, and all dreams are dreams of opposition to life. "Death is the central dream from which all illusions stem." Even "the real world" is an illusion of death. Illusions are not eternal life. Every part of the dream, does not exist in reality. No part of the dream is created by God. God is not a dreamer. When the dreamer (sons) wakes up, the entire dream content vanishes, having never existed. Earth is a dream world. There is no Earth in Reality, and Earth will vanish BECAUSE it is not really there. "Illusions recognized must disappear." "The world will spin into the nothingness from which it came." "There is no world."

The one and only real thought system is the system of God's thinking in his mind in reality. There is really no other system of thought or function that makes sense or that is wholly sane.

If there were to be another system of thought, it would have to be completely different to God's system. So much so it would have to oppose and reject and deny and attack God's system in every way possible, in order to be different. "The world was made as an attack on God."

In the separation, we attempted to produce a second thought system. We wanted to think unlike God. We tried to oppose his will and to function in a way he did not design. We wanted to be opposite and different and dream of things that he would never think of.

What basically happened is, in our total freedom, we were able to use our freedom to try to stop being free. This is entirely within the laws of God. However, even though we're capable of trying to do this, what we find out is that it makes no sense to do it.

Trying to use will to will not to will anything, is obviously a circular logic. You need to use the very thing you are trying not to use, in order to try not to use it. At some point you'll realize that it's impossible to completely switch off will while still willing to be unwilling.

It should be obvious to us that even attempting to will against will is completely futile and pointless and cannot really produce any real effects. It's not that God prevents us from attempting this, only that when we do attempt it we are basically not making any sense. This causes us to produce what seems like a second system of thought which is based on insanity and self deception and denial.

This second system of thought, which we call the ego thought system, is a rejection of reality and truth. So it also rejects immortality and eternity and permanence and every attribute of God. This is what has produced the world of space and time and death and suffering, which are utterly impossible in God's reality.

So we invented, or tried to invent, a secondary system or way of thinking, which is referred to as a "lower order reality". It seems to have reality only in that we attempt to believe it is real, when it isn't. Or that we believe it is possible when it isn't. Or that we think it makes total sense when it doesn't. It is the ego thought system, and everything in it is contradictory and a lie.

These are the only two thought systems that are possible, and only one of them is ultimately possible. The second thought system is really an attempt to believe that something completely impossible is possible. Notions of living without God, of suffering, of mortality, or impermanence, are all impossible in God. Believing in them and trying to produce proof of them is self deception.

The only task then is the undoing of the second thought system entirely, which is the atonement. It is the cancelling out of the ego and the entire lower order reality, so that minds return to sanity and the acceptance of only God's thought system.

Only in God's system is it accepted as obvious that there is no point whatsoever in even attempting to oppose free will. Only in his light is it evident that when you try to use creation to not create, or to will nothingness, or to be something you can never be, you are trying to do something that you will never really do. And only in make-believe and wishful thinking could you ever believe that you are doing it.

To return your awareness to the one and only higher order reality, which is the only true and self-consistent reality, you first go through a phase of correction and purification. This means learning to admit that the false world is false, and that unreality is not possible. It's the process of exchanging the laws of spacetime for the laws of God. And of re-aligning yourself with the one and only truth.

At the pinnacle of this process, the mind is at the heights of consciousness and perception, which becomes inclusive and closely reflecting the way God thinks. It is still within the realm of illusions and unreality, but the system of thought is exposing itself to the light of heaven.

Eventually when this is complete, and a person is fully willing to accept that only thinking like God makes any sense, only his truth is true, only his laws are applicable, and nothing else is possible, atonement is fully accepted. In accepting it, the mind wakes up to the one thought system of God and the second thought system completely vanishes.

No-one can truly believe in both thought systems at once. That is why when you enter into belief in the lower order reality you become blinded to heaven. "You cannot behold the world and know God." "You cannot see two worlds." "The world you see must be denied because sight of it is costing you a different kind of vision."

Upon awakening to reality, that which seemed visible in the lower order becomes invisible to you. And that which seemed invisible in heaven becomes fully seen. Awareness returns as the knowledge of total reality returns to the mind, and the illusory world of contradictions disappears from sight.

"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."

"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."

"We have said before that the separation was and IS dissociation, and also that once it had occurred, projection became its main defense, or the device which KEEPS IT GOING."

Believing in separation from God produces a split in the mind. The mind becomes confused because it's trying to believe in both light and dark, or true and false, without distinguishing between them. The will becomes divided and the mind seems to form two areas. Being in fear (uncertainty), you are now "in two minds".

One area seems to become associated with "who and what I am", and the other area seems to be projected as "who I am not", seen as outside yourself in others. You can refer to these as the persona and the shadow. The persona is the accepted parts of mind and the shadow is the denied repressed parts.

In this dynamic, there's always two parts to what you experience. For example if you are in fear, where you believe that you are under attack by another, you are in fact also attacking them. But the part of you that is attacking them is dissociated and projected - kind of disowned. You don't want to believe it's still part of you. So you "associate it" with someone else.

So then in fear you see yourself as "only the victim" and you do not see yourself as "the victimizer". But your mind, as a whole, is actually playing both roles. It's just that the projected disowned role of victimizer seems like it's "not you", and the you that you think is being victimized is just one split off half of the 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."

"Ideas leave not their source."

So the split mind has sort of become divided against itself and is now at war with itself. And various different properties seem to be assigned to one half, which you accept as "yourself", and the other half is denied and projected onto others as "not yourself".

Yet both parts are in your mind and don't go outside of it. So this whole roleplay of the two parts interacting, is happening inside your mind - ie you as a whole are actually doing it to yourself. This is the secret of salvation, to realize that you are NOT just one half of the equation. You are playing BOTH sides.

This is actually true of all things ego. If you take the position of victim, you are also victimizing. If you take the position of fear, you are also frightening and terrorizing. If you take the position of being sick at the hands of the world, you are also causing your own sickness. If you take the position of being helpless against death, you are also trying to destroy yourself from the outside in - which seems indirect.

So if i catch myself being afraid, I need to also remind myself that I am also the one who is scaring myself because I am the one who is doing the attacking. If I catch myself focusing on sickness, I need to remind myself that I am also the one causing sickness. If I am having pain, I need to realize I am making myself be in pain while pretending that it's not coming from me.

The stronger the state of dissociation, the less "oneness" there is with others. You'll see others as separated off from you, and you'll want nothing to do with them. You may even want to "get rid of them" at all costs, or wish they'd not exist, in extreme cases. The other seems to look truly "not me", to you, to such an extent that you think you are justified in blaming them for causing everything.

But what that means is that your mind is divided and strongly "taking sides" against itself. It's hiding from the other part of itself which it has projected through blame. You might think that the innocent victim self is the whole of your self, or your mind, because it's all you seem to be aware of as "within you".

This is because THAT part, thinks of the OTHER part, as OUTSIDE of itself. And therefore due to this separation between the two parts, you - this one part - believes the other part is "not you". And this is the major ego hurdle to be overcome.

Jesus describes ACIM as a course in "reintegration".

"To heal, or to make joyous, is therefore the same as to integrate and MAKE ONE."

"The purpose of this course is integration."

What is being integrated? The two sides of the split mind need to be rejoined as one whole mind. The sense of dissociation which splits you off from "your attacker" and frames others as "outside of you" needs to heal. It's not WHICH side you take that matters, it's the fact that you are taking sides at all.

We heal by becoming whole, moving from a state of "I'm playing the role of being on this one side", towards the recognition that you are playing BOTH sides. You play both sides of every conflict. You receive the effects of your own attack. What you do to others you do to yourself. What applies to them applies to you. This is the Golden Rule.

So if you find yourself "one sided", with you seeming to be caused by or at the effect of anyone or anything else, you know there is a brick wall of denial and disowning standing in front of you, behind which is the other half of your mind. And the wall needs to come down so that you can see that the part "in the shadows" and the part "in the light" are both parts of the same one mind.

By recognizing that both "sides" or "roles" or "personalities" or "identities" are existing within ONE mind, you recognize that NEITHER of them can be true. They are both illusions of separate identities - a victimizer and a victim. And the mind is pretending to be both of them. Neither really exists, and on seeing this both disappear, as the mind recognizes and "wakes up" to the fact that it is ONE MIND, not two.

"Opposites must be brought together, and not kept apart. For their separation is only in your mind, and they are reconciled by union, as YOU are."

"Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking, whereby two systems of belief, which CANNOT coexist, are BOTH MAINTAINED. It HAS BEEN recognized that, if they were BROUGHT TOGETHER, their joint acceptance WOULD become impossible. But, if one is kept in darkness FROM THE OTHER, their SEPARATION seems to keep them both alive, and equal in their reality. Their JOINING thus becomes the source of fear, for, if they meet, acceptance MUST be withdrawn from one of them."

"In our longer practice periods today, we will claim the peace that must be ours when the problem and the answer have been brought together."

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

"The miracle is possible when cause and consequence are brought together, NOT kept separate."

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."

You will continue to protect, defend, empower, give energy to, support, believe in, have faith in, trust, consider worthwhile, see innocence in, be willing to sacrifice for, side with, cooperate with, and generally try to become one with THE EGO .... so long as you think that it is YOU.

Who wouldn't? Who wouldn't have all of these upholding, sustaining, supporting attitudes about SELF, regardless of what your definition of that self is. If you believe that you are made of what the ego is made of, or that you believe what it believes, you won't care. You will STILL defend and protect and try to sustain it. Even if it kills you.

This is how people choose to die. They are identified with the ego and what it is is made of, what it perceives and believes, thinking it is their SELF, and therefore they are perfectly prepared to do ANYTHING NECESSARY to defend what they think they ARE.

It's a totally "natural" seeming defense mechanism, in the name of trying to preserve your existence, to sustain your "life". Even if it means that by your identity being "the ego", your effort to "defend your life" is actually defending death, and therefore is a choice to die. In trying to save your own life, as the ego, you will choose death.

It's not really that you need to change the ego at all. It's just a sort of machine that is on autopilot doing only one thing, running one story, seeing things one way. It's not ever meant to do things another way. It can't. It's made of the idea of separation. It's made from beliefs in sin and guilt and fear and death. That's all it can ever believe in or be made of. But that has nothing to really do with YOU.

It only becomes something that is to do with YOU - your sense of SELF - when YOU decide to take ahold of it and convert your identity to it. When you believe that what is true of IT, is true of YOU.

So if you believe that for some reason you are sinful, let's say, and are therefore guilty, and therefore afraid of punishment and death, that means you believe that you are MADE OF sin/guilt/fear/death, that these things are TRUE of you, and that's because you've sort of borrowed these things from the ego. You've tuned into the ego and made it YOU. You've possessed it as an identity, to try to change your identity away from your real self, and away from God.

So now that you believe that YOU are sin, YOU are guilt, etc, your belief now is that your *SELF* is these things. And yet, your primary mode of functioning, your "defense of what you are", your "sustaining of SELF" which is completely inherently permanent in the functioning of the mind regardless of your definition of self, will just simply defend that sin and guilt and fear up and down until you're blue in the face. Of COURSE you will defend it because you think it is TRUE of you, and therefore it is your TRUE SELF.

Everyone is defending, protecting, supporting, and trying to sustain, who they believe they ARE. So if you believe you "are" sin, because of something you seemed to do that you thought was really bad, regardless of how much that sucks and feels awful, you will STILL defend that sin up and down like it's the God given truth of you, because if you are IT, it is YOU, and you are just trying to be "true to yourself". It's just that your IDEA of yourself, your view of yourself, is very mistaken and misplaced.

So this is how you latch on to the ego. And because of this, you will defend the ego's viewpoint, you will side with it, you will support it and feed it and give yourself to it, and all in the name of "preservation of my self", you will literally come to believe that death is real for you. That it defines you, describes you, proves you, and dictates you. So you will choose death. This is why everyone who dies has sided with the ego and has CHOSEN death. All death is suicide in the name of "sustaining me".

All people are trying to do is to stay alive - to continue their self - but because they are mistaken about who and WHAT they are, they keep protecting a self that is NOT who they really are, and that self believes in death. So hey presto, death is defended like it's who you are. And what you defend you will get closer to and become one with.

So you don't really actually need to work on changing the ego. The ego is NOT THE PROBLEM. You don't need to defend yourself against the ego. You don't need to, sort of, "undo" the ego as such, because the ego is already an illusion. It' just that you think it is a "real ego" because you have given YOUR reality to it - your sense of real self. The MISTPLACEMENT of yourself is what needs to be corrected.

So like, there's a burning pit of fire with you standing in it the middle of it. Hell. And you have two options how to deal with this. Either a) stay there and try to change hell to put the fire out, or b) get OUT of hell. And those who believe they are their ego will choose a ... they will try to CHANGE hell and to turn it into heaven, by trying to manipulate what the ego IS.

But the ego is ALWAYS, and will always be, a device for death. It does not change. CHANGE is death. The ego cannot change into non-change, and it cannot change into not-death. It is always death. It is always going to be perceiving wrongly, upside-down and inside out. It is always going to see God as evil and it's always going to try to get as separate from God as possible. It is a faithful machine, and that's how you designed it when you MADE it. It's like a car-ride that you invented in you back yard which is hardwired to drive around a fixed track, and that's all it can do. It can't go free-riding across the countryside. It is on rails. It just does what it was designed to do.

Changing the ego does nothing at all. That's a "spiritual ego". That's trying to emphasize the persona and reject the shadow in an attempt to make some PART of the ego be special and good and happy, while the other part is relegated to all the bad stuff. That's not going to work because both parts are still the ego and regardless of whether you try to emphasize the "good or bad" parts of that illusion, it still energizes that illusion and leads to death.

But it's what we've all been doing, trying to be in denial of the fact that the ego is 100% "bad", not 50%. It CANNOT hold the truth. It CANNOT have anything about it that is spiritual. It CANNOT even really exist. Yet here we are trying to dress it up and be selective about it, as if we can somehow redeem it or make it more tolerable or have some kind of option or exception to how it function. The ego is a one-way train to death and THAT IS ALL IT CAN BE.

So your REAL choice, your sensible choice, is to stop believing that YOU are the ego. That is really the ONLY way to wake up from it and be free of it. There is no other way to get off the ride. The ride is going to hell, and you with it, unless you change your sense of SELF. Who you are. What you are. What you are made of.

If you are made of real sin, you are believing you are the ego, and you will die. If you are really guilty, you will be afraid of inevitable punishment. You have no say in changing that dynamic. What you CAN do is recognize that the ego is an illusion, that it is NOT the truth about YOU, and in some way "separate" your sense of identity from it.

You need to get your mind peeled away from the ego, and then hook it back up to God. i.e., to DETACH from the ego thought system, and ATTACH yourself to God's mind/Holy Spirit. Trying to fight with the ego is 100% pointless. It doesn't actually WORK. The only thing that works is letting it go. Not BEING it. Not believing that you ARE it.

That means you must BELIEVE that you are NOT really sinful, you are NOT guilty, you are INNOCENT. God's truth is the truth about you, not the ego's. God's "version" of you is the truth about you, not the ego's version. Your IDENTITY needs to step back and NOT BELIEVE that you are "made of" anything whatsoever that is of the ego. You are not sinful, guilty, weak, afraid, sick, vulnerable, suffering, or dying. Those things cannot be part of your SELF TRUTH. The truth about your SELF. What and who you are.

Your transition away from the ego identity to your REAL identity is what wakes you up. It's your relinquishment of a false idea of who you ARE. A false sense. That's all the ego is, a self that you are NOT. A framework of identity pretending to be an individual, that is NOT who you are, but who you have tried to become through your belief that it is TRUE of you. The ego is not true of you and nothing it believes is true of you. So for you to detach, YOU must be convinced that it is not true of you.

If you are not really sinful, you MUST still be innocent. And if you are not sinful, nothing can have happened. And that means the Atonement principle. Recognizing that IN TRUTH, you are innocent, and therefore CANNOT BE THE EGO. Seeing your real innocent self clearly. That's all you need to get to. The ego will just vanish when you have no further belief in it. It must, because it only seems to exist in your mind because of your belief that you are not yourself.