The Son of God dreamed that he had left his Father's Kingdom, forgotten his true name, shattered himself into separate selves, and entered a world of fear, guilt, conflict, and death. But the Father's Voice entered the dream with him and taught him, through every brother and every relationship, to forgive what never truly changed him, until the nightmare became a happy dream, the Wasteland became a Garden, every enemy revealed the face of Christ, and the Son awakened to discover that he had never left Home.
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The all-important distinction between Real and unreal, Knowledge and perception
God and ego/world Christ and ego
Love and fear Light and darkness Truth and Illusion
Truth/God IS It can be unrecognized but never changed or lost or killed Only what God created is Real
Eternal, no opposite, no beginning, no end
The word of perception is the dream of time, change, beginning and ending sickness, death, separation, fear….scarcity, loss, lonlineness interpretation - not fact loss, separation, death
unstable
Two distince thought systems Knowledge vs. perception Knowledge - god and his Son share one Will perception - perpetual conflict
perception sees according to its own delusional mind which it thinks everything it makes is real the world needs constant defense because it is not real You cannot escape without help, because everything your senses show merely witnesses to the reality of the dream.
the ego's self-reinforcing closed system. Wish for separation → belief it happened → guilt → fear of punishment → projection → world of enemies and victims → attack and defense → special relationships → sickness, scarcity, sacrifice, grievance → apparent evidence that separation is real → further perception/belief in the illusion and fear…
God creates. The ego makes. True creation is extension: Love extends Love. The separated mind makes through projection: fear projects images. why the world cannot finally satisfy the mind. - What the ego makes is not Creation. The Son's real creative power is never lost
God provides the Answer and the only way out - The Holy Spirit It is the Holy Spirit's goal to help us escape from the dream world by teaching us how to reverse our thinking and unlearn our mistakes. Forgiveness is the Holy Spirit's great learning aid in bringing this thought reversal about.
We must learn to forgive, for what we see is our own shadow projected outward as the world and our life….
recognize our perceptual errors and look past them We forgive others to learn how to forgive ourselves (and vice versa) - for our brother IS ourself You are as God created you to be. You are holy and innocent - realizing this is accepting total forgiveness and salvation for oneself
Forgiving is wiping away the whole illusion seeing the guilt is not real, only love is Forgiveness is letting go of false, illusion, fear, etc…. Healing the dream
Sin is "lack of love" Since love is all there is, sin in the sight of the Holy Spirit is a mistake to be corrected, rather than an evil to be punished
Our sense of inadequacy, weakness and incompletion comes from the strong investment in scarcity, lack, we seek in others and the world what we feel is wanting in ourselves.
Only minds can really join, and whom God has joined no man can put asunder It is, however, only at the level of Christ Mind that true union is possible, and has, in fact, never been lost.
The Self That God created needs nothing. It is forever complete, safe, loved and loving. It seeks to share rather than to get; to extend rather than project. It has no needs and wants to join with others out of their mutual awareness of abundance.
the world knows special relationships between people Yet, if given to the Holy Spirit, these relationships can become the holiest things on earth—the miracles that point the way to the return to Heaven. The world uses its special relationships as a final weapon of exclusion and a demonstration of separateness. The Holy Spirit transforms them into perfect lessons in forgiveness and in awakening from the dream.
Special love and special hate = Special Relationship Holy Relationship = holy spirit has been brought in. Forgiven, In the Holy Relationship the interaction becomes the path Home
The Sonship - my Brother IS myself I cannot awaken against you.
I cannot condemn you and know myself innocent.
I cannot imprison you in guilt without imprisoning myself.
I recognize Christ in you and thereby remember Christ in me. Relationship is my salvation The Course takes the apparent evidence for separation—other people—and turns it into the primary classroom for undoing separation.
The body is nuetral, as is everything in the world of perception. The body only follows the intentions of the mind The body is limited to perception, perception is limited to the body and physical If the mind wants to use it for attack in any form, it becomes prey to sickness, age and decay. If the mind accepts the Holy Spirit's purpose for it instead, it becomes a useful way of communicating with others, invulnerable as long as it is needed, and to be gently laid by when its use is over. Whether it is used for the goals of the ego or the Holy Spirit depends entirely on what the mind wants.
The world does not have a fixed meaning. The question is: Whose purpose will I give it? The ego interprets everything for: separation, guilt, attack, specialness, self-protection. The Holy Spirit interprets the same world for: forgiveness, joining, communication, healing, awakening. So the practical path continually comes down to: Which teacher am I listening to? And therefore: What is this for? What is the purpose of this? — Ask the Holy Spirit and follow the guidance/answer
The miracle is essentially the shift from fear to love, from egoic perception to the Holy Spirit's perception. a correction and healing in/of the mind.
the Holy Instant:
- past grievance is released;
- future fear disappears;
- specialness temporarily falls away;
- joining becomes possible;
- the mind experiences something of eternity reflected within time.
reversals of worldly thinking - laws of heaven
- giving and receiving are the same. - No one loses for another to gain
- everything you teach, you learn. What you do/say creates who/what you are
- Decide for God/HS or decide for Ego
The opposite of seeing through the body's eyes is the vision of Christ, The opposite of hearing through the body's ears is communication through the Voice for God, the Holy Spirit, which abides in each of us. His Voice seems distant and difficult to hear because the ego, which speaks for the little, separated self, seems to be much louder. The Holy spirit speaks loud and clear - you only don’t hear if you are focused on the body and on your dark fearful dream
Christ's vision is the Holy Spirit's gift, God's alternative to the illusion of separation and to the belief in the reality of sin, guilt and death. It is the one correction for all errors of perception; the reconciliation of the seeming opposites on which this world is based. Its kindly light shows all things from another point of view, reflecting the thought system that arises from knowledge and making return to God not only possible but inevitable.
Everything is seen as a call for love, joining, forgiveness, miracles Our brothers' needs become our own, because they are taking the journey with us as we go to God. Without us they would lose their way. Without them we could never find our own. Forgiveness is the path to heaven in this world. but in heaven there is no need
The separation never occurred. The ego says: You separated from God, destroyed innocence, became guilty, and must somehow repair or pay for what you did. The Holy Spirit says: What God created cannot be changed. Your error had no effect upon Reality.
the law of Heaven
that giving and receiving are the same.
To offer forgiveness is the only way for us to have it
Heaven is the natural state of all the Sons of God as He created them. Such is their reality forever. It has not changed because it has been forgotten.
Forgiveness is the means by which we will remember. Through forgiveness the thinking of the world is reversed.
Salvation is undoing and remembering The Course does not teach us how to become what we ought to be; it teaches us to undo everything that prevents us from recognizing what we already are. You are as God created you.
The Real World ordinary perception → corrected perception → Real World → Knowledge When the Son sees and knows correctly - a restored and healed and awakened world/reality/people.
Just a quick stage before God inevitably brings you all the way back to Heaven
The forgiven world becomes the gate of Heaven, because by its mercy we can at last forgive ourselves. Holding no one prisoner to guilt, we become free. Acknowledging Christ in all our brothers, we recognize His Presence in ourselves. Forgetting all our misperceptions, and with nothing from the past to hold us back, we can remember God. Beyond this, learning cannot go. When we are ready, God Himself will take the final step in our return to Him.
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God is Love, and only what God creates is real. God created His Son as one with Him, complete, innocent, eternal, and incapable of separation from Him. The Son imagined the impossible idea of separation and fell asleep into a dream of individuality, guilt, fear, bodies, conflict, time, and death. Believing the dream real, the mind projects its guilt outward and sees a world that appears to prove separation. God placed within the dream the Holy Spirit, Who teaches the mind to reinterpret everything through forgiveness rather than judgment. As we forgive our brothers, relinquish projection, and accept the miracle of corrected perception, special relationships become holy relationships and fear gives way to Christ's vision. We recognize the innocence and shared identity of the Sonship, the world is forgiven, and perception becomes the Real World. Atonement is the complete acceptance that separation never truly occurred. When every obstacle to Love has been removed, God takes the Final Step and the Son awakens to the Heaven he never actually left.
as a story: God → Creation → Sonship → tiny mad idea → separation dream → guilt → fear → projection → world/body → specialness → suffering → Holy Spirit → forgiveness → miracle → holy relationship → Christ's vision → Real World → Atonement → Final Step → God But the great reversal at the end is: Nothing actually happened to Reality. The entire journey is awakening from a journey that never truly occurred.
Reality / Knowledge / God / Christ / Love / Light / Truth versus perception / ego / fear / darkness / illusion.
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If all this is true (and it is)
then it requires a totally changed perception, healed, mind, totally new identity of oneself and how one thinks and acts in everything
Then everything I perceive or think or do by and of myself is meaningless and done in fear and done in powerlessness and on the road of death And the path is to ask and listen and follow another voice, the voice of/for god and reality who will speak to me and give me vision if I want it.
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a single unfolding argument/story.
I. Reality God Is. Only Love is real. God creates His Son like Himself. The Son is one, whole, innocent, eternal.
II. The Impossible Idea The Son imagines separation. The impossible is believed. Knowledge seems lost.
III. The Ego The separated self arises. Guilt → fear → projection. The world becomes the witness to the separation.
IV. The Dream Time, body, scarcity, conflict, sickness, and death appear. Perception replaces Knowledge. The senses testify that the dream is real.
V. The Answer The separation never actually changed Reality. God's Answer is the Holy Spirit. Two teachers now appear within the mind.
VI. Forgiveness Projection is withdrawn. Sin becomes error. Attack becomes a call for love. The brother becomes savior rather than enemy.
VII. The Miracle Fear is reinterpreted through Love. Perception shifts. The mind joins instead of separates.
VIII. Holy Relationship Special love and special hate are transformed. Relationships become classrooms of forgiveness. Brother and self are recognized as one.
IX. Christ's Vision The world is seen differently. Innocence replaces guilt. Defense becomes unnecessary. The forgiven world appears.
X. The Real World The dream becomes happy rather than fearful. Perception has fulfilled its purpose. The world becomes the gate of Heaven.
XI. Atonement The mind fully accepts: The separation never occurred. The Son remains as God created him.
XII. The Final Step Learning ends. Perception ends. Forgiveness itself is no longer needed. God takes the Final Step. The Son awakens to the Kingdom he never left.