Our Often Backwards And Uncivilized Nation

The overwhelming majority of people will continue to believe as they always have. They’ll continue to live in denial. They will try to bring God into the world and spiritualize the universe, thinking there is some kind of compassionate intelligence behind what is really a murderous thought. They will see death as part of a “circle of life,” when it is really just a symbol of the great mistake. So they’ll gloss everything over.

Nobody will talk about the fact that half of the homeless and prisoners should be getting treatment in mental institutions, or that more police die by suicide than in the line of duty.

Corporations, through the small print in trade agreements, replace the laws of nations with the decisions of international councils. Its put them in a position where they don’t have to follow the laws of many countries and do not have to pay the money from lawsuits that they lose to individuals, effectively placing them above the law.

In the 20TH century money became more important than people in this country. In the 21ST century, money will become more important than the laws that are passed by our elected officials, who owe the money for their campaigns and thus their elections to these same corporations anyway. Thus the big money will put itself in a position of total authority. The process of legislative democracy, which is already a sham, has become more and more like a professional wrestling match where it’s all for show and the result has already been determined.

In our often backwards and uncivilized nation, about 8,000 of our citizens are killed each year with guns—while in our neighboring country of Canada, only about 100 people are killed with guns. Yet the fanatics in our country who treasure weapons more than people will continue to have their way against the will of the majority, and deny that their clearly insane policies cost thousands of people their lives each year—all while the ego smiles with delight.

More people make money their new god, including those who seek abundance through what they think of as spiritual means. There’s nothing wrong with money, but there’s nothing spiritual about it either—and those who seek God first will find Him first.

Now here’s something you probably didn’t notice about these issues; they are all forgiveness lessons! All of them are somehow connected to bodies, because relationships play into every situation in some way eventually. Not only is it your task to forgive what you see on television or read on the Internet, but it is especially vital for you to forgive the bodies your eyes see as the relationships in your every day life. These people are there for a reason.

Newtonian physics held that objects were real and outside of you with a separate existence. Quantum physics demonstrates that this is not true. The universe is not what you assume it to be; everything that appears to exist is really inseparable thought. You can’t even observe something without causing a change in it on the sub-atomic level. Everything is in your mind, including your own body. As aspects of Buddhism correctly teach, the mind that is thinking everything is one mind, and this mind is completely outside the illusion of time and space. What no philosophy except one teaches is a truth that will seldom be well received by anyone: the fact that this mind is itself also an illusion.

Your life is all in your mind. Your head, your brain, your body, your world, your entire universe, any parallel universes, and anything else that can be perceived are projections of the mind. They are all symbolic of just one thought. One thought made all images appear, because they all represent the same thing in seemingly different forms. 

The universe you see is symbolic of the one thought that you have separated yourself from God—presented in many forms—and you feel secretly terrified and enormously guilty over the separation. The thought of separation from God, or individuality, is symbolized by the ego, and it has been projected seemingly outward from the mind—and you along with it.  On this new level of the world of bodies where the thought of separation has been projected, seemingly outside yourself, the substitute causes of sin, the projected responsibility for guilt and the many imagined reasons for fear of any kind can be found somewhere outside of you—and of course, other people see everything as being outside of them.

If nothing is outside of your mind, then to judge it is to grant it power over you, and to not judge it is to withdraw its power over you. This certainly contributes to the end of your suffering. Even judgment in its most basic form, such as to label something as good or bad, would be to differentiate between things that are actually the same because of their unreality. Thus, it is not really valid to judge anything.

Today, you have two huge religions that are controlled by a reactionary majority, both of which are in competition for the hearts and minds of a world that isn’t there—one religion being the symbol of an empire based on money, and the other religion being the symbol of a government that could possibly engage in nuclear war along with its next-door, equally reactionary Muslim neighbor.

Such antics may be good enough for most of the planet, but they don’t have to be good enough for you. The attitude of non-dualism tells you that what you are seeing is not the truth. If it’s not the truth, then how can you judge it? To judge it is to give it reality. But how can you judge and give reality to that which isn’t there? And if it’s not there, why would you need to acquire it, or fight a war over it, or make it more holy or valuable than something else? How could one piece of land on earth be more important than another? Why would it matter what happens in an illusion, unless you have given the illusion a power it does not and cannot have? How could it matter what result is produced in a particular situation unless you have made a false idol out of the situation?

Do not make the miscreated world psychologically real for yourself. You make it psychologically real for yourself by failing to forgive. The world is not an evil to be despised. It is a perfect opportunity for forgiveness and salvation. Instead of judging the world and everything in it, perhaps it would be more helpful for you to ask what value you saw in making it up in the first place. It may also be wise to ask yourself what would be a more appropriate response to it now.  Rather than resisting the world, look for ways you can use it as a chance to get home.

You don’t have to wait. Your time is at hand, but only if you’re willing to follow the Holy Spirit’s thought system instead of trying to lead the planet on a wild goose chase. You can’t have both you and God. It’s not possible. You can’t have both your universe and God. The two are mutually exclusive. You’ll have to choose.

You may not want to believe this yet, but God does not make demands of people. You think it is God’s will that is being acted out here, but you and the world are wrong about that. It is something else that is being constantly acted out here— namely your seeming separation from God. We want to help you return to your reality with Him.

The seeming interaction between you and God is really an interaction within your own unconscious split mind—between the part of you that has forgotten your reality and the part of your mind where the Holy Spirit dwells. He has never left you. His Voice, which you will learn how to be vigilant for, is your memory of God—your memory of your true home. This Voice represents your long-forgotten reality. Now you must learn how to choose something that you will have tremendous resistance to choosing. You must learn how to choose between the Holy Spirit, Who represents the real you, and the part of your mind that represents the false you. And you will learn how to do it in such a way that your long-imprisoned unconscious mind can finally be freed.

It’s Independence Day

You’ve been a robot. But the programmer isn’t somebody else. There isn’t anybody else. We’re talking about self pre-determination. Your fate on this level was sealed by your deal with your ego, not God—who makes no deals.

Your entire ego mind is the programmer that sends signals to your brain. Your brain is just part of the hardware. It forwards the signals telling the body, or computer unit, what to do, see and feel. Changes in the electromagnetic fields even regulate how you see things. To say that something is visible to you simply means that it is situated in the region of the electromagnetic spectrum that is perceptible to human vision.

A whole new level of mind has been made in order for the ego thought system to act itself out through you, without you being aware of it. You’re being used, and you don’t even know it. It’s time for you to start taking your life back—your real life. In order to do that however, you have to know what you’re dealing with.

The ego is quite a piece of work. The thought of separation from God has been projected seemingly outward from the mind—and you along with it. That is how the entire universe, including your body, as well as all other bodies were made. Your experience is that you are here on the computer screen—separate from God, separate from your brothers and your sisters, and acting out the thought of separation and the conflict that goes along with the duality of your split mind. Your brothers and sisters are doing exactly what you want them to do.

Your decisions are not really made by you here. They were made on a totally different level when you agreed to the ego’s plan, and the only way out of the whole can of worms is to return to your right mind and choose the Holy Spirit’s alternative interpretation of what you see instead of your ego’s interpretation, which keeps you trapped in the script.

Inventions on this level usually mimic some aspect of what the mind does. You may think you have free will here and that you can determine what’s going to happen to you, but the truth is it’s all happened already. You’re just playing the tape, watching and listening—thinking it’s all real and a result of your own volition or chance on this level, rather than a set-up from another level.

People are like ghosts, except on a seemingly different level. They think their bodies are alive, but they’re not. They just see what they want to see. That’s why Jesus said, “Let the dead bury their dead.”

Your body seems to be attached to you, but it’s actually outside of you like everything else you perceive. Since everything that appears to be outside of you is equally illusory, your body should be regarded as no more real or important to you than anyone else’s.

People need help in order to find the truth and be led home. They need the Holy Spirit’s Help, but the Holy Spirit also needs your help in the form of your forgiveness of the images you see.

You’re not a robot once you get in touch with your power to choose. It’s independence day. You’ll never be the same once you know how to forgive.

You Will Remember

I give you this humble bit of counseling when it comes to all of your relationships in this world, whether they were founded on love or hate. Why don’t you stop worrying about whether or not people love you and just love them? Then it doesn’t matter what they think about you. You can just be love. It’s so simple! And guess what? It will ultimately determine how you feel about yourself!

Nobody knows how to forgive at first. It takes time to learn. People don’t know what they’re doing to their own minds when they judge and condemn others. Even Jesus’s own disciples, didn’t really understand it at first. Sure, they thought they knew a lot at the time. Everybody does. Yet as Jesus says in the Course, in regard to the derivative teachings of the New Testament, some of which originated with and were handed down by certain disciples:

"As you read the teachings of the Apostles, remember that I told them myself that there was much they would understand later, because they were not wholly ready to follow me at the time."

Some people may not want to know it today, but all of the disciples had at least twenty more lifetimes to go through and more lessons to learn before they attained their enlightenment. They certainly did learn a lot from Jesus in that lifetime though, because they couldn’t help but be struck by Jesus’ belief in the one Great Commandment  of the God of Israel: “The Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.”

Jesus had the kind of humility that said, “God, I just want you.” How many people are ready to say that and mean it? Are you ready to go for the end-game?

Your special loves are simply idols in which you seek to get what you feel is lacking in yourself. Romance is a vain attempt to fill an imagined emptiness—a hole that doesn’t really exist, but that you experience as a result of the separation. That sense of lack can really only be healed by the Atonement and salvation, leading you to the wholeness of your oneness with God.

Home is where the heart is. If your heart is with God, then you’re already home. Renounce the world, not physically but mentally. This world you seem to live in is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true. That attitude will make it ten times easier for you to forgive. The next time it hits the fan my friend, remember God and forgive—for if you forgive then you will remember God.

As you become accomplished in the application of forgiveness, your pain and your discomfort will lessen and sometimes disappear. Notice I didn’t say that the apparent cause of the pain and discomfort would disappear. It would be theoretically possible for a master to die of cancer, or be murdered like Jesus, and not feel the pain associated with such events. If your pain is gone, and your suffering along with it, then does it really matter if the illusory cause of the pain still appears to be there? Which is just one more reason why you should never go by appearances. 

Whatever appears to be causing your pain, whether it’s a circumstance or a relationship or both, may or may not disappear when you practice forgiveness. The ego’s script doesn’t always appear to change when you want it to. But it is possible to end all the suffering that’s called for by the ego’s script and have peace instead of fear. That’s the Holy Spirit’s script.

Another thing you should remember is not to be distracted by teachings that may serve others and help them feel temporarily better, but are not part of the path you’ve chosen.

There will be those who tell you that when you have a problem, person or object to deal with you can say, “I am that,” and it will disappear. Becoming one with something in your projection only makes it real for you, and will not undo the guilt in your mind that you can’t see. Only true forgiveness can do that.

There will also be those who tell you that observing and being aware of your emotions will free you from your compulsions. Yet even though you’ve seen for yourself that observing your feelings can lessen their impact, it is still not the same as forgiving them. Only the true forgiveness of your relationships, and thus the healing of the unconscious guilt in your mind, can really free you from your compulsions or anything else.

Finally, you may hear from those seeking balance: the balancing of body, mind and spirit, or balancing dual forces like yin and yang, or balancing “the force” itself. Balancing illusions is not forgiving them.

Concentrate on the path that was meant for you. Others will follow that same path during different lifetimes. Don’t forget, the Course is a very new thing. Rock’n’roll is twenty years older than the Course! Be grateful you got to play both, and give this new spiritual path a chance to find those it’s meant to find.

Absolute Truth

With twoness you have interaction and conflict, but with genuine oneness there can be only God, who has no parts. God is, and there is nothing else to be aware of. How does it feel to know the absolute truth?

Heaven is real oneness, unlike the idea of being one with the universe, or even one with the mind that is outside of time and space. Those ideas are still seemingly outside of God. With true oneness there is only God, and there cannot ever be anything else. That’s why no compromise on this idea is possible. The Course’s idea of God is as lofty as it can possibly be, because it is the truth. Oneness cannot be perfect if there is anything else to be aware of.

In Heaven there are no obstacles and it’s joyous; where on earth, what is referred to as life is little more than a constant obstacle course. Of course you never really left Heaven, because you can’t help but be safe in God no matter what you’re dreaming. When the entire Sonship is ready, then God will give His Last Judgment.

This is God’s Final Judgment: “You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am your Father and you are My Son.”

Extend the same forgiveness to your brothers and sisters that God extends to you. That’s how you make it yours. When you see your brothers and sisters as innocent like you are, then that is the miracle. When everyone has completed their forgiveness lessons, God Himself will take the last step and welcome the collective prodigal Son home into the oneness that you have never truly left.

The time will come when each seemingly separated mind has attained its enlightenment or resurrection. When everyone—not every body, mind you—but every mind that has dreamed thousands of lifetimes has reached this state of awakening from the dream that is the Second Coming of Christ.

It’s a question of how fast you want to get to where you’re going. Why delay yourself? It’s like people who waste their lives fighting the battle of “good versus evil,” when what they’re really seeing out there in the world is merely symbolic of the conflict between right-mindedness or good, and wrong-mindedness or evil, that is occurring within their own split minds. Save your airfare and forgive. You’ll get to Heaven a thousand times faster in the process.

After you forgive, if you feel guided by the Holy Spirit to have a job aiding people in the world, go right ahead. While you’re doing it, you can continue to practice forgiveness at the same time. Your split mind is being forgiven and healed by the highest part of your mind, where the Holy Spirit dwells.

  

You have to forgive and make your progress now. Heaven is not a reward that is bestowed on you by an outside force for good behavior or clever metaphysical musings. The symbols that give you your opportunities for enlightenment are all around you—if you accept the Holy Spirit as your Teacher in forgiveness. If you don’t, you’re not going to find enlightenment somewhere on the other side afterwards.

People either hear or find out for themselves how beautiful the near-death experience can be, but they don’t understand that it’s temporarily beautiful only in comparison to life in the body. When you are free of all the body’s pain and restrictions and become temporarily aware of the larger split mind, it can be awe-inspiring.

What happens is that the awe eventually wears off because the unconscious guilt that is still within the mind starts to catch up with you. This causes you to reincarnate as a way of escaping your guilt and your fear of God. This always happens to you eventually, unless your mind has been completely healed by the Holy Spirit.

When you’re enlightened, you will completely awaken from the dream. Even though you’ll still appear to be in a body, you’ll see what the Course refers to as the real world. You will only “see” it when you have completely forgiven the world, because the real world has no projections of unconscious guilt upon it. You’ll see only innocence everywhere, because it’s your own innocence—the innocence of Christ. That is what Jesus saw, and what he teaches you now to see.

The Course is directed toward the experience of true oneness, which can be summed up in just two words—two words that do indeed express the absolute truth. God is

The Real Purpose of Life

True forgiveness is the real purpose of life, but you’ve got to choose it in order to make it yours. Remember, practicing real forgiveness can’t help but lead you home.

Forgiveness has to do with what you think. This is not a revolution of the physical, it’s a reclaiming of the mind—ushering in a new way of thinking. Forgiveness is an attitude. Everything you learn becomes incorporated into that attitude until forgiveness happens automatically.

The thought system of the Holy Spirit is guided by love; the thought system of the ego is guided by fear and hatred and will always eventually result in some kind of destruction.

Forgiveness will never result in violence, but judgment will always result in some kind of negative effect on the level of form, even if the effect is just on your own health. Violence is the ultimate and illogical extension of fear, judgment and anger. The delusional thought system of the ego will always lead to some form of violence and murder eventually, because it requires that people see their enemy—or the perceived cause of their problem—as being outside of them. So do you, but you have found the way out. By reversing the ego’s thinking, your fear will be released, not projected.

The ego, or wrong mind, makes everything that appears to happen on the level of form. Spirit makes nothing happen on the level of form, which is why you shouldn’t spiritualize events or objects in the universe. The right mind gives the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the level of form, leading you—and by you we mean that observatory part of the mind that has identified with and thus bound itself to the ego—back home. Home is unchangeable spirit.

Even though the Holy Spirit doesn’t do anything in the world, His interpretation of the level of form can help you see more clearly what you should do here. That’s just a fringe benefit of choosing Him as your Teacher, not the main reason, which is salvation. These ideas are the way of salvation, and your ticket home—if you get to the point where you apply them regularly.

With salvation there is no one out there to blame for your one real problem, of which all the others are symbolic. The cause, which is the decision to believe in the separation from God, and the solution, which is the principle of the Atonement, are both in your mind—where you now have the power to choose the Holy Spirit’s Answer.

With that in mind, a component of practicing forgiveness when you’re confronted by an opportunity would be to remember that you’re dreaming. You authored the dream and made the figures in it act out for you, so you could see your unconscious guilt outside yourself. If you remember you’re dreaming, then there’s nothing out there but your own projection. Once you believe that—and belief only comes from practice and experience—then there’s no need for what you’re seeing and now forgiving to have any impact on you.

Once you’re the cause and not the effect, another component of forgiveness would be to forgive both your projected images and yourself for dreaming them.

Now it’s time to forgive yourself for dreaming this whole mess in the first place. If nothing’s happened—and if the Course teaches anything, it’s that nothing’s happened—then you’re innocent.

The Course tells you to forgive your brother for what he hasn’t done. That would be true forgiveness because you’re not making the error real.

Thus as you forgive your brothers and sisters, your mind realizes simultaneously that you are forgiven. As we go along, try to remember that. When you forgive others, it’s really you yourself who is being forgiven.

By forgiving your brothers and sisters in the manner just described, you are rejoining with what you really are. You’re telling the world and the bodily images you see that their behavior can’t have any effect on you, and if they can’t have any effect on you, then they don’t really exist separately from you. Thus, there is no separation of any kind in reality.

The metaphysics of the Course are built around the reality of God and the unreality of the separation, and are essential to know. But forgiveness is where the rubber meets the road. Without forgiveness, metaphysics are useless. That’s why we say the Course is practical. It’s not enough to say the world is an illusion. The point is that you have to learn how to forgive in order to get home.

The Holy Spirit knows you’re afraid of your unconscious. The purpose of the Course is peace, not to scare the hell out of you. True peace will come from true forgiveness. And violence—which is the acting out of one’s own self-hatred seen as being outside of oneself—will never come as a result of the thought system of the Holy Spirit, who teaches only love and forgiveness.

Trust the Holy Spirit and choose His strength. The peace of the Holy Spirit will be given to you if you do your job. He will heal the larger, unconscious mind that is hidden from you, and give you His peace at the same time. This peace may not always come right away, and sometimes it will. Sometimes it may surprise you in the form of something happening that would usually upset you—except this time it doesn’t.

For most people, especially during the first few years, forgiveness requires that you think about it. You become a master by having forgiving thought processes. These right-minded thoughts eventually dominate your mind instead of the ego.

All this will lead you to the Kingdom of Heaven, for along with the Holy Spirit, you are doing the work that leads to the condition of peace—which is the condition of the Kingdom. Forgiveness is actually preparing you to re-enter the Kingdom of Heaven!

If you woke up all at once I assure you it wouldn’t be pleasant. You have to be prepared for a different form of life. Even in this life, where people think they are bodies, change is not really welcome—even if people want to pretend it is.

Straight Talk about Illusions - From "Disappearance of the Universe"

Before the beginning, there was only an awareness of unflawed oneness and nothing else. There was and is only God in reality—which we will refer to as Heaven. For just an instant, a very small aspect of Heaven appears to have an idea that is not shared by God. It’s kind of a “What if?” idea. An innocent wondering in the form of the question, “What would it be like if I were to go off and play on my own?”

Now something different seems to be going on. There seems to be God and something else. This is the beginning of the split mind. The first division in the mind was consciousness, “making the mind a perceiver rather than a creator.” In order to have consciousness you have to have separation. You’ve got to have more than one thing. You have to have something else to be conscious of.

Because of this, for the first time, you have a conscious choice to make. Before that, there was nothing to choose between. But now there are two possible responses to this idea of separation. One choice is the memory of your true home with God, symbolized in the Course by the Holy Spirit.  The other choice is the thought of separation from God, or individuality, symbolized in the Course by the ego.

If, at this point, you had chosen to believe the Holy Spirit’s interpretation, or response, to the separation instead of the ego’s, then your little dream adventure would have been over. But, the ego had a selfish yet tantalizing response of its own.

If you continue to believe in the separation, it offers you your own individual identity—separate from God, very special and uniquely important. You choose with the ego so you can see what it’s like to be special and apart. Your choice for the ego instead of the Holy Spirit has made the Voice for God almost completely inaudible to you. You’ve chosen with the ego, and now you’re identified with it. You look to it to explain to you what’s going on, and the ego has a message for you. The message is this:

You’d better get the hell out of here, pal. Then it proceeds to give you some reasons. In your confused state of mind, these reasons sound pretty damn convincing in their logic. “Don’t you know what you’ve done?”—the ego asks in our metaphorical story—“You’ve separated yourself from God! You’ve sinned against Him big time. You’re in for it now. You’ve taken paradise—everything He gave you—and thrown it right in His face. You’ve ruined everything; you’re so guilty. If you don’t haul ass out of here right now, it’s gonna be worse than death!”

Oh my God,  you think in response to the ego. What have I done? You’re right—I’ve ruined everything and attacked Heaven! But where can I go? What can I do? I can run, but I can’t hide. There’s no place I can hide from God Himself!

“Well, that’s not exactly true,” says the ego, “because I’m here to help you. I’m your friend—and I have an idea. I have somewhere we can go together. You can be your own boss and not have to face God at all. You’ll never see Him. He won’t even be able to get into this place!”

Really? you ask. That sounds pretty damn good to me. Let’s go!

So the ego uses the ingenious but illusory method of projection to hurl the thought of separation out  of your mind, and you—or at least the part of you that seems to have a consciousness—appears to be projected right along with it. This instantly causes what is popularly referred to as the Big Bang, or the creation of the universe. Now you appear to be in the universe, while you do not realize that you are actually quite literally out of your mind.

Now, as the crowning achievement in its grand scheme, the ego makes—drum roll, please—the body. This allows the ego to permit into your awareness, almost exclusively, only those things which testify to the reality of its cherished illusion. This universe, the world, and your body give form to a defense structure in which you hide from your imagined sin, guilt, and the resulting fear of God’s vengeance. The ego has a method firmly in place to deal with this now-unconscious sin, guilt and fear—by projecting it onto others.

Of course everything the ego is saying about God and what’s happened is not true. God would never do anything except love you. It’s here that you need to know just a little bit more about how the mind works. Because of the power of the mind, you need to appreciate the power of your belief.

It was your belief in the idea you could be separate from God—your taking it seriously—that gave it so much seeming power and realism.

Once you’ve chosen to listen to the ego’s temptations to be a separate individual, your belief in the reality of the separation begins to cause some very serious problems for you. God now seems to be outside of you, and everything you experience tells you that you’ve separated yourself from Him. That’s a problem you still have this very second, even though it’s unconscious to you.

As long as you believe in the reality of the physical universe, then everything you perceive will be a constant, unconscious reminder to you that you’ve committed the act of separating yourself from God.

R.A.P's Making of the Universe

There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:

 I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.

Yet in this learning is salvation born. And What you are will tell you of Itself.

Let’s talk about what you are and where you came from, and then you can decide how quickly you want to get to where you’re going.

Symbols cannot really express what appeared to happen just before the making of the universe. The magnitude of the trans-temporal mind is much too great to capture with words. We can however, give you a glimpse of what’s really behind the so-called fall of man, and what many have called original sin. We can tell you what it was that resulted in the event you refer to as the Big Bang. No scientist will ever be able to trace anything back before that, except in theory. But it is possible to remember the very beginning—and to change your mind about it. It’s not necessary, however, for you to remember the very beginning now, because you will really change your mind by forgiving the symbols of this beginning. Thus your salvation always has and always will depend on decisions you are making right now.

Before the beginning, there were no beginnings or endings; there was only the eternal Always, which is still there—and always shall be. There was only an awareness of unflawed oneness, and this oneness was so complete, so awe-striking and unlimited in its joyous extension that it would be impossible for anything to be aware of something else that was not Itself. There was and is only God in this reality—which we will refer to as Heaven.

What God creates in His extension of Himself is called Christ. But Christ is not in any way separate or different than God. It is exactly the same. Christ is not a part of God. It is an extension of the whole. Real Love must be shared, and the perfect Love that is shared in God’s Universe is beyond all human comprehension. Humans appear to be part of the whole, but Christ is all of it. The only possible distinction between Christ and God—if a distinction was possible—would be that God created Christ; He is the Author. Christ did not create God or Itself. Because of their perfect oneness, this doesn’t really matter in Heaven. God has created Christ to be exactly like God, and to share His eternal Love and joy in a state of unencumbered, boundless and unimaginable ecstasy.

Unlike the concrete, specific world you appear to be in now, this constant and enthralling state of awareness is completely abstract, eternal, unchanging and united. Christ then extends Itself by creating new Creations, or simultaneous extensions of the whole, which are also exactly the same in their perfect oneness with God and Christ. Thus Christ, like God, also creates—because It is exactly the same as God. These extensions do not go inward or outward, because in Heaven there is no concept of space; there is only everywhere. The result of all this is the endless sharing of perfect Love, which is beyond understanding.

Then something appears to happen which, as in a dream, doesn’t really happen—it just appears to. For just an instant, for just one, inconsequential fraction of a nanosecond, a very small aspect of Christ appears to have an idea that is not shared by God. It’s kind of a “What if?” idea. It’s like an innocent wondering in the form of a question—which unfortunately is followed by an apparent answer. The question, if it could be put into words was, “What would it be like if I were to go off and play on my own?” Like a naïve child playing with matches who burns down the house, you would have been much happier not  to find out the answer to that question—for your state of innocence is about to be seemingly replaced by a state of fear and the erroneous, vicious defenses that this condition appears to require.

Because your idea is not of God, He does not respond to it. To respond to it would be to give it reality. If God Himself were to acknowledge anything except the idea of perfect oneness, then there would no longer Be perfect oneness. There would no longer be a perfect state of Heaven for you to return to. As we will see, you never really left anyway. You’re still there, but you have entered into a nightmare state of illusion. While you have traveled only in dreams, God and Christ, Who are always One, have continued as they always did and always will—completely unaffected by the “tiny, mad idea…” of separation.

In this cosmic instant of seeming individuality—and no matter how attractive you may think individuality is, it is nothing but separation—there seems to be a tiny aspect of Christ that is now aware of something else. That is duality. Now, instead of oneness, you have twoness. Before, there was the perfect oneness of Heaven and nothing else. That is non-duality, or non-twoness and that is still reality.

There is not really more than one thing, but now something different seems to be going on for you. There seems to be God and something else. That is the illusion of duality, and the world of multiplicity and the endless subjects and objects you perceive in it are merely symbolic of separation.

While you may still try to create, you cannot really create without the power of God, so everything you make eventually falls apart. Being without the power of God, all your mind can do is seemingly divide and subdivide and then attempt to glorify the result.

But the fail-safe memory of what you really are can never be lost, making an awakening to the reality of Heaven completely inevitable. However, this memory can be seemingly delayed by unwise choices in the dream. Unwise choices have been made by you all along. You have the power to choose the memory and strength of God or something else instead, and if you really examine your thoughts you will find that you are usually choosing something else instead. That is what the part of your mind that chooses did immediately after the seeming separation. Out of shock, fear and confusion it made a series of unwise choices that resulted in you appearing to be here. You still don’t realize that given the awesome power of the mind, certain choices made by you could end the seeming separation—and could have at any time.

The idea of separation, as well as your subsequent decisions, are things that God is totally unconcerned about because you are really still safe in Heaven, and because what you are seeing is not true. You are not really able to hurt yourself—even if you dream you are being hurt or even killed. God does not create anything that is not the perfect oneness of Heaven. Everything else is your own nightmare, and does not exist.

You are at home in God, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality.

"I remember that there are men imprisoned in a cave, chained so tightly they can’t move enough to turn their heads or even their eyes. All they can see is the wall of this cave in front of them. They’ve been there so long it’s all they can remember; it’s all they know. They can see these shadows on the wall in front of them and hear some sound. Because it’s all they know, they think that what they’re looking at is reality. It’s all pretty dismal, but they’re so used to it they think it’s normal and they’ve become sort of comfortable with it.

Finally, one of the prisoners manages to break free, and he’s able to turn around and see that he’s in a cave. He can also see some light coming from the direction of the entrance. It takes a long time for his eyes to be able to stand the light, but when he makes it to the entrance he can see people walking by on the road outside, and it’s their shadows that are being cast onto the wall inside the cave.

Realizing the prisoners inside the cave can’t see that what they’re looking at is untrue, the freed prisoner goes back and tries to share his knowledge with them. They’re so used to their own way of thinking, that they don’t really want to hear what the free one has to say. In fact, it’s just the opposite. They want to kill him. It’s like what you’ve been telling me: People may think  they want to be free, but they’re not really willing to give up their own way of looking at things."