My Salvation Comes Frome Me, and I Need Do Nothing

My salvation comes from me. (W Lesson-70:1-2)
All temptation is nothing more than some form of the basic temptation not to believe the idea for today. Salvation seems to come from anywhere except from you. So, too, does the source of guilt. You see neither guilt nor salvation as in your own mind and nowhere else. When you realize that all guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place. In understanding this you are saved.

The seeming cost of accepting today's idea is this: It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace or upset you in any way. This idea places you in charge of the universe, where you belong (not in the universe) because of what you are. This is not a role that can be partially accepted. And you must surely begin to see that accepting it is salvation.

ACIM T-2:V:5:1
The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself.

Mikey's Note: So, by accepting your sole responsibility, that's where your salvation lies. Now there is a line in the Course that says, 'I need do nothing.' (ACIM T-18:VII:5:7) Well, it's true on the level of the world you need do nothing, because the Course is not a religion so it's not about your behavior, and it's not about what you do in the world. What you do in the world, regardless of what it is, doesn't matter. On the level of the mind, however, you do have to make that choice to accept the Atonement for yourself, that's why J says that your salvation comes from you.

So, how do you accept the Atonement for yourself? Well, you apply forgiveness on whatever comes up in front of your face on any given day. Keeping in mind, you are not forgiving people, circumstances, and events for what you think they've done, you are forgiving them because you made it all up; it's a projection that is coming from you, not something that is coming at you.

As J says in the Workbook, 'What is forgiveness? Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.' (W:1:1) As Pursah would say, 'I might add in only in that view are all your sins forgiven. (YIR p 102)

So from that point of view, you are coming from a position of strength, being at cause, rather than from a position of weakness, being at the mercy of the effect. There's no power in making yourself out to be a victim. As J says in the Course, 'Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated.' (ACIM T-26:X:4:1) And as Pursah puts it, ' …nobody can really take the peace of God away from you except by your own decision. (DU p 169) There are no victims in this world! As J states in the Course, 'I am not the victim of the world I see.' (ACIM W- Lesson:31 Title)

No one or no thing can give you salvation. As Gary would say, ‘There is no such thing as vicarious salvation.’ So, everyone has to do their own forgiveness work in order to become a master. As J says, ‘In this world you need not have tribulation because I have overcome the world. That is why you should be of good cheer.’ (ACIM T-4:I:13:10-11) In other words, J wasn’t claiming to be special, so He’s saying we can do what He did too: forgive the world and be free. But as He also says, '.....it requires patience and abundant willingness.' (ACIM M-17:8:4)

DU p 234
What you do is a result of what you think. That doesn't mean you're always going to behave perfectly. When the Course talks about a teacher of God becoming perfect here, it is referring to perfect forgiveness, not perfect behavior.

Mikey's Note: At the same time, we're all going to be doing something while we appear to be here. But your salvation is not dependent on what you do in the world; it's where you’re coming from while you’re doing it that matters.

As Pursah says, '...you can still live a relatively normal earthly existence and be awakened slowly and gently from your dream.' (DU p 111) Gary says, 'Don't be weird.' Well, too late for me, but that's another story. But what I mean is, always remember that the Course has nothing against using common sense and discernment.

DU p 218
Forgiveness has to do with what you think. What you do isn't the important thing, even though it is a result of what you think. It's what you think that will either keep you dreaming or help get you home, not what you do.

YIR p 102
So what does forgiveness do, then? ‘The miracle (forgiveness) does nothing. All it does is undo.’ (ACIM T-28:I:1:1-2) ‘Salvation is undoing.’ (ACIM T-31:VI:2:1) And when the ego is undone, the truth will be all that’s left.



God Is....and nothing else is

Definitive Statements

In A Course in Miracles, Jesus speaks to us at two different levels - the level of world, and at the level of absolute truth. If he spoke to us just on the level of absolute truth we wouldn't get very far, so he has to speak to us where we think we are - which is in the world. So, there’s a lot of metaphor going on in the Course, and I have seen many Course students quote metaphorical lines from the Course out of context, thinking that it's a literal statement and use it to support what they think Jesus is teaching, without really having a clue as to what should be taken literally, and what should be taken as metaphor. That's to be expected. That's why I always suggest to people when they ask me about the Course to read The Disappearance of the Universe, and not just once. Arten and Pursah spell it out so clearly and so bluntly that there's no getting away from it.

Arten and Pursah make it very clear as to what should be taken literally, and what should be taken as metaphor:

DU92
The parts of the Course that express non-duality should be taken literally, but the parts of it that seem to express duality should be taken as metaphor. There is no conflict in that, but without getting it, you’ll incorrectly think the Course is contradicting itself. In the end, everything except for God is metaphor.

DU92
Everybody is trying to find and express their truth. Their so-called truth is actually designed to keep them stuck where they are. What J is teaching in his Course is that the truth is not different for everyone. It is not relative. He's saying the truth is the truth whether you understand and agree with it or not. The truth is not subject to your interpretation, and neither is his Course. He's the Teacher, and you're the student. If that's not the case, then why do the Course?


The Course in a nutshell from Arten and Pursah:

YIR198 & 199
Don’t be discouraged by those who borrow from the Course instead of teaching it. There are even people who teach the Course exclusively who fail to understand it. They’ll think that the Course is open to their interpretation. Yet if it were, it would be useless. What makes the Course unique is that what it says is not open to interpretation. It says there is no world and only God is real. The way to awaken from the dream of death is through total, uncompromising forgiveness of people because they haven’t really done anything, which is how to forgive yourself. Any other interpretation is folly.

YIR73
The mind will go to such lengths to avoid what the Course is saying and delay the clarification of it that people will read the Text and interpret it, usually incorrectly. They’ll ignore the definitive statements of the Course, and start nitpicking and focusing on individual words or phrases that, when taken out of context, seem to support their interpretation. Yet everything the Course says must be put within the context of the Course’s larger teaching, which shows up unmistakably in those definitive statements.


These statements from the Course express the absolute truth and are exactly what the Course is teaching, therefore, they should be taken literally. Whether Course students are ready to accept them or not is another story - but that's between them and the Holy Spirit.

W-Lesson 256:1:1-2
The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way.

T-2:V:5:1
The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the Atonement for himself.

T-31:VI:2:1
Salvation is undoing.

T-27:VIII:10:1
The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this unto yourself.

T-1:VI:1:1
You who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness.

T-6:10:7
The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation never occurred.

W-1:1-4
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven.

W-Lesson 46:1-2
God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself.

Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.

W-Review VI:Intro:3:3-5
I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.

T-18:VII:3:1
At no single instant does the body exist at all.

W-Lesson 92:2:1-4
You believe the body’s brain can think. If you but understood the nature of thought, you could but laugh at this insane idea. It is as if you thought you held the match that lights the sun and gives it all its warmth; or that you held the world within your hand, securely bound until you let it go. Yet this is no more foolish to believe the brain can think.

T-23:IV:1:10-11
What is not love is murder. What is not loving must be an attack.

T-30:VI:1:1
Anger is never justified.

CL-4:1:1-5
The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

T-13:Intro:3:1-2
If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving.

T-13:VII:17:6-7
You dwell not here but in eternity. You travel but in dreams while safe at home.

W-Lesson 182:1:1-2
This world you seem to live is not home to you. And somewhere in your mind you know that this is true.

W-Lesson 132:6:2-5 & 7:1-2
There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.’

But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize.

T-15:IV:6:1-2
The reason this course is simple is that truth is simple. Complexity is of the ego, and is nothing more than the ego’s attempt to obscure the obvious.


God Is....and nothing else is

Special Update from Mikey

Hi Folks,

Just wanted to give an update about things. First, Gary Renard's highly anticipated 3rd book, Love Has Forgotten No One - The Answer to Life, still has no official release date. Gary has made no secret in his newsletters and workshops that the release of this book has been delayed for several reasons. Gary, along with Cindy, will be here in Ashland, Oregon on July 17th so perhaps he'll have an update for us then.

But everything you really need is in the first two books; I highly recommend to people to read them more than once. I've read The Disappearance of the Universe twelve times, and Your Immoral Reality nine times in the last three years, and I have a friend of my mine on the east coast who has read the books twenty-two and fifteen times, respectively - no such thing as too much repetition. If you're not perfect at practicing forgiveness then you can't hear these ideas enough times. But at the same time, there are some fun things that will be covered in the 3rd book, so I am looking forward to it, nevertheless. In a previous post on my blog, I listed the chapter titles for the 3rd book, here's a link to that post:
Meeting Gary Renard - Gary visits the Rogue Valley in Southern Oregon

In the meantime, I've also been working on a book of my own. I post the 'Quote of the Day' over on The Disappearance of the Universe Yahoo Group. My book will consists of these quotes, along with some of my own commentary, as well as a section in the book about my spiritual path leading me to Gary's books and A Course in Miracles, and I've got some other cool stuff going on in it too - it's gonna kick ass! It's not too far away from being completed, and I plan to have it in print later this year. I do have a title for it but am not ready to announce that just yet. Stay tuned!


'Congratulations to the person who has forgiven and has found life.'
~ Pursah's Gospel of Thomas, saying #58 from Your Immortal Reality

The Hidden Hatred in the Subconscious Mind

Quotes from The Disappearance of the Universe, Your Immortal Reality, and A Course in Miracles in regards to the hidden hatred below the surface of the mind.

DU p 16
There’s a big problem holding people back that the popular New Age authors didn’t tell them about. Perhaps the most overlooked error of all religions and philosophies, including the New Age models, is the failure to understand that although doing things like thinking positively, being "in the now," saying prayers, affirmations, denying negative thoughts, and listening to famous speakers may have a temporarily helpful impact, they cannot release that which is locked in the deep canyons of your unconscious mind.

YIR p 64
People think it’s the beliefs that they have in their conscious mind that runs them, and that they can control their mind by changing their thoughts from negative to positive ones. That’s not true when it comes to the big picture. It will only have a temporarily helpful impact. What really runs us are the beliefs we have that are unconscious to us, the things we can’t see. A Course in Miracles presents a way to actually heal and remove the things that are hidden in the deep canyons of the unconscious mind. Very few spiritual teachings do anything on that level.

YIR p 80
Given that the Course is the only teaching that not only addresses but completely explains the issue of unconscious guilt, it shows you how vital it is to make this teaching more available to people. Right now most of the people who teach the Course don't even understand it. And the ones who quote from it without teaching it certainly don't understand it. They take lines from it out of context to support what they're teaching. But what the Course is teaching is that you can undo the ego that's in your mind, have the Holy Spirit heal all of your unconscious guilt, and be free. The fastest way to do that is to change the way you look at other people, events, and situations. It also teaches you how to do that. But the most important part of the Course isn’t what it means. The most important part of doing the Course is applying it into your everyday life.

DU p 159 & 160
The Course wants to help people realize what's in their unconscious - so they can get rid of it. Most people, especially nice, spiritual people, don't know about the murderous thought system that runs this universe, or the hatred that's underneath the surface of their mind. Nor do most of them want to know. Most people just want everything to be hunky-dory. You can't blame them for wanting peace, but real peace is found by undoing the ego, not by covering it over.

DU p 159
Your real life is in Heaven, but you can also achieve peace and joy during your temporary life here. Those are your motivations for quitting grievances. Sometimes those motivations won't seem like enough. What's going to happen is that when you try to forgive, sometimes you'll be able to. Yet if you're really trying to do the Course, then just as often you're going to come up against a lot of things that you don't want to forgive and you don't want to give up. That's how your resistance and your hidden, unconscious hatred shows up. Those are the things you're going to have to look at that you don't want to look at.

ACIM T p 202 (11:V:1:1)
No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected.

ACIM T p 499 (24:Intro:2:1)
To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold.

DU p 248
Any kind of an upset, from a mild discomfort to outright anger, is a warning sign. It tells you that your hidden guilt is rising up from the recesses of your unconscious mind and coming to the surface. Think of that discomfort as the guilt that needs to be released by forgiving the symbol you associate with it. The ego is trying to get you to see the guilt as being outside of you by projecting the reason for it onto an illusory image. The ego thought system is trying to put some distance in between yourself and the guilt, and any suitable object or person who comes along will suffice.

DU p 159
The things you won't want to forgive, or even look closely at, are ‘the secret sins and hidden hates’ that the Course talks about, which are really symbolic of how you hate yourself, except you've projected them, so they seem to be outside of you. The way to forgive yourself and help the Holy Spirit take over your unconscious mind is to uncover and observe these things with Him, and keep on forgiving them.

YIR p 215
When your forgiveness lessons are complete, then not one trace of guilt will remain in your unconscious mind. At that point, you will break the cycle of birth and death, and never dream of going into a body again. That is the end of reincarnation.

DU p 225
The Holy Spirit knows your afraid of your unconscious. The purpose of the Course is peace, not to scare the hell out of you. The more prepared you are, and the better you do your forgiveness work, the less scary your journey with the Course will ultimately be.

God Is....and nothing else is

The Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Guiltless Mind Cannot Suffer

With Easter just a week away, I thought this would be a good time to provide some excerpts from A Course in Miracles, The Disappearance of the Universe, and Your Immortal Reality on what the crucifixion and the resurrection were really all about.

Gary talks about going to see the movie The Passion of the Christ on his audio program Secrets of the Immortal as well as in Your Immortal Reality - Murders Without Corpses. Gary describes the scene of people lined up around the block to get tickets to see this bloody, horrific movie that he says is so violent that it should have been rated NC-17 instead of R. So, he says people were like taking their nine, ten year old kids to go see this thing. And after the movie was done, Gary describes the looks on the parents’ faces as they were coming out of the movie theatre as if they were saying to their kids, '‘There, you see? You see what Jesus did for you? You see how he suffered and sacrificed himself for you? You guilty little bastids! Now what are you going to do for him? Well, you’re gonna be a Christian, right?’

Mikey's Note: Nine years of Catholic school as a kid, I can relate. LOL Fortunately for me, even though I had been baptized Catholic, Catholicism wasn't a part of my upbringing at home. So, I was able to 'tune out' a lot of the religious stuff that was taught in the classroom and the church, although I did have to take in enough in order to pass Religion class, but not to the point where I would have to go through 'recovering Catholic therapy' afterwards. LOL

Anyway, Gary goes on to say in the program, 'And there you have the makings of a very successful religion. Because, if you want to get people to do something in this world, then you make them feel guilty – that’s what makes the world go round. That’s why Christianity is such a successful religion and has over a billion members because they make people feel guilty about the death of Jesus and they are indoctrinated at a very young age.'

Mikey's Note: Actually, according to Wiki Answers, there are around 2 billion members of Christianity which is about 33% of the world's population. Additionally, there are 33,820 different denominations of Christianity - Holy shit, talk about screwing up a spiritual message! LOL Then again, the same thing has happened with the Course too; as Gary's teachers mention, 'In the seven years Helen was scribing the Course, and during the eight years she lived after that, it never once occurred to her or Ken that there could possibly be any other interpretation of the Course (purely non-dualistic.) But give the world a few years to screw up J's message and it's a wonder to behold.'‘People think that the Course is open to their interpretation. Yet if it were, it would be useless.’  But that's a story for another time. Getting back to Christianity, Gary’s teachers say, 'We’re not saying there isn’t some good in Christianity or that Christian people are not sometimes the salt of the earth. But their religion is a mixed bag, because the world that is a projection of the mind that made it is such a mixed bag. If the mind is going to be healed, then it needs something that is not a mixed bag.’


The message of the crucifixion has been interpreted by the world as a message of sacrifice. That is not the lesson J intended it to be. His lesson was one of resurrection rather than crucifixion. J says there is no death, and that the body is nothing. The church has confused the manner of his death as a call to sacrifice and suffer for God. That is incorrect.

It is not necessary for you to repeat the example of the crucifixion. As J tells you in the Course, ‘You are not asked to be crucified, which was part of my own teaching contribution. You are merely asked to follow my example in the face of much less extreme temptations to misperceive, and not to accept them as false justifications for anger.’  Remembering that, all you need to do is understand the real lesson of it and apply it, through your forgiveness attitude, to your own body and your own personal life’s circumstances. Here is part of what J says in the Course in the section titled The Message of the Crucifixion. You will never find a more striking example of refusing to compromise on the truth.

‘Assault can ultimately be made only on the body. There is little doubt that one body can assault another, and can even destroy it. Yet if destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real. Its destruction, therefore, does not justify anger. To the extent to which you believe that it does, you are accepting false premises and teaching them to others. The message the crucifixion was intended to teach was that it is not necessary to perceive any form of assault in persecution, because you cannot be persecuted. If you respond with anger, you must be equating yourself with the destructible, and are therefore regarding yourself insanely.’ A

He then goes on to say in that same section, ‘The message of the crucifixion is perfectly clear: Teach only love, for that is what you are.  If you interpret the crucifixion in any other way, you are using it as weapon for assault rather than as the call for peace for which it was intended.’


J’s whole point was to teach the meaninglessness of the body, not glorify it. The focus should always be on doing your forgiveness lessons and going home, not on the level of form and the body, which cannot be spiritualized. People are always looking for vicarious salvation. They want to be enlightened by following an enlightened one and having it bestowed on them. It doesn’t work that way. In addition, there are so many people out there presenting themselves as some kind of a master and saying they’re going to teach you “mastery,” that it’s comical. If you drove a nail through the wrist of these people, it would hurt like hell. J really was a master, and he could feel no pain because the guiltless mind cannot suffer.


Resurrection is something that takes place in your mind even though you still appear to be in your body, and it actually has nothing to do with the body at all. The ideas of physical resurrection and physical immortality are not only fantasies, but totally unnecessary.


Here are a couple of passages from the Manual for Teachers on the resurrection. ‘Very simply the resurrection is the overcoming or surmounting of death. It is a reawakening or a rebirth; a change of mind about the meaning of the world. It is the acceptance of the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of the world’s purpose; the acceptance of the Atonement for oneself.'  It goes on to say, ‘The resurrection is the denial of death, being the assertion of life. Thus is all the thinking of the world reversed entirely. Life is now recognized as salvation, and pain and misery of any kind perceived as hell. Love is no longer feared, but gladly welcomed.’


The time will come when each seemingly separated mind has attained its enlightenment or resurrection. When everyone – not everybody, 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.


The law of forgiveness is this, ‘Fear binds the world, forgiveness sets it free.’ The world feels solid to you because fear binds it. It didn't feel solid to J because he had forgiven the world. That's why the nails didn't hurt him as they were being driven into his flesh. Being guiltless, his mind could not suffer - and someday you will attain the condition where you cannot suffer. That is the destiny the Holy Spirit holds out to you when you forgive the episodic fantasies of your bodily addicted ego.


Even though it appeared to be a terrible attack, the crucifixion was really nothing to J, because he was so totally identified with the invulnerable Love of God, which he knew he really was, instead of illusions like the body. The fact that the crucifixion and J's supposed suffering for others on the cross are central ideas to Christianity is just an indication of how much his message was misunderstood and distorted. But don't expect to attain the same non-suffering level of accomplishment as J in your first year doing the Course. It's an ideal that can only come with a great deal of experience. The time will eventually come when you will never suffer. That is one of the long term payoffs of this spiritual path. Even while you still appear to be in your body, it's possible for you to attain psychological invulnerability.

As the Course says, 'The guiltless mind cannot suffer.' It blows the whole idea of glorifying sacrifice right out of the water. Because pain is not a physical process, it's a mental process, and if you healed all the unconscious guilt in the mind, then you couldn't feel any pain. That changes the message of the Crucifixion from the idea of worshiping suffering and sacrifice to a demonstration that if you were healed, then it would be impossible for you to feel any pain or to suffer. But suffering, like people now believe J did, is a hallmark of the religion that he had nothing to do with, but that was founded in his name.


It was never J's intention to start a religion. Whether then or now, the world needs another religion like it needs a bigger hole in the ozone layer. J was the ultimate follower in the sense that he eventually listened only to the Holy Spirit.


J considered himself to be totally dependent on God, yet this dependence was not weakness, as the world usually views dependence. Rather, the result was a state of unbelievable psychological strength. Things that would scare the stuffing out of strong people meant nothing to him, because they were nothing to him. Fear was not a part of him. His attitude was the same as if you were having a dream last night asleep in your bed, except you were totally aware of the fact that you were dreaming. And because you knew you were dreaming, you also knew that absolutely nothing in the dream could possibly hurt you, because none of it was true; you realized you were merely observing symbolic images, including people, who weren't really there.


You should never allow yourself to be harmed physically, or seek out danger or suffer in order to prove a point. You can still live a relatively normal earthly existence while being awakened slowly and gently from your dream. The crucifixion was an extreme teaching lesson. It is not necessary for you to go through it in order to learn from it. Remember, the Course is done at the level of the mind. If you’re a woman and a man is trying to rape you, kick him in the balls. (Forgive 'em later.)

Mikey's Note: Yes, please remember that the teachings of the Course are always to be applied at the level of the mind, and never on the level of form, or the physical. It's always about changing your perception, it's not about changing your behavior. Your behavior may or may not change naturally as a result of changing your perception.


When the Course talks about not judging your brother, what it means is that you don't condemn him. Obviously, you have to make judgments just to cross the street. The Course isn't talking about abandoning that kind of judgment. Without it, you couldn't get out of bed in the morning. One thing the Course has nothing against is common sense.


We don’t mean to be disrespectful, but we have to make certain controversial statements because there’s not exactly an oversupply of people in your society who are willing to point these things out. It is true, at the time, J was the most advanced spiritual person to ever appear on the earth. But everyone else, including you, will eventually attain the same level of accomplishment as him. There is no exception to this. Thus, J is not ultimately different from anyone else, and his attitude was that no one will be left out of Heaven, because there is really only one of us - not all these separate bodies as you are presently dreaming.


J was a savior all right, but not the kind who promoted vicarious salvation. He wanted to teach us how to play our part in saving ourselves. When he said that he was the way, the truth, and the life, he meant we should follow his example, not believe in him personally. You shouldn't glorify his body. He didn't believe in his own body, why should you?


A lot of Christians ask nowadays, 'What would Jesus do?' There's only one correct answer to that question, and it would always be the same. He'd forgive.

Links:
Mikey says, 'Guilty little bastids!'
Seinfeld: David Puddy is a Christian
Seinfeld: A Nun hits on Kramer - The Kovorka
Seinfeld: Jerry's Dentist Converts to Judaism

God Is....and nothing else is

J-DOG

God Did Not Create The World - Thank God!

When I read The Disappearance of the Universe for the first time in the spring of 2007, it made total sense to me mainly because I had already had the many of the experiences Arten and Pursah were talking about. However, one thing I had to really think about was on page 9 in the first chapter where Pursah tells Gary that God did not create the world. I had never heard that one before, and I thought I had heard everything at that point. I never even thought to question it, which is very unusual for me, considering my track record with such things. Anyway, the exact words Pursah said to Gary:

‘God did not create duality and He did not create the world. If he did, He would be the author of "a tale told by an idiot." But God is not an idiot. He can only be one of two things. He is either perfect Love, as the Bible says when it momentarily stumbles upon the truth, or He's an idiot. You can't have it both ways.’ Gary says in response on page 13, ‘If I told people that God didn’t create the world, I have a feeling it would probably go over about as big as a fart in an elevator.’

And since we’re on the subject, God is neither a He nor a She, God is an It, and Arten and Pursah are just staying consistent with the metaphorical language J uses in the Course in order to correct the Bible. DU p 97 & 319

So, a few months prior to my first reading of Disappearance - I’m almost finished with my12th reading now - I was bouncing around some ideas in my head about God and forgiveness. I was thinking that if God forgives us for something we did, that would imply that God originally condemned us, and after a few minutes I came to the conclusion that if God is really sane, then God wouldn’t do that; God wouldn’t think like us idiot humans.

So later in the book on page 178, Gary says, ‘God doesn't have to forgive me; I need to forgive myself by forgiving others instead of attacking them. Even if it's just a mental judgment and I don't say or do anything, an attack thought is still an attack thought. That's why I have to monitor my thoughts. Whether I attack or forgive, I do it to myself because these people aren't real anyway - they're just symbols of what's in my mind, just as I'm a symbol in the collective mind. The world doesn't need God's forgiveness; people need to forgive themselves by forgiving the images they see.'

Arten responds, 'Yes. Absolutely. The Course couldn’t be any more clear about that: God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself. Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear.' ACIM W-73 (Lesson 46:1:1-5 & 2:1-5)

Once I read that quote that God does not forgive because he never condemned, I put two and two together, and made the connection, the idea that God did not create the world now made perfect sense to me.

DU p 125 (Arten)
God could not have created this world. It would not be in His nature. He is not cruel, and as J points out to you, ‘If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving.’ ACIM T-236 (13:Intro:3:1-2)

Of course, there really is no world, it’s just a dream, and dreams aren’t real. But that’s a subject for another time.

DU p 343 (Arten)
Don't ever forget that the goal of the Course is the only thing worth having, and this world isn't. You think the universe is of value because you're used to it and it's all you remember. But as the Course asks you, ‘God's teachers can have no regret on giving up the pleasures of the world. Is it a sacrifice to give up pain? Does an adult resent the giving up of children's toys? Does one whose vision has already glimpsed the face of Christ look back with longing on a slaughter house? No one who has escaped the world and all its ills looks back on it with condemnation.’ ACIM M p 33 (13:4:2-5)

Of course, that leads to another topic I’ll briefly mention: Suicide. As Arten puts in on page 79 in Gary’s second book Your Immortal Reality, ‘Suicide is the biggest problem in the world that the world is in total denial of. Sure, people know about suicide, but they have no idea how widespread it is. Nobody wants to talk about it . Nobody wants to examine it. If someone is depressed, the system will put them on drugs and never look at the reasons. That’s because the ego doesn’t want to look at the issue of unconscious guilt, which is the real cause of suicide.' And I might add, the unconscious guilt is real cause of all the madness in the world.

Arten also says on page 176 in DU, ‘Those who commit suicide, in any manner, seek to end the intolerable psychological pain of their guilt and suffering. Since their unconscious guilt remains intact, they merely end up reincarnating and keeping the problem unresolved. Death is not a way out. True forgiveness is the way out. As the Course teaches, ‘The world is not left by death but by truth.’ ACIM T-51 (3:VII:6:11)

So yeah, some people think they can escape their problems by killing themselves but they can’t, because it’s impossible to kill yourself. The body is nothing, the mind, not to be confused with the brain, keeps right on going afterwards. It’s not until you discover the truth of what you really are, not just intellectually but in your experience, that you will be free of the world. Otherwise, you keep reincarnating over and over again, like we already have been doing for eons. Of course, no matter how many problems somebody may think they have, there really is only one problem. As the Course puts it, ‘A sense of separation from God is the only lack you need correct.’ ACIM T-14 (1:VI:2:1) Any other seeming lack, is symbolic of that first and only lack.

And there is only one solution, as the Course clearly teaches, ‘The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way.’ W-422 (256:1:1-2) Of course, we're talking about forgiveness in the true sense of the word, and then once that is accomplished, then all there’s left is Heaven.

A few more quotes to close this puppy out:

DU p 107 (Arten)
When J told you to make the world meaningless to you, he was talking about giving up the value that you have given it, and accepting the Holy Spirit's meaning for it instead. For example, he says in the Text, ‘To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold.’ ACIM T-499 (24:Intro:2:1)

DU p 349 & 350 (Pursah)
When you have a deep desire for anything then you must think you're a body, or separate from God in some way. What else could want something? If you're spirit, or joined with God, then you need nothing. If you remember that you're not a body then you can step back and see that what you desire is valueless. We're not talking about giving up everything physically; we're talking about the way you look at it.

DU p 342 (Arten)
When J said, 'Renounce the world and the ways of the world; make them meaningless to you,' he meant that what you are seeing doesn't exist. It's nothing because it's not really there. How can nothing mean anything? If you make it mean something, good or bad, then you're trying to change nothing into something. The only thing you should make it is meaningless.

DU p 245 (Pursah)
You have work to do along with the Holy Spirit to uncover your eyes and get your mind into the condition where you can awaken from the dream and become aware of what you really are, and where you really are. All your lifetimes have been just one big, gigantic mind trip going nowhere. To get to the point where that truth becomes your experience, it takes work.

So, I’ll wrap up this post by saying that God is a Non-Idiot – yay!

Giddy up!

God Is....and nothing else is

Projection Makes Perception

ACIM Preface xi
The world we see merely reflects our own internal frame of reference - the dominant ideas, wishes and emotions in our minds. "Projection makes perception." We look inside first, decide the kind of world we want to see and then project that world outside, making it the truth as we see it. We make it true by our interpretations of what it is we are seeing. If we are using perception to justify our own mistakes - our anger, our impulses to attack, our lack of love in whatever form it may take - we will see a world of evil, destruction, malice, envy, and despair. All this we must learn to forgive, not because we are being "good" and "charitable," but because what we are seeing is not true. We have distorted the world by our twisted defenses, and are therefore seeing what is not there. As we learn to recognize our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them or "forgive." At the same time we are forgiving ourselves, looking past our distorted self-concepts to the Self That God created in us and as us.

ACIM T445 (21:1:1-9)
Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. Therefore, seek not to change the world, but choose to change your mind about the world. Perception is a result and not a cause. And that is why order of difficulty in miracles is meaningless.

ACIM T38 (3:II:2)
Innocence is not a partial attribute. It is not real until it is total. The partly innocent are apt to be quite foolish at times. It is not until their innocence becomes a viewpoint with universal application that it becomes wisdom. Innocent or true perception means that you never misperceive and always see truly. More simply, it means that you never see what does not exist, and always see what does.

DU p 112
Gary: Are you saying I'm gonna have to see everyone, no matter what, as being totally innocent?
Pursah: That is correct. Once again, don't expect it to happen right way.
Gary: I don't know. How can a man like Hitler be innocent?
Pursah: That's a typical question, and the answer doesn't have anything to do with Hitler. As one who remembers my Jewish lifetimes very well, I'm not exactly a fan of the Nazis, skinheads, the KKK, or any of the other mentally injured groups. The reason they are innocent has nothing to do with the level of form. Hitler and everyone else in the world, including you, are equally innocent because what you are seeing is not true. This is your dream. As the Course teaches, the dream is not being dreamed by somebody else. ACIM T623 (29:IX:6:3)

Mikey's Note
Seeing innocence everywhere is certainly easier said than done. But each must take responsibility for his or her dream at the level of the mind in order to be free of it. Otherwise, you're building house upon the shifting sands of change, rather than on the rock. As the Course teaches, 'As you see him you will see yourself.' ACIM T142 (8:4:2) The question is, do you want to see yourself as innocent, or as a 'guilty little bastid?' Even though it may give one a transitory state of satisfaction, projecting your own unconscious guilt on to others only keeps it in tact, while forgiving it may not always come with the instant gratification we all desire, it will gradually undo all the unconscious guilt buried in the mind, and then we'll be free of it. And all that will be left is innocence.

God Is....and nothing else is