There is a fundamental difference between the God referred to in A Course in Miracles and the God of many other Spiritual pathways. The path of A Course in Miracles is very specific as you might have read in the following excerpt from The End of Death, titled, “Why Jesus’ Teaching is the Quickest of all Spiritual Pathways” (click here for link)
The God referred to here is all-encompassing Love with no opposite. There is no duality in God. The truth of who we are beneath the ego dream in our mind, is God’s Extension. As such, our Right-Mind shares the same incorruptible Nature and Will of God. This is the essence of our Holy Self. There is no opposite of our Holy Self. The ego and its thought system, complete with seemingly universal laws, is illusion. The separation from God’s One Self never occurred. The only thing keeping this from our absolute knowing is our choice for the perception of separation.
While we believe that we are a separate self who can be victimized by the laws of this world, we will have no clue of God’s Nature or Will; because the awareness of God’s Self cannot be revealed until we decide to unearth, recognize and relinquish everything that is not God’s Will. It’s a process of undoing the false to reveal the Truth that has always been present but which remained unrecognized and rejected. Through the ego we cannot know God’s Will. We may be able to identify it intellectually but until we begin the process of undoing the ego’s will (beliefs) within our mind, we will not value or trust in God’s Will, therefore we won’t be able to experience it. (Note: Here is a valuable excerpt and exercise to help reveal unconscious fears of God, click on this link)
Our Holy Self is the Nature and Will of God. Our Holy Self is the Kingdom of Heaven. Everything else is complete illusion. And the Holy Self is right here, right now. It doesn’t appear after some future event like death or Spiritual Awakening. It is here and now. It may not be recognized by many of us yet, however it remains eternally pure, perfect and innocent regardless of who we imagine we are. The only “self” in this world that can suffer, is the ego self. The Holy Self remains constant, changeless and invulnerable.
The Nature and Will of God as our Holy Self, is eternal. No part of the ego’s dream affects it. In fact no part of the ego’s dream can remain unhealed when we sincerely invoke the healing of our perception through forgiveness and accepting the Atonement (for the forgiveness/Atonement process, click here). Everything that we give power to in the ego dream is not only unreal but is completely powerless over God’s Will, which is perfect happiness, healing, joy and peace. The only reason that God’s Loving Will is not seen more extensively in our awareness is because we still choose the ego’s will, illusions over Truth. We still believe the ego’s projections which is our un-relinquished self-attack.
Let’s take a look at what is not and never can be God’s Will. Sin, guilt, fear, sickness, disease, depression, physical or emotional pain, shame, sadness, grief, anger, scarcity in any form, judgment and self judgment, doubt, conflict, loss, sacrifice, struggle, confusion, loneliness, anxiety, worry and physical death. All these represent a belief in an opposite of God’s all-encompassing Love. The ego’s laws of nature are also not God’s Will. While there is certainly much beauty in nature, everything else including storms, earthquakes, floods and fires, etc., is not God’s Loving Will. Therefore the laws of this world are the laws of the ego thought system. God’s Will and Nature is reflective of only Love and nothing but this dwells within our Right Mind; there is nothing else.
When we confuse any of these ego illusions with the Will of God, we reject the miracle of healing in our perception. That is why it’s crucial in the undoing of the ego’s obsession with sin, guilt and fear, to learn the unequivocal distinction between the ego’s will and God’s Will. And while we still believe in any of these ego illusions, we will unconsciously presume that they come from God and that God authored suffering and death. This belief in sin, guilt and fear, reinforces our fear of God and thus our unnatural fear of trusting exclusively in God’s Will. The Holy Spirit’s “justice” is always Loving because it has no conflict within it. It always answers every mistake we make, which are purely calls for Love, with only Love. But the ego’s response to mistakes is to pronounce them sins, sins that require both guilt and punishment. It’s attempts at correction are through vengeance. The ego’s model is the only model we know until we begin to dismantle the ego thought system. Can you imagine committing a sin (mistake) and being gently corrected by Love, and not by punishment?
“It is extremely hard for those who still believe sin meaningful to understand the Holy Spirit’s justice. They must believe He shares their own confusion, and cannot avoid the vengeance that their own belief in justice must entail. And so they fear the Holy Spirit, and perceive the “wrath” of God in Him. Nor can they trust Him not to strike them dead with lightning bolts torn from the “fires” of Heaven by God’s Own angry Hand. They [do] believe that Heaven is hell, and [are] afraid of love. And deep suspicion and the chill of fear comes over them when they are told that they have never sinned. Their world depends on sin’s stability. And they perceive the “threat” of what God knows as justice to be more destructive to themselves and to their world than vengeance, which they understand and love.” T-25.VIII.6.
Unconsciously we fear the Will of God, because of one mistaken and un-relinquished belief… that we have sinned. And our past experience reflects our expectations of the ego’s vengeance as punishment for these sins. All of which we unknowingly consent to via our un-relinquished guilt as self-attack. However the “god” we fear is the ego’s god; its own version as the god of vengeance. While we cling to guilt and blame in any form, we still revere the ego’s god of death. It must be that we are suspicious of guiltlessness; that without guilt and blame, we would forfeit our greatest defense against the ego’s projection of its god of vengeance. Looking at our sin, guilt and fear this way, we may better understand just why it appears so difficult to surrender and forgive them. Without sin, guilt and fear, the ego counsels, we would be entirely defenseless against God’s all consuming wrath!
It would be impossible to fear at all, if we did not secretly believe we have sinned and are guilty. This is the egoâs lie, of course. The certain result of sin (judgments or grievances) is guilt, and the certain result of guilt is fear of punishment. While this unconscious fear keeps being projected outward as judgments toward the body, self, others and the world, it remains un-surrendered, un-forgiven. It then becomes an attraction to death which must manifest. Physical death represents the ego’s most exalted form of punishment. All of this false belief, until courageously exhumed and released through forgiveness, drives our unconscious attraction to suffering.
It’s a vicious cycle. We believe we sinned; are therefore guilty; and fear the consequences. We project this fear without realizing that whatever we fear, we indeed attract. And instead of forgiving the real cause of our fear, which is guilt, we try to defend ourselves instead from the ego’s unconscious self-attackâwhich we ourselves projected. In this act, we unknowingly reinforce our guilt by making the ego’s projection real. And the cycle continues. This is why a continued belief in sin and guilt always leads to the ego’s ultimate goal of death.
Sin, in the ego’s eyes, is indisputable. It needs you to believe this otherwise you might relinquish your guilt and the ego thought system would disappear. Sin is the one thing in this world that appears as if it cannot change. Yet Jesus asks us, “What is immutable besides God’s Will?” And, “What wish can rise against His Will?” He tells us this, “If you could realize nothing is changeless but the Will of God, this course would not be difficult for you.” Therefore the idea of sin, guilt and fear in which ever form they appear…can be healed, because they are not immutable and always remain amenable to the miracle in any instant we desire our perception healed.
“Yet each one knows the cost of sin is death. And so it is. For sin is a request for death, a wish to make this world’s foundation sure as love, dependable as Heaven, and as strong as God Himself. The world is safe from love to everyone who thinks sin possible.” T-25.VII.1:6-9
“It cannot be the “sinner’s” wish for death is just as strong as is God’s Will for life. Nor can the basis of a world He did not make be firm and sure as Heaven. How could it be that hell and Heaven are the same? And is it possible that what He did not will cannot be changed? What is immutable besides His Will? And what can share its attributes except itself? What wish can rise against His Will, and be immutable? If you could realize nothing is changeless but the Will of God, this course would not be difficult for you. For it is this that you do not believe. Yet there is nothing else you could believe, if you but looked at what it really is.” T-25.VII.2.
When we remove the ego’s list of  illusions, eliminating everything that could possibly harm us, what remains? If we knew with every fiber of our being, that we have never sinned and are therefore not guilty, how in the world could we expect punishment in the form of suffering? Guilt is not God’s Will. And all suffering we experience, we project, because we believe we sinned and must pay the price for our guilt. Suffering in any form, is not God’s Will. If we knew and accepted that we are truly guiltless, then we could not encounter suffering. We could not be attacked by sickness, disease, depression, physical or emotional pain, guilt, shame, sadness, grief, anger, scarcity in any form, judgment or self judgment, doubt, conflict, loss, sacrifice, struggle, confusion, loneliness, anxiety, worry or physical death. And then, what would be left to experience once  guilt and its attraction to pain were gone? Can you imagine? Without these ego illusions, the ones we have unknowingly made to attack ourselves, what would happen? How would you feel? And more importantly, what would you remember about your Holy Self?
Only God’s Loving Will and its dream of the Real World would remain. Separation would be undone within our mind because we chose to “Will with God” in place of “wishing with the ego” as we have done since the separation. The Nature and Will of God reveals its glorious Self as you learn to reject the ego’s temptations to believe in its projections where ever you appear to see them. If you knew without a doubt that suffering of any kind is never God’s Will, would you soon drop your own independent will to control your life and join wholeheartedly with God’s Will?
The Will of God lives uninterrupted within you. When you decide to allow a Holy Instant in which you suspend your fears, doubts and concerns, you will drop within to peace. And in this moment of peace, the ego ceases to exist. In this moment of eternity, outside time, God’s Will is yours. There is no interruption and you allow a miracle. The miracle doesn’t take time. It collapses it. Remember that every true desire you have in your heart is the Will of God. And God’s Love has been waiting in certainty for this precious instant, the one in which you accept and receive it. Â
God’s Love transfers from healed mind to form, as cause and effect remain together and can never be separate. There is no order of difficulty in miracles precisely because there is no hierarchy of illusions. There cannot be a greater illusion than any other, as all illusions are unreal. Whatever the seeming problem, there is a miracle waiting to heal its cause in our perception. And in healing the cause, the effect or symptoms must be healed as well. Otherwise we would be separating cause from effect which is not possible, only in our ego imagination.
God’s Will is perfect healing in all ways and joy is the natural outcome of trusting in God’s Will. God’s Will seeks to demonstrate something quite profound. It wants us to embody the knowing that we have everything because we are everything. It wants us to be living witnesses of our incorruptible Power in God’s Love, here in the dream just as Jesus did. But we won’t know this in experience while we play the ego’s game of believing we’re under the ego’s laws of suffering and separation. We must make a choice. Only one is real.
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So beautiful…..thank you……Peace and Love to You, My Friend…..
You just keep inspiring me. You make it all so clear. I feel alive and full, opening to the experience that I have everything because I am everything. I lack nothing.
OMG!
Thanks doesn’t even touch it Nouk.
đ xxx
The Truth is so freeing!
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Thank you Nouk!
No more words to be added. Only deep gratitude for what we are in THEONEHEART <3<3<3
You make my heart sing Nouk have studied acim for 10yrs now and am so grateful for the truth after many years searching love @BLESSINGS to all
Wonderful Hazel! You make my heart sing too! We’re singing together – all the way Home to joy and Love with no opposite! Yay!
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Blessings,
Nouk
i feel like ive come home Nouk to what i have always known in my heart, i know you but have never met you..thank you for your eloquent writings and insights….much love and light <3
Louise, isn’t it wonderful when we finally “remember” the Truth that’s always been in our heart…but that we chose to forget for a while? I’m blessed to know you!
Much Love,
Nouk đ
This is exceptionally clear . Wonderful. Thankyou.My question is if we are ALL “sons” of God and created perfect and whole – how do you personally reconcile deformity at birth – especially brain deformity that is born – ill and dyfuntiional and the individually is classified as a vegetable. Can a dysfuntional young brain know its own truth.. ACIM says the body is the egos projection – has an prebith ego projected a deformed body. How eould it know what faculty of cchoice would it jave to choose again. Thanks Lou
Hi Lou, everyone in the ego dream of bodies and time has had many seeming lifetimes. Each baby born is born with amnesia. And has previously elected exactly “what” they believe they deserve based on how much UN-FORGIVENESS they retain. Each lifetime they give themselves increased opportunities to recognize and complete the ONE PURPOSE of incarnating – TOTAL FORGIVENESS. đ
Great to read this beautiful truth.
Please can you tell me how you reconcile the suffering for example of a newborn child with a brain defect. At what point can this child choose truth over their ego and their condition? What mental capacity do that have to do this. Do you have an explaination. Thanks so much
Mental capacity is directly related to that souls level of Un-forgiveness trailing from seeming lifetimes. However, if we accept the Atonement FOR them…they can heal. This is what the miracle is FOR.
“While there is certainly much beauty in nature, everything else including storms, earthquakes, floods and fires, etc., is not Godâs Loving Will. ”
My friends, if I can say, it is not that storms, earthquake, floods and fires are not God’s Will, it is that we do not see their utter perfection and lovingness while we hold onto our ideas of judgment.
What of a wave as it comes in, glistening, shining, a swell of power, as it washes over the land? Without the idea of destruction, it is utter beauty. What of the entrancing and hypnotic movement of fire as it moves? Is it not the perfection of God? What of the Love reflected in a hospital, which is speaks only of the Love we have for one another, which is a place only of love and healing rather than sickness? What of Christ on the cross, in All His Glory? Where is the suffering but in our thoughts about these things? What shines is the Holy Face of Christ in all.
Just as it is the same with all things. All things speak of the Glory of God, if we can let go of our judgment of all things.
Here is a lesson from ACIM, Lesson 265:
“Creationâs gentleness is all I see.
1. I have indeed misunderstood the world, because I laid my sins on it and saw them looking back at me. ²How fierce they seemed! ÂłAnd how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone. â´Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines. âľThere is no fear in it. âśLet no appearance of my sins obscure the light of Heaven shining on the world. âˇWhat is reflected there is in Godâs Mind. â¸The images I see reflect my thoughts. âšYet is my mind at one with Godâs. šâ°And so I can perceive creationâs gentleness.
2. In quiet would I look upon the world, which but reflects Your Thoughts, and mine as well. ²Let me remember that they are the same, and I will see creationâs gentleness.”
Let us heed these words! They point to the utter beauty of everything – all things we think are ugliness, are only the truth, if we let go our belief in suffering,
“ÂłAnd how deceived was I to think that what I feared was in the world, instead of in my mind alone. â´Today I see the world in the celestial gentleness with which creation shines. âľThere is no fear in it.”
If we forgive these ideas, “Sin, guilt, fear, sickness, disease, depression, physical or emotional pain, shame, sadness, grief, anger, scarcity in any form, judgment and self judgment, doubt, conflict, loss, sacrifice, struggle, confusion, loneliness, anxiety, worry and physical death”, all that may shine forth can be beauty – beauty in all its perfect forms as Creation.
What must be forgiven is our ideas, not the perfection of Creation.
Blessings be to you all.