James K Anderson

Creation

So, that brings us to God. This world was not created by God. God did not create this! Try telling that to anyone on the planet with religious beliefs without being chased down the block. This is the most important concept to take away from the idea that this is a dream. The reason God appears to be so absent from this world is because, as I said, we have chosen to exclude Him from it. God also does not acknowledge this world because of the error built into it. That's a big concept to wrap your head around. God cannot see this universe (this world of form) because God only acknowledges what is Real, what is True and what is Love. If God were to acknowledge this world, that would give it reality, because the power of God's mind is what creates. God can only experience and acknowledge and create perfection, which is love.

Those of us who do believe in God, and that God created us, have quite naturally and automatically tied that belief to the idea that God must also have created this world and universe. After all, we're part of it and it seems like a package deal. And where the heck else could it have come from? Nothing is powerful enough to create something this big and complicated except God. If you can hold that thought, consider allowing yourself to now believe that God could have created you without also creating this world. The fact that God seems not to be in attendance here should make it a distinct possibility.

We can still find God here, and indeed, that's exactly what we are here to do. But in order to do that, we have to let go of this world and believe in another world of God that we aren't even aware of; a world of oneness and unconditional love. Our egos want to keep God away from this world in every practical sense because that's the whole idea. But because we know on a very deep level that we are God, it is impossible for many of us who feel that presence to keep that knowledge hidden. When the ego realizes that we are getting close to the truth of something, it panics, and does whatever it can to undermine the truth. The ego's reaction to the truth is always the same; twist it into a perverted version of the truth to put a stop to the searching. Swift and clever distraction. The ego takes our potential for remembering a perfect God and twists it into a perverted idea of God; one who punishes and loves conditionally, a god who hates certain things about us, and is capable of punishing us for all eternity for stealing office supplies. The ego has created a god that is as silly and confusing as the world we are now in. This is a very effective way to keep us from wanting to really find Him. It creates a strange God and then says, "Here you go! Here's God" but the God it has created is not really worth the trouble for most of us to find.

The ego, which is essentially all of us as humans, resorts to absolutely every trick it can come up with to make us believe that we are on the path to finding God or the truth, while behind our conscious backs, it is doing everything it possibly can to make sure that discovery never happens. There is no adversary you will ever come across that is as formidable, devious or confusing as the ego. The ego's goal is to keep you totally convinced that all of your decisions are the right ones and all of your seeking is leading you to the truth, while its true agenda is to deceive you into believing without question that the wrong direction you are heading in is the right one. The ego's god is the tiny, mad idea.

Another thing that immediately happened when we decided to pretend that we were separate from God is that we lost our belief in our unlimited nature. We suddenly became very, very small and separate individuals, fending for ourselves against a hoard of other individuals, scary external events and unknown forces, conspiring to use our smallness to conquer us in every possible way. We immediately became subject to attack. The idea of attack is built into the idea of separation, because each individual is expressing its own desires, and when those desires conflict, there can only be fear and suffering. In this dream, we feel we are being attacked by everything we can imagine, quite literally: disease, aging, decay, poverty, physical attack, mental attack, verbal attack, lack of anything. We became immersed in our fear of attack. We didn't make this silly world to feel the support and power of God, but to eliminate it. Because the belief that the world is a dream is a difficult one to grasp, here are some more thoughts to wrap your powerful mind around to see if they help you open up a little more to these ideas:

Insanity Plea #1

A Course in Miracles is vastly different from all major religions or belief systems, because it teaches that God is one. Others religions hint at this world of duality and mention oneness, but the simplicity of the idea gets lost in all of the obfuscating baggage they bring along for the ride. There is only God and nothing is separate from God. Whatever God creates remains forever part of God. The mind of God is a shared mind, where everything is known to all of God. "We" humans are not separate beings; we are the collective Son of God, part of God, merely demonstrating separateness in a dream.

So, what about this idea of oneness? Do you truly believe in the idea? You've heard about oneness a lot but have you ever asked yourself what that really means? Do you believe (correctly) that you and I are part of and one with God, and that the reason we don't know it is because we share a misperception of who we are? If you believe in oneness, can you then believe in the duality of this world as well? Can you believe in yourself as an individual with a separate identity? Duality is this universe we live in, where things have opposites and degrees, and where everything is separate from everything else. Duality is the idea of perception, where what you believe is true for you but not necessarily for someone else. Do you believe in oneness or duality? You can't believe in both! There is no "unified theory" that could possibly account for both. You are either one with God, or you aren't. God would never create duality because it is against His nature, and God cannot create against his nature. And if duality actually existed, that would mean oneness couldn't exist, because that would mean there would be something else besides "oneness," which is impossible.

So, that's the insanity. If you believe in duality, then you believe in this 3‑D universe, and have somehow justified in your mind the insane idea that duality can exist within oneness. Seriously? So the question then becomes, if you believe in oneness, how can you possibly explain this world we live in? And if you believe in duality, then you can't believe in oneness. Oneness is easy to say, but it is a hard thing to consider in reality, since this universe of twoness and threeness is the only thing we know. Of course, this is another way of seeing this world as a dream, so I'm asking you, do you believe that this life you are living and the planet you are living on right now, is real!? Especially because if this dualistic world isn't real, how can something that seems so real not be real? What else is there? What is real?

Also, if you truly understand oneness, then you can't exist as a separate being. This is the fundamental fear of discovering who we really are, because we would have to acknowledge that this thing, this person, we are now cannot possibly be explained, and cannot possibly exist. We fear total annihilation, but that's exactly what's going to happen to all of us–but in a good way, he said cheerily.

Give it up

Here's the really scary part (it just keeps getting better, doesn't it?): this is another, very difficult concept to accept that is based on this world being a dream. If this world is a dream, and you're not really a human, and you're not really here, then that means that everything you have worked so hard for, and spent so much time validating, confirming, dramatizing, defending and working for, is not real. I'm asking you to consider that everything in this world of form means absolutely nothing. I am telling you that all of the stuff that you have given so much importance to, means nothing! Nothing you believe in means anything; your job, your body, your name, your social standing, your possessions, nothing! Well, there is one thing: the only thing that is real is your mind, and the only real thoughts you have are thoughts of love. All thoughts that conflict with love are just part of the dream, and have no substance or importance. This is attacking the very foundation of your life! Is it even possible for you to consider giving up everything you've ever believed in for a vague idea that has almost no real support from anyone else?

If this world doesn't exist, then there must be a way to get out of it. Indeed, the purpose of life must be somehow to get out of this dualistic world, and see and join what must be another, or Real, world of Oneness, if you can get over your fear of not existing as you anymore. Because you can't see that real world now, or even conceive of it, you may not be inclined to give up the only thing you know for what seems a pipedream. Ironic, eh? But if I'm asking you to consider giving up everything that you are now, then I'm asking you to consider that a life containing the dualities of health and sickness, happiness and sorrow, joy and suffering, birth and certain death, is just an extension of your ego and, in fact, is not even here in front of your eyes at all. There is something about this life that we cling to because we created it to experience something very specific, and so it will not go away easily, as long as we still want these experiences. If you can believe in the power of the mind to create anything, then try to understand that the power of the mind is responsible for you and me believing this dream is actually real.