Question posed on their web site on April 2, 2004:

altarlight:
Just a tiny provocation in thought... Consider a mind, wholly awake and aware, not fallen into the seeming imperfection called the dream or illusion, filled with peace, joy, the whole knowledge of God. Now consider this question: Just how and just why would such an holy one make this so-called mistake? Nothing was threatening it. Nothing was changing around it. Nothing was unpleasant or undesirable. So why then, do you think, it would just abandon the heaven of its own faithful reality to dive headlong into the abyss of denial, fear, attack and more?

Circle of Atonement response: Q & A: "Why and how did the separation occur?"

Continuing...
From quotes in Circle of Atonement article (above):

"You were at peace until you asked for special favor [from God]" (T-13.III.10:2).

"And God did not give [special favor] for the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a Father Who truly loved His Son" (T-13.III.10:3).

altarlight:
The Son of God, wholly aware, could not be discontent with equality in oneness, nor could He desire special favor. These attitudes arise only from egoic perceptions, which of course are not present when the mind is not already engrossed in perception's illusory world. Therefore, an explanation which would suggest that the impossible caused the impossible is in fact impossible itself. Desiring special favor is a post-error symptom based upon perceptions, not a causation of any kind.

ACIM begins with "This is a course in miracles. It is a required course." I would suggest that this brief comment is not simply a comment about a series of channeling sessions and the subsequent book now called A Course In Miracles. Rather, the comment has to do with something that quite literally "is" a course in miracles…and it is this "course" that ACIM provides some views on as assistive tools.

The course, the atonement, healing, undoing or unlearning, all have to do with overcoming the illusion, the dream of darkness, and letting go of judgment, desire, thinking and choice. These are all terms that mean the same thing (although offering differing perspectives). All of these are ways of describing the time-based experience in mind, and seemingly in a dying body, that obtains from not seeing. This set of circular pathways, while unknown to the reality of the Holy Spirit, are yet facilitated by the Holy Spirit. Every path in the illusory world appears as lessons along a path that must, by design, run a circular journey, always returning to the same moment. In that moment, it becomes more obvious that our time-based efforts are all incapable of providing the answers we were so sure we were pursuing. Leading the mind back to that moment of poignant opportunity is the sole purpose and function of the dream, and is in fact, the only purpose any unreality could ever have.

The Son of God, filled with whole knowledge and the corresponding whole vision, encompassing all that infinitely and omnipresently is so, is love (a much misunderstood term). As the reality of love it is the unadulterated radiance of life, far beyond choosing.

Choosing is the mad idea which suggests that appearance of infinity means multiplicity, and thus the possibility of separation and attack. Experience is the mind's adaptive response to the mad idea, involving time, space, matter, energy and so on. When love is wholly seen, the ideas of love we adore do not fit. The closest descriptor that embraces the allness of the One...is "peace." The word which does not try to describe the One, but simply voices it and calls to it…is "I." It is important to note that the "reality of I" is the name, reality and power of God and the holy spirit of self, whereas the word "I" is not, but is merely a symbol within the illusory world.

Einstein among others suggested that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This so-called law of physics is actually the law which governs perception, and is the "choice" faculty operated when the mind misuses its freedom to know or recognize, to choose. Choosing which, by definition, suggests separateness and multiplicity, is the very process of denial wherein one chooses portions of vision for emphasis and other portions for suppression. This is tantamount to choosing to forget the truth of wholeness.

Freedom has mistakenly been segmented (conceptually), with a heavy emphasis on the false idea called "freedom of choice." True freedom however, cannot be found by choosing, for the single whole answer cannot be divided…and dividing is what choosing is about.

Notice the similarity in terminology between forget and forgive. To forget is to deny. To get is to affirm lack, which is to say, one cannot get that which they already have…and as that pertains to whole reality, there simply isn't anything you do not have. So, it becomes easy to see that wanting and getting denies the truth. To choose in any way is specifically to deny and thus choose to forget the truth that there is only one. This voluntary forgetting is the basis for the tiny mad idea. It does not "happen" per se, but simply is the resultant vision corresponding to using the mind to deny its own vision. Forgetting is denial, and is always the product of choice. This does not refer to the typical definition of forgetting things in the dream, but instead refers to forgetting the whole truth of the whole reality by denying it in vision and thus making idolatrous imagery in mind to perpetuate mental distraction.

The return to the whole vision of love or the reality called peace is forgiveness. To forgive is to give the one thing you have to give, your attention…which is sharing yourself with that toward which your attention is directed. To forgive is to relinquish the error by which perception arose in order to step out of perception's world into the world which whole vision would have you see.

All that is needed to awaken and return home, all that is needed to return to Heaven, all that is needed to accept the atonement and be made whole so to speak, all that is needed to return to whole vision of the allness of the One, of the Holy Spirit and of Father of Truth the Son expresses, is to relinquish the operative error in mind from which perception sprang. In other words, one must relinquish choosing in its many forms of attempted control. Even in the attempt to find the ever-elusive forgiveness, love and the pure vision of Heaven, we find ourselves choosing again…and again…and again…in what oft seems to be a never-ending process.

To summarize the last two paragraphs:

1. To attempt to choose is also to forget, is to deny...specifically, is to deny the true report of whole vision and cut if off from the faculty of vision such that we cannot see wholly, and thus cannot see at all, for seeing is only a whole faculty. The replacement or substitute for seeing is perceiving or making images, often seen as thoughts and feelings, environment, situations and relationships.

2. To relinquish choosing recognizes that "freedom to choose" also includes "freedom to not choose" (which is not a choice itself). This is to affirm the truth and not deny that we are one. To cease from embracing the lie of the possibility of choices, which leads into ideation of lack, desire and specialness, returns one to whole vision and seeing Heaven once again. Note that "Heaven" is a synonym for the reality of self.

The key underlying both of these seeming processes is the willingness to give attention to the reality of self and to share oneself with all as one, rather than in special dispensations. The only error there is or ever was, in ACIM called a mistake, in other texts called sin and other names, is the error of inattentiveness, which is unwillingness to share infinitely and always. Quite literally this is denial...denial of attention.

Focusing and concentration is exemplary of this denial and is based upon the belief that narrowing vision and concentrating on divided parts can and will reveal the whole, indivisible truth of reality. Clearly, the choice to look at less cannot reveal more nor directly facilitate awakening.

Since the faculty of vision shows to us what we "see because we look upon," perception must prevail whenever we refuse to look wholly. Note that the entirety of the Holy Son of God, or the Creation, specifically because it is infinitely and omnipresently whole, cannot be seen without whole attention. Put simply, this means that the removal of attention from the all in order to make a choice within the all is the error that demands vision to show us a partial world of divided specialness. Thankfully, such a world of blunted or blinded vision must be temporary for denial cannot be permanent, having no permanent foundation by whole vision.

Such removing of whole attention is key because restoration of whole attention is the "only" way to see. A problem is discovered when one attempts to restore whole attention, and that is simply that the forgetting involved in choosing does not permit the mind to understand its own foundation of peace as love, for it has refused to look upon it, and thus has also refused to understand it.

This is why it is said that "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Faith is often spoken of as strong belief, but nothing could be further from the truth. Faith literally is the substance or essence of our being, also called spirit, love, peace, etc., and is also understanding of and consequent reliance upon that substance. This understanding and confident reliance can only come from looking upon it, becoming aware of it, and allowing it to teach us relinquishing of the error. Such teaching is not about learning, but is about renewing of the mind's faculty through the influence that comes from using that faculty correctly once again.

By looking at the allness of One (the holy spirit of self within) as it is, we invoke the faculty of vision to show us what we look upon, and since this tiny willingness to look upon that which is really there calls upon vision that agrees with that which is true, vision must reveal that which is true. This peels off layer after layer of conditioned perceptions and their beliefs-based underpinning. (The "true report" versus "false witnesses".)

According to this brief overview of the Atonement (which only seems to be a process due to perceptual use of the mind), we can readily see that "the course" is the entire world of illusion in which world all paths circularly lead from one opposite toward the other, periodically and necessarily returning again and again (choose again) to the same crossroads and opportunity to listen to spirit, to allow its guidance (instead of choosing), and to return to the whole vision of Heaven once again. It is a course in miracles because it is a world where erasure of illusion is just as impossibly possible as is the making of and manipulation of illusion. And this is the single value which all things in the dream have…that they all lead in circles, both positive-looking circles and negative-looking circles, forever keeping each person in a holding pattern over the airport so to speak, until they are willing to allow the eternal autopilot (who has all the landing information) to land or ground their vision faculty and realign its use. Only looking to/at the Holy Spirit within can produce the natural response of the vision faculty to see that which is looked upon. This results in the complete reversal of thought(s) by looking at one whole thought rather than at a perceptual imagery set as a multitude of invented separate idol-thoughts.

Note that the Holy Spirit did not literally come into being when the tiny mad idea "occurred" as some suggest from quotations in ACIM. Instead, the spirit of truth, whose substance we share, became viewed as "holy" or special when our mind chose and thus initiated the idea of separateness, specialness, holiness and sacredness which would set one above another and establish worthiness, law, order, subservience and obedience...and the horrors found in the many substitutes for seeing our substance of peace as love as it is.

"The Course" is not ACIM as those who study ACIM so lovingly call it. To them, "the Course" is simply a way to refer to ACIM, but the beginning lines of ACIM speak of a literal course, not of a book title or handy catch phrase.

When one says "I do not understand it, nor do I expect to understand it this side of Heaven," two things immediately come to mind. (1) Such understanding "is" available to you now, yet in the dream, and expectation of such understanding and the understanding itself "will" come to you "before" you will be able to leave the dream. The "happy dream" cannot be experienced without such an understanding, for that is what makes it happy. (2) You "are" Heaven,* not merely a dreaming Son who happens to be awake in Heaven. You are awake "in" Heaven because you, like your Father, are omnipresent, and there is nowhere else you could be but in Heaven.

We have become so accustomed to viewing our capability and capacity as small, and certainly less than Jesus for instance, or the Holy Spirit. But it is the factual certainty that this view is in error that gives us cause to expect to know of the wholeness that is the Christ and its corresponding view.

* T4,III,1: "It is hard to understand what 'The Kingdom of Heaven is within you' really means. This is because it is not understandable to the ego, which interprets it as if something outside is inside, and this does not mean anything. The word 'within' is unnecessary. The Kingdom of Heaven is you. What else but you did the Creator create, and what else but you is His Kingdom? This is the whole message which in its totality transcends the sum of its parts."

ACIM speaks of parts, and yet clearly suggests that neither the Sonship nor God is divided. So when it speaks of "parts," it is not speaking of a literal collection or sum of divided parts being less than the whole. Rather, it speaks in comparative terms, about the idea of a sum of separate parts not being truly representative of the grandeur of the indivisible whole reality of creation that we are. Each part of the Kingdom, of the Sonship, of the Holy Spirit and God Himself is of the one omnipresent God, and as such, is (exactly) like unto Him. Each "part" or individual is also omnipresent. Note that to be omnipresent or one is to be the same, not "another." This is why my being in Him is exactly equal to Him being in me. Jesus did not feel it robbery to consider himself equal to God, and neither will you once your understanding of the truth within becomes clear enough.

The only variable is individuated vision related to individuated beingness (view portal within and to the all). Vision is variable because it is subject to whatever it sees. In the case of dreamers, this misused freedom appears as the false witnesses of the dream, or as what it does not "see" and then invents and perceives. The whole being greater than the sum of its parts refers to the Sonship rejoicing together as they see the same wonder together, and share in it or break the bread of life together. In similar fashion, when it speaks of each Son having a creation of his own spirit, this does not speak of a multitude of separate spirits and separate creations, but of one Son, viewing (or not viewing) Heaven from many views as many individuals. Note the similarity in terminology between individual and indivisible. These individuals that we are, create by sharing the love substance of our own self. We do so by looking upon our inner substance of spirit, becoming more and more aware of its radiantly loving reality, and participating in the Kingdom more and more fully, with more and more understanding arising from looking. Creation (sharing of love-substance and its influence) increases by bringing forth blessing and rejoicing...rather than in the context of making the infinity that is Heaven (you) larger.

altarlight