For you can see the body without help, but do not understand how to behold a world apart from it. It is your world salvation will undo, and let you see another world your eyes could never find. Be not concerned how this could ever be. You do not understand how what you see arose to meet your sight. For if you did, it would be gone. (T-31.VI.3:3-7)

Why can’t we see the real world? It is there. We just can’t see it. Why? Because we, the ego self we think we are, keep projecting all over it.

What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. Why, then, should a meaningless world upset you? If you could accept the world as meaningless and let the truth be written upon it for you, it would make you indescribably happy. But because it is meaningless, you are impelled to write upon it what you would have it be. It is this you see in it. It is this that is meaningless in truth. Beneath your words is written the Word of God. The truth upsets you now, but when your words have been erased, you will see His. That is the ultimate purpose of these exercises. (W-12.5:1-9)

So just like the real, forgiven world is there and the reason we can’t see it is because we keep writing blocks to love’s presence all over it, our real, forgiven self and body are there we just can’t see them because we keep writing blocks to love’s presence all over them. When God asks for our forgiveness He is asking us to see Him as He really is before we wrote blocks to love’s presence all over Him.

So how do we attain the real world? How do we stop ourselves from reflexively writing all over the real world?

The real world is attained simply by the complete forgiveness of the old, the world you see without forgiveness. The great Transformer of perception will undertake with you the careful searching of the mind that made this world, and uncover to you the seeming reasons for your making it. In the light of the real reason that He brings, as you follow Him, He will show you that there is no reason here at all. (T-17.II.5:1-3)

Jesus tells us we attain the real world through forgiveness. But just as prayer has a ladder, so does forgiveness. There is a next level of forgiveness. This level of forgiveness entails the use of spiritual vision. What is spiritual vision?

The introduction of reason into the ego’s thought system is the beginning of its undoing, for reason and the ego are contradictory. Nor is it possible for them to coexist in your awareness. For reason’s goal is to make plain, and therefore obvious. You can see reason. This is not a play on words, for here is the beginning of a vision that has meaning. Vision is sense, quite literally. If it is not the body’s sight, it must be understood. For it is plain, and what is obvious is not ambiguous. It can be understood. And here do reason and the ego separate, to go their separate ways. (T-22.III.1:1-10)

So the Holy Spirit will take you on a journey, retracing all the steps that got you here, and showing you with sense, understanding and reason how each thought in that system is insane. Each belief and each thought, especially the hidden ones, must be looked at with the Holy Spirit because each one, in its insane logic, is built upon the next. And you will understand and choose against them one by one. And then you will attain the real world. Unfortunately, while you still think the individual character self is real and that you are the individual character self and that there are things to do in the nightmare, you cannot take this leg of the journey. You are not ready. When you have decided to retire from the world and seek reality instead, you are ready. When you want to put down your child toys, you are ready. When you want only the truth because it is true, you are ready. You cannot have a foot in both worlds. It is one or the other.