“The ego teaches thus: Death is the end as far as hope of Heaven goes.” (T-15.I.4:13-14)

Here on earth it seems as if you are born, grow old and die. That is not really happening. What happens is that we, as mind, made up the idea of a body because we needed something to be separate with. Something that would witness to our belief that we were separate from God. We made up a body and then used the body and our seeming experience of being “in” it to prove that we were separate. Separate from our brothers and separate from God.

Then we made up a fantasy where this thing we made up, the body seems to be born, grow old and die. The only reason the body seems to change is because the mind, outside of time and space, instructs it to. In reality the body cannot be born, grow old or die. This is an evil made up fantasy and supports the ego’s contention that we are weak, vulnerable, not eternal and at effect. In short, we are not the Son of God. The bigger the lie the more likely it is to be believed.

So, there is this fantasy that we are a body and that the body dies. To add to the whole delusion many of us believe that when we “leave” the body we go to Heaven or hell. Others believe that there is nothing after death. None of these beliefs are true because as Jesus demonstrated, there is no death only an illusion of death.

So what happens when in the dream we seem to be participating in the ritual dance of “death”? You never stop thinking. You just now have the “experience” of being outside the body in the dream. Are you really outside the body? No because you were never in the body. You, the real you, are asleep in the arms of God dreaming that you were a body, that was born aged and died and then seemingly left the body. This is a fantasy. This is not life. This is a horrible parody of life.

“Death” seems to happen to a made up image in your mind. Why does all of this seem so real? Because we are the Son of God and we wanted it to seem real. As the Son of God do you think we are powerful enough to make something we wish for seem real? We can move mountains. Of course we can because we put them there in the first place. Can we move around anything in our dreams we want? Of course. But not if we think we are the body, the character self that we are using to prove that we are separate and not the Son of God. That self is vulnerable, pitiful, and weak. How could that self affect the dream?

No, the body is not real. No, the character self is not real. No, the world we made up to be seemingly separate is not real. We are definitely not going to Heaven when we “die” because we are not the thing that “dies.” We are eternal. We are spirit. We are in Heaven dreaming that we are not. We have traded our awareness of Heaven and God for the awareness of dreams and all the crazy evil games we seem to play in the desire to make believe this insanity is real.

So how do I trade my evil dreams, including birth, aging and death for my awareness of Heaven? How do I stop playing this vicious game, wake-up and get home to God?

We must follow in Jesus’s footsteps. He is our model. He awoke from the dream and remembered he was at one with God. He valued nothing in the world. He learned that it was not real even in “death.” He was a servant of the Holy Spirit and he asked Him everything because he knew that was the way out of hell. He did not participate in the world as if it were real. He used the world to remember what he was in truth. If you want to leave the world and seek reality instead, you can and will.

Look at your life with the Holy Spirit honestly. How far are you on the road to getting that the world, the body and your character self are not real? That they are an evil fantasy you made up to hide from God? How many more classrooms, “life” times, do you have to walk into and out of before you remember that you are home?

Everything in the last “life” time seemed just as special as the things in this “life” time. If they were so special, what happened to them? All the circumstances, all the relationships? When the last “you” “died,” poof, like magic, those circumstances, those relationships were gone. It was like they never existed. Do we lament… “Oh my mother, oh my father, oh my partner, oh my children, oh my self from my past “life”?” No we do not. Why? Because they were not real. We were playing a vicious children’s game made-up by the ego. There is a very large price for continuing to play these games. They are costing us our remembrance of God, Heaven and Self. Not to mention the incredible suffering that these “games” facilitate.

Our job is not to be happy in the dream. Our job is to wake-up from the dream by letting the Holy Spirit teach us of its unreality. We have to stop believing that it is real because our believing it was real made it. That is the forgiveness process. That is the process of undoing. But that cannot happen as long as we value what we have made in this form or the next. We will just keep coming back to this world of separation and suffering, this endless hamster wheel of despair which the great deceiver labels “life.”

How can you tell if you are falling for the ego’s deceptions and just using the Course to make yourself more comfortable in your prison? Look at this “life.” Are you participating in it as if it were real? Are you playing the game? Is everything in it neutral, insignificant or do you value its elements? Have you turned this “life” over to the Holy Spirit to be used by Him to get us home to God? Is everything you do, say and think for the purpose of awakening at the Holy Spirit’s direction?

Believe me now or believe me later, but two of the most pernicious tools the ego employs in getting us to continue to play the hamster wheel game of “life” and “death” are the concepts of “It is written” and “All I need to do is look at my “life” and interpret it with the Holy Spirit.” These have resulted in a “happy” inertia where a text that literally calls for our doing, saying and thinking to be directed by the Holy Spirit to a surrendering of these to our “improved” ego selves.

As long as we think we are in time, there is a Holy Spirit scripted life available to us if we are willing to have this “life” time be made totally insignificant. If we are willing to stop participating in it as if it were real. If we are willing to stop valuing what we have made. If we are willing to ask Him everything and be directed by Him in all things. If we are willing to let Him lead the way which is what Jesus did. There are Holy Spirit inspired actions like scribing books, and raising the dead and healing the sick and much more to be done. Do you see how this is impossible if we hang on to beliefs which might have served us in the last level such as “It is written” and “All I need to do is look at my “life” and interpret it with the Holy Spirit”? The Holy Spirit can use us mightily if we are willing to walk through the fear to this next level of awareness but we must want truth, above all else, and mean it.