Pain Has No Purpose | A Course in Miracles Deep Dive | Ch. 3, Pt. III, P:3, S:3 to P:4, S:6 | April 1, 2026

If you’ve ever tried to merge “God is love” with a story that treats suffering as holy, you’ve felt the mental strain we’re untangling today. We go line by line through A Course in Miracles (ACIM) in “Atonement Without Sacrifice,” exposing how the sacrifice interpretation of the crucifixion inverts everything: love gets recast as punishment, guilt feels factual, and fear of God starts to seem reasonable. I keep returning to one simple test: can Love really think in a way that justifies harm?

We follow the consequences from the inside out. On the personal level, turning truth upside down creates a split mind that shows up as tension, confusion, unease, and self-blame. On the collective level, the same belief system scales into “righteous attack” and persecution, because if punishment is considered redemptive, then harming someone can be framed as serving the good. We don’t fix this by attacking people or debating doctrine. We protect the truth by refusing to make illusions meaningful.

Then we bring it down to everyday language you’ve heard your whole life: “This hurts me more than it hurts you,” “tough love,” “no pain no gain,” and “this is happening for your growth.” ACIM calls out the escape value in those ideas, because they let the ego keep guilt hidden while harm stays in place. We also talk about pain in a grounded way, including breath, fascia work, and why calm breathing is a real-time guide for healing without endurance.

The turning point is a sentence that cuts through centuries of guilt: “I was not punished because you were bad.” If you’re ready for atonement without sacrifice, listen now, share this with someone stuck in religious guilt, and please subscribe, rate, and review so more minds can find a gentler way through.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Aloha, and welcome to a Course in Miracles Deep Dive with Hope Johnson coming to you from Lake Whatcombe, Washington. And today we're going deep into chapter three, part three, paragraph three, sentence three, and we're going to continue on from there. That's in the complete and annotated edition of A Course in Miracles, page one hundred twelve. Yay.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

So let's tune in. Yeah. Thank you, Jesus, for remaining in our mind constantly.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

And always showing us with a brotherly love. How we can do everything in remembrance of you. With miracle-mindedness. Thank you. Thank you to all of our brothers and sisters. Everyone. Everyone. Whether they seem to be on this path or not. Thank you to those of us joining. Joining together to see you past the illusion. Thank you, everyone.

SPEAKER_00 2:12

Ah, let's begin. Yay.

How The Crucifixion Got Inverted

The Inner Pain Of Split Thinking

Persecution Born From Righteous Harm

SPEAKER_01 2:19

Okay. The text. Before we start with sentence three of paragraph three of section three of chapter three, let's review where we are to get us up to speed. So last week we were looking at how this one interpretation, which Jesus called misinterpretation, inverted everything. That has to do with the crucifixion. When that's seen through the ego's lens, when the crucifixion is seen through the ego's lens, there's this story about God permitting suffering and even rewarding suffering. See, and what Jesus was pointing to is once that idea is accepted, even when it's subtly accepted, fear of God, this terrible fear of God, is automatically accepted. It's maybe subtly accepted, but that's what's accepted in the mind when this story about God permitting suffering is accepted. Because now, how could God even be experienced as love once he's been made into something like that? Once God is a source of your potential to punishment, as if your punishment somehow helps something, that thought becomes a source of this bitter fear. He talked about how it came from projection, the idea that he died for your sins, let's say. That's a really succinct way to put it. He talked about how that came from projected projection, a collective projection, where the mind took its own belief in guilt and suffering and placed that on to God and then taught it sincerely, right? Lovingly taught it. He's like, just because the devotion is there doesn't mean that they're not mistaken. They can still be mistaken and be sincere and devoted. And that's the way it's been taught. Not just for people who were raised in a Christian or Catholic background, either, because it's gone through all of society. It's like this is the way society is looking at things as a whole, and the way we're taught. That's why Jesus is addressing this stuff. So then it was taught, and people weren't questioning the interpretation. So this interpretation that God sacrificed his own son to save us all of sin, it got justified. And so the text was pointing out here, Jesus was pointing out through this text that to accept this, you actually have to reverse the entire frame of reference. You have to believe that God thinks in ways that you're learning right here in the Course in Miracles says are unworthy of you. You know, God doesn't tell you to sacrifice. So then the correction for this is not about arguing with error like arguing with others or anything like that. It's about protecting the truth, not attacking the false, not attacking the error, but refusing to adjust truth in your mind in order to make something false seem acceptable. That thing, again, we're talking about that's false is that God sacrificed his son to save all of us sinners. Okay, that's one succinct way of saying it. So here we are now, and we're gonna see the cost now of this revert reversal when this upside-down interpretation is actually interpreted, uh uh taken as true and lived this way. Okay, so now we're going to the line in a course in miracles, all three, chapter three, section three, paragraph three, sentence three. Here's the text. This procedure is painful in its minor applications and genuinely tragic on a mass basis. So now Jesus is talking about what we have just been describing here: the procedure of turning around the whole frame of reference in order to make something seem acceptable. Okay. So in order to make the idea that God sacrificed his son for his sinners or for us sinners, in order to make that idea acceptable to us, we have to turn a frame of reference around. God is no longer love. Okay. So he's saying that's painful. It's a painful procedure. This procedure of turning a frame of reference around is painful, okay? And that's like minor application, just like what that means is like close to home in your own life, so to speak, because this isn't an abstract thing. This is what happens every time we override what we know to be true to accept something that is not true. Okay. Again, the idea that God sacrificed his son to save us sinners. All right. Okay, so in order for that to be believed, love basically had to be explained away, right? Or try to make that, try to make sacrifice look like love. And it's like we have to uh turn everything upside down to believe that's what God would do. Like God would sacrifice his son. Okay. God wouldn't ask you to sacrifice your son. Okay. So it's like trying to make something shitty, murder, seem like it's something good, and it's not good. Okay. It's a it's it's a reflection of uh miscreative thought. So there's a cost. That's why he says it's painful. There's a cost for doing this, and that cost is inner conflict. You would could feel it as tension, confusion, unease, unworthiness, mental strain, worry. Part of your mind knows this is not true. Part of your mind is never going to believe that God would sacrifice his son. And another part of your mind is trying to make it true, anyways, and that's a split that really hurts. Jesus is pointing that out here. It's painful. This procedure of doing this is painful. So, you know, even in small, everyday ways, we've been trained to use this procedure, which brings pain. So then he says something in the last part of the sentence, genuinely tragic on a mass basis. So this procedure is painful in its minor application, let's say your life, and genuinely tragic on a mass basis. So now it's kind of like the attention zooming out to the whole uh collective consciousness. Because whatever happens individually, see, whatever happens individually, that means like whatever uh your mind is focused on, whatever you're doing in your illusion, doesn't really mean it doesn't mean the physical doing, it's the doing in the way your mind moves and interprets things. Do you interpret with the Holy Spirit's guidance or the ego's guidance? That's all. And what happens individually, like if you're listening to the ego and don't realize it, you start feeling pain, that pain also occurs collectively. That's why one of the lessons, a couple of the lessons are like this in a course in miracles, maybe even more than a couple, but I'm not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing. So when I'm getting the perception of unease, dis-ease, I'm not alone in experiencing that. That's why Jesus said earlier on the only thing you should be in a hurry to do is realize the truth. I don't know if it was earlier on in one of our uh ACIM deep dives here or where that appeared, but the only thing to be in a hurry about is coming to the truth. Coming to the truth. So it's not to get scared about it and like, oh no, I shouldn't have any uneasy thoughts or anything like that. It's recognizing your responsibility in this and recognizing that your willingness to be released of this individually in this minor application also applies collectively. And you know, eventually you'll just do it out of love, you'll just always do it out of love. It's an internal uh movement in the mind. So, you know, this mass, this idea Jesus is talking about uh genuinely tragic on a mass basis. So that's because it's basically everyone, uh just about probably a whole culture, whole religion, um aligning with this idea and building a whole framework. I mean, the whole legal system is based on the same framework, right? The whole justice system. It's like you have something to pay and the whole economic system. It's all like that. It's based on something that makes an effect that Jesus is calling tragic, genuinely tragic, on a mass basis. So this is um for us to see and help undo, right? Earlier on, Jesus asked us to cooperate with him in this. See, this is kind of like the why. Why do we co why would we want to? Well, it's not just for your little life. When you get released from illusions, tragic illusions, it releases the world. See, the crucifixion was interpreted through guilt and sacrifice and suffering, as if suffering has value. And instead of questioning that, this system, many systems, I'd say, are built around it. So now there's this shared frame of reference, what you would you you would call a doctrine. And what's the result of that? People afraid of God, suffering being given meaning, right? Spiral spiritualizing pain, like you know, you're gonna get something from more suffering. That's the mass basis. So what begins in you as this small inner compromise becomes a collective reality, and then the opposite is true too. That's so wonderful. Because you know, this collective reality, which has been shared, feels very real, feels very justified, seems hard to question. Jesus is saying, This is not harmless, like you are doing harm in a way that you don't want to. It's not just a different perspective, it has effects on the mind. These effects are pain, confusion, sickness. Okay, that's why his language is strong, genuinely tragic on a mass basis. When you try to make illusions true, when you try to make it true that punishment is uh a way to salvation, you don't succeed. No, at no time do you succeed. It always leads to your own confusion, conflict, and really suffering. Don't visualize suffering or punishment for anyone. Visualize them as whatever feels really good to you, a beam of light, maybe. See white light coming through their pores, whatever it is that feels really loving and good to you. Right? It's the will of God for you to see everyone, including yourself, and everyone is yourself, as holy, pure, innocent, powerful, abundant, wise. Let yourself see people in that way. The ego imagination likes to project images in a disparaging light. You don't have to accept that. You can uh you can have images that feel really good to you. So you don't need to turn your frame of reference around. So this line that we're on right now is really a continuation of that last one. You don't need to turn your frame of reference around. The procedure of turning your frame of frame of reference around is painful in its minor applications. That's in your perception and genuinely tragic on a mass basis. Don't turn your frame of reference around because when you do, it hurts. And when it's done collectively, it becomes something way heavier. So notice with Jesus, there's no attack here. It's kind of like touching a stove with your finger burns it, you know? It's like the guidance is just is just really clean. Don't attack it, don't try to make it true. You just don't engage in the procedure of turning illusion into truth. And that's really freedom. Because your will is aligned with God's will, and God's will for you, remember, is perfect happiness. So when you perceive something's wrong, something someone saying something wrong, for instance, watch how your mind moves to jump on it. Right? And instead just see, can I just hold this in peace? Right? Ah, it allows us to connect a lot, which is really what we all want. Yeah. Okay. Sentence four of paragraph three. Unless there are any questions. Feel free to raise your hand. Send me a note if you're on Substack. You could raise your hand on Zoom, or you can send me send something in the chat. I look at the chat. Sentence four, chapter three, section three, paragraph three, sec, sentence four, page 112 of a course in miracles. Persecution is a frequent result, justified by the terrible misperception that God himself persecuted his own son on behalf of salvation. Let's read that one again. There's a footnote too, which I'll get to in a little bit. Persecution is a frequent result. So it's a result of that procedure of turning things upside down, inverting a whole frame of reference. Persecution is the frequent result justified by the terrible misperception that God himself persecuted his own son on behalf of salvation. So now Jesus is talking about the outcome. Like here's what's here's what's happening, not just inner conflict, but here's what shows up in the world as a result of turning a whole frame of reference around to believe that God persecuted his own son. What shows up in the world? Persecution. And just to be clear about what persecution is, it's not just attack, it's attack that believes itself to be righteous. The one wielding the attack believes that it's righteous attack. It believes it's right. So in this way, harm is justified by an idea that the harm serves something good. And Jesus is saying this is a frequent result. So not rare, frequent result. You can see it, it's in the society. This is what naturally follows. See the mind that believes suffering has value. You know, that's why most people uh go, oh, I'll just be unhealthy. It's too hard to be healthy because, like, even the system of health, it's as if you have to suffer. You have to be willing to suffer to get the value out of it. And that's just totally backward thinking. It's like no wonder people just like slink down into eating McDonald's every day. They're like, gosh, takes too much effort and suffering to be healthy. That makes no sense. See how everything ends up backwards. So look at this movement we've been going over. The suffering, if suffering can be meaningful, if the mind believes suffering can be meaningful and pain can serve a purpose, and punishment is a way to redeem someone, then it becomes easy. Look how easy it is to justify harming someone for truth, or correcting them through force, or attacking in the name of something good, like look at Christianity with the what was it called, the crusades or something like that? Look at what they did in the name of something really good, probably in the name of Jesus. Oh. So look at how it connects to the previous paragraph, paragraph two. The root belief was that God allowed suffering, God used suffering, God needed suffering, something like that. And then here's where it becomes more specific. He persecuted his own son. See that? That's what it's saying. He persecuted, persecuted is remember again, it's where he's done harm that is believed to be good. The one doing the harm, God in this case, because he's murdering his son, believes that it's good. So when that idea is accepted in your mind, that sets a precedent for everything else to follow. It makes it so that for one, you're controllable in a system that wants your you to be obedient to it for profit. I mean, that's pretty plain, isn't it? This belief says, look, even God uses harm for a higher purpose. So the mind feels like it's justified in doing the same, accepting harm for itself, and accepting an idea that harming others is righteous. And this is why Jesus is calling it a terrible misperception. Terrible. Because it just it doesn't just distort someone's thinking, it produces harm that feels like it's justified.

SPEAKER_00 28:08

All right, any questions so far?

The Words Behind The Myth Collapse

SPEAKER_01 28:10

No, all right, we're gonna check out the footnote now. Footnote twenty-six. This difficult sentence, hmm, in context means that when a people turns around its whole frame of reference to accommodate the concept that punishment can be redemptive, then persecution, quote, on a mass basis will often result. So this is again from the footnote. This is added by the people who compiled it's I guess it was a committee uh or a few people that compiled all of this information. So they're saying this difficult sentence in context. I didn't feel like it was such a difficult sentence like compared to other sentences, but that's cool. That's how they felt. So they did a long ass explanation about it. Means that when a people, that's like a society of people, turns around its whole frame of reference to accommodate the concept that punishment can be redemptive, then persecution, quote, on a mass basis, will often result. This mass persecution is quote, justified by, end quote, the idea that this is how God works, as seen by what God, He God did to Jesus. Jesus probably has the Holocaust in mind as an example here. He refers to the Holocaust in chapter one. That's chapter one. What is that? Oh, it's principles of miracles, miracle, principle number, miracle principle number forty-three and paragraph eight, sentence one, where he calls it inverted or upside down thinking. That's where he refers to the Holocaust and calls it inverted or upside down thinking and likens it to his own crucifixion, just as above he refers to turning, quote, a whole frame of reference around, end quote, to justify mass persecution that he also likens to his crucifixion. So what they're saying is when a whole frame of reference is built around punishment can be redemptive, then persecution doesn't just happen occasionally. Jesus isn't saying it happens occasionally, he's saying on a mass scale. And you can feel that. If you tune in, you can feel that. Upside down perception. God persecuted his own son, harmed him with a mind that felt righteous for doing harm, thought itself righteous for doing harm. That accepting that upside down perception leads to upside down meaning applied to everything else, which leads to suffering being justified, hence sickness, et cetera, aging, all that stuff, which leads also to persecution being justified. So it's not just someone's behavior, it's a belief six system, a belief system that makes harm seem right. So when you undo the belief that suffering is any value, you also undo the entire foundation for persecution. The whole foundation that makes persecution possible at all. Well, making anyone suffer doesn't have any value. Think of all the implications everywhere. I mean, you can think of the Holocaust, yeah, that's huge. That's on a mass scale. But look at all the little day-to-day ways that it's interpreted, things are interpreted through a lens like suffering as value. And again, you know, remember, you don't attack illusions. You just don't try to make them true. You stay aligned with the truth, right? The truth is God is love. You're not going to change that frame of reference, you're not going to invert that frame of reference to make love include punishment, include attack, include righteous attack, persecution. So this is undoing a very structure. This section is undoing a structure that's set up in the mind that's kind of like a framework for how society operates right now. It's undoing that for us. Like we don't have to uh feed that way of seeing, that way of viewing ourselves and in the world in that diminished light, diminished and diminishing. All right, yay, everyone. Seem to have covered sentence four very well. Let's go to sentence five then. Sentence five. The very words are meaningless. That's it. That's sentence five. The very words are meaningless. What are the very words? Let's look at the last sentence. God himself persecuted his own son on behalf of salvation. Those are the very words that Jesus is saying are meaningless. Can you feel that? Seems pretty obvious, right? So after everything we just reviewed, we just studied the misperception, the justification of suffering, the idea God persecuted his own son. Now Jesus is just showing you how he doesn't argue with it. He just goes, the words are meaningless. He's not trying to reinterpret the words or anything. He's just those words are meaningless. And that that's you know, that's a different kind of correction because up till now he's been showing how the interpretation for was formed, how it spread, what it's producing, right? He's been reinterpreting certain things that he said uh according to the Bible and what Paul said according to the Bible, now he's just saying this doesn't even mean anything. The whole idea God persecuted his son for salvation, suffering has value, or that pain serves some divine purpose. You don't need to fix it, he's saying. That's the ego's apparent job, and it's not good at it. It's not even good at that. See, the ego wants to explain pain, justify it, give it depth, give it a purpose.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

The ego wants the mind to stay engaged with pain. Jesus is just cutting that off.

SPEAKER_01 37:32

He's saying there's nothing here to understand about it. It's built on a false premise. You don't have to do anything but just not invest in it. Just don't invest in that idea. So you don't attack illusion, don't fight with it.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

You don't try to make it meaningful.

Resurrection Over Sacrifice Recap

Why We Keep The Error

SPEAKER_01 38:05

And that's just in your own mind. You don't have to get anyone else to do it. So look how we went from this is a terrible misperception to this doesn't mean anything at all. Notice that, because that is definitely one of the prevalent teachings in a course in miracle. This is a terrible misperception. Why is it terrible? Because it's painful. That's totally against God's will for you to have a painful perception. Okay. And then he's saying, this doesn't mean anything at all. This thought that's causing your the source of your pain actually doesn't mean anything at all. So now your mind can stop trying to reconcile it, try to make it, your mind can stop trying to make it congruent with beliefs. What is it again that I'm talking about? I'm talking about the idea that God sacrificed or persecuted his own son on behalf of salvation. Jesus is recognizing right here, this has no basis for truth. And he's asking us to recognize this is false. It just doesn't even mean anything. And just letting that fall away the way things naturally do when you see that there is just no value in keeping them. And that concludes paragraph three. So unless anyone has any questions, I am just going to move on to recapping paragraphs one through three. So the atonement for one was not established through crucifixion, it was established through the resurrection. The crucifixion has been misinterpreted. It's easy to be misinterpreted. It's like an upside-down perception. It appears as though God requires suffering. And if goodness or someone being good leads to sacrifice, then a conclusion follows. And the conclusion is that God is something to fear. So what we saw in these paragraphs was that this idea didn't come from truth in the same in the first place, it came from projection, a collective projection of guilt. And love is punishment too. That's the idea that gets stuck because it gets accepted. Once it's accepted by you, it requires you to completely reverse your reality of perfect love to sustain it. In that way. So now we're moving on. Paragraph four is going to talk more about this error, this procedure, and where it leaves. Yay, thank you, Jesus. Paragraph four, sentence one, chapter three, section three. It has always been particularly difficult to overcome this because although the error itself is no harder to overcome than any other error, people are unwilling to give it up because of its prominent escape value.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

This is a beautiful sentence.

SPEAKER_01 43:56

So Jesus is saying here that the difficulty. Is not the error itself. It's not a bigger, deeper, or more complex error than any other mistake. What's making it seem hard to undo is us not really wanting to give it up. He's calling that escape value. He's saying it has escape value.

SPEAKER_00 44:31

So that means the ego.

SPEAKER_01 44:39

That means the ego has a way to escape responsibility with this error in place, as if God would require sacrifice of his son, the ego has a way to escape responsibility. It's a way to justify attack. And we would normally see this as attack. But since there's this underlying belief that God persecutes his own son, it allows us to keep the same kind of behavior going while avoiding awareness of what it really is. So if we believe that God used the suffering of his only son, as some people believe, for a good purpose, then suffering itself becomes meaningful. Suffering becomes our experience. And we can justify making suffering everywhere. Now let's look at what this escape value is like in life. It's very common, it's very subtle, it's very much accepted. One of them is this is for your own good. Harshness, control, dismissal. This gets framed as this as if it's caring. This is for your own good. That's kind of you know, I kind of saw an example of that with uh organizers of Flowfest this past weekend when I saw videos coming up, and uh it was kind of like to those women who felt like they were being re-traumatized by, from their perception, the the rapist, someone who's been raping people, being given a platform, you know, and then you see videos basically telling those women to be forgiving. Like we're doing this for your own good. Can't you see this as an opportunity for you to be forgiving? See? Uh the idea that pain is how we grow. See, pain is just a signal. It's a signal that there's a misperception that needs to be corrected. There's no reason for the pain to persist. When it gets turned into something valuable or necessary, it persists. The only way pain or sickness, even death, even aging, all that stuff persists is it's being seen as valuable. You know, in my regular ass day-to-day life, I see it, I see that being done constantly. When I see it arising in my own mind, I just notice it and go, oh, there it is. When I see it arising uh out of anyone else, I just notice it and go, oh, there it is. If I'm needed to speak anything, the Holy Spirit will have me speak something. I don't need to try to correct anyone. Uh, it's just a matter of seeing that's a meaningless thought. There that is. There's that meaningless, meaningless and yet powerful because of the power we gave to it. If you'll remember back into in paragraph two, Jesus was talking about don't think that you can just think these things and they're not making any effects because they're making all the effects that you're perceiving. The idea, I had to do that. They made me do that. See, that's how a chat attack becomes justified, too. Normally I'm calm, but you know, there's a story that I just recently caught wind of. I guess there's a trial going on in Hawaii from a man who was trying to murder his wife, apparently. He was trying to push her off of a cliff during a hike, and it came to trial. And I was like, Yeah, that's like I had to do that, you know, kind of thing. She was cheating on me. And, you know, see how it just, and then it's kind of like he's not in his right mind for that. Definitely not in his right mind. He's trying to murder his wife. Um, but you notice how afterwards it would kind of be like, why was I that dramatic about it? Like I could have just got a divorce. You know, it's because these subconscious thoughts, they they rise up during traumatic experiences, traumatic uh emotional reactions, and they seem to have all this power because you have fed them with power over time. That's why it seems like, gosh, I would never murder anyone, but she, because she was cheating on me, drove me to do it. And she deserves it. I mean, one of the comments was that she basically she deserved. I didn't read a bunch of comments, but I was like, oh, that's interesting. There's another guy basically saying she deserves it because she's a no-good rotten cheating, whatever. So yeah. So sit when situations are seen as logically requiring attack, then that can be extrapolated, and people find themselves doing something where in hindsight they're like, What in the world? Why did I really? I needed to murder someone. Look at how silly that sounds. Like, really, I needed to murder someone about that. That makes no sense. That's how the ego works. You start justifying persecution, you start justifying pain and stuff like that to teach lessons, and the ego will extrapolate that in a full-blown murder, whether you see it perceive you perceive it as coming out of you or just affecting on a mass scale, such as war, you know, or just murders. You, you know, if you hear about random murders like in Chicago, I think, or something like that. The idea anyone deserves it, yeah. That's that punishment is righteous, it's never righteous. So you can feel what all those things have in common. They're protecting the ego from seeing itself clearly. The ego is turning attack using those kinds of uh ways of seeing to turn attack as if it's something else. So the mind doesn't need to undo that because the mind is thinking that this way of attacking and may not even be viewing it as attacking, maybe view it viewing it as care, is helpful. It's it's believing that it's helpful. So, why would your mind undo something that it already believes is helpful? So, this is why the belief has been hard to release. That's what Jesus is saying in this sentence. Let's go back to the sentence so you see where we are here. Okay, it has always been particularly difficult to overcome this because although the error itself is no harder to overcome than any other error, people are unwilling to give it up because of its prominent escape value. Do you see that now? You see, the escape value is not that it's true, but because it's been useful. It's been useful in what? It's been useful in allowing us to keep our guilt, our unspoken guilt projected outward. It's been allowing us to justify pain. So we can hold on to painful relationships, painful sicknesses, whatever it is that's painful that we justify. We can avoid responsibility for perception. One of my friends told me that she must be on a martyr's path because the person that she feels completely devoted to is whatever he is. I don't know. And I go, well, you don't have to keep that thought. You know, you're not you're not required to do any suffering. You're not required to be with someone where it just feels shitty for you for years and years on end. No, you get to see what feels out of alignment for you, use that as a signal to accept what's true for you.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

To accept what's true right now. You know, you can have everything that you want, even in perception.

When Harm Masquerades As Care

SPEAKER_01 54:32

You know, someone's showing you that they want to relate in a certain way that feels painful to you, and then you've got this thought that says they're your soulmate or something like that, and that you've got to go through it with them. No, that's not how it is. See, once you're unwilling to use the belief that God persecuted his son, you're not gonna have a hard time releasing errors that say you need persecution somehow, or you need to go through suffering somehow. So the obstacle here is never the error itself. He's saying that it's particularly difficult to overcome, but it's not because of the error itself, it's because of you wanting to hold on to it because it's got you, it's getting you something, it's getting you this escape value. And when you don't want to escape what's true anymore, you want to take responsibility, then this resolves. That's nothing you have to hurry up and do, just hold it lightly, move how the how you are being guided. Let what resonates for you be beautiful for you, potent for you, and whatever doesn't, it'll just come around in another form. It'll be okay. So ready for sentence two of paragraph four. In milder forms, a parent says, This hurts me more than it hurts you, and feels exonerated in beating a child. Now, here's a specific specific example straight from Jesus. In milder forms, a parent says, This hurts me more than it hurts you, and feels exonerated in beating a child. So Jesus is taking this abstract idea of escape value from the previous sentence and showing how this plays out in everyday life. It's simple. Pain is being caused. Look at this simple example. Parent beating a child saying this hurts me more than it hurts you. Pain is being caused, and then it's reinterpreted as if it's something loving. And what does that reinterpretation do for the parent in this case? Look at what it does, it removes guilt from the parent, apparently. That's why they feel exonerated. See, that's what brings on that feeling of feeling exonerated. They feel like their guilt has been removed because the spanking, the beating of the child hurts the parent more than it hurts the kid. So the behavior doesn't change. The perception of the attack behavior changes into something like loving. So instead of I'm hurting someone here, it becomes I'm doing something necessary. I'm caring. See the escape?

SPEAKER_00 58:39

That's the escape value.

SPEAKER_01 58:46

So what's really being exposed here isn't really about parenting. It's not like that, it's about a pattern of the mind. This is a way to illustrate a pattern where harm is justified, where someone's discomfort is given meaning. The child, their pain is given meaning. And responsibility on the part of the parent, the one doing the attacking, is bypassed. That statement, this hurts me more than it hurts you, is especially revealing. That's why Jesus used it. It's shifting the focus away from the one experiencing the pain and onto the one causing the pain. It centers the self-image, the parent's self-image, as a doer of something that's caring, while the action itself is harmful. It's hurting a person.

SPEAKER_00 59:57

See that. So in this way, the mind is the parent's mind is keeping both.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:14

It's keeping the behavior and it's keeping the identity of being good.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:19

They're doing a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:28

So this is exactly what Jesus meant by escape value, the belief that pain can serve a loving purpose. So it allows the ego to attack without calling that attack. You're beating a child, but it's not considered attack because it's framed as loving. You can control people, you can use control, ego control without calling it that. It's for their own good. You can hurt people without acknowledging that that was hurtful for them. You know, if someone's feeling like they've been harmed or anything like that, it's like man acknowledging, just acknowledging within yourself the pain, not making it right or wrong, just acknowledging that without trying to make it like they should hurry up and stop feeling hurt. So once that belief is in place that pain can serve a loving purpose, it shows up in a lot of everyday ways. Like I'm only saying this because I care. Right? Like maybe you're saying, I think this is what you should do with your life. Maybe you're saying, out of my uh fearful mind, I want you to do all this stuff. I'm being hard on you to help you grow. Tough love, no pain, no gain. You know, same structure, different words, same structure.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:34

Pain, justified, as if it's love. So Jesus is not asking us to judge anyone's behavior here.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:50

Right? That's never the point. He's asking us to see distortion. You know, a lot of the times these mirror reflections are showing us distortion just so that we can recognize distortion. Not to make anyone wrong, recognize distortion. That's distortion. It's okay. Once pain has been made meaningful, and now you're having pain in your perception, then it becomes harder to question it because of not because it has gained any extra power, it's just that now you have more belief invested into it to the point where it's showing you results that you can calculate. And yep, pain is here, apparently. But the truth is still the simple love does not require harm. This does not come from love. The truth does not need pain to be truth. Truth is still the same, still truth through pain, but it does not need pain. So a thought that says otherwise, a thought that says pain and truth go together. It's protecting something else.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:20

It's protecting this escape value thought.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:29

So the same belief that says God used suffering for salvation is the one that says pain can be justified as love. That's a distortion. One that's easily accepted, has been accepted, and is apparently, according to Jesus, particularly difficult to overcome because people are unwilling to give it up.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:11

So the sentence here, this hurts me.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

Oh, in milder forms, a parent says, This hurts me more than it hurts you, and feels exonerated in beating a child. So exonerated is they feel free from guilt for doing it. Of course, we want everyone free from guilt. This is just the ego's way of doing free from guilt in a way that keeps harm in place and truly guilt proliferating in the unconscious. Right? That's not the way to be released from guilt. Forgiveness is the way. Yay. And forgiveness that collapses patterns, like the ones where you beat your kid or try to kill your wife. And all the milder seeming ones along the way. There's really no. I guess it was a hierarchy in illusion either.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:28

It's like a murderous thought is a murderous thought. All right, sentence three.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

Can you believe that the father really thinks this way? So that's a follow-up to the last sentence where Jesus was saying that in milder forms, a parent says, This hurts me more than it hurts you, and feels exonerated in beating a child. And then sentence three says, Can you believe that the father really thinks this way? So we've just seen how pain gets justified, how harm gets reframed as love, how the ego mind exonerates itself by giving suffering a purpose.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:41

And now Jesus is just simply bringing it back to God.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:44

He brings it back to God. He's like, not to have a debate, not to analyze, just ask. Do you really believe love thinks this way? The way Jesus says it here, can you believe that the father really thinked this way? So everything we've been talking about depends on this belief. That the father thinks this way, that the father thinks that pain is necessary. Harm can be loving, for instance. Like Jesus cries when he punishes you, right? God cries when he punishes you. Like that. It's doesn't make any sense. He doesn't use pain, he doesn't allow pain, he doesn't know pain, he doesn't intend pain for any higher good. That's inverting a whole frame of reference to make it as if God would persecute. So pain does seem to point to something. It shows up.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:18

And we notice it, right? We notice pain. And when it's reinterpreted, it reveals a mistake in thought.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:32

That caused the pain. It can reveal a mistake in thought, or just simply recognizing that the pain is an effect of thought may cause the pain to be resolved immediately in your perception. But this is different from saying God sent the pain or God is using it. God, why are you doing this to me? Pain is not a teaching tool, it's just a signal that the mind is believing something untrue. You could say, you know, you could say, okay, and then that way it's a teaching tool, then. If you want to have it as a teaching tool, if if that resonates for you, it's really a signal, though, that the mind is believing something true. That's all. The signal doesn't need to keep recurring. See, the ego takes the signal and gives that meaning, says it's here for a reason. This is how you grow, this had to happen, that kind of stuff. It turns your pain into something that's valuable, something that you should keep. You get identified by the pain. But this correction is really simple. Pain isn't even meaningful. Can you believe that the father really thinks this way? That's the sentence. Pain can be quote unquote used to notice where correction is needed. Not because pain itself teaches, it's not a teacher, but because you're willing to look at the thought behind it. The pain is just as meaningless as the thought that caused it, but your willingness to recognize that it's caused by a meaningless thought is how this gets resolved. So here's the question again. Can you believe that the father really thinks this way? Right? Would God create a system for his son or sons or sons and daughters where pain is required for them to grow? You grow through pain, for instance. Or do you believe the father, God, for instance, had suffering as part of his plan for his creations? Do you think he had harm in mind as a as a pathway for his sons and daughters to heal? Do you think God had harm in mind for them? Or is pain really just what happens when the mind miscreates? See, that's what Jesus is pointing out here. Pain can point, it's never the point. God is not behind pain. The ego is. So any thought that says this hurt is necessary, see how ego gets behind pain? This hurt is necessary. This pain is necessary.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:58

Oh good, they're suffering, that's meaningful.

Clearing Pain As A Spiritual Path

SPEAKER_01 1:13:10

So the justification in your mind of all pain is going to fall away when you see this. So be glad about this question. You might sit with this question a little bit later. I don't know. Right. What's the question again? Because some people are just joining. I love you. Can you believe that the father really thinks this way? Right? And what is that way of thinking once again? The terrible misperception that God himself persecuted his own son on behalf of salvation from paragraph three in the text. So thank you. I love you. And we're moving on to sentence four of paragraph four. If you're just joining, we're on page 112. Yes, we are. Well, I guess it goes to 113. This sentence ends on 113, so it's at the bottom of 112. And here's the sentence it is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled. It is so essential. That's why he's spending so much time on this. It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled. That we must be very sure that nothing of this kind remains in your mind. Wow. That is very direct. That is very loving, too. I feel so much love in it. He's not explaining the error here. He's saying this needs to be cleared completely. Like you need to you need to stop thinking like that and never fucking think about and never think like that again. Don't think in this way. Again, what is all such thinking that Jesus is talking about in this sentence? Where he's saying it is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled. Everything we just talked about, that pain can be justified, suffering serves a purpose, harm can be loving, God uses or allows pain for a greater good, even in subtle forms, which we went over during the first hour. It's not just the obvious beliefs, but there's these quiet beliefs, these uh unconscious beliefs that automatically play get automatically believed, and a lot of the times they sound so spiritual. This is happening for my growth, for instance. There must be a reason this hurts. Or pain is part of the path. Basically, pain and the miscreative thought is the same thing, meaningless. All of it is just spiritual bypass, trying to make it as if the pain is somehow gonna lead you to healing. It's not leading anywhere, it's giving you a signal that you're miscreating. Pain is in your perception, signal you are miscreating. You know what? Pain makes you very alert, right? It makes you very aware. That's and any kind of pain, emotional pain. You know, you could have, I know apparently two people who think they have cancer that have been talking to me about it lately. And uh and and you know, you get this sense of this fear or pain or emotional pain or anything like that, and you're just willing to see that it's being projected by a miscreated thought, miscreative thought right now, that makes you very aware. It's like, whoa, I'm making this as long as the pain persists, I'm making it persist. I'm causing it persist because I gave pain value. There's actually no value to it, it's just a signal, something can be released. You know what I like to, it just came up in my mind, apply this to my fascia therapy. Because in fascia therapy, we're actually using uh I'm using block therapy system for this wooden blocks to go into the body to bring up where there's where there's pain. And see, this is in the same way. It's like not making the pain itself as meaningful. It's not like, oh, if it's more painful, that's better. If it's less painful, that's worse, or anything like that. But using it as a signal, where can I be released? Where can I be released of uh constriction, tension, anything like that? And when you're when you're especially like when you're doing a fascia practice like that with your mindset on, okay, pain is the signal telling me something, it's kind of like a contract that I made that needs to be rescinded. Because that contract that I made has me hanging on and projecting pain onto this form for no reason. It does there's no reason for it. See, in the ego's world, in the logical sense, fascia braces in order to keep you upright and keep you from tipping over. So a doctor will tell you what it's doing is actually helpful because it's keeping you from tipping over. Uh, and it leads to pain. It's it's totally symbolic. You know, everything in this world, uh, and this especially for me is so symbolic about what Jesus is talking about and how there's this holding on to. I even hear people tell stories about why they're so hard in a certain area. I've heard stories come out of my own mouth to explain why something maybe is bound more than I think it should be. And it'll be something in the past that bound me, like maybe uh power lifting. You know, I had the perception that I was doing power lifting and that that's affecting my fascia now and affecting how um hard it is in certain areas, how difficult and painful it is and stuff like that. So I can keep a story like that, I guess keep a storyline like that and make the pain itself uh as if it's something that's valuable. But really, it's a signal. When you see it as a signal, it's a signal showing you there's an underlying, you might say, a miscreative thought. One way I've been seeing it lately is like it's a contract that you made that you need to rescind now. It's an open contract that you can just say, no, never mind. I decided I don't want to keep that idea. I don't want to keep that idea, like I'm a victim and I and I uh uh I have pain because the world did something to me, or my body is this kind of way. No, I am making all of the pain I'm perceiving. And why am I making the pain that I'm perceiving? Well, it's automatic based on the uh the thoughts that I've been believing to be true. That's projecting a body, that's projecting a pain body, right? It's also a signal to me. So there's no really no why in that sense, because it's automatically a signal to me that I have believed wrongly and I can accept release. And in accepting that release, I can accept release from pain. See, and that's what I notice in my experience, and even if in my practice, in my fascia release compression, whatever you call it, practice melting feels like melting, practice, it's uh knowing that the release is on the other side of gently allowing the pain to be perceived. It's already, see, the pain that's being held in the body sense is already being perceived by the mind. It's just not in the conscious, you could say conscious mind. What you're willing to be aware of really is the conscious mind because you know it's all consciousness. So it's only you're only aware of so much at any given time. And if you're not aware that none of this stuff needs to be endured, then you're gonna automatically find this thought. It's almost like this thought speaks to you or tempts you to believe that your endurance, your enduring suffering somehow has value. There's no value to it, though. It's you're allowed to be released from it. For me, when I'm going into the body sense, I'm finding what is being projected so that it can be released. In my mind, it's kind of like I rescind that contract. Thank goodness. Uh thank goodness I'm made aware of that tension. I can be released from it now. Because if you believe even slightly that God uses pain or God uses suffering for a reason, allows you to suffer or seize harm. If God sees harm as meaningful in your mind, then fear of God remains. And what Jesus is saying here is we are being asked to be released from fear way quicker than we normally would have at this given time. So if you feel it in your heart to allow yourself to be released from fear, listen to this. He's saying nothing of this kind should remain. He's he's asking for total clear clarity, not perfection in your behavior. See, that's always the way the ego is going to frame it. It's like somehow perfection in behavior. This has nothing to do with behavior. This has to do with clarity, purity in your understanding. Look at if you want to bring behavior in, let's go back to the parent beating the child and saying the thing, right? That parent, if if that parent was in purity of understanding, no way would they be beating that child. See, but when you're looking to the behavior and trying to make the behavior right, you just get it more wrong. See that? So he's using these strong words saying, until nothing of these of this kind remains. Let's see what he's exactly saying here. It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled, that we must be very sure that nothing of this kind remains in your mind. He's saying this this particular distortion, it's foundational. If it stays, it reshapes everything. That's why it reshapes how you interpret pain, how you relate with others who seem to be in pain, how you understand healing, and how you perceive God too. So it can't be partially released, it has to be seen through completely. Now, look at here's how you can organize this in your mind. Any thought that says that pain is necessary, suffering has value, harm has a purpose, or that this hurt is quote meant to be, that's part of what Jesus is asking you to let go of. Not by forcing you, but by seeing clearly, this is not how love thinks. Can you just simply look at these things and go, this is not how love thinks? That's not putting any pressure on you to do anything. You're just looking at it and going, This is not how love thinks. This is not being harsh, it's insistent. It is, and you can say, I'm insistent too on protecting the truth. That's not how love thinks. And I appreciate your persistence when you are persistent as well. You're being asked here to release every idea that makes pain meaningful. And why? Because that reveals what's truly meaningful. Love. That way it could be seen without this distortion that makes it seem like beating a child, for instance, is love. I it just makes me laugh because that was the normal way everyone was raised as I was growing up. And you know, it's like we Gen Xers, we seem to be totally like forgiving, forgiving of our parents. We're like, no big deal. Yeah, we went through that. We're fucking awesome, no big deal, you know. And it is true, that's true too. It's no big deal. I don't have any kind of thing against my parents or anything. And look at this. Through that, we've been conditioned to believe a certain way, okay? That's what's being rejected. Not your childhood, not how loving your parents were. Of course, your parents were uh wholly loving, wholly loving, even if it didn't seem that way. But to totally reject the idea that there's any kind of punishment in love, or you could be redeemed through attack in any way. All right. Thank you, Wayne. Aloha. He has a question. How could humanity think that God would have his only son tortured and killed after he healed so many while spreading God's word? This is so absurd. Yes, thank you for pointing it out that way. Yeah, word it however you want to help your mind to see this is fucking absurd. I'm not believing it in any of the forms it comes around. Jesus lived to prove that we are not the body. You're right. That's the resurrection. That's what we've been talking about here. That we all are Christ light incarnate. Thank you, Wayne. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing, lovely.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:35

All right. We go on.

I Was Not Punished Because

Bodywork Without Enduring Pain

SPEAKER_01 1:28:40

We now have paragraph four, sentence five. One of, I would say, my favorite sentences in all of a course in miracles. If I were to pick one of my favorites. Here's the text. I was not punished because you were bad. Yeah, I like pithy sentences. I was not punished because you were bad. Well, that seems to go against the Bible. Holy shit. But this is really profound. It's a profound undoing. Very simple, very to the point. It's right to the heart of the whole story about the crucifixion. Humanity was guilty. God required payment. And Jesus suffered for that. But here Jesus is saying very clearly that is not what happened. Vicarious punishment. You guys know what vicarious punishment means? That's where someone can be punished on behalf of other people. Right? So that's the story of the crucifixion. Vicarious punishment is possible, meaningful. It's like guilt can be transferred. Your guilt got transferred over him, him, and then his body was sacrificed, and then that somehow paid for your sin. Come on now. Time to wakey. Time to wakey wakey. That's a ridiculous story. At this point in time, let's let's go over what the story is again. That's been fed to all the children. Something that you likely believe, even though you may be uh fighting against it. You may be resistant to it, but still maybe believing it in it subconsciously. It's very common. Here's the story. Someone can be punished on behalf of another person. Like you could just put the guilt over there on someone else, and it's Jesus in this case. It got transferred over there, and then we make him suffer, and then that pays for everyone's sin. Hello? How ridiculous are we getting? That sounds like a nightmare fairy tale. It doesn't make any sense. But that's the foundation for the sacrificial interpretation of the church, of the society. And somehow, if you don't believe that, something's wrong with you. This is an interpretation that keeps guilt alive. Because even if you aren't the one being punished, this is the belief. Guilt is real and punishment is justified. That's the belief being projected. It's no wonder our systems are the way they are. That's the foundation of it. That's demonic. That's a demonic thought. If there was to be a demonic thought, that's the one. That guilt is real and punishment is justified. So if you believe Jesus was punished because you are bad, two things get reinforced in your mind that you're actually guilty, and that God responds to guilt with punishment. He's got to punish someone. God is raging, he's mad, he's got to punish someone. I know. Let's take the best one and have God punish the best one, and then He'll have taken all the punishment for all of us who are bad. Am I saying it in enough ways so that your mind can see that this is a ridiculous frame of reference? So this system remains intact every time we re-believe that punishment is necessary, punishment is part of God. Uh, God persecutes his son. So what Jesus is revealing here instead, though, is he's saying, There was no punishment. Not for you, not for him, not from God. It's just there's no punishment. Because God doesn't punish. That's simple. Number one, God doesn't punish. Also, guilt isn't real. So what could be punished? Also, suffering is not a response to sin. It doesn't help. It doesn't help undo sin. It's not it's not repentance, right? To repent, at least the way I'm using it right now, I don't know what the dictionary definition is, is like you give up your illusions. You recognize this is a misinterpretation. The crucifixion was not payment for something. We went over about the projections, right? The mass projections and how the mass projections leads to persecution. Right? We just went over that in the last paragraph. So in milder forms, oh no, that's not the persecution part. Persecution is a frequent, frequent result justified by the terrible misperception that God himself persecuted his own son on behalf of salvation. That's the sentence that all of this is all of this that we're talking about right now. This is based on that sentence. Persecution is a frequent result, justified by the terrible misperception that God himself persecuted his own son on behalf of salvation. And now we're on sentence four, which says, It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled, that we must be very sure that nothing of this kind remains in your mind. Actually, that's the sentence before. The sentence we're on is number five. I was not punished because you were bad. So that's the correction. You know, he's saying none of this should remain in your mind. I was not punished because you were bad. So this breaks the link between your perceiving yourself as bad and the idea that suffering is deserved. Because this link between your badness and deserving punishment is how the ego keeps it together. I did something wrong, so something bad should happen. Jesus is removing this. So if this is true, you're not guilty, nothing needs to be paid for. God's not waiting to respond to your error with punishment. And this allows fear to collapse. That's the point. Right? The point is to help you get released from fear. I was not punished because you were bad, means there's no system of design of divine punishment. Of course, you can't transfer guilt. That's totally meaningless. So there's you can't have your guilt paid for by another person, and there's nothing to pay. That's the other thing. Love doesn't cost anything, and that which you re you thought required suffering just never required suffering, really, in reality. Durga. I was thinking of a rofing tune up, but the original rollfing was quite painful. The work was helpful despite the pain. I believe what is being discussed, and still, how do I go into rofing that or any body work that's known to be painful? You know what? I wouldn't go into something though that it's gonna, you know, you have been reacting with pain to that particular procedure. That's why I have uh referred people a lot of times, even though I'm not an affiliate or anything like that, to block therapy, because that whole program and the whole system teaches a really gentle way to address your fascia in a way that you're going to enjoy. If you get what they're teaching, and of course, you could always ask me, you know, come on and ask me or whatever. If you get how the way that it's being taught, for the most part, you know, think of me too when you're when you're doing it, when you're learning it. You do not go any deeper that your calm, relaxed breath allows. That's why I love the practice so much because it's enjoyable, it's releasing, it's releasing tension. You're only getting the signal of the pain. You're not going through it, so to speak, unless it's enjoyable. See, the interesting thing about the pain is that pain is an interpretation. I've heard it called excitement without the breath. So you might find yourself, oh wow, it seems like I'm really digging into some pain and I'm really enjoying this because it's a way, it's a way of accessing what you need to access to be released from tension. See? And even mentally, because you're mentally holding that pain that you weren't aware of. The block isn't causing the pain, the block is helping you access pain that you're projecting right now that you're not aware of until you bring it up in that way. So you only bring it up in a way that feels nurturing, restorative. Um, if you want something with more intensity, just make sure it's the amount of intensity that feels um, let's say, activating to you, whatever resonates with you. This is not a matter of enduring pain. That's actually the wrong way to go. And if you are going for any roofing or massage or anything that gets into pain, I would recommend asking your practitioner to back off whenever your breath isn't smooth. See, let that be the signal for you. Once your breath gets choppy or anything, back off. That's actually not helping. When you're not able to get a full and complete breath, what your mind is doing is bracing against the experience. And in that, it's ultimately causing more tension. So the rest of the question here will your block therapy be without pain? Well, yeah, again, that interpretation, what is pain? Like what I'm I'm looking for something tangible that I could be with with the breath. That's what I'm looking for. Um, and in that it's releasing and relaxing. So, no, I wouldn't say it's painful in the sense people think of painful. It's more like what people might describe as good pain.

SPEAKER_00 1:41:27

Um because it's releasing, it's just releasing.

The Holy Benign Atonement Lesson

Next Week Teaser And Support Links

SPEAKER_01 1:41:45

So what we're talking about with pain is that when it's like a white knuckle gripping situation, don't want this, don't want this, don't want this. That's what Jesus is talking about. You don't need to go through that. That's not necessary. But something like massage or block therapy where you're bringing up the pain in a loving way. And I'm saying in a loving way because normally people don't do it in a loving way. It's like, oh, there it is. The mind will go, oh, there it is. I got to get that out. And then people won't notice it. They're holding their breath. That's why breath is such a good indicator. We do that with emotional pain as well. See, it becomes a habit too to practice something like for me, block therapy, um, to see where I would hold my breath and allow the breath to come back. And then that becomes a habit where you're doing that within the midst of anything. It's like, oh, I'm noticing my breath. I'm over here playing a video game, for instance, right? And I'm noticing my breath. I'm receiving a message that says I paid$64 towards something I didn't want to pay for, and I'm noticing a reaction to that, and I'm noticing the breath. And that's the key is noticing. Are you holding your breath? Okay. It's not a matter of judging yourself like I shouldn't do that. Because what happens is when you're judging yourself like I shouldn't do that, what you do is you cut yourself off from noticing what you're doing. Isn't that so fun? You want to notice, you don't want to judge. Hope that answered your questions. And let me know if you have any more. I love you. Oh, and thank you for donating. I appreciate that. Thank you for that. I noticed. I definitely noticed. Thank you. All right. Chapter three, section three. And the section, by the way, is called Atonement Without Sacrifice. It's all it's all in alignment with that initial title, Atonement Without Sacrifice. Chapter three, section three, paragraph four, sentence six of a course in miracles, complete and annotated edition. The holy benign lesson, the holy benign lesson, which the atonement teaches, is wholly lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion in any form. Remember what the distortion is. We're still on the same distortion, like God would persecute his own son. Even the slightest hint of this distortion distorts the atonement, completely obscures it, not partially, not just a little. Wholly lost, he said. The holy benign lesson which the atonement teaches is wholly lost if it is tainted, tainted with this kind of distortion in any form. The belief, this is this belief again. What is this distortion? That suffering is meaningful, that punishment is meaningful or real, that guilt can be paid for, a scapegoat. You know, Jesus is painted it here as a scapegoat by the religions and by uh society, as if he took on everyone else's uh everyone else's guilt and everyone else's deserving what that what punishment they deserve, and he took it all on in his own body, and now no one has to do it. If any of that remains, even if it's softened, even if it's framed as loving sacrifice, what Jesus did, the message of the atonement is no longer recognized. Jesus is using some absolute words here. Holy lost. Those are some absolute kind words. How come he is so absolute right here? Okay, here's why. The atonement teaches something radical yet simple. Only innocence is true. So how could that come into it? Really makes no sense, does it? There really is no guilt. There's really no justification uh for punishment at all. There's no cost required for love. The whole thing, the atonement is teaching one thing: only innocence is true, only innocence is true. So if you add back in even a trace, Jesus is calling it tainted by something that says suffering had a purpose, someone had to pay. What you're doing is reintroducing the whole the same error. You're wholly distorting the atonement and the resurrection. And this is what the resurrection came to undo, the same error. The resurrection is to undo this error, this idea that there is something to pay for, someone's sin, there's something to pay for. Okay, let's look at this other key word in this sentence because Jesus also says holy benign. Okay, what does this mean? What does he mean by holy benign? This is completely harmless. All right, let's look at what is holy, holy, benign again. The holy benign lesson, which the atonement teaches, is wholly lost. What is the atonement teach? There's only innocence if it is tainted with this kind of distortion about God persecuting his son. So he's saying it's holy benign, it's without attack. It's without punishment, it's without sacrifice. He's saying the atonement is not neutral, it's purely gentle. It's not neutral, it's gentle. That's even more than neutral, gentle, it's wholly benign. So the moment it's interpreted, the moment the atonement is interpreted through pain or cost or sacrifice, anger, God's angry, fury, it's no longer atonement being seen. This is why traditional interpretations feel confusing to your innocent heart. They try to merge these two systems. God is love and God required suffering of his son. See that? These cannot coexist. Jesus is saying here, if you try to combine these two things, God is love and God requires, required suffering, you're not just losing the message a little bit. You're you're you're losing the message completely. He's using absolute kind words here when he's saying wholly lost. He's saying the holy benign, which is really gentle lesson, which the atonement teaches, is wholly lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion. Distortion in any form. Again, what is this kind of distortion? It's the idea that God would persecute his own son, whom he loves. If you try to combine the two, the message is lost completely. So when this distortion gets removed, what remains is really simple. It's what a Course in Miracles teaches. Nothing real is harmed. Nothing needs to be paid for. Love has never required sacrifice. And in this way, the crucifixion is reinterpreted to be a teaching of innocence. It's not a justification for suffering. See the difference? It's a teaching of innocence. The holy benign lesson means the atonement teaches that there's no punishment in God. There's no value in anyone's suffering, not Jesus's, not yours, not anyone. There's nothing to atone for in truth. That's the atonement. In truth, there's nothing to atone for. And once that's seen, you're good. You're not going to be believing in silly stuff. Fairy tales for adults, that there's a God that wants to punish for your sins, and he sent his best son, his favorite son, or something like that, to die for your sins. That's gotta be just viewed as completely meaningless. And that's why you know Jesus has spent some time on this. I don't believe it. He's showing how this has already been ingrained into our thought system so we could see how to be released from it. Isn't that so exciting? I'm happy about it. So yay, everyone. That concludes our a course in miracles deep dive for today. I'll be back again next Wednesday. Pretty soon I'm gonna be taking a Wednesday off, but it's not gonna be super soon. It's uh somewhere between the 16th and I think it's the 15th. It might be the 15th. So I probably have two more left before I take one off, and then I'll be back again. Um, so not not not too much, not too much missing your ACIM deep dives. And what are we doing when we come back? Where are we again? Okay, we're starting off with paragraph five. Vengeance is mine, say it the Lord. Oh, you guys, that's gonna be so much fun. What a fun sentence to start out with. Vengeance is mine, one of my favorite ones. Uh, one of the ones that was used a lot on me when I was a Christian missionary. You know, if you, you know, anything, anything where you feel like you need payment back or anything like that, it'd be like, vengeance is mine, say it the Lord. Isn't that fun? Oh, yay, you guys. I love you. Thank you for joining. Thank you so much for supporting a course in Miracles Deep Dive, Wisdom Dialogues, Hope Johnson's Ministry. I appreciate you. I'm starting to work on my book again that I worked on from 2014 to 18. I'm getting it organized. Uh, sent it to an editor before that didn't work out. Um, so now I'm doing and I'm glad because it's like, wow, this is perfect for me right now um to organize this book and it's making it easy because now we have AI. So I can go, here's my whole book. I wrote this whole book, I edit it like four times before AI, 400 plus pages. Help me organize it. So it looks like it looks like it's really fun. And uh, I'll let you know how that progresses. In the meantime, I have a website, hopejohnson.org. I already have a book published, Unschooling for Parents. You can go there, you can sign up for one-to-ones with me. Um, you can also donate. This is all uh donation based. And uh to do that, hopejohnson.org donate tab. If you have any issues there, you can contact me directly and I can help you either one time or setting something up. Should be pretty easy to do to do on my website, but if it's not, just let me know. Yay. Uh okay. Got a couple of questions. Holy benign atonement bat. Holy benign atonement batman. I love it. We are joyful and free. Thanks. Thank you too. Thank you too, Glenn. Yeah, that was so fun. I love you guys. Thanks to everyone joining on Substack as well. Until next time, yay, Mahalo, aloha, and a hoo-e-ho.

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Yeah, see you Sunday.