Lesson 134. Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
(1) Let us review the meaning of "forgive," for it is apt to be distorted and to
be perceived as something that entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a
gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In such a
view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear
to rest salvation on a whim.
(2) This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected, when you
can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must be
limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions. Truth
is God's creation, and to pardon that is meaningless. All truth belongs to Him,
reflects His laws and radiates His Love. Does this need pardon? How can you
forgive the sinless and eternally benign?
(3) The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is
that you still believe you must forgive the truth, and not illusions. You
conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the
truth, in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true.
This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet
upon your mind, as you regard yourself.
(4) Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception. For
it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie.
Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest. It says the truth is
false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as
white as snow. It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. It would
see as right the plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good.
(5) Pardon is no escape in such a view. It merely is a further sign that sin is
unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied or called another name, for pardon
is a treachery to truth. Guilt cannot be forgiven. If you sin, your guilt is
everlasting. Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are
pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first, by themselves for what they think
they did, and once again by those who pardon them.
(6) It is sin's unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep
relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It does not
countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and
gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely.
(7) Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the
world. It sees their nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand forms
in which they may appear. It looks on lies, but it is not deceived. It does not
heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. It looks on them with
quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the
truth.
(8) The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees
illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it becomes the
undeceiver in the face of lies; the great restorer of the simple truth. By its
ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which has
been blocked by dreams of guilt. Now are you free to follow in the way your true
forgiveness opens up to you. For if one brother has received this gift of you,
the door is open to yourself.
(9) There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and
perceive it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse
someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he
did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, "Would I accuse myself of doing
this?"
(10) Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms that render choosing
meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended
it to be, and as it is in truth. It is but lies that would condemn. In truth is
innocence the only thing there is. Forgiveness stands between illusions and the
truth; between the world you see and that which lies beyond; between the hell of
guilt and Heaven's gate.
(11) Across this bridge, as powerful as love which laid its blessing on it, are
all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth. They are
not kept to swell and bluster, and to terrify the foolish dreamer who believes
in them. He has been gently wakened from his dream by understanding what he
thought he saw was never there. And now he cannot feel that all escape has been
denied to him.
(12) He does not have to fight to save himself. He does not have to kill the
dragons which he thought pursued him. Nor need he erect the heavy walls of stone
and iron doors he thought would make him safe. He can remove the ponderous and
useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery. His step is light, and
as he lifts his foot to stride ahead a star is left behind, to point the way to
those who follow him.
(13) Forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive its meaning,
nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. There is no thought in all the
world that leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought
that it reflects. It is as alien to the world as is your own reality. And yet it
joins your mind with the reality in you.
(14) Today we practice true forgiveness, that the time of joining be no more
delayed. For we would meet with our reality in freedom and in peace. Our
practicing becomes the footsteps lighting up the way for all our brothers, who
will follow us to the reality we share with them. That this may be accomplished,
let us give a quarter of an hour twice today, and spend it with the Guide Who
understands the meaning of forgiveness, and was sent to us to teach it. Let us
ask of Him:
Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
(15) Then choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his "sins," as one
by one they cross your mind. Be certain not to dwell on any one of them, but
realize that you are using his "offenses" but to save the world from all ideas
of sin. Briefly consider all the evil things you thought of him, and each time
ask yourself, "Would I condemn myself for doing this?"
(16) Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now you
are prepared for freedom. If you have been practicing thus far in willingness
and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across
your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief. The time remaining should be
given to experiencing the escape from all the heavy chains you sought to lay
upon your brother, but were laid upon yourself.
(17) Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will still be
many times when you forget its meaning and attack yourself. When this occurs,
allow your mind to see through this illusion as you tell yourself:
Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
Would I accuse myself of doing this?
I will not lay this chain upon myself.
In everything you do remember this:
No one is crucified alone,
and yet no one can enter Heaven by himself.
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~
The commentary on this lesson is an excerpt from Kenneth Wapnick's eight volume
series of
books, called: "Journey Through the Workbook of A Course in Miracles," which can
be purchased at the following site:??~ M. Street
~~~~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~~ ~~~~~~~~
Lesson 134. "Let me perceive forgiveness as it is."
*I have occasionally spoken about the symphonic nature of the text, in which
Jesus introduces, re-introduces, and develops his theme of salvation. The same
can be said of the workbook.To be sure, its structure differs from the text, but
as you read through the lessons you can recognize their symphonic organization:
themes introduced, discussed, dropped, and then brought back to be developed
still further. These next three lessons illustrate this structure, as they
center on a theme we saw in Lessons 68 through 72: the ego's plan for salvation.
This plan, referred to in the text as the ego's plan for forgiveness, consists
of holding on to grievances.
As an introduction to Lesson 134, let me review this ingenious plan. The ego's
strategy calls for us to make real the mind's thought of sin, and then convince
us our guilt is so horrific it can never be looked at, lest terror strike our
hearts. In other words, sin leads to guilt, which in turn demands punishment.
The ego thus establishes the painful "reality" of sin, and tells us if we remain
within the mind and confront its guilt, we will run head on into the wrath of a
furious God, hell-bent on destroying us by retrieving the life we stole from
Him. The ego counsels us that the only way we can be saved from our sin is to
deny its presence and project it out, having us believe it now exists in a body;
whether someone else's or our own is irrelevant from the ego's point of view, as
long as sin is perceived outside the mind, the definition of attack.
Incidentally, when we project sin onto our own bodies we call the attack
sickness, the theme of Lesson 136, "Sickness is a defense against the truth."
(W-pI.136).
Lesson 134 begins with a discussion of the ego's plan of seeing sin as real, but
in someone else. In the pamphlet The Song of Prayer, Jesus calls this dynamic of
justified attack <forgiveness-to-destroy> (S-2.II), as the reader may recall.*
(1) "Let us review the meaning of "forgive," for it is apt to be distorted and
to be perceived as something that entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous
wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In
such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course
appear to rest salvation on a whim."
*We begin with our miserable sinfulness, believing we exist at God's expense. As
I have explained before, the sin that deserves guilt is not really the murder of
God, and crucifixion of His Son, but our selfish self-centeredness, which
assumes such monstrous proportions we wind up saying: "I want my individuality
and specialness needs served, and I do not care the cost. Even if it entails
destroying another -- even Another>! -- I gladly do it to exist. Sacrifice of
love is a small price indeed to pay for the survival of my special self."
That is the sin we deny, and projecting it out we claim it is in someone else.
If that is true, as perception certainly witnesses to, I am innocent and others
deserve judgment. Thus we say to our special relationships: "You, the object of
my justified and righteous wrath, deserve to be punished." In order to ennoble
myself still further and reinforce my self-proclaimed innocence, I assume a
mantle of spirituality, proclaiming that despite the sin, in the goodness of my
merciful heart I offer forgiveness and pardon. Thus is my righteous wrath
sacrificed to serve a "higher" spiritual truth. This, then, is
<forgiveness-to-destroy>: I forgive you, even though your sins do not deserve
it. They are thus not truly forgiven, but condemned. As Jesus explains:
"While you regard it as a gift unwarranted, it must uphold the guilt you
would "forgive". Unjustified forgiveness is attack. And this is all the world
can ever give. It pardons "sinners" sometimes, but remains aware that they have
sinned. And so they do not merit the forgiveness that it gives."
"This is the false forgiveness which the world employs to keep the sense of
sin alive." (T.30.VI.3.4-4:1).
In The Song of Prayer, Jesus makes the same point, but even more strongly:
"No gift of Heaven has been more misunderstood than has forgiveness. It has,
in fact, become a scourge; a curse where it was meant to bless, a cruel mockery
of grace, a parody upon the holy peace of God. ... Forgiveness' kindness is
obscure at first, because salvation is not understood, <nor truly sought for>.
What was meant to heal is used to hurt because forgiveness is not wanted. Guilt
becomes salvation, and the remedy appears to be a terrible alternative to life."
(S.2.I.1.1-2.4-6).
Before we can learn the meaning of true forgiveness, we must first understand
the ego's distorted version, which is why the lesson began as it did. Jesus
continues now with <his> message of forgiveness, the Holy Spirit's blessing that
replaces the ego's curse:*
(2:1-3) "This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected, when
you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must be
limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions."
*The word <pardon> appears infrequently in A Course in Miracles, and is a
synonym for <forgiveness>. Its usage is often determined by the meter: <pardon>
has two syllables, and <forgiveness> three. Identical in meaning, the words are
thus used interchangeably.
In <forgiveness-to-destroy>, I forgive what I believe to be true: your sin. I
know you are the sinner because I am. My existence as a unique and separated
individual was sinfully acquired at God's expense, since individuality and
Oneness cannot coexist. I have thus destroyed God so I can live, and my
existence proves that perfect Oneness is a lie. The very fact I think I am here,
therefore, existing in a body with a personality, means that not only am I an
individual, but a sinner whose sin is as palpably real as my perceived body.
The ego's defense against the guilt that inevitably follows my belief in sin is
projection: the sin is not in me, but in you. That is the ego's truth, not to be
denied. However, we are taught in this lesson, and in other places as well, that
we cannot forgive a sin we believe has actually occurred (e.g., T-27.II.1-5;
T-30.VI.1-4), but the sin we see as a mistaken choice for separation -- all of
which is forgiven by correcting the mind's error. We speak here, by the way,
only of a wrongness we have judged worthy of condemnation. Everyone in this
world does things from a wrong-minded thought system. In fact, simply taking a
breath is a product of the original wrong-minded thought system of separation
and need. The point is not that we should feel guilty because we breathe, but
that we look at the mistake of condemning another for what we have judged as
sinful.
Seeing sin as an illusion means that it has had no effect. When we believe we
have been hurt by others, and we demonstrate our hurt as proof of their sins of
insensitivity, withholding love, etc., we tell them their sins had an effect,
and are therefore real. True forgiveness is thus impossible as the ego gloats
once more in triumph. Jesus describes this dynamic of attack in the form of
sickness, designed to prove another's guilt and therefore undeserving of
forgiveness:
"A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness
that you send lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never
will escape. This sick and sorry picture you accept, if only it can serve to
punish him. The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to
kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your
hand I die". For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his
errors must be sins.... The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother
you have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you
believed, because it witnessed to the guilt in him which you perceived and
loved." (T-27.1.4:3-7,10-11).*
(2:4) "Truth is God's creation, and to pardon that is meaningless."
*This is because you pardon an illusion or a mistake, and there are no mistakes
in Heaven. Love need not be forgiven, only accepted, for it is love's rejection
the ego happily judges as sinful. When you withhold love, push Jesus away, or
build a case against someone, your ego jumps in and cries "sin!" Then comes the
guilt, which you deny by projecting it onto another, attacking still further.
However, pushing love away is not a sin, but only the mad result of the fear of
losing your individuality and specialness. Again, it is not a sin that deserves
to be punished, but a mistake that needs correction.*
(2:5-7) "All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. Does
this need pardon? How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?"
*The reflection of God's laws in this world is forgiveness, which recognizes
that illusions are not reality, and therefore only they need to be forgiven. God
and Christ do not, nor do our brothers as they are in truth, for we forgive only
the projection of our sin on to someone else. Thus it is not the other person
who needs forgiveness, but ourselves for projecting our mistaken wish that sin
be real. Jesus asks us to look at our brothers through his eyes, learning that
our mistakes have had no effect on the sinless and eternally benign Son of God:
"God's Son is perfect, or he cannot be God's Son. Nor will you know him, if
you think he does not merit the escape from guilt in all its consequences and
its forms. There is no way to think of him but this, if you would know the truth
about yourself.
I thank You, Father, for Your perfect
Son, and in his glory will I see my own.
Here is the joyful statement that there are no forms of evil that can
overcome the Will of God; the glad acknowledgement that guilt has not succeeded
by your wish to make illusions real. And what is this except a simple statement
of the truth?" (T-30.VI.9)*
(3:1) "The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is
that you still believe you must forgive the truth, and not illusions."
*In other words, I forgive what you have not done. Again, we are not referring
to behavior. Recall that A Course in Miracles teaches that perception is not
objective, for I look at you through the eyes of either ego or Jesus. If with
the ego, I must attack, because that is all the ego does. If with Jesus,
however, I understand that what I attack in you is a projection of what I do not
want to see in myself -- as much an illusion as what I see in you. It must be
so, since <ideas leave not their source>: your sins are mine, mine are yours. I
thus forgive an illusion, behind the changeless truth of God's Son:
"Forget not, then, that idols must keep hidden what you are, not from the
Mind of God, but from your own." (T.30.III.11.8)*
(3:2) "You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to
overlook the truth, in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an
illusion true."
*Importantly, Jesus is not saying we should deny what our eyes see. In this
world people do unconscionable things, because being in this world is an
unconscionable thing. Remember that Jesus is talking about interpretation. Our
interpretation -- what we believe is fact -- is that people are bad because of
what they do, and we demonstrate their sin through our injured self. <That>
interpretation needs to be changed, not what our physical eyes behold. Thus we
come back to the central issue: which teacher do we choose to instruct us on
perceiving the world.*
(3:3) "This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains
as yet upon your mind, as you regard yourself."
*This is not the self with which we identify as a body or personality, Jesus
speaks only about what the decision maker has made real in the mind: I am a
miserable sinner, guilty of destroying Heaven's Love and crucifying Christ, and
deserving of punishment. My ego's plan to escape this terrible burden is to
point to someone besides me as the sinner. As a later workbook lesson says:
"Thus were specifics made" (W-pI.161.3:1). We made a world of specifics that we
fill with people who would become our scapegoats -- that we see sin in them and
not ourselves. Yet what we see reflects to us what we do not want to see, but
have already made real in our minds.*
(4:1) "Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception."
*Forgiving you is part of the ego's plan to deny my sinfulness, see it in you
but overlook it, and assume the holy mantle of spirituality. In my state of
"advanced holiness" I forgive and even love, no matter how poorly you have acted
towards me (or others with whom I secretly identify). This approach means that
we secretly want people to behave abusively, to reject and betray us, so that we
can adopt this holier-than-thou stance, lift ourselves above our personal
wretchedness to look down on sinners and say: "You are a miserable person, but
with Jesus' love in my heart I forgive you." Thus are we seemingly forgiven and
the other damned, though on the surface it looks like forgiveness.*
(4:2-3) "For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe
forgiveness is a lie. Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest."
*Forgiveness in this sense is a subterfuge, another way of attacking, yet
looking as it if were loving. That is why <forgiveness-to-destroy> is such a
graphic term; not particularly beautiful, but well expressing the ego's hidden
purpose: God will destroy <you>, the sinner who stole from Him, and I am
pardoned; thus will I go to Heaven, and you to hell. In words we have already
seen, Jesus paints a searing portrait of our secret motives toward the one we
accuse of sin:
"You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his
sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off
the gate and damning him to hell. Yet this is writ in hell and not in Heaven,
where you are beyond attack and prove his innocence." (T-27.1.3:2-3).*
(4:4-6) "It [ forgiveness-to-destroy ] says the truth is false, and smiles on
the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. It is
delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. It would see as right the
plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good."
*Another form taken by <forgiveness-to-destroy> is "blissninnyhood," the state
of seeing the world as wonderful, filled with good people doing good things. To
be sure, the blissninny asserts, everyone does something wrong once in while,
but there is such love and spirituality here, a palpable presence of God, that
everything is miraculous, albeit inscrutable part of our Creator's plan. The
truth, however, is that it is not wonderful here. In Heaven, yes: but what can
be wonderful about the belief we destroyed God, ran away from home, and will
never find our way back? And even if we could, Heaven would be gone, or at least
barred to our return.
Jesus thus describes one of the ego's subtle ploys of defending our real and
secret belief in sin by painting over its projections with a happy and innocent
face -- whether it is someone committing a heinous crime against us that we
overlook, or simply the world itself. It is essential we call a spade a spade:
"The world was made as an attack on God" (W-pII.3:2:1), and attack <is> its
nature. <Ideas leave not their source>, and the original attack thought of
separation can never leave the mind, despite its projection into form: the world
remains forever united with its source, at one with the mind's thought of
attack. Therefore fear, hate, and attack are the defining characteristics of
this world, while love, peace, and eternal life define Heaven -- there is no in
between, no compromise between illusion and truth. The best we can do here -- a
great deal, however -- is undo our belief in the world's reality: the purpose of
forgiveness.*
(5:1-2) "Pardon is no escape in such a view. It merely is a further sign that
sin is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied or called another name, for
pardon is a treachery to truth."
*We have made sin real, and now seek to overlook or deny it -- in ourselves,
another person, or the world at large. Since what comprises the wrong mind is
sin, and <ideas leave not their source> the physical universe as a projection of
sin is also a place of sin, as it is the home of attack. What is sin but a
statement that I exist and God has been destroyed, honoring my wish for
individuality, specialness, and fulfillment of my selfish needs at the expense
of others.
Thus the sinful thought we harbor within our minds is the thought that runs the
world. A Course in Miracles helps us step back -- with Jesus our guiding vision
-- and <see>. Only then can we smile gently and say illusions are not the truth,
thereby undoing what never was -- the essence of forgiveness. Yet we cannot undo
what we believe is here if we do not recognize we believe it <is> here.
Experiencing ourselves in a body reflects the belief sin is real. Without
looking at this, sin will remain forever real, and forgiveness an eccentric
folly and treacherous to the truth.*
(5:3-4) "Guilt cannot be forgiven. If you sin, your guilt is everlasting."
*Guilt will remain as long as you believe your sin is real. Therefore, as long
as you wish to be an individual -- separate, autonomous, and independent -- you
must believe your guilt deserves punishment, and your sin beyond forgiveness.*
(5:5) "Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are pitifully
mocked and twice condemned; first, by themselves for what they think they did,
and once again by those who pardon them."
*If you have done something terrible to me, you will feel guilty. That is how
you are first mocked and condemned. The belief in your own sin -- to which my
suffering attests -- says to you that you do not deserve to be forgiven.
Secondly, if I protest that I love and forgive you, visit you in prison, for
example, and tell you what a wonderful child of God you are, part of you will
feel even more condemned and mocked as I condescendingly look down on you,
deigning to forgive such a miserable sinner. There can be no love in this
practice, in which ...
"a "better" person deigns to stoop to save a "baser" one from what he truly
is. Forgiveness here rests on an attitude of gracious lordliness so far from
love that arrogance could never be dislodged. Who can forgive and yet despise?
And who can tell another he is steeped in sin, and yet perceive him as the Son
of God? Who makes a slave to teach what freedom is? There is no union here, but
only grief. This is not really mercy. This is death." (S-2.II.2:1-8).
Jesus turns back now to true forgiveness:*
(6) "It is sin's unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a
deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It
does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh,
and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely."
*If you read this paragraph carefully, you will realize that Jesus is telling
you not to be a "blissninny": Do not deny sin, he tells us; look at it. Collect
illusions and lay "them at the feet of truth." Jesus articulates this basic
principle of bringing illusion's darkness to truth's light. Bringing the
illusion of sin to him, we join in his gentle laughter, the little laugh in
which we leave the holy instant, joined with our brothers and with him
(T-27.VIII.9:8).
Strongly implied here is taking care not to skip steps. Bringing illusions to
truth means looking at them, not throwing the mistaken thoughts in a sack, tying
them in a package that we bring to Jesus, magically hoping he will take them
from us without our having to deal with them ourselves. Instead, Jesus urges us
to examine the hatred, judgment, and selfishness in our hearts, as we see in
these important lines we have already quoted:
"You may wonder why it is so crucial that you look upon your hatred and
realize its full extent. You may also think that it would be easy enough for the
Holy Spirit to show it to you, and to dispel it without the need for you to
raise it to awareness yourself." (T-13.III.1:1-2).
We must do our part to allow Jesus to do his. When we do, this passage from
today's lesson will make perfect sense to us, and the process of forgiveness
will indeed lighten, accompanied by the gentle laugh that lifts us beyond the
world and into the Heart of God.*
(7:1-2) "Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of
the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand
forms in which they may appear."
*When you look on sin through Jesus' eyes, you see straight through them to the
truth. Jesus does not mean pretending there is nothing there, but that as you
look with him at the illusion of judgment, you will look beyond it. Rather than
denying what your or another's body has done, you shift your interpretation of
the body by changing teachers. What seemed to be a solid wall of granite -- the
belief in sin -- becomes the flimsy veil that cannot block the light shining
from beyond it, now clearly seen. Yet you will not see if you look through eyes
of judgment. Only the vision of forgiveness parts the veil:
"Vision or judgment is your choice, but never both of these." (T.20.V.4.7)
In summary, you look at your judgments and belief in sin, realizing that they
are not what you thought. Their different forms -- seemingly major or minor --
will disappear into their own nothingness, as the light of forgiveness sets you
free.*
(7:3) "It looks on lies, but it is not deceived."
*Forgiveness and the miracle look on the lies of destruction and devastation,
but are not deceived by their seeming reality:
"A miracle is a correction. It does not create, nor really change at all.
It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is
false." (W-pII.13:1:1-3).
Whatever I accuse me or you of has had no impact on our Self -- one in Christ
and in God's Love. Yet I cannot know Their Oneness until I realize you and I are
also one in the split mind: sharing the insane thought system of separation and
attack, and the sane correction of forgiveness and the miracle. One teacher
lies, one Teacher sees truth's reflection.*
(7:4-5) "It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt.
It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you
think is not the truth."
*This type of statement -- "My brother, what you think is not the truth" -- is
found throughout the text, workbook, and manual in different forms. We are told,
for example:
"Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken."
(T-10.V.6:1).
"You but mistake interpretation for the truth. And you are wrong. But a
mistake is not a sin, nor has reality been taken from its throne by your
mistakes." (M.18.3:7-8).
It makes no sense to have Jesus say to us, "My brother, what you think is not
the truth," until we know what we think. That cannot be said too often. We need
to become aware of our belief that the sin of separation is real: I exist
because I have sinned, but I deny its presence by perceiving it in you. I am
thus hell-bent -- literally! -- on proving that everyone in my life is the
miserable sinner and deserving of judgment. Thus our piercing and probing eyes
look for sin and guilt in others in order to attack them:
"Fear's messengers are trained through terror, and they tremble when their
master calls on them to serve him. For fear is merciless even to its friends.
Its messengers steal guiltily away in hungry search of guilt, for they are kept
cold and starving and made very vicious by their master, who allows them to
feast only upon what they return to him. No little shred of guilt escapes their
hungry eyes. And in their savage search for sin they pounce on any living thing
they see, and carry it screaming to their master, to be devoured."
(T-19.IV.-A.12:3-7).
We identify these hungry messengers of fear by looking within, with Jesus beside
us saying: My brother, what you think about yourself and others is not the
truth.*
(8:1) "The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it
sees illusions as illusions, not as truth."
*Honesty in forgiveness sees the truth about the ego. Since its thought system
is sin and hate, that is what we believe about ourselves. Thus honesty looks
beyond what we believe is true to see the real truth: illusions as illusions --
<my> illusions. Recall the oft-quoted line:
"The secret of salvation is but this: That you are doing this unto
yourself." (T.27.VIII.10.1)*
(8:2-5) "It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of
lies; the great restorer of the simple truth. By its ability to overlook what is
not there, it opens up the way to truth, which has been blocked by dreams of
guilt. Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to
you. For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to
yourself."
*That is why the focus of A Course in Miracles is on our special relationships,
asking Jesus' help to look at this person differently, which means our
willingness to look at ourselves differently. Keep in mind that we cannot
overlook what is not there until we first acknowledge that we indeed believe it
is there. By looking beyond -- <overlooking> -- our brother's sins, we are
looking beyond our own, since the same are one. Forgiveness thus becomes the key
that opens the door through which we pass into real world, and beyond that to
Heaven.
This next important paragraph provides us with a practical way to direct our
day:*
(9) "There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and
perceive it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse
someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he
did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, "Would I accuse myself of doing
this?"
*The <myself> I accuse is not the self I think I am, for I accuse the mind,
wherein lies the belief in sin. It is essential I understand the tremendous cost
to me of accusing you of anything -- significant or insignificant -- for when I
do, I accuse myself of the same sin. This means I am the one who is condemned,
not you. The idea of sin has never left is source in my mind. Moreover, I have
put you in my dream so I could escape the terrible burden of sin. Therefore, in
my accusation I have given myself a wonderful gift, if only I ask Jesus to help
me see I am not accusing you, but me. My judgments of you, then, are classrooms
that allow me to expose the ego's plan by reversing its course, recalling the
sin I had projected onto you.
These lessons thus help me see the ego's subtlety in keeping the sin, but with
my having no awareness it is in my mind. The ego has enabled me to keep my
individual and special existence, but magically blame another, who will pay the
price of sacrifice instead of me. I thus seem to have the ego's cake of
separation and enjoy it, too. Nonetheless, I am the one who pays the price, and
it is insane to believe I could happily suffer as the effect of the sin of
another, who is a worse sinner than I. The insanity of the ego system is that we
all gladly suffer as innocent victim's, up to and including our death, as long
as we can say:
"Behold me, brother, at your hand I die" (T-27.1.4:6).
We not only have to see the viciousness of the ego's plan, but its insanity. In
addition, it does not work, nor make us happy. Yet these relationships, so
filled with judgment and hate, can become loving classrooms when we change
teachers. This shift enables Jesus to teach us how to turn attack into an appeal
for help and a call for love (T-12.1.8:6-13); a call that exists equally in all
of us, an appeal the Holy Spirit cannot but answer if we invite Him in.*
(10:1) "Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms that render choosing
meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended
it to be, and as it is in truth."
*The true alternative is not the ego's <kill or be killed>: either you and I are
the sinner, one lives and the other dies. Our meaningful choice is: Which
teacher do I want? Jesus' use of the <mind> here is important, for he tells me
the problem is not my body, but the thought system I have chosen. The guilt is
not in you as a body, nor in me. It is in my mind, where I put it. Because I put
the guilt there, I can change my mind about it. That is the only way I can be
truly free of it.*
(10:2-4) "It is but lies that would condemn. In truth is innocence the only
thing there is. Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth; between the
world you see and that which lies beyond; between the hell of guilt and Heaven's
gate."
*Forgiveness brings us to the real world, the gate beyond which is Heaven
itself. Though itself an illusion, forgiveness stands between the ego's
illusions and the truth of God. It is the final illusion that undoes belief in
all the others. In a passage we have partly seen, we read:
"Forgiveness might be called a kind of happy fiction; a way in which the
unknowing can bridge the gap between their perception and the truth ...
Forgiveness is a symbol, too, but as the symbol of His Will alone it cannot be
divided. And so the Unity that it reflects becomes His Will. It is the only
thing still in the world in part, and yet the bridge to Heaven." (C-3.2:1;5).
Forgiveness is thus truth's reflection, undoing the lies of sin and separation
that would condemn. Once undone, they disappear into the truth that waits for us
beyond the real world, Heaven's lovely gate in which the Oneness of our Self is
restored at last to our awareness.*
(11:1) "Across this bridge, as powerful as love which laid its blessing on it,
are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth."
*In this passage the bridge is forgiveness. Elsewhere, it is the Holy Spirit or
the real world. Jesus' use of symbols is loose, but its content of bringing
illusions to the truth remains consistent. Here forgiveness bridges the gap
between the ego's illusions and the real world.*
(11:2-4) "They are not kept to swell and bluster, and to terrify the foolish
dreamer who believes in them. He has been gently wakened from his dream by
understanding what he thought he saw was never there. And now he cannot feel
that all escape has been denied to him."
*Now we have true hope in which escape becomes a meaningful thought. In the
ego's plan, escape means hiding our sin, but experiencing it in another, thus
believing we are free of it. True escape undoes the mind's belief in the sin
which is the dream's beginning, and forgiveness is Jesus' gentle means to awaken
us from the ego's nightmares, as we recall:
"So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to reality
without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream
preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, not to fear, the
Voice That calls with love to waken him; a gentler dream, in which his suffering
was healed and where his brother was his friend. God willed he waken gently and
with joy, and gave him means to waken without fear."
Again, the happy and gentle means is forgiveness, our only hope for lasting
escape from the ego's dream of hate and fear.*
(12) "He does not have to fight to save himself. He does not have to kill the
dragons which he thought pursued him. Nor need he erect the heavy walls of stone
and iron doors he thought would make him safe. He can remove the ponderous and
useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery. His step is light, and
as he lifts his foot to stride ahead a star is left behind, to point the way to
those who follow him."
*This is also an important paragraph. We believe we have to fight against sin,
which means fighting against the hostility in other people, unfair practices in
the world, or the sins of our own bodies. Many religious systems, for example,
teach their adherents to fight against the sin in themselves: desires for sex,
food, or any form of pleasure. Thus is sin localized in the body, not the mind;
and whether sin is found in yours or mine, we are justified in fighting against
it.
The need to oppose sin is rooted in the unconscious belief that sin is in my
mind -- I have killed, and will continue to kill in order to preserve my
existence. I project that thought of murder and see it is in you, making you in
my own image and likeness. Thus I hear you say that in order to preserve
yourself, you must kill me. Now I am justified in defending myself, which is the
principle theme of the next lesson, "If I defend myself I am attacked"
(W-pI.135). I, the face of innocence, have no choice but to fight to preserve my
existence, a justification for attack we have seen Jesus describe:
"This aspect can grow angry, for the world is wicked and unable to provide
the love and shelter innocence deserves. And so this face is often wet with
tears at the injustices the world accords to those who would be generous and
good. This aspect never makes the first attack. But every day a hundred little
things make small assaults upon its innocence, provoking it to irritation, and
at last to open insult and abuse." (T-31.V.3).
Thus we are continually struggling against sin: against the world's pollutants,
for example, to protect our physical body; against the terrible things people
do to us, or against the sin we believe is within us, needing to be rigid,
strict, and disciplined to guard against the sinful thoughts and behavior. All
this falls nicely within the ego's plan because it makes sin real, which
establishes the reality of the separated self that must be defended by a
lifetime of struggle and battle.
In the first rule for decision, Jesus says: "<Do not fight yourself>," placed in
italics for emphasis (T-30.1.1:7). In other words: be aware of your ego, but do
not fight against it. Not only need you not fight against someone else's ego
thoughts, Jesus counsels, you need not fight against your own. In the manual he
refers to these magic thoughts, and highlights the importance of how we deal
with these illusory and maladaptive attempts to preserve our ego's identity:
"How to deal with magic thus becomes a major lesson for the teacher of God
to master. His first responsibility in this is not to attack it. If a magic
thought arouses anger in any form, God's teacher can be sure that he is
strengthening his own belief in sin and has condemned himself. He can be sure as
well that he has asked for depression, pain, fear and disaster to come to him.
Let him remember, then, it is not this that he would teach, because it is not
this that he would learn." (M.17.1:4-8).
Therefore, you are asked only to be aware of these magical thoughts and sinful
deeds. Do not feel guilty about them, Jesus says, nor judge them as sinful, for
this leads to the projection that builds a barrier between yourself and another,
who then becomes the repository of your sin. Jesus asks you instead to accept
his help in looking at your fear of him, because it is that fear of love you
label as sin. Moreover, it is your need to defend against sin that has forced
you to fight against everyone else in the world. As always, Jesus urges you to
return to the source of the problem -- the decision-making part of your mind: I
am better off on my own, outside the Love of God:
"Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the
error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace." (T-5:VII.6:5).
The Holy Spirit's Atonement principle reflects the Love of God, Who is the All
in All (I Corinthians 15:28; cited in A Course in Miracles as well [e.g.
T-7.IV.7:4]). In this Love my self is nothing, but in <my> kingdom, God is the
nothing and < I > the everything:< I >am the all in all. This usurpation is our
sin, and yet it is nothing more than a silly mistake that had no effect on the
All, Who <is> the All, outside of which is nothing. I therefore do no have to
fight against the ego's dragons, whether in the world at large, my special
relationships, or, above all, in myself. If I fight, I make them real. The
famous biblical statement is appropriate here: "resist not evil" (Matthew 5:39).
When you resist evil you reinforce its presence, since you do not oppose
something you had not first judged as a threat. It is a shame the biblical God
never paid attention to that line, because the Bible in its entirety is based on
His resisting evil, reacting to His Son's perceived sin.
Therefore, all you need do with evil is smile gently and realize it is not so,
being merely a silly thought with no effects. This is important to understand as
you become increasingly aware of your ego, an occupational hazard of any student
of the Course. It is tempting to despair that the ego never seems to change and
is always with you. You need not despair: it never changes! What changes is the
teacher with whom you choose to look at your ego. We have seen that from the
beginning the ego has been 100 percent murder and viciousness; selfish,
self-centered, and pre-occupied with its own specialness. This is a constant.
What changes is how we look at it -- with gentleness and kindness instead of
guilt and judgment. Thus Jesus urges us to focus on the correction, not the
shadows of the seeming problem:
"Concentrate only on this [our willingness], and be not disturbed that
shadows surround it. That is why you came. If you could come without them you
would not need the holy instant. Come to it not in arrogance, assuming that you
must achieve the state its coming brings with it. The miracle of the holy
instant lies in your willingness to let it be what it is. And in your
willingness for this lies also your acceptance of yourself as you were meant to
be." (T-18.IV.2:4-9).
We accept ourselves as we were meant to be by our willingness to look at the
ego's shadow self, made as substitute for the glorious Self God created.
Fighting against he shadow reflects our disturbance over nothing, taking the
tiny, mad idea seriously (T-27.VIII.6:2-3), which reinforces its reality in our
deluded minds. Yet gently looking at the ego with Jesus' love beside us ensures
that its "heavy walls of stone and iron doors" will softly disappear into their
own nothingness. Again, we do not fight against the egos in others, and
certainly do not fight against it in ourselves. We look with the love of Jesus,
and at that point "a star is left behind." The star symbolizes forgiveness,
pointing the way for others to follow, saying that our choice for the Holy
Spirit's forgiveness, is also theirs, because the same Teacher is in them. We
thus become a shining example -- as Jesus is our shining example -- of what one
looks like who has made the correct choice. We may not make it all the time, but
in this instant we have released our judgments against others and ourselves. Our
relationship with Jesus allows us to choose his star of forgiveness, as Helen's
poem "The Star Form" reflects to us:
"The world can be to us a shining star,
Because it represents a Thought of God. ...
His Son abides where He would have him be.
And not one beat in Heaven's song is missed
Within the quiet shining of the star
That is the silent Answer to the quest
The world has set, but which does not exist."
(The Gifts of God, p. 66)*
(13:1) "Forgiveness must be practiced ..."
*This is a line that needs to be highlighted, and read again and again.
Understanding A Course in Miracles' theory of forgiveness means nothing if you
do not practice it and -- going back to paragraph 9 -- watch yourself accuse
others, asking yourself: "Would I accuse myself of doing this?" The right answer
is "yes" -- I certainly would, for that means I exist and my identity remains
secure. I pretend I am not accusing myself, as I pretend I am accusing you, but
unconsciously I gladly accuse myself of sin because that, again, proves my
reality. If I am sinless and innocent, I as an ego no longer exist. I do not
know my Identity, yet I know my separate and sinful self that is witnessed to by
my judgments, born of the unfair treatment I suffered at the hands of the
others. Thus Jesus says that the following words are terrifying to the separated
world:
"I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing,
where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself." (T.31.V.17.7)
That is why we must learn to say and mean those words:
"Yet in this learning is salvation born. And What you are will tell you of
Itself." (T.31.V.17.8-9).
The cost of our "yes" is salvation -- remembering What we are.*
(13:1) "Forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive its
meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence."
*Forgiveness has to be practiced because the learning of the world -- the
projection of what we wish to learn from it -- is opposed to it. The world says
sin is real, demonstrated by the victimized body. Everyone's goal is to keep the
separated self, but give away the sin associated with it. We put on the face of
innocence to justify and validate the self-concept of a damaged self, for which
the world is responsible:
"The learning of the world is built upon a concept of the self adjusted to
the world's reality. It fits it well. For this an image is that suits a world of
shadows and illusions. Here it walks at home, where what it sees is one with it.
The building of a concept of the self is what the learning of the world is for.
This is its purpose; that you come without a self, and make one as you go along.
And by the time you reach "maturity" you have perfected it, to meet the world on
equal terms, at one with its demands."
"A concept of the self is made by you...The concept of the self the world
would teach is not the thing that it appears to be. For it is made to serve two
purposes, but one of which the mind can recognize. The first presents the face
of innocence, the aspect acted on. It is this face that smiles and charms and
even seems to love." (T-31.V.1:1--2:1,4-7)
The second face, as the section goes on to discuss, is the hidden face of hate,
the secret dream in which we are the sinful murderer (T-27.VII.II:6:12:2), which
the face of innocence seeks to conceal. The disguise is so effective that we
need a Guide to teach us the exact opposite of everything the world has taught,
and, in fact, the exact opposite of what many spiritualities have taught.
Therefore forgiveness requires a great deal of practice -- to undo the
resistance to recognizing the truth of our Self, and the falsity of our self.
Recall that lovely summarizing line:
"Let me not forget myself is nothing, but my Self is all."
(W-pII.358.1:7;italics omitted).*
(13:2-4) "There is no thought in all the world that leads to any understanding
of the laws it follows, nor the Thought that it reflects. It is as alien to the
world as is your own reality. And yet it joins your mind with the reality in
you."
*Forgiveness is not our reality, but it forms the link between the illusions of
sin and the truth of Atonement -- both in our minds. Forgiveness as the world
knows it -- <forgiveness-to-destroy> -- is alien to genuine forgiveness, for it
makes the error real while overlooking it. It upholds the validity of the
separated world, and does not recognize that everything here is a dream of our
own choosing; not in some distant past, but now, for everything -- right- and
wrong-minded alike -- occurs within the same instant. True forgiveness lifts us
above the dream of time and space, and we look down with Jesus on our selves and
hear him say: "My brothers, figures in the dream, what you think, feel, and
perceive is not the truth."
A specific exercise in forgiveness follows:*
(14:1)"Today we practice true forgiveness, that the time of joining be no more
delayed."
*Our forgiveness of another -- really, our projections -- speeds us along the
path that joins us with our true Self, Whose memory is kept for us in our minds.
On a practical level, this means that when we do not forgive, and insist we are
right and know better than Jesus -- believing that withholding love is
preferable to extending it -- it is because we do not want to rejoin the truth.
If forgiveness is the only means of remembering Who we are as God's true Son,
then adopting the ego's form of forgiveness is the means of remaining asleep and
not returning home.
If we were really honest, therefore, we would say: "I want to be an individual
and keep my uniqueness, and do not to want to lose my separated self. If I take
Jesus' hand and walk through the ego's illusion, I will surely lose this
specialness. My disappearing into the Oneness of Heaven means separation is
gone, and this is what frightens me." Real honesty, then, admits we do not want
to return home and therefore do no want Jesus as our teacher. In his place we
choose the ego, which preserves our identity and keeps it sacrosanct. Thus Jesus
explains to us, in words we have already seen, what is involved in joining with
him:
"When you unite with me you are uniting without the ego, because I have
renounced the ego in myself and therefore cannot unite with yours. Our union is
therefore the way to renounce the ego in you. The truth in both of us is beyond
the ego." (T-8.V.4:1-3).
Forgiveness, again, is the means of remembering this truth, while retaining
grievances enables us to forget. Jesus wants us to see the causal connection
between holding onto judgments -- overt or covert -- and our unhappiness and
pain. Only then can we realize our distress comes from a decision that says: I
do not want to return home and rejoin the truth of Who I am as God's Son. Thus I
choose not to forgive.*
(14:2-3) "For we would meet with our reality in freedom and in peace. Our
practicing becomes the footsteps lighting up the way for all our brothers, who
will follow us to the reality we share with them."
*Since minds are joined, one brother is all brothers. When I let go of my
grievances in the holy instant and realize you and I are one -- in illusion as
well as truth -- I also realize I am one with the Sonship. At the end of the
ladder of prayer, which forgiveness has helped me ascend, I say to everyone who
comes to join in prayer with me:
"I cannot go without you, for you are a part of me."
"And so he is in truth. Now can you pray only for what you truly share with
him. For you have understood he never left, and you, who seemed alone, are one
with him." (S-1.V.3:9-12).
My mind's thought of unity stands as a beacon of light that says to everyone --
as does Jesus' light -- "the decision I made you can make as well." *
(14:4-6) "That this may be accomplished, let us give a quarter of an hour twice
today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness,
and was sent to us to teach it. Let us ask of Him:
"Let me perceive forgiveness as it is."
*This means I must first see forgiveness <as it is not>, and be honest with
myself that I have chosen the ego as my guide. Thus the first half of this
lesson spoke of the ego's forgiveness, and most of the sections in the text
likewise begin by presenting the ego thought system.*
(15:1-2) "Then choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his "sins,"
as one by one they cross your mind. Be certain not to dwell on any one of them,
but realize that you are using his "offenses" but to save the world from all
ideas of sin."
*In other words, the sins I perceive in you become a classroom in which I learn
that sin is an illusion, and that is why the word is in quotation marks. If sin
is illusory, so too are separation and specialness, the truth being we are one,
the truth that saves the world. This has nothing to do with anything external.
We are saved from the thought system that says individuality is real and our
selfishness justified. Thus Jesus speaks of the world ending in
"an illusion, as it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The
illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness,
will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So
ends the world that guilt had made, for now it has no purpose and is gone."
(M.14.1.2).
Jesus asks us to look directly at another's sins so we may recall our
projection, the necessary step for forgiveness and healing. Since minds are one,
our healing is the world's healing. Thus does Jesus use what we made to harm as
an instrument of help.(T-25.VI.4:1)*
(15:3) "Briefly consider all the evil things you thought of him, and each time
ask yourself, "Would I condemn myself for doing this?"
*In doing a lesson like this we usually think of the self we condemn to be the
body. It is almost impossible not to, but we need remember that the sin we
accuse our brother of is a projection of the sin we accuse ourselves of. We may
identify the sin with unloving feelings and behavior, yet these but shadow the
sinful thoughts in our minds. We thus need to return there to choose again. What
speeds us along this process of forgiveness is accepting that we know nothing
and Jesus knows everything. Our perceptions are not true; not sinful, evil, or
wicked, but unreal because they are based on separation. It is an illusion of
ourselves we have projected out, giving rise to an illusion of attack. Working
in reverse, Jesus uses our pseudo-attacks on another as the vehicle -- Freud's
<royal road> -- for forgiving our pseudo-attacks on ourselves. Thus are we
healed and our brother with us.*
(16:1-3) "Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now
you are prepared for freedom. If you have been practicing thus far in
willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of
weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief."
*The burden we feel, the <tightening> of weight across our chest, is guilt. As
Jesus says: "You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that
comes from meeting yourself and your brothers totally without judgment."
(T.3.VI.3.1)
Judgment is a major weapon in the ego's plan to save us from guilt we made real
in our minds. To correct the error, we now regard judgments as classrooms in
which our new teacher retraces our steps with us, revealing their point of
origin. Jesus tells us our judgments arose from the mind's belief in sin and
guilt, and our need to escape from them by seeing them in another. That is why
we addictively need to find fault with other people. Our judgments come, as we
have repeatedly seen, from the need to protect our individuality by denying the
sin in ourselves and seeing it in someone else.
This, then is the burden of judgment under which we live. The problem is that we
have become so accustomed to it, we are not even aware we are living under such
ego insanity. Being here is indeed a tremendous burden, because we are not with
God and have denied our reality as spirit. We need to recognize this before we
can take the next step of realizing we are not living here at all. We must not,
however, skip these steps. Putting a happy face on our day is not going to work,
because that denies the burden of judgment even more, making it ever more
difficult to understand its onerous nature, the necessary condition for letting
it go.
Jesus will therefore teach us the great cost of holding on to judgments against
others, the shadow of the even greater cost of holding on to judgments against
ourselves. Such judgments are not only insane, but silly and burdensome mistakes
because we are not at peace. It would be one thing if murder made us happy, but
it does not: and we cannot pretend anymore that faulting others and seeing
ourselves as innocent victims work for us. When we finally let go of judgment --
of others and ourselves -- we will experience, miraculously, this "certain
feeling of relief." *
(16:4) "The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape from all
the heavy chains you sought to lay upon your brother, but were laid upon
yourself."
*This self is the mind, not the person we think we are and which we see every
morning in our bathroom mirror.*
(17:1) "Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will still be
many times when you forget its meaning and attack yourself."
* As I say each and every time -- because Jesus says it each and every time --
forgiveness means nothing if you do not practice it. He tells you here -- as he
does throughout the workbook -- that there will be times in the day when you
will not do what he asks. That is when you need to practice all the more, to be
truly mindful of your tolerance for the mind wandering (T-2.VI.4:6) that has
taken you from your home in the Mind of God to the ego, and to the sin and guilt
you project onto everyone else. The ego thus has you focus on what other bodies
do to hurt you, or what they do to make your body feel better; the emphasis
clearly being on the body and not the mind. Therefore, Jesus instructs you to be
attentive to how quickly you slip from the truth to what the ego tells you: the
problem is not in you -- the mind -- but in everyone else -- the body.*
(17:2) "When this occurs, allow your mind to see through this illusion as you
tell yourself:"
*We cannot see through the illusion unless we ask Jesus for help. Indeed,
forgiveness without his help is impossible, which is why we strive to do things
on our own and practice forgiveness-to-destroy. ... And then Jesus has us say:*
(17:3-5) "Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
Would I accuse myself of doing this?
I will not lay this chain upon myself."
*Jesus appeals to our selfish motives, saying we should forgive, not because it
is wonderful, noble, and holy, or because he tells us to, but because we will
feel better. It is essential we see the causal connection between our decision
to be separate from him and its effect: the chain of pain we lay upon ourselves.
Is it worth it to suffer so someone else will feel guilty? That insanity makes
no sense to a sane person.
