Lesson 141. "My mind holds only what I think with God."
(121) "Forgiveness is the key to happiness."
(122) "Forgiveness offers everything I want."
**
As there are no commentaries for the next ten lessons, I thought it might be
helpful to just give a brief excerpt from both Lessons 123 and 124, and the
commentary by Kenneth Wapnick, that we had formerly looked at. And if you feel
so inclined you can go back over the whole lesson and commentary. ~ M. Street.
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 121. "Forgiveness is the key to happiness."
*In this very important lesson we find the contrast between forgiveness and the
unforgiveness the ego would have us practice. The symbol of the <key> is
important in considering what the ego does with our minds. When the decision
maker was convinced by the ego to choose individuality over oneness, persuaded
in the ontological instant to choose the ego's interpretation of the tiny, mad
idea rather that the Holy Spirit's, and thus believe in its lie of
individuality, it was as if the Holy Spirit became locked away in the right mind
in which He dwells. The guilt in the wrong mind the replaced the Holy Spirit's
right-minded love and Atonement in our awareness. At that point the ego had us
view guilt as so intolerable that we had to leave the mind entirely and make up
a world, encasing ourselves in a body. Consequently, not only did the right mind
become closed off from awareness, but the wrong mind as well. The entire split
mind, in a sense, became a locked box or vault, with key cleverly concealed
within a body.
Forgiveness, then, is the key that opens our minds. It is the name A Course in
Miracles gives to the process of realizing that what upsets us is not what is
going on within our own or another's body. Our guilt upsets me. This realization
unlocks the first part of our minds. Going to the wrong mind and looking with
Jesus at its guilt, we realize it, too, was made up. Our recognition causes it
to disappear, which unlocks the right mind, where the Atonement principle has
waited for us.
Forgiveness thus opens up the mind the ego had closed. It told us happiness is
found in the world by meeting our body's needs. The Holy Spirit, on the other
hand, teaches that real happiness comes when we unlock the presence of love that
had been buried -- seemingly forever -- in our minds. This wonderful lesson
takes us still further along our journey through anger and guilt, to the
guiltlessness that is our home.*
Lesson 122. Forgiveness offers everything I want.
*This lesson and the next few are centered on positive themes: forgiveness here,
and then gratitude, oneness, forgiveness again, and love. In A Course in
Miracles, achieving what is positive is accomplished through undoing what is
negative, with perhaps the clearest example being Lesson 126, where Jesus
contrasts forgiveness with its opposite, <forgiveness-to-destroy>, even though
the term itself is not used. As we go through the next five lessons, therefore,
we will be looking at what is positive in terms of what the lesson is undoing.
In this lesson, "Forgiveness offers everything I want," Jesus speaks to us about
withdrawing our investments in everything we think we want and that will bring
us happiness and peace, exchanging the false goals of specialness for the true
one of forgiveness.*
(1) "What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness
offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a
sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and
safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that
cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding
comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?"
*Everyone would say "yes" to these questions, at least consciously. The problem
is that we are always seeking to fulfill our special desires instead. We seek in
the world for anything that will make us happy, bring us peace, offer us safety,
or end our pain, which the world is very eager to oblige us. For a while, things
here seem to bring the absence of pain, anxiety, and loneliness, for when we get
what we think we want or need, we feel happy, joyful, and peaceful. In the end,
however, nothing in the world works, the realization of which heralds the
beginning of our work with A Course in Miracles. We then call out for help,
saying there must be another way, another teacher within us. Only then can Jesus
help us, by teaching us to undo our past learning through forgiveness, the
precursor to real happiness and peace.
When entering the process of forgiveness, students begin to realize that it does
not entail saying "yes" to Jesus, but rather "no' to the ego. In lines we have
already examined in part we read:
"For you have answered "yes" without perceiving that "yes" must mean "not
no". No one decides against his happiness, but he may do so if he does not see
he does it. And if he sees his happiness as ever changing, now this, now that,
and now an elusive shadow attached to nothing, he does decide against it."
"Elusive happiness, or happiness in changing form that shifts with time and
place, is an illusion that has no meaning. Happiness must be constant, because
it is attained by giving up the wish for the inconstant." (T.21.VII.12.4-13:2)
The constancy of happiness is ours when we look directly at the ego's negation
of God's eternal constancy, and say: "I no longer want this." At that point, to
quote from one of Jesus' personal messages to Helen: "... the help of God and
all his angels will respond" (Absence from Felicity, p.381). Our simple yet
unequivocal decision against the ego -- the meaning of forgiveness -- allows the
quiet gentleness of happiness to return to our awareness. Thus do we rest in
peace and comfort.*
