Lesson 60. These ideas are for today's review.
1. God is the Love in which I forgive.
God does not forgive because He has never condemned. The blameless cannot blame,
and those who have accepted their innocence see nothing to forgive. Yet
forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the
reflection of God's Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven that
the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me up to Him.God is the Love in
which I forgive.
2. God is the strength in which I trust.
It is not my own strength through which I forgive. It is through the strength of
God in me, which I am remembering as I forgive. As I begin to see, I recognize
His reflection on earth. I forgive all things because I feel the stirring of His
strength in me. And I begin to remember the Love I chose to forget, but Which
has not forgotten me.
3. There is nothing to fear.
How safe the world will look to me when I can see it! It will not look anything
like what I imagine I see now. Everyone and everything I see will lean toward me
to bless me. I will recognize in everyone my dearest Friend. What could there be
to fear in a world that I have forgiven, and that has forgiven me?
4. God's Voice speaks to me all through the day.
There is not a moment in which God's Voice ceases to call on my forgiveness to
save me. There is not a moment in which His Voice fails to direct my thoughts,
guide my actions and lead my feet. I am, walking steadily on toward truth. There
is nowhere else I can go, because God's Voice is the only voice and the only
guide that has been given to His Son.
5. I am sustained by the Love of God.
As I listen to God's Voice, I am sustained by His Love. As I open my eyes, His
Love lights up the world for me to see. As I forgive, His Love reminds me that
His Son is sinless. And as I look upon the world with the vision He has given
me, I remember that I am His Son.
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The commentary on this lesson (below) is 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
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Lesson 60. "These ideas are for today's review."
*This final lesson returns to forgiveness, the central theme in Jesus' symphony
of love and truth.*
(1:1) (46) "God is the Love in which I forgive."
(1:2-3) "God does not forgive because He has never condemned. The blameless
cannot blame, and those who have accepted their innocence see nothing to
forgive.
*The fact that God does not forgive becomes the basis for our forgiveness in the
dream. Forgiveness is necessary only as the correction for condemnation. When
judgment of ourselves is withdrawn, our judgment of others is withdrawn as well:
the <idea> of judgment can never leave its <source>. We are thus asked by Jesus
to accept our past mistakes, thereby accepting the light-filled innocence that
rests in peace just beyond the darkness of our belief in sin. With condemnation
gone, nothing remains to forgive.*
(1:4-6) "Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It
is the reflection of God's Love on earth. It will bring me near enough to Heaven
that the Love of God can reach down to me and raise me up to Him.God is the Love
in which I forgive."
*That is the problem: We do not want to be lifted up to Heaven, for then our
individuality disappears. Recognizing our innocence allows us to realize how
sinful and guilty we believed we were, because we wanted to be apart from such a
belief, we can make the choice for sanity. No longer afraid of God's <last
step>, which ends the process that our decision to forgive our brother began, we
allow His Love to lift us back from earth to Heaven.
Another important theme in these five lessons, not to mention throughout A
Course in Miracles, is that we do not forgive on our own, as we now see:*
(2:1) (47) "God is the strength in which I trust."
(2.2-3) "It is not my own strength through which I forgive. It is through the
strength of God in me, which I am remembering as I forgive."
*I am not the one who forgives you. I can only ask the Holy Spirit for help in
looking at you <differently>, because the way I am looking at you now is not
making me happy. The bottom line is recognizing there are painful effects of
choosing to be right, selfish, and special. I thus lay aside the weakness of my
petty strength, choosing instead the strength of Christ that is restored to my
awareness through forgiveness.*
(2:4-6)"As I begin to see, I recognize His reflection on earth. I forgive all
things because I feel the stirring of His strength in me. And I begin to
remember the Love I chose to forget, but Which has not forgotten me."
*The problem again is simply that we have forgotten. Yet forgetting is active.
We have chosen to forget because we wanted to remember the weakness of our
individuality instead of Christ's strength. However, forgetting our Identity did
not destroy it. Our Self merely waited for us to change our minds, effected by
our change of perception: from judgment to vision, weakness to strength.
Paragraph 3 returns us the real world: *
(3:1) (48) "There is nothing to fear."
(3.2-4) "How safe the world will look to me when I can see it! It will not look
anything like what I imagine I see now. Everyone and everything I see will lean
toward me to bless me. I will recognize in everyone my dearest Friend. What
could there be to fear in a world that I have forgiven, and that has forgiven
me?"
*Once we choose the place of perfect safety in our minds, represented by Jesus,
the world we experience outside will be its mirror. It cannot <not> be that way,
since <ideas leave not their source.> The beauty of this forgiven world is
reflected in this lovely passage from the text:
"Can you imagine how beautiful those you forgive will look to you? In no
fantasy have you ever seen anything so lovely. Nothing you see here, sleeping or
waking, comes near to such loveliness. And nothing will you value like unto
this, nor hold so dear. Nothing that you remember that made your heart sing with
joy has ever brought you even a little part of the happiness this sight will
bring you. For you will see the Son of God. You will behold the beauty the Holy
Spirit loves to look upon, and which He thanks the Father for. He was created to
see this for you, until you learned to see it for yourself. And all His teaching
leads to seeing it and giving thanks with Him.
"This loveliness is not a fantasy. It is the real world, bright and clean
and new, with everything sparkling under the open sun. Nothing is hidden here,
for everything has been forgiven and there are no fantasies to hide the truth."
(T-17.II.1:1-2:3)
Recalling this beauty will help us choose again when we are tempted to make real
the ego's ugly world of specialness.
Note the usage of "everyone" and "everything" in 3:4 to describe our vision. If
anyone or anything is excluded from the light of safety, all the world is
plunged in darkness, the shadow of our mind's darkened thoughts of guilt.*
(3:5-6) "I will recognize in everyone my dearest Friend. What could there be to
fear in a world that I have forgiven, and that has forgiven me?"
*This is the vision of Christ, in which the entire Sonship is perceived through
the eyes of holiness. Not one aspect of the Son is excluded, and with separation
gone, so is all fear, which had been the inevitable result of our belief in sin
and guilt. This vision is nicely captured in the opening lines in Helen's very
first poem, The Gifts of Christmas" :
"Christ passes no one by. By this you know
He is God's Son. You recognize His touch
In universal gentleness. His Love
Extends to everyone. His eyes behold
The Love of God in everything He sees."
(The Gifts of God, p.95)
With such love beside and within us, fear is impossible; its place taken by the
love forgiveness brings.*
(4:1) (49) "God's Voice speaks to me all through the day."
(4.2-3) "There is not a moment in which God's Voice ceases to call on my
forgiveness to save me. There is not a moment in which His Voice fails to direct
my thoughts, guide my actions and lead my feet."
*As I mentioned when we did Lesson 49, this does not mean we <hear> His Voice
all through the day, it simply means He is calling to us throughout the day.
This is the Call we fervently and ferociously try to conceal -- the purpose of
the world we have made, the purpose of our specialness thoughts of attack,
judgment and desire. These are easily set aside when we decide we no longer wish
to hear the ego's raucous shrieking. The stunning yet gentle silence of God's
Voice returns in the instant we wish to hear its sound, and <only> its sound.
Thus does God's sweet song of love extend all through the dream, guiding our
thoughts, words, and deeds.*
(4:4-5) "I am, walking steadily on toward truth. There is nowhere else I can go,
because God's Voice is the only voice and the only guide that has been given to
His Son."
*There is nothing else. Any other pathway we choose is nothing and leads
nowhere, because it comes from a voice that does not exist. The loveliness of
this recognition is described in these beautiful closing paragraphs in "The Real
Alternative," which reminds us that as a Thought of God we have never left our
Source; the road back to Him undoes the road that never existed in reality:
"He has not left His Thoughts! But you forgot His Presence and remembered
not His Love. No pathway in the world can lead to Him, nor any worldly goal be
one with His. What road in all the world will lead within, when every road was
made to separate the journey from the purpose it must have unless it be but
futile wandering? All roads that lead away from what you are will lead you to
confusion and despair. Yet has He never left His Thoughts to die, without their
Source forever in themselves."
"He has not left His Thoughts! He could no more depart from them than they
could keep Him out. In unity with Him do they abide, and in their oneness both
are kept complete. There is no road that leads away from Him. A journey from
yourself does not exist. How foolish and insane it is to think that there could
be a road with such an aim! Where could it go? And how could you be made to
travel on it, walking there without your own reality at one with you?"
"Forgive yourself your madness, and forget all senseless journeys and all
goal-less aims. They have no meaning. You can not escape from what you are. For
God is merciful, and did not let His Son abandon Him. For what He is be
thankful, for in that is your escape from madness and from death. Nowhere but
where He is can you be found. There is no path that does not lead to Him."
(T-31.IV.9-11).
And finally, the symphonic movement that is this review ends with a return to
its central theme; the cycle of love concluding the love and wisdom with which
it began: *
(5:1) (50) "I am sustained by the Love of God."
(5.2-4) "As I listen to God's Voice, I am sustained by His Love. As I open my
eyes, His Love lights up the world for me to see. As I forgive, His Love reminds
me that His Son is sinless."
*And who is His Son? I am. Since we are all one, when I realize my sinlessness,
I realize everyone is sinless, too. It cannot <not> be, if God's Love <is> His
Love.*
(5.5) "And as I look upon the world with the vision He has given me, I remember
that I am His Son."
*Jesus ends this movement of his symphony with the attainment of our ultimate
goal. The way we reach the vision of the real world is by paying careful
attention to the external world, so it can teach us that the <outside> mirrors
the <inside.> The pain of our experience as bodies, interacting with other
bodies, becomes the motivation to cry out for the other way, the other Teacher.
Thus we come to change our minds, choose the Holy Spirit's Thought as the source
of our seeing, and look out upon the world through Christ's vision. The real
world greets our sight, and we finally remember Who we are as God's one Son,
gladly exclaiming these words from Part II of the workbook:
"Be glad today! Be glad! There is no room for anything but joy and thanks
today. Our Father has redeemed His Son this day. Not one of us but will be saved
today. Not one who will remain in fear, and none the Father will not gather to
Himself, awake in Heaven in the Heart of Love." (W-pII.340.2).
Thus we end this heavenly movement with a happy thought of Oneness, the thought
that ends the nightmare dream of illusion and joyfully awakens us to the
remembrance of our Father's Love.*
