When it all comes down to it, forgiveness is what brings us quickly to a place of peace within our being. As Jesus tells us in this section, forgiveness offers wings to prayer. So now we are rising above that which we thought we were praying for and realize we have all in the One Who is All. Together forgiveness and prayer are sisters, leading us to the light by each moment we practice. The end of illusion is near and we are working steadfastly towards it each time we practice.
I see this within myself, I have mentioned to my classes and students that I am happier and more peaceful now than ever. With my current health diagnosis and other unexpected situations popping up like a jack-in-the-box in front of me, I find I can remain at peace in the midst of it all. I know within my goal is solely for peace. My prayer is one of forgiveness so that I may see truly through the fog of illusion to the light within. I don’t want to focus on what is going on outside of me (and even that me is a personality) but to simply observe everything from the place of Love. That is what our Teacher the Holy Spirit practices with us. Whether it is a symptom, or an upset or a situation, He holds the truth until we are comfortable in accepting it for ourselves. I can get through anything that appears in my path with Him by my side. I say this because I have practiced it. Too often in the past I let the knee-jerk reactions run my life, but for now I can truly step back and let Him lead the way through the power of prayer and forgiveness.
Forgiveness of Yourself – When we look at forgiveness and when I have in classes with students, it always seems easier to forgive others than our own failings. Yet the gift is there for us. Yes, we have made of forgiveness not what it was intended and that has blocked us from the Light. We can still think of forgiveness in the “old” way. We have to now think of forgiveness according to the way Jesus sets forth for us. The path is actually easier than we believe. We make it hard because of our belief that it must be hard. It can’t be as easy and as simple as we are being told. But, it is.
Forgiveness is a kindness. It is an act of love. Why must we constantly forget to offer love to ourselves instead of berating ourselves for every item we missed or everything that has gone off track in our lives? We are offered another way. Let’s take it. God gave us the means to return to Him, why have we chosen everything but?
We need nothing special to accept and practice forgiveness of ourselves. We do it and reap the benefits. I know in my life of all the trials and tribulations, the failed marriages and relationships and friendships, the missteps, and the mistaken thoughts, I have committed myself to hell many times. Yet, God hasn’t condemned me. The more I have pulled myself out from under that heavy weight of guilt, the lighter I become. Dragging that huge boulder of guilt around with me doesn’t serve me or anyone else here in the world. Here in the world I need to see myself as God sees me.
This world is not only an illusion but a deception. We have been deceived in what to believe here. Yes, we still walk this world but with forgiveness and love as our guides, we can walk the world differently. Still be in these bodies, still interacting with others but all with the Word of God on our lips and His Light guiding our minds. We know the truth within and now we share that with others by our own demonstration. No one needs to walk this world with the boulder of guilt. Help yourself to cut the chain to it, allow the Holy Spirit do so and by that you will help everyone around you. No more will you teach guilt, but love.
I am grateful myself for the transition I have had in my years with Jesus and his Course. To witness now what I do, to be as I am now, to experience what I do brings me great joy. I still have worldly issues occur, but I know they are not what God created. What God created was love and I follow that Love because I know this Love will see me through time and again. If you are not sure what to do, do what I have done and that is to ask the Holy Spirit’s help in all things. He is there for a reason. He is there to bless you and support your holy mind. Believe that you are holy because you are.
Namaste,
Rev. Deb
Join us for our email study of The Song of Prayer on our Healing Circle as we open to living in Prayer, Forgiveness and Healing – http://groups.google.com/d/forum/miraclesone-healingcircle
Our Healing Circle meditation each month is for just this. Our meditation recordings are listed here: https://miraclesone.org/2015/07/healing-circle-meditations/
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- FORGIVENESS
Introduction
S-2.in.1. Forgiveness offers wings to prayer, to make its rising easy and its progress swift. 2 Without its strong support it would be vain to try to rise above prayer’s bottom step, or even to attempt to climb at all. 3 Forgiveness is prayer’s ally; sister in the plan for your salvation. 4 Both must come to hold you up and keep your feet secure; your purpose steadfast and unchangeable. 5 Behold the greatest help that God ordained to be with you until you reach to Him. 6 Illusion’s end will come with this. 7 Unlike the timeless nature of its sister, prayer, forgiveness has an end. 8 For it becomes unneeded when the rising up is done. 9 Yet now it has a purpose beyond which you cannot go, nor have you need to go. 10 Accomplish this and you have been redeemed. 11 Accomplish this and you have been transformed. 12 Accomplish this and you will save the world.
- Forgiveness of Yourself
S-2.I.1. No gift of Heaven has been more misunderstood than has forgiveness. 2 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. 3 Yet those who have not yet chosen to begin the steps of prayer cannot but use it thus. 4 Forgiveness’ kindness is obscure at first, because salvation is not understood, [nor truly sought for]. 5 What was meant to heal is used to hurt because forgiveness is not wanted. 6 Guilt becomes salvation, and the remedy appears to be a terrible alternative to life.
S-2.I.2. Forgiveness-to-destroy will therefore suit the purpose of the world far better than its true objective, and the honest means by which this goal is reached. 2 Forgiveness-to-destroy will overlook no sin, no crime, no guilt that it can seek and find and “love.” 3 Dear to its heart is error, and mistakes loom large and grow and swell within its sight. 4 It carefully picks out all evil things, and overlooks the loving as a plague; a hateful thing of danger and of death. 5 Forgiveness-to-destroy [is] death, and this it sees in all it looks upon and hates. 6 God’s mercy has become a twisted knife that would destroy the holy Son He loves.
S-2.I.3. Would you forgive yourself for doing this? 2 Then learn that God has given you the means by which you can return to Him in peace. 3 [Do not see error]. 4 Do not make it real. 5 Select the loving and forgive the sin by choosing in its place the face of Christ. 6 How otherwise can prayer return to God? 7 He loves His Son. 8 Can you remember Him and hate what He created? 9 You will hate his Father if you hate the Son He loves. 10 For as you see the Son you see yourself, and as you see yourself is God to you.
S-2.I.4. As prayer is always for yourself, so is forgiveness always given you. 2 It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him. 3 You want to see them there, and not in you. 4 That is why forgiveness of another is an illusion. 5 Yet it is the only happy dream in all the world; the only one that does not lead to death. 6 Only in someone else can you forgive yourself, for you have called him guilty of your sins, and in him must your innocence now be found. 7 Who but the sinful need to be forgiven? 8 And do not ever think you can see sin in anyone except yourself.
S-2.I.5. This is the great deception of the world, and you the great deceiver of yourself. 2 It always seems to be another who is evil, and in his sin you are the injured one. 3 How could freedom be possible if this were so? 4 You would be slave to everyone, for what he does entails your fate, your feelings, your despair or hope, your misery or joy. 5 You have no freedom unless he gives it to you. 6 And being evil, he can only give of what he is. 7 You cannot see his sins and not your own. 8 But you can free him and yourself as well.
S-2.I.6. Forgiveness, truly given, is the way in which your only hope of freedom lies. 2 Others will make mistakes and so will you, as long as this illusion of a world appears to be your home. 3 Yet God Himself has given all His Sons a remedy for all illusions that they think they see. 4 Christ’s vision does not use your eyes, but you can look through His and learn to see like Him. 5 Mistakes are tiny shadows, quickly gone, that for an instant only seem to hide the face of Christ, which still remains unchanged behind them all. 6 His constancy remains in tranquil silence and in perfect peace. 7 He does not know of shadows. 8 His the eyes that look past error to the Christ in you.
S-2.I.7. Ask, then, His help, and ask Him how to learn forgiveness as His vision lets it be. 2 You are in need of what He gives, and your salvation rests on learning this of Him. 3 Prayer cannot be released to Heaven while forgiveness-to-destroy remains with you. 4 God’s mercy would remove this withering and poisoned thinking from your holy mind. 5 Christ has forgiven you, and in His sight the world becomes as holy as Himself. 6 Who sees no evil in it sees like Him. 7 For what He has forgiven has not sinned, and guilt can be no more. 8 Salvation’s plan is made complete, and sanity has come.
S-2.I.8. Forgiveness is the call to sanity, for who but the insane would look on sin when he could see the face of Christ instead? 2 This is the choice you make; the simplest one, and yet the only one that you [can] make. 3 God calls on you to save His Son from death by offering Christ’s Love to him. 4 This is your need, and God holds out this gift to you. 5 As He would give, so must you give as well. 6 And thus is prayer restored to formlessness, beyond all limits into timelessness, with nothing of the past to hold it back from reuniting with the ceaseless song that all creation sings unto its God.
S-2.I.9. But to achieve this end you first must learn, before you reach where learning cannot go. 2 Forgiveness is the key, but who can use a key when he has lost the door for which the key was made, and where alone it fits? 3 Therefore we make distinctions, so that prayer can be released from darkness into light. 4 Forgiveness’ role must be reversed, and cleansed from evil usages and hateful goals. 5 Forgiveness-to-destroy must be unveiled in all its treachery, and then let go forever and forever. 6 There can be no trace of it remaining, if the plan that God established for returning be achieved at last, and learning be complete.
S-2.I.10. This is the world of opposites. 2 And you must choose between them every instant while this world retains reality for you. 3 Yet you must learn alternatives for choice, or you will not be able to attain your freedom. 4 Let it then be clear to you exactly what forgiveness means to you, and learn what it should be to set you free. 5 The level of your prayer depends on this, for here it waits its freedom to ascend above the world of chaos into peace.
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