To gain the most from A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple, we recommend that
you read the corresponding chapter and section in the Text of the Second or
Third Edition of A Course in Miracles published by the Foundation for Inner Peace.
Read A Course in Miracles, Chapter 25, Section VI. (pages 529-530)
When we look on the world with forgiving eyes, we are able to see as Christ sees: We see through kind and gentle eyes that in reality there are no differences; we see only oneness and innocence; we see that everyone is still safe in the Mind of God, just as we are.
Jesus puts it this way in the first paragraph: “He can see no evil; nothing in the world to fear, and no one who is different from himself. And as he loves them, so he looks upon himself with love and gentleness. He would no more condemn himself for his mistakes than damn another. He is not an arbiter of vengeance, nor a punisher of sin. The kindness of his sight rests on himself with all the tenderness it offers others. For he would only heal and only bless. And being in accord with what God wills, he has the power to heal and bless all those he looks on with the grace of God upon his sight.” (1:2-8)
The Course tells us many times in many ways that we see what we want to see. When we want to see through the eyes of Christ, we, in effect are ‘calling down the grace of God upon our eyes.’ (3:1) It is our honest desire to see everyone as God sees him that calls the Light to come forth in our minds. We call on the strength of God as we continue to be vigilant only for God’s Kingdom. The separated world of the ego is not what we want to see. As the gift of Light comes forth in our minds, the veil of separation is lifted and we are able to see the eternal Love behind all the ego’s manufactured stories of differences, time and space.
Jesus tells us, “Forgiveness is the only function meaningful in time. It is the means the Holy Spirit uses to translate specialness from sin into salvation. Forgiveness is for all. But when it rests on all it is complete, and every function of this world completed with it. Then is time no more.” (5:3-7)
In many places of the Course forgiveness is described as letting go of the dream, or seeing past separation to the truth of unity and Love. Forgiveness guides us to let go of the dream of separation because it is not true. Forgiveness overlooks the ego’s false ideas of being separate from God and sees only oneness with God’s Love. In the preface of the Course we are told, “As we learn to recognize our perceptual errors, we also learn to look past them or ‘forgive.’ At the same time we are forgiving ourselves, looking past our distorted self-concept to the Self That God created in us and as us.” (Preface, p. xi)
When we chose specialness to be our guide in what we want to see, we damned our self to the ego’s hellish world of unique and separate bodies that made decisions on their own. To maintain this illusion of separation requires that we project guilt onto everyone we now see as outside us. The ego’s little secret is that when we project guilt onto others, we feel more guilty and unworthy than ever. The ego doesn’t tell us that as we see others we will see our self. The ego also doesn’t tell us that when we chose to cut ourselves off from the awareness of God’s oneness, we also, in effect, cut ourselves off from God’s gifts of peace, joy and happiness. We lost our awareness of our eternal safety in Love’s unity and the fact that we are still one with God.
At some point it becomes clear to us that the way we have been going is not the answer. We become more willing to be open to a change of mind. As this openness occurs in our mind, the Holy Spirit reverses the specialness we have believed in. Jesus tells us, “Only in darkness does your specialness appear to be attack. In light, you see it as your special function in the plan to save the Son of God from all attack and let him understand that he is safe, as he has always been, and will remain in time and in eternity alike. This is the function given you for your brother. Take it gently, then, from your brother’s hand, and let salvation be perfectly fulfilled in you. Do this one thing, that everything be given you.” (7:7-10)
As we forgive the world from all we thought it was, we come to the recognition that “…this world is not your home. Its laws are not imposed on you, its values are not yours. And nothing that you think you see in [the world] is really there at all. This is seen and understood as each one takes his part in its (the world’s) undoing, as he did in making it.” (6:1-4)
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