A Course in Miracles Text Made Simple

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Chapter 29: The Awakening

Section IX. The Forgiving Dream

Read A Course in Miracles, Chapter 29, Section IX. (pages 622-624)

What are we to ask ourselves about our story in this world?

Jesus tells us, “Hear, then, your story in the dream you made, and ask yourself if it be not the truth that you believe that it is not a dream.” (1:4) As long as we believe that our story of separate bodies is the truth, we will continue to be a willing slave of the ego’s idols. Jesus is encouraging us to let go of worshiping what has no life. He says, “What happened to the holy Son of God that this could be his wish; to let himself fall lower than the stones upon the ground, and look to idols that they raise him up?” (1:3)

How can God’s Son waken from the dream?

We wake up from the dream when we let go of judgment. Jesus is very specific when tells us, “Judge not for he who judges will have need of idols, which will hold the judgment off from resting on himself. Nor can he know the Self he has condemned. Judge not, because you make yourself a part of evil dreams, where idols are your ‘true’ identity, and your salvation from the judgment laid in terror and in guilt upon yourself.” (2:7-9)

We are being guided here to let go of deciding what anything means. We are being guided to become as little children, asking our Father what is the truth. This letting go of judgment leaves an opening for the Holy Spirit to lift the veil of the ego’s lies of separation and bring to our awareness the truth that idols of separation have no life in truth. As we are willing to let go of deciding what anything means we are reminded to see the Love beyond the guilt… to feel the peace beyond the conflict… to let go of being slave to the ego’s lies of separation.

In truth there is no outer world that is a threat to us. In truth there is no world of separate bodies, where everything is judged as separate and alone. What makes this world seem real is only the ego’s judgment, the judgment of the split mind that the thought of separation (ego) made up to deny God’s oneness.

How does Jesus help us out of the predicament we appear to be in?

He helps us see that we are only dreaming a dream and that the content of the dream is not true. He helps us see the truth about ourselves that is beyond the dream. He likens our dreams to the games that little children play when they pretend in a sand box that the toy soldiers are really having a battle to the death.

Jesus tells us, “Yet everything their toys appear to do is in the minds of those who play with them. But they are eager to forget that they made up the dream in which their toys are real, nor recognize their wishes are their own.” (4:7-8)

Why do God’s Children want to forget that they made up the dream?

Jesus tells us that God’s Children are eager to forget that they made up the dream because, “he fears his thoughts and gives them to the toys instead. And their reality becomes his own, because they seem to save him from his thoughts. Yet do they keep his thoughts alive and real, but seen outside himself, where they can turn against him for his treachery to them. He thinks he needs them that he may escape his thoughts, because he thinks the thoughts are real. And so he makes of anything a toy, to make his world remain outside himself and play that he is but a part of it.” (5:5-9 italics added)

This is a very clear explanation of why we resist knowing that this is just a dream. We have played that we are not our Father’s Son and we feel guilty for this thought so we attempt to give these guilty thoughts to “others” that we have made up in the dream. We now see the guilty ones outside us in order to relieve ourselves of the guilt. It is helpful for us to know that whenever we see someone outside us as guilty, this is what is going on.

The good news is that we do not have to continue this game of projecting the guilt outside us. We can recognize that nothing has happened to change God’s one Son. We have simply been pretending like little children playing a foolish game. And now it is time to give up the toys of children. Now is the time to let this game of fear go.

What replaces the dream of judgment?

Forgiving dreams replace the dream of judgment. When we realize that thoughts do not leave their source, we acknowledge that what we are seeing is coming from our own mind. We no longer need to project guilt but now see the constant Light of God that is really there. We let the truth return that nothing has happened to change God’s one Son. We are now willing to see the truth of innocence instead of the ego’s fearful separate forms. We give up the dream of needing to project guilt outside us.

Jesus tells us, “And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy, because that is the purpose that it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms that enter in the dream are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment, but in love.” (7:6-8)

Why are forgiving dreams filled with kindness?

Jesus answers this when he says, “Forgiving dreams remind you that you live in safety and have not attacked yourself. So do your childish terrors melt away, and dreams become a sign that you have made a new beginning, not another try to worship idols and to keep attack. Forgiving dreams are kind to everyone who figures in the dream. And so they bring the dreamer full release from dreams of fear. He does not fear his judgment for he has judged no one nor has sought to be released through judgment from what judgment must impose. And all the while he is remembering what he forgot when judgment seemed to be the way to save him from its penalty.” (10:1-6 italics added)

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