Daily Inspiration for Living A Course in Miracles

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Practicing Forgiveness-for-Salvation

Are you not weary of imprisonment? God did not choose this sorry path for you. What you have chosen still can be undone, for prayer is merciful and God is just. His is a justice He can understand, but you cannot as yet. Still will He give the means to you to learn of Him, and know at last that condemnation is not real and makes illusions in its evil name. And yet it matters not the form that dreams may seem to take. Illusions are untrue. God’s Will is truth, and you are one with Him in Will and purpose. Here all dreams are done.

‘What should I do for him, Your holy Son?’ should be the only thing you ever ask when help is needed and forgiveness sought. The form the seeking takes you need not judge. And let it not be you who sets the form in which forgiveness comes to save God’s Son. The light of Christ in him is his release, and it is this that answers to his call. Forgive him as the Christ decides you should, and be [Christ’s] eyes through which you look on him, and speak for [Christ] as well. He knows the need; the question and the answer. He will say exactly what to do, in words that you can understand and you can also use. Do not confuse His function with your own. He is the Answer. You the one who hears. (A Course in Miracles, S-2.III.4-5)

It is essential that we understand our role in Forgiveness-for-Salvation. Our part is to ask for Guidance and be willing to hear Christ’s Answer. And if His Answer directs us to do or say anything, follow this Guidance.

Sometimes the answer may simply help us see the innocence that Christ’s vision sees. The change of mind this vision brings may be all that is needed. Other times we may be directed to say and do something that helps to bring forgiveness to our brother and ourselves in a form that we can understand while we believe we are in a world of separation.

Our role in forgiveness is always to follow the Voice for Love within, not decide on our own. The practice of stepping back, asking for help and doing as we are guided is the journey that leads us up the ladder of prayer to the full continuous communion with our Creator that is our natural state.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Choosing the Forgiving Eyes of Christ

You child of God, the gifts of God are yours, not by your plans but by His holy Will. His Voice will teach you what forgiveness is, and how to give it as He wills it be. Do not, then, seek to understand what is beyond you yet, but let it be a way to draw you up to where the eyes of Christ become the sight you choose. Give up all else, for there is nothing else. When someone calls for help in any form, He is the One to answer for you. All that you need do is to step back and not to interfere. Forgiveness-for-Salvation is His task, and it is He Who will respond for you.

Do not establish what the form should be that Christ’s forgiveness takes. He knows the way to make of every call a help to you, as you arise in haste to go at last unto your Father’s house. Now can He make your footsteps sure, your words sincere; not with your own sincerity, but with His Own. Let Him take charge of how you would forgive, and each occasion then will be to you another step to Heaven and to peace. (A Course in Miracles, S-2.III.2-3)

It is very important to realize that we do not understand how to forgive for salvation, and it is not our job. Our role is to recognize calls for Love, then turn them over to Christ’s vision with willingness to receive it. It is His vision that will show us what to think, say or do that brings us release from unforgiveness and recognizes that only Love is true.

The importance of stepping back from our fearful, guilty, judgmental and conflicting perceptions cannot be overstated. We cannot correct these perceptions on our own. We need to step back from them and ask for the help of Christ’s vision. This is the prayer that will set us free from the ego’s hell made by belief in separation. If we try on our own to figure out how to forgive, we are only interfering with Christ’s vision. We are playing the ego’s game to keep us stuck in guilt.

Our prayer throughout today is to ask the Holy Spirit for help to see with Christ’s vision. We choose the eyes of Christ instead of the ego’s eyes with its projections of guilt. Christ’s eyes show us the reality of Love’s innocence. With His vision we learn how to be truly helpful.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Reuniting with Our True Self

All forms forgiveness takes that do not lead away from anger, condemnation and comparisons of every kind are death. For that is what their purposes have set. Be not deceived by them, but lay them by as worthless in their tragic offerings. You do not want to stay in slavery. You do not want to be afraid of God. You want to see the sunlight and the glow of Heaven shining on the face of earth, redeemed from sin and in the Love of God. From here is prayer released, along with you. Your wings are free, and prayer will lift you up and bring you home where God would have you be.

Forgiveness-for-Salvation has one form, and only one. It does not ask for proof of innocence, nor pay of any kind. It does not argue, nor evaluate the errors that it wants to overlook. It does not offer gifts in treachery, nor promise freedom while it asks for death. Would God deceive you? He but asks for trust and willingness to learn how to be free. He gives His Teacher to whoever asks, and seeks to understand the Will of God. His readiness to give lies far beyond your understanding and your simple grasp. Yet He has willed you learn the way to Him, and in His willing there is certainty. (A Course in Miracles, S-2.II.8;S-2.III.1)

If any sign of comparison, condemnation or anger (including a sigh of discontent) lingers after we have attempted to forgive, we have forgiven-to-destroy. True forgiveness brings with it a sense of release and peace. This is why the practice of true forgiveness leads us to the peace of God.

With the Holy Spirit’s help, we learn that what we thought was cause for guilt is not true, for it caused no change in the eternal Love of God and His Creation. True forgiveness reunites us with our true Self, the one Son of God that unites us with everyone. In truth there is no other; only Love is real.

The ego cannot teach us this, for it is afraid of Love’s oneness. But we have been given an inner Teacher Whose purpose is to guide us back to the full remembrance of the Love we are eternally. His lessons return us to the Life we live in God in perfect peace and joy. He teaches us Forgiveness-for-Salvation.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Freeing Ourselves to Be Unlimited Love

Forgiveness-to-destroy can also take the form of bargaining and compromise. “I will forgive you if you meet my needs, for in your slavery is my release.” Say this to anyone and you are slave. And you will seek to rid yourself of guilt in further bargains which can give no hope, but only greater pain and misery. How fearful has forgiveness now become, and how distorted is the end it seeks. Have mercy on yourself who bargains thus. God gives and does not ask for recompense. There is no giving but to give like Him. All else is mockery. For who would try to strike a bargain with the Son of God, and thank his Father for his holiness?

What would you show your brother? Would you try to reinforce his guilt and thus your own? Forgiveness is the means for your escape. How pitiful it is to make of it the means for further slavery and pain. Within the world of opposites there is a way to use forgiveness for the goal of God, and find the peace He offers you. Take nothing else, or you have sought your death, and prayed for separation from your Self. Christ is for all because He is in all. It is His face forgiveness lets you see. It is His face in which you see your own [face of innocence]. (A Course in Miracles, S-2.II.6-7)

Special relationships are always based on conditions. If the other meets our conditions, we are happy with the relationship. We may even be in “love” with the other person. But the moment the other strays from meeting our conditions, our response may range from irritation to rage. Our happiness has become dependent on the actions of another.

Both participants in the special relationship are slaves to their bargain to meet each other’s conditions. Guilt is always lurking, ready to be projected on the other for the least little whim. To keep the relationship together, we may forgive or overlook the other’s transgression, but not forget it. This is a form of forgiveness-to-destroy, for it maintains guilt’s “reality.” This is why the special relationship is central to maintaining the ego thought system.

The Holy Spirit will teach us that our only true and lasting happiness is in our eternal link with our Creator. God’s Will for us is perfect happiness. He has given us all His Love eternally. As we are willing to let the Holy Spirit be our Guide in all our relationships, we learn to let go of our demands for behavior and see past the body to the eternal Love that is the true Self we share with every brother. Now our relationships become holy as a means to join in Love and extend It instead of maintaining separation through projected guilt. This practice returns us to the freedom of unlimited Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Learning to See Past the Appearance of Guilt

Another form [of forgiveness-to-destroy], still very like the first if it is understood, does not appear in quite such blatant arrogance. The one who would forgive the other does not claim to be the better. Now he says instead that here is one whose sinfulness he shares, since both have been unworthy and deserve the retribution of the wrath of God. This can appear to be a humble thought, and may indeed induce a rivalry in sinfulness and guilt. It is not love for God’s creation and the holiness that is His gift forever. Can His Son condemn himself and still remember Him?

Here the goal is to separate from God the Son He loves, and keep him from his Source. This goal is also sought by those who seek the role of martyr at another’s hand. Here must the aim be clearly seen, for this may pass as meekness and as charity instead of cruelty. Is it not kind to be accepting of another’s spite, and not respond except with silence and a gentle smile? Behold, how good are you who bear with patience and with saintliness the anger and the hurt another gives, and do not show the bitter pain you feel.

Forgiveness-to-destroy will often hide behind a cloak like this. It shows the face of suffering and pain, in silent proof of guilt and of the ravages of sin. Such is the witness that it offers one who could be savior, not an enemy. But having been made enemy, he must accept the guilt and heavy-laid reproach that thus is put upon him. Is this love? Or is it rather treachery to one who needs salvation from the pain of guilt? What could the purpose be, except to keep the witnesses of guilt away from love? (A Course in Miracles, S-2.II.3-5)

There is no difference between battling an enemy or stoically accepting another’s “attack” as deserved punishment for our own guilt while “forgiving” the other for his attacks. Both hold on to guilt. Both reinforce belief that separation is true. Guilt can only be justified if we believe we have harmed God by disowning Him.

Yet God is eternal, changeless and cannot be harmed. The truth in us is an extension of His changeless Love. Our true Self retains all the characteristics of changeless Love, including innocence. Thus the perception of guilt is an hallucination, which could never be true. True forgiveness comes through the vision of Christ, which overlooks illusions as meaningless and having no effect.

Christ’s vision sees Love’s innocence everywhere. It recognizes appearances of guilt as calls for Love, calls to remember our true innocence. The ego is blind to Love and incapable of forgiving. That is why we must rely on the help of our inner Teacher to learn to recognize calls for Love and respond with Love. Thus we learn of the Love in us by extending It to our brother. This is how our true Self joins with the one Self we share with every brother.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Recognizing False Forgiveness

Forgiveness-to-destroy has many forms, being a weapon of the world of form. Not all of them are obvious, and some are carefully concealed beneath what seems like charity. Yet all the forms that it may seem to take have but this single goal; their purpose is to separate and make what God created equal, different. The difference is clear in several forms where the designed comparison cannot be missed, nor is it really meant to be.

In this group, first, there are the forms in which a “better” person deigns to stoop to save a “baser” one from what [the ego believes] he truly is. Forgiveness here rests on an attitude of gracious lordliness so far from love that arrogance could never be dislodged. Who can forgive and yet despise? And who can tell another he is steeped in sin, and yet perceive him as the Son of God? Who makes a slave to teach what freedom is? There is no union here, but only grief. This is not really mercy. This is death. (A Course in Miracles, S-2.II.1-2)

Belief in being separate from God is belief in death because it is belief in being separate from the Source of Life. The “life” we experience in the world is an illusionary substitute that excludes God/Love. Thus the ego never wants to truly forgive, for that would mean the acceptance of Love’s innocence. It offers instead substitutes for forgiveness that still deny Love’s unity.

To know our Self is to recognize our unity with the one Self that is in every brother. This would mean the end of the ego and so it has made tools to deceive us into believing we are forgiving while we are really attacking to maintain separation. We cannot see another as separate or different from our one Self and truly forgive. True forgiveness sees the face of Christ, the face of innocence, everywhere and in everyone.

It is time to let go of the ego’s deceptions. We do this with the vigilant practice of opening our minds to the Holy Spirit’s guidance all through the day. This willingness allows us to learn the Holy Spirit’s lessons in unity which shine away the shadows of the ego’s divisiveness. This is how we bring peace and Love to the world.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Freeing Ourselves from Guilt Forever

But to achieve this end [beyond all limits into timelessness] you first must learn, before you reach where learning cannot go. 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? Therefore we make distinctions, so that prayer can be released from darkness into light. Forgiveness’ role must be reversed, and cleansed from evil usages and hateful goals. Forgiveness-to-destroy must be unveiled in all its treachery, and then let go forever and forever. There can be no trace of it remaining, if the plan that God established for returning be achieved at last, and learning be complete.

This is the world of opposites. And you must choose between them every instant while this world retains reality for you. Yet you must learn alternatives for choice, or you will not be able to attain your freedom. Let it then be clear to you exactly what forgiveness means to you, and learn what it should be to set you free. The level of your prayer depends on this, for here it waits its freedom to ascend above the world of chaos into peace. (A Course in Miracles, S-2.I.9-10)

Our experience in the world certainly seems real. Yet its seeming reality rests on our belief that we have separated from the oneness of God’s Love. Beliefs can change and thus the seeming reality of the world is unstable. This unstable “reality” must be constantly defended by the ego. The ego must find ways to divert our attention from Love’s oneness with slight of hand that offers appealing substitutes for Love. This is the best the ego can do — offer imaginary substitutes that could never be real, dressed in appealing images.

Forgiveness to destroy is founded on making illusions seem real. Its central figure is the body, which defines separation and differences and is only capable of seeing differences. Thus the body sees separation or sin as real and then offers deceiving forms of “forgiveness” that do not forgive at all. They maintain the separation while seeming to assuage the perceived guilt within. 

To free ourselves from this perpetuation of guilt, we must learn to recognize the ego’s disguises for what they are. To learn these lessons, we must turn to the Teacher within with willingness to receive His healing insight. He will bring the lessons that free us forever from guilt. We will learn to set the ego aside and return to our Home in Love.

© 2018, Pathways of Light. http://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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