As prayer is always for yourself, so is forgiveness always given you. It is impossible to forgive another, for it is only your sins you see in him. You want to see them there, and not in you. That is why forgiveness of another is an illusion. Yet it is the only happy dream in all the world; the only one that does not lead to death. 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. Who but the sinful need to be forgiven? And do not ever think you can see sin in anyone except yourself. (A Course in Miracles, S-2.I.4)
The images of the world can serve one of two purposes, depending upon the guide we choose. The ego uses the world as a target on which to project our guilt. This scheme seems to reduce our own guilt, but only hides the guilt in our unconscious mind. The ego’s secret goal is to maintain guilt. The mechanism of projection serves its goal well by making us unaware that we have not let guilt go.
The Holy Spirit gives another purpose to the images of the world. These images serve as reflections of our hidden guilt. They thus bring to our attention the need for forgiveness. Our judgments disrupt our innate peace. This disturbance now becomes a reminder of the need to forgive.
With this need recognized, we can bring our perceptions to the Holy Spirit for help in seeing them anew with Christ’s vision. His vision will show us the changeless Love beyond the made up images that make our world. With His help, we learn that we remain Love as Love created us. It appears as though we are forgiving another, but we are really forgiving our own projected guilt that is being reflected back to us.
Every time we forgive, we free ourselves from ego limitations, and we free the world along with us. It is a journey of awakening to the unlimited Love we are.
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