My thoughts* on ACIM Urtext Lesson 134 for 13 May 2023. A Review of Forgiveness
Forgiveness is not yet understood by the world at large and maybe not by many at all. Especially if God is not the foundation from which it is given.
Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
* Complete and everywhere.
1. Let us review the meaning of “forgive,” for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something that entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. ²In such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation on a whim.
* Jesus is saying that SALVATION rests on True FORGIVENESS.
2. This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected, when you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. ²It must be limited to what is false.
* Forgiveness is given to what is FALSE. To what could NOT be because God IS and He is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent.
³It is irrelevant to everything except illusions. ⁴Truth is God’s creation, and to pardon that is meaningless.
* My beauties, you are a part of what is Truly God’s creation. YOUR STORY as told by fear IS NOT.
⁵All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. ⁶Does this need pardon? ⁷How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?
* YES, YOU radiate HIS LOVE! This is the only form of Love that there is.
3. The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth, and not illusions.
* This is what Jesus said to Helen and Bill. It may or may not apply to us.
* We want to ask Spirit for assistance to understand the difference between what is REAL and what is false or illusion. ANY story that beats ANYONE up, and you KNOW what I mean, is false! That does not mean that you do not have to “deal with it” or that you are not “moved” by it but you can understand it is NOT real even while you acknowledge that God Is REAL. This is HOW we share the MIRACLE.
²You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth, in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true. ³This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your mind, as you regard yourself.
* GIVE UP THE BELIEF IN SIN! There is NO REALITY to it or REASON to HOLD IT DEAR TO YOUR HEART. YOUR SIN or ANYONE ELSE’s. (Do you hear that my peeps??? HAHA, I just ain’t gonna believe in it anymore! But that does not mean that I will not play out my “role” and laugh all the time that I am doing it! Hmph! LOL!)
4. Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception.
* Don’t you see that if you are not willing to ALLOW God’s Existence and you INSIST that you created YOU (and everyone else created themselves), you will see what you “think” you see as real!
²For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie.
* WHAT ELSE can you do if you will not allow God’s EXISTENCE?
³Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest.
* And so it is, especially for ADULT CHILDREN who hold what their parents did or did not protect them from against them to justify ANY sort of discomfort that they may face.
⁴It says the truth is false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. ⁵It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. ⁶It would see as right the plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good.
* So many are crushed because of this attitude and WHAT do you think is happening in the hearts of the children who grow up watching this attitude of their parents toward the grandparents that they typically love naturally?????
* I do not say this because I am trying to throw rocks at anyone or because I am at a stage of life to be a negative part of this scenario. I have watched this play out my entire life and it creates a vicious and cruel cycle of attack and hate that one believes is justified over and over again.
5. Pardon is no escape in such a view. ²It merely is a further sign that sin is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied or called another name, for pardon is a treachery to truth.
*We need to release each other from these “stupid and cruel roles” that we have designed to show Christ just how STUPID and HATEFUL He is.
³Guilt cannot be forgiven. ⁴If you sin, your guilt is everlasting.
* No amount of BLOOD washes it away!
⁵Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first, by themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who pardon them.
* Let’s release each other from this, PLEASE! Let’s call the story what it is and set our hearts right so that the Holy (Wholly) Spirit can guide us out of this mess that we think we have created!
6. It is sin’s unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. ²It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. ³And there they disappear entirely.
* This is very true. HOWEVER, do not think that you are going to be able to step out of the storyline as soon as you “get-it!” WE are ONE and EACH must do their part to step out of the “story” and into reality WITHIN themselves.
7. Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world.
* THIS is really important to hear and understand!
* “Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world.”
* That means that everything else you do or participate in IS NOT REAL. Would the understanding of this not cause us to reconsider EVERYTHING that we DO? Should this question not reverberate for at least a few generations until EVERYTHING that we consider to be how we function comes under scrutiny and is seen as a FORM of FORGIVENESS or is removed from our idea of BEING?
* Out of forgiveness flows gratitude for All That IS. I would like to live in a state of gratitude. In fact, I do.
²It sees their nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand forms in which they may appear. ³It looks on lies, but it is not deceived. ⁴It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. ⁵It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, “My brother, what you think is not the truth.”
* I just see people thinking of gurus and wise ones who look on the world and know that they know something that the rest do not. I do not believe that is what is being said here.
* Rather, you still play the role that you accepted when you came here. You might even curse or swing a fist, maybe you will crap your pants or “spill the milk”, or worse, but you will know within your heart and mind that you merely play a role and that GOD IS, His Son is Perfect and Innocent as He created Him and NOTHING that you “roleplay” is going to change that.
* This does not give permission for a free for all (I heard you thinking that!). What it does is release you from feeling guilty for every motion that you make. You will be guided by the Holy (Wholly) Spirit according to the role that you signed up for in the incarnation and you can TRUST that!
8. The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. ²It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies; the great restorer of the simple truth.
* Take a breath and try to absorb this.
³By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which has been blocked by dreams of guilt.
⁴Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you.
* The Holy (Wholly) Spirit guides us in this way that Jesus speaks of here.
⁵For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself.
9. There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. ²When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception. ³Ask instead, “Would I accuse myself of doing this?”
* Why ask THAT question? Because we have ALL done EVERY SIN we can think of a thousand times over that’s why. Remember that the Text teaches that no error is greater than another. Every thought that is SEPARATE from GOD is an ERROR.
* An ERROR equal to rape, cancer in a child, murder, and any other atrocity you can imagine and believe that YOU have NOT been a PARTY TO.
* I do not say this lightly and I do understand very well that I have three fingers pointing at me for the one I am pointing outside of myself. Yes, I have committed all of these errors multiple times in multiple ways, and I will CONTINUE to do so until I have been fully retrained by the Holy (Wholly) Spirit in all things that I currently think of as natural that are “habits brought about during the belief in separation from God.”
*This is going to take “time” beyond the fulfillment of the Atonement by all individual Souls within the Sonship because Jesus tells us that the Holy (Wholly) Spirit will travel with us for some time after the Atonement is complete for that very purpose.
10. Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms that render choosing meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself intended it to be, and as it is in truth. ²It is but lies that would condemn. ³In truth is innocence the only thing there is. ⁴Forgiveness stands between illusions and the truth; between the world you see and that which lies beyond; between the hell of guilt and Heaven’s gate.
* At this time in my personal evolution to spiritual health I do not believe that this is saying that we do not need to see what the ego does to us at every hand. What I do believe it is saying is that we are to ACKNOWLEDGE God and His Son so that the errors can be seen for what they are ERRORS and NOT sin so that appropriate boundaries can be established for the well being of all of humanity and the earth, not to mention the entire Sonship of Christ.
11. Across this bridge, as powerful as love which laid its blessing on it, are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to truth. ²They are not kept to swell and bluster, and to terrify the foolish dreamer who believes in them. ³He has been gently wakened from his dream by understanding what he thought he saw was never there. ⁴And now he cannot feel that all escape has been denied to him.
* You (well, I do anyway) understand that you are set free from the torment of the consequences of belief in separation from God, or rather, that you were never in bondage in the first place.
* And unless you are the last person to wake up to this understanding you will also recognize that the ego still “lives” or seems to, or at least the effects of his lies do.
12. He does not have to fight to save himself. ²He does not have to kill the dragons which he thought pursued him. ³Nor need he erect the heavy walls of stone and iron doors he thought would make him safe. ⁴He can remove the ponderous and useless armor made to chain his mind to fear and misery. ⁵His step is light, and as he lifts his foot to stride ahead a star is left behind, to point the way to those who follow him.
* How very romantic or fanciful! To tell you the truth this kind of phraseology does not quite match up to the personality of Jesus that I have come to know. Then again, it is IMPORTANT to remember that Jesus will speak in the language and symbolism that is appealing to who he is speaking to. I suspect that by this time in the scribing of A Course in Miracles that Helen was quite taken with her ability to reach beyond the normal level headed strictness that she had once maintained.
* And it is true that Light of Truth is left by those who offer true forgiveness to the world of the fear the ego has convinced us that we have made.
13. Forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive its meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. ²There is no thought in all the world that leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought that it reflects. ³It is as alien to the world as is your own reality. ⁴And yet it joins your mind with the reality in you.
* True Forgiveness heals. It aligns you to your true self as a part of Christ and reunites you to God through the witness and companionship of the Holy (Wholly) Spirit.
* True Forgiveness removes the idiotic idea that ANYTHING outside of God’s Will could have existence in Reality IF IF IF God is ALL THAT IS; onmnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent: IE. All Powerful, All Knowing, and Everywhere. Anything outside of God, Himself is an impossibility.
14. Today we practice true forgiveness, that the time of joining be no more delayed. ²For we would meet with our reality in freedom and in peace. ³Our practicing becomes the footsteps lighting up the way for all our brothers, who will follow us to the reality we share with them. ⁴That this may be accomplished, let us give a quarter of an hour twice today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of forgiveness, and was sent to us to teach it. ⁵Let us ask of Him:
⁶Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
15. Then choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his “sins,” as one by one they cross your mind. ²Be certain not to dwell on any one of them, but realize that you are using his “offenses” but to save the world from all ideas of sin. ³Briefly consider all the evil things you thought of him, and each time ask yourself, “Would I condemn myself for doing this?”
16. Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. ²And now you are prepared for freedom. ³If you have been practicing thus far in willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a lightening of weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of relief. ⁴The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape from all the heavy chains you sought to lay upon your brother, but were laid upon yourself.
17. Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will still be many times when you forget its meaning and attack yourself. ²When this occurs, allow your mind to see through this illusion as you tell yourself:
³Let me perceive forgiveness as it is. ⁴Would I accuse myself of doing this? ⁵I will not lay this chain upon myself.
⁶In everything you do remember this:
⁷No one is crucified alone, and yet no one can enter Heaven by himself.
* Two things I wish to point out. 1. Jesus did tell Helen (and us) that if one person is completely forgiven in the true sense we are also forgiven. 2. Helen would NOT ACCEPT the truth said in SIMPLE FASHION. If Jesus had tried to get her to write that then in a way that she could not ignore it, we would NOT have the Course because the Holy Spirit will NOT ALLOW you to be put in a place of fear and I believe that is what Helen would have had. Her fear would have been so great that she would not have been able to do the forgiveness and we would have “lost” the Course.
* Why? Because True Forgiveness demands that one believe in God and in His Son, and Helen could not bring herself to do so even though she wrote of Them continually in ACIM.
* Without acknowledging God True Forgiveness cannot be given because ANYTHING LESS than this puts YOU as the Redeemer directly and banishes God to nonexistence. As Jesus taught, YOU did not create yourself so you do not have the authority to give absolving forgiveness of yourself, it MUST be through God that it is given.
*This is my witness and testimony (experience). In the name of Christ, amen.
(ACIM, W-134.1:1–17:7)
Till next time, God bless, debi.
