What Is Forgiveness?
FROM
A Course in Miracles Workbook -pII.1
What is Forgiveness?
Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God's Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. The mind is closed, and will not be released. The thought protects projection, tightening its chains, so that distortions are more veiled and more obscure; less easily accessible to doubt, and further kept from reason. What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?
An unforgiving thought does many things. In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.
Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.
Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as
the Son of God.A Course in Miracles© copyright FACIM, Temecula, CA.
Reproduced here with permission.
Definitions
Excerpted with permission from Glossary-Index for A Course in Miracles©,
Fourth Edition, by Kenneth Wapnick, copyright FACIM, Temecula, CA.
Forgiveness:looking at our specialness with the Holy Spirit or Jesus, without guilt or judgment; our special function that shifts perception of another as "enemy" (special hate) or "savior-idol" (special love) to brother or friend, removing all projections of guilt from him; the expression of the miracle or vision of Christ, that sees all people united in the Sonship of God, looking beyond the seeming differences that reflect separation: thus, perceiving sin as real makes true forgiveness impossible; the recognition that what we thought was done to us we did to ourselves, since we are responsible for our scripts, and therefore only we can deprive ourselves of the peace of God: thus, we forgive others for what they have not done to us, not for what they have done.
Looking at the ego:
the essence of forgiveness: looking with the Holy Spirit's or Jesus'
nonjudgmental gentleness and patience at our ego thought system; since it is guilt that prevents us from looking at our specialness, thus sustaining the ego and keeping its true nature hidden, it is looking without judgment at our attack thoughts that undoes the ego: thus, looking at the ego without guilt and fear is the essence of the Atonement.
Bringing darkness (illusions) to the light (truth):
the process of undoing denial and dissociation, expressing the decision to bring our guilt to the light of the Holy Spirit to be looked at and forgiven, rather than fearfully keeping it in the darkness of our unconscious minds where it could never be seen and undone; living in illusions brings sickness and pain, bringing them to truth is healing and salvation.
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