Forgiveness Is the Key to Freedom, Eternal Life
Forgiveness and healing are directly related. Both are necessary for me to recognize and remember who I am. Who am I? There can be no doubt about who I am. I will always be me. What am I? There are two voices in my mind, telling me about myself. They tell diametrically opposed things. Only ONE can be true, and only ONE knows. Only this ONE leads, through forgiveness, to peace, freedom and eternal life.
To learn forgiveness, we have to listen to the voice who knows, and follow its guidance. This then is a gentle and joyous way out of conflict, unsolvable problems and all the madness of our human condition. Forgiveness can be misunderstood and often is. Yet we have a true reference for how it works, and see what its effects are in our own experience.
"You cannot give yourself your innocence, for you are too confused about yourself. But should one brother dawn upon your sight as wholly worthy of forgiveness, then your concept of yourself is wholly changed." (Chapter 31.VII, ACIM)
What Is the Basis of Forgiveness?
Truly applied, forgiveness brings peace and happiness to all.
Ok, two voices talk to me. One says, "I am a body, I can be hurt, be unjustly treated, persecuted and abandoned etc just as I can do this to others." Is that so? If this were true, forgiveness would be meaningless and without the blessing to correct my or your mind and free us. A body cannot forgive and needs no forgiveness. What sense would it make to forgive a body? Can you forgive what has been done? Can you really overlook what has been done to you, or to another? What about being here at all, destined to get old and sick and die? Is that forgivable? If the earth would be real and created by a real creator, would his act be forgivable, or would you rather call it a dastardly act for which there could be no forgiveness? What is the alternative? The only alternative is that the earth and all of your perception is not real, because God did not create it. Therefore, there is another way, a better way. Life is not what we thought it is.
"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred."
(Workbook Part II, A Course In Miracles)
So what do we need to know about forgiveness? Does it apply to the splinter in our brother's eye, or to the beam in our own eye? Does it merely apply to perception, a perception that is out of accord with our reality as God created us?
My prediction:
Alban, at 4pm on January 16, 2009 predicts:
Forgiveness will never work as long as we are unwilling to see the offence only in our own eye.
Reader predictions:
Fetching predictions now... please stand by Fetching predictions now... please stand byI Forgive, because I Want to Be Forgiven
Here is an idea completely alien to the ego and the thinking of the world...
All that I give is given to myself.
"If you believed this statement, there would be no problem in complete forgiveness, certainty of goal, and sure direction. You would understand the means by which salvation comes to you, and would not hesitate to use it now." (Workbook Lesson 126, ACIM)
Forgiveness is purely an action of mind. I cannot have hate or thoughts and feelings of revenge in me and feel the love of God within me. I can have only one. Either I hold onto the blocks that hinder me to feel the love of God and my neighbour, my brother and friend, or I let go. How do I let go? I simply want to. Being willing, I focus on truth and God, and my fear and hate gets undone through the provision of His Holy Spirit.
All that is a matter of the mind. It is a desire to be in peace rather than in conflict. Since we trained ourselves for thousands of years to do exactly the opposite, we need to train our minds to think differently. We need to train our minds to forgive. A Course In Miracles is a forgiveness training. One lesson a day. That is the way to go. Forgiveness is the answer to every problem you could possibly have. Do you want the problem, or do you want to feel the love of God through the act of forgiveness; for-giving?
Forgiveness Is Really Possible
Forgiveness is our daily exercise and declaration of freedom. We let go and forgive, because we love freedom. And if it takes more then just one attempt, so be it. Jesus said 7 times 77 if necessary.
Axel had a very real and clear experience of that. Thank you, Axel.
Table of Contents
Learn about true forgiveness as the way to real freedom
- What Is the Basis of Forgiveness?
- I Forgive, because I Want to Be Forgiven
- Forgiveness Is Really Possible
- There Is no Need to Change the World
- What Is Forgiveness?
- Healed through Forgiveness
- The Advent Of A Great Awakening
- Practicing True Forgiveness
- Forgiveness Means Action - Action of Mind
- The Secret of Forgiveness -- I Do It to Myself
- Letting Go of Judgments
- Looking at My Thoughts
- There Are no Small Upsets.
- Seeing What Is not there Is Upsetting
- A New Concept of Time
- Mind Training to Change Our Minds
- Learn more about Forgiveness on My Blog
- Jesus, Forgiveness and A Course In Miracles
- Please Say Hello to the Folks that I Know...
- Build a Lens about Forgiveness?
- For the Fun of It
- More Lenses for Inspiration
- Forgiveness Is the Choice for Truth and Love
There Is no Need to Change the World
The world is merely an effect. Forgive to change the cause.
There is no need to change the world. You can't fix it. It is what it is, the effect of a cause that is not in the world. Where is it? It is in my mind. That is the only answer that guarantees the possibility of freedom. God is love, and fear is impossible. God did not create this world. God has not forgotten me. He provides me with everything I need to wake up from this dream of mine. There is nothing that can stop me, or affect me, except my own thoughts.
If you are looking for an answer to your life, if you are looking for help to find true peace and happiness, A Course In Miracles is the answer. If you say, I rather believe this world to be my reality, and get old, sick and die in the end, you probably will not like what is offered here. Yet you will come back and choose again. This is a required course. You have to come to know yourself.
In doubt? Look about you. Is this the world you really want? You see only the destructible, the perishable. You see nothing that will remain in time. You see nothing that is real. What you see is a form of vengeance, or the reflection of your own attack upon yourself. The only way to escape it is to forgive as Jesus did, and teaches it in A Course In Miracles. How long would this take, if we did not have the miracle for shortening time? What would take a thousand years can easily be done in one instant. Willingness is all it takes.
"There can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought. Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal."
(Lesson 198, ACIM)
What Is Forgiveness?
Forgiveness -- welcoming truth exactly as it is
"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, Workbook Part II)
"Father, forgive them for they do not know what they do."
"What you do to the least of them, you do to me."
(New Testament)
Forgiveness lifts the veil of false ideas and self-concepts. Forgiveness prepares the mind to welcome truth exactly as it is. What is the truth? Say, "I am God's holy Son." You are the Christ. As you forgive, maybe having practiced and applied the mind training of A Course In Miracles, you will experience a re-birth and recognition of who you really are -- from split mind to whole mind, homo sapiens to homo illumina. That is what at-one-ment, healing and salvation is. The birth of Christ is going on in you, now.
Healed through Forgiveness
Expressions of what happens to us when we forgive and choose for happiness.
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The Advent Of A Great Awakening
Letting go and forgiveness will speed up our awakening. It is simply time. This is a new continuum of time.
We are reaching a critical turning point in the maturing of our minds. An identity crisis of untold magnitude is plainly manifest in these times. The human race is distancing itself from clear thinking and seeing, placing its power and identity in the increasingly complex forms and images of this world. Join us now in an experience of enlightenment; the uniting of your mind with the clarity and vision of Jesus Christ. Salvation requires an all-encompassing awakening that includes reason, simplicity and the spontaneous action of healing. Your awakening will transform the world through you.
"A problem cannot be solved if you do not know what it is. Even if it is really solved already you will still have the problem, because you will not recognize that it has been solved. This is the situation of the world. The problem of separation from God, which is really the only problem, has already been solved. Yet the solution is not recognized because the problem is not recognized."
(Excerpt from Lesson 79, ACIM)
Thank you from the Miracles Healing Center
Practicing True Forgiveness
The Workbook of A Course In Miracles
MIRACLE MIND TRAINING
The purpose of this workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.
It is doing these exercises that will make the goal of this course possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing.
Transfer of training in true perception does not proceed as does transfer of the training of the world. If true perception has been achieved in connection with any person, situation or event, total transfer to everyone and everything is certain.
Remember that one exception held apart from true perception makes its accomplishments anywhere impossible. The very nature of true perception
is that it has no limits. It is the opposite of the way you see now.
Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true.
Remember only this.
You need not believe the ideas, you need not accept them, and you need not even welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or decrease their efficacy.
But do not allow yourself to make any exceptions in applying the ideas the workbook contains, and whatever your reactions to the ideas may be,
use them.
Forgiveness Means Action - Action of Mind
Let's look at the Workbook lessons of A Course In Miracles from 1 to 7. Thoses fundamentals will serve you well in your new path of forgiveness.
Now look slowly around you, and practice applying this idea very specifically to whatever you see:
This table does not mean anything.
This chair does not mean anything.
This hand does not mean anything.
This foot does not mean anything.
This pen does not mean anything.
Then look farther away from your immediate area, and apply the idea to a wider range:
That door does not mean anything.
That body does not mean anything.
That lamp does not mean anything.
That sign does not mean anything.
That shadow does not mean anything.
Notice that these statements are not arranged in any order, and make no allowance for differences in the kinds of things to which they are applied. That is the purpose of the exercise. The statement should merely be applied to anything you see. As you practice the idea for the day, use it totally indiscriminately. Do not attempt to apply it to everything you see, for these exercises should not become ritualistic. Only be sure that nothing you see is specifically excluded. One thing is like another as far as the application of the idea is concerned.
Each of the first three lessons should not be done more than twice a day each, preferably morning and evening. Nor should they be attempted for more than a minute or so, unless that entails a sense of hurry. A comfortable sense of leisure is essential.
Image credits: www.diglloyd.com
The Secret of Forgiveness -- I Do It to Myself
Continuing with the early Workbook Lessons.
The exercises with this idea are the same as those for the first one. Begin with the things that are near you, and apply the idea to whatever your glance rests on. Then increase the range outward. Turn your head so that you include whatever is on either side. If possible, turn around and apply the idea to what was behind you. Remain as indiscriminate as possible in selecting subjects for its application, do not concentrate on anything in particular, and do not attempt to include everything you see in a given area, or you will introduce strain.
Merely glance easily and fairly quickly around you, trying to avoid selection by size, brightness, color, material, or relative importance to you. Take the subjects simply as you see them. Try to apply the exercise with equal ease to a body or a button, a fly or a floor, an arm or an apple. The sole criterion for applying the idea to anything is merely that your eyes have lighted on it. Make no attempt to include anything particular, but be sure that nothing is specifically excluded.
Image credits: Mati Klarwein
Letting Go of Judgments
Continuing with the early Workbook Lessons
Apply this idea in the same way as the previous ones, without making distinctions of any kind. Whatever you see becomes a proper subject for applying the idea. Be sure that you do not question the suitability of anything for application of the idea. These are not exercises in judgment. Anything is suitable if you see it. Some of the things you see may have emotionally-charged meaning for you. Try to lay such feelings aside, and merely use these things exactly as you would anything else.
The point of the exercises is to help you clear your mind of all past associations, to see things exactly as they appear to you now, and to realize how little you really understand about them. It is therefore essential that you keep a perfectly open mind, unhampered by judgment, in selecting the things to which the idea for the day is to be applied. For this purpose one thing is like another; equally suitable and therefore equally useful.
Looking at My Thoughts
Continuing with the early Workbook Lessons
LESSON 4 -- These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].Unlike the preceding ones, these exercises do not begin with the idea for the day. In these practice periods, begin with noting the thoughts that are crossing your mind for about a minute. Then apply the idea to them. If you are already aware of unhappy thoughts, use them as subjects for the idea. Do not, however, select only the thoughts you think are "bad." You will find, if you train yourself to look at your thoughts, that they represent such a mixture that, in a sense, none of them can be called "good" or "bad." This is why they do not mean anything.
In selecting the subjects for the application of today's idea, the usual specificity is required. Do not be afraid to use "good" thoughts as well as "bad." None of them represents your real thoughts, which are being covered up by them. The "good" ones are but shadows of what lies beyond, and shadows make sight difficult. The "bad" ones are blocks to sight, and make seeing impossible. You do not want either.
This is a major exercise, and will be repeated from time to time in somewhat different form. The aim here is to train you in the first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful. It is a first attempt in the long-range purpose of learning to see the meaningless as outside you, and the meaningful within. It is also the beginning of training your mind to recognize what is the same and what is different.
In using your thoughts for application of the idea for today, identify each thought by the central figure or event it contains; for example:
This thought about ---- does not mean anything.
It is like the things I see in this room [on this street, and so on].
You can also use the idea for a particular thought that you recognize as harmful. This practice is useful, but is not a substitute for the more random procedures to be followed for the exercises. Do not, however, examine your mind for more than a minute or so. You are too inexperienced as yet to avoid a tendency to become pointlessly preoccupied.
Further, since these exercises are the first of their kind, you may find the suspension of judgment in connection with thoughts particularly difficult. Do not repeat these exercises more than three or four times during the day. We will return to them later.
There Are no Small Upsets.
Continuing with the early Workbook Lessons
LESSON 5 -- I am never upset for the reason I think.This idea, like the preceding one, can be used with any person, situation or event you think is causing you pain. Apply it specifically to whatever you believe is the cause of your upset, using the description of the feeling in whatever term seems accurate to you. The upset may seem to be fear, worry, depression, anxiety, anger, hatred, jealousy or any number of forms, all of which will be perceived as different. This is not true. However, until you learn that form does not matter, each form becomes a proper subject for the exercises for the day. Applying the same idea to each of them separately is the first step in ultimately recognizing they are all the same.
When using the idea for today for a specific perceived cause of an upset in any form, use both the name of the form in which you see the upset, and the cause which you ascribe to it. For example:
I am not angry at ---- for the reason I think.
I am not afraid of ---- for the reason I think.
But again, this should not be substituted for practice periods in which you first search your mind for "sources" of upset in which you believe, and forms of upset which you think result.
In these exercises, more than in the preceding ones, you may find it hard to be indiscriminate, and to avoid giving greater weight to some subjects than to others. It might help to precede the exercises with the statement:
There are no small upsets. They are all
equally disturbing to my peace of mind.
Then examine your mind for whatever is distressing you, regardless of how much or how little you think it is doing so.
You may also find yourself less willing to apply today's idea to some perceived sources of upset than to others. If this occurs, think first of this:
I cannot keep this form of upset and let
the others go. For the purposes of these
exercises, then, I will regard them all as the same.
Then search your mind for no more than a minute or so, and try to identify a number of different forms of upset that are disturbing you, regardless of the relative importance you may give them. Apply the idea for today to each of them, using the name of both the source of the upset as you perceive it, and of the feeling as you experience it. Further examples are:
I am not worried about ---- for the reason I think.
I am not depressed about ---- for the reason I think.
Three or four times during the day is enough.
Seeing What Is not there Is Upsetting
Continuing with the early Workbook Lessons
LESSON 6 -- I am upset because I see something that is not there.The exercises with this idea are very similar to the preceding ones. Again, it is necessary to name both the form of upset (anger, fear, worry, depression and so on) and the perceived source very specifically for any application of the idea. For example:
I am angry at ---- because I see something that is not there.
I am worried about ---- because I see something that is not there.
Today's idea is useful for application to anything that seems to upset you, and can profitably be used throughout the day for that purpose. However, the three or four practice periods which are required should be preceded by a minute or so of mind searching, as before, and the application of the idea to each upsetting thought uncovered in the search.
Again, if you resist applying the idea to some upsetting thoughts more than to others, remind yourself of the two cautions stated in the previous lesson:
There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.
And:
I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go. For the purposes of these exercises, then, I will regard them all as the same.
A New Concept of Time
Continuing with the early Workbook Lessons
LESSON 7 -- I see only the past.This idea is particularly difficult to believe at first. Yet it is the rationale for all of the preceding ones. It is the reason why nothing that you see means anything. It is the reason why you have given everything you see all the meaning that it has for you. It is the reason why you do not understand anything you see. It is the reason why your thoughts do not mean anything, and why they are like the things you see. It is the reason why you are never upset for the reason you think. It is the reason why you are upset because you see something that is not there.
Old ideas about time are very difficult to change, because everything you believe is rooted in time, and depends on your not learning these new ideas about it. Yet that is precisely why you need new ideas about time. This first time idea is not really so strange as it may sound at first.
Look at a cup, for example. Do you see a cup, or are you merely reviewing your past experiences of picking up a cup, being thirsty, drinking from a cup, feeling the rim of a cup against your lips, having breakfast and so on? Are not your aesthetic reactions to the cup, too, based on past experiences? How else would you know whether or not this kind of cup will break if you drop it? What do you know about this cup except what you learned in the past? You would have no idea what this cup is, except for your past learning. Do you, then, really see it?
Look about you. This is equally true of whatever you look at. Acknowledge this by applying the idea for today indiscriminately to whatever catches your eye. For example:
I see only the past in this pencil.
I see only the past in this shoe.
I see only the past in this hand.
I see only the past in that body.
I see only the past in that face.
I see only the past in that universe.
Do not linger over any one thing in particular, but remember to omit nothing specifically. Glance briefly at each subject, and then move on to the next. Three or four practice periods, each to last a minute or so, will be enough.
Image credits: Hubble/NASA
Mind Training to Change Our Minds
A lesson for every day to learn to let go and release--application of true forgiveness
There is no way that you can know or understand what it will be from where you are in a conflictual and judgmental frame of mind, nor need you do so. The only requirement is practice, and willingness to make no exceptions, to resist the tendency to exclude some people, places or situations, some things or thoughts. This will only hamper progress in this transformation that you are undergoing this very moment. This is your freedom. You are getting out of hell.
Learn more about Forgiveness on My Blog
What you bind on earth, is bound in Heaven, what you loose on earth, is loosed in Heaven.
The feed from my blog on blogger.com. Come by and read what drives and inspires me.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byJesus, Forgiveness and A Course In Miracles
Jesus is our great teacher in forgiveness to re-member God
These books are all about the message of Jesus. A Course In Miracles is directly from Jesus, given to us to shorten time immeasurably and return home. Some books are by authors inspired and transformed by the message of A Course In Miracles. They serve as helpful links and guides for your own practice of A Course In Miracles.
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Please Say Hello to the Folks that I Know...
We'll meet again... in forgiveness and love, because we share all one Source.
Kent_Whitaker wrote...
This is a great lens. You have put together a lot of very helpful information and resources on forgiveness here. I'd love it if you'd stop by my lens and say hello when you get the chance.
Posted March 12, 2009
Alban wrote...
Thank you, Dolores. Congratulations to you on your choice to start A Course In Miracles. You are right on. It is first about purification--the removal of the blocks to the awareness of love's presence--which is not of us, because we got ourselves into this chaos in the first place. That is why we are afraid of it. We think it is our death to step back from our ideas and let them be replaced. Yet we decide whether we rather be happy or right.
@ Tom and Keoi: Thank you.
Posted July 07, 2008
eccles1 wrote...
I love this lens!!I just started on a course of Miracles Chapter 1
# 6 miracles are natural when they do not occur something has gone wrong.
# 7 Miracles are everyone's right,but purification
is necessary first
this is the step that we don't want to do but everything always comes back to this I like this alot purification is first.. of the mind, is that what you are saying??
Posted July 07, 2008
AwakenYourSpirit wrote...
Alban,
I enjoyed this lens - I am sure others will also, so I've lensrolled it on my ACIM lenses.
Have a wonderful day!
Posted May 24, 2008
Build a Lens about Forgiveness?
Let the world know how forgiveness and freedom are related...
Make your own lens about what you care and want to share. If you don't have the time to blog, this is a good way to go. Yes, I'll make a lens.When you have a lens about forgiveness, let me know.
For the Fun of It
Let's open our minds for some funny forgiveness.
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Answer Me Jesus
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I was at Spencer Gifts and I saw the Answer Me Jesus (tm) for $5. Where else can you get answers to life's most challenging questions for only $5! So I took it home. The first question I asked was, "Jesus, will I ever find a man who d...
More Lenses for Inspiration
Forgiveness is based on trust and self-responsibility.
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Ho'oponopono - The Ancient Hawaiian Healing Practice
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Ho'oponopono is a Hawaiian word for a form of family or personal therapy. Practitioners believe it is an ancient Hawaiian practice. To date, the earliest documentation of a practice called ho'oponopono is from the Hawaiian language newspaper, Kuokoa...
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Development of Trust
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Trust is the foundation on which our ability to allow for real change rests. Trust brings in what we trust in. It is like an open door through which we invite what we trust in. If there is nothing new under the sun, following our past learning we are...
Forgiveness Is the Choice for Truth and Love
Forgiveness heals ourselves, our minds.
What could have gone wrong ever, if God is Source and creates perfectly? We must be perfectly whole and nothing can threaten us. Therefore, there can be no problem. Despite of all contrary appearances and thoughts, we deal only with ideas. That is why we can forgive. Nothing really happened to us or anyone. Forgiveness then restores us to sanity and freedom where before we thought we were attacked and unfairly treated, or thought to have done this unto others.
People of all time have found this to be true.
by Alban
Related Topics
Alban Recommends...
- A Course In Miracles - Teaching Enlightenment through Forgiveness and Complete Dependence on God.
- God Is. God Judgeth No Man, But Giveth Only
- The Lord's Prayer. The Only Prayer You Will Ever Need. Pray With The Lord, Today.
- All about GOD and how to find him
- Forgiveness Is The Key To Happiness - Forgiveness is the miracle that overlook illusions. This is how you learn that you must be forgiven too.
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