ACIM Special Theme: What Is Forgiveness? And Lesson 221

1. What Is Forgiveness?

1. Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. ²It does not pardon sins and make them real. ³It sees there was no sin. ⁴And in that view are all your sins forgiven. ⁵What is sin, except a false idea about God’s Son? ⁶Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. ⁷What then is free to take its place is now the Will of God.

This first paragraph explains what forgiveness is and what it does for us. The first thing I realize is that we are innocent. There is no guilt in us because there is no sin. God created us innocent, and we cannot change what God creates and make it something different. So, no matter what seems to be happening in time, we remain as we were created, innocent. The innocent do not need forgiveness.

Another Thought

Another thought that occurs to me is that there is nothing to forgive because nothing has happened.  What someone has done that seems offensive to us has not actually occurred. There is no world and there are no bodies except in our mind and not in our true mind, but in our ego-mind.

It is all imagination and projected out it is a hallucination. What is not real has no real effects. There is nothing to forgive because there is no cause. And as Jesus tells us: ⁷Much has been seen since then, but nothing has really happened. (ACIM, T-3.VII.5:7) So, what is there to forgive? 

Another Way To See This

Here is another way I see this. When someone says or does something, I decide what it means. This becomes my perception of it and perception is not truth. Perception is just one way to see things. So, actually, since I decide its meaning, I am always only doing it to myself. This is why Jesus tells us that there is only love or a call for love.

Here is an example. I said something to my child one day and she took it to mean I was judging her unfairly. She became angry and started defending herself by attacking me. I could have defended in return thinking that she should not talk like that to me. It might have felt like I was being unfairly treated. But I saw that she was calling for love and I responded with love. She calmed down right away and we were able to correct the error in communication.

Whoever Is Saner

Whoever is saner at the time the threat is perceived should remember how deep is his indebtedness to the other and how much gratitude is due him, and be glad that he can pay his debt by bringing happiness to both. (ACIM, T-18.V.7:1)

As it happened, I was the saner one in that moment and was able to remember the truth. Instead of perceiving her words as an attack, I perceived them to mean she needed love. Both perceptions were open to me. I just needed to decide what I believed. Even if I had chosen to perceive myself attacked, since I was the decision maker, the only thing to forgive would have been the belief that defensiveness is salvation.

An Unforgiving thought

2. An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. ²The mind is closed, and will not be released. ³The 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. ⁴What can come between a fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal?

That first sentence is enough to pull me up short when I am tempted to not forgive. An unforgiving thought is one which makes a judgment that it will not raise to doubt, although it is not true. May I always question every unforgiving thought. Let me bring it to the light so that I can see that it is not true. Otherwise, I will close my mind to the truth so that I can keep believing the judgment. Maybe I want to be right more than I want to be happy. Maybe I want to protect my perceptions in spite of the suffering they cause.  

Defending Misperceptions

The more I defend my misperceptions, the more tangled my thinking becomes until I am unable to let anything come between my fixed projection and the aim that it has chosen as its wanted goal. It is easy to see this happening if I am willing to open my mind even a little. Suppose someone has decided that I don’t know what I am talking about and makes a public attempt to discredit me. I can see this as confusion and conflict in the mind and let it go without any concern whatsoever. 

What if, on the other hand, I feel a strong need to defend my point of view? What if my need to be seen as right is stronger than my desire to be at peace? If this is the case, then no amount of common sense is going to get in the way of my goals of being right and being seen as right. I will argue and protest, I will lose friends, I will win whatever the cost because I have set my goal to be right. If I set a different goal, perhaps the peace of God, then the other cannot say anything to me or about me that is not immediately forgiven because only forgiveness will cause my goal to be met. 

Distortion Is Its Purpose

3. An unforgiving thought does many things. ²In frantic action it pursues its goal, twisting and overturning what it sees as interfering with its chosen path. ³Distortion is its purpose, and the means by which it would accomplish it as well. ⁴It sets about its furious attempts to smash reality, without concern for anything that would appear to pose a contradiction to its point of view.

As I am reading this, I am reminded of the political dissension in our country of late. People taking sides and holding tight to their beliefs about the situations, so tightly, that they will not even read about what the other side thinks and believes. Many will defend their point of view without regard to facts and will look for facts only where they expect agreement with them. Which side is right? Neither.  

What Adds to the burden of Separation Thinking

Neither is right because both sides believe in the world and in the separation ideas that are being accepted as truth. Anything that adds to the burden of separation thinking is false simply because separation is not the Will of God. Therefore, it cannot exist. Believing in separation is an error that causes suffering and keeps us from knowing who we are because who we are is whole, is one. 

Looks and Waits and Judges Not

4. Forgiveness, on the other hand, is still, and quietly does nothing. ²It offends no aspect of reality, nor seeks to twist it to appearances it likes. ³It merely looks, and waits, and judges not. ⁴He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive. ⁵But he who would forgive himself must learn to welcome truth exactly as it is.

Returning to the idea of the divisiveness encouraged in politics recently, this divisiveness is the error. It offends reality when it leads to separation. And it seeks to twist it to appearances it likes when it argues against oneness. It is done when defending an opinion is more important than union. Today’s politics is a clear image of a mind divided against itself. 

The Only Goal Worth Pursuing

The only reality is that we are one and the only goal worth pursuing is to awaken to this truth. Imagine a world where no one would ever think of judging another. In this world everyone would quietly do nothing in the face of attack. We would quickly and happily forgive knowing the desire to defend is just a fear response in the other. Clearly it is a call for love and so love is the only response anyone would have. This is living in the real world and is possible for all of us. It is actually the goal we are seeking.

Let Forgiveness Show You

5. 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. ²He has forgiven you already, for such is His function, given Him by God. ³Now must you share His function, and forgive whom He has saved, whose sinlessness He sees, and whom He honors as the Son of God.

So, what do I do about the unforgiven thoughts in my mind and their effects? I do nothing. Instead, I let forgiveness show me what to do. I let the Holy Spirit give me words where words are needed, and prompt me to silence when words would be a break in actual communication. I remember my purpose and I use the situations to achieve that purpose. And I am forgiven and everyone else is forgiven, I simply choose to accept that this is true. 

Lesson 221

Peace to my mind. Let all my thoughts be still. 

1. Father, I come to You today to seek the peace that You alone can give. ²I come in silence. ³In the quiet of my heart, the deep recesses of my mind, I wait and listen for Your Voice. ⁴My Father, speak to me today. ⁵I come to hear Your Voice in silence and in certainty and love, sure You will hear my call and answer me. 

2. Now do we wait in quiet. ²God is here, because we wait together. ³I am sure that He will speak to you, and you will hear. ⁴Accept my confidence, for it is yours. ⁵Our minds are joined. ⁶We wait with one intent; to hear our Father’s answer to our call, to let our thoughts be still and find His peace, to hear Him speak to us of what we are, and to reveal Himself unto His Son. 

Father, I Surrendeer to You

What a gorgeous prayer this is! It calms my mind just to read it. I sit with Jesus and I wait in silence knowing that I will be heard and I will hear. I may hear words, or I may simply feel the Love of God. It may be that I will experience healing. I might feel nothing or experience nothing at all on the physical level, but I know that much has happened. I am filled with gratitude. Here I am, Father. I surrender to you. I love You and I long to know myself as part of You. Hear my call, Father.

Contemplation 2025

To enjoy the Pathways of Light Insights on ACIM Lesson 221 click here.

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