Lesson 350
Miracles mirror God’s eternal Love.
To offer them is to remember Him,
And through His memory to save the world.
What we forgive becomes a part of us, as we perceive ourselves. The Son of God incorporates all things within himself as You created him. Your memory depends on his forgiveness. What he is, is unaffected by his thoughts. But what he looks upon is their direct result. Therefore, my Father, I would turn to You. Only Your memory will set me free. And only my forgiveness teaches me to let Your memory return to me, and give it to the world in thankfulness.
And as we gather miracles from Him, we will indeed be grateful. For as we remember Him, His Son will be restored to us in the reality of Love.
Journal
This is the sentence I was directed to this morning. It is the key to this lesson. What we forgive becomes a part of us, as we perceive ourselves. As I forgive, a miracle occurs and love takes the place of the grievance. That love is now a part of me as God created me. The miracle continues to bless as the memory of God draws closer with each miracle I give and thus receive.
I think of all the grievances I have forgiven in my life and I am so filled with gratitude as I realize that this has drawn me so much closer to the memory of God. This is the way my memory is set free and it is the only way. There is no grievance of such import that I would keep it instead of the memory of God.
Regina’s Tips
The sense of self is more than self-centeredness. Although the sense of self is not our very existence, it is what feels like existence to us. That means that once the wrong-minded self-centered self ends, the next step in awakening is the end of the sense of existing or the sense of I am. The sense of existing and life are not the same thing. Life, which is what we are, does not end. The sense of existence is an energy that we have mistaken for life.
What follows this is a brief but very powerful video of David Hawkins talking about his experience of this end of the ego. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=wnYJS5lg72w&feature=emb_logo and another https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRD4rRYLEF0&feature=youtu.be
As our special theme says, the miracle works within time and perception. It moves us from self-centered existence to existence that reflects reality. This existence could be seen as a spotless mirror. Reality is reflected in the spotless mirror—in this sense of existence—but reflected reality is not reality itself.
The miracle cleans the mirror of the self-centered self. When the mirror is spotless, the miracle’s function has come to an end. It is another movement that takes us beyond time and the mirror, a movement that exceeds perception entirely. That movement is known as the final doorway, the eye of the needle, the last judgment, God’s final step, manonasa, etcetera.
My Thoughts
For me, the value of knowing what is coming, of hearing from those who have gone before is that I know what to expect and so there will not be shock on top of terror. I appreciate these little peaks into the next steps. Still, my main focus right now is in cleaning the mirror. I will shift my focus to what comes beyond that when I get closer to it.
Past Entry
Miracles are like God’s eternal Love. We give miracles as we forgive and as we forgive we remember who we are. As we remember who we are, we save the world because what we know everyone knows. The world is made up of our grievances and we have to undo this. That is what is meant by saving the world. Once we have undone our judgments and freed the world to reflect the love that we actually are, God will take that last step and raise us up to Him.
All through the Course, Jesus tells us that we are one with our brothers and here he tells us how we return our awareness to that oneness. He says that what we forgive becomes a part of us as we perceive ourselves. So to know our unity with all that is, we must forgive all that is. That makes perfect sense when I think about it. If I am angry with someone, it is like I have pushed him away. My anger becomes a wall that keeps us apart. When I forgive that anger and let it go there is nothing to prevent union with that brother.
Jesus says the world is only a reflection of our thoughts projected outward. If I hate my thoughts, the hatred is a wall that prevents union and forgiveness is the miracle that dissolves that barrier. Here is an example of this. I used to hate someone at work. I hated everything about him. I just wanted him to be somewhere else which is my civilized desire for murder. My hatred was making me miserable but no matter what I did in the world to negate that hatred, I failed.
Finally, I came to my senses. I remembered that the hatred was not about him or what he did, but was in my mind. I took that hatred to the Holy Spirit and at my request He undid it. That miracle made it possible for me to love this person who just the day before I hated. The miracle undid the barrier between us and we became instant friends and are friends even today. He didn’t change his behavior and I didn’t change mine. It was my change of mind that allowed the miracle to occur. The behavior I had judged in the past no longer irritated me. The miracle, in this case, was dramatic and was a lesson I never forgot. I never see him anymore but when I think of him I feel our unity.
I can only be free if I remember who I am. I cannot remember who I am without remembering who you are because we are part of each other. I cannot remember that we are part of each other if I am projecting my guilt onto you. I want to remember who I am so that I can remember God and my place in Him so I am highly motivated to release all grievances. It doesn’t matter if it is a grievance against another person or against a situation. All of the world is my grievance and so all of the world must be forgiven and set free if I am to be set free.