Thursday, October 8, 2009

A Course in Miracles and Forgiveness

ACIM T p 138
Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is. This is the prerequisite for knowledge only because those who are in conflict are not peaceful, and peace is the condition of knowledge because it is the condition of the Kingdom. Knowledge can be restored only when you meet its conditions.

DU p 109
The peace of God is the goal of the Course because it must be attained in order to regain the awareness of your reality in the Kingdom.

YIR p 139
It’s through your own choice for the Holy Spirit and His thought system instead of the ego’s that your mind is returned to peace. That has to happen first in order for you to go home. You can’t skip your forgiveness homework. Everybody wants to skip to the end and be enlightened now, but it doesn’t work that way. If peace is the condition of the Kingdom, then the mind must be at peace in order to fit in. And in order for the mind to be at peace, you have to forgive. It’s as simple as that.

DU p 147
Without its practical method of forgiveness, the Course would be nothing but a beautiful and useless book - fuel for debate and the games of the ego. Fortunately, as J says in the Introduction to the Clarification of Terms, p 77: This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. The means of the Atonement is forgiveness.

What is Forgiveness? ACIM W p 401
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.

Forgiveness is the key to happiness. ACIM Lesson 121 W p 214
Here is the answer to your search for peace. Here is the key to meaning in a world that seems to make no sense. Here is the way to safety in apparent dangers that appear to threaten you at every turn, and bring uncertainty to all your hopes of ever finding quietness and peace. Here are all questions answered; here the end of all uncertainty ensured at last.

Forgiveness offers everything I want. ACIM Lesson 122 W p 217
What could you want forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset?

All this forgiveness offers and more. It sparkles on your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rest upon your eyelids so you see no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more.

DU p 343
We came here to give people a spiritual message, a message that not everyone is ready for yet, and this is it: When you are ready to accept that the only thing that really matters in your illusory lifetime is the successful completion of your lessons of true forgiveness, then you will be truly wise indeed.

DU p 221
True forgiveness is the real purpose of life, but you've got to choose it in order to make it yours. Remember, practicing real forgiveness can't help but lead you home.

YIR p 128
You can't wake up from a dream as long as you're stuck in it. Awareness of dreaming breaks the hold. And the more you forgive, the more you become aware that you're just dreaming.

Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world. ACIM Lesson 62 W p 104
It is your forgiveness that will bring the world of darkness to the light. It is your forgiveness that lets you recognize the light in which you see. Forgiveness is the demonstration that you are the light of the world. Through your forgiveness does the truth about yourself return to your memory. Therefore, in your forgiveness lies your salvation.

God is the Love in which I forgive. ACIM Lesson 46 W p 73
God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself. Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness.

The words, Forgive(s), Forgiven, Forgiveness, Forgiving, and Forgivable show up in the Course a total of 842 times.

Forgive and let live.