What is True Forgiveness?

So, I was recently asked to contribute an article to the local newspaper here in Southern Oregon - The Ashland Daily Tidings - for a weekly column on the topic of Inner Peace. I actually contributed an article about 2.5 years ago to this same column. Anyway, here's what I wrote, and also here's the link in case you'd like to read it from the paper's website instead: What is True Forgiveness by Mike Lemieux: Link to Article

What is True Forgiveness? by Mike Lemieux

A Course in Miracles, a spiritual teaching that stresses the importance of forgiveness, defines forgiveness in this way: 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.

So, true forgiveness is about taking full responsibility for your experiences. The people that push our buttons or disturb our peace of mind in any way, whether it be a slight annoyance or downright hatred and anger, are really just symbolic aspects of what needs to be forgiven and healed within. Most will not likely recognize this because what needs forgiveness within is usually unconscious, so it has been denied and projected outward. But the only way to be free of it is to forgive your own dark side as seen in others instead of continuing to project it. You do this by changing your mind about your projected images, recognizing that anyone that triggers upset within you is just a figure in a dream, an illusion, then seeing them as innocent because it’s only a dream. Thus, it will register in your unconscious mind as you being innocent. As the Course teaches, “As you see him, you will see yourself.”

This forgiveness process translates to the fact that no one can take your inner peace away from you except by your own decision. Simple? Yes. Easy? No way José, because the ego part of us loves to be right, and would much rather have us be right than be at peace. However, the ego part of us can be undone through this forgiveness process, thus making true forgiveness eventually easier to apply as we go along. In the meantime, this is a practice that takes time, discipline, and willingness to develop.

Now, some folks may think this true forgiveness stuff is a form of denial. Well, it is, but not in the conventional sense. As it was put in the best selling book The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard, “The thought system of love and the thought system of fear are both forms of denial. One of them, the Holy Spirit's teaching, leads to Heaven by uncovering and reversing the ego's denial of the truth.” And as the Course puts it about the inner peace that is a result of this forgiveness process, “It denies the ability of anything not of God to affect you. This is the proper use of denial.”

So, what is the motivation for doing this forgiveness work? Well, from my experience, one has to come to a place in his or her life where they realize that nothing outside themselves is going to satisfy them in a permanent way. No matter what we accomplish here, no matter how many special relationships we maintain, no matter how much money, sex, or any other stimulants that provide instant gratification that we acquire, it will always feel like that something is missing. That’s because in this world of illusions, something is missing. What’s missing is our experience of what we really are, the experience of our true Identity as immortal spirit; some may call it Oneness, God, or Heaven, which is described in Disappearance as being “a perfect indescribable ecstasy that never ceases.” But all un-forgiveness must be removed from the mind in order to experience this “ecstasy” in a permanent way.

As it was put in the Disappearance book, “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.” For me, personally, I have nothing else better to do so my number one goal is to forgive the hell out of everyone (for what they haven’t really done) while remembering to laugh in the process. Giddy up!

Mike Lemieux is the author of Dude, Where’s My Jesus Fish?, a book based on the books of best selling author Gary Renard, who also wrote the Foreword for Mike’s book. For more information, you can visit Mike’s website: www.giddyupmikey.com

If you so desire, please feel free to join my Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? fan page - where I post daily quotes from Gary Renard's two books - The Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality, as well as from A Course in Miracles. www.facebook.com/DWMJF

Sunset, Northern California coast, Marin County

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? on Kindle

Exciting news! Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? is now available on Kindle. To order Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? for you Kindle, click on the Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? icon below. Giddy up!

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? Now on Amazon!

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? is now available on Amazon.com. Here's the link: Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? on Amazon Unfortunately, the "Click to Look Inside" feature won't be available for another four to six weeks. The book will be available on Kindle in the near future!



Of course, an autographed copy of Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? is still available directly from me via my website: www.giddyupmikey.com

If, after reading, you feel inspired to write a testimonial, send it to me and I'll post it on my website. You can e-mail me at: mikey@giddyupmikey.com


Or you can write a review of it on Amazon, even if you think that my book totally sucks and that I did a wretched job of putting it together - no such thing as bad publicity! ; )

Also, if you're on Facebook, please feel free to join my Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? fan page where I post a Quote of the Day from The Disappearance of the Universe, Your Immortal Reality, and A Course in Miracles. Here's the link: www.facebook.com/DWMJF


Thanks a bunch! Giddy up!

God Does Not Hate

There is this heavy metal band that's been around since the 1980s called Slayer. They have an album titled God Hates Us All, which, ' coincidentally'' happened to be released on September 11, 2001. I find the title rather amusing. God Hates Us All also shows up as the chorus for their song off the same album called Disciple. Here's what the band had to say about it: God Hates Us All isn't an anti-Christian line as much as it's an idea I think a lot of people can relate to on a daily basis. One day you're living your life, and then you're hit by a car or your dog dies, so you feel like, "God really hates me today." Another one of the members of the band went on to say, "God doesn't hate... [but] it's a great f--king title."

So, another reason not to take music lyrics too seriously. You can always put your own interpretation into the lyrics if you choose, instead of being pessimistic about what the artist is writing about. For me personally, there are many songs out there with the most beautiful lyrics that don't do anything for me, while there are other songs with the most obnoxious lyrics that I really dig; it's all about the way the music sounds for me regardless of the lyrical content.

Oh, and the other good news. God did not create the world/universe, and has nothing to do with what goes down in it. Yes, God is sane. Thank God! God Loves us all!

From The Disappearance of the Universe

God did not create duality and He did not create the world. If He did, He would be the author of ‘a tale told by an idiot.’ But God is not an idiot. He can only be one of two things. He is either perfect Love, as the Bible says when it momentarily stumbles upon the truth, or He's an idiot. You can't have it both ways.

God could not have created this world. It would not be in His nature. He is not cruel, and as J points out to you, ‘If this were the real world, God would be cruel. For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving.

In order to really accept God's helper, the Holy Spirit, you must begin to trust God. You cannot trust Him until you recognize that it is not Him, but you, who is responsible for your experiences.

From A Course in Miracles

The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see that will endure forever. Some things will last in time a little while longer than others. But the time will come when all things visible will have an end.

The world as you perceive it cannot have been created by the Father; for the world is not as you see it. God created only the eternal, and everything you see is perishable. Therefore, there must be another world that you do not see. The Bible speaks of a new Heaven and a new earth, yet this cannot be literally true, for the eternal are not re-created.

Mikey's Note: And always remember God is not a He. He is just Biblical metaphor for It. So don't take He too seriously or you'll just end up thinking God is some old white guy with a long gray beard looking down on the world while judging the hell out of us!

Rock on, forgive, and giddy up!

Wicked Awesome!!! Gary Reanrd added Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? to his Recommend Reading section on his website! Giddy up!
www.garyrenard.com/GaryRecommends

Gary Recommends

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?: A Compilation Highlighting the Blunt and Uncompromising Teachings of Arten and Pursah on A Course in Miracles by Mike Lemieux. What Mikey's done in this book is create a valuable tool for directly accessing Course concepts (as taught by Arten and Pursah) in a topic-based fashion.

As Mikey would say, "Giddy-up!"

To order Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? visit my website: www.giddyupmikey.com

True Empathy

True Empathy as described in A Course in Miracles, The Forgiveness of Illusions

To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand. That is the ego’s interpretation of empathy, and is always used to form a special relationship in which the suffering is shared. The capacity to empathize is very useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way. His way is very different. He does not understand suffering, and would have you teach it is not understandable. When He relates through you, He does not relate through your ego to another ego. He does not join in pain, understanding that healing pain is not accomplished by delusional attempts to enter into it, and lighten it by sharing the delusion.

The clearest proof that empathy as the ego uses it is destructive lies in the fact that it is applied only to certain types of problems and in certain people. These it selects out, and joins with. And it never joins except to strengthen itself. Having identified with what it thinks it understands, the ego sees itself and would increase itself by sharing what is like itself. Make no mistake about this maneuver; the ego always empathizes to weaken, and to weaken is always to attack. You don not know what empathizing means. Yet of this you may be sure; if you will merely sit quietly by and let the Holy Spirit relate through you, you will empathize with strength, and will gain in strength and not in weakness.

Mikey's Note: So, true empathy is about seeing others for what they really are, regardless of what's going on - immortal spirit. And that's how you'll see yourself. As the Course teaches, 'As you see him, you will see yourself. ' It's not about joining in suffering and making it psychologically real. If you see someone as a suffering body and helpless victim, then that's how it will register in your unconscious mind about yourself. And as Arten and Pursah put it in The Disappearance of the Universe, 'An important component of your forgiveness is that you want to teach people, silently, that they are not bodies. That's how your mind learns for certain that you are not a body. As the Course puts it, ‘I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.’ And, ‘As you teach so shall you learn.’

But don't forget the Course isn't about behavior, it's about being a right thinker. Seeing others as they really are doesn't mean you have to hang around with them. The Course is not about giving up the use of discernment and common sense in your everyday life. Like Pursah puts it in Your Immortal Reality, 'Remember, the Course is done at the level of the mind. If you’re a woman and a man is trying to rape you, kick him in the balls.' So, you can forgive and see them as immortal spirit after the fact. In fact, you'll eventually have to in order to be free. As the Course teaches, 'To forgive is to heal,' and, 'To heal is to make happy.' And one more, 'Forgiveness, truly given, is the way in which your only hope of freedom lies.'

If you so desire, you can join the fan page for my book, Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?: A Compilation Highlighting the Blunt and Uncompromising Teachings of Arten and Pursah on A Course in Miracles. I post daily quotes on there from The Disappearance of the Universe, Your Immortal Reality, and A Course in Miracles. Here's the link: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Dude-Wheres-My-Jesus-Fish/168442433183009?sk=info

Giddy up!

Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?

Here are excerpts from the Introduction piece of my soon to be released book, called, Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish? You can place a pre-order for one at my website: www.giddyupmikey.com

You can also check out the chapter titles and testimonials on my website or by scrolling down to my post on this blog from October 25th.




Excerpts from The Introduction to Dude, Where's My Jesus Fish?

Gary’s first two books are written in a dialogue format. Gary is the student, while his teachers, who are two ascended masters that go by the names of Arten and Pursah, were two of Jesus’ disciples two thousand years ago, Thaddaeus and Thomas, respectively. They refer to Jesus as J, as they did not know him as Jesus, but rather as Y’shua, and they say that a proper translation into Greek then into English would have been Jeshua, so they simply refer to him as J in order to cover both Jesus and Jeshua.1

Arten and Pursah promise in the first chapter of the spiritual masterpiece, The Disappearance of the Universe, that they will supply all the answers to life’s biggest questions: ‘You will find out what you really are; how you got here; exactly why you and all other people behave and feel the way that you do; why the universe keeps repeating the same patterns over and over again; why people get sick; the reason behind all failure, accidents, addictions, poverty, and natural disasters; the real cause of all of the violence, crime, war, and terrorism in the world; the only meaningful solution to all of these things; and how to apply it.’2

For those of you who are new to all this, well, to be perfectly blunt, I’m not here to blow sunshine up your ass as I’m not exactly a ‘people pleaser’ or a ‘yes man.’ There are plenty of candy-coated spiritual teachings out there for you to choose from if that’s what you want. I have no investment in people feeling warm and fuzzy about me, and have no political agenda, so, like Gary and his teachers, I’m free to just tell it straight up for those who are ready to hear it. As Pursah tells Gary in Disappearance, ‘People need to be educated, but if you really tell them the truth, then you’re bound to give up some popularity. But it’s better to tell them the truth and have some people walk out on you than to tell them only what they want to hear and have them stay.’3 So, that’s what I’m all about and where I’m coming from.

Anyway, it’s not my intention to be such a hard ass, but I wouldn’t be doing anybody any favors by compromising on Arten and Pursah’s, as well as J’s teachings, and I see the Course the same exact way as they and Gary all do. And Jesus wouldn’t be Jesus if He had compromised on these teachings. I have no interest, or desire, in making up my own thing,4 or incorporating dualistic teachings into the Course and telling people that those teachings are saying the same thing as the Course. I’m a straight shooter so you’re not going to get any bullshit from me, only a sincere desire to be truly helpful.

So, if you’re one who is seeking an intellectual truth, that, when applied, will eventually lead you to an experiential truth, then you’ve come to the right place. The message in Gary’s books is designed to help you save time, so I’m just passing along the message while reinforcing it for myself.

For all the newbies, now may be a good time for you to burn this book or run it through a shredder, or better yet, donate it to your local library or resell it on Amazon, because you don’t know what the hell you’re going to be getting yourself into here. This isn’t ‘fast food spirituality’5 as this particular spiritual path separates the men from the boys – metaphorically speaking, of course. For those of you who have already set foot on this spiritual path, well, there’s no turning back now!

Now, without further ado, here is a revised version of an article I wrote for my local newspaper, the Ashland Daily Tidings. It was printed in the March 7, 2009 edition. It explains what The Disappearance of the Universe is all about:

Of all the books I’ve read during my many years of feasting in the ‘spiritual buffet line,’6 nothing has explained the truth about God and our existence, and why we are seemingly here, any clearer to me than Gary Renard’s The Disappearance of the Universe.

Disappearance addresses heavy subject matter, while cutting to the chase in no uncertain terms, and doing so in a very entertaining and humorous fashion. I highly recommend it, though it is not intended for the squeamish7 nor the faint of heart, as the material is not sugarcoated.

Forgiveness is the theme of the spiritual path presented in Disappearance. Gary’s teachers tell us, ‘Forgiveness is where the rubber meets the road. Without forgiveness, metaphysics are useless.’8 Of course, they are talking about forgiveness in the quantum sense, rather than what traditionally passes as forgiveness in this world. As Gary’s teachers say, ‘The kind of forgiveness J used, and that his Course is teaching, is not the same kind of forgiveness that Christianity and the world sometimes participate in. If it were, then it would be a waste of time.’9

Disappearance is the unofficial ‘cliff notes’ to A Course in Miracles – or as Gary would call it, ‘street language’10 for the Course. A Course in Miracles is a spiritual, purely non-dualistic, self-study course, which is often referred to in Disappearance. The Course is over thirteen hundred pages long, and consists of the Text, Workbook for Students, Manual for Teachers, and the most recent edition includes two pamphlets called Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice and The Song of Prayer.

Written in Shakespearean blank verse and loaded with subtly humorous rhetorical questions, while being holographic in nature,11 the Course is Jesus’ teachings the way, I believe, they were intended to be – consistent and uncompromising, all about love and forgiveness, and absolutely nothing to do with sin, fear, guilt, sacrifice, and showing up to church on Sunday. As Gary’s teachers put it, ‘The Course is Jesus speaking as an artist correcting the Bible.’12 And as J states in his Course, ‘Those who seek controversy will find it. Yet those who seek clarification will find it as well.’13

The Course is all about the healing of the subconscious mind, which entails looking at your illusions, examining them, and eventually releasing them through the process of true forgiveness. As it states in the Course, ‘No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected.’14

The Course gives you the practical tools necessary in order to attain the objective of lasting inner peace and happiness, and ultimately enlightenment, regardless of what is going on in the world and with your own personal life’s circumstances. Through the application of true, or quantum forgiveness, you’re taking full responsibility for your life’s experiences, including the experiences that are not seemingly your fault, because on the level of the unconscious mind, you made it all up.

With quantum forgiveness, you’re not forgiving people because they really did something – you’re forgiving them because they haven’t really done anything. Whatever pushes your buttons and pisses you off on any given day is symbolic of what’s in your own unconscious mind. Once you really get that the world is not being done to you, but rather by you, then what you are really doing by practicing true forgiveness is forgiving the symbolic contents of your own mind. So nobody is ever really a victim in this world. As the Course puts it, ‘I am not the victim of the world I see.’15 Indeed, you are the maker of it – not always easy to accept, but it is definitely the truth. As Gary’s teachers ask, ‘Are you going to get that you’re not a victim and take responsibility for dreaming, or are you going to make it real and stay stuck here?’16 And as J states in the Course, ‘Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated.’17

This isn’t the most glamorous of spiritual paths, because it’s not about manifesting stuff; it’s about undoing the muck buried in the subconscious mind. So it’s not always pretty, dressed up with lipstick and powder, however, it does have teeth. As Gary’s teachers say, ‘The most striking evidence of this approach’s validity will be that it works.’18 And as the Course states, ‘No one who learns from experience that one choice brings peace and joy while another brings chaos and disaster needs additional convincing.’19 From my experience, I can assure you that true forgiveness does in fact work. It does, however, take practice to develop faith and trust in it, but once you start experiencing the benefits of doing this work, it encourages and inspires you to keep going, and eventually it does become easier.

Though the Course is presented in Christian terminology, it is very Eastern-like in its theology and practice, as it gets in touch with the power of the mind. I don’t recommend taking it on without having read Disappearance first, as it will save you much time while helping you to really grasp the heart of the Course.

All spiritual paths lead to God in the end,20 however, the Course does imply that this is a faster way. The Course is simple, however, it’s not easy, as we all have this thing called the ego, and it would much rather you be right, than be happy and at peace. And as J asks us in the Course, ‘Do you prefer that you be right or happy?’21

This path isn’t about fixing up your life, it’s about waking up from what you think is your life,22 and as Gary’s teachers would add to that, ‘…that’s not just a minor distinction.’23 Although it’s not about fixing up your life, it can, however, be a fringe benefit24 – and Mikey’s down with fringe benefits! Anyway, sticking to this path requires faith, trust, discipline, patience, vigilance, perseverance, as well as the willingness to question every motive that you have and every value that you hold,25 the ability to be objective with yourself, and the determination to face all of your fears. Oh, and did I mention faith and trust? Anyway, as Gary’s teachers put it, ‘Comfort is the goal, not necessarily the means.’26 With all that said, however, it’s not about giving anything up, as J puts it in the Course, ‘This course does not attempt to take from you the little that you have.’27 So, it’s really about letting go of your psychological attachment to it all, as well as forgetting not to laugh.