“Ask not to be forgiven, for this has already been accomplished. Ask rather to learn how to forgive, which will restore what always was to your unforgiving mind.”
The world we experience that appears to be the physical universe outside of us was made in our temporary madness to be a place of danger and harm. That is, it is a world in which harm seems to be possible to give and to receive at any moment and in any place anywhere. The world is this way because those in it projected this world outside of themselves out of fear, i.e., the fear of vengeance from their Creator.
Because the world was projected outside of its makers by their belief that this would allow them to avoid their Creator’s vengeance, it became an apparent place of vengeance, of harm, and sorrow. “The world I look upon is a form of vengeance.” “It is not Will for Life but wish for death that is the hidden motivation for this world. Its only purpose is to prove guilt real.”
“Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so, not because it has the power to hurt, but merely because you have denied that it is only an illusion with no power at all, and therefore made it real in your experience. And it is real to you. It is not nothing. And through its perceived reality has entered all the world of sick illusions. All belief in separation, in power of attack, in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death, has come to you. For no one can attempt to make one illusion real, and still escape the rest. For who can choose to keep the ones they prefer, and find the safety that the Truth alone can give? Who can believe that illusions are all the same in their unreality, and still maintain that even one is best?”
As the bearer of our projection outward of all that we couldn’t bear to perceive within ourselves – in our terror of the treachery of betrayal we believed we had committed against our Creator – the unconscious frame of mind called the ego has a quality or persona of loathing, contempt, and even hatred toward us and all things, and an extreme cleverness in “plotting” our demise. The world through the eyes of the ego thus becomes perceived as a battleground between ourselves and the world, between ourselves and our ego, between our ego and all other egos, and between the ego and the Divine. The ego believes that it accomplishes its goal of our demise (a goal that we have projected onto it, because we secretly believe that we deserve it) when those in the dream of the world seem to undergo the appearance of physical death. Hatred, attack, and all forms of violence are the manifestation of the world as a form of vengeance that is a result of our making of the ego in our minds and imbuing it with self-hatred that is secretly directed back toward ourselves in all the ways the world can hurt us from “outside.”
This nightmare that we appear to be trapped in thus can be escaped only by giving up the attack thoughts that made and maintain it. “I can escape the world I look upon by giving up attack thoughts.” This is done through forgiving all those we have projected our attack thoughts onto, including ourselves.
For many people, attack thoughts are rarely overtly acted out, and even their passive attack gestures are enfolded in two layers to render their source – the attack thoughts behind them – even more difficult to identify and access for healing. First, our egos assign roles or functions to everyone and everything in the world, including ourselves. Then we take offense and hold resentment, grievances and grudges (i.e., passive attack gestures) toward the figures in our lives, including ourselves and the people, systems, things, etc. surrounding us, when these do not fulfill the roles and functions we have assigned to them. Forgiveness thus means, first, to cease assigning roles and functions to everyone and everything in our lives, and instead to allow Spirit to inform us in every situation all that we need to know about the situation and everyone and everything in it, including all roles and functions that will allow the situation to be miraculous. Then it means to see beyond all mistakes, our own and everyone else’s, forgiving all, including ourselves, for their failure to fulfill the roles and functions that we or others have assigned. Each person’s role and function in the Plan of Awakening has already been assigned by the Holy Spirit, just as each person’s mistakes have already been corrected, and it is self-defeating for us to try to assume Spirit’s rightful Role of assigning all roles and functions in every situation, and correcting all mistakes.
Our forgiveness, or the giving up of attack thoughts, is thus the key to awakening and to the entire Plan of Atonement. Forgiveness renders the world of illusions moot as fear is removed from it, erasing what we thought was immutable, and creating a truly fresh, new “blank screen” on which a happy world, the real world, can be projected by Spirit for us.
Forgiveness does not pardon something real out of a sense of mercy or generosity, it merely sees beyond mistakes and recognizes Reality, allowing what never really happened to be undone. In the empty space that our forgiveness allows through our relinquishing our role and function assigning, and the resulting dissolving of our resentment, grievances, grudges and feelings of being offended, miracles can come because they are welcome. And these miracles will provide abundance and healing that transcend the physical “laws,” and accelerate our learning until our minds become unsplit, integrated, and whole, and we awaken from the dream.
“Forgiveness is this world’s equivalent of Heaven’s Justice. It translates the world of separation and flaw into a simple world, where Justice can be reflected from beyond the Gate of Heaven where total Limitlessness rests. Nothing in boundless Love could need forgiveness. And what is charity within the world gives way to simple Justice past the Gate that opens into Heaven.
“No one forgives unless they have believed in separation and flaw, and still believe that there is something to be forgiven. Forgiveness thus becomes the means by which they learn that neither they nor their sisters and brothers have done anything to forgive. Forgiveness always rests upon the one who offers it, until they see themself as needing it no longer. And thus are they returned to their real Function of creating, which their forgiveness offers them again.
“Forgiveness turns the world of separation and flaw into a world of Glory, wonderful to see. Each flower shines in Light, and every bird sings of the Joy of Heaven. There is no sadness and there is no parting in the real world, for everything is totally forgiven. And what has been forgiven must join, for nothing stands between to keep separate and apart.”
“How willing are you to forgive your sisters and brothers? How much do you desire Peace instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the same in different form. Forgiveness is your Peace, for herein is the end of the dream of separation, of danger and destruction, flaw and sin and death, madness and murder, grief and loss. This is the ‘sacrifice’ awakening asks, and gladly offers you Peace instead of this.”
“Illusion makes illusion, except for one. Forgiveness is the illusion that is answer to the rest. Forgiveness sweeps all other dreams away, and though it is itself a dream, it breeds no others. All illusions except this one must multiply a thousand-fold. But forgiveness is where illusions end. Forgiveness is the end of dreams because it is a dream of awakening. It is not itself the Truth. Yet does it point to where the Truth must be, and gives direction with the certainty of the Divine Itself.”