"When A Course In Miracles came out in the 70’s, I was guided to study it for 6-8 hours a day for the first couple of years and then it became my constant companion. It was exactly what I needed to begin breaking the power of my limiting and judgmental mind. Forgiveness is not something that the ordinary ego mind can achieve.  It is the willingness to consider forgiveness that opens the door to a shift in perception and the utter peace and freedom that follows. I believe that my acceptance and practice of forgiveness has been a huge key to my living with joy and bliss."  Cynthia
 

A Course In Miracles...
You Who Want Peace Can Find It
Only By Complete Forgiveness

(The following quotes are from A Course In Miracles)

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 you, 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 rests 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.

Forgiveness literally transforms vision, and lets you see the real world reaching quietly and gently across chaos, removing all illusions that had twisted your perception and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection.

You will see forgiveness where you have given it.

Those you do not forgive you fear.  And no one reaches love with fear beside him.

Withhold forgiveness from your brother and you attack him. You give him nothing, and receive of him but what you gave.

Forgiveness is the great release from time. It is the key to learning that the past is over.  Madness speaks no more.  There <is> no other teacher and no other way.  For what has been undone no longer is.

Forgiveness is the answer to an attack of any kind. So is attack deprived of its effects and hate is answered in the name of love.

For no one in whom true forgiveness rests can suffer

Forgiveness cannot be for one and not the other.  Who forgives is healed.  And in his healing lies the proof that he has truly pardoned, and retains no trace of condemnation that he still would hold against himself or any living thing.

But should <one> brother dawn upon your sight as wholly worthy of forgiveness, then your concept of yourself is wholly changed. For your forgiveness, offered unto him, has been accepted now for both of you.

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.

Fear condemns and love forgives.  Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation.  It is the means by which illusions disappear.

Without attack thoughts I could not see a world of attack.  As forgiveness allows love to return to my awareness, I will see a world of peace and safety and joy.  And it is this I choose to see, in place of what I look on now.

Forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence.

Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world. LESSON 62.

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.

Remember that in every attack you call upon your own weakness, while each time you forgive you call upon the strength of Christ in you. Do you not then begin to understand what forgiveness will do for you? It will remove all sense of weakness, strain and fatigue from your mind. It will take away all fear and guilt and pain.  It will restore the invulnerability and power God gave His Son to your awareness.

Hold out your hand, that you may have the gift of kind forgiveness which you offer one whose need for it is just the same as yours.  And let the cruel concept of yourself of yourself be changed to one that brings the peace of God.

Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within.  The source of neither light nor darkness can be found without.  Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness,  reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light.

When you have looked upon your brother with complete forgiveness, from no error is excluded, and nothing kept hidden, what mistake can there be anywhere you cannot overlook?  What form of suffering could block your sight, preventing you from seeing past it? And what illusion could there be you will not recognize as a mistake: A shadow through which you walk completely undismayed?

In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine and everything you once thought sinful now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven.  How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that you innocence bestows upon it!  What can you value more than this?  For here is your salvation and your freedom.  And it must be complete if you would recognize it.

Realize that your forgiveness entitles you to vision.  Understand that the Holy Spirit never fails to give the gift of sight to the forgiving.  Believe He will not fail you now. You have forgiven the world. He will be with you as you watch and wait. He will show you what true vision sees.  It is His Will, and you have joined with Him. Wait patiently for Him.  He will be there.  The light has come.  You have forgiven the world.

My forgiveness is the means by which the light of the world finds expression through me. My forgiveness is the means by which I become aware of the light of the world in me. My forgiveness is the means by which the world is healed, together with myself. Let me, then, forgive the world, that it may be healed along with me.

Let me recognize the problem so it can be solved. Let me realize today that the problem is always some form of grievance that I would cherish.  Let me also understand that the solution is always a miracle with which I let the grievance be replaced.  Today I would remember the simplicity of salvation by reinforcing the lesson that there is one problem and one solution.  The problem is a grievance; the solution is a miracle. And I invite the solution to come to me through my forgiveness of the grievance, and my welcome of the miracle that takes its place.

Here (forgiveness) 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.

The unforgiving mind is torn with doubt, confused about itself and all it sees; afraid and angry, weak and blustering, afraid to go ahead, afraid to stay, afraid to waken or to go to sleep, afraid of every sound, yet more afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness, yet more terrified at the approach of light.  What can the unforgiving mind perceive but its damnation?  What can it behold except the proof that all its sins are real?

Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.

The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is that you still believe you must forgive the truth, and not illusions.  You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to overlook the truth, in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true. This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your mind, as you regard yourself.

When your forgiveness is complete you will have total gratitude, for you will see that everything has earned the right to love by being loving, even as your Self.

Forgiveness is the only road that leads out of disaster, past all suffering, and finally away from death.

Only my condemnation injures me.

Only my own forgiveness sets me free.

Do not forget today that there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought.  Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal.

Forgiveness paints a picture of a world where suffering is over, loss becomes impossible and anger makes no sense.  Attack is gone, and madness has an end.  What suffering is now conceivable?  What loss can be sustained?  The world becomes a place of joy, abundance, charity and endless giving.  It is now so like to Heaven that it quickly is transformed into the light that it reflects.  And so the journey that the Son of God began has ended in the light from which he came.

Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free.

The ego makes illusions.  Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining them away.  Truth never makes attack.  It merely is.  And by its presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real. Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and take its rightful place within the mind.  Without forgiveness is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility.  Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance.

Forgiveness is a choice

Forgiveness sweeps away distortions, and opens the hidden altar to the truth.

Forgiveness is the home of miracles.

I let forgiveness rest upon all things,
For thus forgiveness will be given me.

Forgiveness is the final goal of the curriculum.  It paves the way for what goes far beyond all learning. The curriculum makes no effort to exceed its legitimate goal.  Forgiveness is its single aim, at which all learning ultimately converges.  It is indeed enough.

The body can be healed as an effect of true forgiveness

Forgiveness is the necessary condition for finding the peace of God

Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one.  They are the one beginning, with the end to lead to oneness far beyond themselves.  True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist.  And it is this that true perception sees.

More on Forgiveness from A Course in Miracles

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