Note: In the excerpt below, if a chapter or lesson is in bold, this bolded text is directly referencing a chapter or lesson from the official Course in Miracles book published by Foundation for Inner Peace. If a chapter name is not in bold, then this is referencing a chapter in my book, A Course in Miracles CLARIFIED.

Chapter 11. Forgiveness Will Solve All Your Problems.

Chapter 1 THE MEANING OF MIRACLES, section III: Atonement and Miracles, paragraph 3: “The forgiven are the means of the Atonement. Being filled with spirit, they forgive in return. Those who are released must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of the Atonement. Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the Holy Spirit unite with me [Jesus] for the salvation or release of all of God’s creations.”

Section VI: The Illusion of Needs, paragraph 1: “You who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness. Needs arise only when you deprive yourself.” This will be believable for you when you finally accept the fact that the world is an illusion that you are dreaming, and that you have complete control over what happens.

How can you have a grievance against a brother who entered your dream at your guilt’s invitation to punish you as you have requested? See Chapter 13 The Guiltless World, section I: Guiltlessness and Invulnerability, paragraph 8: “For guilt establishes that you will be punished for what [you believe] you have done …”

Let’s pretend that you are a boxer in the ring facing an opponent. Your opponent hits you in accordance with the rules of boxing. Do you now have a grievance against him? I think not, because by stepping into the ring, you have given him permission to hit you. Likewise, your guilt has agreed to let someone into your dream to punish you. You could have avoided the punishment by forgiving all of those you have a grievance against and forgiving all of those who have a grievance against you.

Here are the steps for true forgiveness:

1.      Recognize that in a world of illusions nothing is really happening, i.e., it only seems to happen.

2.      Recognize that there are no accidents in a dream because it is being dreamed exactly as all the participants dream it.

3.      In the dream, no one can harm another, unless the person being harmed wants it to happen because their own guilt arranges their punishment.

Both parties to a grievance need to be forgiven. It is obvious that the perpetrator needs to be forgiven, but not so obvious that the injured party needs to be forgiven for harboring the guilt that invited the injury.

Let’s say that Robert has insulted William. William prays, “Holy Spirit, help me to forgive Robert and myself for what we did not do.” Likewise, Robert prays, “Holy Spirit, help me to forgive myself and William for what we did not do.”

You can apply this approach to yourself: “Holy Spirit, help me to release my guilt by forgiving everyone I have ever had a grievance against. Holy Spirit, help me release my guilt that has resulted from my having injured anyone in any way.”

Learning forgiveness is difficult for all of us, and it takes time to learn how to truly forgive and release the associated guilt. It is imperative to ask the Holy Spirit’s help, otherwise it will be so much “wasted effort.” True forgiveness cannot be accomplished without the Holy Spirit’s help.

Why is forgiveness so important? Remember that the goal of the Course is to show us how to wake up from the horrible dream of an illusionary world, by releasing the guilt that is keeping us here.  The Course teaches us that this awakening is accomplished when we release our guilt by forgiving the world, and everyone in the world including ourselves. Then we can accept the Atonement (remembering that we have never left God – something that is impossible to do before forgiving).

Chapter 14 TEACHING FOR TRUTH, section III: The Decision for Guiltlessness, paragraph 7: “The way to teach this simple lesson is merely this: Guiltlessness is invulnerability. Therefore, make your invulnerability manifest to everyone. Teach him that, whatever he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can be harmed shows him that he is guiltless. He can do nothing that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to think he can, you teach him that the Atonement, which you have accepted for yourself, is also his. There is nothing to forgive. No one can hurt the Son of God. His guilt is wholly without cause, and being without cause, cannot exist.”

Chapter 15 THE HOLY INSTANT, section V: The Holy Instant and Special Relationships, paragraph 1: “The Holy Instant is the Holy Spirit’s most useful learning device for teaching you love’s meaning. For its purpose is to suspend judgment entirely. Judgment always rests on the past, for past experience is the basis on which you judge. Judgment becomes impossible without the past, for without it [the past] you do not understand anything.”

Section VIII: The Only Real Relationship, paragraph 1: “And that in complete forgiveness, in which you recognize that there is nothing to forgive, you are absolved completely.”

The “Holy Instant” is mentioned in ACIM 46 times, and each time gives you a little more information about it. But it boils down to this: A Holy Instant happens when you replace a grievance with complete forgiveness.

Chapter 16 THE FORGIVENESS OF ILLUSIONS, section VII: The End of Illusions, paragraph 9: “All that must be forgiven are the illusions you have held against your brothers. Their reality has no past, and only illusions can be forgiven. God holds nothing against anyone, for He is incapable of illusions of any kind. Release your brothers from the slavery of their illusions by forgiving them for the illusions you perceive in them. Thus will you learn that you have been forgiven …”

Chapter 17 FORGIVENESS AND THE HOLY RELATIONSHIP, section III. Shadows of the Past, paragraph 1: “Be willing to forgive the Son of God for what he did not do.”

LESSON 186, Salvation of the world depends on me. Paragraph 14: “Forgiveness is an earthly form of love, which as it is in Heaven has no form.”

How forgiveness can free you from self-punishment:

First Example: If you have a difficult time falling asleep because you cannot stop thinking about the previous day’s events, what you have to do tomorrow, and mistakes you have made in the past, you could say: “Holy Spirit, help me shut off my mind tonight, so I can get a good night’s sleep,” but that’s not likely to work.

A better way to ask would be: “Holy Spirit, help me forgive all the guilt that is depriving me of sleep.” Then list specific things from your past that you feel guilty about, as well as grievances that you have against other people, and after each item, ask the Holy Spirit’s help in forgiving yourself and forgiving other people involved for what none of you actually did. You will be amazed at the peace that true forgiveness brings to you. Keep on doing this until you gain enough peace to fall asleep.

You may be wondering why I include “grievances” in this example. In one case you are forgiving other people whom you have grievances against, and in the other case you are forgiving yourself for having grievances. It does not matter which end of a grievance you are on, because both ends need to be forgiven.

It is a waste of time to ask the Holy Spirit to change some condition in the world. Keep in mind that it is your mind where a change has to be made in order to make a miracle. Recall from Chapter 5: If you are watching a show on the theater screen, and you want to change what you’re seeing, should walk up to the screen and try to change what you see there, or go to the projector and change the film?

Second example: You have a raging fever that won’t go down. You could say the following to the Holy Spirit: “Holy Spirit, please help correct my thinking errors that are preventing my fever from reducing.” Notice you did not ask the Holy Spirit to reduce your fever, but for help in changing your mind.

Third example: You just lost your job. Money is tight. You need to obtain another job right away, and your interviews thus far haven’t panned out… “Holy Spirit, please help me release any thought that is making me appear less than a good candidate to be hired. Help me forgive the guilt I harbor, that is making me feel that I do not deserve to be hired.”

Fourth example: This is the ultimate reason for forgiveness. “Holy Spirit, please help me to understand and apply the Course because I want to accept the Atonement and wake up from this dream of a horrible world, remembering that I have never left God.”

The following quote, from LESSON 126, consisting of eight numbered paragraphs, can be a difficult read for some students of the Course, so I’ll provide you with an assist. Each numbered paragraph is followed by my interpretation of that paragraph.

LESSON 126 All that I give is given to myself, paragraphs 1 through 8:

1.  “Today’s idea, completely alien to the ego and thinking of the world, is crucial to the thought reversal that this course will bring about. If you believed this statement, there would be no problem in complete forgiveness, certainty of goal, and sure direction. You would understand the means by which salvation comes to you, and would not hesitate to use it now.”

Jesus is stressing that all forgiveness is self-forgiveness. Essentially, you are forgiving yourself for whatever made you feel guilty enough to invite someone you dreamed up  to come into your dream to punish you. At the same time you are forgiving the person who came to punish you for accepting your invitation. You are not forgiving the punishment because you asked for it; you issued the invitation, and you received as you had asked.

•  “Let us consider what you do believe, in place of this idea [expressed above]. It seems to you that other people are apart from you, and able to behave in ways which have no bearing on your thoughts, nor yours on theirs. Therefore, your attitudes have no effect on them, and their appeals for help are not in any way related to your own. You further think that they can sin without affecting your perception of yourself, while you can judge their sin, and yet remain apart from condemnation and peace.”

Here Jesus is saying that the ego’s way of forgiving is based on ignoring the fact that your invitation to be punished was issued, and assumes the punisher acted totally on his own and “sinned” against you!

•  “When you ‘forgive’ a sin, there is no gain to you directly. You give charity to one unworthy, merely to point out that you are better, on a higher plain than he whom you forgive. He has not earned your charitable tolerance, which you bestow on one unworthy of the gift, because his sins have lowered him beneath a true equality with you. He has no claim on your forgiveness. It holds out a gift to him, but hardly to yourself.”

This says that if you believe a person is a sinner, you have not forgiven at all because you do not truly believe such an act is forgivable. Clearly, you do not think the punishment you received only seemed to happen in an illusion; on the contrary, you think it really happened, i.e., you have made it real. You believe yourself to be a victim!

•  “Thus is forgiveness basically unsound; a charitable whim, benevolent yet undeserved, a gift bestowed at times, at other times withheld. Unmerited, withholding it is just, nor is it fair that you should suffer when it is withheld. The sin that you forgive is not your own. Someone apart from you committed it. And if you then are gracious unto him by giving him what he does not deserve, the gift is no more yours than was his sin.”

This paragraph is saying that forgiving a sinner is not possible (for the ego), but in your piousness, you are going to make a “show to the world” by appearing to be forgiving.

•  “If this be true, forgiveness has no grounds on which to rest dependably and sure. It is an eccentricity, in which you sometimes choose to give indulgently an undeserved reprieve. Yet it remains your right to let the sinner not escape the justified repayment for his sin. Think you the Lord of Heaven would allow the world’s salvation to depend on this? Would not His care for you be small indeed, if your salvation rested on a whim?”

If you believe that you are not responsible for what happens to you, believing yourself to be a victim, then you end up believing that God is somehow to blame for your mishaps, and that God’s salvation is a myth.

•  “You do not understand forgiveness. As you see it, it is but a check upon overt attack, without requiring correction in your mind. It cannot give you peace as you perceive it. It is not a means for your release from what you see in someone other than yourself. It has no power to restore your unity with him to your awareness. It is not what God intended it to be for you.”

This is a summary of the previous 5 paragraphs.

•  “Not having given Him the gift He asks of you, you cannot recognize His gifts, and think He has not given them to you. Yet would He ask you for a gift unless it was for you? Could He be satisfied with empty gestures, and evaluate such petty gifts as worthy of His Son? Salvation is a better gift than this. And true forgiveness, as the means by which it is attained, must heal the mind that gives, for giving is receiving. What remains as unreceived has not been given, but what has been given must have been received.”

This is saying that God has asked you for the gift of forgiveness, i.e., He has given you the opportunity to awaken from the dream by forgiving your brother of his guilt, and yourself of your guilt.  As a Son of God, your awaking is based on giving and accepting these gifts, by seeing your brother as yourself. You will not be able to satisfy God with “empty” gestures and petty gifts, and your awaking is on hold until you give God the gift He has asked for:  truly and completely forgiving His Son (you and your brothers).

•  Sentence 1: “Today we try to understand the truth that giver and receiver are the same. You will need help to make this meaningful, because it is so alien to the thoughts to which you are accustomed.”

The rest of LESSON 126 gives you the help that the above paragraph refers to.

One more thought: When you forgive, you are forgiving a grievance. Grievances are based on your judgment of past events. When you have a grievance, you have judged your brother for something he did not do in the past. Now consider the following quote from the Course:

Chapter 3 THE INNOCENT PERCEPTION, section VI: Judgment and the Authority Problem, paragraph 3: “You have no idea of the tremendous release and deep peace that comes from meeting yourself and your brother totally without judgment.”

Now, more on how to forgive and how to speak to the Holy Spirit. Here are twelve steps on what you need to know, understand, and believe in order to be successful in forgiving and releasing guilt.

1. You really have to work on believing that you deserve to be guilt-free, blameless.

2. Accept that the world you are aware of right now is just a dream, a meaningless illusion. Nothing happens in a dream — it only seems to happen. Why should you feel guilty about non-events?

3. Most of what you know about sleeping dreams applies to the 24/7/365 dream of separation.

4. That means that when you wake up from the dream of separation, you can truthfully say it really did not happen, it was just a dream. Since nothing happens, you have nothing to feel guilty about. That is the way God sees it, and His opinion is the only one that counts.

5. Know that all of your “brothers” in the dream are faced with the same challenges that you are, i.e., not feeling they deserve to be released from guilt.

6. Forgiving means letting go of grievances. Grievances usually involve two or more people, one or more who appear to bring harm, and those who receive the harm. That being the case, forgiving usually has to involve two or more people, and it does not matter which side of the grievance you are on — the who was offended or the one who was the offender. Of course, if you hurt yourself, you have to forgive yourself for both!

7. Another way of looking at this picture is to say there is one whose guilt invited the hurt, and one who accepted the invitation to inflict the hurt. Both parties lose in this situation. The one who got hurt denies his involvement in issuing the invitation to be hurt, and thereby takes on more guilt; the other one feels guilty for doing the hurt. That’s why you have to forgive yourself and forgive the other person at the same time — otherwise it’s not an effective forgiveness. We are all dependent on each other to wake up from this horrible dream.

8. The Course states there is no hierarchy in illusions. That means that wiping out an entire city with an atomic bomb is no worse than kicking someone in the pants. If we are not imagining everything, this would be a terrible comparison — but if it is only happening in our imagination, what’s the difference?

9. As long as you see one other person as guilty, you are withholding forgiveness from them and yourself. Another way of saying it: if you see any other person as being guilty, you are stuck in the dream, making it real.  Also, if you tell someone, face to face, that you forgive them, then you have also made the dream real by alleging there was something to forgive.

10. It does help to identify each of the things you feel guilty about, and to forgive one after another after another.

11. It is important for you to see other people not as bodies but as other Sons of God, like you, who are just playing their roles in the dream, exactly as you have asked them to do. We are all just the Son of God playing all the different roles in the world of dreams.

12. Above all, do not feel guilty about feeling guilty. Just confess it to the Holy Spirit, laugh and go on. Speak to Holy Spirit out loud, or by silent prayer, by dialoging, or by whispering.

You will make it. God has told us that all of us are going to make it.

Remember you have two teachers, the ego and the Holy Spirit, both of whom are always ready to teach you. The ego is always intruding into your thoughts and does not wait for your invitation. The ego usually speaks first, but sometimes the Holy Spirit will speak without any input from the ego, if you have previously given Him permission to do so. But He does not intrude. The Holy Spirit has to be invited by you in order to communicate. And you do not need to be cool, calm, and collected to talk to the Holy Spirit. He wants you to share your anger, your frustration, your disappointments, and your addictions with Him in the “heat of the moment.” Of course, you can also talk to Him when you are cool, calm, and collected.

Also remember that the Holy Spirit and the ego are residing in your mind 24/7. They don’t need to be told what you are thinking about because they are always listening to your thoughts. This does not relieve you of the obligation to contact the Holy Spirit directly concerning forgiveness issues, or to request direction: “Holy Spirit, help me correct the thoughts or thinking errors that are limiting my progress toward awakening.” Or: “Holy Spirit, help me see (a currently troubling situation) through your eyes.” Or: Holy Spirit, may your words be mine when address my brothers.”

 No one has an easy time applying the Course. Without the Holy Spirit’s help, it would be impossible.