Let us review the meaning of “forgive,” for it is apt to be distorted
and to be perceived as something which entails an unfair sacrifice of
righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete
denial of the truth. In such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere
eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation on a whim.
This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected when you
can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must
be limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except
illusions. Truth is God’s creation, and to pardon this is meaningless.
All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. Does
this need pardon? How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?
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.
Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception.
For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness
is a lie. Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest. It
says the truth is false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as
blameless as the grass; as white as snow. It is delusional in what it
thinks it can accomplish. It would see as right the plainly wrong; the
loathsome as the good.
Pardon is no escape in such a view. It merely is a further sign that sin
is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied, or called another
name, for pardon is a treachery to truth. Guilt can not be forgiven. If
you sin, your guilt is everlasting. Those who are forgiven from the view
their sins are real are pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first by
themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who
pardon them.
It is sin’s unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a
deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is
received. It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly,
with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And
there they disappear entirely.
Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of
the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks right through the
thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies but it is not
deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with
guilt. It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, “My
brother, what you think is not the truth.”
The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it
sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it
becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies, the great restorer of the
simple truth. By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up
the way to truth, which had been blocked by dreams of guilt.
Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to
you. For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open
to yourself. There is a very simple way to find the door to true
forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you
are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind
to dwell on what you think he did, for this is self-deception. Ask
instead, “Should I accuse myself of doing this?”
Thus will you see alternatives for choice in terms which render choosing
meaningful, and keep your mind as free of guilt and pain as God Himself
intended it to be, and as it is in truth. It is but lies which would
condemn. In truth is innocence the only thing there is. Forgiveness
stands between illusions and the truth, between the world you see and
that which lies beyond, between the hell of guilt and Heaven’s gate.
Across this bridge, as powerful as Love Which laid Its blessing on it,
are all dreams of evil and of hatred and attack brought silently to
truth. They are not kept to swell and bluster, and to terrify the foolish
dreamer who believes in them. He has been gently wakened from his dream
by understanding what he thought he saw was never there. And now he
cannot feel that all escape has been denied to him.
He does not have to fight to save himself. He does not have to
kill the dragons which he thought pursued him. Nor need he erect the
heavy walls of stone and iron doors he thought would make him safe. He
can remove the ponderous and useless armor made to chain his mind to
fear and misery. His step is light, and as he lifts his foot to stride
ahead, a star is left behind to point the way to those who follow him.
Forgiveness must be practiced for the world cannot perceive its meaning,
nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. There is no thought in
all the world which leads to any understanding of the laws it follows,
nor the Thought which it reflects. It is as alien to the world as is
your own reality. And yet it joins your mind with the reality in you.
Today we practice true forgiveness that the time of joining be no more
delayed. For we would meet with our Reality in freedom and in peace. Our
practicing becomes the footsteps lightening up the way for all our
brothers, who will follow us to the Reality we share with them.
That this may be accomplished, let us give a quarter of an hour twice
today, and spend it with the Guide Who understands the meaning of
forgiveness, and was sent to us to teach it. Let us ask of Him:
“Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.”
Then choose one brother as He will direct, and catalogue his “sins,” as
one by one they cross your mind. Be certain not to dwell on any one of
them, but realize that you are using his “offenses” but to save the
world from all ideas of sin. Briefly consider all the evil things you
thought of him, and each time ask yourself “Would I condemn myself for
doing this?”
Let him be freed from all the thoughts you had of sin in him. And now
you are prepared for freedom. If you have been practicing thus far in
willingness and honesty, you will begin to sense a lifting up, a
lightening of weight across your chest, a deep and certain feeling of
relief. The time remaining should be given to experiencing the escape
from all the heavy chains you sought to lay upon your brother, which
were laid upon yourself.
Forgiveness should be practiced through the day, for there will be so
many times when you forget its meaning, and attack yourself. When this
occurs, allow your mind to see through this illusion as you
tell yourself:
“Let me perceive forgiveness as it is.
Should I accuse myself of doing this?
I will not lay this chain upon myself.”
In everything you do remember this:
“No-one is crucified alone, and yet
No-one can enter Heaven by himself.”