Lesson 247: “What is the world?”  “Without forgiveness, I will still be blind.”

This lesson says, “Sin is the symbol of attack.”  

Attack is part of the ego’s foundation. The ego likes to translate attack into the idea of sin, and make it something we can’t escape.

Sin is the condition we translate attack into the world.  Attack is inherent in all of our beliefs of sin.

The Course reminds us that when we behold sin anywhere, we necessarily will be miserable. 

We are asked to relinquish our attachment on attack within our minds and our projecting this outward.  

This is necessarily the essence of our misery when we are dedicated to seeing attack anywhere.

We are asked to realize how much we are affected by our attack thoughts.  When we see them anywhere, they disturb us.  We have no way around this because it is always so.  We are asked to understand that they cause ripples in that placid water of our peace.

Therefore, it matters if we are not certain to release those attack thoughts we harbor within.

The Course says that forgiveness is the very first thing to do in our line of fire. 

We are asked to make forgiveness the one tactic we turn to, to make that difference in our peace of mind.

Forgiveness is the only thing that truly works. Further, it is the only given form of love God gives us to ease our attachment to the attack thoughts we harbor about other people.

God gives us forgiveness, which the Course says is still illusion, because we all find the world we live in is illusory. 

It is in time, and therefore, is not strictly from God because God is in the state of knowledge as well as simply Being in the eternal.

But God gives us forgiveness as the best illusion that there is. 

It is the only illusion that doesn’t lead to more illusion.  The ego and the world simply perpetuate themselves and their energy.  And forgiveness is not God technically in the world.  The world is only a small moment in God’s eternity.  This is why forgiveness is not God’s.

However, God gives us this one illusion that sets us free. 

Forgiveness is still only not of God because it is a human dynamic and emotion.

Forgiveness, is different because it allows us to get as close to God as possible as we can while we are in the human condition.

Forgiveness is the energy and feeling that is of God in the world’s circumstances.  Therefore, if we apply forgiveness to the world, then we feel God’s energy.  Forgiveness allows us to get to Heaven’s Gate. Then from there, we must rely on God to retrieve us which He gladly will because God misses us and loves us.

We are asked to hold forgiveness as this amazing thing we can apply to everything that allows us to feel happy and light and easy about whatever we are forgiving. 

Forgiveness is the feeling we are meant to apply to everything.

We want to hold no reservation about forgiveness because it always works. 

Forgiveness is the knowing that we are willing to hold space energetically in a situation to allow God to get into the scenario.

If someone is upset and cranky, we forgive this situation and we forgive ourselves for the role we play and we forgive the other person. 

Then God will intercede where we would otherwise be stuck and unable to move forward.  This is why forgiveness always works.

It also comes from a compassionate heart and a willingness to surrender whatever control the ego may have about what the ego wants the outcome to be. 

Forgiveness gives the situation to God.  Then we feel grateful for this knowing that God is the one we turn to when we are otherwise at a loss for how to proceed.