Lesson 336: “What is the ego?”  “Forgiveness lets me know minds are joined.”

This lesson says, “Forgiveness is the means appointed for perception’s ending.”

The Course teaches us that the ego’s world of time and form and perception will end when we no longer have use for it. 

We are embodied as humans temporarily because our ego’s perception is not a refection of the essence of our true nature- which is the Living Experience of God. 

We have bodies through which we perceive the world, but this is purely and exclusively for the purpose of getting us to remember that we never left God, and that our sinlessness is wholly intact. 

We are in the world just to get to God, and we use what we have in this incarnation to aid us in the one purpose we are all trying to accomplish- to remember that we are one with God.

The Course reminds us that our lives as humans are just for that one thing, and therefore, once we accomplish that, we can pack up our perception and leave it at God’s door, because God simply has no need for perception. 

God’s essence is solely of the experience of Knowledge.  

We are asked to hold our attachments to the world very lightly since all we are doing there will disappear whenever we are finished with our goal.

This is of no worry for us because we are guaranteed the amazing existence of being one with God.

This pales in comparison to anything else in the realm of perception, so it is not hard to convince ourselves to make the effort to make this happen.

We all want perception to end because it is always totally full of highs and lows and we experience intense challenges that are not pleasant.

We want to remember to recognize the nightmare as it is so that we are not attached to making it continue.  

The Course gives us the way out of our nightmares.  When we are in the world full of the ego’s perception, generally we are eager to get away from it because we see all the hardship within us and around us.

We have been given forgiveness, which is the one true way to turn around our ego’s nightmare of perception. 

Forgiving the nightmare means we bless it and send it on its way with gratitude for whatever it brings.

Then, suddenly our nightmares become amazing.

We bring love to them in the form of silent appreciation, or a simple accepting what is happening with a light heart instead of that dense attachment to misery in response.