I was being controlling. I did not want things to be the way they are. i wanted to stop them being the way they are and be different. I could not accept that this was okay or that it should be this way.

But I did not realize the effect that this control has on the world.

When I resist what's happening, I resist by attempting to control and reject what's going on. I try to shut it out, at the same time as trying to put into place some kind of 'alternative' that I think is better or more correct. So there I am in a state of strong rejection, and strong enforcement, simultaneously - which obviously is conflicting and therefore upsetting.

I did not realize that my attempt to resist and control was actually CAUSING the situation I was looking at, to appear to me in the way it was appearing.

The more I did not like what was happening, the more I tried to stop it and control it. But the more I did that, the more the situation seemed to get further from how I wanted it.

The more we control, the more we resist. So now that I am in resistance, that resistance only becomes stronger as I become more passionate about forcing things to be how I think they should be. In fact, it's really impossible for me to HAVE things the way I want them, because to make them be that way takes a tremendous amount of control and manipulation, which means I am in tremendous resistance, which means I am not in a state of acceptance.

There never will be a time when I can both be controlling and enforcing situations while also experiencing acceptance. So in effect, i will never be able to experience that the outcome I wanted has actually occurred and that I am at peace with it. Unless that is I became SO incredibly controlling that I violated boundaries and rights attempting to get others to change. Which would of course be completely inappropriate on many levels.

I did not know that trying to control a situation makes it worse, and takes it further from acceptability. How can anyone ever find the peace of acceptance through being controlling? Good luck.

The more I saw the situation is needing to be controlled because it was 'out of control' and unacceptable, the more the people involved seemed to become even more out of control and unacceptable. Funny that. They reacted to my controlling efforts with their own resistance against my attacks, so no wonder the scenario I was trying to get away from simply became more stuck and rigid. What you resist persists.

My strategy is now shifting. I need to learn to be accepting, not controlling. Allowing, not enforcing. Permitting, not resisting. And that means, or at least seems to mean to my ego, that I cannot have things the way I want them. Which to the ego, seems to suck, right?

My ego wants to have a world where I get to 'control' certain things, even if it's only in the scope of my 'own life' or my 'own body'. I still want to have that control over 'my' life. And so that really means, I am wanting to control MYSELF. How strange is that?

Control isn't the same as free will. And having no control does not mean you don't have freedom. In fact you have more freedom when you are not controlling. How's that for a paradox? Control takes away your freedom instead of giving it to you! Yet another way in which the ego says one thing and does the exact opposite.

So then, to my intellect, it doesn't understand how I can be accepting and uncontrolling and still be in any way 'happy' about what's going on, or how I can have any 'say' in what's going on. It doesn't understand how it's possible to accept what is, and yet have the freedom and power to do something to change something. It sees acceptance as the doorway to powerlessness, to no choice, to passivity and victimhood. Interesting how the ego sees it this way in order to avoid acceptance, because if you become really accepting you become empowered.

Acceptance without powerlessness or passivity. A novel concept.

Another ego trap with forgiveness is believing that you need to be at peace regardless of what's going on in life. While this might ultimately be the goal, meanwhile the things that happen in life are there because they are lessons.

They're not just happening at random. Each of us has a curriculum. That means, whatever point you are at right now in your spiritual path, which is extremely unique to you, and whatever you are experiencing now, there are certain things you are going to have to learn or discover in order to move forward.

And the way that you learn those things is that you have learning experiences, ie lessons. And usually these lessons are things that you seem to NOT WANT. And so a great big steaming SHIT comes along in your life and dumps itself on your foot and you just go about trying to shake it off, but it's really trying to help you wake up.

There is something involved in your interaction with the shit and how you deal with it and look at it and experience it, which is going to bring stuff up for you, trigger you, and cause you to have certain kinds of perceptions and thoughts and ideas. And you might not have had those if it were not for this stimuli. But before you just try to get rid of the shit for coming along to disturb you, realize that this is actually an opportunity to grow and heal and become more awake spiritually.

So you don't necessarily want to be in the business of making life SEEM to be like it doesn't have anything upsetting happening, or that it's just one big smooth ride, because that can be a form of denial, avoidance, and disassociation. And it can keep you stuck. Not saying you have to suffer willingly, but willingly is better than unwillingly, lol

Anyway... so ... forgiveness isn't about avoiding bad stuff. And it isn't just about transcending it and being at peace about it. The bad stuff is there FOR A REASON, because its a lesson in the curriculum, and you not only need it but have asked for it. And that's why it's come. Because you are ready for it. And now you need to learn a lesson from it. And if you don't learn it this time, it will come back again. You don't have a choice in that.

Be aware that the ego, especially the persona part of the ego, wants to get rid of all bad stuff and create an ILLUSION OF BLISS, which really plays into the idea that "ignorance is bliss", because in ignorance ie unconsciousness, you think you don't have any issues because you're in incredible denial. You don't want that. You don't really want a life of total ease and an easy ride, at least not until you genuinely have woken up all the way and don't have any curriculum left. Then it's truly plain sailing.

So 'doing forgiveness' should not be about making bad stuff go away, even though that's what most of us use it for most of the time. It's really to help you learn lessons and to undo what you have taught yourself already, which is mistaken. It is unlearning, which is how lessons are completed - the question is unlearned to reveal the answer. There was no problem until the answer became obscured by the separation, see.

You can be completely sure, or at least convinced that you are, that something is true or 'the case', and still be mistaken.

You can be totally adamant that you're right about this, and still not be right about it.

You can be convinced that what you believe is absolutely THE truth and everyone else is stupid and wrong, and still be believing something that isn't true.

You can even have insanity and be convinced that you're sane and not even suspect that you aren't.

You can trust your senses and believe what your eyes are showing you and still be mistaken about what's happening.

You can have reactions that you think are normal and natural and objective and still be totally out of touch with reality.

You can have circumstantial evidence that seems to all point toward something being true as if it's really clear convincing proof of it, and it still be a completely false conclusion.

You can think you did something or learned something already and it doesn't need to be learned and yet still fall short of knowing how to do it.

You can be sure you've fully dealt with a past hurt or a complaint or a grievance or an old hatred and have let it go and still have a shitload of release work to do (lol, story of my life).

You can be totally sure that your faculties are telling you the truth, that your mind is capable of discerning what something is or isn't, and that you are being totally objective about it, and still be subjectively hallucinating.

You can trust your ego as if you believe it is really your friend and is on your side and is helping you and protecting you and all the while being deceived and led down a dark path by it.

You can be really convinced that getting something that you're missing is going to solve your life and fix your lack and still totally feel empty and hopeless when you get it.

You can think you know what things are for or why they're happening or what the purpose is or why someone is doing something and still be totally clueless as to what the real plan is.

You can think you know what's best for other people and how they need to be fixed or helped and what their problem is and still be projecting all your own problems and unconsciousness and not even recognize it.

You can also believe you know who you are already, and think you are awake, while all the while being asleep and unaware of your real self, convinced that you are some other identity.

You might also have conviction that you really are a body or that you can die and that you're not as God created you, and still not realize that this isn't true and that you are immortal spirit.

The ego's mistakes and deceit and denials and illusions go on and on and on, always convinced of its own prowess and ability to discern the truth, or that it is actually aware of 'what is', and all the while living in a private fantasy world of insanity where nothing is true at all.

A little willingness is needed to consider that you might be mistaken or that there is more going on here than you are aware of.

"Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in this view are all your sins forgiven."

"He who would not forgive must judge, for he must justify his failure to forgive."

Being forgiving isn't a state of "doing something", it's more like an attitude. You just have a forgiving attitude, ie you aren't condemning people, you don't judge, you don't attack. You welcome people regardless of what they seem to do.

When you stop being forgiving, you become "unforgiving", relentless, attacking, judgemental. When this has occurred, you've made an error and are attempting to find reasons why you cannot be forgiving, to justify the attack. This now requires some kind of "correction" so that you can ultimately return to the state of being forgiving all the time.

The correction for unforgiveness is of course forgiveness but being a state, it's the end result of whatever corrective, healing measures are needed to return there.

You need to find a way to restore your perception to truth in which you can see and recognize, there is no sin at all, sin isn't real, and there is nothing TO forgive. Then you're done with the correction, and have returned to BEING permanently forgiving.

"Forgiveness looks and waits and judges not" because it simply is a state of true perception, in which the truth is known to be true and nothing false is believed. Sin is not believed at all. In fact as Jesus says forgiveness and salvation and atonement are all words for the SAME THING. Forgiveness IS the atonement state.

What you do when you try to correct unforgiveness, is you're attempting to return to the atonement. To overlook the things you thought were true and real, and realize they are not. That effort "towards" awakening, is an effort to become more forgiving. You don't stop being forgiving, in attitude, just because there is nothing to forgive.

To forgive means to fore-give, to give ahead of time, so that through giving love you do not MAKE errors of judgement that have to then be cleaned up. If you make errors as a result of becoming unforgiving then now you have the task of having to "do forgiveness" or at least to do something, in order to try to get OUT of the unforgiving state into a forgiving state.

God IS forgiving, because otherwise we have to say he is unforgiving. But in this forgiveness, he KNOWS there is literally nothing TO forgive. Just as we're told that the Holy Spirit looks past error from the beginning so that errors are not made in the first place. The Holy Spirit is permanently forgiving as well. But being forgiving and "having something that has to be undone", are two different situations.

True forgiveness IS the atonement, it is the recognition that there is no sin, nothing has happened, and therefore "I need do nothing" because nothing has gone wrong. "Practicing" or "applying" forgiveness is more to do with the process of purification, in which you're attempting to become clearer about what is true and what is false, so that you can come to remember how to be forgiving and wake up to your permanently forgiving (non-attacking, non-judging) nature.

In the Course, Jesus talks about zombies!!

He says, "let the dead bury the dead".

People in the world in bodies are pretty much the "living dead". Also...

"Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from heaven, on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die."

"Here the deathless come to die, the all-encompassing to suffer loss, the timeless to be made the slaves of time. Here does the changeless change; the peace of God, forever given to all living things, give way to chaos. And the Son of God, as perfect, sinless and as loving as his Father, come to hate a little while; to suffer pain and finally to die."

Being in a body at all, unless your mind is awake and you're about to get outta here, is a state of death. We might think that the physical world is "life", but it's really death. Or at the very least, it is stages of death and preparation for death.

Those whose mind is not with Heaven have chosen to believe in death to some degree, and therefore are identifying themselves as something which is made of death - the ego's idea of living.

This is why all objects and materials and plants and animals and humans and planets and stars all "die" in this universe, because they're already dying because they are FUNDEMANTALLY made of death (separation).

Physical birth IS actually the beginning of DEATH and is NOT the beginning of life. What changes is not alive and cannot be life at all.

So all those people out there, as bodies, and maybe "you" as a body also, are zombies. The living dead.

This is why RESURRECTION makes sense as a RETURN to life. The final resurrection is the complete exit from the "dream of death" (by TRUTH not death), but along the way as you are awakening to truth you are also COMING BACK TO LIFE.

This is why "raising the dead" is not just a matter of restoring life to what seems to be a corpse, which IS entirely possible, but it ALSO means the raising of all those who are in the process of dying, who are unconsciously dreaming, who identify themselves with "things that die", and who are not really fully alive.

Life is ONLY eternal life. Life is not partial living or partial death or fluctuations in-between. God is life and is the giver of life. Not physical forms, but life as Immortal Spirit. The Christ. Son of God. Your Real Self. That is living with God in the living Heaven. This world is not that, although it may come to REFLECT a vision of heaven prior to returning TO heaven.

Resurrection is the raising of the dead back to eternal life and the complete exiting of identification with or limitation by anything which is not of God - i.e. any kind of body. This applies to "dead bodies" as much as it applies to "living bodies", ALL of which are dead.

Life is forever.

If it were true that the dead could not be raised, this would HAVE to mean that those who have gone into unconsciousness and separation and denial and are therefore choosing death, could not be recovered. Those who have fallen asleep into a dream world could not be saved. And those who are the "living dead" walking around believing they are ACIM students could not possibly INCREASE their aliveness.

If it is true that you CAN resurrect, that you CAN awaken from this deadly dream, and that you CAN return to Life, then one way or another, death MUST be reversible. Each time you forgive and claim the atonement, you ARE returning to life and ARE RESURRECTING.

Either resurrection is possible and permanent, or death is possible and permanent. Either death has power over God's Son, or there is potential for God's Son to return to life.

Failing to believe that raising the dead is POSSIBLE, MUST be a belief that resurrection is IMPOSSIBLE. And if you do not believe in resurrection, you do not believe in forgiveness or the undoing of the ego. If you are an ACIM student, you SHOULD believe that raising the dead is entirely possible, otherwise there is no hope for you to return to God.

Only Eternal Life with God is reality.

For something to be special it has to have a value that is different to the value of something else. We give it its value by taking away value from something else.

So if I have an apple and an orange, which are essentially equal, and I say, well, I like apples more than oranges, I have to 'demote' the orange and withdraw some of its value and give it to the apple. Now I have a sense that the apple is more important or 'special' than the orange.

What this does, is it makes me have a 'special love' relationship with the apple, and a 'special hate' relationship with the orange. I've also turned the apple into an idol, and the orange into an enemy.

The Course also talks about how we use special love to cover up special hate. The ego has made a world from separation and has made everything in the world be separate. This is based on hate. It is an attack on God. However, the ego then comes along and tries to 'cover up' and deny this hate by creating the illusion that things are somehow joined. It does this by the illusion of 'sameness', things being similar, of like mind, or having minimal conflict.

Minimally conflicting individuals end up as 'friends and allies'. And as the Course says, these allegiances are formed because two people temporarily agree to be against something else. Thus their allegiance still 'includes' an idea of attack and rejection, because it can't exist unless 'everyone else' is not like them. Thus the friends become special and have a special love relationship. But this special love is at best temporary, and covers up the foundation of the relationship which is hate. Separation from others. Isolation. Exclusivity. And so if something takes away that veneer of special love, it 'reveals' the hate beneath it and the claws come out.

While we attempt to make certain parts of the world more important or valuable than others, we make them special. This is our attempt to 'spiritualize' the dream. We attempt to make some parts more spiritual than others, so that at least some of the parts seem sacred, spiritual, holy, valuable, rather than it all being equal and neutral. In this way the ego holds onto these parts of the dream to make it real and to be attracted to it. And of course, to be attracted to one part of the dream requires the formation of a 'shadow' attitude which is against other parts.

So for example, to me, Apple Mac computers are more special than Windows PC's. Green grass is more special than brown. Summer days are more special than winter. Certain TV shows are more special than others. The olympics are more special than regular team sports. And raspberry-anything is more special than most other flavors. These are things I've made special, at the expense of other things being despised and disliked.

This is where the Holy Relationship comes in. With a goal of true holiness, we recognize that instead of depending on another separate thing to 'get' what we lack, or to reinforce our own self-specialness, we instead become wholly dependent on God. It is now God who created us, not our parents. God now also created our children, and he is responsible for them, not us. This of course dissolves all family structures. Absolute equality is the only family - God's family. Equality dissolves specialness and sees everything with unconditional love.

You can still be having your relationships and your favorite foods and whatever, but eventually we will let Holy Spirit choose everything for us and we will live in freedom. We may well remain with those we had special love with and no longer see them with specialness. But this doesn't mean we don't love them. It means we love them even MORE. We love them with an unconditional, ego-free love. One where being together is voluntary and not forced, or maintained out of guilt. But not until we are truly ready to accept this. It can't be forced while we still value specialness or we will experience sacrifice and loss.

You can still be in a one-to-one parternship all the way to waking up. Just look at Jesus and Mary as an example.

"I came to tell them that death is an illusion, and the mind that made the body can make another since form itself is an illusion."

Let's say the body is nothing more than an 3D IMAGE which the mind is projecting outward to make "visible." Like a movie projector. The image is shining outward and only shows up while the mind is projecting it.

Now.

Is the image alive?

Would you feed an image? Does it need water?

Would you try to protect an image from the weather?

Would an image be able to age or grow old or die?

Would you be able to attack an image?

Could an image become corrupted or broken or damaged?

Would an image be subject to laws of physics like gravity?

Is there any causal power in all the universe that could do anything to change that image?

If it's just an image, and if the mind is making it appear, and nothing you can do can affect the MIND ie you can't stop the movie projector from projecting, then surely the image of the body is absolutely unchangeable if the mind decides that this be so? And no matter what seems to happen, nothing affects the image because it only comes from the mind? Even if there's a nuclear explosion nearby, the next "frame" of the movie is simply projected in the next instant making the body seem totally unaffected?

The body is just an illusion. It is an image being projected by the mind. It has no real purpose, substance, reality, live, will, mind, causality, nothing. It's just an image. A hologram.

The last time you watched a movie, for the second time, did you get a different movie? Did the movie "age" and become sick? Did the movie need feeding? Or did you see the exact same movie? Because the SOURCE of the movie did not change the OUTPUT, right?

If you do not attack the image with your mind, and you do not make the image BE an image of sickness or death, is it possible for the image to be anything other than what you choose to project?

When you believe or think that the image you are projecting IS WHO YOU ARE, that it is your identity, that is when you have moved into the ego and are now confused and lost. It is in this identification with the image that you lose sight of your true self, become deluded and self-deceiving, and don't realize that nothing can affect YOU who are not a body, and start to fear that the body AS YOU is vulnerable. Yet the only thing that CHANGES the body is your mind - this is the secret of salvation - you do it all to yourself.

What you use the body for it becomes. Let's frame it differently. What intent you have behind projecting a body, determines what kind of body you project. If you want to attack, you create an image of an body with "attack in it", and this attack shows up as a different appearance than if you made a body just to communicate love.

When the body is ONLY showing a representation of Christ/love, it does not show up with any self-made attack or intentions or harm. Then the body seems "lovely", as Jesus refers to it. At least while it is useful to keep showing one. And when you are doing pretending to be a body, you will just stop projecting it, and it will disappear.

When the mind has become fully spirit identified and free from believing it is a body, it is now free from the delusion of form or separation, and yet CAN STILL project a body if it wants to. This is what Jesus demonstrated when he reappeared a body. "The mind that made the body can make another." Yet in the making of it, he is not deceived by it. This is also why you can still call upon the "image" of those who have gone beyond the body. The body simply becomes "optional", and unnecessary, except for teaching purposes.

Each thought system starts with a logical premise, which determines everything that comes from it, which are perfectly logical conclusions. This is true of both God’s creation and the EGO’s world, which are logical outcomes.

The separation from God followed NEAT, LOGICAL steps. The thought system of the ego is run by impeccable logic, just as God’s thought system is. The outcome of each system depends entirely on its logical premise. At the CORE of A Course in Miracle’s metaphysics is PURE LOGIC.

If you can understand the logical premise of each system, and if you can follow the progression of logical conclusions based on that premise - which is IMPECCABLE LOGICAL REASONING, you will correctly understand ALL of the metaphysics of the course. Where everything fits. The TRUTH about the entire separation from God, states of awareness, what is true and false, what is real or unreal, who created what, how the systems MUST function etc.

It is all TOTALLY LOGICAL. If you struggle with logical reasoning you may have difficulty SEEING the logic or following it.

This literally means, that states of mind, states of separation, the making of the body and the world, all of the mechanics of special relationships, sin and death, the nature of the physical universe and its laws, ALL OF IT, is a LOGICAL CONCLUSION. Correctly discerning what the logic IS, HOW it progressed, and WHY that makes SENSE, is the key to accessing the core metaphysics in the course. Once you do this, you can refer to this metaphysics as a cheat-sheet, a reference to TELL YOU, what ANY statement in the course MUST MEAN, where it fits, and what JESUS MEANS. GUARANTEED.

"T-23.II.21. From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. 2 It is because it follows that it seems to be a LOGICAL CONCLUSION; a valid STEP IN ORDERED THOUGHT. 3 The steps to chaos DO FOLLOW NEATLY from their starting point. 4 Each is a different form in the PROGRESSION of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth. 5 Think not one STEP is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. 6 The WHOLE DESCENT FROM HEAVEN LIES IN EACH ONE. 7 And WHERE YOUR THINKING STARTS, THERE MUST IT END."

"The ego's LOGIC is as IMPECCABLE as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"The Holy Spirit USES LOGIC as easily and as well AS DOES THE EGO, except that His CONCLUSIONS are not insane. 5 They take a direction EXACTLY OPPOSITE, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. 6 WE HAVE FOLLOWED MUCH OF THE EGO’S LOGIC, and have SEEN ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS. 7 And having seen them, we have realized that they cannot be seen except in illusions, for there alone their seeming CLEARNESS seems to be clearly seen. 8 Let us now turn away from them, and follow the SIMPLE LOGIC BY WHICH THE HOLY SPIRIT TEACHES the SIMPLE CONCLUSIONS that speak for truth, and only truth."

"The Kingdom is the RESULT OF PREMISES, JUST AS THIS WORLD IS. 2 You may have carried THE EGO’S REASONING TO ITS LOGICAL CONCLUSION, which is total confusion about everything. 3 If you really saw this RESULT you could not want it. 4 The only reason you could possibly want any part of it is because you do not see the whole of it. 5 You are willing to look at the ego's PREMISES, but not at THEIR LOGICAL OUTCOME. 6 Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? 7 YOUR CREATIONS ARE THE LOGICAL OUTCOME OF HIS PREMISES. 8 His THINKING has established them for you. 9 They are exactly where they belong. 10 They belong in your mind as part of your identification with His, but your state of mind and your recognition of what is in it depend on what you believe about your mind. 11 Whatever these beliefs may be, they are the PREMISES that will determine what you accept into your mind."

"Look calmly at the LOGICAL CONCLUSION of the ego's thought system and judge whether its offering is really what you want, for this is what it offers you. 2 To obtain this you are willing to attack the Divinity of your brothers, and thus lose sight of yours. 3 And you are willing to keep it hidden, to protect an idol you think will save you from the dangers for which it stands, but which do not exist."

"In one sense the ego's fear of God IS AT LEAST LOGICAL, since the idea of Him does dispel the ego."

Doing unto others as you would have them do unto you, isn't really optional. It's not something you can choose not to do, and it isn't something to aspire to. But that's how it's often viewed.

There is a metaphysical truth that, at the very least, other people ARE you, so how you are treating them you are treating yourself directly. But I think this leaves open room for error because there are some other parts to this that you may not realize.

First of all, you can only share love. Love IS sharing. It means joining and communing and being equal and being ONE. This is the underlying truth on which this idea is based. You CAN only share love. So this really means, you CAN only "do love" to others, you cannot actually really do anything else to others.

So when it comes to "how should I treat other people", the ONLY option that you can REALLY pursue is to love them. Love will be extended and shared to and with them. If your attitude is NOT love, IT WILL NOT BE SHARED.

So that means you CANNOT do unto others anything other than love.

There is also more to this.

Your mind, when you are believing that YOU are sinful, will become a split mind. It's a mind that believes separation has really happened. And this separation has happened INSIDE YOURSELF. Your own mind has become split. Part of this split will entail that a portion of mind remain in your awareness - conscious awareness - and a portion will be sectioned off and repressed as a place to shove your unconscious guilt. But the splitting off of that second part of mind (which produces a shadow, at war with your conscious persona), is now experienced as "not myself"

And so then you are in a state of disassociation from your whole self. The part of YOU that you think is not you, which you are trying to get rid of like crazy, you will believe you are separate from it - that it's not you. And so when some person comes along you will see them as "not you" also, and will then see IN them your own "not you" part of your own mind. You will relate to your own "not you" mind as though it belongs them them, since it doesn't belong to you. And you will attack that part.

So now you think you are "doing ego" to someone else. That you are treating them with less than love. And that means it now seems optional as to how you treat others. But really you are not even doing anything to them at all. If they were awake they'd know this. You are just attacking your own self indirectly. So you're not ACTUALLY doing anything to others, if it's coming from your ego. You literally ARE only attacking yourself.

So now we have this situation.... either you love both yourself and others, or you go into a private world where you are attacking yourself, but believing everyone else is involved. Nobody else is involved AT ALL.

Thus it's not really a case of having to then figure out how to "do unto others" in a better way. You're NOT doing unto others. The only thing you CAN share with them is LOVE. If you are not in love with yourself, you will do nothing "to" them at all, because unlove is a WITHDRAWAL from sharing.

So now we shift from trying to "do unto others as you'd have them do unto you", to something more like "do unto YOURSELF as you would have YOUR TRUE SELF do unto YOU."

Translated, that means learning to undo your own belief that YOU are sinful, which will result in you becoming aware that you LOVE yourself. You WILL then be able to extend this love to others. So learn to do unto yourself what GOD would do unto you, which is to recognize you are worthy, forgiven and innocent forever. That should be your aim, and don't be so concerned that you even CAN do anything to anyone else.

It's not because of some kind of guilt-ridden ambition to be nice to other people that you're doing this. Since you can't do unto others unless it IS love, you can forget about believing that you're mistreating people. You are only capable of mistreating yourself.

You know sometimes when you're doing something on a computer and there's a progress bar, and sometimes there are actually two progress bars - overall progress and the progress of one of many smaller tasks? Well I think it's kind of like that with forgiveness too.

There is an overall progress which slowly evolves along similar steps to how each individual forgiveness progresses, but it goes a lot slower. This means that in general, you will start out really strongly believing that forgiveness has something to do with other people, that it's their fault, that you have to forgive them in some way.

Then gradually you will pull away from that and start to realize that it's not really about other people, it's about you. Each time something happens, over time you are a little less convinced that you're starting out with someone else being the problem. So you sort of start a little further along the process.

Each time you do a small forgiveness, each time you tackle some individual issue, and you take it all the way to it being forgiven, you are sort of practicing. You wear away at the rock of sin. And then you do another one, and another one.

What I've seen is that as a result of all these practices, all these forgiveness of individual events and people and situations, in the big long-term picture my mind seems to be gradually moving its 'starting position' away from others and more toward myself.

Instead of falling for some of the more obvious ego traps that convince and tempt me to believe that it's all someone else's fault, there's been a progression where I at least don't fall for those basic starting illusions as easily. I start my forgivenesses a bit further along the process.

Lately I've been encroaching more closely on the idea that forgiveness has nothing at all to do with other people. Instead I'm seeing that there is stuff going on in my own mind, a conflict between two parts of my own split mind, and that I play both the role of victim and victimizer. Whatever way I am using my mind to judge or attack others, I see that this is just my own mind content playing out, there's activity in my own mind about myself, and I'm doing this to myself. I am sort of learning that I can completely ignore any suggestion that this upset has anything to do with other people.

So I think gradually we erode this overall attitude of unforgiveness, we gradually chop down trees and the forest starts to clear. We keep winning little battles and gradually we're winning the war, so to speak. I am much quicker now to recognize that my issues have nothing to do with other people, and can quickly jump over the whole emotional drama tangle of "they are doing this to me", "I'm a victim of them", "I don't want this etc". I've had to take that illusion, that perceptual fault, so many times that I guess I've learned, overall, or have become able to generalize that learning, so that I just kind of 'know it' now.

I think this is really how things progress. I can well imagine that as time continues to unfold I will just keep having fewer reactions, less belief in victimhood, less fear, that I will fall for illusions less, that I will inevitably gradually be sustaining a certain level of 'awareness' and 'wakefulness' which acts as the starting point for any further corrections that are needed.

We wake up gradually. We make progress. And once we've done enough of the undoing of the grosser, more ego-extreme aspects of our mistaken perceptions, we will learn and won't be so easily fooled by them. Then it will come down to the subtler aspects of what's happening, what I'm doing to myself, how my mind is functioning, as we gradually 'home in' on revealing to our awareness what the simple truth really is about us.

And someday we'll realize, there is nothing left to forgive, and forgiveness isn't even needed, because now we are in a permanently forgiving attitude with Holy Spirit that shows us a forgiven world all the time. Ultimately there is nothing to forgive when you get to that point because you're seeing clearly, and really you were only ever forgiving your mistaken belief that there was something wrong that needed to be undone. Nothing has really happened. We're all doing fine. Congratulations on your progress.