With regards to your ego and the ego of your brother, everything about it is self inflicted and separate. What is in your ego is not in your brother's ego. They are two separate, private worlds. They do not connect or join or communicate or share.
Everything happening within your own ego is not happening because of or in connection with or caused by what's happening in someone else's ego. It's all happening entirely independently.
Therefore, where the ego is concerned, you need to be completely responsible for the self-contained world that your ego lives in, which is a closed world, closed to your brother. Everything about it, all of the ego experiences, feelings, reactions, perceptions, are all entirely within yourself and are yours. Own them.
You need to disconnect your ego from the egos of other people. You need to realize that two egos do not communicate. You need to realize that what another person's ego is doing (anything unloving) is not in any way shape or form a cause of anything happening in your own ego. And vice versa. You are not doing anything to their ego and their ego is not doing anything to you. Egos are separate. Egos are individuals.
However, there is something that you do share with your brother. The only thing you can share with your brother, is sharing itself. Sharing means love, joining, communication, openness, equality, freedom, truth. These things, you DO share with your brother. These things, happen to both of you at the same time. These things are mutual, shared interests. These things connect you to your brother and join you together.
So be clear about this. The parts of your experience that are ego, you need to become very clear that these are SEPARATE from your brother and have nothing to do with him. They are your own private hallucinatory world. Nothing goes outside of this world. Ideas leave not their source. Your brother's ego ideas do not leave your brother either. Neither of you causes anything in each other through the ego. Your egos are completely separate and disconnected. All they can do is make noises and postulate before each other, but it is up to each person to decide whether to use their ego or Holy Spirit in perceiving the activities of another.
If it's ego, its yours. If it's love, it's shared. Never do egos really communicate and never do egos really cause things to happen to each other. The idea of attack is entirely an illusion because attack is withdrawal into a private world. Nothing any ego says is ever about you. Nothing your ego says is ever about anyone else.
Only in the holy relationship is there any real sharing or real communication or real relationship because it is a relationship based in reality. Ego relationships are not relationships at all.
The ego thrives on two sides of a coin: desire and fear.
Desire is its attempt to "get", which really means to steal from another and deprive them of it.
Fear is its attempt to "not get" or to "get rid of", which means to be stolen from and deprived.
These are the two sides of the same horizontal axis in which some finite amount of something is transferred to or from another, to or from the separate self.
Fear is actually a form of attack which is an attempt to murder, and an attempt to "make it go away", or a rejection of something - typically to get rid of "only what is negative".
Greed, shall we say, is more a form of selfishness and an attempt to be given "only what is positive".
So the ego is always trying to get rid of/kill what it perceives as negative, through fear, and to get more of what it regards as positive through possession or attachment.
Everyone always tries to get rid of what they consider "false", while trying to get more of what they consider "true", whether it be on the level of spirit/reality or in illusions. The ego and the soul both want what they consider to be true, and what is true is always valuable.
However, attachment through getting, also leads to the potential for loss, because you can only seem to lose what you seem to have stolen. Believing it can be stolen from another is to believe it can be stolen from you.
And similarly fear can attract to you what you do not what, in the same vein as "what you resist persists". Fearing makes it real and, while saying you do not want it, is a choice to have more of it.
So in effect the ego attacks itself by making itself be threatened by the very things it says it does not want, so that they haunt it and pursue it relentlessly. Which is why fear also entails a sort of running away and being chased (especially in dreams).
And then on the flipside the ego causes itself to lose the very things it cherishes by trying to stop them leaving, which is a kind of push/pull energy that forces them away.
In other words, attraction and repulsion are the same thing. Since the ego also fears what it thinks it wants, this prevents it from gaining it, and so deprives itself.
What you try gain you lose. What you fear comes to you. Success is failure. Failure is success. Attachment becomes loss. Gain becomes the fear of loss. Loss becomes deprivation which inspires lack and wanting, which leads to trying to get, etc. The metaphysics/dynamics/logic here is quite interesting.
And on it goes, feeding upon its own madness.
"Depression is an inevitable consequence of separation. So are anxiety, worry, a deep sense of helplessness, misery, suffering, and intense fear of loss." UrW41L1
Jesus speaks of how we believe that "darkness can hide".
"Darkness" is the idea that there can be 'diminished light', or indeed 'no light'.
"Light" is the light of awareness. God is light. Your True Self is light.
So in order to seemingly block or shut out the light, which is what takes place in 'the separation'/original sin, there has to be some kind of belief that darkness can actually have some kind of power over light - that it can cause light to go away.
This is actually a completely insane belief because it makes absolutely no sense. We know that light dispels darkness. Light shines away the darkness. When there is enough light there aren't even any shadows. Where does the darkness of night go when the sun comes up? It is shone away and does not exist.
But what the ego is saying is, that darkness actually has a 'power' or some kind of way in which it can actually defend itself against the light, stop light from shining, make light go away, cover up light, and in fact actually 'drain' light to the point of destroying light, so that there is no light left. This is the ego's insane idea which comes from the idea of separation from God.
All of the ego's entire thought system, all of its 'world', all of the separation and everything in it, arises from this idea of being able to somehow block God's unlimited, unblockable light.
So what we end up with then, is this strong belief that somehow, darkness is CAPABLE of concealing the light, preventing the light, even removing the light. And this is very frightening. But it also now means that, the darkness is HIDING SOMETHING.
Believing the darkness has the power to hide, and that it IS hiding, means there is something in the darkness 'with you' that you cannot see, and that is terrifying.
This literally then, is, "fear of the dark". i.e. fear of what is IN the dark. But as Jesus says, even the belief that darkness can hide at all is enough to induce fear. Especially since you don't know IF there is maybe something in the dark that you can't see, something outside your awareness or control, that could strike at any moment.
This is what the ego loves. This idea that it has hidden the light of God, hidden who you are, hidden your home, hidden your mind, in a great thick solid-seeming darkness in which there is no light and nothing can be seen for what it is.
Such is insanity, because in truth, light always dispels darkness. The light includes everything, the darkness includes nothing. God's light cannot be removed or hidden, in reality, or in truth, but only in an insane nightmare dream of darkness and death.
You are still the light.
Jesus tells us that our perception works like a mirror. Whatever we have inside of us, we project outside, and perceive it reflected back. We are doing this all the time, every second of every day.
We first look within, find our own attitude about ourselves there, and then we project that out and see it. This means in effect that we are really blind to seeing anything out there OTHER THAN ourselves.
If we have guilt in our mind, we will see guilt in others and in the world. If we have innocence in our mind, we will see innocence in others and in the world. This is because the world acts like a mirror and reflects back to us whatever we project onto it, including meaning. This is because it follows the Golden Rule, that what is true of you is true of the whole.
"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego."
"The world is nothing in itself. Your mind must give it meaning. And what you behold upon it are your wishes, acted out so you can look on them and think them real."
If you are not seeing innocence in the world, in which you see there is nothing to forgive because everything is innocent, it is because you yourself are not being innocent. You are looking at the result of what you believe is true about yourself and others.
If you want to see and experience the world in a happier way, in a lighter way, in which the world seems beautiful and kind and lovely, then you have to be beautiful and kind and lovely in your mind.
This is the meaning of:
"God is in everything I see because God is in my mind."
When you have an awareness of God in your mind, you will project this out and see it reflected back. Then it will seem as though, in the mirror, you are looking at the reflection of God or heaven, because you are putting it there.
This is a fixed rule of how perception works. You do not ever really see something that is true of others or the world that isn't true of you. As in, "you but accuse your brother of your own sins." The guilts and offences and blames and stuff that you see in the world are yours, projected.
You are always looking at yourself!
If the world seems lacklustre, your mind is lacklustre. If the world seems dark and evil, you are being dark and evil. If the world seems sparkling and new, you are being sparkling and new. If others seem sinful and guilty and hated, you are hating yourself and regarding yourself as sinful and guilty.
As we progress with the course we're meant to be getting to a point where we see the world with so much forgivingness - ONLY because we have forgiven OURSELVES - such that we see the forgiven world. The forgiven world is beautiful and lovely and new, seen in the present FROM a state of mind that is lovely and beautiful and new.
"From my holiness does the perception of the real world come."
Similarly the eyes of christ look out upon the world and SEE christ reflected back. This is because Christ is in the mind FIRST, and then is projected and reflected. By being aware of heaven in your mind within, you see the reflection of heaven on earth. This is STRICTLY how it works - this is the functional mechanics of perception.
What you believe you perceive. It's not about "believing your eyes" or "I will have to see it to believe it." It's the other way around - what you BELIEVE you will SEE. We are meant to see this world and the bodies through beautiful forgiving eyes, which see them as beautiful and forgiven.
We are meant to see from holiness and innocence within, so that we will see holiness and innocence without. So if we're not seeing that, we're not being that and we have work to do within ourselves in our mind healing. You can't see what you're not willing to be.
"Perception is a mirror, not a fact. And what I look on is my state of mind reflected outward. I would bless the world by looking on it through the eyes of Christ."
"How lovely does the world become in just that single instant when you see the truth about yourself reflected there. Now you are sinless and behold your sinlessness. Now you are holy and perceive it so."
"And the love He feels for us becomes our own as well. This will become the only thing we see reflected in the world and in ourselves."
"By sharing its reflection HERE, its truth becomes the only perception which the Son of God accepts."
"The blameless cannot blame, and those who have accepted their innocence see nothing to forgive. Yet forgiveness is the means by which I will recognize my innocence. It is the reflection of God's Love on earth."
"It is the witness to your state of mind, the OUTSIDE picture of an INWARD condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive."
"Projection MAKES perception, and you CANNOT see beyond it."
"All this beauty will rise to bless your sight, as you look upon the world with forgiving eyes."
"Your gift to me, and it has power to translate all that the body's eyes behold into the sight of a forgiven world. How glorious and gracious is this world!"
"The teachers of God have trust in the world, because they have learned it is not governed by the laws the world made up. It is governed by a Power which is in them but not of them. It is this Power that keeps all things safe. It is through this Power that the teachers of God look on a forgiven world."
"To the extent to which you value guilt, to that extent will you perceive a world in which attack is justified. To the extent to which you recognize that guilt is meaningless, to that extent will you perceive attack cannot BE justified. This is in strict accord with vision's FUNDAMENTAL law: You see what you believe is there, and you believe it there because you WANT it there. Perception HAS no other law than this."
"Earth can reflect Heaven or hell; God or the ego. You need but leave the mirror clean, and clear of all the images of hidden darkness you have drawn upon it. God will shine upon it of Himself. Only the clear reflection OF Himself can BE perceived upon it. Reflections are seen in light. In darkness, they are obscure, and their meaning seems to lie only in shifting interpretations, rather than in themselves."
We have allowed ourselves to LEARN what we think the truth is, based on how the physical world seems to function.
We think that there are causes out there which have effects on other things.
We think that the world is able to harm us, do things to us, and that events just happen to use against our will.
We've learned a great deal from the appearance of this world, and we think that this world is actually real and that, therefore, we need to learn the truth from it.
We have mis-learned. Our assumption that this world is reality has led us to take on board so many mistaken ideas, mistaken ways of functioning, mistaken ways of deciding how relationships should work, mistaken forms of idol worship and possession and loss and gain.
So many things we've taken away from our exposure to this world, thinking that it is showing us a world of truth. We think this world is actually objectively real and that how it appears is completely normal, natural, obvious and clear.
It is not.
This world is vast illusion. It is extremely deceptive. It is showing you something which is impossible. It is a depiction of an idea of being separate from God and what it would seem to be like if that were possible, even though it is not possible.
This world shows you people who are suffering, people who are sick, people who are affected, people who are victimized, and people who die. That isn't truth. There is no truth to learn from that, other than that it is not true.
So we've been hanging out in this place a lot and just taking for granted everything we see as though it is factual reality, that there is not any kind of illusion happening, that things are as they seem to be, and that we can take everything at face value.
Big mistake.
We need to therefore UNLEARN everything we have tough ourselves to be true based on what we've witnessed here, because it has been nothing but an exercise in opposition to truth.
There is a truth elsewhere, in God's reality, which is not of this world. It does not function as this world functions. The laws are not the same. The rules are different. There is no attack or sickness or victimhood or violence or death in God's world. Things are not born, only later to die. Things do not come and go. Stuff does not happen out of the blue. Events don't just happen to you. It's an entirely different 'world' from which to learn the nature of the truth.
So we have been taught extremely poorly in this world, made to believe that it contains all kinds of truth, made to digest vast volumes of information about how it "really works" and what it means and how it functions. Taught how to relate to it and what to see in it and how to use it. And yet, it is all an illusion. All of that education was a lie.
There is no world here. Hello!
Had a nice chat with Jesus last night.
One observation made is, that you can't just jump straight into fear or guilt. It's not like you can go from innocence straight to feeling afraid, although it seems this is what we do because it can happen quite fast. There are steps that MUST precede it.
e.g. if you are afraid, you have to:
1) separate from love, 2) believe its really happened (sin), 3) become guilty, 4) feel compelled to fear punishment.
So you don't just 'get afraid', you have to have first done these other things. Similarly if you find yourself mainly in guilt, you didn't just become guilty, there had be these other steps before it (ie separation and sin).
Once you see where you are on the spectrum between love and death, ie:
1) Love/atonement/Holy Spirit
2) Separation idea
3) Sin (something really has happened)
4) Guilt (guilty for making it happen)
5) Fear (afraid of the punishment that guilt suggests will come)
6) Punishment (actually experiencing punishment)
7) Death/ego
... then you can figure out how you need to 'undo' the preceding steps. If you find yourself mainly in fear on an issue, figure out what guilt it was based on. If you are afraid, you ALWAYS have guilt underneath it. If you mainly find yourself feeling guilty about something - at least you haven't moved into fear, but now you need to realize there was some sense of 'sin' underneath it.
As you move away from the 'death' end of the spectrum you are moving away from the ego. As you move away from the Love end of the spectrum you are moving towards the ego.
You need to move yourself toward the atonement end of the spectrum if you want to be at peace. AND... this is the important part, you need to go ALL the way. You don't want to go all the way because the closer you get to it the more it challenges the ego's deepest-held truths (e.g. that the world has happened - which is a 'sin' idea). It also means getting up-close and personal with God which your ego does not want to do.
Many people (me too) get stuck in the middle of the spectrum somewhere around the fear or guilt areas, and think we need to just undo the fear or guilt, but really we need to look at what the guilt is based on, which is some kind of sin, then look at what the sin is based on, which is some sense of separation from God and yourself, and then undo even the idea of being separate, so that you can REUNITE with God and yourself in the At-one-ment.
At any time, all you need to ask yourself is:
1) Where am I at on the spectrum between holy spirit and ego?
2) Where do I want to be? (ideally, with Holy Spirit)
Then work your way one step at a time uncovering the foundation of where you find yourself.
Here's a ... strange and unexpected post that kind of just channeled out of me..... hmmmm...
Causing without receptivity to love has been associated with "male".
Receptivity without the power to cause has been associated with "female".
The male "egocentric" causality and forcefulness and so on, has played out as attempts to suppress, control, belittle and abuse women, making them an "effect" or victim.
In the bigger mind, this is really the dynamic between minds which have become tyrannical and arrogant and have an authority problem, vs mind which is open to receive love and to be an effect of God.
This is because this world represents a split mind, in which the two aspects of mind have seemingly been separated into "genders".
Mind is supposed to contain BOTH aspects - the ability to cause, and the ability to receive as an effect of God. When both of these aspects are fully balanced/equalized, where giving and receiving are one, causality becomes a loving act and not an act of aggression or domination.
This also means that in truth, no-one is male or female, gender is an illusion of separation, and we are all IDENTICAL.
Male domination, or a bias toward "output without input", also produces the sacrificial belief in "working hard" or being the "breadwinner" or having to be the one who goes out and hunts and gathers.
Female submission, or a bias toward "input without output", has produced "women being housewives" or "women should stay at home" or "women shouldn't get equal pay" or "women are more nurturing" etc.
This is all because our minds have become skewed in our belief in separation from God, producing an authority problem which has played out on the world stage as a huge dream of dominance vs submission in various ways.
The balance of this is swinging back the other way at the moment with women's rights and so on, which has been an extremely long time coming due to the general "dominance" of the male expression, but I think it highly likely that this will at some point mean that the women of the world will "take over" the role that men were taking and it will become skewed in the other direction, with men becoming more identified with submission.
This has been going on back and forth and back and forth for millenia. It's nothing new. The ego is not very original. But over time, perhaps, the difference between the two will smooth out, and gradually men and women will become truly equal, and in so doing, become either androgenous on a physical level, or will simply disappear from this universe of duality and return to perfect oneness in God. In God's eyes, we are all exactly the same.
The end of the human race then ends in laugher and equal holiness and WHOLENESS of all individuals, not imbalance or dominance or submission. This represents minds who have elected to place themselves under perfect authority of Christ, while also extending that authority, so that all acts of causality are equally as receptive to Authority of Spirit.
It may be the most counter-intuitive, impossible thing you can imagine, but if you are feeling like shit, the best thing you can do is to send love to someone.
That sounds like a tall order, in fact maybe seemingly the hardest thing you could do at the time. Because it you feel shit then you really don't want to love, don't have love, don't seem to be able to give anything, and are in no position to help anyone. You feel separate and cut off and probably angry at someone.
But that's just the thing. It's the lack of love in you that is really the problem, and when you SEND it to someone, you RECEIVE it. Giving and receiving are one.
As you effort to transmit love, even if it takes a while to rev up the engines, even if you don't feel loving at all to begin with, it lifts YOU up. You become healed along with them, it brightens you, it opens you and heals you.
The thing is, even if it seems like you have no love to give, if you TRY anyway, you'll find that you in fact have the ability to "get the flow moving". If you PUSH, express, send, flow, love like an energy, it actually gets the juices flowing.
You're able to move yourself from unlove to love, even if love seems absent, and even if it seems like you have no love to give.
The key that unlocks the infinite reservoir of love, even from "standing still" and being very unloving, is your little willingness. Your will has the power to direct the flow. Your will has the power to express and to cause the love to express.
So even if you are stuck, even if you feel very upset, you have the freedom of will that allows you to unstick yourself.
If at first you can't possibly feel any love, you just start to say some loving things. Even if you don't feel them. Express how thankful you are to God for creating someone's perfection and describe their perfect nature. Put into words what is true of them and you. It will lift you up.
Before long, you'll get the stuck-ness moving, and you'll start to tune into the love, and you'll start to feel it in your heart. Especially as you open up to sending/relaying God's love as an extender of love.
Love heals you when you share it. You are included in the healing. So you are giving it to yourself. That may sound weird that you can transmit love to yourself, but you can, provided it includes another.
Ideas are increased by being given away. To have love, give love. Giving it, you must have it, and so it increases in you and the other. You have the ability to express love at any time, and it has the power to melt all walls and blockages.
We're all holding hands. You either lift others up or you drag them down. And always you are included in which direction you aim. Be the light of the world.
"Miracles benefit both the giver and the receiver."
1. DUALITY - is the idea of "real opposites". That there really is good and evil, black and white, up and down, male and female etc. The differences of objects are believed to be "real" and a first-hand reality. That when you see these things you are looking at reality. They I really am my body, that you really are your body. That there is no unity at all, no connection, no joining, everything really is separate. In the Course, this is equated with "false perception." And in fact Jesus says "the world is false perception", meaning that the physical objects/forms themselves ARE the idea of separation, without which they would not exist at all.
2. NON-DUALITY - the original form of the non-duality idea is that all of the objects present in duality "are there" still, but there is an underlying oneness/unity which joins them all together. It's as if to say, God is a limitless being who is "expressing as" various objects. As if a clock and a chair are "really" one thing, as if joined by a hidden energy field of field of mind. That "all things are one".
In this view, the world, bodies, Earth etc are actually "kept" and still show up and move around seemingly independently etc, but are thought to be all part of one overall single Mind's thinking, or its self expression. As if God is animating the world. As if God Himself is the world or is "in it", like in the background, pulling the strings. In this view, the world is retained but is reinterpreted as "one thing", wherein its various parts and shapes seem only to be separate things when the mind is unaware of the unity it springs from.
That you might in some way "experience it all at once" if an experience of oneness, a kind of transcendent unity in which "you are the airplane" "you are the car" "you are the house". Here, God seems to be in everything you see. This idea is actually not really in ACIM at all. Some people believe it is. But ACIM actually teaches that reality is BEYOND the forms, not AS them, regarding the forms themselves to be illusions regardless of how they are experienced - that even experience as "all one thing" is an illusion. This is often confused with "true perception" which is similar but not the same - in true perception see reality beyond forms, not as "their true nature".
3. PURE NON-DUALITY - as touted by several others, is a progressive form of non-duality, takes the aspect of non-duality that seems to still be "a world" with things happening, and says that all of these worldly things are literally 100% not there. Not even that they are reinterpreted or experienced as "one thing". Not even that you are "experiencing them all at once" - it separates the "oneness" from the "things" entirely and labels the things as absolutely nothing - non-experiencable. In pure non-duality, the idea is that there is "only God", and nothing else. Only the oneness. Seemingly the oneness alluded to by non-duality but dispensing entirely with the world of forms and all objects and bodies and happenings. This does tie in with the Course teaching that "there is no world". Not simply that "the world is one thing" but that it is NOTHING.
A pure state of "only God". Just an expansive eternity is sameness, no change, no movement, no creating, no increase, no individuals, no objects, no forms whatsoever, no differences, no appearances of any kind, just rock solid God on his own. In this view, logically, it should also mean that there is no Son of God and no Holy Spirit. Some people sometimes actually "go there". That we are God. That only mind exists. That even the Son doesn't really exist as anything other than God's radiance, still solely God.
Some have used this to justify that the Holy Spirit does not exist, that Jesus does not exist, etc. It's often associated with the idea of "Oneness". That there is only "one thing". Literally a count of "one". One box, one entity, one being, just God all by Himself. This view ignores creation, sonship, free will, souls etc. This view is really not in ACIM **AT ALL**, but many think it is. It's actually the result of the ego's reasoning, believing that if you remove all separations and get down "one" thing, it must be the final answer about what exists. This essentially boils down to the idea that God is alone and is dead because he is not extending, creating, sharing or loving. He just "is" ("God is"), WITHOUT anything having been created (no sonship, no souls, no creations). It logically becomes the idea that God is dead, because love has to be shared and has to create in order to exist.
4. TRANS-DUALITY - I don't know if there is really a word for this. It takes the idea of pure non-duality, in which there is NO WORLD (only Heaven exists and Earth is not it) but then acknowledges that "God did not will to be alone". That God is a creator. That God loves to ADD to His "solo" reality. That God has in fact created, not just one thing, but a great many things. That the Holy Trinity is real, there really are three parts, and the Sonship (as one of them) actually contains many souls that God created to freely create WITH him. This is much more closely aligned with Christianity.
All of these creations, together "the one son" in ACIM, aka "sonship", are extensions of His mind and being and have been fully created as essentially autonomous entities, with their own minds. However, this is not the same as in duality. In duality these individuals would be cut off from each other, ie separate. In "trans-duality", these entities share everything with each other. AND YET, do not lose their individuality. They share such extensive oneness with each other, you would think there is nothing defining their "self", and yet there is. God has fully created souls. It defies ego thinking. It is miraculous.
In this model, which is really the model of God being a creator who has created a Sonship (and the Holy Spirit) as eternal beings, "The Kingdom of God contains all his children and their creations", these beings are co-creators with God, and have their own creations, which are shared and celebrated by the whole. This is an extraordinary state where everyone shares absolutely everything with everyone else, including God. Total access. Total openness. No selfishness, no exclusion, no ego, no separation ideas, no thoughts of imprisonment or unwillingness or denial.
A family of God, sharing in love endlessly, celebrating and being thankful for having been created, joining with all brothers in a union which seems to transcend their self yet allows them to still have one. "The ego is the idea of selfishness, the soul is the idea of self fullness." It is the miraculousness of the soul that allows it to share everything without ceasing to exist. God created many children who are permanent brothers to each other.
God is a holographic thinker and creator - every part is a whole in its own right. He has created beings, "in number infinite". THIS IS THE TRUE MODEL OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES. It acknowledges God as Father and you as A SON, one of many. This is not non-duality, it is not pure non-duality, it is not duality. It is a state of "many and one" at the same time. It is God's family.
God's system is a system of inclusiveness, which is why all beings He created share everything. It's a system of AND/BOTH rather than the ego's system of EITHER/OR. All children of God are equal, per the Golden Rule, and are brothers. "One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds." This does not in any way mean there is only one mind or only one brother. Nor does it mean they are not joined as if one. It is a fusion of oneness and many-ness, without contradiction, and with no ego involved whatsoever. It is not a separation idea, is not duality, or non-duality. It is the Creation of an omni-present being who is fully present in all things He creates without limit, making each creation a whole in itself. It is a system of "many wholes", which defies all ego thinking.
This is what A Course in Miracles is teaching. This is reality.
It's somewhat a course myth that "you need to do forgiveness."
The course is actually saying that you do NOT need to be forgiven, because God created you so perfectly that you could never possibly do anything that would require forgiveness.
What it does say is that you do not RECOGNIZE your eternal changeless innocence, and so the only seeming need you have is to WAKE UP TO THE REALITY OF your innocent state.
That's matter of recognition and acceptance of what already is. It is nothing to do with you putting that innocence in place. This is why "atonement" or the seeming process of healing and correction, really is more of an UNDOING or stripping away of all the bullshit lies that you've placed on top of your perfect innocent self, to claim that you're not innocent, even while still continuing to be innocent underneath.
So forgiveness and salvation are not actually something you really need as such. In truth you are forgiven arleady. The Holy Spirit already sees you as perfect. The only "problem" is only in the mind, and it is only in terms of you seeming to block out, deny, not want, or be unwilling to admit to, the ACTUAL CONTINUED TRUTH of your innocent self.
So if it seems there is any forgiveness "to be done", that simply means that you are out of touch with the fact that THERE ISN'T, and whatever process of awakening and recognition you need to go through to open up to and accept that TRUTH, you could maybe call "practicing forgiveness".
But it isn't in any way a practice to put forgiveness in place, or to make you be forgiven. It is purely a matter of you being OUT OF ALIGNMENT with the innocence God gave you already.
Forgiveness recognizes that there is nothing to forgive. Healing recognizes that there is nothing to heal. Peace recognizes there is nothing that has ever disturbed your peace. Love recognizes that there is only love to love. And your immortality recognizes that you never even began to be mortal.
"YOU need NO forgiveness, for the wholly pure have never sinned. Give, then, what He has given you, that YOU may see His Son as one, and thank his Father, as He thanks YOU."
"Let me, then, use this dream to help Your plan that we awaken from all dreams we made."
"You are still My holy Son, forever innocent, forever loving and forever loved, as limitless as Your Creator, and completely changeless and forever pure. Therefore awaken and return to Me. I am Your Father and you are My Son."
"Forgiveness is the key to happiness. I will awaken from the dream that I am mortal, fallible, and full of sin, and know I am the perfect Son of God."
"The betrayal of the Son of God lies only in illusions, and all his "sins" are but his own imagining. His REALITY is forever sinless. He need not be forgiven but AWAKENED. In his dreams he HAS betrayed himself, his brothers and his God. Yet what is done in dreams has not been REALLY done."