ARCIM

Daily Lesson 122 ~
May 2

My forgiveness offers everything I want.

What could you want that forgiveness cannot give? Do you want peace? Forgiveness offers it. Do you want happiness, a quiet mind, a certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world? Do you want care and safety, and the warmth of sure protection always? Do you want a quietness that cannot be disturbed, a gentleness that never can be hurt, a deep, abiding comfort, and a rest so perfect it can never be upset? All this forgiveness offers you, and more.

Forgiveness sparkles in your eyes as you awake, and gives you joy with which to meet the day. It soothes your forehead while you sleep, and rests upon your eyelids so you have no dreams of fear and evil, malice and attack. And when you wake again, it offers you another day of happiness and peace. All this forgiveness offers you, and more.

Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted that hides the Face of Divine Essence from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Children of the Divine, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that Remembrance of your Creator can arise across the threshold of your mind.

What would you want that forgiveness cannot give? What gifts but these are worthy to be sought? What fancied value, trivial effect, or transient promise never to be kept can hold more hope than what forgiveness brings? Why would you seek an answer other than the Answer that will answer everything? Here is the perfect Answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, half-hearted willingness to hear, less-than-halfway diligence, and partial trust. Here is the Answer! Seek no further for It. You will not find another one instead.

The Divine’s Plan for your awakening cannot change, nor can It fail. Be thankful It remains exactly as the Divine planned It. Changelessly It stands before you like an open door, with warmth and welcome calling from beyond the doorway, bidding you to enter in and make yourself at home where you belong.

Here is the Answer! Would you stand outside while all of Heaven waits for you within? Forgive and be forgiven. As you give you will receive. There is no plan but this for the awakening of the Children of the Divine. Let us today rejoice that this is so, for here we have an Answer, clear and plain, beyond deceit in Its Simplicity.

All of the complexities the world has spun of fragile cobwebs disappear before the power and the majesty of this extremely simple statement of the Truth. Here is the Answer! Do not turn away in aimless wandering again. Accept awakening now. It is the Gift of the Divine and not the world. The world of illusions can give no gifts of any value to a mind that has received what the Divine has given as Its Own.

The Divine wills awakening be received today, and that the intricacies of your dreams no longer hide their nothingness from you. Open your eyes today, and behold a happy world of Safety and of Peace. Forgiveness is the means by which this happy world – the Real World – comes to take the place of your experience of the “hell” of separation and the insanity of illusion. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquility as ancient Truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. What you will remember then can never be described. Yet your forgiveness offers It to you.

Remembering the gifts forgiveness gives, we undertake our practicing today with hope and faith that this very day awakening to the Real World that surrounds us will be ours. Earnestly and gladly will we seek for it today, aware we hold the key within our hands, accepting Heaven’s Answer to the hell we made, but where we would remain no more.

Morning and evening do we gladly give a quarter of an hour to the search in which the end of nightmares is guaranteed. Begin in hopefulness, for we have reached the turning point at which the Road to awakening becomes far easier. And now the way is short that yet we travel. We are close indeed to the appointed ending of the dream.

Sink into happiness as you begin these practice periods, for they hold out the sure rewards of real questions answered, and what your acceptance of the Answer brings. Today it will be given you to feel the Peace forgiveness offers, and the Joy the lifting of the veil holds out to you.

Before the Light you will receive today the world will fade until it disappears, and you will see another world arise that there are no words to adequately describe. Now we walk directly into Light, and we receive the Gifts that have been held in store for us since time began, kept waiting for today. Your forgiveness offers everything you want. Today all things you truly want are given you.

Let not these Gifts recede throughout the day, as you return again to meet a world of shifting change and bleak appearances. Retain Them in clear awareness as you see the Changeless in the midst of change, the Light of Truth behind appearances. Be tempted not to let these Gifts slip by and drift into forgetfulness. Hold Them firmly in your mind by your attempts to think of Them at least a minute as each quarter of an hour passes by. Remind yourself how precious are these Gifts with this reminder, which has Power to hold Them in your awareness through the day:

“My forgiveness offers everything I want.

Today I have accepted this as true.

Today I have received the Gifts of the Divine.”

 

Corresponding Text Section

 

Chapter 9: The Plan of Atonement

 

6. The Unhealed Healer

The ego’s plan for forgiveness – of first identifying error and then seeking to look past it – is currently far more widely used than the Divine’s Plan. This is because it is of the ego, and therefore undertaken by healers who have not yet allowed themselves to be healed, or freed from the ego.

Let us consider unhealed healers more carefully now. By definition, they are trying to give what they have not yet received, namely healing. If they are theologians, they may begin with the premise, “I am a miserable sinner, and so are you.” If they are psychotherapists, they are more likely to start with the equally incredible idea that they really believe in the therapeutic value of conflict, and that fearful thoughts have meaning for their patients as well, but that thoughts don’t really matter in either case.

This Course has repeatedly stated that beliefs of the ego cannot be shared, and this is why they are not real. How, then, can uncovering such beliefs make them real? Every healer who searches fear, conflict, or any type of fantasies for Truth must be unhealed, because they do not know where to find Truth, and therefore do not have the Answer to the problem of sickness. There is an advantage to bringing nightmares into awareness, but only to demonstrate that they are not real, and that anything they contain is meaningless. Unhealed healers cannot do this because they don’t believe it.

All unhealed healers follow the ego’s plan for forgiveness, looking distinctly upon error first and then attempting to overlook what they have looked upon, in one form or another. If they are theologians, they are likely to condemn themselves, teach condemnation, and advocate a very fearful solution. Projecting condemnation onto the Divine, they make It retaliative, and fear Its retribution. What they have done is merely to identify with the ego, and by perceiving clearly what it does, condemn themselves because of this profound confusion.

It is understandable that there has been a revolt against this concept, but to revolt against it means it is still believed in, i.e., believed to be real. Revolt then becomes a new form of the ego’s plan. The form of the ego’s plan in revolt, then, is different, but not the content. The new form of the ego’s plan is as unhelpful as the old one, because form does not matter to the Holy Spirit, and therefore does not matter at all.

According to the newer forms of the ego’s plan, the therapist, for instance, interprets the ego’s symbols in a nightmare, and then uses them to attempt to prove the nightmare has aspects of reality in it, that is, offers something meaningful. Having made it partially real in their mind and in the mind of the patient, the therapist then attempts to dispel its effects by depreciating the importance of the dreamer. This would be a healing approach if the dreamer were properly identified as unreal. But if the dreamer is equated with the mind, then the mind’s corrective Power, through the Holy Spirit, is denied. It is noteworthy that this is a contradiction even in the ego’s own terms, and one that it usually does note, even in its confusion. If the way to counteract fear is to reduce the importance of the fearer, how can this build up ego strength? These perfectly self-evident inconsistencies account for why, except for certain stylized verbal accounts, no one can explain what happens in the psyche in most psychotherapy. This is because nothing real does.

Because unhealed healers, like everyone, learn from their own teaching, and they’re teaching nothing, nothing real – of the Eternal – happens to them. Because their ego is involved, it always attempts to gain some support from the situation. Seeking to get something for themselves, unhealed healers do not know how to truly give, and consequently are unable to receive and therefore have nothing of Value to share. They cannot correct because they are not working correctively with their own minds. They believe that it is up to them to teach the patient what is real, but they do not know it themselves.

What, then, can heal this situation? When the Divine said: “Let there be Light,” there was Light. Can Light be found by analyzing darkness as psychotherapists do, or like theologians by acknowledging darkness in themselves, and looking for a distant light to remove it, while emphasizing the distance?

Healing is not mysterious. Nothing real occurs in a situation calling for healing unless healing is understood, since Light is Understanding. Without understanding it will be asserted that a “miserable sinner” can be “saved,” or that an “unimportant mind” can esteem itself, but only through belief in “magic thoughts.” All forms of the ego’s approach must arrive at an impasse, the characteristic “impossible situation” to which the ego always leads.

It can be helpful to point out to a patient where they are heading, but the point is lost unless the patient can change their direction, which can only happen with help from their true Guide. Therapists cannot change their patients’ direction, just as they also cannot do this for themselves alone. The only meaningful contribution of this approach is to present an example of one whose direction has truly changed, and who no longer believes that nightmares have reality of any kind. The Light in the mind of the one used as an example will therefore answer the questioner, who must decide with the Divine that there is Light, because they see It. And by this acknowledgment the therapist also knows It is there, and thus also becomes healed. That is how perception ultimately is translated into Knowledge. The miracle worker begins by perceiving Light, and translates their perception into Sureness by accepting Light’s Presence, and continually extending It. Light’s Effects assure the miracle worker It is there.

Like all effective healers, the effective therapist does not heal, they let healing be. They can point to darkness, but they cannot bring Light of themself, for Light is not of them. But being for them, it must also be for their patient.

In reality, then, the Holy Spirit is the only healer and therapist. It allows healing to become perfectly clear in any situation in which It is invited to be the guide. Like all miracle workers, the human therapist can only let Spirit fulfill Its Function through them. Spirit needs no help to accomplish Its Function, though It does need your willingness to be able to help you accomplish yours. It will tell you exactly what to do to help anyone It sends to you for help, and will speak to them through you if you do not interfere.

Remember that you are always choosing a guide for helping, and that the wrong choice will not help. But remember also that the right choice will. Trust the true Guide, for Help is Its Function, and It is of the Divine. As you awaken other minds to the Divine through Spirit, and not through yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world, but that the Laws you are honoring work. “The good can be defined as what works” is a sound though insufficient statement. Only the Good can work. Nothing else works or can work at all.

This Course provides guidance to behavior. Clarifying what is a very direct and very simple learning situation, it points to the Guide Who informs you what to do. If you do this, you will see that it works. The results of following this Guide are more convincing than the words guiding you in what to do in any given situation. The results will convince you that the words of what to do are true. By following the right Guide, you will learn the simplest of all lessons:

 

By their fruits you shall know them, and they shall know themselves.