Principle 21: Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God’s forgiveness by extending it to others. (T-1.I.21)

COURSE REFERENCES

The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way. (W-256.1:1-2) God is pure. Unforgiveness is not. Purity and impurity have no meeting place.

Forgiveness is the only gift you give and would receive. (S-3.II.5:11) It is the only illusion that does not lead to further illusions. This is where illusions end -- and where holy relationships begin.

No one who learns to forgive can fail to remember God. Forgiveness, then, is all that need be taught, because it is all that need be learned. All blocks to the remembrance of God are forms of unforgiveness and nothing else. (P-2.II.3:1-3) So this will be the focus today, and every day. (See “l. What is Forgiveness?” W-pII.all)

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 that view are all your sins forgiven. What is sin, except a false idea about God’s Son? Forgiveness merely sees its falsity, and therefore lets it go. What is free to take its place is now the Will of God. (W-pII.I.1:1-7) “God is the Love in which I forgive.” (W-46.h) Unforgiveness, then, merely indicates you do not see the truth. Thus, ask for help from the Holy Spirit rather than floundering in the darkness.

God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself, and free only yourself. (W-46.I:1-5) Your brothers are here to help you in this, and you them.

Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Without fear, then, forgiveness would not be needed. Forgiveness undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear and truth can be experienced in its place. (W-46.2:1-5)

Forgiveness is truly the home of miracles. (W-pII.13.3:1) Miracle-minded forgiveness is only correction. It has no element of judgment in it at all. (T-2.V.A.16:1-2) To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. Forgiveness is a selective remembering, yet not based on the ego’s selection. (T-17.III>1:1:3)

Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate. Spirit knows God completely. That is its miraculous power. The fact that each one has this power completely is a condition entirely alien to the world’s thinking. (T-3.V.9:1-5) Do you have this power? Of course! YOU KNOW GOD, YOUR FATHER!

How can the Holy Spirit bring His interpretation of the body as a means of communication into relationships whose only purpose is separation from reality? What forgiveness is enables Him to do so. If all but loving thoughts has been forgotten, what remains is eternal. The transformed past is made like the present; it no longer conflicts with now. This is not the same as putting on rose-tinted glasses. This is not a cover-up of truth, but the uncovering of truth. This continuity extends the present by increasing its reality and its value in your right perception of it. In these loving thoughts, the spark of beauty heretofore hidden in the fear and darkness of the unholy relationship, comes alive as the relationship is given to Him Who gives it life and beauty. (T-17.III.5:1-7)

The Holy Spirit wants only to make His resolutions complete and perfect, and so He seeks and finds the source of problems where it is, undoing them at its source. And with each step in His undoing, the separation is more and more undone, and union is brought ever closer. The Holy Spirit is not at all confused by any “reasons” for separation. No “explanations” are necessary. All He perceives in separation is that it must be undone. Let Him uncover the hidden spark of beauty in your relationships and show it to you. Ask Him: “Holy Spirit, thank you for showing me the spark of beauty in this relationship. Thank you for helping me to see this brother (person, place or thing) differently.”

The loveliness will so attract you that you will be unwilling ever to lose the sight of it again. And you will let this spark transform the relationship so you can see it more and more. For you will want it more and more, and you will become increasingly unwilling to let it be hidden from you. As you see the spark in yourself, you will see it more and more in your brothers and in the world around you, because they will be reflecting the spark in you. You will learn to establish the conditions in which this beauty can be seen – not through judgment, condemnation or separation – only through love. (T-17.III.6:3-11)

It is through the holy instant that what seems impossible (union and beauty) is accomplished, making it evident that it is not impossible as was at first seemingly thought. In the holy instant guilt holds no attraction, since communication has been restored with no holding back and no uncertainty -- only love. And guilt, whose only purpose is to disrupt communication, has no function in the holy instant where it cannot even enter. Here there is no concealment, and no private thoughts; yet guilt is a seemingly private matter between you and the ego as it is certainly not of God and therefore it cannot be shared.

The willingness to communicate attracts communication to it and overcomes loneliness completely. There is complete forgiveness in the holy instant, for there is no desire to exclude anyone from your completion, in sudden recognition of the value of his part in it. All have a part; there are no exceptions. In the protection of your wholeness, all are invited and made welcome. And you understand that your completion is God’s, Whose only need is to have you be complete, for your completion makes you His in your awareness. And it is here that you experience yourself as you were created, and as you are. (T-15.VII.14:1-1) Your function, then, is to become aware of only light!

The holy instant does not replace the need for learning, for the Holy Spirit must not leave you as your Teacher until the holy instant has extended far beyond time. For a teaching assignment such as His, He must use everything in this world for your release. He must side with every sign or token of your willingness to learn of Him what the truth must be. He is swift to utilize whatever you offer Him on behalf of this. His concern and care for you are limitless. In the face of your fear of forgiveness, which He perceives as clearly as He knows forgiveness is release, He will teach you to remember that forgiveness is not loss, but it is your salvation. In complete forgiveness, in which you recognize that there is nothing to forgive, you are absolved completely. (T-15.VIII.1:1-7) Join together in making the holy instant all that there is, by desiring that it be all that there is. God’s Son has such great need of your willingness to strive for this that you cannot conceive of need so great. Behold the only need that God and His Son share and will to meet it together. (T-15.VIII.2:4-6) You will be so happy you did!

God asks for your forgiveness. He would have no separation, like an alien will, rise between what He wills for you and what you will for yourself. They are the same, for neither one wills specialness, only peace, only love. (T-24.III.5:1-3) Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself. Faith is invested in yourself alone (T-24.IV.1:1-2). The special ones are all asleep, surrounded by a world of loveliness they do not see. Freedom and peace and joy stand there, beside the bier on which they sleep, and call them to come forth and waken from their dream of death. Yet they hear nothing. They are lost in dreams of specialness. (T-24.III.7:1-4) However, all the slaves of specialness will yet be free. Such is the Will of God and of His Son. (T-24.III.8:1-2) Peace will arise from forgiveness!

The sight of Christ is all there is to see. The song of Christ is all there is to hear. The hand of Christ is all there is to hold. There is no journey but to walk with Him. (T-24.V.7:7-10)

The miracle that you receive, you give. Each one becomes an illustration of the law on which salvation rests; that justice must be done to all, if anyone is to be healed.

What is God’s belongs to everyone and is his due. (T-25.IX.10:1-2,10)

Forgiveness is this world’s equivalent of Heaven’s justice. (T-26.IV.1:1)

Say it again: Forgiveness and salvation are the same. Forgive what you have made and you are saved. (W-99.10:6-7) The salvation of the world depends on you who can forgive. This is your function here. (W-186.14:5-6) God wills perfect happiness for His Son, and forgiveness is the key to happiness. (W-121.h)

Function on earth: Forgive, which equals truth and happiness and salvation

                               Become aware of only light and love

                               Accept Atonement (undoing of all errors) for yourself!

Function in Heaven: Creating

Forgiveness always rests upon the one who offers it, until he sees himself as needing it no more. He then returns to his real function of creating, which his forgiveness offers him again. (T-26.IV.1:7-8) Free will is yours to create the perfect. Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your mind, or you will also believe that you must undo what you have made in order to be forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are NONEXISTENT. By steadily and consistently canceling out all its effects, everywhere and in all respects, He teaches that the ego does not exist and PROVES IT (even to the satisfaction of the harshest critic). (T-9.IV.5:1-6)

Follow the Holy Spirit’s teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness is His function and He knows how to fulfill it perfectly. That is what Jesus meant when he said that miracles are natural, and if they do not occur something has gone wrong. Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow the Holy Spirit’s plan of salvation (not the ego’s) even while recognizing that you do not understand what His plan is. Yet His work is not your function, and unless you accept this you cannot learn what your function is. (T-9.IV.6:1-4) What but a miracle could change your mind, so that you understand that love cannot be feared? What other miracle is there but this? (T-26.IV.4:7) Accept God’s Miracle and extend it to others. Teach them that only love is real – as only GOD IS.