Day 289

Today's Lesson:

The past is over. It can touch me not.

Unless the past is over in my mind, the real world must escape my sight. For I am really looking nowhere; seeing but what is not there. How can I then perceive the world forgiveness offers? This the past was made to hide, for this the world that can be looked on only now. It has no past. For what can be forgiven but the past, and if it is forgiven it is gone.

Father, let me not look upon a past that is not there. For You have offered me Your Own replacement, in a present world the past has left untouched and free of sin. Here is the end of guilt. And here am I made ready for Your final step. Shall I demand that you wait longer for Your Son to find the loveliness You planned to be the end of all his dreams and all his pain?

Miracles I'm noticing:

As I reflect on Dennis' wonderful comment from yesterday's post (thank you Dennis!), I see that focus on the past is really the ego's need to be in control and keep tabs on any progress we could make in our thinking that would edge that ego out. (As I've learned from Wayne Dyer, EGO might be thought of as Edging God Out.)

Today's lesson reminds us that there is no place for guilt in miracle-mindedness. Guilt is entirely focused on the past, and, many times, sets in place justification for fear and non-loving thoughts and actions. If we give up fear and concentrate on love, there really is no need for guilt because that focuses on what is wrong and puts a whole lot of blame on ourselves. If we are mindful and aware, it becomes much easier to focus on love, and eventually that mindset replaces our old habit of past-focus.

I don't really think we focus on the past, being right, and holding onto grudges and guilt on purpose - I just think it's that we aren't aware that there might be a better way. With awareness comes responsibility (the ability to respond rather than to simply react) but that responsibility takes us out of victim thinking and moves us to much higher ground in our thought process and our trust threshold. There really is no place for blame in the world - not for other people or for ourselves.

Coming our of our comfort zones will be, by its very definition, uncomfortable - for a while. It's uncomfortable because it's unfamiliar. But the outcome of pushing through that zone and seeing a whole new world is priceless. Forgiveness is on the other side of the comfort zone - and that forgiveness is different than we might expect.

According to the Glossary of Terms from A Course in Miracles, here is a distinction between the conventional definition of "forgiveness" and what we learn from this course:

Conventional: Giving up your resentment toward another and your right to punish him, even though you keep the perception that he sinned against you and that you are justified in resenting and punishing him. According to the Course, this forgiveness cannot forgive, for it affirms that the other sinned and thus is worthy of condemnation (yours and his own). It also affirms that you are holier than he, because he sinned and you forgave. In Chapter 27 of the Course (Section II, 2:8) we read "Who can say and mean, 'My brother, you have injured me, and yet, because I am the better of the two, I pardon you my hurt.'"

ACIM: Giving up your false perception that another sinned against you and that you are justified in resenting and punishing him. Releasing this perception automatically releases your resentment and desire to punish. Releasing another not from what he did, but from "what he did not do," from your misinterpretation of what he did. This can forgive, for it frees your mind of resentment and releases the other from the accusation of sin and guilt. The rationale behind forgiveness is that sin is not real. It is a wrong perception of attack. Attack has no power to do real harm, because what is real (in you and in your "attacker") cannot be harmed or changed in any way. The ultimate rationale for forgiveness is that "the separation never occurred," that "I am as God created me," that "God's Son is guiltless." Attack, then, has no effects. It is a harmless mistake, a call for love. Thus, what caused you to feel hurt was not the other's attack, but your own misperception f his attack. Forgiveness lets this misperception go. As a result, it heals the other person of guilt, and can even heal his body. It also heals your mind of guilt and fear, for these came from our anger and resentment. It also heals you of your sense of separateness, for it takes away the perception of sinfulness that made you recoil from your brother. Forgiveness is the source of extension and the way to joining. Forgiveness is salvation. It is the central theme of the Course, and (according to the Course) of the Holy Spirit's entire plan for salvation. [Other terms defined in this guide are bolded in this entry.]

So with this awareness, I now am free to choose the thoughts that will lead me to love rather than fear. It makes the choice rather easy, in my mind. Noticing where I choose to hold someone to my past interpretations of him comes back to me as the belief that others are doing that to me. If the past is forgiven, it is gone. There is no need for grudges or long memories. All that is certain is now.

That, for me, is a HUGE miracle!