Lesson 247:

Without forgiveness I will still be blind…

Forgiveness is seeing within, rather than at… It is the looking through the apparent reality of the person, situation or circumstance, to the power of creation within and beyond it. We always say we see things differently with hindsight or that if we had the foresight prior to the event, well… perhaps I’d been more loving, less judgmental, enjoyed more… its always some way we would have chosen happiness instead, if we’d just known… The message of today’s lesson and the entire Course actually, is; why wait?

The capacity to see the bigger picture is given instantly when the strategic mind (ego) is surrendered and given over to big-mind or Holy Spirit… When the student is ready, the teacher appears…

Big awareness, that space behind what you think you’re aware of in any given situation (often recalling detail and peripherals much later, after the mind has relaxed) is a condition all of us are aware of. Like insight and inspiration; where things lay out before us in a way unforeseen when we were ‘trying to figure it out’…

If I look at my so-called life at any point in time; yesterday’s events, childhood memories, future fantasies, the life stories of those around me or perhaps historical figures and events I’ve learned about or maybe future predictions, I notice a remarkable similarity in their tangibility~ it’s vague. Add some emotions based on strong belief and I can crystallize its presence in my mind almost as if it is happening right now. Given enough of that, and it could border on obsession. Yet, none of that is happening now… only my awareness of it is…and who is this my? My, could certainly only refer to the awareness itself...this moment, Now… Don’t all the characters and events arise within it? Now, this very instant, is empty, undefined. Yet, the Self is here; the Self of pure awareness, undefined, the same Self who sees the events in time, the Self that gives power to seeing... It is not the character selves, and yet the are part of it, it is beyond.

The Self is behind; beyond; within and without. It is the unity factor prior too…the Self is prior to time. And time arises within it.

Forgiveness allows us to take a step back and see this unifying factor threading itself through all there is. It allows us to accept that we have been wrong about, well, everything… So if we’re out of touch with our joy, it’s a forgiveness lesson and we need but step back and let big-mind, the Holy Spirit reinterpret and give our mind the sight to see the truth of our oneness … We forgive and see things differently... Simple as that… it has been done. The only thing we need be concerned with is making the decision for forgiveness ~now~ Without forgiveness our awareness is obsessively stuck in the judgment-scratch on the circular record of time. But through forgiveness we see beyond the record altogether to the love within, through and uniting us in oneness…

So would I look on everyone today. My brothers are Your Sons. Your Fatherhood created them, and gave them all to me as part of You, and my own Self as well. Today I honor You through them, and thus I hope this day to recognize my Self.