Camille's Lesson

A few weeks ago, Camille Bork, another student of forgiveness shared a story with me that I thought you might find helpful as you walk your own path of forgiveness.
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Hi Michael,

Thanks for sharing all these forgiveness lessons! They are very helpful! Your message today brought some of my own forms of forgiveness to mind. When there's something that doesn't sit right with me, I need to investigate what's underneath the form. A great tool I use (from Byron Katie www.thework.com ) is to write the statement and then write down all the meanings I have put on the situation and on my brother. So for example, right now, I am not working at a paying job. So, Camille doesn't have a job, and that means... she is lazy. She's not talented. She doesn't contribute. She isn't valuable. She's not capable. She's a free-loader. She's not going to survive without someone else's sacrifice. And on and on. Then I can question each one of these meanings - Is it true that Camille is lazy? Doesn't contribute? And so on. This is a made-up example (aren't they all???!!!), but here's one from my "real life."

When my son was about 14 or 15, he got into heroin. My husband and I tried everything we could think of (or read about) to get him off. We tried gentle understanding, tough love, seeking out professionals from many fields, sending him to top-notch rehabs (spending every penny we had), and kicking him out of the house to find his own path. Even when he asked for our help, it didn't stick. One day while I was cleaning, I found a needle (yet another one) hidden in his room. I heard myself speak words similar to these, out loud, "God, I can't live like this any more. This has got to end,. and it's OK if Eric (my son) has to die if that's what the solution is. I release him." My husband and I placed our son in God's hands surrounded by Light and Love and absolute perfect care. Eric seemed to die or make a transition 5 weeks later (accidental overdose). He was 17 at that point. Anyway, that's how the story goes. However the story is not right, nor wrong, nor painful, nor joyful, nor true! It is meaningless, but the meaning I placed on the story is what I needed forgiveness for. I did not need to forgive the idea that he used heroin. I needed to forgive all the meaning I had placed on that idea. This is what it looked like for me:

Eric uses heroin and that means:
He is hopeless. He's not going to make it. He is in danger. Addiction is a powerful evil. I am a bad mother. There's something wrong with him. He's defective. He should quit. I know what is best for him. He's weak. I'm responsible. And so on.

The Course says to question every belief, and I often use the inquiry process from Byron Katie to question beliefs, although I am sure it is not the only stepped-out tool for this. So I take it one belief at a time. Here's an example:
There's something wrong with him. (Question 1: Is it true? - Answer: yes, it's true. Strong, healthy people don't use heroin.)
There's something wrong with him. (Question 2: Can you absolutely know that it is true in this moment? - Answer: no, I cannot absolutely know that it is true in this moment that there is something wrong with him.)
There's something wrong with him. (Question 3: How do you react when you believe the thought that there is something wrong with him? - Answer: I panic. I feel guilty. I feel out of control. I treat him like he's less than me. I treat myself like I'm a failure. I get afraid. My body constricts. I get a lump in my throat. I get nauseous.)

Question 4: Who would you be if you could not think the thought? "There's something wrong with him"? - Answer: I would be present with him right here right now. I would be completely trusting. I would be light-hearted and joyful. I would be light-weight and loving. I would be free to shine my light, to extend. Nothing in the world would bother me. I would not be attached. I get a better sense of myself as Who I really am as God created me. I get in touch with Christ/Son of God. I would be really living! (From ACIM T-15.I.1. Can you imagine what it means to have no cares, no worries, no anxieties, but merely to be perfectly calm and quiet all the time?)

#5. Turn the statement around: There's something wrong with him. (There's something right with him.)
Is that just as true or truer? Give examples. (Yes, He is as God created him. His perfection is reflected in his passion for his music. He loves animals. He's kind. He loves his friends, and he loves me.)

Another turnaround statement: There's something wrong with him. (There's something wrong with me.)
Is that just as true or truer? (Well, I have the same issues that I think he has - imagine that! I use food & liquor to try and offset fear. I was a difficult child, often in trouble at school. I have allowed the thought that I am a victim to run my life.)

Another turnaround statement: There's something wrong with him. (There's something wrong with my thinking.)
Is that just as true or truer? (Yes. My perception is all wrong. I think I can be hurt, and he can be hurt. I think defense is necessary. I think I know what is best for my brother. I'm in his business and not in mine. I'm putting meaning on the world and on my brother that's all made up. I am judgmental and critical. I am in fear. My thinking is attracted to conflict, loss, and guilt. My perception is upside-down.)

Although the examples I give seem to be all about the world, they reflect the many ways I project the underlying belief onto my brother and situations (form). As I question my judgments, my mind opens, and I am able to understand that all of my stressful thoughts are beliefs about myself that I have projected outward.

I am sooo grateful to have had this extreme lesson in my life. I am learning that all of my suffering is caused by putting erroneous meaning onto the meaningless. It was perfect that Eric did heroin and seemed to die from an overdose! What a gift to me because I just don't belief my own stories the way I used to, and consequently, I don't suffer the way I used to. And, it has been proven to me, unequivocally, that every single concept I lay on my brother is truly what I think about myself and don't want to face. Inquiry is such a beautiful way to pop illusion because it doesn't hurt. That's how I know it is a tool for forgiveness because Holy Spirit's correction never hurts! Oh boy, how cool is that?!!! It is actually so joyful to be wrong! (T-30.I.10. Now you have reached the turning point, because it has occurred to you that you will gain if what you have decided is not so. 2 Until this point is reached, you will believe your happiness depends on being right. 3 But this much reason have you now attained; you would be better off if you were wrong.)

I offer this to you in case it is helpful.

Thanks so much for the Forgiveness group you facilitate and for your email messages! We may never know how much suffering has ended because of this!

Love always,
Camille

PS Here are a few ACIM quotes from the Manual for Teachers about our capacity to judge things in the world. I love it that J tells us to go ahead and judge as soon as we know how everyOne will be affected!

M-4.III.1.8 Without judgment are all things equally acceptable, for who could judge otherwise?
M-8.3.3 Yet it is surely the mind that judges what the eyes behold. 4 It is the mind that interprets the eyes' messages and gives them "meaning." 5 And this meaning does not exist in the world outside at all. 6 What is seen as "reality" is simply what the mind prefers.
M-10.2. It is necessary for the teacher of God to realize, not that he should not judge, but that he cannot. 2 In giving up judgment, he is merely giving up what he did not have.
M-10.3. The aim of our curriculum, unlike the goal of the world's learning, is the recognition that judgment in the usual sense is impossible. 2 This is not an opinion but a fact. 3 In order to judge anything rightly, one would have to be fully aware of an inconceivably wide range of things; past, present and to come. 4 One would have to recognize in advance all the effects of his judgments on everyone and everything involved in them in any way. 5 And one would have to be certain there is no distortion in his perception, so that his judgment would be wholly fair to everyone on whom it rests now and in the future.

Learning From My Nephew - Part II

Ah, the learning continues. Thanks to all who wrote me about the last message surrounding the forgiveness lessons I'm learning by way of a nephew who is living with us for a holy instant. I was dealing with my judgment of him for not making his best efforts to seek employment. Of course all judgment is self judgment, since this is indeed my dream. And my lack of peace in this simply points to my own call for healing.

Over the past two weeks my goal has been to praise when I felt judgment ("focus on his happy dream"), to offer help when I judged lack of effort, and to help him hold himself accountable. As Arten says in The Disappearance of the Universe, "It's not easy, but it's doable. And if you allow yourself to be helped..."

The result? The last two weeks have been much more peaceful. What's funny of course, is that the more I focus on MY own forgiveness lesson, the better he seems to get! There may be something to this practicing forgiveness stuff. :-) Remember me the next time you find someone in your life whom you believe needs to change. Happy dreaming!

Learning From My Nephew

In preparing this week's discussion guide for The Disappearance of the Universe, I was particularly struck by the quote, "You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe them to be yours and therefore meriting a ‘just’ attack."

In my life dream I have been struggling internally with a 20-something nephew who is staying with us for a period while he gets back on his feet. I realized after several weeks that I was walking around with under-the-surface anger at him (i.e., seething rage) because he wasn't making all the effort I felt he should be making in finding a job. (I'm sure none of those words indicate my ego is involved, right?)

I realized that I needed to change my mind about the situation because I was feeling like the victim of his situation and the apparent lack of effort he was making to change it. While my "right" mind was attempting to see him as whole, my wrong mind was upset at him.

The action I took to help change my mind was to give him two weeks to find a job and let him know I was available to help but that it was on him to make the effort. Of course I am still seeing the problem as outside of myself....so the situation is yet to be resolved!

So I affirm, I have projected this for my healing. This is MY dream. This situation is just an outward manifestation of the lack of forgiveness I have for myself when I don't make a full effort to change. I thank my nephew for helping me to see an area for healing. And so I forgive myself and my nephew and see us both as whole and innocent. It's funny, isn't it...how some of our most important forgiveness lessons seem to be right in front of our faces?

Stay tuned...

President-Elect

We are waking this morning to results of last night's presidential election. For some, this morning may bring a happy dream: a dream of a historical moment, of anticipated change, of hope for what the future will bring. For others, this morning may bring an unhappy dream, fa dream of disappointment, of undesired change, of fear of what the future may bring.

In either case, let us take part in the conversations today while remembering --
• To see as our Creator sees: a dream and nothing more;
• To love as our Creator loves: loving spirit for that is all that there is and there is nothing else;
• To make real the only thing that this is real: the truth of our oneness.
Live today in joy - especially today,

The Ego's Plan for Salvation

The Practicing Forgiveness Group is study Chapter 5 of the Disappearance of the Universe (see the attached). This is one of those ultra-challenging chapters. The focus is on looking at the ego's plan for our salvation - a topic no one's ego would really want to examine. The chapter is "in your face" about how we feel immense guilt, fear, and terror based on our belief that we have separated ourselves from God. And to avoid this guilt we have created an entire world so that we can blame everyone else for the condition we find ourselves in.

Now in my life time I have met many people who I have looked at (read that, judged) and felt that they were just plain angry at themselves and took it out on everyone else by blaming anyone and everyone for their predicament. That is, everyone but themselves - the real cause of their predicament. And I would wonder, why wouldn't they just take a look in the mirror?

This chapter is making me look in my own mirror. I think about the little repeated patterns and I see, once I examine them a little, just how fearful I am to look at them really.

An easy one to talk about is how busy I seem to be. One of my strategies to try to stay on top of things is to keep an action list - a single one - with all the things I plan to do. This was the easy part. Then I would force myself to put dates on when I would actually DO THEM - not when they were due by, but when I planned to sit down and do each action.

There was so much anxiety around doing this, that when I examined it I realized the problem was that if I put dates to things, I would have to admit that I couldn't possibly get everything done. This is so threatening to my ego, that I still sometimes go to extreme ends NOT to schedule my time - even though I know it would be very helpful.

Ah, the ego. And I forgive myself.

The Healing List

Over the years in the Practicing Forgiveness group, I have frequently heard people say,

"It's easy for me to forgive others. The problem I am having is forgiving myself."

Sound familiar? It certainly echoes my experience as well. In fact, through A Course in Miracles and The Disappearance of the Universe I have learned that when I think I am judging others, I am really judging myself since the “others” are simply images I have projected from my own unconscious minds. As Pursah is fond of saying in The Disappearance of the Universe, "There is nobody out there." It's like having a dream and being upset with someone because of what I made them do to me in my dream!

The Healing List

So how do we live each day practicing this idea? Consider creating a healing list – take one day, and as you live that day, record on your healing list any person you find yourself judging. You may find yourself having judgmental thoughts when you wake up, with family members, while driving, when shopping, while watching television, and so on. At the end of the day, review your list and say as you visualize each person, “You are an image I have made. You are innocent and so am I.” With practice comes a change in our thinking; as we change our thinking we increase our experience of the peace of God.

Looking for other ideas for practicing forgiveness? Consider the workbook from A Course in Miracles. It provides 365 lessons to help each of us transform our thinking.

In Joy,
Michael

Joining

I travel for my business and plane trips are frequently a time when I am able to steal away from the hectic day-to-day and allow "other" thoughts to come through.

Joining

On this particular trip, I found myself looking back on my life. I could see many times when I yearned to join with someone. From first wanting to join with my older brother and be included in his activities, to wanting to join and be in a romantic relationship, to wanting to join and have friendships in the first company I worked for out of college, to wanting to join with others who shared my spiritual journey. Always, desiring to join.

And as I sat on this flight, I became aware of how much in the last several weeks I've been just running through each day - from one activity to another. And while things were "accomplished" - the overall sense has been that I haven't been doing the most important thing...joining.

As I sat there I realized that the ultimate joining that I was seeking was to join with my true self in God. And I felt such a strong yearning to walk each day with the Holy Spirit. In that moment I wanted nothing more than for the Holy Spirit to become my constant companion, sharing my thoughts, teaching me to think his thoughts. And so I quietly sat and invited the Holy Spirit to teach me to join with him in God. It was a wonderful joining.

In Joy,
Michael

RTSB - Remember to step back

In a recent Practicing Forgiveness meeting, we talked about the importance of walking daily with an attitude of forgivness and remembering to step back - RTSB. I have the feeling that this is going to become my mantra for the next several months, as it seems to describe where I am right now.

When I am at my spiritual best - (you know, those few moments a year!) - it seems that I am living life at a different level. Nothing seems to phase me, I can see everything that anyone is doing as an act of love or a call for love and I really do want to respond with love. At these times it seems that I have remembered to step back and raise above the interaction - instead of "being" in the interaction and attaching myself to emotions, fears, irritations, aggravations and all the other things that seem to be happening at the moment.

RSTB

When I think about what Jesus was able to do - see everyone and react to everyone as pure spirit - I feel inspired to want to let go of petty grievances and other things that encourage me to see people as...well, people.

As you walk through your day, I encourage you to join with me to RSTB.

In Joy,

Michael

Quantum Spirituality Symposium

What a pleasure it was facilitating the Quantum Spirituality Symposium! The purpose of the conference was to offer an experience and identify tools by which the participants could learn to see and experience themselves, the world, and God another way. The goal was to transform the usual participant-passive conference into a highly dynamic experience in which participants actively engaged with the speakers and each other to identify and discover answers to their burning spiritual questions.

Based on comments from the participants, QSS 2008 delivered. My biggest learnings came from Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Viera - a couple who divorced many moons ago (to save the relationship) and have now come together to teach forgiveness. How amazing! They have published Take Me To Truth: Undoing the Ego. One concept they shared was recognizing that the ego LOVES to make you feel guilty. I don't know why, but I had never made that connection.

Over these past two weeks, it's been fun watching the ego in action. Two days ago, as I was getting ready to leave my home in the morning, and the thought occurred to me, "Wouldn't you like to play a game of pinball before you leave?" Now, I saw right away that my ego was attempting to take me off task, which would result in me being late, and feeling guilty about it. I found myself, literally, saying to my ego, "Why would you do that? Why would you make a suggestion like that which is not at all aligned with my best interest?"

I had to laugh...which is important to do when the ego is involved!

In Joy,
Michael

I Just Don't Want To

Some days I find myself challenged by this idea of practicing forgiveness. There are those days when I don’t want to take my quiet time, when I don’t want to do my reading, when I don’t want to listen to the Disappearance of the Universe cds, and I certainly don’t want to take the time to ask for guidance and listen for the Holy Spirit.

And then, to avoid the guilt that often comes when I’m not doing what my Higher Self is calling me to do, I get busy and pretend not to hear.

Oh what “wonderful” days those are! Stress, anxiety, irritability, frustration. You’d think I know better by now! And though in my heart I do “know”, my head (my ego) is still learning.

And practicing forgiveness teaches me to forgive myself for what I haven’t really done…to forgive myself for the belief that I can change what God made…to forgive and remember I am truly home in God…and this home awaits just my single desire to remember.

May this day be filled with your remember!

In Joy,

Michael

When the stuff hits the fan...

One of the residual benefits of "practicing" forgiveness on a daily basis is that when the stuff really hits the fan, the so called depths of despair usually aren't as deep and don't last nearly as long. Perhaps only as deep and only as long as necessary until we remember our truth. I was moved by this recent post in the DU discussion group in which the stuff hit the fan in a very real way for one forgiveness practitioner.

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From the Disappearance of the Universe Discussion Group (Visit This Group on the Web)

Well, I have received the ego shock of my life this week. My father
who is "only" 63 and in good health, began to feel sick during a
vacation to Italy in June. It began to last for some weeks and so he
started to visit his doctor to get some tests done.

The test showed that his liver enzymes were abnormal, which led to a
lot more testing, and biopsy. A month later, he still had no
conclusive diagnosis.

He started to feel better, and we hoped that it was just some kind of
infection that was starting to improve.

But then he started to feel sick again, and went to a larger hospital
(UCLA) for more testing.

Well, he called me 2 days ago and after examining the 2nd biopsy, they
found Melanoma in his liver. Very, very serious cancer. He shared
this with me on the phone, and for those of you who have never dealt
with a close family member's basically terminal diagnosis, let me just
say this: I hope you never have to.

I spent the next several hours in a daze, either screaming, crying, or
comatose. "Why me. Why him. He's too young. I'm too young. My
poor stepmom. My poor brothers". True, true darkness and depression.
As I was laying crying in bed, I asked myself in my mind, "please,
let me feel the love of God in my heart. I just want to know that He
is here for me". I felt nothing, and still felt alone, continuing my
emotional outbursts.

After several hours, I felt exhausted, and collapsed into bed.

The next morning, I felt a little better, good enough to go to the
Wapnick's website, and start to find a way to deal with this
emotionally, in the context of ACIM, which I now need more than ever
and which I am EXTREMELY GRATEFUL to have found and be studying for
the past few years. I looked up some phrases relating to grief on
their questions and answers page, and found some passages to look at
in ACIM.

I have barely glanced at the Manual for Teachers, telling myself that
I had to finish the Workbook first, which I am finally seriously
working through after several aborted attempts.

The page I was looking for was page 58 of the Manual for Teachers,
"DOES JESUS HAVE A SPECIAL PLACE IN HEALING?" It is difficult to
explain how deeply I was affected by this lesson. I cannot really put
a quote in here, because the whole lesson just flows together
perfectly. It made me feel that J was right next to me, holding my
hand, helping me through this illusion of pain and death, and that
somehow, we would make it through this.

Then, I looked up, and in my mind's eye, J was standing in front of me
(in a kind of stereotypical physical guise, white robes & beard),
looking at me, and saying "I am here. Soon your tears of pain will
become tears of joy." Then I just felt in my heart, that He was with
me. More than that, I was here to learn how to be here as God's
representative for my family, for myself and for those I come into
contact with.

It was an extremely moving and beautiful moment, and I began to cry,
but this time I really did feel light and happy underneath the tears,
not in despair like the night before. I felt "it is going to be ok".

I had to do a lot of research for Dad yesterday, trying to find out
how to get treatment for this difficult condition, learning what the
hell it was (I didn't know what melanoma was, really, until yesterday)
and what can be done. It was a lot of difficult reading, and I cried
a whole lot yesterday too, and not tears of joy. But… I can say, we
are making some progress in understanding this condition, and in
finding some hope beyond the initial prognosis.

I feel a great deal of love for my Dad and for everyone, and I really
have not gotten angry at anyone or anything since yesterday. I feel
like when I am not overcome with emotion, I am starting to learn how
to be calmer and more peaceful than before. Of course I am hoping for
a miracle of the traditional sort, and we are going to do everything
we possibly can inside of the illusion to keep my Dad's body alive and
functioning for as long as humanly possible.

But I know that the REAL miracle is love, and it is this I am hoping
to learn more of, share more of, and feel more of, praying that more
love then grief and pain will see us through this family trauma.

Ego shocks can be extremely painful and horrible, there is no doubt
about it -- it is easy to be philosophical about forgiveness until
something like this happens in your personal life. Then, the Course
seems to be all that is keeping me from total despair.

Now that I am in this situation, I basically cannot go on with my
previous escapism-based existence, and I just feel that somehow
despite all the pain that my family and I are going to go through in
this upcoming year, that we will all grow closer and more loving as a
result. Does it always take an absolute disaster to finally make you
take your ego seriously? I don't know, but for me, I just suddenly
HAVE to reach out to people, come out of my shell, and give and
receive love, learn to be kind, and suddenly I feel like yes I am part
of the Atonement after all. Life is not always kind, do not count on
it to be. Yet even in the darkest-looking situation, there is Love to
be found.
"Vision already holds a replacement for everything you think you see
now. Loveliness can light your images, and so transform them that you
will love them, even though they were made of hate." -Workbook Lesson
23 P4

I know there will be times when I am going to get angry again over
this, and probably blame God, feel sorry for us again, etc. I will
keep asking J for guidance, to keep grief and anger from overwhelming
us, and to keep love in the picture. Grieving is part of being human,
and part of having a body, it seems - the emotions are so overwhelming
at moments, they must be felt. And yet I know that this is the
welling up of much guilt and anger, and thus opportunity for massive
amounts of forgiveness. Now there is real motivation -- if miracles
serve to save time, how many more of these tragedies can I avoid in
the future by taking forgiveness into my heart now? If we are all
one, then it is my cancer too -- I created this too.

I just want to thank anyone who is still reading, I cannot express
enough how much it means to me to be able to share this with other
people who are using the Course in their lives. If anyone in this
group is going through or has gone through a similar crisis, I would
really appreciate it if you would share with me how you used the
Course to help you. Or just e-mail me to say hi or for some support
for that matter. I feel that "we are all in this together now", no
longer will I view anyone else's suffering with lack of compassion or
fear that somehow "I'll get it too" if I get involved. I already have
it -- so do we all. Love Gary garydemp@cox.net

The Only Thing That Can Be Saved

In the Disappearance of the Universe, Gary’s teachers alerts us about the four levels of learning (dualism, semi-dualism, non-dualism, and pure non-dualism) and how we can bounce like a ping pong ball among the four levels. They also say that the same scripture or spiritual writing will have an entirely different meaning to us, depending upon from which level of learning we happen to be operating at that time.

Have you had this experience?

It happened with me with a 77-word passage from the Disappearance of the Universe that combines two quotes from A Course in Miracles. I had probably gone over this passage a dozen times before, either by reading or listening to the Disappearance of the Universe CD. During a recent listening, I stumbled upon this passage and found myself wanting to listen to it over and over again without really knowing why. It was during a recent listening that I discovered that this brief passage answers five important questions.

Do you know the answers?

1. What is the only thing that can be saved?
2. What is the only way to save it?
3. How do we attain peace?
4. What do our illusions hide?
5. What are we to lie before the Altar of God?

Here’s the passage: (DU page 264, CD 4 Track 06 0:00)

“Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is the only thing that can be saved and the only way to save it. The Course also teaches that you attain this peace by forgiving your illusions. …And what they hid is now revealed; an altar to the holy Name of God whereon His Word is written, with the gifts of your forgiveness laid before it, and the memory of God not far behind”

Here is what I took from the passage.

What is the only thing that can be saved? The mind
Our spiritual work must focus on changing our thinking – saving ourselves from the false beliefs we have about ourselves and others. It is NEITHER the body or the spirit that needs saving. The spirit is already home in God and our body can never get there.

What is the only way to save it? Through peace
The mind is saved as it attains peace.

How do we attain peace? Through forgiving our illusions
Peace is the inevitable result when we forgive our illusions by recognizing 24x7 that this world we seem to live in is just our dream. Peace is the inevitable result when we see our holiness everywhere and see all judgment and grievance as nothing. Who can not be peaceful when they truly recognize that nothing in a dream can hurt them?

What do our illusions hide? The Altar to the Holy Name of God
Our dream of separation – the anger, the fear, the judgment, the grievances – hide what has always been there.

What are we to lie before the Altar of God? The gifts of our forgiveness
As we forgive, lay aside all grievances, and experience the world as Jesus did – as a vehicle to return home by practicing forgiveness every moment of every day – our memory of our true home returns. And we rest in God. What a joy!

Salvation is for the mind, and it is attained through peace. This is the only thing that can be saved and the only way to save it.

In Joy,

Michael

Choose once again

A Course in Miracles teaches that each of us have situations in our lives that seem to recur time and time again – situations which we often experience as frustrating or difficult. ACIM teaches that these are opportunities for us to:

Choose once again.

These opportunities bring us in touch with an area of unforgiveness or fear that needs healing. In these cases, we can choose with our ego and project judgment, anger, blame or guilt into the situation or we can choose with the Holy Spirit and project love and healing.

One of my “choose once again” opportunities –

When I am at home and feeling time pressured, I tend to get very short in conversations with my spouse. I may be needing to get out the door or finish a client assignment. Inevitably, at that very moment, my wife will need something from me. And my typical response just doesn’t seem to be too Christ-centered. In the Disappearance of the Universe, Pursah describes these moments as times when our own unconscious guilt has risen to the surface. And whether it shows up as mild irritation or intense rage, it is all the same – an opportunity to “choose once again.”

And remembering that this is so seems to be the hardest part. If I can just remember that I am not the victim here, but the creator of this dream. My spouse isn’t guilty. She is here to bless me. If I can just remember:

I have projected this for my healing. You are innocent and so am I. I love you and forgive you.

I thank my partners in the Practicing Forgiveness Group for serving as a weekly reminder to me to remember!

In Joy,

Michael

What is True Forgiveness?

Hope the new year has started full of love, joy, and peace. And if for some reason this is not the case for you, let's take it as another opportunity to practice true forgiveness.

What is this thing called true forgiveness?

Somewhat similar to the teachings of Buddhism, true forgiveness recognizes that this so called game of life is truly played out in the mind and that the body experiences we seem to have are the results of our thinking. Why is this recognition so vitally important?

Imagine a doctor who had a patient who suffered from ulcers in the stomach who just treated the ulcers without talking with her patient about the mind activities (e.g., worries and stresses) that were creating the condition. The medical profession recognizes the power the mind plays in illness. Science also recognizes the power the mind plays in healing. When testing new medicines, scientists know that they have to have two groups, one group gets the new pill, another group gets a fake pill. Why? Because some people will get well simply because they believe they are taking medicine. Science recognizes the placebo effect - healing can take place simply as a result of a mind believing - so they have to control for this when testing potential medicines.

In this same way, true forgiveness, which recognizes the power of the mind, is based on just a few key ideas.

1. God is all there is and there is nothing else.

2. God is perfect love, always has been, always will be, and God never changes.

3. Everything that comes from God is exactly like God - perfect love, never changing.

4. We, who really come from God, are therefore exactly like God - perfect love, never changing.

5. Anything that we perceive that is not like God - anything that is not perfect love, anything that changes - is our own dream that is blocking our awareness of perfect love and seemingly creating a situation in which we appear to be separate from God.

6. Like the dreams we have while perfectly home in our beds, we are the creators of this dream we seem to live in, while perfectly home in God.

7. It is our judgments and our beliefs that give power to the dream and give strength to the belief that we are separate from God.

8. By recognizing ourselves as the creator of the dream, not the victims of it, we withdraw power from the dream we created and place ourselves in the position of true forgiveness: seeing God and only God, joining not judging, loving not fearing, trusting not condemning, accepting not fixing.

9. As we become the conditions of heaven - love, joy, peace - we join with God and our memory of our true home - heaven - becomes our experience.

10. Each day we practicing joining with God, remembering our home, recognizing our dream, removing judgment, and letting love flow through us. Each day, we ask the Holy Spirit to help us practice the conditions of heaven - love, joy, peace - by remembering that we are the author of the dream and choosing love not judgment.

In Joy,

Michael