Lessons 295, 296 and 297 all remind us, everything we give, we give to ourselves. "This is salvation's simple formula." (W.297.1.3) We are accepting the Atonement for ourselves, which means we are accepting the correction and healing for ourselves through forgiveness. Thus, "Forgiveness is the only gift I give, because it is the only gift I want." (W.297.1.1) Forgiveness is the recognition that what someone has done has had no effect. Through forgiveness, the thoughts we hold that block our awareness of our true Identity are released. What could we want more than to know who we really are, and what could we want more than the gifts that come with this knowing? They are the gifts of peace, of joy, of abundance, of innocence and of the love that we are.
   

In our present state, we carry a lot of guilt. "The certain outcome of the lesson that God's Son is guilty is the world you see. It is a world of terror and despair. Nor is there hope of happiness in it. There is no plan for safety that you can make that ever will succeed." (T.31.I.7.4-7) There is no joy or hope in this world when we identify with the ego. Yet as we learn to forgive and see only the innocent Son of God in every brother, a world of hope and happiness opens up for us. "The outcome of the lesson that God's Son is guiltless is a world in which there is no fear, and everything is lit with hope and sparkles with a gentle friendliness." (T.31.I.8.1)
   

Forgiveness is such a misunderstood concept. "Forgiveness recognizes that 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." (W.PII.Q1.1.1) This makes no sense unless we see it in the context of the illusory world where behaviors are seen in the dream, but they have no real effect. Only the interpretations we give to our behaviors cause us pain. "It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appears as facts." (M.17.4.2) We need to ask for help to see in another way the things our brothers are doing that seem to have a negative impact on us. We are given a process to use whenever we are not joyous. It is basically the forgiveness process described in the Course.
 

"I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace." (Meaning I must have decided to see the guilt in my brother that I see in my own mind, so now I am blaming him and not feeling any peace and joy.) "I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise." (I can choose to change my thoughts.) "I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace." "I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him." (I can let the Holy Spirit undo my unloving perception of my brother by seeing when I take responsibility for the projection of my guilt onto my brother, and look at my mistake with the Holy Spirit, my wrong perception is healed.) "I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me." (Holy Spirit, let me see my brother through your eyes so I can see his innocence and know my own.) (T.5.VII.6.7-11)(ACIM OE T.5.IX.96)

When we truly want to choose the Holy Spirit over the ego, we must withdraw our investment in guilt by accepting its unreality through forgiveness. We do that, as this Lesson says, by accepting Atonement for ourselves, which is to accept the correction in our own minds. The means offered is through forgiveness, which allows us to see our brothers as they truly are so we can know who we are as the Christ Self. To see our brothers as they truly are is to bring our own blocks to love to the Holy Spirit. Forgiveness is such a misunderstood concept because, in the traditional definition we seem to be forgiving someone else. The Course definition of forgiveness is about cleaning up our own act by recognizing guilt, judgment, and unworthiness in our own minds and giving them over to the Holy Spirit for healing.

Recently my partner had suggested we spend an evening together at dinner and a movie. Meanwhile his buddy called to say he had acquired two tickets to the football game. I saw he really wanted to go to the game in spite of his commitment to me. I knew it would be easy to make him feel guilty about the importance of keeping his commitment to me. Yet would I want this, knowing where he would rather choose to be? In my decision to offer him the freedom, and even the blessing to be with his friend, I received the gift of happiness. There was no lingering sense of residual blame or recrimination. It felt so freeing. I have had many experiences of using control through guilt in my relationships, which always results in suffering. Yes, we get what we want in behavior, but we lose the love that can only come through freedom. Why would we want anyone to be with us, when they wished to be elsewhere? Thus, the gift I gave was only to myself. There was no loss, but only gain for both.

To forgive is to undo what we have made in our choice for separation and individuality. Forgiveness is all about undoing our own specialness and all the fear that comes with it. It is about undoing the comparisons we make with others, about making everything about us, about competition with our brothers, and about bargaining to get what we think we need and want.

We think our identity is of a body in the world for a short time, impermanent, that we experience all kinds of challenges and conflicts in the world, that, try as we might, happiness is elusive and we are basically alone and separate from other bodies also wandering in the world looking for scraps of pleasure, and ways to feel special. The world does not seem to have much purpose until we take up our special function, which is always to forgive. The backdrop for our function is based on our abilities and talents. When given over to the Holy Spirit for His purposes, the content of our function, regardless of what it looks like in the world, is forgiveness. The form of our function in the world varies from person to person, but the content is all the same. The form then just becomes the backdrop for learning forgiveness, which is the healing of our false perceptions.

In this world, we think we can give our guilt away and thus escape from it. In truth, when we blame another, we are only hurting ourselves by accumulating more guilt since giving and receiving are the same. The Holy Spirit reminds us the same principle is reflected in salvation's simple formula in that forgiveness is always for ourselves. It may appear we are forgiving another, but we are forgiving and releasing only our own thoughts about them. And in that release, we are set free from the guilt in our own mind.

We have such an investment in seeing others guilty and ensuring we hold them bound to punishment for their "crimes and misdemeanors." Yet the Holy Spirit shows us a loving God Who sees everyone worthy of salvation regardless of what they appear to have done. We are all innocent. We experience it as we extend forgiveness to our brothers and thus come to know our own innocence. As we extend miracles we receive miracles. The only reason we don't receive miracles is because we have decided someone else is not deserving of them.

Only our own thoughts are the source of our pain, projected onto the world. We are not the victims. We have created our reality. That is the message of the movie, "What the Bleep Do We Know," which clearly articulates how we become addicted to our emotions that lead to our experience and reflect beliefs we hold. We keep playing out the same scenarios in our lives until we decide to choose another way. It is a loop we seem to live in where our false beliefs just keep getting reinforced over and over. The loop starts with a belief. For example, I may believe for me to feel loved others have to agree with me. When they don't, I feel betrayed. Now their betrayal affirms my belief in my unworthiness. What I have done is set up rules for my relationships. Instead of freeing my brother to have his own thoughts and opinions, I have bound him to my rules based on my beliefs. Thus, my grievances are all based on my beliefs about myself and how others are supposed to be around me. By healing my own mind, I free my brother and myself.

Jesus tells us that, "No one can be unjust to you, unless you have decided first to be unjust." (T.25.IX.7.7)(ACIM OE T.25.X.84) Any problems we have are there by our own election, challenging as that is for us to accept. The decision to be unjust means we wanted someone to lose while we benefit by their loss. Then we feel guilty and guilt demands punishment. Now we need to dream punishment into our lives in the form of problems. Because of the guilt from our attacks, we think we deserve to be punished. Thus, guilt is at the core of every problem we have. As we turn our misguided thoughts over to the Holy Spirit and see there truly is another way to see everything and everyone, we will experience the miracle, which shifts our perception from guilt to innocence. And through this we will experience the happiness and innocence always there behind our misguided thoughts and perceptions.

The question is, why don't we choose it? Why do we stubbornly hold onto our perspectives, our grievances, our judgments, our anger, our worries? Isn't it because we feel it is justified by what someone has seemingly done to us and we refuse to release our perceptions of the situation? Yet in this process, we are simply hurting ourselves. What would our lives be like if we really saw clearly what we do to anyone we are doing to ourselves? How would our lives look if we really knew, in a deep and clear way, to gain at anyone's expense is hurting us?