Quotes in this article are from Foundation for Inner Peace edition; To locate the same quotes in the 'Original Edition', use this link:  http://www.jcim.net/acim_us/Acim.php    
Sarah's Commentary:

The focus of this course is on forgiveness, but it is not in the traditional way that we think about forgiveness. It is, as the first line here says, "my function is to forgive the world for all the errors I have made." Thus in, course-based forgiveness, I am not forgiving you for your mistakes, but for my own. How can that be? We need to understand that when we thought we had separated from God we had a load of guilt, which we still carry. The ego offered us a plan on how we might avoid responsibility for that guilt and simply 'off load' it. The ego sold us on an arrangement that proposed that instead of carrying this guilt, which would overwhelm us, we would just project it out onto the world. So what does that mean? It means that I make my brother responsible for how I feel, I blame circumstances in the world for my condition, and basically I give power to the illusion to victimize me. With projection of our guilt on others, the ego convinces us that the guilt is now no longer ours. Our minds are like a movie projector, so what we are seeing in the world (on the screen) is just a projection of the film in the projector, which is our own guilt, our own thoughts. Of course, projecting guilt is how we keep it, but the ego has kept that out of our awareness.

Jesus is now showing us that when our unconscious guilt is brought to light and healed, we will see a different world. It is the world that vision will reveal to us. "When you perceive yourself without deceit, you will accept the real world in place of the false one you have made." (T.11.VIII.15.4) This is what our innocence will reveal to us. We can accept this to some extent, but it becomes more challenging to us when we think about suicide bombers, murderers, politicians that we love to hate, parents who have abused us, and all the many ways that "others" seemed to have caused us great pain, anger, distress, frustration, and loss of peace. Now we have a desire for vengeance. It is only our own thoughts about the situation that create pain for us. We project these thoughts of guilt out there on others who have conveniently provided us with the perfect opportunity to make them responsible. Now they hold the guilt and we can see ourselves as innocent. Our hope is that God is watching and while they will be punished, we will be off the hook. "This sickly picture of yourself is carefully preserved by the ego, whose image it is and which it loves, and placed outside you in the world." (T.20.III.5.6)

It does seem that there are some situations and people that are seen as more difficult and thus more challenging for us to release our justifications for anger and revenge. The ego does not love us and so it urges us to keep this cycle of guilt going even though this keeps us in hell. Jesus reminds us that there is no order of difficulty in the illusion. Any thought that blocks the love that we are from our minds is painful when we hold onto to it.

Forgiveness is the only thing that breaks the cycle of sin, guilt and fear. It is when we take responsibility for our own murderous thoughts, our own attacks, our own hatred and all emotions that arise because of what we perceive "outside" of ourselves, that the miracle can shine forth. All of our feelings and our experiences are simply being triggered by the thoughts that we hang onto. Forgiveness depends on understanding that nothing is happening outside of our own minds. "It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition." (T.21.IN.1.5) Yet we have made an adjustment to this world that we believe is there. "And to this world must you adjust as long as you believe this picture is outside, and has you at its mercy." (T.20.III.5.7) There is no world. Thus forgiveness requires that we recognize that we are forgiving nothing except our own thoughts.

Since there is just one mind and we all participate in that one mind, when we heal our own thoughts, we are healing the world. The opportunity offered us by these events that trigger our emotions, and seem to cause us to lose our peace, is that we can then look at our thoughts and turn them over for healing. For example if I hate anyone that I see as an enemy or wicked person and want him/her dead, then I have an opportunity to look at the vengeance that is in MY mind. As I release my judgments and my guilt, I can know peace. This is what Jesus means by accepting Atonement for myself. It is all about opening up to the miracle and thus accepting the healing for myself. I thus learn about my true nature and know my true innocence. False innocence is what we try to achieve when we blame others for our loss of peace by seeing them as the guilty ones. We hope that God sees how they are victimizing us and punishes them so that we can get off scot-free! With true innocence, healing is extended through us to everyone and every situation, knowing that behind all apparently ugly behavior is actually a call for love.

That is the function we have here, "to forgive the world for all the errors I have made. For thus am I released from them with all the world." (1.2-3) So it is only my errors that I need to have removed from my mind, which I project by diverting blame from myself to others. Everything that I need to forgive is thus within my own wrong mind. This lesson is so helpful in giving us another opportunity to look at our needs, concerns and problems as coming from our own minds and providing us with a practice that can release us from our errors. That is indeed our function. We do it with the knowledge that God's peace and joy are already in us, which we will know when the blocks to love are released and they are released through forgiveness.

Getting in touch with our own innocence is a beautiful gift that we all yearn for. Guilt is a heavy burden on our minds. The only way to release it is to recognize our own errors by watching our attack thoughts and letting them go. If you have ever forgiven anyone even partially, you recognize what a burden is lifted from your mind. It releases us from the chains that bind us to the person we have not forgiven. Our mood lightens, our joy bubbles up, peace is restored and stress is released. It is a wonder that we don't commit to forgiving all of the time, with such gifts that come as a result of it.

We need to stay vigilant to opportunities that are presented to us to forgive. These come up when we stand in line at the grocery store and get impatient, when we watch the news and get angry at events we see, when we get cut off in traffic, when a telemarketer calls at dinner time, when our investments crash, when the coke machine keeps our money and the coke as well, when a friend is always late, when our children disappoint us, and many many opportunities that are there daily to do the forgiveness work. This lesson reminds us that we are forgiving someone for what they did not do. If everyone including ourselves is innocent, then we will not see anything or anyone that we will want to attack, crucify, condemn or judge. When we see forgiveness as only about releasing our own blocks to love, not about forgiving anyone else, then we have the key that will release us from the prison of our distressing thoughts.

Imagine that no matter what we think we are doing on this planet, no matter what we think our function is, whatever role we play, nurse, teacher, lawyer, student, parent, daughter, son, computer analyst, hairdresser. None of these are reasons for why we are here. They are just the backdrop. We can do well at any of these roles while still being at peace. We are only here to learn forgiveness. That is our only function. The world is a classroom for this learning and serves no other purpose. Our only purpose is to bring salvation, to forgive, to be happy rather than to be right, to accept Atonement for ourselves, which is the final acceptance that we have never separated from Love and by this we become the light of the world.

[Use 'Advanced Search' and Exact Phrase' option]