⁴Let peace extend from my mind to yours, [name].

⁵Reaffirm your determination in the shorter practice periods as well, using the original form of the idea for general application and a more specific form when needed. Some specific forms will be included in the comments. These, however, are merely suggestions. It is not the particular words you use that matter.

How can we know ourselves as the light of the world? The only way is through forgiveness. It is the means by which we can come to experience the light of who we really are. It is only by releasing our grievances so that peace can truly extend from my mind to yours.   That is how we know that it is in us to give.

We can't know love in this world. The closest reflection we have of it is forgiveness. It is quite a revelation to know that what we call love in the world is not love at all. As Jesus says quite clearly "you do not know the meaning of love and that is your handicap. Do not attempt to teach yourself what you do not understand...." (T.12.V.6) So while we tell ourselves we love, and we tell ourselves we are in love or that we are loving, it is pretty clear we don't have a clue what love is. The best we can do is to let forgiveness remove all of the obstacles to love we hold in our minds, so the love that is always there in our right minds can flow through us. Thus we need the Holy Spirit to help us with this as it is not in the best interests of the ego to undo itself. Let's face it, we are still attached to doing it our way and to our perspectives. As we do the work of this course, the ego is threatened, which explains our resistance.  The closer we come to the truth the more fear and resistance come up.   But we have mighty help from outside of the closed system of the ego, which keeps us fully invested in the illusion. The part of our minds, which is still connected to the love that we are has made the decision for healing. It is the part of the mind that has heard the call within and responded with a willingness to awaken. It is a decision to use the means given to us for the undoing of the blocks to love that keep  us from the awareness of our reality.

Forgiveness allows me to see that the light is my reality. It allows for my healing as well as the healing of the world.  Any little irritation or discontent with anyone today is just another opportunity to let go of judgment and to forgive. We don't generally look at the perceived difficulties in our lives as opportunities but that is exactly what they offer us...another chance to see differently...to look at everyone as our friend, recognizing that we are not different from each other; we share the same nature. We meet our Self wherever we go. There truly is no separation. We are all the same with the same one ego reflected in us and the same Christ Self.

Letting go of our judgments and grievances that we hold against anyone is such an important aspect of the course. Forgiveness is the answer to all of our misery and suffering.  We need to make forgiveness the central focus of our lives on behalf of our own happiness. In fact that is what time was made for. That is why we are here. This is the only way to our salvation and the salvation of the world.

It seems as if we will be sacrificing our rights and our boundaries when we forgive. Aren't we letting the other person off the hook? I felt this last night when Don brought home a large TV which did not fit our armoire so that the doors had to be removed. I had specifically asked for him to buy a TV that would fit but his desire was for something much bigger!! So he did what he wanted and had no intention of changing his mind about it. I expressed my feelings of feeling coerced, overpowered, unimportant etc which resulted in a defensive response and a suggestion from him that if I was really a good student of the course, what I needed to do was to forgive. Needless to say this did not go over well at the time! It did seem to me that in forgiving I would lose and he would win.

This is how it always seems in the world. It is about one or the other. In the illusion there is an appearance of loss for me as he has what he wants and won't budge. But what have I lost? Yes, in this world of illusion, it does feel like he won, but in releasing the situation, which I was able to do when I went to the Holy Spirit and asked for help, I felt that I had reconnected to the divine in me which is much more important than winning some argument. The ego has no interest in peace. It is invested in the battle.   It just wants to be right. Was this difficult for me? Oh yes! But not for long because I was determined and willing to find my way out of this hell.  Other issues like this in my relationships where I held grievances for a long time kept me in hell together with my partner. It is never worthwhile when it costs us our joy. Yes, it seems worth it to the ego, so much so that some will give their lives to be right.  But the sooner that we can bring any problem to the answer, the sooner we take ourselves out of hell.

To remind myself today that "I share the light of the world with you," (name),  is to be reminded of the truth of my reality. As we hold this thought in our minds, we bring a powerful healing, so profound that we have no idea of its ultimate impact. It is a benediction that we give, not unlike that which Jesus gave to his disciples when he appeared to them after his resurrection and said "peace be with you."  

And now we are given specific forms of that thought. "Let peace extend from my mind to yours;" I share the light of the world with you (name);" and "through my forgiveness I can see this as it is." And remember, these specific forms after each review lesson are intended to be used when we have a problem or issue with anyone. We prepare our minds for the day using these specific forms, one  in the morning and another in the afternoon so we can remember that the purpose of each day is to bring our unforgiving thoughts to the truth presented here  in each of these thoughts.

For the later part of the day, we are urged  not to forget our function if we want to remember our true reality. Remembering our function is the only way we can experience the joy "that God intends for us." (3.4) If I let a grievance darken my mind today, I am using that situation to hide my function and my joy from me. We were made to extend love and we do this through forgiveness by bringing our dark thoughts to the truth.  Peace and joy are the truth about us. Anything else is simply unnatural. There is truly a simplicity in the teaching of the course no matter how much it appears to confound us. When we don't want the truth, we will find great resistance to understanding what Jesus is telling us. We will continue to hold our grievances, no matter what it costs us. Think of the simplicity of going through the day and remembering that the most important thing is to find our way to peace so that we can "let peace extend from my mind to yours,"  simply by not blocking it with our judgments and grievances. The interesting thing is that we will often forget. Forgetting is just another form of resistance, which we can bring our awareness to and realize that the ego is threatened by the light.

The reason that our resistance comes up is that we are actually choosing to forget what we came here to be and do. In other words the whole world was made to escape from our own reality. We have run away to hide from God and have become convinced that we are bodies, living in the world of time and space and that this is the only reality there is. Our spiritual reality seems illusive while this world seems real and tangible. Yet Jesus shows us, increasingly, as we apply the lessons, that what we have made, the world of form, is the illusion. We see this when we experience the power that there is in the miracle.

The reason we hold  grievances is because they uphold our belief and investment in the illusion. It is the belief that the way we have set things up through our decision for the ego and separation is true. And that is how we are choosing to be right rather than to be happy. We believe that forgiveness lets people off the hook. We want to hold onto our way of seeing things. Yet think about what forgiveness offers. It opens up the power of the miracle. It opens us to the immensity of love. It opens us up to the truth of who we are. Such power is released through forgiveness!! That is what we are reminded of. We are encouraged not to forget our function so that we can know the gifts that are available to us through forgiveness.

Do I really want to continue to drink from this poisonous well of grievances, which will only hurt me? I only need to make the choice. I only need the willingness and the passion to do the healing of my mind and to make every perceived problem, every situation, every issue simply grist for the mill for forgiveness, which is what brings release.
 
I just finished reading the book by Brandon Bays called "The Journey" in which she learns to release her cancer, her home, which burned down during the fires in Malibu, and her husband, who left her for another woman. In her healing she accepted that it was she alone that had betrayed herself because she said that she mistakenly " believed that fairy tales can come true."  She hated the part that had made up the story in the first place and then took up residence and lived in the fairy tale. And in that process, she was left in the "tender sweet wake of reality itself."  The realization in the end for her was that "nothing you can do can give you this love. No career can give it to you; no amount of service can make you know it; no love partner or family can make it happen; no house, car or material belongings can buy it for you. Nothing and no one can give it to you, for it is who you already are. You are the love that you have been seeking for." Sometimes we seem to need to experience these grave difficulties in order to bring us back to our minds, which is where we can find our way back to the love that we are. So not getting my way with the TV set is hardly worth the realization of the truth about myself. Yes, to the ego it looks like capitulation, but to the Spirit it is freedom.

Every experience, situation and person that we encounter offers us one more opportunity to release our attack thoughts and to be still in the presence of our Creator.  

Let us choose our release in every moment today, asking for help to remember that whenever we make judgments, whenever we try to get something at anyone's expense, we are saying we do not want peace and joy and choose our specialness instead of God's love.  And when we do this, we bring more guilt to our minds. Projecting that guilt on others by blaming them for how we feel has a tremendous cost to us. It costs us our peace and joy. So let us not use anyone or any situation today to keep the joy of God away. That is how we remember our function today. We cannot fulfill our function if we go through the day, having forgotten that we are here only to forgive. So any situation that arises today is to be used for forgiveness.

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