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*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 

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This is an important lesson and can be easily misunderstood because we are confused about the idea of God and lessons. It is valuable to look at our current thinking about God and lessons to really uncover all of our false and strange ideas about who God is and what our beliefs are about his role in our lives regarding what we are here to learn. The lesson title sounds like God wants us to learn something yet the first line says that God does not know of learning. The function we are given, through the Holy Spirit is to apply forgiveness. We are learning to let go of our unworthiness and self hate to remember who we really are. Shining behind all appearances is the radiant Self waiting to be revealed.

We are the ones that bring about the lessons, not God. "And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked." (T.21.II.2.5). The correction, available through the Holy Spirit, is that there is another way of looking at everything. His interpretation is always that we are the guiltless Son of God. While the script for our lives has been written by us, outside of this dream of time and space, it can serve a different purpose when the events of our lives are given over to the Holy Spirit for healing. What this means to me is basically summed up in the word "humility." It is to admit that I am not in control of my life and everything I have taught myself, every concept I hold, all thoughts of good and bad, are wrong. Now I can humbly ask for help in receiving a new interpretation from what I have perceived. In other words, it is to stop thinking I know and to allow room for a new perception by stepping back and following Someone Who does know. This is the Holy Spirit Who is in the right mind as a symbol of the love that we are. In every challenging situation and every difficult encounter, we have the opportunity to choose to forgive so we can see everything in the script of our lives through the eyes of love. With that choice comes the memory of who we are, which becomes apparent when we release our judgments and our desire to be right.

What we have taught ourselves is that we are the victims of the world and that we have to get from others what they have taken from us. In other words, we blame others for our condition in this world. When the pain of this kind of position becomes great enough, we become motivated to look for another way, meaning another teacher, no longer turning to our ego for guidance. We realize that turning to the ego only brings more suffering. As Jesus asks, would you rather be right (about the way you see the situation) or happy by giving it over to the Holy Spirit for His interpretation? This is what Jesus calls an invitation to the Holy Spirit, and we turn to Him when we realize that listening to our own thoughts has never brought us peace.

The Holy Spirit does not send us lessons. He knows our perfection, but He needs our cooperation.  We need to be willing to bring our misperceptions to Him so that we can be shown that there is a better way. He will give us a new way of seeing. We think that the world is outside of us causing us to feel a certain way, but it is just a screen on which we project what is in our minds. With desire and willingness we can return to that choice point in our minds were we chose wrongly in the first place and now we can make another choice.

Let's look at some of the ways we currently address the problems in our lives, which come from our victim perspective. Our first thought may be to feel victimized by God. This may or may not be conscious. Our unconscious thought may be something like "why is this happening to me?" "what have I done to deserve this?" or more specifically directed at God, as to "why is God punishing me" or "what is the lesson that God is bringing me?" Jesus tells us, "God does not perceive at all." (W.193.2.4) If that is the case, then God can't possibly have anything to do with this dualistic world of perception as He can only know Oneness, but He hasn't left us without Help. He has given us the Holy Spirit "Who gives the means by which perception is made true and beautiful enough to let the light of Heaven shine upon it." (2.5)

This is in sharp contrast to how we function in the world left to our own devices. We may try to strategize how to solve the situations that cause us pain. We bring solutions to the problem based on past experiences, and if we successfully resolve the problem and our needs are met, then we are happy, but the solutions we apply and the powerlessness and victimization we feel will never address the true source of our distress, which is the guilt in our minds. Only by releasing the guilt through forgiveness will we experience true peace.

In all these situations that we encounter, if we don't turn them over for healing, we reinforce ideas about ourselves as bodies. We think that we are on our own, trying to solve problems that can never be truly solved, that we need to defend against outside forces, and that happiness is elusive and dependent on outside conditions. These are all misguided perspectives that continue to perpetuate the dream. The only undoing that is possible, the source of our true happiness, is in turning to the Holy Spirit. This is the only lesson to be learned.

We come into this world, where we think the game is already on and we somehow have to teach ourselves the rules of how to play this game. We feel alone in this process of learning, but increasingly we either make adjustments to the world and learn to play the game, or we fail at the seeming requirements. Either way we feel increasingly unworthy and unable to figure out how to achieve the peace and happiness that we all seek. We have all learned lessons in this game of life and they form our concepts and beliefs about ourselves. Many lessons we learn through pain. If we have gone through several difficult relationships, we may learn not to trust again. If we were punished for cheating at school, we may learn not to cheat, or to get better at it. In any event, the meaning that we give to each of these events is part of how we learn to get along in the world.

No matter what the form of our ego lessons, the content of them is always the same, which is more guilt, more unworthiness and despair. The ego is trying to teach us that we are separate from God, that we have spoiled our perfection, that our will is different from God's, that we are not as God created us, that we are born in a body and are flawed and separate. It reinforces the idea that our strength is in us alone and thus we can only depend on these limited, vulnerable selves that we think we are. The world is throwing things at us and we feel it is up to us to figure out what to do. We are constantly changing and adjusting to external circumstances, trying to be nice, but sometimes the world just pushes us too far. All of these lessons reinforce the smallness of our existence in a world doing things to us. We think that that includes God, who sends us lessons, which we try to discern as to their meaning. This is the god of the ego that is talked about in the Laws of Chaos, "For if God cannot be mistaken, He must accept His Son's belief in what he is, and hate him for it." (T.23.II.6.6) In other words, God just becomes a more powerful ego who has become the enemy who sends us difficult lessons and we can't then trust Him or turn to Him.

The single lesson in all this is that the world is the cause and we are the effect. The ego does a good job of teaching us this lesson. It teaches us to protect and defend ourselves physically and emotionally, but Jesus shows us that the only lesson is forgiveness, which is the reflection of God's Will---love. The Holy Spirit sees the same content behind all forms. The content behind all forms is the love that we are. It is hidden behind the forms. It is our reality, which we can't change. The only reason that we don't know that is because we hold thoughts of anger, distress, victimhood, demands, expectations, betrayal, lack, loneliness, and unworthiness that cloud our minds. These are the thoughts that we need to bring to awareness so that they can be released. That is what forgiveness offers. In other words, no matter what is going on around you and no matter the nature of the problem, the answer is always forgiveness. This is the central thought regardless of circumstances and events that we encounter or the "different characters and different themes," (3.4) that are part of this dream. No matter what problems we seem to have, behind them all is the Holy Spirit's purpose of forgiveness. Forgiveness shows us that none of the seeming problems of this world are real. Thus in every problem the answer is always the same. It is to recognize, through forgiveness, that they are all unreal.

All learning is about how to perceive correctly. God does not understand the condition we are in, as He knows us only as complete and whole. He wants us to return Home to Him, so He has given us the Holy Spirit to be our Guide and Helper. While the events, circumstances, different characters and different themes in our lives all seem unique and different for each of us they all contain the same lesson. "Forgive and you will see this differently." (3.7)

I had a situation in my life where I was being sued by someone. I perceived her doing something to me that brought me pain and distress. I was angry at her for the pain that I perceived was caused by her actions. I felt victimized, betrayed and hurt. I questioned what I had done to deserve this and how I could solve the situation, but then the realization came that I had been given an opportunity to see how I was keeping us both bound to guilt. I was using this situation to show that I was right in how I set all of this up, to prove that I could be victimized, that I was vulnerable to attack, that she was guilty and I was innocent, that the problem really did exist out there, and that my suffering did not seem to come from my own guilt. Yet, Jesus says that that is precisely the content under all form, and that is what he says makes the lesson "so simple that it cannot be rejected in the end." (4.3) It is that whatever I find difficult has no external cause. My mind had set up this situation to prove the ego's lesson of guilt and fear. This lesson can only be solved in the mind where the problem originated in the first place. If we have guilt in the mind, we will call into our lives these situations that bring the punishment that we think we have coming to us. The only answer is to bring the guilt to the truth, remembering that we are never upset for the reason we think. (W.5)

Jesus recognizes that to us "all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness." (4.1) If that is truly the content behind all events, circumstances and situations in our lives, then eventually we will learn that the sameness of the content makes our learning sure. We will get so many examples of problems over and over and over that eventually we will see that the only real change possible is through forgiveness. The answer is always the same, no matter what the form of the problem. We will always suffer until we get this. Lack of forgiveness is where all pain comes from. Jesus says to learn this is simple. Why is that? Because there is only one answer. We don't have to figure out a whole series of lessons to be learned. It is all the same. Forgive and you will see this differently.

Does this mean that we don't take any action in the world? Of course not, but it does mean that the actions we take come from a place of peace, a place of forgiveness and through guidance. Ultimately Jesus reminds us that we have no control over the world we made. (T. 12.III.9.4) Yet all the lessons we teach ourselves about living in this world are about learning how to get control, but this is all illusion. It is only the illusion of control. Yet he goes on to remind us that we do have control over our own mind. Thus every situation in the world can teach us forgiveness. We can learn that it is never the world that causes us pain, but our mistaken choice for the separation. Through forgiveness we are undoing this decision to be separate. We are learning that we have been wrong, but can now turn to the Holy Spirit Who is the answer to all of our pain and suffering. We can learn to see everything, not as a threat, not as loss, not as attack, but as a step in our own healing and thus as a step to wholeness and to God.

It is quite a simple thing to see our wrong choice in any moment, says Jesus. "Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned." (7.2-3) What is that lesson? It is that there still is unforgiveness hiding in the mind. It means that I am choosing to see through the wrong perception of the ego. It means that there is still guilt in the mind that is calling to be undone. It is irrelevant whether I see the pain in me or in you as it is the same. If I see victims and perpetrators in the world, I am seeing through my own guilt. I am choosing not to be at peace. Thus forgiveness is called for. I recognize that I am using this situation to keep myself from the love that I am and I need help to forgive myself for my wrong perception. Jesus says that "God would not have you suffer thus. He would help you forgive yourself." (8.1-2) Suffering is something we impose on ourselves. If we choose to suffer we are renouncing our salvation (happiness). (8.4)

It is on behalf of our own happiness that Jesus pleads with us to, "Let mercy come to you more quickly." (10.2) The guilt in our minds makes us think we don't deserve mercy, but time is ours to use for the purpose of undoing the guilt in our minds so we can "overcome a thousand seeming obstacles to peace in just one day." (10.1) He says we have been gone from our Father's house much too long. (11.2) Why would we linger and keep our suffering apart from healing, when it could all disappear with the Help available to us?

Today, whatever the situation, whether a computer breaks down, a relationship is not working, or someone steals your car, instead of looking for the lesson in the world, or trying to figure out what to do, what if you looked on everything that seemed to be happening and let "it be to you another step to Him, and to salvation of the world?" (13.1) Yes the situation may still be there to be attended to, but the distress of it is gone when we forgive. Forgiveness is about looking at the ego without judgment or fear. Now the problem, as we have defined it, has disappeared. With forgiveness, the power of that situation to hurt us has now been neutralized. That is what each situation is there to teach us over and over and over until forgiveness becomes our entire focus for our time in this world.

Today we remind ourselves, "I will forgive, and this will disappear." (13.3) With "every apprehension, every care and every form of suffering," (13.4) and everything that bothers us, we can see it differently by looking at our thoughts about it, without judgment. Today, it is important in watching the mind not to let the seemingly little annoyances and irritations go by without taking time to look. The more we practice this daily the more we make every instant a holy instant and take the steps necessary to open Heaven's gate. The words of this lesson, "I will forgive and see this differently," (5.1) have immense power when sincerely applied to every situation. These are the little steps "He asks you take to Him." (13.7)