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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    
Sarah's Commentary:

What is it that I give value to? What bodily concerns do I have that seem important to my well-being, my safety, my image? What do I believe will bring satisfaction? Today, not only do we evaluate the things in our lives, but also what draws our attention, why we are doing what we are doing. What is the purpose? How are we choosing to use our time? What do we strive for? What do we really want? What do we believe will make us happy? Where are our attachments? What do we deem important? And most of all, what is it for?

These and other questions are part of how we examine our lives when we are not on auto pilot simply putting one foot in front of the other and never asking about the purpose behind everything. It is our questions that got us on this path in the first place. It is our searching that motivated us to question what is valuable and what is valueless to our awakening, but it is also our disappointments, our hurts and our heartbreaks that contribute to our journey. Jesus teaches that we don't know the difference between what is helpful and what sets us back. We think our heartaches are defeats when, in fact, they can offer the greatest gains in our spiritual advancement. It is acceptance of it all that can alleviate our suffering. It is only the ego that insists, "I want it thus!" (T.18.II.4.1) Everything that serves the ego's purposes can be used by the Holy Spirit when we choose to turn it all over for healing.

How many trivial things are occupying your mind today? Jesus tells us that as we are drawn into the things of this world, we ask for sorrow. We ask for too little of life. We are not asked to sacrifice what we value, but only realize that it is indeed valueless, and there can never be satisfaction in the valueless. Again, the power we have is in the choices that we make, but the range of choice is only two. We choose the valuable or the valueless with each choice we make. We choose everything or nothing. Everything offers us the eternal, where no one loses, where there is no compromise, and where there is no guilt. Guilt is the measure by which we can tell what we have chosen. When we gain at our brother's expense, then we too feel that we should have nothing. We give loss and get loss for ourselves. We receive what we give because we always only give to ourselves.

We now have criteria, where we can apply these four tests and ask: "What purpose does it serve?" (W.133.8.4)   Is my goal to know the eternal Self, where I get everything with no guilt, or for the world of the ego, where guilt is reinforced? This choice is there for us in every situation. Do I want to know my eternal Self and offer benefit for all my brothers or do I look for my personal benefit, which is always at the expense of my brothers though I lie to myself about my motives while working hard to maintain an image of innocence?

Jesus asks why the choice we make has value to us and what attracts our minds to it? What purpose does it serve? And unless we are able to really look at these questions honestly we will be deceived. The ego is devious. We do everything we can in order to look innocent and pretend that our intentions are noble and honest when, indeed, they are anything but that when guided by the ego. The guilt in our minds is protected by our projections. And thus we blame others for our lack of peace that we ourselves have chosen to throw away, yet blame them for taking it from us. We are cautioned by Jesus not to make mistakes into sins, but just to notice that "the one who is deceived will not perceive that he as merely failed to gain" (W.133.9.3) by the choice made for the ego. The ego is maintained through guilt, which leads to our punishing ourselves, accepting ourselves as unworthy and attacking ourselves and others. Thus the cycle of guilt and fear is continued. Jesus reminds us that nothing real has happened and thus there is no cause for guilt. Each time that we choose attack, we have merely failed to gain. And when we recognize that our plans for our happiness will always fail, then we are ready to turn to the Holy Spirit to be taught the nature of true happiness. "How could this readiness be reached save through the sight of all your misery, and the awareness that your plan has failed, and will forever fail to bring you peace and joy of any kind?" (T.24.II.14.2)

Through forgiveness, Jesus teaches that all thoughts that are not of God can be undone. This involves looking at your ego thoughts without judgment and recognizing the cost to you in holding these thoughts. They are thoughts of fear, guilt, anxiety, depression, hate, special love, anger, upset, vulnerability, anything that keeps us separate from others. Any blame that we put on others for how we feel is an indication that we are not prepared to take responsibility for our own minds as the cause of our distress, whatever form it takes. Forgiveness requires that we look at the thoughts that show up in our experience, without judging ourselves for them. When we are willing to recognize that we are never upset for the reason we think, (W.5) we are shown that all of our upsets originate with ourselves. And behind any upset is some kind of wound.

"I am responsible for what I see. I choose the feelings I experience, and I decide upon the goal I would achieve. And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked." (T. 21.II.2.3-5) When we recognize our responsibility for the guilt that is in our minds, we are given an opportunity to make a choice to let the Holy Spirit take our misperceptions and offer a new interpretation for the ones we have made. He shows us that no one is guilty, including us. He shows us that in letting go of guilt and blame, peace returns to our minds. Thus with forgiveness we are making a choice for our happiness. Now we feel worthy of Heaven's Love. Only that is true. Our thoughts about everything are false. Holy Spirit help me to recognize that what I see is always my wrong interpretation. The Son of God is innocent. Nothing he thinks he has done is worthy of condemnation. "Let me perceive forgiveness as it is." (W.134.14.6) To forgive is not to overlook something that is real. All behavior either reflects love or is a call for love. It is our own call for understanding in recognizing our sameness. We forgive in order to release ourselves from the judgments that we have placed on ourselves, but projected on our brothers. When we project our guilt on our brother we now see our sins in him. It is really just our own self condemnation. Forgiveness removes the chains we have laid on ourselves. By our willingness to release our brother we are freeing ourselves because it is only our minds that are making it all up. I thus ask for help in forgiving myself for using you to project my unconscious guilt, which keeps me from knowing the truth about myself.

Forgiveness is the only way out of suffering that is incurred every time we judge something as not the way it should be. When our expectations of how a situation, or an event, should be or how others should meet our requirements, we are railing against the Love that is our reality. We are saying that we are right about the way we see things and the way we require things to be in order for us to be happy. We are telling God that His Love is not enough. There is something else that we have set up as a requirement for our happiness. It is this that we need to bring to mind and see that we are wrong about the way we have judged the situation. And now we have an opportunity to bring our misperceptions to the Holy Spirit and choose to see them differently. When we agree to surrender our way, we have taken an important step toward forgiveness.

A friend recently was speaking to her daughter about an incident that had happened a few years ago when her daughter was much younger. My friend had taken her daughter to a dance rehearsal and judged that the teacher was being unnecessarily harsh and domineering with the young students. She chastised the teacher in front of the students. The teacher was very upset and quit her role and told my friend to take over if she felt she could do it better. My friend was not about to take this role and apologized profusely for what she had done. Her daughter expressed how embarrassed she was at what had happened. Recently they were again recalling this situation. The daughter told her mother that what the mother had not understood was how much she loved the structure and the discipline having been raised in a home, where there were few restrictions. What came to light was how mistaken my friend found her perceptions had been. She was dealing with her own unhealed wound by trying to change things in form. Now she had another opportunity to look at this situation with new awareness.

Forgiveness recognizes that if love is the only reality then anything that is distressing or disturbing to our minds cannot be real. When we insist on holding these distressing thoughts and we justify them, we suffer, but through our decision to take responsibility for them we can choose again. And thus we see that our self induced decision to suffer need not be. We can now bring all thoughts that keep us in a state of suffering to the light. Thus forgiveness makes space for the love that is in us, but is being blocked by our choice for the ego.

 We continue our practice, as before, beginning and ending the day with time devoted to the preparation of our minds to learn what each idea can offer us in freedom and in peace. Let us commit today to raising every judgment, every belief and every concept we hold, to doubt. Open your mind and clear it of all thoughts that would deceive. Continue with the hourly remembrance and whenever you feel triggered by anything today, do the practice of letting go the false and remembering the truth.

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