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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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Jesus tells us that we can't even begin to understand Heaven where our sacred Self is as pure as God Himself, "extending love, creating in its Name, forever one with God." (W.192.1.1) In this world, we don't experience this now. Our true Identity cannot be known here, but we can experience the reflection of it through forgiveness. Forgiveness reflects the love of God in this world, and forgiveness is the function that "God would have me fill." Jesus knows that in "a world of envy, hatred and attack," (1.2) we can't understand this heavenly function of creating and extending. "Creation cannot even be conceived of in the world. It has no meaning here." (3.1-2) So the best we can do is reflect it by offering forgiveness "in the world in its own terms." (2.1) Forgiveness is the "means by which untruth can be undone," (2.4) and so we are called to undertake this function here. It is not needed in Heaven where all is perfect, but it is needed where we think we are as a body living in the world. Undoing what is not true is the only way to restore us to the memory of who we are. This is the only way that the memory of who we are can be restored.

With the help of the Holy Spirit we can awaken from this world and experience what the Course calls the happy dream."What He (the Holy Spirit) makes are dreams, but of a kind so close to waking that the light of day already shines in them, and eyes already opening behold the joyful sights their offering contain." (3.6) This journey that we take to the real world will be difficult at first and will entail a great deal of conflict while we hold two mutually exclusive thought systems. Once we step on this path, we will experience the split mind more acutely. We  increasingly see that everything we have made is false, and this is painful for us. The split mind has made the physical world for just one purpose and that is to escape from the guilt in the mind and project it on the world. As was said in lesson 161, "Thus were specifics made." (W.PI.161.3.1) We need bodies on which to project our hate. This applies to our body and those of others that we love to hate.  Now we can attack them and justify our attack and anger. We think that this keeps us innocent and deserving of Heaven while our 'evil' brothers can pay the cost of our sin. We thus think we can purchase our innocence by seeing others as guilty, but now we are called to use those specific relationships for healing. "And now it is specifics we must use in practicing." (W.PI.161.3.2)

Jesus constantly reminds us that the world of the ego is the nightmare, whereas the world we see with the Holy Spirit is the happy dream that precedes our experience of Heaven. The means by which we can experience the happy dream is  forgiveness. Forgiveness is ultimately not just about letting go of grievances, but about letting go of "all thoughts of what you are and what God is; all concepts you have learned about the world; all images you hold about yourself." (W.PI.189.7.1) It is about letting go of anything we think is "either true or false, or good or bad." (W.PI.189.7.2) We let our shame and guilt go, all of what we have believed about the past, and all of our beliefs. That is what forgiveness entails. It is a process that facilitates our transition from the world of ego perception to the world of the happy dream. The view we have of the world is replaced by what the Holy Spirit would have us see, and we do this by keeping no thought hidden from the light of healing. Jesus asks us not to hide anything, because only by bringing our thoughts to truth can they be healed. The energy we put into defending ourselves against the truth of who we are is enormous. How willing are you to let these unforgiving thoughts go? As long as we justify why we should feel the way we do, we hold onto our perspectives to use them to justify our feelings and our attacks on others. The only way to let them go is with WILLINGNESS, nothing more, but nothing less.

Forgiveness shifts our perception in several ways. It leaves the world clean of the senseless symbols that we have given it. (4.1) It ends our guilt and overcomes our fear of death. (4.2) It helps us see our body only as a simple teaching aid  that will be laid down when learning is complete. (4.3) We see that the body is not our home; we really are just a mind without the body. (4.5) (5.1) The peace of God is restored to us. (4.6) We become aware of our holiness. (4.7)

It is the attraction of death covered over with the fear of death that is the basis of our denial of our Identity as the Son of God. Only through forgiveness can this attraction and fear be overcome. When guilt is undone, then the fear of God's punishment is also undone. The ultimate punishment is death. Our belief in death is undone when the guilt is undone, leaving the love that was concealed behind the guilt and the belief in death. Now we are relieved of thinking that we need a body as our home. Forgiveness returns us from identification with the body to identification with the mind and thus restores "the peace that God intended for His holy Son." (5.6) We can see why forgiveness is the core of the teaching of the Course, because this is the only way we can be persuaded to look again upon our holiness. (5.7)

When we let our identity as an ego go, we let our anger go. In the world of form we are constantly in competition. It is all about the principle of one or the other. You must lose for me to gain. It is all about special relationships where anger is a condition of this world of bodies. It is an investment in being right about who we think we are as separate individuals. Now we "justify our rage and our attacks." (7.2) We are invested in what is actually not there at all. Our understanding of everything is severely limited. "We are lost in mists of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts, our eyes shut tight against the light; our minds engaged in worshipping what is not there." (7.4) While we imprison others with our demands, requirements, expectations, needs and lacks, and ultimately our anger, we are not free. We are the ones that are hurt by the judgments though we think they are being punished by our hate and blame we cast on them. It is only through forgiveness that we are released from this bondage. "Therefore, hold no one prisoner. Release instead of bind, for thus are you made free." (9.1-2)

If we don't let people off the hook for what they have seemingly done to us, then we remain with them as their jailor. We demand that they stay in the jail we put them in, to do their time for what they have done to us. Now we are bound with them because we have to make sure that they pay for what they have done and don't escape from the punishment we have imposed on them. Some of them we have put in that jail cell for a long, long time and are thus simply on the other side of the bars, holding them to the debt we feel they owe us. This then becomes our world. Can you see how there is no escape in this scenario? Can you see how we keep ourselves imprisoned and how our own minds are condemned to this torture? When you are angry and you keep your brother in the prison of your hate, you are not aware of how you are the one imprisoned by that hate. This is illustrated so well in a movie I saw recently called "The Secret in Their Eyes." It is only through forgiveness that we release those we have bound. We have that choice and we have that power.

Every brother we hold with our anger "represents your savior from the prison house of death." (9.6) It is these very people who seem to cause us pain that are actually there to help us see what is in us that is unhealed. We are called to forgive them so that we can be released from the world of the ego. These are people who not only seem to be our "enemies", but the people in our lives we seem to love, yet who irritate and frustrate us daily. In each situation, where these kinds of feelings are aroused, we have a choice. Will we use the situation as an opportunity to escape this prison house and free ourselves, or become the jailor and the jailed? We have an opportunity to be released from our own tortured minds every time we feel a stab of anger, and thus we owe them our thanks for being in our lives. We don't need to be grateful for their behavior, only for the opportunity these situations provide us to see what is unhealed in our own minds.

We justify our anger, but it only hurts us. "Every time you feel a stab of anger, realize you hold a sword above your head. And it will fall or be averted as you choose to be condemned or free." (9.4-5) Would we attack anyone if we really believed that we were just attacking ourselves? It is unlikely that we can get through a day without some anger or even mild annoyance. When we don't, we keep ourselves from the peace that Heaven offers us in every moment, but we don't believe that this is the case. We think that we can attack and keep ourselves safe from having that attack boomerang back to us in the same instant, and yet that is exactly what happens. When we attack anyone we exclude ourselves from the joy and peace that is available all the time, and this attack can take many forms including just judging someone for their point of view. Every judgment we hold in our minds is a judgment against ourselves and will hurt us.

We can deomonstrate invulnerability and this becomes more and more apparent as we apply the Course teaching to our lives. Increasingly we recognize that we truly can't be hurt because our reality is not these bodies or personalities. The belief that we can be hurt is the belief in an image of ourselves that we made and try to protect and defend, but it is not the truth of who we are. When we embrace that truth fully, we will know our invulnerability, because our reality is then revealed to us. When anger is gone and pain is lifted from our sick and tortured minds (6.1) through forgiveness, we then experience Christ's vision.

Today we are asked to look at who we believe owes us a debt for what we believe they have done to us. Who is it that we keep on the hook for this debt and thus keep ourselves imprisoned with them? Today is our opportunity to be born again, which is simply our release from our self-made hell. Whenever you are tempted to become angry today, realize that the sword is there over your own head, but can be averted anytime you choose. The power to choose is in our own minds, and as you choose to forgive your thoughts about what you think your brother has done to you, you can leave the prison house together with him. Forgive your brother for what he has not done, as what is done is only in dreams. When we wake up from this illusion we will see that nothing real has happened.

We are asked to be merciful today. (10.1) Will we choose our freedom today or stay in prison? It is our choice. Forgiveness is our function that God would have us fill. I suspect we will each have some opportunities to exercise it today if it is like any other day in our lives. Each brother is crying out for mercy. Make a commitment to show mercy to your brothers today so you can receive it for yourself. We are what our brother is, loved by God equally. His interests are our own. I find if I make a commitment in the morning and dedicate my day to peace and mercy, then I see everything in my day as a classroom for learning to be peaceful and merciful. Nothing is wrong. Everything is just another opportunity to look at my mind. What I see in anyone is just a reflection of what I see in myself. Today is another opportunity to watch how often the sword is against my own throat, and why would any of us want that?

Our only function here is to forgive. It is so that we can know our Identity as the Christ Self. We are our brother and we recognize our sameness as we let go of our judgments. Our judgments of our brother are only those we hold against ourselves.