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70 Forgiving dreams remind you that you live in safety and have not attacked yourself. So do your childish terrors melt away and dreams become a sign that you have made a new beginning, not another try to worship idols and to
keep attack. Forgiving dreams are kind to everyone who figures in the dream. And so they bring the dreamer full release from dreams of fear. He does not fear his judgment, for he has judged no one, nor has sought to be released through judgment from what judgment must impose. And all the while he is remembering what he forgot when judgment seemed to be the way to
save him from its penalty.
CHAPTER 29: THE AWAKENING
X. The Forgiving Dream
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Workbook for Students
Part II
What is the Last Judgment?
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1 Christ's Second Coming gives the Son of God the gift to hear the Voice for God proclaim that what is false is false and what is true has never changed. And this the judgment is in which perception ends. At first you see a world which has accepted this as true, projected from a now corrected mind. And with this holy sight, perception gives a silent blessing and then disappears, its goal accomplished and its mission done.
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Workbook for Students
Lesson 314
I seek a future
different from the past.
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1 From new perception of the world there comes a future very different from the past. The future now is recognized as but extension of the present. Past mistakes can cast no shadows on it, so that fear has lost its idols and its images, and being formless, it has no effects. Death will not claim the future now, for life is now its goal, and all the needed means are happily provided. Who can grieve or suffer when the present has been freed, extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with hope?
2
Father, we were mistaken in the past and choose to use the present to be free. Now do we leave the future in Your hands, leaving behind our past mistakes and sure that You will keep Your present promises and guide the future in their holy light.
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Lesson ARCHIVE
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Course in Miracles
Original Edition
Text
Chapter 29
The Awakening
X. The Forgiving Dream
par 61-70
[TEXT READING PAUSED FOR WEEKEND]
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61 The slave of idols is a
willing slave. For willing he must be to let himself bow down in worship to what has no life and seek for power in the powerless. What happened to the holy Son of God that this could be his wish—to let himself fall lower than the stones upon the ground and look to idols that they raise him up? Hear then your story in the dream you made, and ask yourself if it be not the truth that you believe that it is
not a dream. A dream of judgment came into the mind that God created perfect as Himself. And in that dream was Heaven changed to hell, and God made enemy unto His Son.
62 How can God's Son awaken from the dream? It is a dream of judgment. So must he judge not, and he
will waken. For the dream will seem to last while he is part of it. Judge not, for he who judges
will have need of idols which will hold the judgment off from resting on himself. Nor can he know the Self he has condemned. Judge not, because you make yourself a part of evil dreams where idols are your "true" identity and your salvation from the judgment laid in terror and in guilt upon yourself.
63 All figures in the dream are idols made to save you from the dream. Yet they are
part of what they have been made to save you
from. Thus does an idol
keep the dream alive and terrible, for who could wish for one unless he were in terror and despair? And this the idol represents, and so its worship
is the worship of despair and terror and the dream from which they come. Judgment is an injustice to God's Son, and it
is justice that who judges him will not escape the penalty he laid upon himself within the dream he made. God knows of justice, not of penalty. But in the dream of judgment, you attack and are condemned and wish to be the slave of idols which are interposed between your judgment and the penalty it brings.
64 There
can be no salvation in the dream as you are dreaming it. For idols must be part of it to save you from what you believe you have accomplished and have done to make you sinful and put out the light within you. Little children, it is there. You do but dream, and idols are the toys you dream you play with. Who has need of toys but children? They pretend they rule the world and give their toys the power to move about and talk and think and feel and speak for
them. Yet everything their toys appear to do is in the minds of those who play with them. But they are eager to forget that they made up the dream in which their toys are real, nor recognize their wishes are their own.
65 Nightmares are childish dreams. The toys have turned against the child who thought he made them real. Yet
can a dream attack? Or
can a toy grow large and dangerous and fierce and wild? This does the child believe because he fears his thoughts and gives them to the toys instead. And their reality becomes his own because they seem to
save him from his thoughts. Yet do they keep his thoughts alive and real but seen outside himself, where they can turn against him for his treachery to them. He thinks he
needs them that he may escape his thoughts, because he thinks the thoughts are real. And so he makes of anything a toy to make his world remain outside himself, and play that
he is but a part of
it.
66 There is a time when childhood should be passed and gone forever. Seek not to retain the toys of children. Put them all away, for you have need of them no more. The dream of judgment is a children's game in which the child becomes the father, powerful, but with the little wisdom of a child. What hurts him is destroyed; what helps him, blessed. Except he judges this as does a child, who does not know what hurts and what will heal. And bad things seem to happen, and he is afraid of all the chaos in a world he thinks is governed by the laws he made. Yet is the real world unaffected by the world he thinks is real. Nor have its laws been changed because he did not understand.
67 The real world still is but a dream. Except the figures have been changed. They are not seen as idols which betray. It is a dream in which no one is used to substitute for something else nor interposed between the thoughts the mind conceives and what it sees. No one is used for something he is not, for childish things have all been put away. And what was once a dream of judgment now has changed into a dream where all is joy because that is the
purpose which it has. Only forgiving dreams can enter here, for time is almost over. And the forms which enter in the dream are now perceived as brothers, not in judgment but in love.
68 Forgiving dreams have little need to last. They are not made to separate the mind from what it thinks. They do not seek to prove the dream is being dreamed by someone else. And in these dreams a melody is heard which everyone remembers, though he has not heard it since before all time began. Forgiveness, once complete, brings timelessness so close the song of Heaven can be heard, not with the ears, but with the holiness which never left the altar which abides forever deep within the Son of God. And when he hears this song again, he knows he never heard it not. And where is time, when dreams of judgment have been put away?
69 Whenever you feel fear in any form—and you
are fearful if you do not feel a deep content, a certainty of help, a calm assurance Heaven goes with you—be sure you made an idol and believe it will betray you. For beneath your hope that it will save you lie the guilt and pain of self-betrayal and uncertainty, so deep and bitter that the dream cannot conceal completely all your sense of doom. Your self-betrayal
must result in fear, for fear
is judgment, leading surely to the frantic search for idols and for death.
70 Forgiving dreams remind you that you live in safety and have not attacked yourself. So do your childish terrors melt away and dreams become a sign that you have made a new beginning, not another try to worship idols and to
keep attack. Forgiving dreams are kind to everyone who figures in the dream. And so they bring the dreamer full release from dreams of fear. He does not fear his judgment, for he has judged no one, nor has sought to be released through judgment from what judgment must impose. And all the while he is remembering what he forgot when judgment seemed to be the way to
save him from its penalty.
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Sarah's Reflections
Lesson 314
I seek a future
different from the past.
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Sarah's Commentary:
By its very definition, when the present is freed from our past mistakes and the guilt that accompanies them, then our experience is one of total peace with no fear of the future. Guilt "casts a shadow" on the future and keeps us in fear of punishment for past sins. Yet the Lesson says, when we release the past,
"Death will not claim the future now, for life is now its goal, and all the needed means are happily provided."
(W.314.1.4) Death is the belief in punishment for past sins, but when there are no past sins, then there is only recognition of the purity and innocence of our Being. With this recognition comes the knowledge that we are eternal beings where death does not play a part. Everything is happily provided. There is nothing we need to strive for or to try to get. Life is a series of miracles, holy instants, holy relationships, and holy encounters. As said in the Bible, "Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all else will be provided you."
"Father, we were mistaken in the past, and choose to use the present to be free."
(W.314.2.1) Our stories of the past and our judgments and self-attacking thoughts are not the truth. We are coming to recognize how wrong our perceptions about everything have been. It comes as a result of being willing to be wrong and to see everything in a new way. When we use everything in our day to free ourselves by forgiving our misperceptions, we free everyone around us. Our past does not determine the future.
"Past mistakes can cast no shadows on it, so that fear has lost its idols and its images, and being formless, it has no effects."
(W.314.1.3) We can choose to release all these past "idols and images" that occupy our minds and instead place them on the altar for healing.
When we judge our brothers, we see guilt in them and attack them. We are then haunted by guilt, which casts a shadow on our future. Our feelings of guilt, which we hold in our mind, keep us hostage to the ego, so we walk this world with the belief that we have done something wrong and now must atone for past sins. Now we expect bad things to happen to us. We also expect to be betrayed and to be attacked because we see our sin in our brothers whom we now fear. If we want a future different from the past, we must choose to see differently. As we bring attack thoughts to the Holy Spirit, we see a future where the timelessness of God's Love is extended through us and we become a clear and shining light, reflecting His Love in this dark world.
Jesus reminds us,
"To forgive is merely to remember the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. Forgiveness is a selective remembering, based not on your selection. For the shadow figures you would make immortal are 'enemies' of reality. Be willing to forgive the Son of God for what he did not do. The shadow figures are the witnesses you bring with you to demonstrate he did what he did not. Because you bring them, you will hear them. And you who keep them by your own selection do not understand how they came into your mind, and what their purpose is. They represent the evil that you think was done to you. You bring them with you only that you may return evil for evil, hoping that their witness will enable you to think guiltily of another and not harm yourself."
(T.17.III.1.1-10) (ACIM OE T.17.IV.14)
Our part is to bring awareness to our attack thoughts and forgive everything that we judge and condemn in ourselves. In holding onto the idols and images of the past, we continue to create more pain and suffering for ourselves. We are keeping the ego's program going, but through forgiveness, we invite the Holy Spirit's help to heal what was never true. Jesus speaks to us directly when he says,
"My holy brother, I would enter into all your relationships, and step between you and your fantasies. Let my relationship to you be real to you, and let me bring reality to your perception of your brothers. They were not created to enable you to hurt yourself through them."
(T.17.III.10.1-3) (ACIM OE T.17.IV.26)
All Jesus wants for us is peace and happiness. What is required of us is to first notice our judgments, worry thoughts, unworthiness, and any thought causing us anxiety and pain and acknowledge that we no longer want to hold onto these thoughts. They are the cause of all our suffering. If we want to be free of suffering, we must turn away from the voice of the ego by being willing to no longer engage in stories of the past or obsessively run the movies of the past in our minds. Instead, we must give all our attention to a willingness to be healed.
"Father, we were mistaken in the past, and choose to use the present to be free."
(W.314.2.1) Jesus can only help us when we bring our dark thoughts to him. We are motivated to do so when we remember that we want to know our divine nature more than we want our stories and the pain that accompanies them.
Letting go of our stories requires that we let go of the blame we project onto others and the justification we hold for our lack of forgiveness. The many painful events we hold onto keep us bound to the past. The only way to experience our true Self, and with it, innocence, peace, and joy, is to release the past. The process of undoing may be experienced as painful for it requires looking at the darkness in the mind, past hurts and grievances, and feeling the pain of them, as well as the pain of our own attacks. But there is no way to get to the love without going through this darkness.
What is it that keeps us stubbornly resisting taking responsibility for our attacks and judgments and defending our positions instead? Jesus says
, "Your mind is filled with schemes to save the face of your ego, and you do not seek the face of Christ."
(T.4.IV.1.5) (ACIM OE T.4.V.56) While a part of us does want to know who we are and to seek the face of Christ, we also want to defend our positions and our perspectives. We want to be seen as good. We justify our part so we can seem innocent and see others as guilty for our condition and for the way we feel.
When the desire for the truth is strong, we willingly sacrifice the shabby image we have tried to hold onto and see that it no longer serves us.
"Who can grieve or suffer when the present has been freed, extending its security and peace into a quiet future filled with joy?"
(W.314.1.5)
In the present, we are free. All our past mistakes can be left behind through forgiveness so we can have a future very different from the past. It does not require anything to change in our world. It only requires that we admit our mistakes and take responsibility for them. We have put a lot of effort in maintaining the face of innocence. We want to be seen as well-meaning. We claim that if others were different, we could be more loving. Not so, says Jesus. The more we defend, the more fear we have. Byron Katie likes to say that the first act of war is defense. Interesting thought!
"In my defenselessness my safety lies."
(W.153) We must start by acknowledging that we are wrong.
"Father, we were mistaken in the past."
(W.314.2.1) Now we can choose to use the present to be free.
Love and blessings, Sarah
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Allen Watson's
Workbook Commentaries
Allen joined Robert Perry in forming the Circle of Atonement in 1993 in Sedona, Arizona where Allen led retreats and workshops and authored many books based on “A Course in Miracles.” One of his most popular books is:
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