06.02.06
0202 - Reflections on Forgiveness
Posted in the Branch at 10:05 pm by Graham Watts 
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from Issue 002 — Nov 2000
A Course in Miracles® is like a best-kept secret for those who are coming to realise and ‘Know’ what it actually says. Not the usual meaning of the word secret, for that is the secret, there are no secrets. Just a ‘Knowing’ that can’t be described, taught or explained in any way. Just ‘Known’, when one is ready to ‘hear’ what one has actually always known all along. And that’s no secret.
It’s not that the Course is difficult reading as such, it’s beautifully poetic sure, but it certainly seems to be almost impossible for mere human brains in the body-mind-selves of this world to comprehend. In fact it can never be understood in this way, even if the ego-body-mind-self thinks it can, for it was made specially to block the One Self from ever being known to defend it’s own separate idea of what it seems to have made itself up to be.
It is only by actually doing the Course as a process for oneself that one’s perception can be profoundly changed to re-permit the ‘Knowledge’ from this extraordinary material into awareness. Actually doing the Course means ‘investigating’ one’s mind-self or ‘looking within’ from a Christ Mind or non-ego viewpoint. Hence the importance of the symbol of Jesus as a personalised manifestation of the Holy Spirit as the reflection of the Love of God within the ego-dream-mind -state, by allowing it to be revealed within Oneself, re-connecting to what one already ‘Knows’. A Course in Miracles® is an extraordinary catalyst, it provides ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life’ to rediscover who one actually is.
There’s only one way to read the Course to ‘Know’ it and that’s to allow oneself to become more and more attuned to it as you do it. In other words, to permit this ‘Knowledge’ into awareness through forgiveness of oneself, which is the correction of perception called a ‘Miracle’. But what does this mean to me? What does it mean to let the ego-body-mind-self go? What metaphysical ego type magic can lead to the disappearance of the magician? Of course it’s impossible, just like the ‘tiny mad idea’ of there being something separate that just seemed to start all this in the first place.
The understanding that there must be a better way of relating, to oneself and others, is essential. One can only come to this point when one is ready or perhaps so despairing with all the chaotic relationships within oneself and hence in the world that one seriously starts to question one’s sanity! One may just have been wrong about everything. Now one may start to seek within oneself with a desire built on despair, to find some other way. A turning point inwards.
Merely reading other books about it, talking about it and attending discussion groups may indeed be helpful to clarify and comprehend a particular pathway such as A Course in Miracles®, but there’s definitely no substitute for reading the Course itself and actually doing it for oneself. It was only meant for oneself, there is only One. There needs to be an ‘inspired’ sense of the unknown, or of ‘something’ else, which one may call ‘Love’ from within oneself - a call for help to the Love within. In other words the development of a recognition of a true relationship within. This must begin with a joining between the ego-body-mind-self and what it thinks it thinks and sees, especially in relationships with others. Certainly the greatest ‘lessons’ and opportunities to reflect upon oneself are in the context of inter-personal relationships.
One comes to realise everything is merely a projection of one’s own perceptual mind. This is a world of perception. All things that seem to be are only in one’s own ‘ego mind’ and nowhere else. There is nowhere else. As long as one identifies with the individual ‘I’ which thinks it ‘sees’ and ‘hears’ another, apart from itself ‘out there’ it will deeply (subconsciously) despise what it thinks it thinks it sees, however ‘nice’ and ‘loving’ it may appear and think itself to be. This is simply because it is the ‘lower hidden self’ psychologically projecting or seemingly manifesting what it has denied, coming from a totally false and seemingly very deeply rooted sense of being separated from it’s source in the ‘Mind of God’. One is the seeming world and entirely responsible for what it appears to be. It is one’s dream. That’s why one can never change the world, but only one’s mind about the world.
In this dualistic dream state as the victim of the world the situation is absolutely hopeless. The separation and all it entails must persist. One against another, fighting to keep a false sense of identity for oneself ‘alive’ to survive. It is only when one comes to be able to accept ‘another’ or ‘other thing’ as a ‘metaphysical’ projection of the body-mind-self within it’s own deranged mind state, and so ‘takes the self into Self’ so to speak, that the duality of ‘I’ and ‘this’ or ‘that’ can disappear (into the nothingness from which it came as the Course would say). This is the undoing of the very source of one’s own inherent guilt and fear of one’s individualised false self. In one’s ‘new’ identity with the ‘outer and the inner’ as the same ‘parts’ of the whole, Truth or Love or Reality or God must be realised, automatically.
To come to ‘see’ this may take a lifetime, but not always, for there is no time, only the ‘holy instant’ of now. The self as the one who thinks it sees and hears, and the one it thinks it sees ‘out there’ join when the self becomes conscious of itself as the OneSelf, which it already is anyway, and when it becomes responsible and vitally interested in giving absolute attention within itself to it’s own selfless awareness - being non judgementally aware of Itself, ‘Reality’ is allowed to come into focus.
The great reversal of cause and effect may now occur, and one is now aware of not being an ego-body-mind-self. One has learned how to forget in order to remember better. Just remember always that’s why this can never be done by the ego-body-mind-self. There must be some kind of help from beyond or outside the dream of death otherwise one is only chasing one’s own tail. It can only happen spontaneously of ‘Itself’ when one is ready. Only God can take the last step. It can only happen when one comes to see the need for it, desires this and nothing else in the realisation there is nothing else.
The inner knowing will surely begin to ‘rise up’ from within oneself, and at the same time a seemingly extreme resistance to accepting what it’s saying, even though you actually already ‘Know’ it. That’s why practically everyone I know who has ever started reading this material and stopped, as most do, inevitably pick it up again at some later time in some way shape or form. This is the very last thing the ego wants to hear. The ego false self was made not to hear it, but it’s not the ego that ‘Knows’.
The ego-body-mind -self would seem to have a ‘fatal fascination’ with this material. Surely fatal to the ego-body-mind-self which ‘loves’ this stuff like a poisonous snake. For poisonous snakes can really bite just like the ego in viciously defending itself against it’s own made up individualised ‘reality’. It’s acceptable so long as one keeps one’s eyes fixed to the snake and doesn’t let it out of your sight for a moment. Keep one’s eyes fixed to it in case it may creep under one’s guard. Never mind about putting forgiveness of one’s self for what one has not done, and hence everyone else, into practice. Resistance to this knowledge is seemingly tremendous, but it is only resistance to the ‘looking’ not the seeming ‘fact’ of what appears to be in itself. Be very careful though, the genius of this material will slip under one’s best defences for the real ‘One’ cannot be denied.
There’s only one way to read the Course and that’s to read it with the Mind of Christ, to join and be That. Then there’s nothing to understand or try to be peaceful about. One can only smile at the ‘tiny mad idea’.
© 2000 GW