The Law of Forgiveness

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– By Gary R. Renard

The path I had chosen was not fast-food spirituality, and the Course's Workbook was no piece of cake.

After a year and four months of almost constant dedication and attention, I managed to complete all 365 of the Workbook Lessons. Although the Course's theory is set forth in the Text, it is greatly elaborated in the Workbook.

Both are necessary to understand and apply the Course; neither is complete without the other. The Workbook, however, has a more practical feature to it. Its exercises, which are applied to students' personal relationships and to any situation they find themselves in on any given day, are designed to bring about the experience that what the Course is teaching is true.

Indeed, Arten and Pursah had already emphasized that the real Answer to the ego's world would not present itself in the form of an intellectual answer, but as an experience of God that would in effect render the experience of separation meaningless. For me, there were also the occasional and welcome experiences of peace that were present, instead of my usual and habitual upsets. That alone was enough to make me thankful for the direction my life had taken....

By August, I was very excited because eight months had gone by since I had last seen Arten and Pursah. By now I trusted them to keep their word and appear to me again at the end of that interval. Then one afternoon, Pursah showed up, but Arten didn't.

PURSAH: Hey, teacher of God. What's up?

GARY: If I told you, you'd slap my face.

PURSAH: Did we forget to take our anti-smart --- pill this morning?

GARY: Just joking. It's great to see you, but where's that Arten guy?

PURSAH: He's on business.

GARY: Where, or should I say when?

PURSAH: Another dimension. It's not really a different place, because there aren't really any different places, and I think you're starting to get the metaphysical picture. Arten is working with you right now in another one of your lifetimes, and you don't even know it! Sometimes people don't know an ascended master is around. That's why I told you we like to fit in wherever we go. Arten is actually here, too. An ascended master is everywhere. You just can't always see them. We seldom project
more than one bodily image of ourselves at one time, and it's always for teaching purposes. The teaching isn't always traditional. Sometimes we interact with someone or do something somewhere that will help facilitate forgiveness in that particular dimension. Most of the time we don't appear at all; we just give people our thoughts.

GARY: I don't suppose you're gonna tell me about the lifetime Arten is helping me in?

PURSAH: Let's work on this one, hotshot. When you forgive in one lifetime, you help the Holy Spirit heal all of them. The forgiveness you've been doing for the last few months is having an effect on you in other dimensions of time. Arten will show up with me again next visit. This time, just focus on talking with me. We're going to discuss forgiveness - true forgiveness. I want you to be even better at it, O.K? The Course is enough, but you're fortunate to have good help in understanding it. For most people, that kind of help is absolutely necessary.

GARY: As Benjamin Franklin said, "Necessity is a mother."

PURSAH: Let's hope you quote the Course more accurately. The Workbook has helped you tremendously. You can read parts of it again anytime you want, but you don't have to do the exercises again. Some people do the exercises in the Workbook twice; some people do them every year. It's an individual thing. In your case, just reading and applying the Workbook ideas the same way you do with the ideas in the Text and the Manual will be enough from now on. As for this discussion, let's get to work.

The Course teaches that your sole responsibility is to accept the Atonement for yourself. (ACIM: T25-26) You've already accelerated a process where you forgive others instead of judging them. Having completed the Workbook, you finally understand that whenever you condemn another, your salvation is off to a flying stop. You've also had more experiences that the world is a dream, nothing but illusion.

GARY: We had a guest at our study group meeting a couple of weeks ago when somebody mentioned something about the world being an illusion, and this guy was really pissed. He said, "What's the point?" I knew the answer was that you have to understand the world's a dream in order to comprehend forgiveness and salvation, but I didn't explain it very well.

PURSAH: Yes. We said earlier it's not enough to say the world is an illusion. The point is that you have to learn how to forgive in order to get home. Understanding the metaphysics of the Course is required in order to understand forgiveness, but it may be helpful to some people if you stress forgiveness first, then bring in the dreamlike nature of the world and other features of the truth gradually.

That's just the opposite of what we did with you, but there's a big difference between a book like the one that's going to result from our visits and the kind of personal interactions you'll have with most people. You're not going to teach anybody the whole Course. That means people will only stay with it if they hear something that rings true for them, or piques their interest. Don't try to control that. Just be yourself and let the Holy Spirit work with people. Yes, ask for guidance and share your experience if you want, but don't try to change the world or anyone in it. Just forgive - silently. Don't go up to people and say, "I'm forgiving you now, you know." Which brings us back to the subject at hand. Tell me
something you remember from the Workbook; anything that comes to mind - quickly.

GARY: O.K. This is one of my favorites.

I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me. (ACIM: W386)

PURSAH: Good one. That's from the Workbook, which also says,

...The ego holds the body dear because it dwells in it, and lives united with the home that it has made. It is a part of the illusion that has sheltered it from being found illusory itself. (ACIM: W382)

Now, if you thought you were a body before you had the Course, then you can be certain other people definitely think they are bodies. An important component of your forgiveness is that you want to teach people, silently, that they are not bodies. That's how your mind learns for certain that you are not a body. As the Course puts it,

As you teach so shall you learn. (ACIM: T82)

As we go along, try to remember that. As we've said, when you forgive others, it's really you yourself who is being forgiven....

BOOK EXCERPT: The Disappearance of the Universe: Straight Talk about Illusions, Past Lives, Religion, Sex, Politics, and the Miracles of Forgiveness

– By Gary R. Renard