Forgiveness is our Function Here

A Course in Miracles speaks often about being wholly joyous… This is the joy you feel in your heart when you remember Who you are. It is the joy of being Love, which means extending Love, for Love must extend to be Itself. Think of the joy you experience when you meet someone you dearly love. You greet them with open arms and a happy heart. This is but a tiny taste of the joy that is yours when you remember your Self. It is God’s joy, for He gave all of Himself to you in your creation.

But you cannot experience this joy if you hold judgment in your mind. Real Love cannot judge, for Love knows only everything as part of Itself. Judgment holds that what is judged must be separate from the judge. Thus Love and judgment cannot co-exist. Judgment stands between you and the joy given you by God. It is a dark shield that blinds you from seeing your true Self.

This is why forgiveness is your function here. Forgiveness removes the blocks to the awareness of Love’s Presence. It does not change your true state at all. It merely reveals to you what has always been there, hidden only by a false image of what you think you are. Forgiveness lets it go. You cannot have both worlds. You either maintain the world of judgment through holding on to false images of separation, or you recognize what has always been true, your unity with All That Is.

This recognition seems impossible to you because all your body’s senses seem to tell you that you exist in a world of separate images. Forgiveness teaches you that your body’s senses show you only illusions, because the body itself is an illusion. It teaches you not to believe the body’s senses but to see beyond them to the loving, kindly Light in everyone.

Thus the function you have been given, to forgive the world you see, is a function that brings you pure joy and a deep peace, free of all conflict. Forgiveness releases you to see your true Self in all your brothers. It teaches all your brothers in turn that they are innocent, along with you. Thus forgiveness frees the world as it frees you.