Healing is not about fixing what is broken. Healing is being aware that you are created from perfect love to extend perfect love and recognizing you cannot change what you are. But to remember what you are you must stop trying to be something else. Forgive the world and let it be a mirror for what is true about you. Look for what is loving and you will find love within yourself. Forgive what you have condemned and discover how the power of seeing differently will change your world.

You must look for and expect to encounter love before you will find it. “Seeing” in the world is a mirror of our thoughts. What we see is as broad or as narrow as our perception will allow. We do not see things because they appear in the world. They appear in the world because the thought they portray first appeared in our mind. That is why finding love begins with our intention to find it. Forgiveness is what best establishes this intention. It removes the self-judgments we have used to separate us from love. The next time you feel unloved forgive someone that you have judged.

The next time you feel compelled to condemn someone for what has happened in the world, ask yourself if you would condemn God for what your brother seems to have done. The world is a story we tell, a dream we have of happenings that have no meaning and no effect on anything outside the story. As surely as God is not a part of our story, neither is the brother we have judged. What we judge is only a broken and distorted caricature of him and of our Self. The one we think we judge is not there. But as long as we persist in judging him we will think that it is him and hold ourselves apart and miss the joy of loving him and feeling loved by God.

During a conversation I had with a friend about Jesus life, he asked if I was aware, or had been told, if or when he had reached the moment of awakening to the truth about himself. As he was asking the question I began to see the setting of the crucifixion. There were four crosses; one was empty. Many people were gathered at the site. Some were close, most were at a distance as if unsure about being seen there. It was an overcast but very still day.

As I “watched” I was aware that he was floating in and out of physical consciousness, but his mind was fully at peace. It felt as if he wasn’t really “there.” I also was aware that I was anticipating that what I was going to “see” was a kind of flash of light and he would disappear. What I saw was his body become light which quickly filled my vision. It was the world that had disappeared.

The symbolism was perfectly clear. What was real was unchanged. When he had awakened to the truth the thought of sin and a world of separateness that was not real had left his mind and the experience of it simply ceased to be. It was a vivid illustration of what he teaches.

You do not have to ask for guidance; it is constantly flowing to us. Because we have been given the Presence of our God Self for the purpose of holding the truth for us, the means to remember that truth is always present and offered to us continuously as opportunities to “see differently.” But until we learn to trust that this is happening and expect to receive it we do not see what is being brought to us. What we often interpret as “problems,” interruptions of the ego’s plans, are, in fact, opportunities to bring us the guidance we have wanted. When we finally understand why “there are no accidents, nothing happens by chance,” we will then recognize our role in the unified awakening plan.

List all of the things your ego says you need to be happy. Notice that the one thing they have in common is that they all seem to be beyond your reach.
Having a lovely relationship, a beautiful home or a healthy body is not what causes us to be happy. Nothing in the world is the cause of anything. It is always the effect. Our happiness depends simply on not having the need to look for something to be unhappy about. It is important we remind ourselves of this to keep our mind open to the Self within that is always happy.

Save your brother from his illusions by loving him for who he is, not judging him for who he pretends to be. Save yourself from your illusions by loving your brother for who he is, not judging him for who you pretend he is. Save him to find yourself, for he can only be what you are. Forgive him today. He will not be more worthy tomorrow than you choose to see him today. Only our stories have ever changed. He is today as we have always been.

If you would find the truth of the love and loveliness within you, you must see past the unloving image we have come to believe is who we are. You cannot find it in the story we have made. The one you look for is not there. But we can learn to remember the truth of who we are by looking for it in our brother. Forgive him for deceiving himself and you have let go of your own deception. See him as he is right now and save yourself the need to redeem the image of smoke you have made to replace your Self. See him now free of his illusions and find the love and loveliness that is already within you.

Anytime you focus on differences, on what is right or wrong, no matter how good your intention seems to be, you are mentally stepping away from the Light of Love’s Presence. In the same way, when you focus on the need to heal something, you are reinforcing the ego’s belief that there is something wrong. Instead, focus on the perfection of the Light within yourself. Hold to the feeling that you, and all the world, are already healed. Focus only on what is real. Here, and only here, is where true happiness exists—and where happiness is, healing is as well.

For some time now I have been using Brother’s suggestions about consciously choosing to have a happy – peaceful – loving day as I awaken in the mornings. My lesson is to find that as I choose for these I can trust my God Self to show me how to have them by guiding / correcting the choices I might make that would conflict with having them. It is a practice of learning to trust that I can turn my day over to guidance and achieve my real goals.

About a week ago I read in ACIM a simple statement that had great implications for me and I have been pondering. It was from chapter 30, section VI, paragraph 5: “Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal.” Letting in the broader meaning of that statement has been my focus ever since. I could feel the significance of this having to do with my resistance to accepting what is “real.” There has always seemed to be another “corner” I needed to turn; another piece to add to what was missing.

This morning I awakened about 2 AM from a silly dream; not a “bad” one, just nonsensical. I thought then how much more I would prefer to have a happy dream and consciously chose to “be with” Brother, remembering our times together. I awakened again about dawn filled with a nearly euphoric sense of peace and happiness. The thought that filled my mind was: Everything you have been looking for, you already have.

As I lay there, only a little awake, the thought expanded. There is nothing more to do. You know the truth. Simply accept it. In that moment I did know the truth. There was nothing missing in me. I was already healed and whole! And I was ecstatically happy. I also saw the real role that forgiveness plays for us. Forgiveness is the way I choose to be a witness to what is real. It is the way I practice “seeing differently;” the way I learn to recognize what is real as I let the experience of using it re-create my world.

I have heard all these words before, but they now I felt their truth and they filled my mind with utter joy. Everything you have ever looked for you already have. In that moment I was free of all ideas of sin and guilt and I could recognized that I was loved by everyone and there was no one I did not love completely. And in this feeling they were a part of me. It is this awareness of freely loving and being loved without any seeming “reason” or justification that connects us because it is universal. Everyone feels exactly as I do.

This is the meaning of “oneness.” It is being joined with a force that is completely compelling simply because nobody wants anything else.

It is true. Nothing is wrong or bad, painful or lacking aside from the story we are telling. It is a movie made up about characters that exists only in the ego’s perception. I can now feel another part of me that stands aside from the story, unchanged, unaffected in any way by whatever happens in it. I am free the moment I choose to let go of my story of being unloved.

The words keep coming back. You are already healed. There is nothing broken or needing to be fixed. You cannot be unloved. I can see now that forgiveness of all those things and people I had thought of as “broken” is the way I would learn to acknowledge that nothing real has happened – nothing has changed the essential me that has seemed lost in the story. Forgiveness truly will remove the blocks to the awareness of Loves Presence.

We reinforce our faith in what we believe will sustain us by the choices we make. Choosing to be defenseless means we have chosen to remove the purpose for attack from our own thoughts. There is nothing then in our mind to bring attack into our world. This makes no sense to the belief that we are separate and can victimize one another. Yet, once we begin to see how all our “scripts” are interwoven, nothing else does make sense.

If we knew that we had made the world, that its only “reality” was determined by our perception, and we wanted something different, we would simply write another script and change it. But we still believe we are victims of a world that happens to us and so we do battle with what is actually our own thoughts. Forgiveness show us that as we release the judgments we have made and let our Mind find its forgotten innocence, the world we experience does change. But we must commit to one way of thinking or the other. It will either be guilt or innocence, love or fear, that we believe is real. And with each choice we will strengthen our belief in the reality of what we have chosen. Remember, “there are no idle thoughts.” Purposefully choose love!

Think for a moment of a world where there is no pain, no suffering or lack of any kind. There are no “natural” disasters. There are no thoughts to interrupt a sense of constant joy. This is the world that exists in the mind that sees forgiveness is justified. Not partially or sometimes, but without regard to the form the world now associates with sin and fear. Such a seemingly simple thing. Know in your heart that what was created in the pure and loving Mind of God has never changed, cannot ever be changed. Just that. Believe that this is true and the mirror for this belief must rise to bless your sight.

ACIM helps us to establish a basis for recognizing what is real and what is illusion. What is real arises from the intention of loving acceptance, which is the expression of being one with all Creation. The experience that comes from thoughts of fear and divisiveness is not real because it does not support the reality of Creation being whole and undivided. It is upon this recognition that the use of true forgiveness rests. There is no basis for judging what is not real. There is no reason not to love what is real. Forgiveness allows us to remember the reality of what we have falsely judged, releasing our natural instinct to love again.

From the perspective of separate minds, it is impossible to
understand how the intention to exchange defenses for the
desire to join can relieve another of their motivation to attack.
Seen through the awareness of a shared consciousness, it is
apparent nothing else could occur. Let us remember we can influence the conflict in the world with each choice for peace we make.

The miracle of real forgiveness is when we find the whole and holy child of God that we have hidden in the dream of pain and sorrow. We do not see it now for see the world through the perception of what we believe is wrong with us. We do not yet believe there is another world waiting only on our desire to find it. We have not yet accepted that the world lives solely in our mind. We cannot yet grasp there is nothing that separates us from peace and love and joy except our belief we do not deserve to have it. I am choosing to change that belief and invite you to join me.

Pain and suffering are the penalties of guilt. They are also the price of ignorance for guilt is optional, being self imposed. Peace and joy and love are not the prize achieved for becoming a better person. They are the “option” when forgiveness replaces guilt as what we want. Only our thoughts can hurt us. Both attack and forgiveness may seem to focus on someone else, but their seeds are planted in our own mind, and it is there they both will first bear fruit.

The world is changing. It will soon reflect a different perception from what we now see. One of the most dramatic changes we will note is that there will be those who find no need for the body to die. Not because we have found some miraculous way to save it, or because it is important to who and what we are. This will happen because we are accepting it is irrelevant to who we are and we are finding less need to maintain our separateness from one another. I say this in spite of what seems to be the escalation of hatred and violence we are seeing in the world. We will speak more of these “appearances” in the weeks to come. For now it is important to remember that what “happens” in the world is what we expect to find there. It is of our making and we will find what we are looking for. Do we need more of an incentive to look for love?

What you wish for your brother is what you have already chosen for yourself. What you want for yourself is the gift you offer God. Oneness is a fact, not a choice.

There is nothing in the world that can make us happy or sad, peaceful or afraid. For we have given all things all the meaning that they have. “They,” in fact could not exist without the purpose we have for them. And the purpose of the world we see, the thoughts we have, is to support the image of the ego self that we have made. To change our world, then, we must let go our concept of the self that it supports. To find a world that we can love we first must learn to forgive and love ourselves.