PRACTICE FORGIVENESS BY REMEMBERING YOU’RE DREAMING
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You authored the dream and made the figures in it act out for you, so you could see your unconscious guilt outside yourself. If you remember your dreaming, then there’s nothing out there but your own projection. Once you believe that – and belief only comes from practice and experience – then there’s no need for what you’re seeing and now forgiving to have any impact on you…
As we say, this will all become part of your attitude, but it’s helpful at first to think of it as being made up of different components. Once you’re the cause and not the effect, another component of forgiveness would be to forgive both your projected images and yourself for dreaming them.
…You already know the Course tells you to forgive your brother for what he hasn’t done. That would be true forgiveness because, as the Course also says, you’re not making the error real. You’re not giving truth to your illusions; you’re bringing your illusions to the truth. Now it’s time to forgive yourself for dreaming this whole mess in the first place. If nothing’s happened – and if the Course teaches anything, it’s that nothing’s happened – then you’re innocent. Thus as you forgive your brothers and sisters, your mind realises simultaneously that you are forgiven. Remember, we’ve also quoted the Course as saying that as you see him, you will see yourself
Gary Renard
The Disappearance
of the Universe

FORGIVENESS IS AN ATTITUDE OF NON-JUDGMENTALISM
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Everything you learn becomes incorporated in that attitude until forgiveness happens automatically. For most people, especially during the first few years, forgiveness requires that you think about it. You become a master by having forgiving thought processes. These right-minded thoughts eventually dominate the mind instead of the ego. A situation occurs or someone comes along whom you need to forgive, and following the lead of the Workbook, you’ve learned to have right-minded thoughts about the person or situation. Using your understanding of the Course’s entire thought system, including the Text and the Manual, contributes to and strengthens your attitude of forgiveness.
These forgiveness thoughts of yours usually won’t be linear.
Gary Renard
The Disappearance
of the Universe

In taking a closer look at my everyday life, I was shocked to see how automatic my judgments often were. I made gains in observing this knee-jerk tendency, detaching myself from it and taking the charge out of my grievances. That wasn’t all the way to forgiveness, but it helped me become more aware of my ego’s thought patterns. I realized that even in my discussions with Arten and Pursah, my smart-ass defense against shyness would dominate my personality and make me say things I probably wouldn’t say if my ego wasn’t running the show. I wondered if Arten and Pursah were just trying to make me feel comfortable by speaking to me in my own language; I realized that if I changed my style a little, they probably would, too. As I practiced the Course’s Workbook lessons, I was being steadily trained to choose to think with the Holy Spirit in my right mind instead of the ego in my wrong mind. This resulted in some wild and joyous light episodes during the day as well as bloody and horrific nightmares while in bed at night. I would have never believed such ugly images could be in my unconscious. I was sure that such nightmare images didn’t show up for everyone who did the Course, but here they were, reflecting the awful and insane self-image that was buried in the depths of my ego —and now being shown to me in order to be forgiven and released to the Holy Spirit in peace. It was disconcerting to remember that my thinking wasn’t really being done on this level. The mind was signaling to my brain what to see, hear, think, do and experience. My brain was simply the programmed hardware that ran and regulated my body, relaying to me a movie that could be called “Life of Gary.”
It is because the thoughts you think you think appear as images that you do not recognize them as nothing. You think you think them, and so you think you see them. This is how your “seeing” was made. This is the function you have given your body’s eyes. It is not seeing. It is image making. It takes the place of seeing, replacing vision with illusions. This introductory idea to the process of image making that you call seeing will not have much meaning for you. You will begin to understand it when you have seen little edges of light around the same familiar objects which you see now. That is the beginning of real vision. You can be certain that real vision will come quickly when this has occurred. As we go along, you may have many “light episodes.” They may take many different forms, some of them quite unexpected. Do not be afraid of them. They are signs that you are opening your eyes at last. They will not persist, because they merely symbolize true perception, and they are not related to knowledge. These exercises will not reveal knowledge to you. But they will prepare the way to it.
Gary Renard
The Disappearance
of the Universe

The mind was like a programmer that told me, through my brain and body, what to experience and how to respond. I had been controlled like a robot, told what to do, and programmed to think it was really me making these decisions on this level. Just as a human being could build a computer, program it, and tell it what to do —or could direct a virtual reality figure to do things within an environment that didn’t truly exist —the programmer mind was directing me to move within and experience a world that didn’t truly exist in order to convince me I was a body. That body was sometimes getting what it wanted, but usually missing out on something, whether physical or psychological. This sense of lack was symbolic of being separate from God. The specific reasons for my problems were shown to me as external to myself, operating in a universe that was never really there, in order to serve as a scapegoat for my hidden unconscious guilt over that very same separation. I realized that even though this unconscious mind that was calling the shots seemed to be outside of me, it really wasn’t. The mind issuing the directives of the ego thought system was within me, not without, which also meant that the universe was in my mind, not without. I had to turn the tables on it; Heaven was also here and was, in fact, all that really existed. There was no place else —but I had made an illusion that seemed to replace Heaven and then tucked that illusion in between myself and God in an effort to escape an imaginary punishment that I now secretly and erroneously believed I deserved. Like everybody else, I would find a way to punish myself for this imagined guilt. Yet all the while, God was merely waiting to welcome me home —as soon as I was healed by the Holy Spirit and ready to return to reality. We would then celebrate for all of eternity. Until now, I hadn’t had a clue about all this. Being aware of these things made me begin to appreciate the magnitude of my mind. I knew that all the decisions for illusion had been made unconsciously, and then the corresponding symbols of those decisions were acted out in the false universe. The decision to be separate and guilty came first, and then the universe had instantly put up its smokescreen. This all seemed so real to each individual observing from his or her particular point of view in the dream that it would take training to forgive what they thought were authentic happenings and think with the Holy Spirit instead.
Gary Renard
The Disappearance
of the Universe

IF YOU FIND THIS HARD TO PROCESS, REMEMBER WE’RE ALWAYS DEFERRING TO SPIRITUAL REALITY. rjs
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PURSAH: We’d like to leave you with a thought from the Course you may want to remember when you’re tempted to judge someone. Whether you’re driving down the street, working with people, socializing, watching television or reading something on your computer, if you feel the addiction of judgment assert itself, remember J’s words from the section in the Text called “The Self-Accused”: …Learn this, and learn it well, for it is here delay of happiness is shortened by a span of time you cannot realize. You never hate your brother for his sins, but only for your own. Whatever form his sins appear to take, it but obscures the fact that you believe them to be yours, and therefore meriting a “just”attack. You judge only yourself, and you forgive only yourself.
Gary Renard
The Disappearance
of the Universe

[… W]hen you forgive, you shouldn’t fall for the ego’s brand of forgiveness —which is the world’s ineffective and traditional way of forgiving others. As the Course tells you: The ego, too, has a plan of forgiveness because you are asking for one, though not of the right teacher. The ego’s plan, of course, makes no sense and will not work. By following its plan you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego always leads you. The ego’s plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. Yet how can you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you have made it real and cannot overlook it. 38 Your brothers and sisters —which includes your mother and father —haven’t really done what you think they’ve done, and remembering that fact is vital.
Gary Renard
The Disappearance
of the Universe