Forgiveness is one of the fundamental teachings of A Course in Miracles. It is a theme that emerges consistently throughout the course, but how, exactly, can you learn to forgive? In this post I’ll outline the core path to forgiveness as given in ACIM, and help you take the steps to forgive yourself and others for any challenge you might be facing.
If you click through and make a purchase, I’ll earn a commission, at no additional cost to you. A Course in Miracles was introduced to me during my period of intense healthy anxiety. For awhile, it was the only thing that could get through to me, and I read from it daily.
What does A Course in Miracles Teach? A Course in Miracles is a complete self-study spiritual thought system that teaches that the way to universal love and peace–or remembering God–is by undoing guilt through forgiving others, healing our relationships and making them holy. - Foundation for Inner Peace
In this article, I'm sharing soothing, comforting quotes from A Course in Miracles on the topics of fear, love and healing that spoke to me, and I hope they do the same for you. 1. “Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.”
Forgiveness is one of the fundamental teachings of A Course in Miracles. It is a theme that emerges consistently throughout the course, but how, exactly, can you learn to forgive?
The Course’s Definition. Before we can understand the 3 step process for forgiving yourself, it’s important that we take a moment to consider how A Course in Miracles defines forgiveness, and what, exactly, it means to forgive. Fortunately, ACIM provides a clear definition of forgiveness:
The course offers 3 steps. Step 1: Seeing The Origin of the Problem. Step 2: Deciding to Forgive. Step 3: Receiving Forgiveness.
Choosing to forgive, then, is simply the decision to stop withholding forgiveness. It is the decision to choose love over fear. When you prioritize love, you will change your decision, and forgiveness will be yours.
In the third step of forgiveness, you let go of your problem and turn the solution over to God, or universal energy. This surrender happens instantly, as soon as you allow it to (by completing steps 1 and 2). In other words: when you are truly ready to forgive, All Is Forgiven. Learn more about the key points from A Course in Miracles.
All individuals are always acting in service to you, and can only reflect your current attitude. Therefore, before you can forgive any other, you must recognize the challenge always lies within yourself. Once you understand this concept, you can proceed to the second step of forgiveness, which is the decision to forgive.
We tend to think of miracles as solving physical problems. When we say “I need a miracle,” we are almost always referring to deliverance from some physical predicament, like an illness or financial crisis, from which there seems no way out.
To put some flesh on this admittedly abstract picture, I will recount four examples of miracles, all drawn from the life of Helen Schucman, the scribe of A Course in Miracles.
The relationship between the Course’s miracle and the traditional miracle can be summed up very simply as “same form, different content.” On the form level, the Course envisions an interaction between a miracle worker and a miracle receiver that would be familiar to anyone in our culture.
A Course in Miracles works by helping you to shift your mindset. Undoing fear and stepping into love is what ACIM teaches. Your thoughts create your reality and therefore, if you can shift these thoughts from fear to love, your reality will change.
A Course in Miracles is a complete self-study spiritual thought system that teaches that the way to universal love and peace–or remembering God–is by undoing guilt through forgiving others, healing our relationships and making them holy. - Foundation for Inner Peace.
2. “Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead because you made sickness and death yourself, and can therefore abolish both. You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator. Everything else is your own nightmare, and does not exist. Only the creations of light are real.”.
Guilt is a sure sign that your thinking is unnatural. Unnatural thinking will always be attending with guilt, because it is the belief in sin. The ego does not perceive sin as a lack of love, but as a positive act of assault.".
The painful emotion that stems from believing that you have sinned and have thus corrupted your being, making yourself worthy of punishment and unworthy of love. The Course teaches that this belief is false, for your true nature as God’s holy Son is incorruptible.
The activity of the Holy Spirit which shifts our perception from the false to true and thereby grants an unconditional, instantaneous, and free deliverance from the imprisoning (yet illusory) problems of this world. We accept miracles into our own minds, extend them to others (which is the primary meaning of the world in the Course), and thereby recognise that we have received them.
The Course teaches that we only expect to be attacked because we secretly believe that we are sinful and thus deserving of attack. Fear is the essential mood of the ego.