The Loving Effect of True Forgiveness

“He will not leave you comfortless nor fail to send His Angels down to answer you in His own name.”

This is a teaching from the Course’s supplement known as ‘The Song of Prayer’. When you read it, you can most likely feel relieved and assured that you are truly not on your own. Yet, I do recognize that some may feel frustration when reading this quote. The frustration stemming from feeling that you are completely alone and unable to hear the guidance of Spirit. This is a frustration I’m sure many of us have experienced.

Thankfully, though, there is a loving solution.

Let’s delve in to how you can welcome both miracles as well as inspiration!

When you feel like you need an answer to a problem, begin by recognizing that you are in a state of scarcity and are therefore in ego-mode. Deep down in your unconscious mind, you mistakenly believe you are separate from your Source and this unconscious belief in separation shows up as scarcity in your waking life. Feeling unfulfilled and as though you are always seeking answers to questions is fundamental to the ego’s thought system. In the Course, we are even taught that the ego’s motto is seek and do not find.

Why does the ego always have you seeking?

It is because the ego survives through your belief in it. As you continue to search aimlessly in this world for answers, you are affording the ego your mind’s immense power of belief! And as you search within this world, you forget your Source and your inherent Oneness with your Source. This is exactly how the ego would have it!

From a daily life perspective, this constant searching can look like you attempting to put out fire after fire and fixating upon one fear after another.

More specifically, this is a taste of what it is like to be in ego-mode…

• you focus only on what seems to be missing in your life
• you ruminate on the painful memories
• you conjure up fearful scenarios for your future

There is no peace in this, and there are no solutions.

Naturally there will comes the moment where you are fed up with the ego and you seek for spiritual support.

To welcome an answer from your Higher Self, known in the Course as the Holy Spirit, it is essential that you shift out of ego-mode into a new state of mind. If you ask for an answer from within an ego state, you are staying in the same state of mind which produced the problem. The shift the wrong mind of the ego to the Right Mind of Spirit is essential in order for you to experience healing and receive loving guidance for as we are also taught in the Course, “…right-mindedness is healing.” T.2.V.4:5

Welcoming Spirit’s Guidance

Inspiration is an effect of connecting with your Source. The inspiration is not why we connect with our Source, but it is a loving extension of our connecting with the Truth. To get into an inspired state requires your acceptance of the Atonement which, as a reminder, is the fact that we never actually separated from our Source. Remembering that you never left your Source results in the healing of your mind. When you do this you are stepping out of ego-mode and into your Right Mind, and this is where miracles and inspiration come from.

Solutions flow from your acceptance of your connection with your Source, not from staying in the angst of ego.

Further to this, it is highlighted in the Course’s Song of Prayer pamphlet that it is through our True Forgiveness through which we will come to remember our Oneness with God. “He (God) stands beside the door to which forgiveness is the only key.” What this means is that when we forgive, we are switching out of ego-mode into our Right Minds where the Holy Spirit, the Voice for God in this world, is. And it is the Holy Spirit Who will give us inspiration if so needed. But first, we must forgive. Remember earlier when I shared about wanting an answer to a problem is to be in ego-mode. It is not wrong to want an answer or seek spiritual guidance, but the simple recognition that you can only think you have a problem when you are in an ego state of mind is an important one. In order to welcome an answer you must turn to your Right Mind and it is True Forgiveness which is the pivot from ego to your Right Mind.

You can be sure that your inner peace and certainty in God grows stronger each time you forgive yourself for mistakenly taking the ego seriously. It is also helpful to point out that God and Its loving Voice in the world known as the Holy Spirit, is fundamental to you. You are not apart from the Source of Love, you are an extension of Love! “Do you but listen. For He will be heard by anyone who calls upon His Name, and places his forgiveness in His hands.”

Every time you feel uncertain or wondering, see if you feel ready to apply True Forgiveness and willing to switch over to your Right Mind. It is only through turning to your Higher Self, which is outside of the ego’s thought system of problems and conflict that you can come to experience both healing and inspiration! The ego mind cannot provide you of these things as the ego knows only how to maintain separation. Remember what is so often reinforced throughout the Course; your application of True Forgiveness is your function here in this world.

“It is to God you turn to hear what you should do. His answer will be as clear as morning…”