Forgiveness ends all suffering and all sense of loss.
1. Forgiveness offers us the vision of a world in which there is no suffering, the idea of loss becomes impossible, and anger is meaningless.
²Attack is gone, and madness has an end.
³What suffering could now be conceived? I
⁴What loss could still be felt?
⁵The world becomes a haven of joy, abundance, kindness, and boundless giving.
⁶Now it is so like to Heaven that it quickly is transformed into the Light it merely reflects.
⁷And thus the journey which the Son of God began has ended in the Light from which he came.
2. Father,
we would return our minds to You.
²We have betrayed them, held them in a vise of bitterness, and frightened them with thoughts of death and violence.
³Now we would rest again in You,just as You created us.
I It is impossible for something you have completely forgiven to continue causing you suffering. To forgive is to let pass—to release from your mind that which you have given great importance because you believe it diminishes the idea you hold of yourself. And, in a sense, you are not wrong: as you tell it, the self you think you are seems to have been attacked. If you intend to preserve that identity, it is natural that you feel compelled to protect yourself or even to strike back.
But this Course does not ask you to act irrationally or to deny the evidence as you perceive it; rather, it urges you to pause, reflect, and ask yourself whether the ideas that underlie your thinking—and determine your behavior—are true.
You are not exhorted to forgive for some lofty and mysterious goal you must accept blindly. On the contrary, you are invited to recognize that what you now take for certain—and believe without question—is false, and that therefore your thinking is mistaken and your behavior senseless. The proof is clear: you are afraid, you suffer, and you are not happy.
The root of the problem is that the idea you have of yourself, the cornerstone of your entire mental system, is false. That idea may indeed be in danger, but you are not. This is why forgiveness consists not only in letting go of grievances and resentments, but also—and above all—of the idea you hold of yourself. If you release the world but cling to that idea, you will be left with the ego “stripped bare”: an experience of absolute emptiness and terror.
The world, with all its apparent conflict, is in fact a distraction the ego uses to avoid facing itself. If the world were to disappear while your self-image remained intact, you would experience the psychological hell of the isolated ego.
Authentic forgiveness, therefore, is not selective. It means letting go of everything you think is important—good or bad—and also of every notion of who you believe yourself to be. When you do so, you do not plunge into emptiness; you encounter what is Real—that which you cannot define or lose, for it is what you are. Then you understand that the only thing that can be hurt or lost is your self-image. You never can be.
Ask yourself: have you ever ceased to be you? If you look at it honestly, you will see that the only things that have changed are the stories you tell yourself. To forgive is to let those stories pass until none remain. In that moment, the mind rests in God as it was created, and suffering and loss become impossible.
Forgiveness ends all suffering and all loss.
I rest in You, Father, and let Your Light restore peace to my mind.