Let me forget my brother’s past today.
1. This is the thought that leads to You and reminds me of my goal.
²I cannot come to You without my brother.
³And to know my Source, I must first acknowledge what You created one with me.
⁴My brother is the hand that guides me on the way to You.
⁵His sins are in the past, along with mine, and I am saved because the past is gone.I
⁶Let me not treasure it within my heart, or I will lose the way that leads to You.
⁷My brother is my Savior.
⁸Let me not attack the Savior You have given me.
⁹Instead, let me honor the one who bears Your Name, so that I may remember that his Name is mine.
2. Forgive me today, then.
²And you will know that you have forgiven me when you behold your brother in the light of holiness.
³He cannot be less holy than I,
and you cannot be more holy than he.
I Today Jesus asks us to forgive Him. It may sound strange—what are we to forgive Him for? What has He done to us? In truth, we accuse Him of nothing except having been a man.
In the Glossary it says that “The Name of Jesus is the Name of one who was a man, but who saw the Face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God. Thus did he identify himself with Christ and cease to be a man, becoming one with God. The man was an illusion, for he seemed to be a separate being who walked alone within a body that appeared to keep him separate from his Self, as all illusions do” (G-6.2:1–3).
Jesus was crucified because he seemed to be a man, but he rose again because he was the Son of God. He was condemned for sins he did not commit, and in that he becomes the symbol of all humanity. Each time you condemn your brother, you crucify him as you did Jesus, attributing to him unreal sins he never committed. His guilt does not exist, just as his egoic condition that makes him seem separate does not exist. Every judgment you pronounce upon your brother reaffirms the condemnation of yourself.
That is why Jesus asks your forgiveness: because in accusing Him, you accuse the Son of God in everyone—and therefore also in yourself. To forgive Jesus means to forgive your brother, and consequently, to forgive yourself. And that is the end of the dream.
Do you want a different day—bright, joyful, and full of light? It is simpler than you think: forget everything you have told yourself about the world, about your brothers, and about yourself. Recognize that those stories are false, and look upon everything with new eyes, free of the past. Thus you give every encounter the opportunity to be something new, something innocent. And then the whole world changes before your sight—not because it has changed, but because you have freed it from your definitions and judgments.
That is the true meaning of the request, “Let me forget my brother’s past today.” It is not merely about releasing specific offenses, but about completely abandoning all the ideas you have ever formed about him—both good and bad—and granting him the freedom to be as God created him. And when you do this, without realizing it you grant that same freedom to yourself. There lies the redemptive power of forgiveness: your brother is your savior because in his release you discover your own.
Choose today to look upon your brother without definitions, as if seeing him for the first time, and let that vision remind you of what you truly are.
Father, may I forget my brother’s past today and behold him with the innocence with which You created him.