Real Peace

"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." -- A Course in Miracles

"You who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness." -- A Course in Miracles

"Experience the peace to which your reality entitles you. There may be some temptation to mistake these attempts for withdrawal, but the difference is easily detected. If you are succeeding, you will feel a deep sense of joy and an increased alertness, rather than a feeling of drowsiness and enervation." -- A Course in Miracles

Today is the first Sunday in Lent, following Ash Wednesday. It is traditionally a time in the Christian Church for penitence and inner reflection. In the true spirit of this day, let's look at what forgiveness is and how we can remember Who We Are... an altogether lovely and perfect Idea in the Mind of God, complete and holy in every way.

I forgive myself daily for my illusions about the world and most of all about myself. I forgive myself for creating a world that seems to be apart from God, that appears to show up as other than Good. I forgive myself for seeing the Allness of God in distorted and unloving fragments, and for judging those fragments as other, and for projecting my own sins and fears and doubts onto these fragments of the One. I forgive myself daily for the specific ways in which I forget that I am Love. I forgive myself daily for ever wanting anything to be other than God, Good. I forgive myself daily for the appearance of lack and limitation in the world, for I know that, as ACIM says, "Lack implies that you would be better off in a state somehow different from the one you are in." And what state even exists that could be other or apart from the Allness of God, Good?

Forgiveness reveals the clean and open vistas of the Divine Mind we share. It opens the heart to know and remember the Oneness and Joy that are our innate beingness. This state of infinite, endless Peace and Joy never went anywhere... we only thought it was not here when we were lost in our own mental constructs and stories about the world and our imagined personal life. Without the stories, what IS shines clearly and brightly.

And how do we know when we have forgiven ourselves and the world? The awareness of Being Peace is the sign. Peace not as the world thought imagines it and defines it. Peace not as an absence or contraction, but as infinite expansion and endless Joy.

Real Peace requires nothing, and gives everything. And this is our true nature. Real Peace is Who We Are.

"Peace is a natural heritage of Spirit. Everyone is free to refuse to accept his inheritance, but he is not free to establish what his inheritance is. To deny God's Authorship is to deny your Self the reason for your Peace, so that you see yourself only in segments." -- A Course in Miracles