A Course in Miracles - Explanations of Major Themes. Michael Dawson

willingness" to allow the Holy Spirit‘s counsel of forgiveness to enter our mind, we can begin the journey of undoing separation by joining with others. We forgive by first removing our projections from the world and then bringing them back to our mind where they originated. Now we have the opportunity to heal our mind by ceasing to judge its ego content. It is our self-judgement that prevents our mind being healed by the Holy Spirit. Guilt demands punishment, not healing.

      As we learn to stop judging ourselves, we allow the ever-present love of the Holy Spirit to shine away the clouds of guilt in our mind. This shift of perception, from the ego’s world of separation and attack to the Holy Spirit’s counsel of joining and forgiveness, is called a miracle. As we practise forgiveness in our relationships, we start to undo the guilt which covers the memory of God’s love in our mind. We begin to see that we have not been running away from God’s anger, but from God’s love. To allow the awareness of God’s love back into our mind will cause our ego to disappear, and this is our greatest fear.

      Relationships become classrooms in which we learn to forgive ourselves by forgiving others (holy relationships). Jesus is the greatest example to us in teaching this lesson of forgiveness. Increasingly we realise that when people attack us through fear, they are really asking for our love. Thus we begin to allow the Holy Spirit to transform our world from the prison of the ego to a teaching device that will awaken us from the dream of separation and allow us to enter the real world of vision.

      With the reawakening in our mind of the knowledge of who we really are, we will walk this world in complete peace, with an inner joy that nothing can take from us. We will now perceive everyone as our brothers and sisters whose reality is eternal spirit and to whom we extend the love of the Holy Spirit.

      See also 'What it Says', from the Preface to A Course in Miracles.

      A further summary of the Course by Dr. Kenneth Wapnick may be read at his website.

      The summary and chart below have been inspired by ideas contained in_Awaken from the Dream by Gloria and Kenneth Wapnick. Foundation for_A Course in Miracles.

      The Key Concepts chart also below has been reproduced from Healing the Cause by Michael Dawson.