Perhaps the most difficult thing to comprehend (we cannot understand it) in ACIM is the fact that it is completely 100% uncompromising. This applies to ‘forgiveness’, which is either practiced completely and without reservation or not at all. This is virtually impossible for the ego to accept, as it’s survival is based on being the sole doorway to ‘forgiveness’… in which it interprets as seeing the sinful act and judging the relative ‘sin’ of it then choosing to ‘forgive’ the evil doer. As the course points out however, acknowledging the reality of any ‘sin’ makes it real in our minds, at which point we proceed to ‘forgive’ or give charity to the one who we have just branded as unforgivable. Look, let’s admit it to ourselves, it just doesn’t work that way here or anywhere else.
The course looks on ‘forgiveness’ in this way: “Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in it’s realness enter your mind, or you will also believe that you must undo what you have made in order to be forgiven. What has not effect does note exist, and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are nonexistent. By steadily and consistently cancelling out all its effects, everywhere and in all respects, He teaches that the ego does not exist and proves it.”
This is again another form of one of the repeated foundations of the course where we come up against the cement wall of no compromise. Rather than rebelling against it, our only real option is to surrender to it. The beauty of this is its sheer simplicity. How could we possibly judge all error, then ‘forgive’ it after making it real by judgement? This world is an illusion. In order to accept this definition of ‘forgiveness’ by overlooking we need to accept that the world is an illusion. One cannot be accepted without the other.
