Questions

Question:
I have a couple of questions. I have studied and gone through the workbook once eight years ago, and now I read the book on a regular basis. I understand that we must see the innocence in our brother, and evil is only of this world. Although I understand it, I find it hard to truly accept it. Could you help me understand why there is no opposite to God, to Love? In the Course there is no evil, no devil...or is the devil merely a synonym of perception of the ego? If God does not see evil does that mean we have to accept rapists, pedophiles and murderers without judgment? Please help me understand this.

Answer:
Your questions go to the heart of the matter called forgiveness. I have been told by the Holy Spirit that God is All-Loving, All- Knowing, and All-Powerful. God is a God of Pure Love. This description of God is an expression of the idea that God is Love, and Love has no opposite. What God creates is like God. Spirit comes from Spirit. God is Spirit. Christ is Spirit. Creation is Spirit. Innocence is an attribute of Spirit, just as Perfection and Eternity are attributes of Spirit. If evil or error were possible, Divine Innocence would be impossible. Yet because Divine Innocence is Reality, evil or error cannot be at all.

Forgiveness is for illusion, not for the Truth. Love does not need to be forgiven. In the Oneness of God there is nothing to forgive. Nothing God creates needs forgiveness, for Creation and Christ are like God in Spirit and extend God's Perfection. Forgiveness recognizes that what you think your brother has done has in Fact never happened. In ACIM it is stated this way: "If God is real there is no pain. If pain is real there is no God." God is the Source of All and pain is therefore causeless and impossible. "If" there were an imposter "cause,” a claim made against the Fact of the Allness of God's Love, that "cause error" would need to be released BECAUSE the error would be the denial of Divine Love.

This is why you are drawn to "A Course In Miracles": you have not been able to reconcile Love with fear, Truth with illusion, or Innocence with guilt. These seeming "opposites" can NEVER be reconciled. To forgive is simply to accept the happy Fact that truth is true and nothing else is true. To forgive is to happily release the belief in an opposite to Love. To forgive is to find the Innocence of Spirit. You humbly accept: "I am still as God created Me" as the error of separation has been forgiven.

You asked: "...is the devil merely a synonym of perception of the ego?" Yes. The ego/error/devil was Corrected by the Holy Spirit the instant the error seemed to arise. And now your only responsibility is to accept this Correction. What you believe you will perceive, as long as perception seems to last. Believe the error and you will seem to perceive abuse and addiction. Accept the Correction and you will seem to perceive a forgiven world shining in the Light of the Holy Spirit. Accept the Correction and you have given up the attempt to reconcile "opposites." Accept the Correction and lasting peace is the only possible result. Accept the Correction and see the impossibility of concepts such as "...rapists, pedophiles and murderers." This is the Last Judgment: "Holy are You, Eternal, Free, & Whole, at Peace forever in the Heart of God." Where is the world in this Loving Judgment? The world has ended in Laughter, for what seemed to be a world apart from God was attempting to take serious a silly, mad idea of separation. Once the past is released it is as if it never was, BECAUSE it never was.

You are not alone and Help is Given you. This message, the Awakening Mind website, and the travels and gatherings are just some of the many witnesses to the Love you have Called forth in your awareness. The Joy I share heralds the end of illusion! The peace I experience is the peace that comes from acknowledging that Love is real and has no opposite. The Bible said to have no graven images before God. This is because God knows no images, Being Pure Spirit. Forgive the images that never were, and experience indescribable Happiness! The dreamer of a dream first realizes the dreaming. Nothing can hurt the dreamer once the Holy Spirit has revealed the dream as unreal. Without judgment all dream figures are the same, for it was only the ego that made up the categories of victim and victimizer, abused and abuser, enabled and enabler to perpetuate itself. Once the ego is released perception has been healed, and nothing blocks the way to the experience of God's Divine Love.

Love Always,
David