Notes on the Text of A Course in - Stephen Wingate

Spirit's thoughts of Atonement are to your detriment.
The temptation is to believe that judgment,
specialness, attack and defense will make you happy,
safe, strong, secure and loved; and forgiveness will
make you unhappy, vulnerable, weak and insecure.
•
Forgiveness is a central theme in the Course and is
touched upon in these early chapters. If we want to
join with God, we must join with our brothers. We
cannot reject or exclude our brothers if we are to
return Home.
•
The Sonship is one. All are included. None is
excluded. By accepting and forgiving our brothers,
we are accepting and forgiving ourselves.
Forgiveness facilitates the Atonement ― the
realization of oneness.
•
Your brother is not separate from God. To reject or
exclude your brother is to reject and exclude Jesus
and God. Rejecting and excluding your brother is
rejecting and excluding part of yourself because your
brother and Jesus are projections of your mind. By
forgiving your brother, you are forgiving a part of
yourself you had previously condemned and rejected.
To condemn or reject even one person is to condemn
and reject yourself, God and the whole Sonship.
<strong>Notes</strong> on Chapter Four – The Illusions of the Ego
17
•
The Sonship is one. There are no exceptions. The
oneness of God's Son is crucial to understand now
and is developed over the rest of the Course.
•
Teaching and learning is a key theme in the Course,
and is developed in later chapters and especially in
the Manual for Teachers. The key realization is that
teaching and learning are the same; just as giving and
receiving are the same. You receive what you give.
Giving love, you receive it. To learn peace, you must
teach it. This teaching and learning is of the mind,
not the world.
•
To learn healing of the mind, we teach it by
demonstrating it. To learn separation, judgment and
condemnation, we teach it by demonstrating it.
•
The ego is specialness, separation, sin, guilt, fear,
conflict, anger, war, hate and death. To demonstrate
is to teach. To teach is to learn. Teach only love and
oneness, and you learn it. Teach separation and fear,
and you learn it.
End Chapter Four