Notes on the Text of A Course in - Stephen Wingate

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
FORGIVENESS AND THE HOLY RELATIONSHIP
Main Themes: The holy relationship, forgiveness,
and the power of the mind to establish meaning and
purpose.
Introduction: Before the beginning, we are all one
in God, as God. Until the "tiny mad idea" of
separation from God arose in the mind. The Holy
Spirit's answer to the tiny mad idea is that the
separation never happened. The ego's answer is that
the separation from God did happen, it is a sin, we
are guilty of sin, and we better hide to avoid the
wrath of God. The ego then makes a body and world
onto which it can project itself, along with its sin and
guilt into its special relationships in the world. The
Holy Spirit responds by offering the holy
relationship. The ego tries to turn the holy
relationship into a special relationship by attempting
to bring the love of God into the world. The Holy
Spirit reiterates the holy relationship until we finally
accept the holy relationship through forgiveness and
the Atonement, which leads us on to the real world
and back to Heaven with God where we were before
the beginning.
•
The ego's motive is to defend against the Atonement
to maintain its special separate existence.
•
Our special relationships were born in the same
instant our belief in the original separation from God
was born; the Holy Spirit was also with us from that
very first instant.
•
By choosing the ego, our wish for independent
existence has become true in our dream. Our dream
of separation becomes our experience of reality
because of the power of our mind. In the Course,
faith refers to the mind's power to believe in the ego
or the Holy Spirit. When we put our faith in the Holy
Spirit, we put our faith in "everything." When we put
our faith in the ego, we put our faith in "nothing,"
and faith in nothing is referred to as faithlessness.
•
The ego fears we will choose the truth of the Holy
Spirit, which would mean the end of the ego.
•
When we put our faith in the ego by choosing against
the Holy Spirit, we have rendered our true power and
strength useless.
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•
Displacement is a psychological term that refers to
displacing the true cause of a problem onto a
different cause to avoid facing the true cause. It is
similar to projection and dissociation. Displacement,
projection and dissociation are what we do with our
sin, guilt and fear, which are all caused by our belief
in the original separation from God. Our one
problem is our choice to believe in the separation
from God and identify with the ego. The one solution
is to realize the separation never happened and
identify with the Holy Spirit.
•
When we put faith in the ego, the body and the
world, salvation cannot be found. The miracle shifts
our faith from the ego to the Holy Spirit. Faith is
restored where it was lost; at the decision making
part of your mind. Special relationships serve to
displace the real cause of suffering, the decision in
our mind, onto other people and the world.
•
Vengeance is what we secretly believe we deserve
from God for sinning against Him by leaving Him.
But rather than face our sin and guilt, we blame God
for leaving us, and project our sin and guilt onto Him
and other people in the world; while secretly we seek
vengeance of other people and fear their vengeance
against us. The ego's modus operandi is denial,
dissociation, projection and displacement. The truth
about ourselves and the other is that we are all part of
the one Christ.
•
The split mind is represented by two pictures. One is
of the ego's thought system which is symbolized by
death. The frame around the ego's picture is the
special relationship. The purpose of the frame is to
distract us from the picture. The other picture is the
Holy Spirit's thought system which is the holy instant
symbolized by Light. We will look at these two
pictures and their frames later in this chapter.
•
Even as we are waking up to the delusion and
insanity of believing we are a separate ego in a body,
we still cling tenaciously to our special love and hate
relationships, believing that we are exceptions
somehow, and our relationships are grounded in true
love, and those we hate are truly evil.