The Enigma of Consciousness 14b - Forgiveness

Marshall, Gene, The Enigma of Consciousness, Realistic Living Press, Bonham, TX, 2012. Chapter 14

Universal Forgiveness (excerpts from Chapter 14 please read the original material for complete context)

1) Central to the I Am in its relations with memory and the past is Universal Forgiveness.

2) Universal Forgiveness is the dawning that the past is past and that everything that happened before is now gone forever as far as the I Am is concerned.

3) The I Am appears in our conscious lives as a perpetual fresh start in which there is no guilt, no shame, no despair over the past.

4) Despair is the result of being unwilling to be the I Am.

5) Despair is most often a clinging to some aspect of the past that will not return.

6) Since the I Am is an inescapable presence in the living Now, all clinging to the past is doomed to defeat.

7) When our despair is consciously experienced, it becomes a doorway through that specific despair into the Incomprehensible Peace of Universal Forgiveness.

8) We can allow ourselves to pass through the doorway of despair into the actually of the I Am living in the Eternal Now or we can go on resisting this dawning of Universal Forgiveness.

9) This dawning of Forgiveness is not just an idea in our heads.

10) It is not a belief that we have chosen to bet our lives on.

11) It is an experience.

12) It is the experience that we are being posited in being by an Eternal Power that holds no grudges for our many failures to be our true selves.

13) We commonly power ourselves with some supposed truth with which we seek to control the world.

14) Reality defeats us and returns us to the place of openness and forgiveness.

15) The return to our actual I Am is a return to innocence, a return to a fresh start at being ourselves.

16) The consequences of our wayward living may continue on in history, but our inner being is purified.

17) As the father in Jesus parable of the prodigal son symbolizes, we, the offspring of Being, are always welcome home to authentic communion within the I Am family.

18) Our being away was the only penalty, the only hell, the only despair.

19) Having come home, new clothing is issued, a hug and a kiss is given, a ring is placed on our finger, and a feast is prepared to celebrate our return.

20) This experience can breakthrough our personality habits as a state of being that happens to us from time to time.

21) And we can also come to recognize Universal Forgiveness as a permanent station of the I Am that we never need to leave.