OrEd-T-17.3-The Forgiven World
7. Those I forgive will look more beautiful to me than I can ever imagine! In no fantasy have I ever seen anything so lovely! Nothing I see here, sleeping or waking, comes near to such loveliness. And I will hold dear, and value this above all else. For I will see the Son of God, and will see the beauty that the Holy Spirit looks upon and thanks God for. This sight will make my heart sing with joy and happiness as nothing else has ever done before. The Holy Spirit sees this for me until I learn to see it for myself. All His teaching leads to this.
8. This loveliness is not a fantasy. It is the real world, bright and clean and new, with everything sparkling in the sun. Nothing is hidden here. There are no fantasies to hide the truth, for everything has been forgiven. The bridge is the meeting place of the different worlds. The bridge is so little and easy to cross, a step so small I did not notice! Yet, this little bridge is the strongest thing that touches this world at all. A step through time into eternity, beyond all ugliness, into wonderful, perfect enchanting beauty.
9. This step, the smallest ever taken, is the greatest accomplishment in God's plan of Atonement. This is given, not learned, complete, whole and perfect. No one but Him Who planned salvation could complete it like this. Yet, I learn to reach the real world in all its loveliness. Fantasies are all undone, and nothing and no one remains bound by them. I am free to see, by my own forgiveness. Yet, what I see is what I have made, with the blessing of my forgiveness on it. And with this final blessing of God's Son upon himself, the real perception, born of the new perspective he has learned, has served its purpose.
10. The sun and the stars will disappear in light. Everything that has been used for learning will have no function, and perception will be meaningless when it has been perfected. Nothing will ever change. No shifts, shadings, differences, or variations which made perception possible will occur. The perception of the real world will be so short that I will barely have time to thank God for it. For God will take the last step swiftly when I have reached the real world and am made ready for Him.
11. Simply, the real world is attained by the complete forgiveness of the the same world that I see without forgiveness. The Great Transformer of perception will undertake with me the careful searching of the mind that made this world, and uncover to me the seeming reasons for my making it. Following Him in the light of real reason, He will show me that there is no reason here at all. Each spot His reason touches grows alive with beauty, and what seemed ugly, in the darkness of my lack of reason, is suddenly released to loveliness. Not even what the Son of God made in insanity could be without a hidden spark of beauty which gentleness could release.
12. All this beauty will rise to bless my sight, as I look upon the world with forgiveness. For forgiveness literally transforms vision and lets me see the real world, removing all illusions which had twisted my perception and fixed it on the past. The smallest leaf becomes a thing of wonder, and a blade of grass a sign of God's perfection. The son of God is lifted easily into his home from a forgiven world. And he knows that he has always rested there in peace. Even salvation has no meaning and vanishes from his mind. For who, awake in Heaven, could need salvation?
13. I want salvation more than anything. The real world, trembling with readiness, will be given me. The eagerness of the Holy Spirit to give it to me, is so intense He would not wait, although he waits in patience. I will meet His patience with my impatience at delay. I go out in gladness to meet with my Redeemer, and walk in trust with Him, out of this world and into the real world of beauty and forgiveness.
