So, if you re stepping on my toe and I forgive you, you mean it won t hurt?

Many experiences that I had, growing up in New York City, riding the subways, which very often would be very

crowded, and it d be impossible not to be jostled or have your feet stepped on or smashed,

and New York is somewhat deservedly have the reputation of not really caring (it's not

always the case), but if you if somebody steps on your foot and they quickly turn to you

and say, I m very, very sorry, I guarantee you it would hurt less than if they had not

only stepped on your foot but pushed you down to rush out of the exit door.

I mean it sincerely because in that moment that I'm forgiving you I'm experiencing something differently

than I would have had I been angry and upset and judging and, you know, suppressed it or

whatever I did with it, and so, but in that moment I'd have to have a holy instant in

order to forgive because I couldn't really do it of myself. The holy instant would, in

that moment, would be you're asking Jesus or the Holy Spirit to help you not take this

personally. I mean, that's really what we are talking about. You don't take what appears

to be an attack personally even though it may be meant as an attack by the other person.

Okay, thank you. Let me just elaborate a little on that, on the idea of not taking it personally.

That's that basically is what it means to forgive, is that you don't make the connection

that the ego would have you make between the other person's attack, whether it's a verbal

attack or physical attack, and yourself. Helen had a number of experiences. I recorded them

in my book, but one, which is a very, very classic one in terms of this is that she and

this might have occurred before the Course started actually even, but she lived in an

apartment building in New York City and there was a bedroom on the floor above her, and

there was a woman who had the very annoying habit (from Helen s point of view) about midnight

would start walking around her bedroom on the wood floor (no carpet) in her high heels.

And Helen would have to get to bed at a reasonable hour because she had to wake up early to get

to the medical center, and she would she'd be storming in her mind, and stewing, and

really furious at this woman for being so insensitive, and she was thinking of all kinds

of things she would do. And at some point in the midst of her raging (internal raging)

she said, Well, the problem really is that I think there s a cord that connects her high

heels with my head so that I think she's stomping on my head and, if that's the case, all I

have to do is cut the cord. So being a very visual person as well as an auditory person,

she took out a scissors in her mind and cut the cord, and went right to sleep. Now, the

stories are not always so simple, clear cut, or have as happy an ending happy an ending

as that did but the principle is very clear. The problem was the interpretation she made,

and what was really galling her was not so much the sound of the heels on the floor but

the idea that this woman would be so insensitive and unthinking and uncaring, and that's what

did it. It s the same thing in the example I just gave about the crowded subway, somebody

steps on your foot but apologizes quickly, it doesn't hurt as much as if the person was

very callous about it and blamed you for it. Why'd you stick your foot under my foot? etcetera,

and in a sense that s what forgiveness is all about. You restore the appropriate causal

connection. The reason I'm upset, the reason I'm tossing and turning in my bed is not because

of what the woman is doing or this person did or what the person said or anything else.

It's because I m making a connection...a false connection, a false causal connection between

that person and me, and that's an interpretation; that's not a fact. The Course emphasizes that

perception is an interpretation, not a fact, and so the interpretation is, She's doing

this to me. If I change my perception and I no longer see the cause of my distress as

being her high heels or something outside of me but being my own interpretation of what

she's doing, and I change that interpretation, then it won't be a problem. In a sense, that's

I think is a good paradigm for what the process is like. You don't deny what the other

person does. If a doctor says, You know, I'm very sorry but that lump is cancer, you

don't make-believe and say, Well, it s all an illusion and that breast was over long

ago. I mean, that's stupid, but you have but you could look at it differently. You don't

have to take it as a personal attack either by the doctor, by your own body, or by God,

or whatever. In a sense it's just another event in the world, and the choice is do I

look at it through the eyes of my ego, which is the eyes of blame and hate or do I and

fear, or I look at it through the eyes of Holy Spirit that says this is another opportunity

for me to learn that I'm not my body. Don't try to force spirituality on yourself.

Don't try and force a metaphysical truth on yourself when you're so angered here in the world and

in the body. I mean, that's silly and it's not spiritual, and it ends up making you an

absolutely dreadful person to yourself and everybody who has the unfortunate experience

of being around you. And that's why I always make fun of Course in Miracles students because

they're awful in this regard. They don't understand level confusion and they don't understand

the difference between a metaphysical truth, which is true or a metaphysical truth that

they don t believe in, and they certainly don't live as if they believe it. They may

understand it intellectually. That's why the whole image of a ladder, I think, is very,

very helpful, that he gives us in "The Song of Prayer," and the idea that prayer is a ladder,

forgiveness is a ladder; it s a process, and it's only right at the top of the ladder,

just before the real world that you begin to understand that this whole thing is made

up, and you begin to not only, again, intellectually know but you experientially know that you

are not here, that your self is outside of the dream and, again, it's not a mere intellectual

concept; it s an experience (S-1.V.4). That's what allows you to go through your day,

and your days and days and months and years without being affected by the world, yet still

involved with the world because you know that you're not here. That's what being in the

real world is, but that happens right at the top of the ladder. Until you get there, you're

still bound here. You still wake up every morning, stagger into your bathroom, look

in the mirror and you see something that you mistakenly think is yourself. Some days you

may like what you see. Most of the time, as you get older especially, you don't like what

you see. But, whatever it is, you think what you see is you, so don't pretend that you're

not a body. Now, on the level of the body the world certainly does do things to us.

Jesus is not suggesting that we lapse into denial where we make-believe the world has

no effect on our bodies; absolutely does. He tells us in Chapter 2 that to deny our

physical experience in this world is a particularly unworthy form of denial, (T-2.IV.3:11). He's

not saying deny the world. He's simply saying deny your interpretation of the world,

and in a sense, that s how you walk through life is that you don't try and change the external

world. You change your mind about the external world, as the beginning of Chapter 21 also

says, that you don't seek not to change the world; choose to change your mind about [it],

(T-21.in.1:7). And the idea, again, is that you don't take what other people do or say

personally. The ego would always have you take it personally, getting back to the purpose

of the dream. The purpose of the world's dream is that, Somebody else did it to me, and so

therefore my immediate reaction would be, Why did you do this to me? How unkind, how

unthinking, how unloving, how uncaring; how mean, how vicious, how cruel, how murderous,

and realize that that's the ego s reaction because that's why the world was made, so

we could always blame someone and something else. Remember again, that's a very important

line, perception is an interpretation, not a fact (M-17.4:1-2). My physical eyes see

perceptual facts or objective facts in the world, but my brain interprets those seeming

facts, and the brain's interpretation is a direct reflection of the mind's decision.

If I want to find people to blame, I'll find them without any problem, but I could just

as easily see the attack, as the Course says, the attack is an expression of fear and fear

is a call for the love that has been denied (T-2.VI.7:5-8), and I don't feel I deserve

or that person doesn't feel he or she deserves. I have no power most of the time over the

world or other people in the world, but what I do have power...the only thing I have power

over is my own mind, and I could either interpret the world through my ego's eyes, which would

always be in terms of winners and losers, victims and victimizers, or I will interpret

it through Jesus eyes, which will see us all as sharing the same interests,

the same needs, the same goal.