In this transcribed excerpt from Marianne Williamson's lecture "The True Self", Williamson shares a broader view of forgiveness with us -- how true forgiveness is connected to us receiving everything that we want. There is no one to blame, nothing to point to. Only we can keep ourselves from our heart's desires. Recorded live in Los Angeles as part of Williamson's weekly lecture series this past July 11.
Forgiveness offers everything I want because whatever it is that I think I want in life but perceive that I do not have, the gap between what I think I want and having it, whatever gap exists, exists because of some unforgiveness, some lack of love on my part.
So in fact, when a Course in Miracles says, “Forgiveness offers everything I want,” it is saying precisely that. Not just everything I should want but everything that I want. And I realized that the process of doing a Course in Miracles seems to always be a process of bringing it down, bringing it down, making it more personal, making it more literal, and making it more practically applicable to the circumstances of our lives. What we tend to do is keep it kind of theoretical, and the whole process of doing the course is as the Course in Miracles says “going from where enlightenment begins” which is the level of abstract concept. Making that journey without distance from up here to down here. And so when I realized forgiveness offers everything I want, I then looked at those areas of my life where I might be tempted to think I want something or not even tempted to think I want something -- actually want something -- and then it forced me to hone in on the places in my life related to those specific issues of my not having what I think I want, and then asking you “Are honest with yourself? You realize how many times you think that you don’t have it because of myself -- where is the lack of love within myself? Where is the lack of forgiveness within myself? And sometimes when you think that it is something that you want that you don’t have, of that so and so who either took it from you or kept it from you. So you’re thinking the problem is that person. The last thing you are thinking is that’s the one you need to forgive in order to forget it. But from a Course in Miracles perspective, that fact that it’s still not here… because you see, nobody can really keep anything from us unless we close our hearts because if it’s really ours, and on our journey through life it is time for us to have that, then the way that the universe operates is if that person withholds it from you, the universe will find some other channel by which to give it to you.
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