Explore spiritual teachings, real-life stories, and practical tools to help you forgive, release, and return to peace. Rooted in A Course in Miracles, compassionate spirituality, and soul-centered healing.
Gary Renard is one of the easiest to understand A Course in Miracles teachers. This 14 minute video explains the Course view on forgiveness. If you have not been exposed to Course teachings before, hold onto your hat! Gary jumps into the kind of deep metaphysical thought that take most students years to understand. Gary always leaves me wanting more!! More knowledge, more understanding, more application of what I know to be the truth in my life.
For practical and easy tips on how to apply forgiveness to our daily lives:
I thank you God for this
most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue
dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes. --e. e. Cummings
The Promise of the Happy Dream
A Course of Miracles promises that the more you forgive, the happier your life will be. In fact, over time, as you begin to forgive everyone and every difficult event or circumstance in the world around you, you will actually begin to live what the Course calls the "happy dream".
Forgiveness as the Path to Peace
Forgiveness is much easier than you may think. In fact, once you get in the habit, it actually becomes pleasurable. There's really no reason to live a life of fear, anxiety, upset or lack when the possibility of the "happy dream" life is such an easy alternative. It doesn't happen over night, of course, but a few years of significant forgiveness work will improve your life immeasurably.
Seeing the World Through Heaven’s Eyes
In A Course in Miracles, the “happy dream” is not a fantasy world or a denial of pain — it’s a state of mind where forgiveness has cleared away fear and guilt. When we forgive, we begin to see the world differently. Instead of focusing on what’s wrong, we start to notice the light in others, the beauty of the moment, and the quiet joy that comes from inner peace. The “happy dream” is what life looks like when we’ve stopped defending against love. It’s a gentle, forgiving perception of everything and everyone, a world softened by grace.
My book, Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness, offers heartfelt guidance, spiritual tools, and real-life practices. Read it on Amazon →
Let daily affirmations support you too — discover the Forgiveness Metta Card Deck for a gentle morning practice of peace and release.
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Let these tools light your path — because forgiveness sets you free.
— Sue Pipal
"Forgiveness is the Key to Happiness" is available in both hardcover and paperback at:
Many of us were brought up believing we must ask God to forgive us.
However — God doesn’t forgive.
Does this idea surprise you?
God never judges, and therefore never finds it necessary to forgive.
This message can bring deep comfort:
"God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Forgiveness is the great need of this world, but that is because it is a world of illusions. Those who forgive are thus releasing themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to them. As you condemn only yourself, so do you forgive only yourself." --A Course in Miracles, Workbook, Lesson 46
Created in Perfection
As our Creator, God always knows His truth about each of us.
We are perfect. We are only good. We are love — always and everywhere.
Since God made us exactly in His own image, we can only be these things.
When we perceive ourselves as flawed, sinful, or unworthy, we are caught in self-created illusion — a false perception that hides the truth of our divine innocence. As our creator, God always knows his own truth about each of us and our inherent perfection.
Since God made us exactly in his own image, we can only be these things. If we judge ourselves to be anything other than this, it is only our own self-created illusion. We perceive that we are not perfect and therefore need God's forgiveness.
Why Forgiving Others Reveals Our Own Innocence
When we forgive others, we acknowledge their truth — that there is nothing to judge, because they too were created in perfection.
They are only good. They are love always and everywhere.
As we begin to see their truth clearly, something beautiful happens:
we start to remember our own. If they are perfect, then we must be too.
"Yet although God does not forgive, His Love is nevertheless the basis of forgiveness. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God. For this reason, forgiveness can truly be called salvation. It is the means by which illusions disappear." Lesson 46--A Course in Miracles
Freedom from Fear and Guilt
Lesson 46 is the first place in the Workbook where forgiveness is explored in depth.
There is such safety in knowing that we never need to ask for God’s forgiveness — because asking implies it could be withheld.
Our unconscious fear that God might disapprove of us or withhold love is the root of nearly all inner conflict. Here, in this early lesson, we are reassured: God never judges. He has only love and support to offer us.
"I cannot be guilty because I am a Son of God. I have already been forgiven. No fear is possible in a mind beloved of God. There is no need to attack because love has
forgiven me."--Lesson 46
