 We continue today with Chapter 16. The Forgiveness of Illusions. True Empathy. To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand. That is the ego's interpretation of empathy and is always used to form a special relationship in which the suffering is shared. The capacity to empathize is very useful to the Holy Spirit, provided you let Him use it in His way. He does not understand suffering and would have you teach it is not understandable. When He relates through you, He does not relate through your ego to another ego. He does not join in pain, understanding that healing pain is not accomplished by delusional attempts to enter into it and lighten it by sharing the delusion. The clearest proof that empathy as the ego uses it is destructive lies in the fact that it is applied only to certain types of problems and in certain people. These it selects out and joins with and it never joins except to strengthen itself. Make no mistake about this maneuver. The ego always empathizes to weaken and to weaken is always to attack. You do not know what empathizing means, yet of this you may be sure if you will merely sit quietly by and let the Holy Spirit relate through you, you will empathize with strength and will gain in strength and not in weakness. Your part is only to remember this. You do not want anything you value to come of a relationship. You choose neither to hurt it nor to heal it in your own way. You do not know what healing is. All you have learned of empathy is from the past. There is nothing from the past that you would share, for there is nothing from the past that you would keep. Do not use empathy to make the past real and so perpetuate it. Step gently aside and let healing be done for you. Keep but one thought in mind and do not lose sight of it. However tempted you may be to judge any situation and to determine your response by judging it. Focus your mind only on this. I am not alone and I would not intrude the past upon my guest. I have invited him and he is here. I need do nothing except not to interfere. True empathy is of him who knows what it is. You will learn his interpretation of it if you let him use your capacity for strength and not for weakness. He will not desert you, but be sure that you desert not him. Humility is strength in this sense only. That to recognize and accept the fact that you do not know is to recognize and accept the fact that he does know. You are not sure that he will do his part because you have never yet done yours completely. You cannot know how to respond to what you do not understand. Be tempted not in this and yield not to the ego's triumphant use of empathy for its glory. The triumph of weakness is not what you would offer to a brother. And yet you recognize no triumph but this. This is not knowledge and the form of empathy which would bring this about is so distorted that it would imprison what it would release. The unredeemed cannot redeem, yet they have a redeemer. Attempt to teach him not. You are the learner, he, the teacher. Do not confuse your role with his for this will never bring peace to anyone. Offer your empathy to him for it is his perception and his strength that you would share. And let him offer you his strength and his perception to be shared through you. The meaning of love is lost in any relationship that looks to weakness and helps to find love there. The power of love which is its meaning lies in the strength of God that hovers over it and blesses it silently by enveloping it in healing wings. Let this be and do not try to substitute your quote miracle for this. I have said that if a brother asks a foolish thing of you to do it, but be certain that this does not mean to do a foolish thing that would hurt either him or you for what would hurt one will hurt the other. Foolish requests are foolish merely because they conflict since they always contain some element of specialness. Only the Holy Spirit recognizes foolish needs as well as real ones and he will teach you how to meet both without losing either. You will attempt to do this only in secrecy and you will think that by meeting the needs of one you do not jeopardize another because you keep them separate and secret from each other. That is not the way for it leads not to life and truth. No needs will long be left unmet if you leave them all to him whose function is to meet them. That is his function and not yours. He will not meet them secretly for he would share everything you give through him. That is why he gives it. What you give through him is for the whole sonship not for part of it. Leave him his function for he will fulfill it if you but ask him to enter your relationships and bless them for you. And from the workbook lesson number 126 all that I give is given to myself. Today's idea completely alien to the ego and the thinking of the world is crucial to the thought reversal that this course will bring about. If you believe this statement there would be no problem in complete forgiveness certainty of goal and sure direction. You would understand the means by which salvation comes to you and would not hesitate to use it now. Let us consider what you do believe in place of this idea. It seems to you that other people are apart from you and able to behave in ways which have no bearing on your thoughts or theirs on yours. Therefore your attitudes have no effect on them and their appeals for help are not in any way related to your own. You further think that they can sin without affecting your perception of yourself while you can judge their sin and yet remain apart from condemnation and at peace. When you, quote, forgive a sin there is no gain to you directly. You give charity to one unworthy merely to point out that you are better on a higher plane than he whom you forgive. He has not earned your charitable tolerance which you bestow on one unworthy of the gift because his sins have lowered him beneath a true equality with you. He has no claim on your forgiveness. It holds out a gift to him but hardly to yourself. Thus is forgiveness basically unsound a charitable whim, benevolent yet undeserved. The gift bestowed at times at other times withheld unmerited withholding it is just nor is it fair that you should suffer when it is withheld. The sin that you forgive is not your own someone apart from you committed it and if you then are gracious unto him by giving him what he does not deserve the gift is no more yours than was his sin. If this be true forgiveness has no grounds on which to rest dependably and sure. It is an eccentricity in which you sometimes choose to give indulgently an undeserved reprieve yet it remains your right to let the sinner not escape the justified repayment for his sin. Think you the Lord of Heaven would allow the world salvation to depend on this. Would not his care for you be small indeed if your salvation rested on a whim? You do not understand forgiveness. As you see it is but a check upon overt attack without requiring correction in your mind. It cannot give you peace as you perceive it. It is not a means for your release from what you see in someone other than yourself. It has no power to restore your unity with him to your awareness. It is not what God intended it to be for you. Not having given him the gift he asked of you you cannot recognize his gifts and think he has not given them to you. Yet would he ask you for a gift unless it was for you? Could he be satisfied with empty gestures and evaluate such petty gifts as worthy of his son? Salvation is a better gift than this and true forgiveness as the means by which it is attained must heal the mind that gives for giving is receiving. What remains as unreceived has not been given but what has been given must have been given and received. Today we try to understand the truth that giver and receiver are the same. You will need help to make this meaningful because it is so alien to the thoughts to which you are accustomed. But the help you need is there. Give him your faith today and ask him that he share your practicing in truth today. And if you only catch a tiny glimpse of the release that lies and the idea we practice for today this is a day of glory for the world. Give fifteen minutes twice a day to the attempt to understand today's idea. It is the thought by which forgiveness takes its proper place in your priorities. It is the thought that will release your mind from every bar to what forgiveness means and let you realize it's worth to you in silence. Close your eyes upon the world that does not understand forgiveness and seek sanctuary in the quiet place where thoughts are changed and false beliefs laid by. Repeat today's idea and ask for help in understanding what it really means. Be willing to be taught. Be glad to hear the voice of truth and healing speak to you. And you will understand the words he speaks and recognize he speaks your words to you. As often as you can remind yourself you have a goal today. An aim which makes this day of special value to you and all your brothers. Do not let your mind forget this goal for long but tell yourself all that I give is given to myself. The help I need to learn that this is true is with me now and I will trust in him. Then spend a quiet moment opening your mind to his correction and his love. And what you hear of him you will believe for what he gives will be received by you. Amen.