IV. The Holy Spirit's Plan of Forgiveness

T-9.IV.1. Atonement is for all, because it is the way to undo the belief that anything is for you alone. ² To forgive is to overlook. ³ Look, then, beyond error and do not let your perception rest upon it, for you will believe what your perception holds. ⁴ Accept as true only what your brother is, if you would know yourself. ⁵ Perceive what he is not and you cannot know what you are, because you see him falsely. ⁶ Remember always that your Identity is shared, and that Its sharing is Its reality.

T-9.IV.2. You have a part to play in the Atonement, but the plan of the Atonement is beyond you. ² You do not understand how to overlook errors, or you would not make them. ³ It would merely be further error to believe either that you do not make them, or that you can correct them without a Guide to correction. ⁴ And if you do not follow this Guide, your errors will not be corrected. ⁵ The plan is not yours because of your limited ideas about what you are. ⁶ This sense of limitation is where all errors arise. ⁷ The way to undo them, therefore, is not of you but for you.

T-9.IV.3. The Atonement is a lesson in sharing, which is given you because you have forgotten how to do it. ² The Holy Spirit merely reminds you of the natural use of your abilities. ³ By reinterpreting the ability to attack into the ability to share, He translates what you have made into what God created. ⁴ If you would accomplish this through Him you cannot look on your abilities through the eyes of the ego, or you will judge them as it does. ⁵ All their harmfulness lies in the ego's judgment. ⁶ All their helpfulness lies in the judgment of the Holy Spirit.

T-9.IV.4. The ego, too, has a plan of forgiveness because you are asking for one, though not of the right teacher. ² The ego's plan, of course, makes no sense and will not work. ³ By following its plan you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego always leads you. ⁴ The ego's plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. ⁵ Yet how can you overlook what you have made real? ⁶ By seeing it clearly, you have made it real and cannot overlook it. ⁷ This is where the ego is forced to appeal to "mysteries," insisting that you must accept the meaningless to save yourself. ⁸ Many have tried to do this in my name, forgetting that my words make perfect sense because they come from God. ⁹ They are as sensible now as they ever were, because they speak of ideas that are eternal.

T-9.IV.5. Forgiveness that is learned of me does not use fear to undo fear. ² Nor does it make real the unreal and then destroy it. ³ Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal for you. ⁴ Do not let any belief in its realness enter your mind, or you will also believe that you must undo what you have made in order to be forgiven. ⁵ What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are nonexistent. ⁶ By steadily and consistently cancelling out all its effects, everywhere and in all respects, He teaches that the ego does not exist and proves it.

T-9.IV.6. Follow the Holy Spirit's teaching in forgiveness, then, because forgiveness is His function and He knows how to fulfill it perfectly. ² That is what I meant when I said that miracles are natural, and when they do not occur something has gone wrong. ³ Miracles are merely the sign of your willingness to follow the Holy Spirit's plan of salvation, recognizing that you do not understand what it is. ⁴ His work is not your function, and unless you accept this you cannot learn what your function is.

T-9.IV.7. The confusion of functions is so typical of the ego that you should be quite familiar with it by now. ² The ego believes that all functions belong to it, even though it has no idea what they are. ³ This is more than mere confusion. ⁴ It is a particularly dangerous combination of grandiosity and confusion that makes the ego likely to attack anyone and anything for no reason at all. ⁵ This is exactly what the ego does. ⁶ It is unpredictable in its responses, because it has no idea of what it perceives.

T-9.IV.8. If you have no idea what is happening, how appropriately can you expect to react? ² You might ask yourself, regardless of how you may account for the reaction, whether its unpredictability places the ego in a sound position as your guide. ³ Let me repeat that the ego's qualifications as a guide are singularly unfortunate, and that it is a remarkably poor choice as a teacher of salvation. ⁴ Anyone who elects a totally insane guide must be totally insane himself. ⁵ Nor is it true that you do not realize the guide is insane. ⁶ You realize it because I realize it, and you have judged it by the same standard I have.

T-9.IV.9. The ego literally lives on borrowed time, and its days are numbered. ² Do not fear the Last Judgment, but welcome it and do not wait, for the ego's time is "borrowed" from your eternity. ³ This is the Second Coming that was made for you as the First was created. ⁴ The Second Coming is merely the return of sense. ⁵ Can this possibly be fearful?

T-9.IV.10. What can be fearful but fantasy, and who turns to fantasy unless he despairs of finding satisfaction in reality? ² Yet it is certain that you will never find satisfaction in fantasy, so that your only hope is to change your mind about reality. ³ Only if the decision that reality is fearful is wrong can God be right. ⁴ And I assure you that God is right. ⁵ Be glad, then, that you have been wrong, but this was only because you did not know who you were. ⁶ Had you known, you could no more have been wrong than God can.

T-9.IV.11. The impossible can happen only in fantasy. ² When you search for reality in fantasies you will not find it. ³ The symbols of fantasy are of the ego, and of these you will find many. ⁴ But do not look for meaning in them. ⁵ They have no more meaning than the fantasies into which they are woven. ⁶ Fairy tales can be pleasant or fearful, but no one calls them true. ⁷ Children may believe them, and so, for a while, the tales are true for them. ⁸ Yet when reality dawns, the fantasies are gone. ⁹ Reality has not gone in the meanwhile. ¹⁰ The Second Coming is the awareness of reality, not its return.

T-9.IV.12. Behold, my child, reality is here. ² It belongs to you and me and God, and is perfectly satisfying to all of Us. ³ Only this awareness heals, because it is the awareness of truth.