In A Course in Miracles (ACIM), forgiveness is correcting the mind because only the mind needs correction since it is the cause of everything. The effects are irrelevant except as forgiveness opportunities which are used to their best advantage when you recognize them as such. Since forgiveness is the main principle for correcting the mind, we’re going to discuss how the two sides of the split mind use forgiveness. The decision maker chooses which type of forgiveness and like all aspects of the mind, forgiveness has both cause and effect. One side corrects the mind and the other reinforces the illusion.
Choosing is agreeing with something and we do it all the time. Normally, we choose between chaotic effects of the illusion which is forgiveness to destroy or seeing error and using error to correct error. The ego survives by these continued error judgments.
ACIM is a course in mind training for the certain way of forgiveness that leads directly to the undoing of the ego. The choice is really between illusion and Truth and giving up the illusion (error) instead of making more. It’s the power of choice in the reverse, i.e., choosing to remember the Truth instead of denying it. Withdrawing judgment is the ego’s undoing.
When the mind was made into a perceiver instead of a creator, perception of differences makes an illusion of choice and the necessity for choosing between things. Deciding in this more certain way is how you choose your way out of the illusion because it corrects the mind. Choosing is another word for this decision making ability and the Course is aimed directly at the decision maker.
There are two roles for the decision maker. One uses the mind passively by continuing to avoid looking at what is being chosen thus resulting in more ego judgments and forgiveness to destroy. The other is an active role in which we observe what has been chosen and give it up. Such forgiveness is corrective in the mind and the outcome of returning to Love is certain.