How peaceful my life would be if I never accused and always forgave. There is a part of my mind that says this is not possible, that it is even dangerous, but I have to believe that not only is it possible, it is the key to having the life I want. How much time in our lives do we spend focusing on what we believe to be wrong with other people, what is unfair to us, what needs to change in order for us to be happy?

If I am completely honest with myself, for many years I spent a crazy amount of time there in that frame of mind, and I think most people do, especially when one has an undisciplined mind. When we are thinking in this way it is because we are making one or both of two mistakes:
1) We are looking to the past in order to see how we were done wrong, or worrying about what may occur to harm us in the future.
2) We believe that correcting (i.e. judging) other people will lead to a happier world for ourselves.

Probably one of the most difficult concepts to accept on the winding journey of a spiritual path is to realize that correction is not our function. It is, in fact, arrogant to believe that it is our duty to correct others. To be humble means that we must trust that there is a wisdom within the universe that knows of fairness, and that our own determinations of guilt toward other people and ourselves get in the way of that wisdom’s work.

What I have come to see is this: that when I fall into that role, thinking it is my job to judge and correct, I lose sight of what my function and role really is… which is to forgive. There is a line in A Course in Miracles that says it all, but still tough to fully embrace: “No one can forgive until he learns correction is but to forgive, and never to accuse.” What helps me with this is to always remember that every moment of my life here, my role is not to correct, but rather to be training my mind to listen to love.

I like to think of every day that I am alive as a class in intense Mind Training where I will get many experiential lessons from a trusted teacher. Fundamentally, there are two voices that I can choose to listen to: one directs me to look outside my own mind to accuse and correct, the other directs me to look within my own thoughts to forgive . This is all my mind training is about, nothing more. One voice is of the ego, and even in the best of times, when this voice speaks, a cocktail of distrust, sadness, worry, and impermanence is injected into my thoughts. The other voice is of love, and always speaks of connection, oneness, and joining with all that is. One voice, the ego, tells me constantly who I am, and this list is not pretty. The other voice, love, also tells me constantly who I am and what my experience is, but its words are different: I am blessed, I am peaceful, I am loving and I am content. I am calm in this situation, bringing a gentle quietness to the world, standing confident in compassion as the answer to whatever arises.