Forgiveness happens only in the present

"For the present IS forgiveness." UrT17D11

This was an eye-opener for me, that you have to be IN THE PRESENT in order to be forgiving. Not only that, but the state of mind that you're in when you're in the present, truly, without a past, is the forgiving state of mind.

There present is where you have no grievances, because all grievances are to do with the past. What someone did or didn't do in the past, past hurts, old arguments, unforgiven conflicts, things which "happened" - past tense. Without a past you cannot have grievances. This is why "the miracle" and the vision of christ ONLY exist in the present.

This also means that when you move into the present, you have to have let go of the past, and brushed it off, and dropped it. So if you had grievances toward a person, you would have to be willing to completely let that go and "forgive" them ie no longer hold it against them as a sin. Because sin is always in the past, along with guilt, and the ego. Only if THERE IS NO PAST is your brother forgiven.

Without a past you see people as they are now, without any history of faults and failures and offences. Being fully and squarely in the present moment of time, with no concern for the future or the past, that's where you find the light. It's where you find the real world, because it means you're taking a look at "reality as it is now", rather than disappearing off into a dream of memory. True accurate perception requires total present attention.

I don't think I've ever heard anyone saying or teaching that forgiveness has to take place in the present moment. And this doesn't mean that when you "do your forgivenesses" you are doing them now in the present. We are not in the present, typically, most of the time, or when we're reciting lessons or quotes or trying to apply the course. Most of the time we're lost in he past and giving lip service to the STATE of forgiveness.

To really forgive, just as Jesus says that miracles are seen in light and the light is in the present and miracles heal only in the present, your mind has to let go of the whole of the past. In fact it has to let go of time, past and future, to experience a holy instant. Being in the "now" is the only way to be actually freed from all forms of suffering, which are always rooted in the past.

You can't really be forgiving toward someone if you still believe they did something, which doesn't just mean writing off what they did and keeping the idea of time. It means actually getting out of time, out of the past, realising the past doesn't even exist, and being in the present. In the present you are taking a fresh new look at a person, immediately and without a history.

"The miracle enables you to see your brother WITHOUT his past, and so perceive him as born again. His errors ARE all past, and by perceiving him WITHOUT them, you are RELEASING him. And since his past is yours, you SHARE in this release. Let no dark cloud out of YOUR past obscure him from you, for truth lies ONLY in the present, and you WILL find it if you seek it there. You have looked for it where it is NOT, and therefore have not found it. Learn, then, to seek it where it IS, and it WILL dawn on eyes that see. Your past was made in anger, and if you use it to ATTACK the present you will NOT SEE the freedom that the present holds. Judgment and condemnation are BEHIND you, and unless you bring them WITH you, you WILL see that you are free of them." UrT12F5

To be in the present is to be forgiving. You can't have any sense of a record of sins people committed, unless you are focused on the past. When you focus on the past you're not really seeing anything at all because you're looking at something that is not there anymore. And so you lose vision. You regain vision, sight, Christ vision, in the light of the present, when you are here now, aligned with the always-now of eternity.