To forgive is an act of love, and, is liberating and healing to both the giver and the receiver. Today's Course Workbook lesson makes this point. So, too, does Swedenborg correlate the doing of good from God and the spiritual practice of loving-kindness with true freedom.
"Fear binds the world. Forgiveness sets it free." (A Course In Miracles, W-332)
"The ego makes illusions. Truth undoes its evil dreams by shining them away. Truth never makes attack. It merely is. And by its presence is the mind recalled from fantasies, awaking to the real. Forgiveness bids this presence enter in, and take its rightful place within the mind. Without forgiveness is the mind in chains, believing in its own futility. Yet with forgiveness does the light shine through the dream of darkness, offering it hope, and giving it the means to realize the freedom that is its inheritance." (A Course In Miracles, W-332.1)
"We would not bind the world again today. Fear holds it prisoner. And yet Your Love has given us the means to set it free. Father, we would release it now. For as we offer freedom, it is given us. And we would not remain as prisoners, while You are holding freedom out to us." (A Course In Miracles, W-332.2)
“When… the internal [part of a person] conquers… then liberty itself and rationality itself are given to a person by the Lord; for the person is then withdrawn by the Lord from infernal freedom, which in itself is slavery, and is brought into heavenly freedom, which in itself is freedom itself…” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Divine Providence 145:4)
“A life of freedom, or freedom, is simply and solely being led by the Lord.…” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 892)
“…In a word, freedom consists in doing good from the Lord; and slavery in doing good from oneself….” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Apocalypse Explained 774:4)
“… there is no other means of loving the Lord than loving-kindness, because the Lord is in it. The affection of loving-kindness is heavenly affection itself, which is from the Lord alone.” (Emanuel Swedenborg, Secrets of Heaven 4776)
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