You are here to learn things, and you are here to unlearn things. Everyone.

Maybe once you were avaricious, and now you learn to be generous. Maybe once you hurt others, and now you learn to heal others. Maybe once you taught incorrect things, and now you learn to give truth. This is a mere surface appraisal. In one sense only, your present life is an atonement for the past, the far-distant past and the past of a moment ago.

But those things I mention as examples — greed, hurt, untruth — are but symptoms. You could try to correct symptoms forever, and another will wend its way up. Do not chase perfection.

Instead, sweep all the past up in one knapsack and throw it away. Start anew. Do not set out to atone for the past. Do not predicate the past into the future. Live the present as it appears before you. It is new.

You do not really know how correct or incorrect an action of yours has been. You do not know what purpose in the universe an act of yours fulfilled or fulfills. You do not know what goodness came out of what did not seem good to you and may not even now. You do not know what purpose you were serving. So you might as well forgive yourself and move on.

All the good you have done (that you label good) and all the bad you have allowed or performed (that you label bad) are the same now; they have been washed away, either by your tears or by your laughter and by that evanescent thing you call time.

So I tell you there is nothing to atone for. Live now. Wring joy out of every moment. Of course, you cannot wring it. You can only allow it. You can only watch it. You may incur joy and sorrow, but neither belong to you. You do not own them. You do not earn them either. Joy is a gift. Sorrow is from your own volition.

The secret you are learning beyond all the steps you attempt to learn is to attune to Me. Listen for Me in your heart, and enjoy Me. Enjoy Our friendship. Enjoy Our ventures together. Enjoy Ourselves. Keep Me with you. I will not infringe upon you. You will still have free will, only now you choose to fly with Me. Now you commit yourself.

You choose ahead of time to be a well-wisher for the universe. There is a cry in your heart that asks to be absolved from negative thoughts, feelings, negative anything. You no longer want to be involved with negativity of any kind, including negativity towards yourself.

That brings you now to where you can forgive the past of others as well. You can forgive them their trespasses because they were and are just like you. They bumbled along, and they lived off emotion, and they hurt and were hurt, and, like you, they are learning. Do not go by track records. Go by this moment that holds joy for you. The past is not where joy is. The past is not where grief is. The past exists only in your thought. Free yourself and others from the past. In doing this, you atone for others. You release them. How powerful you are!

What you are here for now is to undo the past by letting it go. When you live in the present, you become like an angel. Angels are pure light because they are not held to the past. They are present energy. They are energy present. They are not hung-over as you have been.

Now you disengage yourself from the past, from all past, yours and others'. Today you begin your life as I have given it to you.