Forgiveness

[tommylama]

I was thinking how almost everyone, even spiritually minded people, carry a lot of negative energy around, because they cannot find it in their hearts to forgive – for whatever reason.

When we cannot forgive someone, we are placing our self above another person.

There is no other way to interpret a lack of forgiveness. A person who is unwilling to forgive will argue that the person who they cannot forgive does not deserve their forgiveness. So, they believe that under certain circumstances it is justifiable to elevate one’s self above another.

I would argue that there can be no satisfaction or comfort when we elevate our self or separate our self from anyone for any reason. There is an old adage which says that “Sadness is a wall between two gardens.” Walls create separation and sadness, resulting in conflict and war. Every human being is an entity of light and love and beauty and glory. It may be true that some human beings do not express this light and love, but it does not change their underlying essence.

It might be easier to forgive if we consider the concepts of karma and reincarnation.

Karma ensures that we continually learn and grow, because karma, as a system of reward and punishment, will eventually modify our behavior for the better. This presupposes a moral path which exists and which is in alignment with God’s plan. Straying from this path results in punishment, and since we are conditioned to avoid pain, we gradually align our plans with God’s plans. Over time, we demonstrate better and better qualities, like selflessness, harmlessness and kindness.

Another way to look at karma is that every action – every thought, word and deed we perform – changes the universe in some small way. The entire universe is different after our action. An “after” snapshot will be exactly the same as a “before” snapshot, with the single exception of what we just did. Our actions are like pebbles being dropped into a pond. Each pebble triggers a ripple effect which courses through the entire pond – a ripple for which we are responsible. God owns the pond, and He is very particular about how He wants His property treated. God wants everything and everyone to be perfect. He wants everyone to be happy and contented. He wants one big happy family in Paradise. That is His plan. Heaven on Earth. When our actions are good and kind and selfless they help to bring His plan to fruition, and so we are rewarded. Conversely, if our actions are selfish, indulgent or harmful, then they are less than perfect and interfere with His plan, so we are punished.

Reincarnation ensures that we have enough time to achieve our ultimate goal, which is to become perfect, or to follow Jesus’ directive to “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

Reincarnation must have a specific definition. It does not involve any kind of transmigration where an individual comes back in the form of an animal or less. A human being has reached a threshold in his or her evolution which precludes backward movement within the kingdoms of nature. Once a human, always a human.

Think about reincarnating for thousands or tens of thousands of lifetimes. In that enormous span of time, an individual will experience every conceivable combination of circumstances which are in the realm of possibility. An individual will experience every gender, every race, every income bracket, every religion, every adversity, every luxury, every level of intelligence, every everything many times over. In other words, if reincarnation is truly a thing, then somewhere in our past, each one of us has had the very same experiences of everyone we have ever met, or will ever meet. We are all the same. All human beings are of equal value. Nobody is better than anybody else, regardless of how much money they have, or how pretty they are, or how big their shoes are. Comparing the histories of human beings in this context, we are all one.

Given these premises, there is no good reason to harbor resentment or hold grudges against anyone for any reason.

To choose to harbor resentment or hold a grudge can only generate bad karma, because karma is nature's way of steering human beings towards the light of love and goodness and truth. The truth is that nobody is better than anybody else. To not forgive, to resent, or God forbid to hate another human being goes against the truth of unity, and therefore that kind of aberrant behavior must be punished.

There is always an excuse which we convince our self is a legitimate reason to not forgive. All of these excuses are nothing more than self-centered efforts to elevate us over somebody else. This can only lead to punishment.

So look deep into your hearts and relieve your self of the burden of resentment, or any grudges you carry around, or God forbid, any hatreds which plague your soul.

From the Lord's Prayer:

...and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us...

What this means is that God will forgive us our trespasses commensurate to the extent that we forgive others. If we do not forgive those who trespass against us, we cannot expect God to forgive us. Or in other words, nature will continue to target us with uncomfortable karma and unfavorable circumstances until we find it in our hearts to forgive everyone.

We are all motes of dust. Forgiveness is just one dust particle forgiving another dust particle. It’s no big deal. And it feels wonderful to let go of something which has been weighing us down for a very long time.

A very good thread,thank you!

Foregiveness is very important....

[tommylama]

Forgiveness is the starting point for healing humanity, because forgiveness must engender some measure of love within the heart of the forgiver. Forgiveness, is really a symptom or an indicator of a much more powerful dynamic, and that of course is love.

Love is the key and the solution to all of the relationship problems between individuals, groups, nations, races and religions. To suggest that the opposite of love, or hatred, is the solution to these problems is rather ludicrous. There are many individuals in the world today who stand on the side of hatred, but their argument is pretty pathetic and uninformed.

It is a simple matter to show that love represents a solution to world problems, whereas hate is the cause of these problems. In a world where all men loved one another as if they were brothers and sisters of the same family, hatred would soon disappear. While there are certainly sibling rivalries in any family, these conflicts do not usually rise to the level of hatred. And when that does happen, we are dealing with a dysfunctional family which should not represent a model for others to follow. When I suggest that we all live as one family, I’m referring to the theoretical family whose members care for and protect each other. When love is the prevalent force in the world, it can create an atmosphere of absolute well-being and joy. Imagine walking down the street in a world where every single person you encounter loves you, cares about you, and will give you the shirt off of their back if you need it. This is the kind of world which can and will manifest when love abounds.

On the other hand, if the opposite were true and people hated and feared one another, walking down the street in that world would be a dangerous thing to do. Everyone would be interested in maximizing their own selfish comforts at the expense of anyone who might get in their way. The future of the human race would be bleak and short-lived, for wars would surely escalate and eventually result in the mutual destruction and annihilation of all mankind.

No, I don’t think that anyone with any intelligence would argue that hatred will provide a better future than love. So how do we generate enough love to solve these problems we face?

The starting point is forgiveness. If everyone forgave everyone for everything, hatred would disappear. A man hates another man because he thinks that he is better than that other man.

A white supremacist hates a non-white man, because he believes that white men are better than men of any other color. This is pure ignorance in light of my earlier discussion about how karma and reincarnation levels the playing field and puts all men in the same boat. The white supremacist must forgive other men for being born with a different color skin, which sounds ridiculous, but such is the nature of ignorance. And when he does forgive them, he can embrace them and see their value. As his negative attitude changes, his life circumstances will also change reflecting the light and love which has entered into his consciousness.

The same is true for people of different religions who hate each other. These are probably the most dangerous conflicts between humans, because the stakes are eternal. Religious zealots who believe their faith is the only true faith regard non-believers as agents of the devil. It is understandable why such extreme and violent behaviors result from this kind of world view, but it doesn’t require a deep dive into their argument to find the flaws. I may be wrong, but I sincerely doubt that if Jesus, or Buddha, or any of the Other Messengers Who have graced our planet in the past with Their presence, if They were to suddenly appear to point out the True religion and the True church, they are not likely to choose any of the religions or churches which exist today. Jesus is not going to walk into a Baptist church, for example, and proclaim all of the other denominations to be wrong. Buddha is not going to walk into a Buddhist temple and proclaim all other interpretations of truth to be wrong. More likely, Jesus and Buddha will look at Each Other and chuckle at the stupidity of all men. They will probably get together in a neutral location and enjoin all men to help Them to make a new church with teachings taken from all of the other churches and religions. Each idea will be weighed according to its all-inclusiveness, its lovingness, its light, and its propensity towards manifesting Heaven on Earth. This new Church will gain the endorsement of both Jesus and Buddha as well as all of the Communion of Saints, and the Spiritual Hierarchy, and the Angels, and even God Himself.

That is not the situation in the world today. The current situation is “I hate you, because you don’t believe what I believe.” In the most extreme cases, this kind of mindset leads to war and bloodshed. But if reincarnation is truly a law of nature, if you will, then if I hate you today because of your belief, and “yesterday” in a previous life I had that same belief, then I have to hate myself from the past. That doesn’t make any sense, so I guess I have to stop hating altogether. Bingo!

What other kinds of forgiveness need to be addressed? Oh, the dreaded cheater in a romantic relationship. This problem is more about a widespread misunderstanding of how love should be expressed between humans. I may go into more detail in a future post, but for now let me just point out that all of our circumstances, including all of the good and all of the bad, are a function of our karma. Everything that happens to us is a direct result of our own actions in the past. It may sound crazy, but whenever someone hurts me, my immediate reaction is to apologize. It may not have been in recent memory, or even in this lifetime, but I definitely did something to hurt them. This is how karma works. Contrast this with the typical response most people probably have when hurt by somebody else. More often than not, they will seek some sort of vengeance, motivated by “an eye for an eye” mentality. But for all you Christians out there, don’t forget that Jesus commanded us to “turn the other cheek.” He commanded this because He knows that all suffering is self-inflicted. So all of those cheated upon have likely done some cheating of their own in the past. We must forgive ourselves for past transgressions, and then forgive those who harm us in the immediate present.

Let’s get back to the question of how can we generate enough love to solve the problems of humanity. First we forgive everyone in our life. Next we convince others who suffer from the burden of their hatreds and grudges to also forgive everyone, including themselves. Anyone who refuses to see the light and the love which can be theirs through total forgiveness is rationalizing their ignorance and their hatred and are too self-centered to see the truth. We cannot feed this kind of mentality. I’m not saying that we should write these people off as toxic or unlovable. Our hearts should be open even wider to these poor souls who choose this kind of self-torture over the alternative inexpressible joy which awaits their forgiving. But we cannot support them. We cannot agree that their cheating partner is a such and such or a so and so. We can implore that they see that we are all guilty, either now or in the past, of every conceivable transgression known to man and that forgiveness provides blanket absolution. Beyond that, we must allow those who are not willing to forgive to walk a little further down the path. Eventually the light will shine on them and they will be ready to join the unconditional love-fest which we ourselves have enjoyed since the moment we learned the true power of forgiveness.

[Rah nam]

A very long post about a simple act.
I wonder if we have to write a lot of words about such a simple act, are we really there yet.

[Unseeking Seeker]

I view forgiveness in a different way.

Forgiveness presupposes a sense of injury and then for self-healing it is advisable that we forgive, to generate that ‘feel good factor’ for ourself. However, neither repression nor sublimation works. It is but a temporary panacea.

Instead, I offer that we simply eliminate the problem from its roots by recognising that the deemed harmful action (which now requires us to forgive) occurred because the person could only act in that manner at that time, knowing no better, could do no better. His consciousness is like this only so we accept it.

Rephrased, if we substitute the external human form of ‘our transgressor’ with that of an animal or reptile, the need to forgive doesn’t arise even if we are harmed, simply because we recognise that it is in that organism’s nature to act in that pernicious manner.

So, the problem is in our ‘expectation’ of an imagined code of conduct from a human, amplified further if it’s friend or family where higher expectations creep in. However, what if an animal is thought fit to have some human experience? Then the animal in human form will continue to behave like an animal only, won’t it?

We can further break down the steps in human ascension too, gradually shifting from instinct to discernment and mindfulness, slowly becoming love enabled. There are many interim coordinates we are looking at.

So … we don’t feel a sense of injury and thus the need to forgive doesn’t arise.

On a similar note but looking at it another way, the fact that we contract, we react, is in fact a wake up call for us reminding us that our attention is needlessly fixated in mind-body. We need to snap out of our stupor.

Having said this, I’m not advocating trauma bonding or even as Mahatma Gandhi said ‘turn the other cheek if slapped’ … no, we protect ourself, just the way we protect ourself form an animal but that’s about it. There is no baggage of sense of injury we need to carry about.

[Native spirit]

To myself forgiving someone is easy forgetting is harder to do.


Namaste

[Unseeking Seeker]

Originally Posted by Native spirit

To myself forgiving someone is easy forgetting is harder to do.

Then, in my view, it’s inadequate, incomplete, meaningless. We still carry the ‘baggage’

In the Hawaain forgiveness prayer Ho’oponopono, the last step is the ‘hardest’ when we embrace the ‘enemy’ with childlike purity, oozing love

I think its important to have forgiveness. In the astral after physical death (considering a person gravitates to the tunnel with the white light at the end of it ie they willingly go there) we are given a life review and the good things that we did in life are shown to us but the bad things are pointed out and because we're basically good hearted beings we may feel bad about some of the things we did to people while on Earth. Therfore to remedy this we are told that we need to return to Earth to do it again, its called karma!

This is just more manipulation and behavior modification from the archons in the astral. There is no reason for us to experience the other side of coin so to speak, our wrongdoings. All we need to forgive others that have done us harm and forgive those we may have hurt. You see things for what they are and are thus able to move on.

You are no longer bound by karmic cycles (with amnesia) and thus "move on" and continue on with your path (If that path involves exiting the Patrix then simply ignore any being that says they want to help you or have you follow them to the tunnel, its a trap).

Forgiving yourself and others is key to moving on from this realm (Patrix or realm of The Demiurge) I would like to also add that it depends on the context of evil. We cannot forgive extreme evils done to us unless that person is ready to confront that part of his or herself. I believe that its more important to have compassion and empathy than to have forgiveness but thats for another discussion

Originally Posted by tommylama

When we cannot forgive someone, we are placing our self above another person.

...Or beyond another person.

To the ordinary person, forgiving another is often giving them a licence to commit whatever their offence was against you or others again....unless true penitence is shown. Even then, if forgiven it might be best to give the person a wide berth.

Forgiveness is only applicable if someone has caused some kind of injury or put you to a disadvantage. The extent might guide your response.

If someone beat the hell out of me and knocked my front teeth out, how could I forgive him or if I did, have anything further to do with him?
If I lend someone money and they don't repay I might well forgive if the circumstances suggest they are unable to repay but should I lend them more?

I read news reports of domestic abuse, murders, stalking. I've seen a few things in my town. To forgive the culprits, as I say, is licensing them to continue. One risks becoming a doormat.

Forgiving when undeniable penitence is shown is fine, however.

So I have a different view. Is there anything wrong with someone placing themselves above someone else?
.

[Miss Hepburn]

Originally Posted by Ghaleon

Forgiving yourself and others is key to moving on from this realm...

Very imp statement, yes.