Forgiveness

When Forgiveness Happens


On that rare, but profound experience when Self and others can be experienced as one, the invitation for forgiveness crops up. Misfortune visits us all sometime during life and most of us seem to add even more weight to our burden through the process of blame.

I have noticed through my life that whenever I blamed somebody *(or something) else for a misfortune, it was me, I myself, that experienced even more stress, not the perpetrator of the wrong-doing to whom I was directing blame.

*It's not only people that get entangled in our "blame game". It could be inanimate objects, circumstances, the universe or life itself.

As time went by, if I could forgive, I could once again relate to the circumstances and/or people involved and often even find my relationship enhanced.

If I couldn’t forgive, even though I may consciously forget about the perceived "wrong" I had been done, the blame would have shifted from consciousness, down into the subconscious or unconscious mind robbing me of some of my life-force (energy) through inner conflicts..

I became aware of this often through my meditation or if some incident brought back a repressed memory of a "wrong-doing", I would discover the upset (anger, hurt etc), still there, eating away at me putting unnecessary pressure on my nervous system. And the nervous systems has also been proved to be closely linked with the immune system and can effect it.

The only way to release oneself from the strain of such unconscious conflict, is forgiveness.  But what is forgiveness? How do we do it?

The first step is that we need to be willing to begin the process of forgiveness. We need to let go of all the blame directed outwardly for our misfortunes. There is no better process for this than meditation.  Being a Zen practitioner zazen (Zen meditation) is my particular choice.

We  need to recognise that ALL blame big or small, no matter where it is directed ( towards self or outside of self), only hurts our Self. Because within our experience, everyone and everything that we are aware of, is part of US;  part of our own consciousness or Self.  We are our own creators of life and to blame anything for our misfortune, is to blame Self.  And blame causes guilt. That means if someone/something is blamed, it must be guilty of some wrong-doing.  And  guilt "demands" punishment.

But blaming others is to blame our self and will go on to elicit the "appropriate" punishment. You may have noticed that other people, who are constantly playing the "blame game" for their misfortunes in life, find it hard to let go of the problem, and are rarely happy and all too often seem to suffer from one form of illness to another.

Forgiveness is something that is done within the individual. It is abstract and therefore very powerful, but once it is done, it releases the individual from the pain of the past incident that caused that pain.
To forgive one has to be willing but willingness cannot be forced. One can only review the "traumatic event" with an intention to forgive all parties involved, whether it be somebody else, oneself or circumstance.

Meditation 


Forgiveness Happens as an unconditional experience
It is stilling the mind in meditation that can bring on the willingness to forgive. It will happen spontaneously when one is ready and will come with the feeling of forgiveness and letting go. Therefore forgiveness is a paradox. We do not DO forgiveness, forgiveness happens to us. That means that forgiveness is an experience as is willingness to forgive. 

For further study of forgiveness, there is a book called The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary R. Renard, and it is an excellent piece of work that really delivers the message of forgiveness.

On reading the first few pages of Renard's, I thought it somewhat OTT (over-the-top), but I am please I persevered and read on, because the Zen-like message the author communicates, is a very convincing argument for the art of forgiveness.




Why do I say OTT?


Well, Renard talks about his communication with two disembodied Ascended Masters who are helping with a deeper understanding about the art of forgiveness, that will lead to ultimate bliss and enlightenment. I cannot say whether or not these Ascended Masters exist or not, but that's not important, as what is important is the message the books puts across to the reader. Even if the information comes from his imagination, it is of great value that can improve the quality of life for everyone in our world.

No comments:

Post a Comment