Are we able to forgive?

[Fire Walk With Me]

"The New Testament is always calling us to do what we cannot do. No, we ourselves cannot forgive, but as we strive to forgive we are given God's forgiveness as a gift. We are not called to create forgiveness; that is beyond us. We are called instead to participate in a forgiveness given to us as a gift."

http://journeytowardforgiveness.com/setting-out/article3.asp

[GardeningGal]

1. Good article.

Really makes you stop and think.

[SocratesInSpirit]

2. Interesting article...

... Sadly, our culture glorifies vengeance, and using violence to solve problems.

I was completely floored by the Amish reaction to the horrible school shooting that happened awhile ago. When people were donating money, they urged people to not only remember the victims, but the family members of the killer as well. A true lesson in forgiveness.

When the same horrific things happen in our society, we call for blood. There was a horrific murder of a prominent family in Cheshire, CT a year ago. Truly awful stuff. Some people, in their fear and anger, were posting on message boards the sickest ideas about what we should do to the criminals. I struggled, myself, with feelings of anger and fear, but I had to ask myself: what does it benefit us to sink to the level of the criminals by giving sway to such dark fantasies? As Gandhi said, "An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind."

[I Have A Dream]

3. The Amish school shooting was what immediately came to mind when I..

attempted to come up with what I considered to be a perfect example of forgiveness.

[I Have A Dream]

4. I agree with much of what's said in this article.

I do feel that if it is our desire to forgive, the Universe will send assistance to us to help us to do it. The thing that best helps me forgive is to ask for this help from the Universe and to decide that I will never give in to the temptation to bad-mouth the person. (The only time I will speak negatively of the person is if I have to do so to protect someone else.) Every time I resist the urge to do this, it is another step forward in the process of forgiving.

The thing that the article doesn't address is that forgiving someone is a gift that we give ourselves. I truly believe that we are bound to people that we have not forgiven. In "Energy Anatomy", Caroline Myss said that we expend energy on an on-going basis for every hurt onto which we continue to hold. Sometimes, I know that I've successfully forgiven someone when I feel indifference towards the person. To me, forgiveness means that I no longer harbor ill will towards the person.

I don't agree with the article that forgiveness means that things are completely as they were before. (At least, that's how I understood the article.) I can forgive someone but still not choose to interact with the person or continue to have a relationship with him/her.

I have practiced forgiveness (as I define it) many times in my life, and it really is worth doing. I do, however, understand that some things would be much more difficult to forgive than others, so I certainly don't judge anyone else if they're not able to forgive.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

9. to add to your thoughts

Heard recently an interesting idea-that if you refuse to forgive someone, you may pick up some of their karma. I don't know if it is exactly that-I would rather say that un-forgiveness could perhaps create karma that you must then work through.

Today I was listening to Paul Simon's "Obvious Child", which has lyrics about thumbing through a high school yearbook and musing about what had happened to classmates. It got me thinking about my high school time, which was one of isolation and loneliness and a bit of cruelty. I looked back upon one classmate, Carol, who appeared to befriend me only to shoot me down psychologically later. As I thought of that time, I realized that her acts actually cultivated compassion within me--how I would always strive to be kind to others, to see their point of view. And then another thought struck me--what did Carol get out of the encounter? What did her actions cultivate? And I asked forgiveness and enlightenment for her. Felt liberating and peaceful. And the exercise gave me a new way of looking at a situation--how actions can cultivate characteristics within us--perhaps this is what karma is really about. If so, forgiveness can surely be helpful to everyone involved.

[Stevepol]

5. The Course in Miracles is almost wholly about forgiveness.

Reading it helped me one time in dealing with some issues of forgiveness and the point that helped me oddly was the idea that what we think happened never really happened. Only forgiveness can lead to reality, not the actions that seemed to call for forgiveness.

For some reason that helped me because I felt and still do that to truly forgive you would have to forget too, and I'm not sure it's possible to forget, short of some sort of partial or complete lobotomy. Forgiving is seen as part and parcel of an understanding and belief in the Reality of our spiritual selves and the unreality of our material existence, or rather our concept of our material existence, our ideas of sin and guilt and revenge and attack and so on.

The beginning of the Course suggests this approach:

Nothing Real can be threatened; nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.

I have to admit that it's hard for me to read the Course material for very long because I space out, but I like a lot of the ideas in it and it has helped me a lot of times. It's a kind of manual for gnostic Christianity for the modern world.

[Fire Walk With Me]

6. I believe that my father has that; thanks, I'll ask if I can borrow it!

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. I read the Course in 1989

and the lessons therein are very timely and helpful. And what is said about what we think happened never really happened is very true. I've worked years on forgiving my mother for various things from my childhood. In speaking to her about an incident that I'd been working on, she said it never happened....other times, her remembrance now fit the more positive light upon the situation that I'd worked to create.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

7. Of the 99 Names of God in the Islamic tradition

5 deal with various aspects of forgiveness. So it is seen as a divine attribute.

When one uses forgiveness as a spiritual practice, it has a very liberating effect, allowing, God willing, the individual to have a broader picture of the situation, and perhaps also of life.

[eilen]

10. A New Earth, ch. 3

talks about forgiveness. He starts by identifying grievance on page 66.

"A grievance is a strong negative emotion connected to an event in the sometimes distant past that is being kept alive by compulsive thinking, by retelling the story in the head or out loud of "what someone did to me" or "what someone did to us". A grievance will also contaminate other areas of your life. For example, while you think about and feel your grievance, its negative emotional energy can distort your perception of an event that is happening in the present or influence the way in which you speak or behave toward someone in the present. One strong grievance is enough to contaminate large areas of you life and keep you in the grip of the ego. It requires honesty to see whether you still harbor grievances, whether there is someone in your life you have not completely forgiven, an "enemy". If you do, become aware of the grievance both on the level of thought as well as emotion, that is to say, be aware of the thoughts that keep it alive, and feel the emotion that is the body's response to those thoughts. Don't try to let go of the grievance. Trying to let go, to forgive, does not work. Forgiveness happens naturally when you see that it has no purpose other than to strengthen a false sense of self, to keep the ego in place. The seeing is freeing."

I had a prime example of a person who would not forgive. My father never let anything go. He carried grievances like people collect coins, taking them out, shining them up and reliving each of them, his emotion was his time travel, every reliving brought back the emotion like it happened yesterday, not 35 years ago. It was heartbreaking that he could not break out of it, or, I should say, he never communicated any insight that holding on to these grievances was not serving him and were causing him an unhappy life. He chose not to take responsibility for this, instead, continued to be the victim of circumstance, evil ex wives, malicious schoolmates, greedy brothers, ungrateful children, unfeeling parents etc. It was sad.

[Fire Walk With Me]

11. Thanks for posting that.

I find that the ego demands energy, energeting entaglement, and all forms of drama, be it thought, or demands of any and all of the senses. Like a spoiled child who is unfortunately extremely clever and back-handed about becoming fulfulled.

Sometimes it can hold onto self-abuse if that's all that it can get, so long as it has something to play with. I can see how someone could identify with their problems, especially if they learned to gain negative attention in place of love. Victimhood can create a sensation of being somehow "more than" other people.

Needless to say, I find that transcendence of these things is of extreme importance in my life. We can be slaves to a spoiled child if we're not careful.

[Fire Walk With Me]

12. Here is an extremely easy technique from Metatron:

Begin with an exercise for yourself, a very simple one. The first time you try this, think of a moment that brought you joy—any moment in your life when you felt great joy or great love, for they are one in the same. And as you are inside that moment, feel its perfection, feel it and know it. Love that moment; exist in that moment. It is simple to do this, yes, an easy task when dealing with a moment of joy. But the task I ask of you is not quite as simple. Think of something small that was a minor difficulty for you—something that perhaps made you mildly angry or caused you some very small amount of grief or pain, something more akin to discomfort—perhaps something as small as a driver who was discourteous or a person in the marketplace or workplace who was less than kind to you—it does not matter—any small insignificant event in which for that moment you felt discomfort. And now send love to that moment; look at it. Imagine the other person, imagine what might have led them to act or react in the way they did in that particular moment. Consider this moment your feelings and perhaps their feelings. Send that person love; send yourself love. Walk through the door of forgiveness, and on the other side feel the unconditional love for this person and for yourself. And as you love them, surround yourselves in Light. Feel the oneness with the other individual in question and LOVE them.

And each time you graduate through this exercise again and again and again, you may embrace the Universe in Love a little bit more.

http://www.dianahenderson.net/metatron1.html

[katty]

13. to me forgiveness is one step beyond applying the golden rule