The Art of Forgiveness
From "Slowing Down to the Speed of Love"
Forgiveness is a prerequisite to true love. You cannot have a loving relationship where there is judgment, resentment, guilt (judging yourself), or blame. Forgiveness is the ability to see innocence in another, without judgment.
Most of my life I was taught that forgiveness had two components:
1. Judge someone as wrong, evil, a sinner, bad, crazy, and/or judge that person’s wrong actions.
2. Then pardon or forgive that person out of the goodness of your heart, or because it is the “right” thing to do.
I always thought forgiving was a very hard thing to do. I seemed to forgive people in my head, but my emotions weren’t really aligned. Later the same resentments would resurface. I believed, as a good Christian, that forgiveness was a good and noble thing to do; I just couldn’t get my whole self into it. I now see that this was because I saw myself as separate from (and better than) the other person.
There is a certain superiority in false forgiveness. True forgiveness is wholehearted -- mind and heart are joined in the true spirit of forgiveness. There is no backlash with this kind of forgiveness; it is complete and permanent. This chapter is about how to achieve wholehearted forgiveness, for without it, true love in any relationship is an impossibility.
Forgiveness is the balm that heals all relationships. When we forgive another, it frees us from the past and allows us to live in the present fully. Forgiveness can be for a particular act, transgression, event, or for a whole pattern of behavior over a period of time (such as abuse or alcoholism).
I would like you to consider a larger definition of forgiveness that broadens our concept of it to a way of life. When we value forgiveness as a way of life, we see that not forgiving (holding onto resentment or guilt) will hold us back from loving fully. Anything that holds us back from loving will block our hearts from experiencing timeless love.
What is forgiveness? Forgiveness is a change in our awareness of reality -- a change in our level of understanding of the past and our relationship to others. Forgiveness is a way of seeing the past, even five minutes ago, with compassion and a new way of understanding the person, the act, or the omission. Forgiveness is not merely saying the words, "I forgive you"; it is a change in our level of understanding and feeling. It is a release of all anger or guilt. Forgiveness sees past the illusion that we are totally separate beings, or that one of us is better than another, to the truth that we are all one.
True forgiveness sees that there is and never was anything to forgive in the first place. That doesn’t mean that the people we forgive aren’t responsible for their actions, it just means that they didn’t fully know what they were doing. As Jesus said on the cross, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” When we see the innocence of others and ourselves in creating our reality and experience through the power of the three principles, we understand that all of us are doing the best we can at the moment, given our level of awareness at the time. Whatever was done was done in innocence, through the illusion of being separate.
When we see the healing power of forgiveness for ourselves and for our relationships, we will more readily forgive. We will adopt forgiveness as a way of life.
