Forgiveness – what a loaded word! I have made it a personal interest to study that topic, finding out what religions and science have to say about it. I also have had conversations with friends, family, workshop participants, and clients about their understanding of forgiveness.
What I am sharing here is only the understanding that makes most sense to me and that is the most applicable to daily life.
In the above clip from Oprah, the focus is on letting go of something we cannot change, something that has already happened, and accepting I cannot change it. Only then, can I start working on healing the suffering that resulted from that event or behaviour.
In the general public, there is also an underlying belief that if I forgive, I am condoning the other’s behaviour, and that I am making them right for what they did. If they are right, I must be wrong, and vice versa. “I cannot be wrong about the wrong they did me”, says the fearful mind! We must remember that our fearful mind is interested in being right, while our loving mind is interested in being happy / content / joyful / generous, etc.
My personal understanding of forgiveness comes from A Course in Miracles. The Course, and many other sages, remind us of our oneness, of the universal intelligence that is the true us; our true being. Although we appear as different to the body’s eyes, we are like rays of a sun, or branches of a tree. The narrowness of the body’s eyes and limitations of our intellect do not allow us to see our connectedness, which we find as we travel back toward the sun or the trunk of the tree. There, there is no separation; there is only one.
How does forgiveness have anything to do with these analogies? When I judge another and/or compare myself to them, I am like the branch complaining that the branch above me hides the light from me. I forget that I am no different from the other (e.g., branch or ray), despite appearances; I am of one ‘body’ with my source, i.e., the tree trunk or the sun;
I am thus making an error in perception; I mistake the other as acting against me, as being a threat, while they are an ‘aspect’ of my Self.
Forgiveness thus becomes a request I make to our loving self (which we share) to help correct my error in perception, because it is impossible for the other to be different from me or be a threat to me. We are ONE! We share the same source or origin.
I forgive myself for such error and the other, in my own heart, to have misjudged them. Then I let my loving self do the healing work in my heart. How do I know I have truly forgiven or that my error has been corrected? I feel at peace and completely safe.
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