Forgiveness doesn’t excuse behavior; it looks past it to a greater truth.
- Forgiveness isn’t something nice we do for someone who is “guilty.” Forgiveness is something we do for our own mind.
- Do we want a mind that tortures us, or one that is a friend to us?
We choose what we experience, not what we see.
- Not matter what is happening – be it “good” or “bad” – say to yourself, “Even in this situation, I can believe in innocence; I can believe in peace.”
Forgiveness restores insight, and we need insight. It’s our true vision.
- Insight may tell us that someone is being dishonest right now, but judgement tells but that dishonesty is all there is to the person.
- The trouble with judgement is that it turns insight to concrete.
- Judgement sticks labels on people. Forgiveness peels them off.
Re-source: Restore
return to a former condition, place, or position : to bring back to or put back into existence : renew
Our life unfolds as if God were showing us a slide show, and each slide is a little test.
- God says, “Can you forgive this?” If the answer is no, God simply moves the slide back for us to view again later.
Forgiveness is the decision to out endure the ego. Therefore, don’t try to forgive for all time; just forgive in the moment.
- Two minutes from now the grievance may come back. Simply forgive again in the moment.
- If you keep surrounding someone with light, soon your ego – which hates light – will stop handing you the grudge.
- That’s because the ego is mere shadow and flees when you remember that you are the light of the world.
The answer is not to ignore or deny our emotions. We must become more aware of them, but in a different way.
- Use awareness to take out the garbage.
- It’s fine to look at our past to see where some emotion or behavioral pattern is coming from. But this has limited healing benefits.
- The past can’t be accurately reconstructed or interpreted. So it’s pointless to ask what is “real.”
- Instead, we must see all versions of the past that are in our mind and forgive each one.
- Then we am free to return to the truth that we have never left God’s heart.
craving and resource from “Spiritual Notes to Myself” by Hugh Prather