Let's talk about forgiveness.

Definition? What is it? How does it work? How is it done and exercised?

yeah actually not as simple as it sounds.

When I was a kid, forgiveness meant in essence "Pretend this never happened", which usually gave the perpetrator, in these cases often a sibling, the opportunity to repeat the offense, and as I was the oldest , it was my fault if I didn't forgive.

Now this is a pretty messed up course of forgiveness, but I think this is taught in parts of the culture. I think it comes out of a misunderstanding of "Turn the other cheek". This has caused a lot of problems in my life, and it is only as an adult as I have seen others also struggle with this, that I see how warped this approach is, and that there are other ways to do this.

But I really think the "Turn the other cheek" message was warped on purpose as a means of crowd control, or using shaming exercises for crowd control.

but I think what you really are asking is -

How can this concept be implemented in a useful way that doesn't cause damage to the one doing the forgiving but instead liberates that person.

No I wasn't asking that, Lucy.

But its an interesting concept...forgiveness causing damage to the forgiver.   

There is a difference between forgiveness and forgetting.  For myself, the concept of forgiveness means practicing what you preach.  If you strive to treat others with love and respect, this does not change if someone wrongs you.  If you hold onto the hate and anger, then you are moving away from being a loving person - it is just that simple.  Many intelligent, otherwise loving people don't get it.  They think that holding onto their feelings of anger somehow make them stronger.  But in truth, it pulls us down.

This is not to say that I believe in forgetting or allowing oneself to be victimized.  I don't.  I do now understand Jesus' direction to "turn the other cheek" if someone slaps you on one side, or to bless those who curse you.  It is a way of saying that you do not allow the hate to fester down in your gut and become part of you.  This brings you down in a spiritual sense.

Self defense can be part of a loving attitude, right thought and right action.  So in no way does forgiveness mean leaving yourself open to attack.  But forgiveness means that you don't let the attacker's negative energy enter into your consciousness. 

Forgiveness also goes hand in hand with a feeling of thankfulness and what some would call divine grace.  These emotions are ones often associated with the healing found in prayer groups, modern day miracles and the successful application of the law of attraction (like attracting like).

Matthew

Without forgiveness where would we be? I see it as a letting go, a kind of open-mindedness. It is keeping the door open, not slamming it shut on the future, out of fear. It is admitting that love is a possibility, even in the most painful or bizarre circumstances. It is letting go of your expectation that others or life will meet your expectations at all times. It is a realization of humility, a recognition of our shared humanity, in which none of us is perfect, and yet we are perfect, in some way which is not always obvious to the onlooker. It is a moving back, getting out of the way, for further love and knowledge to come into being. It is goodness and wisdom, and it is an inspiration to others who witness it.

  Well said DocM and B2.   Forgiveness is really just a specific form and reaction or application of pure, unconditional, universal love.

   When you forgive, you recognize and live the highest truth on this Earth, that you are a spiritual essence that cannot be harmed or made to be afraid from anything outside of you, and that you recognize and care about Oneness of the Whole.  What you really are is above all that is limiting in nature. 

Your body may be harmed, but YOU cannot be.  You love, because it is the nature of love to love and your essence was created out of love.

  Forgiveness is difficult for many here because one really has to step aside from self, one has to forget self.  Self is always what gets in the way.  I had lunch recently with a friend on a spiritual path, and he told me about a dream wherein a female voice led him into a dark room, then to an even darker room, and then to a pitch black room--in the last room the voice said, "this is self". 

   The most pure & powerful example in the entire human history of the power of forgiveness and attunement to PUUL is Yeshua's life and murder.  He forgot self, lost self in service to others and with full foreknowledge of the trials and tribulations he would have to go through. 

  However, he was not a door mat, nor just passive.  Occasionally he spoke up for and defended truth, but it wasn't about himself when he did so.   And there is a difference between actively and willingly self sacrificing for others/the Whole and just being passive or a human pin cushion for others. 

  Many in this world at times seem to "turn the other cheek", but are really just being passive or acting (really non acting) out of fear. 

Hello,

a dictionary definition of 'forgiveness' says something about absolution. That sounded so absolute that I am scared I cannot do it all at once for my biggies. Looking at the word 'forgiveness' itself,  it is like a riddle--
Forgivenss may stands 'for giving' PUL before any other steps. Maybe then no other steps are needed.
If need be perhaps PUL could be offered to the 'forgivee' for smaller transgressions, and working up to bigger ones.

It's a huge word!

Bets

Hi, this is great subject to explore and to talk about. Forgiveness is, IMO very abstract form or state of mind/awareness and difficult to grasp intellectually. Therefore, I'll rather talk about practical aspect of it, that is, about "how to exercise it".

In past years of my spiritual path, I have learned the necessity to implement any kind of desired state of mind, so to speak, into the physical or bodily "aspect of the self". What does this mean? It means that the best results were accomplished when exercised altogether in meditation and physically. For example, in order to deal with Forgiveness I saturate myself with the PUL. For instance, I meditate on PUL and in doing so, I get certain sensations which are unique and overwhelming. The meditation I use is an ancient Buddhist practice called "skeleton meditation". Here one needs to visualize his/her entire skeleton as in pure white light, starting from one foot, bone by bone (as one can in his/her best). The goal here is, with one's attention to - push the flow of the Chi through the entire body. But, instead of the Chi, I use the PUL (intending the PUL) and thus, overwhelm the entire skeleton (the body) with the PUL. This is very effective practice, let me tell you - it "holds" for the whole day - you feel like in a state of bliss, very ease, relaxed and the Self-love is very well felt. After this meditation I do some psychical practice (or sometimes I do it before, no rule here) and implement the feeling (which I got in meditation) as I remembered it into these bodily movements (usually hatha yoga). The energy released within tension and relaxation sequences provides some sort of "stamping" of the PUL feeling into my entire body and mind, causing some sort of completeness (Oneness). The way to implement the PUL feeling into exercises is also through intending or sometimes - just visualizing the PUL sensation into the part of the body which has been stretched or treated. Of course, breathing comes as an important part in saturating myself with the PUL - like inhaling and exhaling It.

This saturation brings very interesting state of awareness which is very difficult to describe. It's like one is entirely filled with the flow of PUL which creates high dose of Self-confidence (I like to say that Self-confidence is the same as Self-love - identical) and some sort of certainty into oneself - loosing the fear. The perspective of the reality around you changes a lot, as well It even goes into the position that you don't understand negativity, hate, revenge, any sorts of bad, you name it. It's like in those movies when alien comes and cannot understand aggressive behavior in humans - it's just not in his dictionary, vocabulary in any data he ever got in his life. It seems as if you loose these negative emotional feelings, like they leave your body and mind alone! So, in this condition, Forgiveness seems not very hard to achieve - it comes naturally - we only need to allow it. I'd like to mention that it reflects itself out on your everyday life, very much. I work with people a lot and I noticed their behavior is different, like they sense what I feel and in some way it affects them, too.                         


I came into understanding that the main problem in Forgiveness is lack of the Self-love and there are many ways to practice this. But, for me, the best way is to contemplate about it in some deep relaxed manner and to implement the knowledge from that experience into bodily exercises - very important! You can say I drug myself with the PUL, lol :)

Also, I'd like to recommend some excellent practices by these authors:
First one is David Elliott, he has fantastic breathing exercise, extremely simple and extremely effective! One gets immediate results of understanding the idea of Self-love after only 7 minutes of this simple breath. Here, you can download it for free on his website:

http://www.davidelliott-healing.com/trhBook2PDF.asp

I also recommend his book "Healing" which is also free to download, an excellent book!

The other author which I like is Hew Len, a Hawaiian with very simple practice to do daily in order to saturate oneself with Self-love and Forgiveness (he calls it cleaning, but it's very evident what's it all about). You can watch this interview (9 parts) where this ancient Hawaiian method called "Ho'oponopono" is explained very good:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OL972JihAmg

Neno

       

Greetings

In my opinion the essence of life is Experience. We were born on Earth for That. We were born to taste Feelings, those good and bad, as well.
We are here to  know feelings in such deep material world.
Everythig can happens to us and everything is allowed. We just have to bear the consequences and this take a place in our 3rd dimension and higer, too.

Feelings and thoughts are living energy in higher dimensions, that one I know for sure.
Feelings create thoughts and the same thoughts create feelings.

Now, if I'm angry on somebody I produce this type of energy that makes the hole in my own energy and after that blocking device is created and is put there.

There are established appropriate spiritual service for standing and watching all the time over us.
Those are the rules I understood thanks to clairvoyance and researching.

These devices that I see as for example : brown balls, dark cones, pyramids, cylinders cause  state of despondency, sadness, even depression , even loss of interest in life.

To me We need to consciously forgive ourselves this bad behavior that led to the injury of another person, and forgive her.
For there to forgive you must understand the causes of the situation, to understand how she/he thinks (world in head) the other person. It's like come into her consciousness, to understand its truth.
There is no man on earth, which can not be understood when we recognize when we know his consciousness, his sadness...

Forgiveness is the key.

When We forgive then we create in the diamond gel that dissolves these devices set up for us. There is no the other power to remove them.
I don't know any other.

This diamond gel also strengthens the structure of our astral bodies, which We have probably eight. These astral bodies are just like light and thanks to them we can travel in the imagination.

Benefits is still much, much more
:)

Thank you, all. 

I know this is a silly thing to post but the thing that popped into my mind is the popular movie scene where they:

Say, "I forgive you."

.... and then they kill the person.

:D

I was initially reluctant to put in my own post on this subject - I'm unsure why - but now I have decided to do so.

Some years ago when I was going out of body regularly, I often had an escort who showed me around and gave me lessons on various subjects. One of the first subjects I was given lessons on was forgiveness. At the time I wasn't much interested in learning about things I thought were soft and mushy. I preferred to know about what I thought were the more manly occult subjects. But I accepted that lessons on the soft and mushy stuff went along with the other, and so I studied the lessons on forgiveness too. I came to realise that the teachings on forgiveness were the most crucial and important of all, both in overall truth and for my own personal growth. The lessons on forgiveness were many - on the nature of its substance and qualities, its purpose, and what it does, its potential. I am still digesting and assimilating those lessons today, over 20 years later.

I learnt that in essence forgiveness is no different from love, in fact it is love. It is love put to use where love is most needed, most required. And love is the heartfelt wish that another/others learn and grow with a minimal of suffering.

Forgiveness has the ability to absorb and nullify all other energies. This quality is its most incredible feature, and is what gives forgiveness its vast potential.

Although I have had lessons on the ability of forgiveness to nullify other energies, and have seen and experienced demonstrations of how it works, and have meditated often and deeply upon its mysteries, I am still barely able to fathom and accommodate its understanding. Forgiveness is so simple and huge at the same time. I feel so dwarfed and such a beginner when I think of forgiveness.  

Here are some definitions of forgiveness that I was given to help my understanding. Perhaps they will help others too.

1. Forgiveness is love regardless.
2. Forgiveness is that part of love we can direct to things distasteful.
3. Forgiveness enables us to love in all directions.
4. Forgiveness is what gives us no excuse to not love everyone. 

I was advised to meditate upon the definitions (gently ponder upon them), first in thought and mind, getting a mental sense of the shape and meaning of the definition; and then also in feeling and heart, getting a heartfelt sense of the energy, the substance. And then to put the learning into practice in my daily life.

For me, forgiveness was first comprehended in the mind, along with love, for love and forgiveness are one, then the heart was moved to accommodate the mind's understanding and to do its corresponding part of giving forth the forgiveness energy. Or so it was for me; other people might learn in the heart first, and next in the mind, I am not sure.

For me, forgiveness is directed by the mind, and known in and extended from the heart, and facilitated/moved with the breath/breathing. It comes in through the crown and out through the heart. It is not ours, but God's. It needs exercise and practice of course. Including tests and trials. 

Forgiveness is not an effort, but a switch. The effort can be in our approach to that switch and in our moving to throw the switch. But once thrown, there is no effort, for the forgiveness does itself. It is just a matter of remaining open to it, in alignment/attunement with it.

There was more about its workings and applications, but I think that is the essentials of what I was taught about it. I hope it helps someone/s.

crossbow

great said crossbow !

I noticed today that the higher the sun formed a circular aperture and shines on us as a reflector.
The core of this light is bright blue sinusoidal radius of even higher vibration.
Purifying the radius is to help us in forgiveness.
So let's go for a walk !
:)

I have just returned from the walk, across the fields. My dog came too. It is nighttime here, and overcast clouds, no moon, no stars. Just the dull light from a small town twelve kilometres away reflecting off the overcast clouds. It reminded me that sometimes in life our sun forsakes us, clouds fill our mind, the moon and stars go away too, and we must walk by the light provided by our fellow man. Though others may reveal the landscape, still though, we walk our own path, and make our own judgements and choices - we must still find our own way.

I have been assisted by others recently, during a period when my own inner light has been obscured. I am thankful. 

Crossbow,
Thank you for the thoughtful description of forgiveness in its limitless form. Your vision matches exactly with the Tibetan Buddhist teachings on compassion, (which I consider the super-set of forgiveness). Compassion is the unconditional understanding that we are all alike, despite our station in life or our physical or psychological condition.  It is not pity, which places the self above another, but the open acceptance of our complete "oneness" with each other, and the willingness to take on the pain and suffering of another. By imagining ourselves taking in (breathing in) the pain and suffering of another (or the whole world if you are strong enough), we indeed change the energy of both the recipient of our compassion and ourselves, and fill the world (breath out) with the glorious Love of God. I agree that this is the most powerful practice in our lives, and I consider myself an infant in its ways.

Peace,
Freeman

Yes Bardo, I agree, breath is a fundamental tool for the control and manipulation of energy. It has its risks though; like all tools, it can be misused. 

"forgiveness causing damage to the forgiver. "  ????

"like all tools, it can be misused. '

yes

although the hardest is self-forgiveness......

and then when you realize we are all inerconnected, somehow it is all self - forgiveness

so hard for me to accept...so painful...some how I did this to ...myself.

Crossbow,
Could you describe how the "tool" of compassion (or the use of the breath to manifest it) could be misused? Thanks.
Freeman

Hi Lucy.
It might help to simply accept / come to terms with what you have done and learnt, including all the unpleasant "mistakes", then look for the wisdom and growth you have acquired from having made those "errors". And compare that wisdom to the ignorance or lack of realisation that you had prior to the mistakes you made. Then be thankful for the wisdom and growth so that it settles in nicely. This way we learn to extract the lesson from our experiences, grow from errors, and even be thankful for wisdom gained from them. Even though we might not be pleased about how we gained that wisdom, we have minimised its negative side and maximised its positives. I find this works for me reasonably well. Of course we will always carry a certain amount of regret, even shame, but realising the wisdom gained makes the load a lot lighter and lessens the pain. Personally, I see shame as like growing pains in the soul. Although it hurts, I am glad its there because it makes my progress more visible to me. Someone once told me, "Life is a realisation process."

Bardo,
Personally, I endeavour to see everything from multiple sides - inside/outside, above and below, and all around it, including all its uses and misuses, and its errors of uses.

Compassion:
Years ago when I was going out of body a lot and attending a training course I was given all the relevant definitions to learn and study.  The definition I was given for compassion is that "Compassion is the desire to help others, for other's sake". I was taught that in a correct definition lies everything needed to be known about the subject. That's why I was given so many specific definitions to memorise and meditate upon and interconnect them with each other, like jigsaw pieces. Can you see the potential for error within the above definition of compassion?

Bare in mind that there there are two things, what we did and why we did it, and the why for which we did it, is what we really did. Also bare in mind the law of consequence (what some like to call karma) is not fooled; it has no problem differentiating between generosity and self interest, and it comes about accordingly.
 
Breath:
The potential for misuse of breath is massive and myriad. Breath is the handle by which we control and manipulate energy. Energy is everything, does everything, and can do anything. Within the total body (physical and astral bodies, and soul) are numerous energies, all doing their respective job. Everyone of these energies can be tapped into by our awareness of it, can be directed by will, shaped by thought, and controlled, manipulated, magnified, accelerated, intensified, etc, by the breath. Breath magnifies thought, intensifies will, and manipulates energy. Try willing and thinking yourself to "relax", and see how long it takes to relax and how relaxed you get. Then try centering yourself in the commander's seat in the head and combining the commandment to "relax" with the breath, and send the commandment out upon your breath to every cell of your body and mind. Compare not using breath with using it. You will see that breath magnifies will, thought and energy, and is the handle by which energy is controlled.

That exercise is a relatively harmless one; it has a wide margin of safety and error. There are many other exercises which carry real risk. For energy has its rightful channels and places to be, and its rightful pressures and intensities. Energies have their compatibilities and incompatibilities, their beneficial and detrimental reactions to each other. Once we start messing about with energy, thought and breath, we can make some very grave errors. I mean insanities of the worst kind, and mental, emotional and physical illnesses, from mild disruptions to severe damage to any and all our bodies, to the very foundational layer upon which all our mental and astral bodies are built, so that we may take many lifetimes of suffering to repair the damage. Think what happens to a motor car when the head gasket breaks and water (the energy of the cooling system) gets into the engine. The car overheats and the engine seizes up and is often destroyed. Or worse, when petrol (the liquid fire energy of the fuel lines) leaks onto the manifold. The car burns. Or the many problems that occur when the electrical system suffers short circuits, arcs and other malfunctions. The human mechanism and its energies are far more complex and potentially dangerous than the simple system of a motor car. There are energies, fires, waters, airs of every sort, all flowing here and there in their respective channels. In their wrong mix and wrong place they range from troublesome to deadly. There are separation "webs" and "membranes", designed to ensure our safety by keeping energies in their right mix and place, and these membranes are easily weakened and ruptured. And probably one of the worst and most common dangers are low level "incorrect" or partially correct energies that are of sufficiently low intensity to be managed and worked through successfully, but when amplified by bringing the breath into contact with them they become explosive, like turning kerosene into rocket fuel. The possibilities for harm are endless. It it takes exact precision and a lot of knowledge to correctly use the breath upon the energies of the human mechanism. There are millions of ways to do it wrong and cause disaster, and only one way to do it right - which is part of why I don't teach much of what I learnt on the subject. If left alone, without direct interference, and if we simply live a good and helpful life, cultivate a strong and kind character, and exercise virtues, then the human energies have their own self-correcting mechanism. For those who wish to accelerate their selves a little and intensify/magnify their efforts, then keep it broad and basic by adding breath to relaxation exercises, to prayer for others, to love and forgiveness to others, and practice being conscious of the breath will help. But precision occult work is best left alone unless we know the risks.      

My out of body instructor once told me, "When we combine will and thought and breath we have a potent mix, with all manner of potential." And I have learnt, seen and experienced how true that sentence is.

Sorry if I come across hard, but I had a hard occult teacher and so I can be a bit hard myself. I am learning how to be a little bit soft and fluffy  ;)  but not too much.

Lucy, all that is necessary is for you to realize that you are free, now, in this moment, that no one controls your thoughts but you. You are free, and perfect, in this moment, able to let go of the 'luggage' which, not only you carry, but all of us carry, sometimes. We are all so fortunate to have each other, as mirrors, to help each other. As Crossbow said, once you have taken the lesson from the situation, you are then free to move on. The choice is yours. If what you did before did not 'work' for you, or makes you feel unhappy, you are free to choose another course of action, another train of thought. It is about attachment. Once we learn how to attach in a healthy way, all we have to do is remember. We are truly as free as we wish and believe ourselves to be.

love


Lucy wrote on Oct 1^st, 2011 at 7:52pm:

"forgiveness causing damage to the forgiver. "  ???? "like all tools, it can be misused. ' yes although the hardest is self-forgiveness...... and then when you realize we are all inerconnected, somehow it is all self - forgiveness so hard for me to accept...so painful...some how I did this to ...myself.

Lucy,
I truly believe that forgiveness (as I said in my post directed to crossbow) is a sub-set of compassion. If you practice compassion; for yourself, for your loved-ones, for your friends, for your acquaintances, for those that you don't care for, and for those that have hurt you, and finally for all the souls on this earth, then you wash away the baggage of self-loathing or shame, and you open yourself up to the present beauty of which we are all a part. I love this ancient poem:

May I be a protector to those without protection,
A leader for those who journey,
and a boat, a bridge, a passage
For those desiring the further shore.

May the pain of every living creature
Be completely cleared away.
May I be the doctor and the medicine
And may I be the nurse
For all sick beings in the world
Until everyone is healed.

Just like space
And the great elements such as earth,
May I always support the life
Of all the boundless creatures.

And until they pass away from pain
May I also be the source of life
For all the realms of varied beings
That reach unto the ends of space.

Look in the mirror in your eyes, look at yourself.
You are a miracle created in the likeness of God, Goddess and Angel.
In your interior there is the rainbow sparkle with vivid crystal energies.
You are the Perfection...

Every one is the Perfection.
You are created in likeness of Gods what is seen in higher dimensions.
Your chakras shine like colored suns, the biggest chakra of heart is shining like pink diamond.
When You are happy and Thankful, when You are in Love then You produce the Light which heals Your astral bodies and material body
...and this Light is going out of You to your Being - Mother and Father.
That is what they are waiting for.

They just  want You to be happy. Joy is the celebration.

Everything is an experience necessary to know the full range of feelings, to experience divinity.
Everything takes place in your interior.
Everything depends on you.

You were given an opportunity to liberate yourselves from the accumulated blockades during the working through the feelings on Earth.
Forgiveness is a natural law  causing the cleaning of the bodies, operating in all Universes and the Creations.
There are many, many Universes in the Creations.

The golden light of diamonds is going down on You when You stay happy and pure...
and if You only ask because You are  reaching now so high. ....
and You can see this in Your mind with eyes of imagination...
and You can feel the silky warm in the material body.
That is the answer of the Creation on Your brilliance.

Everything depends on you.
The forgiveness is the key, the liberation.
You should to forgive to the rest of Your life  until You change yourself into the light...

:)

Thank you Crossbow...your comments are tremendously clear and enlightening.  And I will not carelessly toil with breath...you've scared me straight!

Usetawuz, (he he, I like the name)

Thanks for feedback. I didn't mean to scare anyone. Just pointing out how breath magnifies efforts, and is the "handle" by which we can shift our energies around, so we need to know what we are doing if we use it - because it works. In general though, as I have learnt it, as long as our efforts are broad, not too specific or detailed in application, are general and wholesome, and goodwilled towards others, then combining the effort with breath (using breath to better facilitate the effort) will do no harm. It is when we dabble with the more intricate energetic mechanisms inside and outside of us, and try to obtain extreme and particular results, that we can get into strife unless we know what we are doing. Its like medications, engineering, chemistry, etc, they all carry risk where foolhardiness is greater than knowledge. For instance, there is a breathing exercise, combined with the corresponding effort and knowhow, that enables one to leave the body, almost like an ejection, but it also causes a change in direction of flow of certain energies and a change in the "charge" of one of the bodies, and also a blockage of certain vital energies, all of which can make one ill and spoil the life, so it has to be countered by another breathing exercise and effort done often and diligently, which combs out the energies and corrects the charges, but it brings in "higher light" energy which in turn intensifies contrast with the body's/person's opposing energies, like bright light darkens the shadows, and so it increases internal conflicts/discords, which must be reduced by right and unified thinking and living. All that risk and carry-on just to be able to leave the body by use of breath! Or you can do it the safe and gentle way, as Monroe and others have taught. I would recommend that.