How to forgive?

midlandsmissus

Basically I'm a very spiritual person but I'm trying to find an answer for something that has yet eluded me. I'm eaten up every day by something that happened to me months ago. A cold, callous, physically violent attack, is enough to describe it. I can't forgive my attacker and I feel if I could just forgive him I might be able to move on. This is the hardest spiritual lesson I've had to go through. How do you forgive some-one?

padma

midlandsmissus wrote: »

Basically I'm a very spiritual person but I'm trying to find an answer for something that has yet eluded me. I'm eaten up every day by something that happened to me months ago. A cold, callous, physically violent attack, is enough to describe it. I can't forgive my attacker and I feel if I could just forgive him I might be able to move on. This is the hardest spiritual lesson I've had to go through. How do you forgive some-one?

To truly forgive someone it needs to be from your Heart, to let your Heart and whole being be Healed. There is an Open Heart Meditation which is such a beautiful prayer/meditation exercise/process which can truly help you to forgive all beings and free your Heart from all the hurt, betrayal, anger and every negative emotion stored within you from this life. It will change you and shift you to being free.

The memory of past hurts is stored within us and the associated negative energy is triggered when we remember past hurts. Forgiving someone is releasing this energy and replacing with Love when done from the spiritual Heart.

Here is a link to Open Heart meditation, guiding and explanation and exercise you can start with http://www.open-your-heart.org.uk/open_heart_meditation.do

It is a joy to share these with you. Remember when we meditate from a nice gentle relaxed place the effect is more sweeter and more joyful. This is why there is an emphasis on smiling and feeling your Heart, as it is better to forgive while within the Joy of your Heart than to TRY forgiving while full of emotion. It takes time .

midlandsmissus

Thank you, truly thank you. As this is a very heavy burden for me to bear and I am not dealing with it. I'll give that a try and let you know how I get on.

padma

Towards the end of the Open Heart Meditation, there is forgiveness. In life no matter what "we do", sometimes we need to let Love do it for us.

JMannie

To forgive someone is not to excuse their actions, that person completely ownes their behaviour and mindset that would have them do this. Forgiveness is to release you from continued hurt caused by this assault. If you have not already concider seeking help with the healing and working through this. Take care.

Ambersky

Hi midlandmissus
I found the book Forgive and Forget by Lewis B Smedes very helpful.
I suppose it depends on what you are looking for but I liked the book because it seemed like it was written by someone who had been there and knew the subject inside out.
If you click on this link
http://www.amazon.com/Forgive-Forget-Healing-Hurts-Deserve/dp/0060674318#reader_0060674318
it will send you to the Amazon web site where you can have a look inside the book and read a bit to see if it is to your taste.
The table of contents alone will give you some idea of the approach taken.
I particularly liked and was comforted by Some Nice Things Forgiving Is Not because it confirmed my own experiences looking for help with some spiritual healers who were in my opinion too stuck on the "Nice" and I prefered someone who said

"I have discovered that most people who tell me that they cannot forgive a person who wronged them are handicapped by a mistaken understanding of what forgiving is."

Smedes is very compassionate and practical he allows and expects that this will take time and there will be a run of emotions that are perfectly natural and that must be faced to really let it go.

"I worry about fast forgivers. They tend to forgive quickly in order to avoid their pain. Or they forgive fast in order to get an advantage over the people they forgive. And their instant forgiving only makes things worse...People who have been wronged badly and wounded deeply should give themselves time and space before they forgive...There is a right moment to forgive. We cannot predict it in advance; we can only get ourselves ready for it when it arrives...Don't do it quickly, but don't wait too long...If we wait too long to forgive, our rage settles in and claims squatter's rights to our souls."

Anyway I hope you find the right way for you and dont be afraid to get some help if you need it either.

Omentum

What is forgivness?

If you see it as acceptance then i think you are on the right track. Meditation will help you do this.

Acceptance/forgivness is a beautiful thing. No one can give it to you and no one can take it away from you.

Loss of identity with the mind is the only way. Stay present as often as you can and you will see how you yourself are in control of how you feel.

Ambersky

It is perhaps timely that there is a thread on forgiveness here in the spirituality forum.
The op will decide for herself what she is looking for at this time, which approach she wishes to take to heal her own hurt and to arrive at a state of forgiveness.

Today is the second day after the issuing of the report onto the handling of child abuse by clerics in the Cloynes diocese however and I cant stop thinking about it. Hence the long post.
I think that the revelations on the catholic churches handling of the abuse of children shows us a lot about what forgiving is and what it is not.

In confession catholic bishops believed the evil acts, the sins of those priests were forgiven, wiped clean and the priest was therefore entitled to a fresh start and so they relocated those priests where they did more harm to more children.
This was one spiritual answer to harm done and forgiveness.
This understanding of forgiveness lead to the repitition and cover up of the continued and repeat abuse of children.

If there are any lessons we need to take out of all these revelations surely it is that we need to do everything in our power not to repeat the same failings.

We need to develop a mature adult understanding of forgiveness and harm.

"When we forgive evil we do not excuse it, we do not tolerate it, we do not smother it. We look the evil full in the face, call it what it is, let its horror shock and stun and enrage us, and only then do we forgive it."
— Lewis B. Smedes

The quote above isnt very nice but anything less would be a cover up a brushing under the carpet, a denial, a refusal to listen to the pain, a lack of understanding.

"Forgiving does not erase the bitter past. A healed memory is not a deleted memory. Instead, forgiving what we cannot forget creates a new way to remember. We change the memory of our past into a hope for our future."
— Lewis B. Smedes

Neither is forgiving all about the person who caused the pain.
In sexual abuse their harm needs to be recognised and understood in order to prevent it from happening again and to protect the vulnerable.
But the act of forgiving is done by the person who has been hurt not by anyone else.
There needs to be respect for the process of healing and forgiveness.
Smedes lists four stages of forgiving. This is for real hurt, not something trivial, something someone has been struggling with to let go.
.We Hurt
.We Hate
.We Heal Ourselves
.We Come Together
He says the way we forgive or the how we forgive is
.Slowly
.With a little understanding
.In Confusion
.With A Little Anger Left Over
.A little At A Time
.Freely, or Not At All
.With a Fundamental Feeling

All the years you have waited for them to "make it up to you" and all the energy you expended trying to make them change (or make them pay) kept the old wounds from healing and gave pain from the past free rein to shape and even damage your life. And still they may not have changed. Nothing you have done has made them change. Indeed, they may never change. Inner peace is found by changing yourself, not the people who hurt you. And you change yourself for yourself, for the joy, serenity, peace of mind, understanding, compassion, laughter, and bright future that you get."

"Forgiving is an affair strictly between a victim and a victimizer. Everyone else should step aside...The worst wounds I ever felt were the ones people gave to my children. Wrong my kids, you wrong me. And my hurt qualifies me to forgive you. But only for the pain you caused me when you wounded them. My children alone are qualified to forgive you for what you did to them."

The rest of us are responsible in our own however small way for seeing to it that we are aware of the harm that can be done.
That we dont choose a kind of spiritual and practical naievity that could prevent us from protecting the innocent.

strobe

The Dalai Lama gave a talk in UL when he was in Ireland recently entitled 'The Power of Forgiveness' that might be of interest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oZYN9BSqsE

meryem

To forgive someone a high spiritual state of mind also come to great help. For it can recognize the offender as person with no sense of wisdom to punish him. It's just like we react to the omissions and commissions of a socially recognized mad man.

Corkgirl210

[SIZE=+1]The Prayer of Saint Francis[/SIZE]
"O Lord, make me an instrument of Thy Peace!
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, harmony;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light, and
Where there is sorrow, joy.
Oh Divine Master, grant that I may not
so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand; to be loved
as to love; for it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life."

Xenophile

Quotes on Forgiveness from A Course in Miracles.

To forgive is to overlook.

The ego, too, has a plan of forgiveness because you are asking for one, though not of the right teacher. The ego's plan, of course, makes no sense and will not work. By following its plan you will merely place yourself in an impossible situation, to which the ego always leads you. The ego's plan is to have you see error clearly first, and then overlook it. Yet how can you overlook what you have made real? By seeing it clearly, you have made it real and <cannot> overlook it. This is where the ego is forced to appeal to "mysteries," insisting that you must accept the meaningless to save yourself. Many have tried to do this in my name, forgetting that my words make perfect sense because they come from God. They are as sensible now as they ever were, because they speak of ideas that are eternal.

Forgiveness that is learned of me does not use fear to undo fear. Nor does it make real the unreal and then destroy it. Forgiveness through the Holy Spirit lies simply in looking beyond error from the beginning, and thus keeping it unreal for you. Do not let any belief in its realness enter your mind, or you will also believe that you must undo what you have made in order to be forgiven. What has no effect does not exist, and to the Holy Spirit the effects of error are nonexistent. By steadily and consistently canceling out all its effects, everywhere and in all respects, He teaches that the ego does not exist and proves it.:)

The ego's plan for forgiveness is far more widely used than God's. This is because it is undertaken by unhealed healers, and is therefore of the ego. Let us consider the unhealed healer more carefully now. By definition, he is trying to give what he has not received. If an unhealed healer is a theologian, for example, he may begin with the premise, "I am a miserable sinner, and so are you." If he is a psychotherapist, he is more likely to start with the equally incredible belief that attack is real for both himself and the patient, but that it does not matter for either of them.


To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given you. All the rest must be forgotten. Forgiveness is a selective remembering, based not on your selection. For the shadow figures you would make immortal are "enemies" of reality.

Forgiveness removes only the untrue, lifting the shadows from the world and carrying it, safe and sure within its gentleness, to the bright world of new and clean perception. There is your purpose <now.>. And it is there that peace awaits you.

Brother, you need forgiveness of your brother, for you will share in madness or in Heaven together. And you and he will raise your eyes in faith together, or not at all.

When you have looked upon your brother with complete forgiveness, from which no error is excluded and nothing kept hidden, what mistake can there be anywhere you cannot overlook? What form of suffering could block your sight, preventing you from seeing past it? And what illusion could there be you will not recognize as a mistake; a shadow through which you walk completely undismayed?

In kind forgiveness will the world sparkle and shine, and everything you once thought sinful now will be reinterpreted as part of Heaven. How beautiful it is to walk, clean and redeemed and happy, through a world in bitter need of the redemption that your innocence bestows upon it! What can you value more than this? For here is your salvation and your freedom. And it must be complete if you would recognize it.

Forgiveness is release from all illusions, and that is why it is impossible but partly to forgive. No one who clings to one illusion can see himself as sinless, for he holds one error to himself as lovely still. And so he calls it "unforgivable," and makes it sin. How can he then give his forgiveness wholly, when he would not receive it for himself? For it is sure he would receive it wholly the instant that he gave it so. And thus his secret guilt would disappear, forgiven by himself.

Forgiveness is the only function here, and serves to bring the joy this world denies to every aspect of God's Son where sin was thought to rule. Perhaps you do not see the role forgiveness plays in ending death and all beliefs that rise from mists of guilt. Sins are beliefs that you impose between your brother and yourself. They limit you to time and place, and give a little space to you, another little space to him. This separating off is symbolized, in your perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. Yet what this symbol represents is but your wish to <be> apart and separate.

Forgiveness is the answer to attack of any kind. So is attack deprived of its effects, and hate is answered in the name of love.

Forgiveness is not real unless it brings a healing to your brother and yourself. You must attest his sins have no effect on you to demonstrate they are not real. How else could he be guiltless? And how could his innocence be justified unless his sins have no effect to warrant guilt?

Hold out your hand, that you may have the gift of kind forgiveness which you offer one whose need for it is just the same as yours. And let the cruel concept of yourself be changed to one that brings the peace of God.

Choose once again if you would take your place among the saviors of the world, or would remain in hell, and hold your brothers there.

My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.

Be glad indeed to practice the idea in its initial form, for in this idea is your release made sure. The key to forgiveness lies in it.

God does not forgive because He has never condemned. And there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary.

Illusions about yourself and the world are one. That is why all forgiveness is a gift to yourself. Your goal is to find out who you are, having denied your Identity by attacking creation and its Creator. Now you are learning how to remember the truth. For this attack must be replaced by forgiveness, so that thoughts of life may replace thoughts of death.

Your picture of the world can only mirror what is within. The source of neither light nor darkness can be found without. Grievances darken your mind, and you look out on a darkened world. Forgiveness lifts the darkness, reasserts your will, and lets you look upon a world of light. We have repeatedly emphasized that the barrier of grievances is easily passed, and cannot stand between you and your salvation. The reason is very simple. Do you really want to be in hell? Do you really want to weep and suffer and die?

The light of the world brings peace to every mind through my forgiveness.

The unforgiving mind is full of fear, and offers love no room to be itself; no place where it can spread its wings in peace and soar above the turmoil of the world. The unforgiving mind is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain. It suffers and abides in misery, peering about in darkness, seeing not, yet certain of the danger lurking there

The unforgiving mind sees no mistakes, but only sins. It looks upon the world with sightless eyes, and shrieks as it beholds its own projections rising to attack its miserable parody of life. It wants to live, yet wishes it were dead. It wants forgiveness, yet it sees no hope. It wants escape, yet can conceive of none because it sees the sinful everywhere.

The unforgiving mind is in despair, without the prospect of a future, which can offer anything but more despair. Yet it regards its judgment of the world as irreversible, and does not see it has condemned itself to this despair. It thinks it cannot change, for what it sees bears witness that its judgment is correct. It does not ask, because it thinks it knows. It does not question, certain it is right.

Forgiveness is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. As sin is an idea you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self in you. Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return your mind as one to Him Who is your Self, and Who can never sin.

Each unforgiving mind presents you with an opportunity to teach your own how to forgive itself. Each one awaits release from hell through you, and turns to you imploringly for Heaven here and now. It has no hope, but you become its hope. And as its hope, do you become your own. The unforgiving mind must learn through your forgiveness that it has been saved from hell. And as you teach salvation, you will learn. Yet all your teaching and your learning will be not of you, but of the Teacher Who was given you to show the way to you.

*****Forgiveness offers everything I want. ******

Forgiveness lets the veil be lifted up that hides the face of Christ from those who look with unforgiving eyes upon the world. It lets you recognize the Son of God, and clears your memory of all dead thoughts so that remembrance of your Father can arise across the threshold of your mind. What would you want forgiveness cannot give? What gifts but these are worthy to be sought? What fancied value, trivial effect or transient promise, never to be kept, can hold more hope than what forgiveness brings?

Why would you seek an answer other than the answer that will answer everything? Here is the perfect answer, given to imperfect questions, meaningless requests, halfhearted willingness to hear, and less than halfway diligence and partial trust. Here is the answer! Seek for it no more. You will not find another one instead.

Forgiveness offers everything I want.

Today I have accepted this as true.

Today I have received the gifts of God

Let us review the meaning of "forgive," for it is apt to be distorted and to be perceived as something that entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In such a view, forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation on a whim.

This twisted view of what forgiveness means is easily corrected, when you can accept the fact that pardon is not asked for what is true. It must be limited to what is false. It is irrelevant to everything except illusions. Truth is God's creation, and to pardon that is meaningless. All truth belongs to Him, reflects His laws and radiates His Love. Does this need pardon? How can you forgive the sinless and eternally benign?

Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as deception. For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie. Thus is forgiveness really but a sin, like all the rest. It says the truth is false, and smiles on the corrupt as if they were as blameless as the grass; as white as snow. It is delusional in what it thinks it can accomplish. It would see as right the plainly wrong; the loathsome as the good.

Pardon is no escape in such a view. It merely is a further sign that sin is unforgivable, at best to be concealed, denied or called another name, for pardon is a treachery to truth. Guilt cannot be forgiven. If you sin, your guilt is everlasting. Those who are forgiven from the view their sins are real are pitifully mocked and twice condemned; first, by themselves for what they think they did, and once again by those who pardon them.

It is sin's unreality that makes forgiveness natural and wholly sane, a deep relief to those who offer it; a quiet blessing where it is received. It does not countenance illusions, but collects them lightly, with a little laugh, and gently lays them at the feet of truth. And there they disappear entirely.

Forgiveness is the only thing that stands for truth in the illusions of the world. It sees their nothingness, and looks straight through the thousand forms in which they may appear. It looks on lies, but it is not deceived. It does not heed the self-accusing shrieks of sinners mad with guilt. 5 It looks on them with quiet eyes, and merely says to them, "My brother, what you think is not the truth."

The strength of pardon is its honesty, which is so uncorrupted that it sees illusions as illusions, not as truth. It is because of this that it becomes the undeceiver in the face of lies; the great restorer of the simple truth. By its ability to overlook what is not there, it opens up the way to truth, which has been blocked by dreams of guilt. Now are you free to follow in the way your true forgiveness opens up to you. For if one brother has received this gift of you, the door is open to yourself.

There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is self-deception. Ask instead, "Would I accuse myself of doing this?"

Forgiveness must be practiced, for the world cannot perceive it’s meaning, nor provide a guide to teach you its beneficence. There is no thought in the entire world that leads to any understanding of the laws it follows, nor the Thought that it reflects. It is as alien to the world as is your own reality. And yet it joins your mind with the reality in you.

I will forgive, and this will disappear.

God is the only goal I have today.

The way to God is through forgiveness here. There is no other way. If sin had not been cherished by the mind, what need would there have been to find the way to where you are? Who would still be uncertain? Who could be unsure of who he is? And who would yet remain asleep, in heavy clouds of doubt about the holiness of him whom God created sinless? Here we can but dream. But we can dream we have forgiven him in whom all sin remains impossible, and it is this we choose to dream today. God is our goal; forgiveness is the means by which our minds return to Him at last.

And so we offer blessing to all things, uniting lovingly with the entire world, which our forgiveness has made one with us.

Forgiveness is the only gift I give.

Forgiveness is the only gift I give, because it is the only gift I want. And everything I give I give myself. This is salvation's simple formula. And I, who would be saved, would make it mine, to be the way I live within a world that needs salvation, and that will be saved as I accept Atonement for myself.

I will not hurt myself again today.

Let us this day accept forgiveness as our only function. Why should we attack our minds, and give them images of pain? Why should we teach them they are powerless, when God holds out His power and His Love, and bids them take what is already theirs? The mind, that is made willing to accept God's gifts, has been restored to spirit, and extends its freedom and its joy, as is the Will of God united with its own. The Self, which God created, cannot sin, and therefore cannot suffer. Let us choose today that He be our Identity, and thus escape forever from all things the dream of fear appears to offer us.

Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.

I will not wait another day to find the treasures that my Father offers me. Illusions are all vain, and dreams are gone even while they are woven out of thoughts that rest on false perceptions. Let me not accept such meager gifts again today. God's Voice is offering the peace of God to all who hear and choose to follow Him. This is my choice today. And so I go to find the treasures God has given me.

I never see my brother as he is, for that is far beyond perception. What I see in him is merely what I wish to see, because it stands for what I want to be the truth. It is to this alone that I respond, however much I seem to be impelled by outside happenings. I choose to see what I would look upon, and this I see, and only this. My brother's sinless ness shows me that I would look upon my own. And I will see it, having chosen to behold my brother in its holy light.