Here is a relevant essay by Robert
Augustus Masters - “Forgiveness: Sacred Closure,” from his book
Divine Dynamite: Entering Awakening's Heartland, posted here with his
permission.
Fun fact: I wrote the index for
the new edition of Divine Dynamite, which will be out shortly. Index
writing is a new line of work I'm exploring lately; in 2024 I will be
doing the index for a new edition of Darkness Shining Wild (also by
Robert), and in the near future I'll be working on the index of a
book for Integral Books. I'm looking for additional assignments; I
prefer payment in money but I am willing to work for trade in some
cases.
FORGIVENESS: SACRED CLOSURE
Forgiveness
is the greatest weapon.
— Neem Karoli Baba
Forgiveness
is the heart’s pardon. Sacred closure.
To
forgive doesn’t mean to excuse or condone, but rather to cease
dehumanizing and excluding from our heart our offending other or
others.
When
we forgive, we neither bypass nor gloss over injury, but instead
embrace and embody a perspective in which injury is not given the
power to obscure or diminish our compassion.
Although
forgiveness might seem to some to be an act of acquiescence or
weakness, it is actually an act of great power, for it not
only retrieves us from the past, where we’re emotionally bound to
those whom we won’t forgive, but also from the future — where
we’re similarly bound — thereby bringing us present, undividedly
and wholeheartedly present.
Forgiveness
is a radical act of love not only for the offending other, but also
for oneself. In forgiving someone, we are, in so many words, telling
that person, “I no longer am interested or invested in having
anything damaging happen to you. No longer am I going to turn the
hurt you have done me into an excuse to dehumanize or violate you.
Although I may never again have or make contact with you, no longer
will I keep you out of my heart, however difficult that might be.”
Thus
do we disconnect in order to connect at a deeper level.
We
then stop feeding our resentment, realizing as we do so that it was
actually feeding on us, consuming our energy and
attention. Our appetite for vengeance naturally shrinks, like any
other shadow, in the light of our forgiveness. Then the courtrooms of
our mind are not so readily populated by us — wanting to be right
no longer so easily recruits and centers us. We may still get angry,
but will be far less likely to infuse it with ill-will or hatred, or
let it transmute into aggression. Caring for the other becomes more
important than getting even, regardless of the consequences that may
be deemed fitting for whatever harm may have been done.
“Love
your enemies.” This may be the most practical (and
marginalized) of all of the teachings of Jesus. Rooted as it is in
our capacity to forgive, it cuts through the rigidly dualistic “I”
versus “you” or “us” versus “them” mentality that so
easily infects and aberrates us. Loving — not necessarily liking,
but loving — our enemies is a kind of radical sanity, for in loving
them, in wholeheartedly wishing for their freedom from delusion, we
are not only ceasing to demonize them, but are also aligning
ourselves with their healing. Their healing — our healing.
If
our enemies were to find and embody their innate happiness, if they
were freed from their suffering, if they were to heal, then they
would no longer be motivated or driven to harm us. Is there a more
potent and user-friendly catalyst for disarmament than forgiveness?
Implicit
in the practice of forgiveness is the willingness to place ourselves
— and not just intellectually! — in our offending others’ shoes
and skin, to the point where they are no longer “other,” but
rather only us in our less appealing facets.
Forgiveness
does not depend upon what the offending other does.
That
is, we don’t have to wait for that person to make amends. (And, at
the same time, it is essential to realize that we do not have to
forgive until we are truly ready to do so — to forgive prematurely
is of no more use than putting off the forgiveness of which we are
capable.) Sometimes we may be so righteously caught up in waiting for
and expecting our offending others to make amends or to say that
they’re sorry, that we don’t notice we are being held hostage by
our expectations of them.
If
I refuse to forgive you until you “deserve” it, then I am simply
punishing you, keeping myself negatively bound to you, or to
the storyline with which I associate you.
If
I won’t forgive you until you have “earned” it, then I am
keeping myself, however subtly, a victim of what you’ve done to me.
And, if I am getting something out of staying in my “wounded”
role — such as having a “valid” reason for not taking more
responsibility for where I’m at in my life — I am likely going to
continue to postpone forgiving you.
In
the process of forgiving, we may have to, at least some of the time,
reframe the harm-doing we have suffered. Perhaps the pain inflicted
on us by our offending others has actually been of genuine benefit to
us; perhaps we needed to be hurt, disappointed, betrayed, or left;
perhaps we needed to learn something that could not be learned
without being treated as we were treated by our offending others.
This, of course, does not mean that their actions should
therefore be condoned or praised, but that they be viewed from a
perspective that’s not rooted in an eye-for-an-eye morality.
Then
we can clearly recognize such harm-doing as part of us. What I
condemn in you also exists in me (and in everyone else), and there’s
no way that it’s going to be healed if I persist in treating it as
something alien to me.
None
of this is to say that forgiveness is an easy practice. For example,
the path to forgiveness may initially be — and may need to
be — paved with hatred. We may need to feel and fully express our
hate for another before we can even approach forgiving that person
(as is often the case with those who have been raped). This, however,
doesn’t mean that we have to literally act out, or even share, such
dark feeling with our offending other or others. If we can give our
hate sufficiently free rein and voice, and just the space to be,
in a safe environment — like that of good psychotherapy — we’re
not only going to feel, through our rage-releasing, a much needed
sense of empowerment, but we’re also bound to get to what underlies
our hate, so that we can fully feel our hurt and thereby move
through it.
And
at the heart of that hurt is not more hurt, but a love that cannot
help but forgive.
This
love is self-radiant, effortlessly ego-transcending, simultaneously
innocent and wise. It forgives us our trespasses, our forgettings of
the Sacred, our stupidities large and small, and it does so
instantaneously. It does not make a problem out of our mistakes. When
we allow ourselves to house — and ultimately to be — such love,
we do not see errors, but only incarnation’s fleshdance in sacred
transparency. Which is but the shortest of steps to remembering with
our whole being What-Matters-Most.
Sometimes
the process of forgiveness may seem to break our heart, but it is
only the armoring around our heart that breaks. Or melts. Forgiveness
brings us in out of the cold, potently reminding us of who we really
are.
When
we choose to forgive, we are entering the morality of the Divine. In
choosing to forgive, we deepen our intimacy with the Beloved.
Forgiveness
is not only the essence of true kindness, but also an act of genuine
power.
May
we all embody it.
I am seeking meaningful work.
bio: http://aqalicious.gaia.com/
I spend most of my "forum time" these days on The Integral Pod: http://pods.gaia.com/ii/
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