Nothing you ever did or was done to you could ever touch the radiance of who you are. So forgiveness is unnecessary of yourself or anyone else.
— Eckhard Tolle
Peter Russell initiates this rewarding exploration with a provocative definition. The Greek root for forgiveness, aphesis, means “to let go.” “Forgiveness is letting go of the belief that the other person did wrong. It is not saying ‘I know you committed a sin, but I will not hold it against you.’ It is a recognition that we are all seeking the same goal, but caught as we all are in our ego-mind, we may act in ways that are shortsighted, self-centered, and not in the best interests of other people. Forgiveness is acknowledging that I, too, given the same history and circumstances, could easily have made a similar mistake.”[i] In short, we are all doing the best we can, given our circumstances.
John Ruskan also challenges conventional beliefs about forgiveness. “Forgiveness means finally seeing that the other person was not really responsible for what we thought came from them. Sometimes we try to force ourselves to forgive, thinking we are being spiritual or loving, or simply in the attempt to avoid pain. We continue to believe that the other is responsible for what has happened to us, but now we have pardoned them for their behavior. True forgiveness means understanding that the original blame was wrong; it is not the granting of a pardon for what we mistakenly believe someone has done to us.”[ii]
Those of us who value the truth can agree with Caroline Myss that a paradigm shift is necessary to distinguish reality from illusion. True forgiveness “is a complex act of consciousness, one that liberates the psyche and soul from the need for personal vengeance and the perception of oneself as a victim. [It] means releasing the control that the perception of victimhood has over our psyches. The liberation that forgiveness generates comes in the transition to a higher state of consciousness.”[iii]
Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Tutu in 1994 in South Africa, instead of seeking retribution for decades of torture and killings by white police, set up a process of “truth and reconciliation.” The absolution was achieved through truth-telling rather than punishment or revenge.
Even within the world’s religious communities, forgiveness tends to be misunderstood. Thomas Sheehan can capture the deepest meaning of the New Testament like no one else: “Christianity lost the core of the prophet’s message of forgiveness: that the future was already present—grace was everywhere—and therefore that the arrival of the heavenly Father was transformed into the praxis [practice] of earthly liberation.”[iv]
C. G. Jung explains in part why we in the West in particular have trouble grasping what is going on in our world. “It also seems as if hatha yoga were chiefly useful as a means for extinguishing the ego by fettering its unruly impulses. There is no doubt that the higher forms of yoga [e.g. The Point of Power Practice], in so far as they strive to reach samadhi, seek a mental condition in which the ego is practically dissolved. Consciousness in our sense of the word is rated a definitely inferior condition, the state of avidya (ignorance), whereas what we call the ‘dark background of consciousness’ is understood to be a ‘higher’ consciousness.”[v]
When we truly forgive another person we are actually replacing a potential reaction with a response, letting go of and neutralizing the self-destructive energy that perpetuates our story as a victim. Reactions are a choice we make, and they have nothing to do with real or imagined sleights or offenses on the part of others. No one has the power to cause us to suffer or react. It is nothing short of madness to choose the role of victim when other far healthier and rewarding roles are available to us.
Don’t carry a grudge. While you’re carrying the grudge the other guy’s out dancing.
— Buddy Hackett
In her article entitled “The Futility of Vengeance” Kate Murphy notes that people who are the least likely to seek revenge believe that those who wronged them will be punished later in this life or in the afterlife. This is not forgiveness, but it is a kind of “letting go” and certainly is a way to replace a physical reaction with a mental reaction, but the false self (the black wolf) is still being fed and energy is being withheld from the True self (the white wolf). We are perpetuating our dream wherein the two wolves are fighting, and we awaken before we find out who won. Each time we pass on an opportunity for true forgiveness, we take the side of the black wolf.
“‘I’m not sure if that’s not self-soothing thinking,’ said Dr. Gabbard, the psychiatrist. ‘But it’s also true that when people treat people badly, eventually there will be negative consequences psychologically and socially, so one way or another they will suffer.’”[vi] Or as Kate Murphy concludes, “What goes around, comes around.”[vii]
“You cannot truly forgive yourself or others as long as you derive your sense of self from the past. Only through accessing the power of the NOW, which is your own power, can there be true forgiveness. This renders the past powerless, and you realize deeply that nothing you ever did or that was ever done to you could touch even in the slightest the radiant essence of who you are. The whole concept of forgiveness then becomes unnecessary.”[viii]
[i] Russell, Peter. Waking Up in Time. Novato, California: Origin Press, 1992, p. 107.
[ii] Ruskan, John. Emotional Clearing. New York: Broadway Books, 2000, p. 133.
[iii] Myss, Caroline. Anatomy of the Spirit. New York: Crown Publishers, 1996, p. 215.
[iv] Sheehan, Thomas. The First Coming. New York: Random House, 1986, p. 222.
[v] Jung, C. G. The Portable Jung. New York: Penguin Books, 1971, p. 492.
[vi] Murphy, Kate. “The Futility Of Vengeance.” The New York Times. February 8, 2015, p. 5.
[vii] Ibid.
[viii] Tolle, Eckhart. The Power of Now. Novato, California: New World Library, 1999, p. 191.
