The Art Of Forgiveness

We're going to talk about the art of forgiving. If you remember, last Sunday morning we spoke on the topic called Love and Be Loved. And if you recall, I told you that in actuality this morning's talk would be more or less a continuation of last Sunday morning because you cannot separate the ideas of love and be loved from the ideas connected with forgiving and yet they have a meaning perhaps a little different than we may have thought let's consider some of our problems in terms of shall we say forgiving before we discuss it in other ways now of course we all know that rather regularly some of us more regularly and some of us less regularly but at least fairly often we have reason to feel shall we say inwardly offended for some reason or other someone perhaps may not have treated us as we thought we should be may may not have realized that we are so important that we deserve to have extra allowance, may not have discerned our particular extraordinary brilliance or spirituality, may not have seen how unusually thoughtful we are, and so on and so something in us it becomes offended sometimes we say uh I am hurt no I'm not offended just hurt we will say just hurt and it seems to us that we're saying something other than what's actually happened now what now mind you I'm not saying you shouldn't feel hurt if someone offends you but by all means let's recognize together that certain reactions are inevitable at least to some degree or other while we live and labor and struggle together on this plane of existence. But you see what we're trying to do amongst many other things is to become aware of just what makes our emotions act and react in the ways they do in relation to other human beings so that we will be able to gradually with the use of tarot, the tree of life, the various esoteric techniques that are given so that we can gradually transmute these more or less so-called normal reactions into something closer to the ideas that are concerned with being the sons and daughters of God.

That is closer to that which includes the idea of liberation, cosmic illumination, and so on. And And as you have perhaps heard me say before, one of the primary reasons that elementary metaphysics falls through, that it fails us in the long run, is because elementary metaphysics, though it gives you a principle that is approximately true, notice we say approximately true, it does not take into account the fact that no matter how true in principle it may be to say that consciousness creates.

We still have to also understand and realize that when a five-year-old child picks up a pencil, it's not going to make the same drawing that a trained artist is going to make.

And yet, in elementary metaphysics, you're given some of the most astonishing promises. I know every once in a while when I pick up a book, in order to recall, remind myself just what is being said so that I will be able to remember what to say to you in relation to these ideas. I am aghast, I really am, I am aghast and my hair almost stands on end at the tremendous dogmatism that is presented to aspirants the idea that all you have to do is hold a picture consistently and presto digitation magic there it is whether it's a thousand dollars or a or a new house or a car and of course you see the trouble is that these ideas aren't exactly incorrect correct. It's true enough that consciousness creates. But unfortunately, elementary metaphysics puts the cart before the horse, as you will, I hope, see in a moment. We are not able to hold whatever image it is that we think we're supposed to hold until we have done what needs to be done with the patterns that reside in subconsciousness which incidentally includes karma because after all karma is part of what the patterns are nevertheless we always have to keep in mind that working with these processes that is with the tarot techniques with the various other esoteric elements that are involved that what we are doing in essence is burning the seeds of karma as they say in the East and in actuality it really means transmuting an old pattern into a different reaction which changes the necessity for certain failures now what does this got to do with forgiving very much because primarily the problem in the human heart is insecurity as we we all know. Even if someone has a million dollars, then we'll have the emotional insecurity. He'll wonder if anybody loves them or her for anything except their money. You see, they're still going to be insecure in all sorts of ways, or whether this friendship is just a way to try to calm them out of a few of their dollars. You know, they have problems just as poignant and sad, and in some ways more so than the problems that are involved with those who haven't got the money and of course those who haven't got it say oh boy wouldn't I love to have that problem quite right yes and if you would you no doubt you will sooner or later in this incarnation or the next and you'll discover that isn't the way out of our dilemma at all but fulfillment will come this is always guaranteed whatever it is we think we require sooner or later we're going to have to prove it to ourselves in order to grow out of childish ideas so that in our subconsciousness we all have these patterns of insecurity these these patterns of fear even the the most so-called courageous people really walk in fear. Lots of human beings, they go out and race cars, and they'll jump out of airplanes through parachutes, and they'll go down steep mountains, slides on skis, you know, proving, proving, proving how courageous they are.

And of course these are usually the people who are the least courageous emotionally, and that's why they have a drive to keep proving it to themselves on the outside. That is, that they do have the courage. I know you've come across this type of person very often, and perhaps you've heard me say that as far as I'm concerned, I have no objection to anyone one knowing that I am a very devout coward. I see no sense in risking life and limb since we're risking everything all the time as it is just trying to cross the street or drive a car, and I think we're doing pretty well survival-wise as it is. Now, this insecurity security that we carry in our hearts.

You see, it makes us subconsciously look for slights from other people and it also makes us yearn for extra proofs of acceptance and love so that a part of us is almost always when we meet people for the first time or whether we have old relationships a part of us is almost always listening for the slight the thing that will and sometimes the slight that we listen for may not be in words it may be in terms of what isn't done to indicate that we mean something to someone or that we're important to them whether it's friendship wise or husband or wife wise or lover wise or sister wise you see there's still this relationship element that's involved and as we watch for all these various indications to prove to ourselves that we're not totally accepted we're not totally admired we're not totally loved subconsciously we have resentment now we can hide it from ourselves in various ways but we do we have this resentment and And if we should hear of someone making an adverse remark about ourselves, we're very apt to blow our tops, as they say, with indignation.

And the rage will spill out. It's pretty much like the infant saying, How dare Mama not love me and give me every second of every hour of every day of every month?

You know, total, total time, total attention. It's still the infant emotionally searching for the security so we've gone through life and not just one life but many lives with feelings of rejection and these feelings of rejection and all of us have it incidentally with some it's a very serious problem when it expresses itself this rejection complex you might say when it expresses itself in relationships it's a very serious problem and these are the people who are the most miserable so a rejection element in the nature is really quite a serious thing and is carried by just about everyone to some degree or other and is usually the basis for hostility even when we have the hostility covered up. I know I spoke to one married man who came for counseling who told me with the most fervent emotion how much he loved his wife and then the tears streamed down his face. He told me his wife rejects him him, and he confided an experience that had occurred about 15 years previously in their marriage at which time the rejection had started. In other words, she had apparently, from his point of view, never forgiven him for this particular experience or incident. And so he wept because he loved his wife so dearly, and every other sentence he'd say, oh, but but I don't want to be disloyal to her.

I love her. I don't know if I should tell you this because I wouldn't want to be disloyal to her. I love her. And meanwhile, with the tears streaming down his face and all these protestations of love, he made out a character that was about as despicable and unlovable, if it were true, that you can imagine.

Yet, you see, in his conscious mind, He thought that he was just determined to win back her love and her respect and whatnot, and yet at certain parts of the conversation, like at one point he related that he asked his wife, well, don't you realize I do love you? And she said, oh yes, I think whatever your capacity is, that that much capacity no doubt I'm receiving and his lip curled with the mother I never saw such a complete snarl as he described this particular little item that his wife had confided to him and went, hmm, a lot she knows. As far as he was concerned, he had tremendous capacity and there was a real rage in his heart which he didn't recognize. These were a couple of people who, of course, as you've heard me say, were married and lived together because they both needed sparring partners and they were fulfilling each other very completely but the point is she did not have it in her heart to forgive him any slip that he might or might not make he did definitely did not have it in his heart to forgive her either it was very apparent from the emotions the snarls and so on and so they each were indicating this tremendous insecurity emotionally emotionally in relation to each other. Well, the fact of a relationship, don't tell the story at all, as we should know by now. And the fact that we carry resentments in our heart is something that we should realize, even if the resentment is mild. But so often we carry a far deeper resentment than we know though I hope none of us are as bad as this man I'm telling you about and yet he was a very sweet and aspiring soul a very aspiring soul indeed yet unaware of that part of his nature now of course all of us have been through experiences where we've been hurt most of us perhaps all of us have been betrayed whatever we mean by betrayal certainly most of us if not all of us have given at some time or other and have received a stone in return shall we say or been kicked and bruised in return for what at least we felt was a definite spirit of givingness and therefore all of us really carry wounds we carry wounds in our soul we carry wounds in our psyche hurts real hurts and if we are in the right mood if the right song is played or we meet the right person in whom we feel like confiding we'll discover that the wounds that we had back 20, 30, and 40 years ago still hurt and we may surprise ourselves. We may have thought that we got over them and we'll discover this uprush of feeling under the conditions of the stimulus.

Perhaps most of you have had at least one such experience and have noticed this, showing that the hurt is still there. We walk around with wounds that are really dreadful and we're not denying that hurt exists of course we've been hurt and of course we have also given hurt this we realize but you see now we come then to the idea of forgiveness and just what it implies and does not imply we all know how to spout Jesus' words and we can along with him remark on the idea that we mustn't forgive only seven times, but seven times seven or seven times seventy. And the idea, forgive your neighbors or forgive your enemies rather, usually it's your neighbors that are good very often, is forgive your enemies. We talk about it, but do you know most of us don't really know what we mean by forgive even? And that's the point we're going to cover now actually the way most people understand the word forgiveness if somebody say has injured us and we say to them magnanimously I forgive you what we're saying in essence is you are a you-know-what but I am so spiritual that I'm showing you off you know that's what we usually are doing exceptions once in a while but actually forgiveness may in some ways be a rather tragic word and a tragic idea he who aspires to the highest incidentally is going to have to forget all about forgiveness and if this is surprising you then let's be surprised because when you have to forgive you're going to continue carrying the hurt and there's a part of you that will not have forgiven at all you may say I forgive but I'll never forget it shows that subconsciously you still want would like to see somebody go you know where or you wouldn't have to point out that this you won't forget because there's a certain hostility involved now I we remind you we're not saying that there aren't situations and conditions of hurt and treachery and betrayal there are but we also must remember that most of the time we fool ourselves about ourselves more when we are attempting to think or act in terms of forgiveness because of the fact that the idea forgiveness really has to do with a superiority complex and it's unfortunate that most people on the path don't recognize this what is it then that we must do because certainly we blame ourselves for many things we have done and not done which means in a sense we need to forgive ourselves as well as others and yet you have just heard me say that we should not be thinking of it in exactly those terms all right now let's examine pain then we'll come to an understanding what made you aspire what made you search for an answer to the riddle of life what made you start studying yearn for the conscious experience of God what made you do it now if you answer yourself truthfully you will know there's one thing made you do it pain pain made you do it hurt betrayal therefore is it really necessary that is if you are agreeing with me that pain drove you to the path to the spiritual path if therefore pain betrayal rejection is the thing that brought you to that which has been deepening your entire awareness would you say that those betrayals and those hurts were really evils done to you or would you say that they were blessings all right some of you may not be accepting this in your heart as yet let's think together a little more music at one age in your life you listen to music and you had a certain amount or depth or intensity of response then as you got older you had a few experiences painful ones. Now who of you can say that after a while you did not start reacting with a greater depth, a greater responsiveness to the beauty of the music because of having had pain? Or I suppose you don't care so much for music. Take it in terms of scenery art nature animals creatures I won't ask you to take it in terms of people because they're usually in the most trouble so we're trying to approach it from the other ways first you see the thing we don't seem to realize and this is very sad what we don't seem to realize is that all growth is the result of the interplay of the pair of opposites which we might call joy and sorrow now it's only to the degree that you have the capacity for sorrow will you also have the capacity for joy can you see that in other words the cup if it's a shallow cup can only hold so much water if it's a deeper cup it holds more water your soul your consciousness has been like clay deepened and deepened and deepened by the interplay of the pair of opposites that is joy and sorrow pain of of course, is the thing that always prepares us for the next intensification or capacity or enlargement of our joy area. Now, we all know that every mystic who has experienced the conscious union with God speaks in terms of the most extraordinary ecstasy.

I mean talks of a joy that is practically unbearable.

This is true anywhere and everywhere. Wherever anyone has had the sublime, highest mystical experience, it's always in terms of an extraordinary intensity, intensity which means depth of awareness.

So pain is the preparer for cosmic consciousness and this does not mean that we also do not have joy because to the degree that we are we have experienced pain we also to the same degree can experience joy now of course this process doesn't go on forever I mean don't get discouraged and say oh my god am I just going to have to go out now and and just think of having painful experiences is certainly not absolutely not I mean we are tired of the pain at this point and what we want to do is start learning how to live with the higher faculties because by this time I should think the cup has become deep enough but your attitude towards that which made you what you are today is what needs to be looked into, don't you see? So what must be done? You must look into your past, whether it was your mother, your father's, sisters, brothers, friends, lovers, family of any kind, you must look into the past wherever you feel you have been wronged or hurt. You must be able to look into that past into a vista and be able to say in essence I thank you lord of the universe because although we don't uh exactly want to sing with joy at the idea of whom the lord loveth he chasteneth still the point is as we know that only those who have known sorrow have compassion only those who have known sorrow are able to put themselves in the other person's place only those who have been aware of their own weakness and have felt sorrow over their own defects are able to show charity towards the other fellow's weaknesses and the other fellow's defects so the fact that the repercussions of our immaturities have driven us finally to the path to seek the liberation from these pains makes the pains of the past worthwhile.

Or don't you think so?

You may not think so at the moment, but this I promise you, if you will work at the idea, if you will, for instance, whenever you look up at the sky, remind yourselves that because of every experience you've had in the past you have the capacity now to see the immense beauty of the vastness of heaven or see the extraordinary miracle of the flower and the leaf and the blade of grass and the hill against the sky that your ability to to be conscious and self-conscious, has come about because of the fact that you have earned that consciousness through being put in the fire of evolution, through, in other words, your experiences of joy and sorrow.

And then, as you realize that it's the sorrowful experiences as well as the joyous ones, which gave you the capacity to pray to reach for God to find God to understand people to react to music to have moments of the wonder of beingness when you realize this you see you will not have to forgive those who have injured you because what will there have been to forgive were they not then instruments from god to bring you good this is the real art of forgiveness to know not just to think but to know in the depth of your heart that every enemy of yesterday day served your spiritual good and therefore deserves your love and compassion because in as much as this enemy of yesterday was at the evolutionary level where he had to or was compelled to say be treacherous or to betray life inevitably will bruise this so-called enemy of yesterday day therefore he has already had or will have pain and those of us who have truly suffered pain in the depths of our soul do not wish it on another no matter what they've done because we know it too directly and we want to throw the mantle of real forgiveness over their shoulders and what is this mantle of real forgiveness?

Thank you for being one of the teachers that God sent to me to teach me discrimination and perception and to deepen my cup of life.

This then is the art of forgiveness and what is it but love?

And incidentally, the easiest way to train oneself to feel this is through loving.

Now, love, in essence, of course, is really the grace of God. We know this. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and people love where they will love, because that's part of the karmic ties where these strange and unique elements exist.

But it is while you are in the act of loving something or someone, it is during those moments that you should reach back in your consciousness and let your heart and your minds and your souls flow with this feeling of gratitude for every experience and we mean for every experience for example I'm lame as you know a very serious illness when I was 21 years old and being a human being I was bitter at the time which I am grateful for now am I going to look back and say oh woe is me how unevolved I was I was bitter of course not I say thank you life for having let me known the meaning of bitterness so so that when I meet it in my fellow man, I can understand it. If I hadn't known it, how could I understand it and therefore help the other?

Furthermore, had I not become lame, I would have gone into another profession which would have kept me very physically active, and then what would have happened to the riches that I developed as a result of the lameness? Because becoming lame and being bedridden very many years off and on with crutches and so on what else was I going to do but study and meditate and read and so I developed a depth of consciousness and spiritual experiences that are so fantastically more glorious and beautiful than what I apparently lost that I can certainly look back to that whole experience and it was nightmarish indeed one of the great nightmares of life which could equal a concentration camp I think yet I can look back and I did look back finally and it's quite a while ago when this happened good 20 years ago in the act of loving when I walked in a cosmic love for several months that was fantastic from that level I looked back and not only was I able to say thank you but my heart just poured an enriching ecstatic kind of gratitude that's beyond description where I was able to say say anything I went through everything I went through was worth it to be able to have this capacity to love so you see there is the secret of forgiveness and it included that because I had several people who certainly required forgiveness but I didn't have to forgive them I thought I had before that but I hadn't and I didn't have to forgive them because my heart loved them and loves them for having been instruments through which God's greater good came now when you can see your past and the hurts and the injuries that have been done to you because we all have suffered from somebody or several somebody's hands when you can look back and see that whatever pain and unhappiness whatever tears whatever sorrow you suffered when you can say it was worth it to give me the magic of this consciousness to give me the drive of this aspiration if it had done nothing else for you but give you the glory and the miracle of being able to aspire to god and work towards achieving this conscious union and control of your selfhood to become a conscious center for the one life if it did nothing but that it did everything and it did do it meditate on that and then you will find that loving is something so fantastically superior to forgiving that you won't have to have a superiority complex and with benign smile say I forgive you dear with beautiful martyrdom we don't need to be martyrs anymore do we let's walk in the true way let's develop the real art let's see our enemies as having been God's greatest gift to us yesterday today and forever