How do we forgive?

Last night i proposed a question marry me LOL no jk, i was wondering that if i truly knew someones past with all of there thought processes up to the now, could i believe that evil just exists or would i discover that these "what is deemed evil wrong" are just symptoms of certain conditions of this world, there development in it and there interpretation on it???. I was thinking on the people causing much hurtful turbulence in this world, people that committed and are committing atrocities and questioned what pieces of there puzzle do i own/know, i thought how was and is there environment different then mine, i looked at there parents, there case, the situation they were born into, the likely hood of interpretation that could happen in such an environment, what was going on and what effect that could have on them, and a saw something very sad from what i could gather, growing up in an environment of desolate separation from others, where thous they depended on for survival used other people with 0 empathy, ware they witnessed the only"main" joy they got was from manipulating others and increasing there reception on the road of more power and control, could such a mind showcase love a give-ness all so important to development, or could the ample examples of addition to control and power become there driving principals ???  Well i do not envy this people not in the slightest would you give away your interpretations on love for money and power and big houses and boats??? these people are the poorest in the world in what matters to me... i can have boiling furry and anger at them and will use it if need be, yet i learned i do not wish to hate them. They need to be stopped and if i have to go tooth and nail ill give it my all, yet i already forgive them. and for some it is possible that a showing of love at the right time in the right way could heal them or begin there journey.

Hey Kath, there is a way to in effect bypass forgiveness......don't make the judgement to begin with.....with forgiving myself there is a couple of things I don't do......I don't try to rationalize that I did my best, hey maybe I didn't, should that matter, or does it mean that as I didn't do my best I should payout on myself....no...I am, I exist, it just is what it is....I don't count my blessings either, I don't because even if I had nothing to count I am still "worthy", if I had no blessings should I give up....course not......as always let go and observe.....never set yourself or others up to fail..be yourself, warts and all....all is as it should be....

Thank you for these rich questions, Kathy. On awakening every morning, I set an intention of living in service to all beings (including myself) and doing my best to choose what's best for all of us. This is my deepest intention in life and has helped me tremendously over and over again. Knowing that even though I screw up at times, I'm always doing my best, I find it easy to forgive myself when I do screw up.

I also trust that people are doing the best with what they've got. They may not be consciously setting an intention to do what's best, but given all the programming they've been subjected to from the day they were born (and even before birth), people are doing the best they can to cope with everything in their lives. And we all screw up at times.

I find forgiveness to be most powerful and easy to accomplish when I remember that people are doing the best they can with what they've got. At the same time, I will do all I can to stop violent and disempowering behavior wherever I see it. This can be and has been quite challenging for me at times, yet it is clearly the path I am choosing.

I don't want to remain silent when I see someone doing something which causes harm, even though I know they may be doing what they believe to be the right thing at the moment. And I suspect that every action I take in my life ripples out into the universe and the collective consciousness.

I deeply believe that as an ever increasing number of us do our best to be more conscious in how we live our lives and find forgiveness and gratitude in our hearts even as we do what needs to be done to stop violence and disempowering behaviors, the world can't help but transform around us. I welcome your thoughts.

With much love and warm wishes,
Fred

I'm freshly thinking on the thing you said jez:

what if we didn't do our best? After a lifetime of thinking otherwise, someone once convinced me that we ALWAYS do our best. That to do your best is the most basic law of existence no matter how pitiful it may appear, your moment to moment effort is the maximum you can produce in that moment given the sum of all influences on you. You're the first person to challenge that in my path in a while jez. It's a core issue.

IMO, when I recognize that every choice and action I made and done has been based on how I viewed myself and my situation at the moment; I realize that, even if in retrospect I'd rather have behaved differently, in the moment nothing could have been different. If I had the conditioning and point of view of someone who did something I judge as horrific, cruel, inhumane or evil - if I had their set of data - I know I'd have done what they did.

 Seeing forgiveness as a transformation of energy is helpful to me. I like the encoding, decoding language of your understanding of our 'programming' and 'natural' aspects very much. It takes the judgement away from the subject of social programming and makes it more an expression of forces that act on our species.

 That liberates my thinking about the "Elites" and makes me appreciate the (at it's purest sense) innocence of those doing "bad" things to the rest. I get the deepest benefit from forgiving when I can hold this reality in my mind.
 My friend has had several instances in her life where she died and was brought back to life. She instructed me today about how I must forgive some people in my life and how it's an expression of divine love and is part of our mission. She experienced divine love when she died and can't express how overwhelming it was for her(she refused to come back at first:-). She's also had many really staggeringly bad things happen to her and she's needed to find forgiveness for the people who did terrible things to her.

Those are beautiful words, Fairy.  The language you use makes it easy to understand.  I've saved your post to meditate upon later.

I have a question, though.

Why is it that those of us who have suffered at the hands of thoughtless or selfish people are always called upon to forgive? Why must it always be left up to the one who has been harmed to be the "bigger person"?

Maybe if the "Elites" forgave us for being born without "priviledge" they might not feel so entitled to dominate and control us.

To see the day when the parasitic few forgive their hosts.  That would be sweet, wouldn't it?  That would be a tremendously healing paradigm shift, I think.

Two Beautiful video's on forgiveness

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEfKwhNJ_p8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qoq75-DQm4

Peace and Love

Noa-I'm sorry for the hurts you've had. I really liked the way you turned that around but I thought about the a-holes: "well-they have nothing to forgive us for"   But then Viveka sends these videos and sure enough-Ho'oponopono finds the only way it's possible to answer that question affirmatively: that I am responsible. That I created that situation and must clean it. scrub a dub dub.

Ho'oponopono frightens me even while it moves me to act or to feel compassion. It scares me I'll disappear into thin air. Don't laugh (too loud) That's not a lie-I'm really afraid if I erase all memories, there'll be nothing left and POOF! Gone! I can only take it in small doses.

Thanks Viveka for the tearful videos-the tissue manufacturers are doing great business here...

I found.    The Higher up the mountain the steeper the path, the greater the awareness, the broader the view......where call for understanding and great compassion is automatically brought into play....... I look at it like being a first time parent, suddenly the game changes.....One moves from one room to another, from the Personal to the Universal......The shift from one to many brings great change with changed conditions and responsibilities...... One must learn to fullfill those responibilities whilst retaining equlibrium.....

One Learns that the conditioning and parotted learning one has inherited was handed down with ignorance, but also with the best of ability through the limited awareness of that time.  "Ignorance sometimes needs to be dragged into awareness kicking and screaming like an unwilling child." But through the enlightened process of example.... Not punishment....

As for the parent and Her/His feelings dealing with the unwilling child?????Back to the Personal and the equalibrium challenge..... Or the letting go of Self.....The degree of Hurt indicates the degree of Love and attachment.

Dear Brian, Do Laugh and out loud and for long as you can,  Laughter is the greatest healing tool there is..... As for disappearing into thin air I guess it is as Krishna said to Arjuna....."If you choose to get of the Wheel of Birth and Death then at the point of Death bring the mind into the Heart and close the Five doors to the senses"

Peace and Love

...I mean because I'm a cry baby pretty much 24/7.....anything profound-cry cry cry

That's a really great point. I always thought i should adopt Ho'oponopono because of Hew Len's story about healing all those patients in the mental hospital. If he could do this by taking full responsibilty and looking inside then who am I to argue? He seemed to be onto the basic nature of reality...

That level of 'humility' is exhausting though. I find I can only sustain that state of mind for brief periods.

Thanks for that thoughtful explanation, Viveka. It helps.  (BTW, I find more value in your own words, than when you're quoting others... but that's just me.)

And Fairy, could you please explain what you mean by "domestication?"  Aren't all humans domesticated -- even the indigenous hunter/gatherer tribes?  Is it possible to be human without being domesticated?

You've stated your views about forgiveness as your "humble opinion".  (BTW, I gave you 4 stars for your opinion.)  But opinions are not the same as facts and may vary from person to person.

For the record, the dictionary definition of forgiveness involves action, not being, so I don't know how you arrived at your views.  (Perhaps you'll tell us.)

forgiveness (fəˈgivnis) noun

2. readiness to forgive. He showed great forgiveness towards them.

I don't mean to sound combative or confrontational.  I just don't automatically accept things just because they sound good; they have to make sense to me.  The fact that I'm questioning your statements means that I'm open to understanding them, and possibly accepting them.

I don't trust the meaning assigned therein. Maybe the dictionary's meaning is based in a western religious context? I feel religion usually is about centralisation of power by weakening peoples own power.

Live your own life and remember to enjoy it!

There seem to be as many opinions on this as there are people, this was just one of many on the site below.....

The heart of a mother is a deep abyss at the bottom of which you will always find forgiveness.
Honore de Balzac

Viveka said, "I only know the act of forgiveing has helped me move through much grief and anger..."

Well, there you go.  I think that forgiveness requires some form of action, even if the action is thought.

I was hoping that my request for further information would be answered with more substance, not a one-star vote and additional unsubstantiated claims.

Personally I think that focusing only on light and love, for example, polarizes energy and ultimately attracts that which we do not acknowledge or want.  I'm basing this on my personal experience and the writings of people like Sen and Michael Topper. 

"There are only two types of reality you can create – balanced and imbalanced. Your thoughts can either be imbalanced towards one nature (either light or dark nature), and thus attract an imbalanced reality reflecting the conflict of these natures in you, or they can be balanced in their perspective and outlook, thus creating/attracting a balanced reality for you.

'Suppression' is not the way to freedom ever, it only leads to imbalance, no matter what you try to suppress in yourself – for example, when you try to suppress fear, you become more fearful, when you try to suppress sadness, you attract more sadness (because indirectly you are fearing sadness and your fear of it is like a direct interest/focus towards it). The way to wholeness is in the state of allowing, both, the light and dark nature components in you, till they balance out each other, thus coming to wholeness (also called “unity consciousness”). Oneness in it’s true meaning is to realize that dark and light are two polarities of the same “one” energy, and the only way to experience a state of wholeness is to integrate both these components in you." ~ Sen

I think the above explanation follows closely with what Fred and others mean by "integrating" the light and the dark.  (Correct me if I'm wrong.)

I spent 25 years practicing the Law of Attraction, with few positive results.  I now call it the Law of Distraction.  The times that I have set my intention on being love and light are the very same times that I have attracted the most bizarre, negative people into my life.  (Your results may vary.)

Where does this concept that "love flows to love" come from?  Is it based on actual experience or is it just a nice idea?  Talk to anyone whose love has been returned with abuse and/or neglect; they will tell you otherwise.

from the wisdom of Adyashanti.

Make no mistake about it - Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becomeing better or being happier..... Enlightenment is the crumbling away of Untruth....It is seeing through the facade of pretence....It is the complete Eradication of Everything we imagined to be true.....

From Viveka' experience if wine is the want then the grape must needs be crushed.

Peace Courage Compassion

ouch! 'Truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off' kind of a thing Viveka. I like Adyashanti's view but I find myself feeling tired and dispirited by simple truths. I wonder if it's because I sense there's something more-a greater complexity or if I'm just a lazy person who can't live up to his ideals? I suspect he's a better man than me.

 Seriously (nevermind-I can't be serious about anything anymore) I keep reading passages in books or hearing people say this a lot now-that there's nothing to do, you can't really be a better person tomorrow because that puts you at war with yourself today, etc etc. Let go and save your strength to swim with the tide...

Brian

  haha! Consciously trying to better yourself can put you at war with yourself today,,,but just being in the moment, with no judgement, or decisions based on anything other than virtues,,,,I think that is what they're getting at. Wait,,that didn't come out right!! I don't know if it can, because I am conscious of what I'm writing,,ha! Just think of those moments when you reacted most beautifully,,,then when you thought about it after, said to yourself,,,where did that come from? haha! It's almost like it was someone else,,,because you were empty,,,,if just for a second,,and that decision was drawn from the ,,,,,"source",,,or whatver you want to call it....I think this is why there are so many different "versions" of truth. It comes from the part of us we are just getting to know a little,,,the rest of our time is spent taking in everything gpoing on around us with the common 5 senses...I have to stop, or it will just get more confusing!! haha! I sure would like to know myself better!!!!!!,,,L,,,T 

I am of the opinion that forgiveness isn't something we do for others, it is something we do for ourselves, and we are One so why is forgiving ourselves any different than opening our hearts and accepting the same as we would wish for those we are forgiving? Acceptance, non judgement, only Love. Too simplistic? Why do we have to make everything so hard? I Love you.