Title:
Forgiveness -
The Doorway To Freedom
Forgiving is love’s revolution against life’s unfairness. When
we forgive, we ignore the normal laws that strap us to the natural law
of getting even and, by the alchemy of love, we release ourselves from
our own painful pasts. We may talk about turning the other cheek and
forgiving those who have wronged us, but it is not a simple thing to do.
The problem usually lies within the whirling tornado of emotions that
are at the center of this act. It is the hardest trick in the bag of
personal relationships.
It is important not to confuse forgiveness
with other similar acts. Forgiveness is not excusing, smothering
conflict, accepting people, or tolerance. When you forgive the person
who hurt you deeply and unfairly, you perform a miracle that has no
equal. Nothing else is the same. Forgiving has its own feel and its own
color and its own climax, different from any other creative act in the
repertoire of human relationships.
There are four stages in the process of forgiveness beginning with the
hurt that precipitates the crisis and causes us pain that will not go
away. We must acknowledge that first. The second stage is hate when all
our feelings of anger and righteous indignation come to the surface. The
third stage is healing; you are given the ‘magic eyes’ to see the person
who hurt you in a new light. Your memory is healed, you turn back the
flow of pain and are free again. The fourth stage is the coming together
where you affect a reconciliation and invite the person back into your
life at the right time ( which doesn't always mean now). The major
healing takes place within us thanks to the love and freedom that blooms
in us.
It is best to practice forgiveness a little at a time. Ordinary
people forgive best if they go at it in bits and pieces, and for
specific acts. We bog down if we try to forgive people in the grand
manner, because wholesale forgiving is almost always fake. Forgiving
anything at all is a minor miracle; forgiving carte blanche is silly.
Nobody can do it. Except God. And the first rule for mere human beings
in the forgiving game is to remember that we are not God. Below, I want
to share with you The Doorway To Freedom. It's a way to begin healing
yourself TODAY.
Enlightenment cannot enter through a closed door. Forgiveness is the
doorway to enlightenment or love consciousness, for without completing
forgiveness you cannot move on. It will always be the anchor that holds
you back. Sooner or later you must do it for your own sake. "Unforgiveness"
is a poison in your system that will rob you of your spiritual life. If
you hate one soul you will never be able to love another completely. The
poison in your system will pollute your experience of love with everyone
and everything in life.
"Unforgiveness" spills over into other aspects of your life and stains
your experiences. When the time comes for true forgiveness, open
yourself to your God and invite the Holy Spirit to enter, to cleanse the
cellular memory of all the negative energy stored in there and dissolve
with love the patterns you hold about others that you have not forgiven.
The vibration at this time can be so strong as to make your ego or
logical mind start having fearful thoughts.
Remember God created us to experience perfection and beauty. When the
Holy Spirit meets our darkness, "bad" things happen in our best
interest. Do not judge the situation let it be. We cannot hate one Soul
and love another. For our own sake we need to forgive one another, to be
kind and considerate to each other and show tolerance. When we hold
resentment in our hearts and minds we poison our beings with dark
energies that foster anger that we then suppress and deny. This
dishonoring of our being brings emotional pain that destroys our
qualities of life. Every experience that comes to us is filtered through
this unforgiving attitude, thereby diluting our enjoyment and experience
of the joy of being alive.
THE LOSS OF SPIRITUAL LIFE
Vague shadows lurk in the background and forever blunt our edge. The
dullness of our experience robs us of our spirituality. We know there
should be more, but we can never quite fully experience what we feel we
should. The shadows of resentment keep our spiritual light from shining
through, never allowing us to fully experience who we are.
HONORING THE LESSONS
The longer we hold hard thoughts or feelings of animosity, the weaker
our light becomes, and consequently the deeper the hurt from our own
dishonoring. The anger grows and grows. No matter what the perceived sin
is against us, eventually forgiveness is seen to be the only doorway to
freedom. All of the denial and suppression must be reversed in order
that our spirit be set free and our heritage of a full and joyous
spiritual life be realized while still on the earth plane.
Anger is the state that divides and separates spiritual beings
experiencing physical life. The damage is self-inflicted. The person who
holds the resentment is the victim of their own anger and does little or
no damage to their perceived enemies. The people closest to them become
secondary victims. As they weave their karmic web, they draw others into
their play, intensifying and complicating what could have been a
wonderful and simple experience.
Nevertheless, the play that is happening is learning and growth, so to
judge it as wrong would be another misperception of the truth. With all
of life, options are there for us. The choice of how we learn is ours;
no matter how it appears to others, it is our choice. As we watch
another learning, we must honor that person and the path of learning
that he or she has chosen. Judgment is not the way. Love and tolerance
will open the door to spiritual freedom.
FACING OUR GREATEST FEAR
Pain in the heart is the energy of love pushing against a blocked
emotion contained there. Forgiveness shakes our very foundation and
belief that we are the victim and we are righteous in our anger. This
belief pattern must go if we are to progress. Holding onto anger keeps
us on the path of self-destruction. Justifying our behavior is an
indication that we are out to convince others that we have a right to be
angry, and hatred of another soul is completely OK because of what they
did to us. Justification and self-elevation above others is the most
divisive and destructive path that the ego can take us on.
In the experience of resentment, we are pushed further from our light
than at any other time, because anger and hatred are the opposite of
love. The festering inner wound will never heal and allow us to move
forward until the door of forgiveness is reached. At this moment,
depending on the intensity of the experience, the strongest person can
cry and shiver like a frightened child deep in the experience of a
nightmare. At this time you see the wrongs you have done to yourself.
Yet in all of this, the gentle prompting from our own divinity never
really lets us forget who we are, it is the inner voice of sanity. This
voice is our link to the inner Light, to our conscience; the whispering
of our Soul; the comforting words of our God self; our true being; the
doorway through which enlightenment will come. Discard the shackles of
many lifetimes and embrace who you are. The fear perpetuated by the ego
needs to be faced and seen for the illusion that it is, that which robs
us of our spiritual life.
HONORING OUR MAGNIFICENCE
When we stand before the light of who we are and prepare to allow the
light to enter our darkness, the fear of accumulated lifetimes in our
cellular memory trembles in a way that defies any description. The pain
of release goes to the very core of our beings. Yet throughout all of
this, another energy stands close by, allowing but comforting, never
interfering, but strengthening us. The time is at hand to honor our true
magnificence. The light beckons us to come home. The lessons you have
chosen are refining and purifying you to accept your rightful place in
the universe.
MY EXPERIENCE OF FORGIVENESS
My father was an alcoholic from the time he was a very young man, and he
carried within him a lot of pain and anger. Unfortunately, he carried
that anger with him until his death at 86 years of age - a terribly long
time. The effect on children of alcoholic parents is well-known; rather
than regurgitate all the details, suffice it to say I had never forgiven
him.
On an intellectual level I had forgiven him, but in my heart I had not.
It seems a small point, but our minds tell us one thing, but in our
hearts we know better. During those early healing times, it became my
habit to stand and allow the spirit guides to work with my body,
teaching me how to tune into them and anticipate mentally and physically
what part of the body I should focus on next. All of this exercise was
done alone, and greatly helped open physical and mental channels for a
more efficient working partnership. These became my practice sessions.
After a clairvoyant friend had mentioned on numerous occasions that my
father was around me quite a lot, I became alerted once by the spirit
guides that he was here during a practice session. I felt this to be
unusual as he had passed over barely two years before. Why was he around
so much? My learning had taught me that he possibly should be being
helped on to another level, not be visiting the earth plane so soon.
With prompting from my guides I finally arrived at the conclusion that
he needed my forgiveness before moving on. This realization shocked me.
Had I been responsible for his staying back, earth bound? What happened
next will be with me forever.
The spirit guides brought him to me, and because my sense of psychic
touch had developed, I could feel his energy field moving closer to me.
I can never describe to you the emotional sensations that began to move
about inside me and then move to the surface. Refusing to be held in
check any longer, my emotional dam wall cracked and then flooded out,
demanding expression. Tears of release poured forth, so painful but so
sweet.
My arms were lifted from my side to embrace my father as I had never
done in my 54 years. My pain of withheld love expressed itself. The
sobbing slowly abated as did the pain in my throat as all the unsaid
words were released. To feel my father in my arms as he really is and
was moved me in such a way that I feel it was a gift of pure grace. To
have faith is one thing, to know and experience is another. At that
moment I knew death to be a fraud. Life is eternal.
Next I was asked to pray for my father. This I did with much passion and
love. During this prayer, my father was surrounded by a ball of golden
light. He was then sent into the light to begin his journey once more in
spirit. He had been released from the lower astral plane with love,
something he had needed from me all of his life...love.
All was not done yet. As my communication was rough to say the least,
this whole exercise had taken nearly two hours to get it right. Soon I
understood that I needed to pray for myself. The Guides were most
pleased that I understood this last request quickly.
My prayer for forgiveness was filled with the emotion still flowing from
the experience of my father. As I prayed I became lighter and lighter,
understanding that my burdens were being lifted. Our emotional burdens
will be taken piece by piece over time, and though this one was large
and heavy, it was leaving at once. The forgiveness that I had asked for
was for my dishonoring of myself. As a divine being we dishonor
ourselves with unforgiveness as much as the person we need to forgive.
The next day while driving to work, I realized that a knot in my stomach
that had accompanied me all of my life had gone. My thoughts turned to
my father. I felt a smile on my face and a feeling of love for him in my
heart for the first time. It was a warm love, with a depth of feeling I
had never felt before. How wonderful it is to know that it is never too
late to forgive. Knowing where he was made me feel warm inside. The fear
of death had been washed away. As I was to find out later in my healing
experiences, "Those who work in the light have no fear."
TRUE FORGIVENESS
Once true forgiveness is completed with one soul, it is done for every
soul. Forgiveness will reside in your heart from that day forward. When
this lesson is completed, we need not keep repeating something we now
understand totally. The lesson of forgiveness shows us that love is the
only experience we ever want in our hearts forever.
The stain on ourselves is so damaging when we do not practice
forgiveness that another awakening occurs through the realization of our
own incredibly thoughtless acts. As we see our ignorance, we see our
path to enlightenment. The horror of our actions repels us so much, we
seek forgiveness for ourselves. In this act of seeking, we see the need
to forgive others, no matter what they may have done. The freedom
forgiveness brings us is total.
TWO TYPES OF FORGIVENESS
There are two types of forgiveness, and the first one we try is the
intellectual path. The ego is in control here. We say with a grandiose
wave of the arm, "Oh I have forgiven them for that," making light of the
whole subject and busying ourselves in a big selling job on ourselves
and on the other person or persons we are speaking to.
The second path is through the heart where we become defenseless. Now
all of the emotional pain from the heart and body is released in the
most wonderful act of cleansing. This path takes courage and honesty
with yourself; every cell in your body holds the fear. It is powerful,
painful and wonderful all at once, an experience you will always
remember and cherish because you have just been reborn. You now have new
eyes through which to perceive the world. Strange but beautiful things
occur when you release through the heart, allow the fear to be there and
drop your ego's defenses. You CAN do it.
When you forgive, you do it with your whole being. You become as a child
again without defenses. Any form of defense will stop forgiveness. The
river of love that flows through us is the inner pathway.
We may or may not enlighten ourselves by standing on our heads in the
corner of the room, or by saying prayers continuously like a parrot, or
by focusing on an object for the purpose of stilling the mind or by any
spiritual practice that disciplines our bodies. When we forgive
ourselves and others, we have opened the floodgate so that the river of
life can flow through us and change our consciousness. While snippets of
resentment may arise, or anger may pop up, we immediately replace it
with love, fully realizing that we do not want to go on that path ever
again.
It is essential that all stains of unforgiveness are washed away. To
truly love another soul this must happen. If you have not forgiven your
Father or Mother, your ex partner or anyone that you perceive has
wronged you, then you can never fully experience love or give love fully
to another. Once the Creator's love flows through our hearts, the spring
cleaning begins, and it's not always a bed of roses.
Do not stress that you have not forgiven. As love changes your mind, it
is inevitable that forgiveness will come. True forgiveness comes in its
own time. When love opens the door, we constantly correct and refine our
behavior, gradually bringing ourselves to a state of love where fear
will not exist.
If you hold a strong desire to become the loving soul that you know you
are, it must happen.
