The Incarnation of Love – Adi Da Samraj

SRI DA AVABHASA: To be human is to love, to forgive, to concretely handle all business, to purify, to set oneself and all others free, to generate a circumstance for continued existence that is not time-bound so that you have time to invest yourself in timeless activities -meditative feeling – Contemplation of Me, Ishta Guru-Bhakti Yoga in the Way of the Heart.

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Never submit to hatred. This discipline is difficult, yes, it is always difficult. But it is your obligation. See what a wound life is. I Call you to forgiveness, love, acceptance of limitations. This is what love requires. This is what love does.

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Every individual is only seeking not to be destroyed.

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There are two forms of forgiveness, or two options, that you may choose in relation to anyone.

The greater option is to grant forgiveness in the form of great energy, love, regard, help, friendship, and upliftment. That is one option, and in certain relations and in certain moments it is an option you call upon yourself to exercise.

The other option, which is really the fundamental motive or force of forgiveness, is to ignore the offense, to forget about it, to not give attention to it. Perhaps the fundamental definition of forgiveness is to just forget or ignore the offense. Such forgetting has the force of forgiveness because it gives no negative energy.

You may be troubling yourself because you cannot forgive those who have negative feelings about you, in that you cannot love them and cannot just be happy about them. Perhaps in some moments every now and then you achieve such love, but you are struggling as if forgiveness and right relationship to these individuals means you must magnify radiant love toward them. You need not feel guilty because you cannot do that. If you can do it, fine-to do so is healing and the ultimate form of forgiveness. However, the form of forgiveness for which you are also responsible is forgetting, or ignoring, or non-attention.

Therefore, give no attention to those who want to harm you. Do not give them any attention, and you will therefore not give them any negative energy, you will not curse them. Forget about them. Put your attention somewhere else.

Just so with your own difficulties or the difficulties of others with whom you are intimate – if you cannot give radiant, loving, blessing energy, that is all right. It is simply not your moment for such energy. You can ignore them, however. You can forget about the offense, you can refrain from talking about it, you can be reticent, you can be silent, you can occupy yourself with your practice. You can do all those things, can you not? Then forget. That is forgiveness.

Forgiveness is to forget, to not make curses, to not hold others to account. You can always do that. Therefore, always do it. Then, in unique moments, grant great energy and attention, full of blessing and support and helpfulness. Do not feel guilty if you cannot. Do it when you are given the Grace to do it. But in all your moments forgive by ignoring and forgetting. Have nothing to do with the offense, and go about your own business.

To do this is not a curse, you see. In fact, it is the denial of curses. Therefore, at least forget. That you can do by meditating and by occupying yourself with service.

Do this practice in general and in relation to the most difficult moments of life. Do it with one another. Do not spend time in talking about your “case” or anyone else’s. You need not agitate yourself constantly with the difficulties of others. You have your own difficulties, anyway! You know the moments that are your charismatic moments of blessing and help and touching and laying on of hands. Those moments occur only at certain times, however. Most of the time the difficulties of others are their own business. Fail to curse them by forgetting them. Occupy yourself with Divine Communion and your own real practice. Do not pass on bad thoughts, which are effective curses. Just forget about it. That is forgiveness. To forget is to forget to curse. To ignore is forgiveness. It is the principal form of forgiveness, and you can be responsible for it.

You need not feel guilt because you cannot bless and love and radiate to everyone who lives or who curses you. Ignore their curses, ignore their faults, ignore their person, and occupy yourself with feeling-Contemplation of Me. Curse no one. Love them or forget them. Do not curse. You need not feel guilt, because you can always forget to curse. Simply put your attention somewhere else, and do not imagine that you are guilty because you have not magnified great blessing. Such blessing is virtue, but it is a special Grace for special moments. Do not curse.

All you need do to not curse is to forget about it and put your attention somewhere else: Contemplate Me. Go to the Communion Hall. Serve. Study. Overcome the thought. You can do that. You already know that you can do that, but do it rigorously, constantly, and be sensitive to those moments in which you can magnify great energy, great enthusiasm, great feeling. When the capability for giving special attention to someone arises, give it. Do not fail to do so. You will not be able to help yourself in any case, so magnify your feelings in those moments. To do that is not forgiveness – it is blessing. Forgiveness is to forget about it and to go about your business.

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Particularly as Westerners, you are habituated to a kind of conventional ritual of forgiveness, a kind of institutionalized forgiveness, not only as it may appear in certain religious societies, but in the context of ordinary living, where you play a similar forgiveness game – the only real effort you have to generate is to get up the nerve, the courage, the energy, to ask for forgiveness. And, having done that, then, forgiveness is supposed to be automatic so that you will be able to presume it. There may be somebody there, functioning as a priest or whatever, who says, “Now that you have asked for forgiveness, you are totally forgiven.” And then you need not be concerned about it anymore. Or, perhaps, five or ten minutes of a religious ritual is sufficient for forgiveness.

But that is not how it works in general and for real. Of course, sometimes forgiveness is believed, accepted, and becomes effective suddenly, easily. But basically forgiveness is a process. It is an aspect of sadhana. You must know in yourself what you will have to do before you will even accept forgiveness from someone, from anyone at all, from Me.

Forgiveness requires not merely that you exhibit the courage or the good manners to ask for it, but that you discipline yourself, endure the tapas of purification, and repair the wrong and the one or ones you have wronged. It is not that you can merely do some physical thing or other and feel forgiven now because you have given somebody something and he or she should be satisfied. You cannot get away with that, either. You must endure the process of purification and reparation, or restoration. You will not even really accept forgiveness if you do not do this. Not really. Not deeply. Not in a fashion that changes your life and your disposition. To do wrong is to live wrong. To undo wrong, to be forgiven, you must change your way of life.

In principle, forgiveness is constant. My Forgiveness is already Given. But if it is to be effective, if you are to receive it, if the process is to be complete, you must do the sadhana. You must integrate yourself with forgiveness. You must commit your life, your body-mind, to the process. And that is where the fault is-in the body-mind.

Sometimes, in some kinds of moments, forgiveness can be received quite suddenly. Such forgiveness is a Grace of a sudden kind. Relative to all else, relative to that life for which you need to be forgiven, you must do the sadhana.

Your history of betrayal, of abuse, of exploitation of Me or of others is not going to be vanished because you say you are sorry, or ask for forgiveness. You cannot presume that you are forgiven at the other end without reparation.

Such asking for forgiveness is just a formality. It is not real. There is no change of life, no reparation, no restoration, no right relationship to Me or to others you may have wronged, no real dependence for the forgiveness of the one you have wronged. It is just something you feel you can presume on your own. You think you do not have to change anything. You think you can do anything whatsoever, simply say you are sorry, and that means it is all right not to deal with it anymore.

Such is the popular ritual of forgiveness. It is not real, whether done in the religious manner or in an ordinary social manner. That is not how forgiveness really works.

Something like this also appears in the context of intimate relationship where, apart from the casual “I love you” statements people may make, they rarely say “I love you” to one another with any kind of seriousness. People even feel in themselves reluctance to say it to someone with whom they would be intimate. Very often intimates chide one another about this, “Why don’t you say the words?” You probably have said it yourself in some ridiculous moment or other.

Of course, there are perhaps some superficial aspects of intimate relationships that may prevent this kind of communication, either through words or through some sort of feeling, but a level of it is also very much the same as this matter of forgiveness. People think they can say “I love you” to someone, and it covers everything, and it is totally believable, totally real. Whereas you must live love. It is not romantic.

Part of the reluctance to say “I love you”, aside from the negative reasons for not saying so, has to do with the fact that love is much more profound than this kind of saying. To say it reduces it to something banal, to reduce it to romance, to reduce it to some superficial communication.

Well, then-know something about forgiveness. Forgiveness is like love. It is love. To expect it to come about and be real simply because you say some words, or make almost any kind of gesture in the moment, is to ritualize it. You must live out the process wherein things are purified. You must live out the process wherein love is really experienced, believed, accepted, lived in relationship. You must do this in intimacies and friendships. Above all you must do this with Me.

And what have you done in your relationship to Me, that qualifies it as real love? You have been willing to go to your ritual occasions and say it in one way or another. You tell one another that you love Me and that you are My devotee. Yet look at what you do, at what you have done. Look at your reluctance. Such refusal is not purified by a statement, by a letter, by a report, by an apology.

An “I love you” does not do it. An “I love you”, or a “forgive me”, can be felt as a kind of mockery, because it does not touch it. The matter is very profound.

Something must be done. You must change your way of life. You must become real. You must really be My devotee.