CHAPTER 19 Forgive 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. * * * 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. * * * Every individual is only seeking not to be destroyed. * * * 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. * * * 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. * * *
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