2002-03-13-Layers of Forgiveness

Session

Lesson

Forgiveness has layers to it. There's the first layer where you say, "I forgive you", or you try to forgive. You make a conscious effort, but you find that this is only the beginning. Acts of forgiveness eventually engulf the entire spirit, the entire soul, and there are many layers of forgiveness within each person.

Often when you have trouble forgiving someone, this is not just about that person or that one incident; it is a whole layer within your psyche and there is often a root cause, deep in childhood. Sometimes it is something that your parents could not forgive of you. Other times it is something that you could not forgive of your parents. This lack of forgiveness within you remains until something else comes along which bothers you out of proportion and you find it difficult to simply forgive that person and move on because you are linking the two events or two situations unconsciously.

The deepest levels are times when you were not loved or could not love and you unconsciously cannot forgive that lack, either within yourself or the lack of love from another. Parents are not usually able to give complete and perfect love to their children. There is usually some level of deep criticism or resentment that forms. This is a form of non-forgiveness like a stain that stays within you throughout your life. When someone accidentally uncovers that stain, it reawakens those old feelings.

Now how do you get through that? How do you get through those deep levels? We have spoken of forgiveness and forgiving, time after time, but often that is a surface forgiveness and that interior resentment or uneasiness remains. When that is the case, it is because your inability to forgive completely goes very deep.

Children are born expecting God to be immediately available. You are all born with the expectation of total love, total acceptance, absolute benevolence in the world. As soon as you came up against lack of benevolence, lack of total consideration for your needs, you unconsciously resent God. You were born with perfect expectations and plunged into a world of imperfection. Even though it is not expressed in words, your early thinking process is, “How can He?” meaning God, “let this happen to me?” So, your resentments, at the very deepest level, aren't even toward your parents or toward your siblings or something. It is actually, toward that being closest to you, the Father, the Spirit of God who lives within you. “If God is fair and all knowing and all loving, then why did he allow me to be hurt?” The answer to this lies deep within the Father's wisdom; but in the child's mind, there is a feeling that he or she is being rejected by the universe, that is, rejected by God. So the child cannot forgive himself for being defective.

These are the layers which take years and years to touch upon. It is not something you can experience overnight. Simply by virtue of being born in an imperfect world, and experiencing the imperfection of God's love as it is filtered through other beings, you instinctively doubt yourself. Instead of staying there in that world of confusion and self-doubt, your resentment is turned outward. There are people in everyone's past whom you cannot fully and completely forgive. Even when you think you have forgiven, and you think you have reached new levels of spirituality and forgiveness, something will come along to trigger those old feelings again, and you will find that you are not as far along as you thought.

You know that the struggle for forgiveness is between yourself and God. The Father, on his side, is complete forgiveness. He knows nothing else. On your side, there is a bit of a struggle because forgiveness is all wound up in forgiving yourself, your parents, the person who just brought this all up, and maybe a whole string of people in your past. I say to you, make it simple, trace it back. “I am having trouble forgiving this person because he reminds me of my father who treated me this way and I felt worthless and couldn't forgive myself for not eliciting his love, and I've carried a resentment toward God.” When you're having trouble forgiving someone, you're having trouble forgiving that part of yourself that needs God's love, and there is some kind of shame or guilt associated with that part of God's love.

So what are we forgiving? We're forgiving ourselves for being children. You are forgiving yourself for having need of love. If you really tap that root feeling, forgiveness will rush over you and you will find love for yourself and that other person. Humans often make the mistake of making things too complex. It is easy for intelligent minds to over complicate something very simple. I say to you, in all matters, find the simplest way, the simplest and the most direct way to the Father. Ask for his help. Let him show you the reality of your own innocence. Accept his love into your hearts without any reservation, without anything which says, "I don't really deserve it.” You will be practicing this all your lives because in these layers, there will be a layer underneath that is not quite ready to open yet, and you must forgive yourselves for this as well.

Don't be ashamed of being a human being. You were all born into difficult circumstances. No one escapes the hard lessons of life. The wisest among you use these hard lessons to grow closer and closer to the Father of all. Always, this will involve going deep within, for the Father wants your whole heart. He wants your love to be as complete for him as his love is complete for you.

Dialogue

Q : If our feelings get hurt when we interact with others, is this an indication of incomplete forgiveness?

Yes, yes, exactly so. Feelings being hurt, or unreasonable anger, anything like that.

Q : I always thought when something like that happens I am seeing something in the other person that I dislike in myself and it causes this anger. Is that an over simplification?

No, it is similar to what we are speaking of, but allow yourself to take it a little deeper. If you are seeing something in another that you have found unforgivable in yourself, then it will lead back to those earlier experiences that we spoke of.

Q : Then part of our task is to forgive God. That is so vast in its implications the idea that we cannot fully love God until we love God - does God ask us for forgiveness?

God asks for complete love and if in getting that complete love, there is an element of forgiveness that must be gone through, then, yes, you could say that he asks for forgiveness. When you are forgiving God, you are forgiving yourself.

Q : For that great self-centeredness?

Yes, very much so. Having the realization that you have resentments toward God, and then feelings of guilt and confusion over having these feelings of resentment. This is very primal psychological territory.

Q : And the solution is to become as a little child

Yes, to forgive your self in being a child.

Q : But part of this is that God did put us in a shit hole, and I want to investigate that a little more. I think that a lot of people are angry with God, and I just got in touch with my anger. What helps us forgive God?

The child always feels anger and resentment over the Father's lessons. There is no one who thinks that his or her life lessons have been too easy. Everyone is somehow forced up against the limits of their abilities and endurance. It is easy to say, “God's plan is a mystery and one day we will understand.” It is quite another thing to actually understand that. If you did, you would be God, not His son or daughter. The creature always wants to be the creator. The child wants to be the Father. That is a part of immaturity, the process of growing up. With maturity comes wisdom. With wisdom, comes acceptance. With acceptance comes love. But these things are not achieved overnight. I would not be out of place to say that they will not be fully achieved until Paradise. So between here and Paradise, is a long, slow laborious, frustrating process of gradual spiritual growth. The child says, "If I were my Dad, I would let me have chocolate all day!" but the Father in his wisdom, removes the chocolate, and replaces it with brussel sprouts. The child is naturally resentful, but when you step back and see the bigger picture, the child really has no reason to be resentful, and should be thankful instead. Is this helping your understanding at all?

Q : Yes, so it's like you have to take the chocolate with the brussel sprouts.

You have to accept that selfishness and self-centeredness are the natural state of being a child.

Q : When we pass out of this life, we are taught that the next one is better. Is it safe to say that it's so much better? Do the challenges lessen on the way to Paradise?

Well, it is somewhat of a paradox, because it would seem that the immediate next life is much less stressful, less intense. The challenges are ever greater as you progress, but the time element is much more elastic. I would think that the lives you are undergoing now are probably the most short and intense time you will spend in the universe. It's like the challenges are red hot, whereas, as you progress, the challenges may be just as great or greater, but it is much cooler and less pressured. I hope this helps explain.

Q : Do things in this life happen for a reason? Do we ever have a sign that we are on the right path?

There is no wrong path. All paths are unique. Your path is yours. There is not a sense of going in the right or wrong direction, necessarily, so long as you are going in a general way toward increasing spiritual understanding. That being said, the Father's spirit that lives within you has a unique plan for you. This plan will allow the greatest self-realization for you in this life. It is your free-will choice to accept or reject any part or whole of any plan that He provides. The Father adjusts to you. Your will is supreme. Your decisions allow Him to create new opportunities. In other words, He is always with you, and on the side that will be the very best for your spiritual growth. This usually never means an easy life, but a life full of adventure and challenge. Is this helping your understanding? Q : The story of Job would be the ultimate example of what we speak. It is a book that has been a conundrum for me. Job forgives God for everything that God hurls at him.

Well, this story portrays God as delighting in the torment of his son. That is never the attitude of the Father.

Q : But perhaps it is the perception of the child in Job?

Yes. This is exactly so. Having true faith requires a lot of courage. It is easy to have faith when there is nothing testing that faith. But when tests come, it takes courage to hang on to the faith you have cultivated.

Understand that everyone has an innate hunger and deep thirst for things of the spirit. Sometimes that hunger and thirst is directed into other areas, but it remains and always is a driving force leading each person to the Father.

The searching is never a failure, it is simply a process of spiritual growth. Life does not exist without growth. Everything living is also growing is some way. Have awareness that you are growing toward God and all searching and restlessness has been simply an outworking of that growth.

Know that you are a beloved son or daughter of God, Who reaches toward you and longs to cradle you within His everlasting arms and to bestow upon you true peace in His love. When you find a way to surrender to his arms, like the prodigal son, then you will find that peace which passes all understanding.

Realize that there is a time for everything. Accept periods of relaxation as you accept periods of activity. Know that these things are part of the Father's will and be at peace.

Take time to really be with yourself. Talk to the Father and express to Him all your feelings and frustrations. Talk to Him as you would talk to a close friend, one who completely understands. Really begin to experience a relationship with the Father, not as a hypothetical, but as a person. He who created personality can not be less than personal. Open yourself up to Him. Begin this personal journey and I would predict or imagine that your other personal relationships will be aided.

Reaching out to forgive, however you do it, is a gesture that comes from within and only from within. Anything else is either obedience or the practice of "as if" in order to learn. There is nothing wrong with the practice of “as if.” Imitation is one of the ways to learn. And often it is by repeated imitation that one is lead to discover the “real thing,” the truth that it is better to give than to receive, it is better to forgive than to not forgive, it is more joyful to love than not to love.

Do not criticize your inability to immediately forgive, or even your inability to forgive over a longer period of time. The essential thing is to focus on learning how to love, which will lead you to how to forgive. Have patience with yourselves. Forgiveness is a complicated matter. It has an effect on the person doing the forgiving, as well as the person being forgiven. To feel the potential reality of forgiving someone, is disorienting sometimes. It raises your fear, “Will I be the fool to forgive such an unacceptable recipient of my love?” Stated that way, is not the answer simple? Not one of you is an unacceptable recipient of God’s love. Everyone is worthy of forgiveness. It is the intention that you must polish. If you can not make the gesture of forgiveness, you can contemplate the intention to make that gesture. Each time you contemplate your intention to forgive, you will see more deeply into the ways of love, and learn new pathways for expressing love.

Closing

It is not the speed with which you forgive others, but your sincerity that will change your world. There are so many components to the act of forgiveness: your true state of being and acceptance, the other’s true state of being and acceptance, and the true state of being and acceptance of those that interact with you and the other. Forgiveness begins with the intention to forgive, but this must be true, for only then does the full power of love weigh in on the situation. Your forgiveness can mend a conflict, but it can not mend “as if.” Without forgiveness in the heart, your gestures will only look good and have no effect. No one is keeping score. It is a practice to be the first to forgive, but it is equally a practice to learn how to receive forgiveness, how to accept and take in the love that comes with being forgiven. The swinging door of love does not discriminate between first and last, it is open to all.