FORGIVENESS TO ONESELF

[Magnolia]

I read once that "To forgive is to give up blaming." This involves de-personalizing a grievance -- separating the person who caused harm from their ignorant or arrogant ideas and behaviors. It also involves asking “Why did he do that” instead of “Why did he do that TO ME?” When personhood is erased (both Self and Other) grievances fizzle. When grievances fizzle, objectivity enters. When objectivity enters, peace descends. When peace descends, truth creeps in.

This has been helpful to me. I am however very saddened by my ignorance and shallowness at allowing untoward things to happen, especially where other people’s lives were affected. Ok, “I did my best” at that time – but it was tragically insufficient. Too often “my best” was a material or physical intervention when spiritual understanding, prayer, compassion and love were actually needed. My sadness at my failure might be considered a lack of forgiveness for myself, but I consider it righteous judgment – seeing culpability in myself as well as others, but not getting all emotional about it or identifying with it.

Yesterday, I reviewed the events that resulted in two separate disasters in my life: one where I watched others’ lives being destroyed, and one where I was myself was led down a self-limiting and life-altering path. The meaning of the events involving others’ lives is still a mystery to me. But the event regarding my own life was apparently “safer” for me to process, so the answer “just came to me.” Oddly, it was revealed to me that my SELF was the impetus for the disaster -- after spending years resenting (blaming) someone for leading me down this dreary path. Oh dear. This awareness of my own culpability made me laugh till tears poured from my eyes, and I could hardly stop laughing.

It's a long story, but the something “that happened to me” and brought me to where I am today was ostensibly an unfulfillable promise by someone, but in fact it was enactment of the Temptations of Christ in my life: “Heh Honey, Just do this and look! You’ll get that as your reward!” My temptation wasn't about leaping off a mountain or turning stones into bread, but it was temptation nonetheless -- to materialism, worldly thinking, and relying on others rather than God/Divine Cosmic Mind. After avoiding innumerable corruptible influences much of my life, I became the “mark” and was “had.” I was tempted and I fell for it. I involuntarily invited this disaster into my life by secretly harboring (unbeknownst to me even) an impediment in my character, a chink in my armor, an invalid desire, a self-centered twinkle in my eye, a wishful thought, a stain on my soul. Call it what you want. Adam and Eve are alive and well and still kicking, playing a major role in the formula of my own little screenplay – Temptation, Wishful Thinking, The Fall. Well, it’s hard to blame someone else for that.

“And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.” Temptation roams the world like a dark cloud, looking for a likely candidate to settle on. And there I was. A likely candidate. And the cloud settled on me, and the cloud settled in me, and the cloud now drove my life. If it weren't so funny, I’d have to crawl into a hole and die of despair.

The Tao (79) states:
Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
There is no end to the blame.
Therefore the Master
Fulfills her own obligations
And corrects her own mistakes
She does what she needs to do
And demands nothing of others.

The meaning of the other major disaster in my life hasn’t"come to me" yet, but I bet that one will be a doozey too. I don’t mean to imply that my experience reflects anyone else’s experience. Like the leaves of the tree, we are each unique and we all have our own paths. This is just an awareness of my own situation. And, in my experience, tears and laughter often accompany a truth, so I am willing to accept this as an answer -- at least for now. Being aware of my own unwelcome contribution to my fate is preferable to being in an interminable state of perplexity about “why did this happen to me?” Better to know, I figure. And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

 

[Alma.Innovadora]

“Why did he do that” instead of “Why did he do that TO ME?”

That's the angle in which I try to approach it, but many more things came out that I didn't know. Meditating on all this that I read, something internally the only thing that knows how to tell me more firmly than before "Make peace with, you are ready, just do not let your ego do the same stupidity that you knew you should not do, you knew what would happen, you KNEW IT! you already experienced it, apply it now, without condemnation. Besides, you asked for it. If that person's emotional and behavioral patterns come back, take responsibility for you and then definitely walk away." I don't think I said it, but that started from a poorly worded wish I asked for, but yes, as much as ego gets in the way it was what I needed just as I asked for it.

So I'm going to put on my best oil and subject myself to the fire again and see if I can find the essence of that lesson I feel is missing. I will become a bacon...

 

[Alejo]

This discussion reminded me of a few things that I have read in the past, first was the C's when they said that "guild is a covert ego thing".. that is, guilt, one that extends beyond what's prudent, is placing oneself at the center of someone else's life as if one was crucial in their existence, and is a great way to avoid forgiving oneself, or put another way, becoming responsible for one's actions and choices.

I recently picked up Spirit Releasement Therapy from William Baldwin, and he had something to say about it as well:

However, these self-deceiving mechanisms have a major personal cost: they deny one's self-responsibility, especially responsibility for one's own motives, intentions, emotions, desires, behavior and actions. This avoidance of responsibility leads to the further self- deception of falsely blaming others for one's own misfortunes and assuming false guilt for the suffering of others. The ego is proficient at denying its own failings and inferiorities, suppressing these rejected aspects in the unconscious mind and thus denying them expression. However, this darker side, termed "the shadow," does find an avenue of expression, particularly in projections (Singer, 1973, pp. 209-228). Projection of the shadow onto another person or group of people often leads to prejudice, conflict and violence. This is one function of the ego which distorts the purpose of the reincarnation cycle as a process of spiritual evolution.

[...]

Responsibility begins with the willingness to acknowledge oneself as cause in any situation. This precludes blame, shame, guilt, resentment and remorse. It is always false, in a larger sense, to blame another person for one's own troubles or to feel guilt over perceived self-blame. Misperceptions and misinterpretations of human interactions lead to false decisions, assumptions, conclusions and judgments.

Now, he's discussing it in terms of the mindset and spiritual energies that are generated with the self flagellation that is generated by focusing for way longer than healthy on guilt, which can cause trouble in the SRT field. But the principle is brilliant even if it's not considered from a spirit attachment context.

I think that forgiving oneself for wrongs perpetrated against someone else should be a careful exercise, it should be almost undertaken as a study of history, reading and studying the events in their own historical context, which implies knowing that the person that made those choices isn't the one looking back at them. For instance, 30 year old me, would probably feel ashamed for some of the decisions taken by 17 year old me, I shouldn't deny those choices, nor their impact on myself or others, nor my capacity for behaving in such a way, that is taking responsibility, not justifying it, but not being terrified by it, more like.. being at peace with those aspects of myself.

BUT I should not overburden that past self with malice as if it were the 30 year old me making the choices.

Now, there's something else that applies in this discussion perhaps, and that is the aim one has, I think forgiveness of one's actions are also related directly to not only the past and becoming responsible, but also to the future and the person one chooses to become. What I mean is, using the same example above, the choices made by 17 year old me were mistakes, for several reasons, but also because they do not agree with the person that 30 year old me chooses to become, if that makes any sense.

There's a particular context to everyone, some people might consider a decision a mistake and someone else won't, and that is determined by the person they wish to become. Lying or having lied to oneself or someone else, might be a mistake if one is aiming to become an honest man, but if one isn't, if one were focused on satisfaction or physical gain, then lying might be justified. Does that make sense?

So, in summary, I think the path to forgiveness of the self, begins at taking responsibility for one's actions, achieving peace with the aspects of oneself that may be troublesome in the context of who one wishes to become. And following this, the way to make amends might not be strictly directed at the one wronged, it could be directed at the universe, and one could live one's apology going forward.