Awareness around forgiveness is for me a part of a healthy life. Today when I was studying some of my course material with Dr. Gabor Maté, I felt sharing some of the content could be maybe supportive or helpful for some of you as well.
I resonated with the material, so here check...
What about forgiveness?
As soon as you put pressure on yourself "I should do something", you are on the wrong track.
Just to make clear, I´m not saying you or I should forgive.
I just share to make forgiveness as a subject of inquiry.
"What is in the way of forgiveness?"
Forgiveness is not truly for the sake of the other person. Forgiveness is for your own sake.
What are you feel when you're wrestling with resentment and anger and rage towards somebody? How does that occur in you?
Usually it make us feel constricted and it takes away our freedom, when we feel anger or resentment towards another person/politics etc.
"I am this way because you did such and such", "I have to suffer because that and that happened...." then you are not in a state of being able to forgive.
If you recognize that being in that state actually constricts you, takes away from your freedom, undermines your relationships, leaves you more isolated, then you may consider: "What is in the way of my forgiveness?"
What does it actually mean to forgive?
The Latin word was perdone, "done" means "to give" and "per" is "for".
Dr Gabor Maté says it means in this case: I give up the right to punish, "for" means thoroughly, completely.
"I completely give up the right to punish, to hold it against you".
That is what you are doing when you are forgiving.
One of the reasons why we can forgive, I want to present here, so you can inquiry about it. I find it quite interesting.
If you completely understand that the other person did what they did because they were unconscious.
That is like Jesus on the cross saying, forgive them Father for they don't know what they do. They don't really know what they are doing. They are being driven by their own demons, by their own unresolved trauma, by their own fear, by their own dysfunctions.
I am not advocating that you should take on that attitude, because it is not a should. I am just saying what is AVAILABLE for us.
This level of forgiveness is when you understand that the other was unconscious, they don´t know what they are really doing. They are not deeply aware about their actions. We need to check as well on our Ego, it is not about who knows better ;-)
Eckhart Tolle says, “If they are unconscious, how can we talk about responsibility?“
How can we talk about freedom when you are not conscious? We say we live in a free society. The hell we do!
Really??
Most people in this society, including most of the leaders, are completely unconscious. They are not even conscious that they are unconscious.
This is our widespread problem!! It makes me personally often feel helpless, what makes me angry and feeling frustrated.
What kind of free society do we have, when it is based on manipulating people's unconsciousness? Most of advertising, business and politics are based on manipulating people's unconsciousness by other unconscious people.
That is the free society that we live in.
People live in their programs, they are on autopilot, they are driven by a survival ego, they do what they learnt to do... and they don´t know better.
Same of course for myself!! How often do I do things because I just don´t know better!! Luckily I have people around me, who can mirror me, so I can learn. And I want to learn.....and I´m grateful for my wise brave friends who give me reflections and honest interactions.
There is no freedom without consciousness.
That´s why many of us do the WORK.
When you imagine really to get conscious like Buddha or Jesus, and see that people are just not free, how can you hold it against them?
That is one level of forgiveness.
Can we explore that together? Can we reflect and support each other?
What do you think?? What do you feel about it??
Note:
Some of the phrases I copied from Dr. Gabor Maté.