The spiritual practice of forgiveness is the great secret of happiness ever after. But there's a catch. The spiritual version of forgiveness has nothing whatsoever to do with the social version of forgiveness that we all know and practice.
There's a difference between the more familiar social version of forgiveness and the less familiar spiritual version of forgiveness. This is because the purpose of the social version of forgiveness is to assign or accept blame, whereas the purpose of the spiritual version of forgiveness is to undo the hate you have in your mind for self or another. As you can see, these two versions of forgiveness are not the same. One enables you to feel good, and the other makes you feel bad.
The social practice of forgiveness leaves you feeling bad because it does not undo hate. Many times it makes hate stronger. Therefore, it does nothing truly useful and it has nothing to do with real forgiveness. The undoing of hate in the mind is very important because it's the key to happiness beyond your wildest expectations. Therefore, the little known and underutilized practice of spiritual forgiveness is one of the great secrets of life. Keep that in mind as you reconsider six of the biggest, fattest lies about the social version of forgiveness.
Lie 1: Saying the words "I forgive you" or "I apologize" is an act of forgiveness. This is the biggest fattest lie of all. It's true that saying the words "I forgive you" or "I apologize" is a popular social convention for dealing with mistakes. But saying or hearing these words does not necessarily end the hate in our own mind or the hate that someone holds against you. In fact, saying these words has the opposite effect of making the mistake more real and more serious rather than minimizing it. Do you remember when Tanya Harding publically apologized to Nancy Kerrigan for having Nancy's knee whacked just before the winter olympics in 1994? Even though Tanya said the right words and appeared to be sincere, the words did nothing to change Nancy's mind. It most likely had the opposite effect of keeping the grudge alive rather than undoing it.
This is not to suggest that you never say "I'm sorry" or "excuse me for making a mistake." Rather, it's to ask you to become more conscious of why you are saying the words and what you are really doing. When you give an apology or demand one from someone else, you are not choosing to see goodness in self or another. Instead you are choosing to see the worst. And you get what you see. Always. Is the worst what you really want, dear reader? The spiritual practice of forgiveness develops your spiritual vision, which is the ability to see self or other at the highest possible level.
Lie 2: Forgiveness takes a long time and may involve many steps. This is another popular social concept which is untrue. Many social and psychologically-oriented forgiveness practices involve several steps, stages, or degrees of forgiveness. First you think some more about the way you've been mistreaded. Maybe you write down all the injustices. Then you get ready to forgive. Then you do this. Then you do that. Then maybe you talk to a coulselor about how badly you've been injured. Then you do something else. Yes, you can engage in this kind of angst and turmoil for as long as you want. And there's an advantage to it because it fulfills your ego-based need for attention from others. But try to remember that this need does not make you happy, and it is happiness you want. So ultimately there is no benefit. Wallowing in misery and delaying joy does nothing but waste time.
Spiritual forgiveness is not hard, time-consuming, complicated or mysterious. It begins with the awareness of hate in your mind and ends with the tiny willingness to give it up. You practice forgiveness the very moment you change your mind about yourself or another being wrong or bad. So here is the question to ask yourself, dear reader. How long does it take to change your mind? Not even a second.
Lie 3: Forgiveness only needs to be done once. In the social version of forgiveness, you say the words "I'm sorry" or "forgive me" once, and typically the deed is done. However, this doesn't really work becuase the human mind is disorganized and untrained. Thoughts of badness or wrongness relentlessly keep coming back again and again. Because the mind is so unruly, it's critical to approach forgiveness as a form of spiritual fitness, something you do for yourself on an ongoing basis, rather than a one-time event. Developing spiritual fitness is the same as developing physical fitness. You cannot expect to grow a big, beautiful bicep muscle by doing one repetition of a bicep curl. Likewise, you cannot expect to develop a mind that's free of hate by engaging in one small act of forgiveness.
Here's how it works: A loveless thought about self or another enters your mind, and you notice it. Now you have a choice. It's always the same choice. You can keep the thought and indulge it, or you can change your mind and thereby undo (or transcend) the loveless thought. The loveless thought gets undone over and over, every time it presents itself, maybe several times a day. You just keep at it, like a diet. Eventually the thought is dismantled because there is no investment of fresh energy to keep it going.
Lie 4: Forgiveness is painful. Well, it is true that the social version of forgiveness can be very painful because it always involves assigning ownership for a mistake or admitting ownership for a mistake. Ugh! Of course that hurts! No wonder forgiveness has such a bad name! However, the spiritual version of forgiveness is not painful at all because it is the complete overlooking of blame. Therefore, real forgiveness results in joy, not pain.
Lie 5: Forgiveness means that you accept or condone certain acts and behaviors as okay. Forgiveness is not the overlooking of a problem. It's the overlooking of the blame and the judgment of badness or wrongness that typically accompanies the problem. If, for example, your house is on fire, you can't overlook the problem and pretend that nothing's happening. You have to solve the problem at hand, put the fire out, tend to processing insurance claims and salvaging your belongings. Your mission is simply to solve your problems and make life more functional without the dose of attack, guilt, or blame that usually goes along with it.
In our world, love (or special attention) is given or withheld based on the performance or non performance of certain desirable behaviors. But if you give or withdraw your love based on what people do or don't do for you, then your love is completely and totally conditional. What you're offering is actually a bargain -- not love. Real love is unconditional and unshakeable. While it is more pleasing to have people in the world behave the way you want them to behave and value what you want them to value, love is not dependent on the behavior or value system of others. Love is dependent on your decision to be a loving being and that is all.
Lie 6: Forgiveness corrects errors. The social practice of forgiveness often includes the provision that someone else must correct an offensive or inappropriate behavior. As you can by now see, this is yet another condition on love. Therefore, it cannot be love and must be hate. Since forgiveness is the undoing of hate, correction of another cannot be a form of forgiveness. Correction of another is God's job, not ours. Our job is to accept our brothers and sisters "as they are." The hardest thing we are asked to do on the spiritual path is to witness a behavioral mistake in another without judgment or correction. Can you do it? Of course you can. A more important question is will yo do it? Will you refuse to be shaken by the insanity of another? This is the test of peace you are asked to pass.
We so want the people in our world to conform to our morally correct and uplifted standards, so it is always a challenge to remember that this is our fantasy about how the world "should" be. This fantasy is the subtle way in which we all "dream" or "sleep." Because of this, spiritual forgiveness is a gentle way of awakening. Many of us give good lip service to wanting to awaken from our dreams and become enlightened, but the bottom line is always the same. What we really want is for our brothers and sisters to awaken so that we don't have to do the work of being a loving being in the face of constant lovelessness.
This article is adapted from THE BOOK OF LOVE (ISBN 0966696735).
About the Author
Karen Bentley is a dynamic woman with a passionate mission. Her goal is to revolutionize the way that people think about love. She is the creator of the acclaimed Big Heart Books and companion lecture series, including 10 Radiant Ideas, The Book of Love, and The Power to Stop. Bentley is also the founder of Heart Mania, a set of activities open to the general public that celebrate unconditional love. In 2003 Bentley launched www.spiritualreviewer.com, the only website on the planet exclusively dedicated to reviewing books about love from an uncompromisingly spiritual perspective.