Eaton Satsang
Forgiveness
Holding onto resentment, blame, or shame is an obstacle to the awakening of our true nature.
In our everyday lives, we judge and label some of our past actions and tendencies as negative, bad, or undesirable. These judgments bring about feelings of shame and blame that can haunt us for years and we suffer. We rarely consider the idea of self-forgiveness
Forgiveness is a self-healing process that begins with you and gradually extends to everyone else.
The path to self-forgiveness can begin by recognizing the voices of the internal judge, the superego. Those voices, the product of conditioned beliefs, are reminding us of ideas of shame, blame and regret about ourselves, and we apply the same judgments about others and carry resentment. These are almost always about rules and standards that we learned from others, not from our own direct experience.
Recognizing that our actions have been based on learned beliefs can provide us the opportunity to acknowledge that the behavior of others is also the result of influences of which most people have no awareness. It becomes obvious that everyday behavior is predominantly a product of one’s genetic structure and conscious or unconscious conditioning and the actions of most of us are automatic and reactive. My experience is that in noticing the automatic and choiceness behavior of this mind/body, and those of others, the question of forgiveness became moot. It makes clear the words of Jesus upon the cross saying “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”.
Forgiveness is unlocking the door to set someone free and realizing you were the prisoner!
Thus, forgiveness isn’t something that one chooses to do, rather it becomes an attitude or understanding from which the question of forgiveness never arises, but is often replaced with compassion and you become liberated from the past.
Quotes
Unconditional forgiving!
If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace. The ego doesn't like to hear this, because if it cannot be reactive and righteous anymore, it will lose strength.
~ Eckhart Tolle
To understand everything is to forgive everything.
~ Gautama Buddha
Self-criticism perpetuates the personal "I". Both forgiveness and acceptance lead to the same softening of the personal "I". Bring the idea: "Just accept it as it is," in whatever you can. Flow with what happens and forgive as you go.
~ Jac O'Keeffe
Compassion naturally gives rise to tolerance and forgiveness. It allows us to appreciate that even someone we think of as an enemy is a human being with a right to be happy. This is one of the reasons why it’s said that your enemy can be your best teacher. He or she teaches the possibility of unconditional compassion.
~ Dalai Lama
Forgiveness holds the possibility for expanding our capacity to love. There is only one reason to forgive. If we want to be free, if we want to live as the full and unlimited expression of ourselves, if we want our hearts to open to ourselves and everyone else, then we are being invited to put an end to all stories that keep us closed and contracted.
~ Gail Brenner
Our past is a story existing only in our minds. Look, analyze, understand, and forgive. Then, as quickly as possible, chuck it.
~ Marianne Williamson
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
~ Mark Twain
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
~ William Shakespeare
In the autumn I gathered all my sorrows and buried them in my garden. And when April returned and spring came to wed the earth, there grew in my garden beautiful flowers unlike all other flowers. And my neighbors came to behold them, and they all said to me, "When autumn comes again, at seeding time, will you not give us of the seeds of these flowers that we may have them in our gardens?"
~ Khalil Gibran
You never hear of a mother cursing the child; she is forgiving, always forgiving.
~ Swami Vivekananda
Too often, our minds are so burdened because of the mistakes we have made that we do not take the time to forgive ourselves and others and start over again.
~ Ernest Holmes
What we don't recognize is that holding onto resentment is like holding onto your breath. You'll soon start to suffocate.
~ Deepak Chopra
Weigh the true advantages of forgiveness and resentment to the heart. Then choose.
~ Jack Kornfield
Einstein's E=mc2 is an extraordinary concept. So radical: matter and energy are two phases of the same sort of general stuff. There's only one other idea that radical: Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
~ Kurt Vonnegut
My life is like shattered glass." said the visitor. "My soul is tainted with evil. Is there any hope for me? "Yes," said the Master. "There is something whereby each broken thing is bound again and every stain made clean." "What?" "Forgiveness" "Whom do I forgive?" "Everyone: Life, God, your neighbor especially yourself." "How is that done?" "By understanding that no one is to blame," said the Master. "NO ONE.
~ Anthony de Mello
Love manifests towards those whom we like as love;
towards those whom we do not like as forgiveness.
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
Forgiveness is not a moral issue.
It is an energy dynamic...
Forgiveness means that you do not carry the baggage of an experience.
When you choose not to forgive,
the experience that you do not forgive sticks with you.
When you choose not to forgive,
it is like agreeing to wear dark, gruesome sunglasses that distort everything,
and it is you who are forced every day
to look at life through those contaminated lenses
because you have chosen to keep them.
~ Gary Zukav
If you never condemned you would never need to forgive.
~ Anthony de Mello
God may forgive your sins, but your nervous system won't.
~ Alfred Korzybski
The mind is afraid to let go of its demand
because the mind thinks that if it lets go,
it is not going to get what it wants — as if demanding works.
This is not the way things work.
Stop chasing peace and stop chasing love,
and your heart becomes full.
Stop trying to be a better person, and you are a better person.
Stop trying to forgive, and forgiveness happens.
Stop and be still.
~ Adyashanti
If there are people you haven't forgiven, you're not going to really awaken. You have to let go.
~ Eckhart Tolle
Forgive yourself. The supreme act of forgiveness is when you can forgive yourself for all the wounds you've created in your own life. Forgiveness is an act of self love. When you forgive yourself, self-acceptance begins and self-love grows.
~ Don Miguel Ruiz
Every adult was once a child free from prejudice.
~ Mother Teresa
What does Self-realization mean to me? It means enjoying during the waking state the kind of peace I have in the deep sleep state; which means being comfortable with myself and being comfortable with others. I am comfortable with myself only if I do not have a feeling of guilt or shame about anything I think I have done; I am comfortable with others only if I do not bear malice and hatred towards anyone for anything I think they have done. Moreover, I never need fear God, or ask God’s forgiveness. No human being ever had the power to do anything against God’s Will.
~ Ramesh Balsekar
To err is human; to forgive, divine.
~ Alexander Pope
Forgive others, forgive them. Because of a lack of understanding and their wish to be loved they have hurt you. They have not hurt you consciously, forgive them. Love them more. Infuse your love in them. Infuse yourself with love again and again. Forgive. Again and again with great love cultivate love, divine love.
~ Sai Maa
Forgiveness begins the healing process - when you forgive God, life, yourself and other people - magic happens within. That's why every religion talks about forgiveness.
~ Brandan Bays
Love manifests towards those whom we like as love;
towards those whom we do not like as forgiveness.
~ Hazrat Inayat Khan
Judge nothing, you will be happy.
Forgive everything, you will be happier.
Love everything, you will be happiest.
~ Sri Chinmoy
Forgive them, Father
They are exactly as I am
They are undivided and vast
They just cannot see it
Yet.
~ Jeff Foster
Forgiveness is just another word for freedom.
~ Byron Katie
Forgiveness: This is the complete letting go of the past, and the full embracing of the new. It is a freshness, an openness, a new beginning. When there is no Forgiveness, there is an attachment to what has happened in the past. The memory of the past determines what one experiences in the present, and disposes the future towards certain patterns.
~ A.H. Almaas
Forgiveness means giving up all hope of a better past.
~ Jack Kornfield
When you truly wake up from the mind and the world,
you realize there is no other, there is only you.
You see that everything and everyone is an aspect of you.
All love is self love, all doubt is self-doubt,
all forgiveness is self forgiveness.
~ Buddha
In your original form.
From the beginning, you were whole.
And complete.
And worthy.
Worthy of love.
Worthy of good quality attention.
Worthy of empathy.
Worthy of safety.
Worthy of dignity, respect.
Your feelings mattered,
even the uncomfortable ones.
Your body was beautiful,
even with its imperfections.
Your voice was sacred,
even when they didn't agree.
Your success mattered,
but your failures were also pure.
Your world mattered.
Your being mattered.
Your in-breath mattered.
Your out-breath too.
They taught you that you were small.
They told you that you were incomplete, limited.
That there was something missing.
Some deficiency. Something wrong with you.
That you were 'less than'.
And others were 'more than'.
They were mistaken, always.
Yet forgive them, Father;
they knew not what they were doing;
for they were taught the same.
~ Jeff Foster
