May 31, 1999
The Principle of Forgiveness
A reader asked me if there was a principle behind forgiveness.
There is indeed a principle of forgiveness, but it has much more to do with a person’s relationship with his own soul than good or evil or a decree from God.
When one person does not forgive another person he or she will carry a grievance, a bitter feeling, toward that other person. He needs to do whatever is necessary to diffuse that feeling and replace it with love and acceptance.
One of the best ways to accomplish this is to communicate with the person who produced the grievance and tell him how you feel. It is amazing how such an honest communication diffuses negativity and brings forgiveness.
On the other hand, if you are concerned that you need forgiveness from someone else then go to him and tell him how you feel. Oftentimes an honest communication will reveal that there is nothing to forgive.
As far as forgiveness from God Goes, God has no grievance against you or anyone else so no forgiveness is necessary there. It is true that we often need to forgive ourselves. Sometimes this step is the most difficult of all.
As far as karma goes this is a law that applies to the principle of justice. Justice is a principle of action and reaction whereas forgiveness always involves feelings.
Even if a person is in a state of complete forgiveness, or complete peace of mind, he is still subject to the laws of karma, or cause and effect.
For instance if you misstep and fall down some stairs this is a result of your not playing along wisely with cause and effect created by gravity. No matter how much forgiveness you have been given you still have to watch out for this law because cause and effect and forgiveness have little to do with each other.
In fact about a month ago as I was getting ready to go upstairs and go to bed I had all the lights off and got turned around and took a step on the stairs going down instead of the ones going up. I assure you that even though I am a fairly enlightened fellow with a forgiving heart that I found myself fully subject to this law and fell down a flight of stairs. I was lucky. I had sprains and bruises, but nothing was broken. Even now my right arm is returning to normal strength, but for a while I had difficulty in even writing my daily posts to you.
Karma is like this. If we set causes in motion the effects come back to us. If we have sent forth destructive causes in times past, in a way this is like borrowing money from a bank. We have to pay it back and we wish we didn’t have to. The key of wisdom here is to not wait until the bank comes after us for payment, but to pay off the debt so interest will not accumulate. With negative karma the best way to do this is through service. The more you serve the more negative karma is paid off. If you perform a service like enter a burning building and rescue a child then you make a giant deposit.
Now don’t forget that there is also positive karma. Good people will have a lot of this in the bank and if we listen to our souls we will know the appropriate time to cash in on it. I know a lot of you will just want to reinvest it so the good will continue to multiply and benefit the world.
A reader responded by saying that many keep forgiving but find no results or relief and that forgiving dissolves karma.
If they find no results or relief then the forgiveness is an illusion that must be uncovered. True forgiveness always brings results and relief. In order to forgive you must first feel that someone has wronged you. If you truly let go of this feeling or resolve it there will be results of a positive nature even if the wrong was an illusion.
Karma is effects that are waiting to materialize because a cause has placed energy into motion.
If you therefore claim to live in a world where there is no effect that is good or evil, pleasant or unpleasant, blissful or painful, hot or cold, light or dark, I would say you are in a place that is different than that occupied by anyone I have ever met or could meet.
If you stick your hand in boiling water that by all practical standards the effect would be an evil, negative, painful unpleasant thing. This is a judgment that most people I know would make and such a judgment certainly needs no forgiveness.
Feelings, thought, preprogramming and other influences cause action. You can make your future more positive by changing your feelings, but karma has to do with causes from the past and you cannot change that. The best we can do with energy set in motion (effect), is to direct it wisely. (Take your hand out of the burning water immediately).
Karma, and cause and effect are dualities.
Without duality there can be no love. There can be no love unless there is two of something. One of the great purposes that God created the universe was so love could become manifest. If God had not created us there would be nothing to love. What would a point outside of time and space love?
Thought is not an IS. Thought is part of BECOMING and thus created action and reaction.
To this the reader responded that our judgment creates duality.
This may have a grain of truth to it in the formless worlds. But we are not there. We are here and thought and actuality are not one in this reality. In this universe thought and actuality are separated by time. I may think of getting a new car but before I actually get it I must pass through the separation of time and some effort. If you can think of a new car and have one materialize immediately then you could say that thought and actuality are one.
Karma exists whether you are one with love or separated from love. Love does not negate the energies of the universe but is one of those energies.
Judgement is more a thinking process than feeling – it is a power to discern.
Love as human beings understand it can only manifest through “becoming” in the world of duality. Where there is no duality there is no power of attraction for there is nothing to be attracted to. Where there is no attraction there is no love. If we want to manifest love we need to make the best of the world in which we find ourselves.
Some go so far as to disagree with my remark that we are subject to gravity and we must deal with it wisely or suffer negative effects. I take it then that they have never had a fall or stubbed a toe?
After I fell down the stairs I neutralized the negative effect of gravity by installing a nightlight so the accident would not happen again. Funny thing the danger of falling down the stairs is now gone. There may be some hidden message in my fall but the main one I see for myself is to pay more attention to the outside world. I spend a lot of time inside myself and have to remind myself regularly that there is a world out there of cause and effects so I can avoid accidents.
Many teachers have presented the idea that karma can be easily eliminated, but karma is basically the result of cause and effect and cause and effect are eternal and will always be.
Copyright by J J Dewey
For more on the two paths go HERE, scroll down and read posts 143-151.
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