The Power of Forgiveness
By Carmelo Ríos
Maybe forgiveness is the wiser act, deeper and more liberating than a human can do in this life, and at the same time, the one that approaches to God, who is absolute pardon, a eternal absolution and liberating eternity.
The candidate at the threshold of Initiation is asked to make a clean sweep with his past, to forgive, to forget, to open a new possibility of life in this very existence , now available, in return for the surrender of myself, to an unconditional surrender or light force infinitely more powerful than ego.
Perhaps forgiveness is the only sovereign human gesture you can do before you die and be reborn in life by the very process of alchemy spirit. Forgiveness is an act of sacrifice, for renouncing revenge, the fair or unjust compensation.
There are several ways of forgiveness. First is the courageous act of apologizing, not only to humans, but to the Nature and Universe visible or invisible. Raising our eyes and our hands to the starry night and apologize the Infinite for our mediocrity, for our ingratitude, our ignorance and our lack of love.
But, how often our pride, which is the adversary par excellence of love and light, prevented us ask forgiveness, not as a gesture of complimentary or redundant and hypocritical social norm,
but from a deep contrition, from a sincere humility, from the urgent need reconcile, to redeem, to establish peace, the truce or armistice situations more even amid the unforgiving battlefield the difficult human relationships, and that from the
depth of our feeling: sorry, sorry, I apologize.
Perhaps ask forgiveness, with courage, with humility, with absolute devotion and from the broken heart is another sovereign act that characterizes the true spiritual seeker, a pilgrim of love, and the genuine captain, the authentic leader men, because our ability to forgive and ask our forgiveness is synonymous with greatness soul.
Martin Luther King said that “ he who is unable to forgive is incapable of love”. Forgiveness renews our life and ends outstanding issues, gives us another opportunity, offers the possibility to redeem the past, takes us out of hell life of bitterness, resentment, anger, the idea of revenge, and even of justice, and allows free entry into the Kingdom of the Heavens, which it’s not a place beyond the stars, but a state of mind and compassionate heart, expanded and redeemed. Teachers from all traditions remember us to ask for forgiveness and to forgive before it is too late, because forgiveness is a primordial spiritual act of intelligence and compassion for ourselves, and it may be compassion is the lesson for all beings come learn to earth. Forgiveness is also an act of deepest wisdom, because as Leon Tolstoy said: “to understand all is to forgive all.”
To forgive is to forget. Only someone very dark or ignorant can say “forgive but not forget.” Precisely science has discovered that one of the main functions of the memory is its ability to forget. And how often we forget the offenses, forgive our brother, our neighbor as ourselves? The Master of Love says categorically: seventy times seven!
But there is something even more difficult, but salutary more redeeming than forgive or ask for forgiveness? Yes, forgive yourself. An old Confucius axiom that says: “forgive everything to that one unable to forgive himself”
Forgive myself¡ That’s something for which you do not ever feel sufficiently prepared, neither trained nor even “authorized”. We prefer live in purgatory moral discouragement, the mortification, self-blame, do not forgive and therefore, not forgiving, feeding the stench grim memory of guilt, remorse and sadness, withering our lives and snatch the precious gift of joy, perhaps waiting for something or someone, perhaps a priest, a saint, an angel or a super-natural force to do for us what anyone can do for us.
Have you ever dared to say in front of the mirror, saying our name: I forgive you , total and absolutely, and leave you free?, as if we´d say it to our only teenager son worried for the consequences of a wrong decision or a wrong act. And even in the distance, we apologize and forgive, because energy follows thought and these images, clichés and subtle vibrations
longing for forgiveness and reconciliation, will travel the ether in search of unity with the other and Divine Harmony putting an end to pain and suffering, sometimes for many lifetimes.
But, we ask, and if the other-if there is “other” than myself off mine- wants peace, not seeking reconciliation, curing the incurable? Master Philippe de Lyon says: then tells us to talk with our Guardian Angel to speak with the Angel Guardian our “adversary” and both come to an agreement.
Master Philippe gave an extraordinary importance to forgiveness. In many of his teachings referred to the absolute need to forgive and ask for forgiveness:
– “In life we progress steadily, and the as we progress, we change directory. Hence the need to make peace IMMEDIATELY with the enemies, then, offending enemies, offend his guide, and peace can only be made between stakeholders themselves. Rather, we should expect to that a series of the same reincarnations period occurs and that forgiveness is agreed.
It is necessary, even that the offended prides for the offender.”
That redemption, that joy, that happiness to forgive and ask for forgiveness, but even glory higher forgive himself¡. If I do not forget me, if judge myself, if I condemn me and don´t acquitte me, and I cling to the pain, the need to suffering, guilt, and therefore, I hope the punishment or bad karma. And, what I can create, what I can believe, what I can grow if I cling to pain, guilt and suffering associated alleged errors committed in the past on which I have no longer any rule? What has happened in the history of mankind when men have set ideologies, religions and philosophies based on the pain, fear and guilt?
It is said that on one occasion, a prisoner of a concentration camp asked another: have you forgiven the Nazis? And he replied: never¡- he other replied- then they still have you
prisoner.
Sufis say: “The enemy is exhausted of you” And he is also looking for redemption, absolution, forgiveness. Forgiveness frees it forgiven and often also the forgiver. The Gospels say that Jesus Christ himself forgave his executioners, because like most of men, in all ages, and dimensions of consciousness, did not know what they did¡.
That extraordinary power, that alchemy love sublime glorified and expanded, and that secret heart beauty can be found found in the forgiveness¡. Forgiveness allows cure our heart break for all the broken hearts, and the redemption that comes from that act of compassion dynamically rebuilds it slowly, piece by piece, to resurrect it to the real life as the dismembered body of Osiris, Orpheus or Mitra.
The English poet William Blake said: “It’s easier to forgive an enemy than a friend “, because from a friend we only expect understanding, support, and affection, and from the enemy we just wait only the worst , betrayal, shame or attack. So the challenge of the disciple, the true seeker is forgiving also your friend, your brother, pardon your offenses, of acts and
even of thoughts, even before the can be performed. Heart Forgiveness is a omen of Heaven on Earth that can not be caused, sometimes it comes as the flight of a deleterious
Angelic presence that brings us closer to the mystery
unfathomable grace. Following the subtle arrival of that blessing, it is forgiven unforgivable, is the unforgettable forgotten, is loved it is redeemed unkind and hopelessness.
I dream of the day when I’m sleeping angel I have the courage to be erected in the Presence of God, and ask forgiveness on behalf of all sentient beings by millions of years of
Separation of Light and Love.
Thus, I conclude that Heaven on Earth has built upon mercy, compassion and forgiveness, and that everything, absolutely everything, is to be forgiven.
Siddhartha Buddha advised us: “Be like the sandalwood which perfumes the blade that cut inferred. ” And the writer Mark Twain says in one of his
poems:
“Forgiveness is the fragrance
that violet leaves
in the foot that treads “.