B io ph ile Issu e 18 - Biophile Magazine

not satisfied with what you experience,you will seek to change it by manipulatingthat person. When you hold someoneresponsible for what you experience youlose power.Forgiveness means releasing your criticaljudgment, putting behind you injuriousbehaviors that you didn’t like, and returningto loving yourself and others in thesame way that you did before an incidenthappened. Forgiveness does not meanignoring what has been done or putting afalse label on an evil act. It means, rather,that the act no longer remains as a barrierto your health, wellness, abundance, joy,peace of mind, and enlightenment.To forgive does not mean that you haveto bow and scrape to those whom youfeel have offended you. Rather, it meansto “give for,” to “replace” the ill feeling, togain a sense of peace and harmony again.To forgive literally means to “give up” thatwhich you should not have held on to in thefirst place!WHEN DO WE NEED TOFORGIVE?If you have a problem, you have somethingto forgive. Anyone who experiencespain has a need to forgive. Anyone whofinds her/himself in unpleasant circumstanceshas a need to forgive. Anyone whois in debt has a need to forgive. Wherethere is suffering, unhappiness, lack,confusion, or misery of any sort, there is aneed to forgive.When your good is delayed, that is thetime to forgive. Often everything standsstill, and there is a deadlock, until yourelease forgiveness into the situation.Forgiveness can sweep aside all that hasdelayed you in your endeavor toward good.The forgiving state of mind is a magneticpower for attracting good. No good thingcan be withheld from the forgiving stateof mind.WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WEFORGIVE?True, deep forgiveness releases the baggageof a negative or harmful experience.You lighten up. You do not cling to negativeexperiences that resulted from decisionsyou made while you were learning.When you forgive, you release criticaljudgment of yourself as well as of others.When you forgive, you open to lovingunconditionally. By forgiving painful occurrences,you internalize at a deeper levelyour understanding of the human predicament,and thus can feel love more fully.As you forgive you can access your truepower. Forgiveness, humbleness, clarity,and love are the dynamics of freedom. Togetherthey are the foundation of authenticpower.Forgiveness provides one of the bestpreventive medicines available. The law offorgiveness is the surprise law of healing. Itis an immutable mental and spiritual lawthat when there is a health problem, thereis a forgiveness problem. You must forgiveif you want to be permanently healed.When you bypass forgiveness, you bypasspermanent health.The cleansing generated through forgivenesshelps to release us from the spiritualenergy links we have unconsciouslycreated between ourselves and the peoplewho have hurt us. Perceiving and actingbased on compassion and forgivenessopens our personal gateways to movinginto the planes of higher consciousness.WHAT IF THE SITUATION IS TOOLARGE TO FORGIVE ON OUROWN?Occasionally we can find themselvesin circumstances where the hurt, pain, orinjury is so great that we simply cannotforgive on our own power. When this isthe case, it is enough that we pray to be giventhe grace, the perception, the elevatedLight that will allow us to forgive.WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WECHOOSE TO NOT FORGIVE?When we choose not to forgive, it is likeagreeing to wear dark, gruesome sunglassesthat distort everything, forcing us everyday to look at life through those contaminatedlenses because we have chosen tokeep them. The experience that we do notforgive sticks with us.Lack of forgivenessrestricts the flow of life.Without forgiveness,it is not possible tolove.As long as we continue to hold on to and“energize” past feelings of having been embarrassed,injured, or attacked by peoplewe have encountered, we become overlyfocused in emotional patterns that blockthe perception of love in our lives. Walkingaround with hatred, bitterness, andresentment in our hearts because of someunfortunate past circumstance will keepus from experiencing the full happinessand contentment that is our birthright.“Forgiveness is thefragrance the violetsheds on the heelthat has crushed it.”HOW DOES FORGIVENESSAFFECT OUR HEALTH?The energies of resentment, judgment,anger, and grudges are stored in our cells.Holding onto these negative emotionscauses mental, emotional, physical, andspiritual problems. Until there is forgiveness,complete health is unattainable.When people continue to think about oldtraumatic events in their lives, especiallyabout someone who has done somethingemotionally hurtful to them, they actuallysend a part of their spirit to that distantperson or event in time.HOW DOES FORGIVENESSAFFECT OUR SPIRITUALITY?An absence of forgiveness is tantamountto staying imprisoned in anunawakened life. If we have not learnedforgiveness, we may master all of the otherprinciples and still remain prisoners. Notto forgive is not to understand how theuniverse works and how you fit into it.When we learn to forgive ourselves andothers, we grow, spiritually and emotionally,in leaps and bounds. As we loosen thenoose of judgment, anger, righteousness,and betrayal, we begin to breathe witha new sense of energy and purpose. Nolonger tied by the shackles of our wounding,we are able to see the world as friendinstead of foe.We each have a choice about how weview the world. Do we see it as friendly orunfriendly? Do we expect people to be safeor unsafe? Wounded by life, we may find itdifficult to forgive ourselves and others. Awillingness to forgive real and imaginedwrongs is like taking a drink of fresh water.Nothing refreshes and rejuvenates like theself-love of deep forgiveness.Forgiveness, for both the individual andfor humanity, is our highest achievement,because it shows true enlightenment inaction. It illustrates that one is in harmonywith the very stuff of the universe, that is,with the energy of love. Forgiveness is theability to give this love away in the mostdifficult of circumstances. Mark Twainsaid it so beautifully, when he wrote: “Forgivenessis the fragrance the violet shedson the heel that has crushed it.”Biophile Issue 1855