EXPLOREING FORGIVENESS

As we explore the concept of forgiveness, the most important thing to keep in mind is that there's a radical difference between the popular social version of forgiveness we all know and practice and the uncompromisingly spiritual version of forgiveness, which is still a mystery to most Earthlings. One type of forgiveness makes you feel bad about self or another. The other one makes you feel good. A quick and easy way to tell the difference is to do an experiment in your own life. Try both methods and see which one makes you happier.


First, let's take a look at the social forgiveness conventions around infidelity. Typically, forgiveness is only extended and accomplished when a set of certain mandatory conditions are met, and which may involve a rather extended period of time. The person to be forgiven must admit his or her wrongness and express genuine remorse and apologize. This apology might need to be repeated several times -- perhaps the remainder of life. And lastly, he or she must vow to never be unfaithful again. Adulterers get bonus forgiveness points if they come up with a plan of action to prevent future problems from cropping up, such as marital counseling, sex rehab, or other prescriptive activities.

Even after the unfaithful spouse does all this jumping through hoops, the spouse doing the forgiving is still not socially obligated to forgive. Ultimately, forgiveness can be denied. Forgiveness can be delayed. Additional acts of contrition can be demanded to make up for the pain and humiliation of betrayal. The adulterer's infidelity can be brought up as frequently as desired and as long as desired, even if the requisite "I forgive you" words have been expressed. This is the treachery that routinely passes for forgiveness of infidelity in our culture and in many others.

Ultimately the social version of forgiveness is a waste of time because it doesn't undo the hate in the mind of either spouse. Instead, it keeps hate alive and ever-present. Judgment of an adulterer as a bad person is a lethal but unrecognized form of hate.

We think we can secretly hold hate in our mind for another, but unfortunately the hateful thought sooner or later gets used against self. Maybe it makes you sick. Maybe it makes you afraid. Only love can make you happy, and love is experienced whenever hateful thoughts are neutralized and undone.

Spiritual forgiveness is different from social forgiveness because it neutralizes and undoes the hateful thoughts in your mind. It requires a tiny willingness to change the desired outcome. The goal of social forgiveness is to get something like retribution, justice, and maybe a dose of emotional pain and punishment for good measure.

The goal of spiritual forgiveness is to be something, and that something is the experience of Self as Love. In fact, the whole dramatic betrayal scene has the potential to be exploited, deliberately and strategically, to override or transcend the automatic impulse to hate. Transcendence is accomplished by replacing the hateful thought with a harmless one. When you notice a hateful thought in your mind, you simply change your mind and have a different thought. Since the mind can only hold one thought at a time, a neutral thought is chosen to replace the harmful one.

There's nothing so uplifting and so fulfilling as the intentional experience of Self as Love when the impulse to hate is banging on your door. You need the pressure and leverage of a challenging relationship to bring the love that is your Truth into your life experience. This is how you come to know yourself as a loving being, and it only happens under fire.

Transcending the judgment of badness is not to be confused with overlooking the problem. Let's say your teenager accidentally forgets to turn off your stove after cooking something, and your house catches on fire and burns down. The correct, most functional and loving action is to solve the problem at hand, but without assigning blame or judgment.

First you make sure everyone is safe and you salvage whatever you can. Next you figure out where to temporarily live. Next you submit your insurance claim. Next you talk to your teenager, find out how it happened, and put preventive safety measures in place so it doesn't happen again. These are all active, non-passive steps you take to solve the problem at hand. What's different is that you're not making your teenager bad or wrong while you're at it.