Forgiveness

Hello, I recently had a very powerful realization that I would like to share regarding forgiveness.

First, I came to understand that the past, as well as the future, only exists in the mind. That is, in our current experience the future isn’t real for the simple reason it hasn’t happened yet. However, each mind can project a future and this projected (or anticipated) future can become a source of fear or joy. But it should be clear that it isn’t actually real in the same sense that the present is. It’s a reality yet to be.

Where I had the revelation was that the past functions in the same way. It’s equally unreal. You can’t travel to it or find it in space, you can’t observe it or measure it. It simply doesn’t exist except in the form of memories - ours and others. Past events have shaped the present reality we are experiencing but those events don’t exist any more, only the collective memory and consequences of them exists. Our interpretation and response to past events is subject to massive distortion because we don’t see ourselves and others as we truly are, we are filtering experiences through the ego which is our idea of ourself and the ego projections we make of other people - false versions of them based on our own false self and largely filled with projections (ie - if you are a critical person you will inevitably interpret other people’s actions and words as critical even if they aren’t because your mind can’t conceive of a mind that doesn’t judge).

A simple example will help: when I was 10 years old I accompanied a friend of my mom’s on a camping trip to help out with their baby, Cameron. This friend had a brother who was a drummer in a Christian rock band called “Cross Section”. I had seen them perform one time and it was thrilling - I bought the cassette tape and learned all the songs. I was an aspiring drummer and felt very excited when I heard he was going to be joining us on the camping trip one night.

That night, once Cameron was asleep, I came to the campfire to join the adults (I was the only kid there other than Cameron). I was so excited to talk to a real drummer and tell him how much I loved the album and how I wanted to be a famous musician when I grew up. As I was walking up to the campfire in the dark, I could see the brother sitting in a camping chair, and before I reached the group I heard him say “So who’s the rugrat?”

I knew he meant me. I didn’t know what a rugrat was, but I knew it must be bad. I felt totally crushed and rejected and I turned around, went back to the camper and cried myself to sleep. That one moment shaped my opinion of myself in a profound way - you are not welcome, you are some kind of rat (I had never heard the word rugrat before), you are unacceptable, uninteresting, unwanted, unloved.

But what really happened there? This man was almost certainly using that word in a playful and harmless way - he may as well have said “who’s the kid?” (interestingly I know a person for whom that phrase was a devastating blow). If I had interpreted what he said differently (or correctly) I would have made no judgements about myself or him. I decided that his words had power to define me and I also defined him by those same words - he’s a jerk, he’s an idiot, he doesn’t know anything, his band isn’t even that good, etc. And from there I developed a belief that people were dangerous, and words were to be feared.

If I had simply ignored the phrase or had not heard it in the first place I could have approached him with innocence. I am certain we would have had a wonderful conversation and my entire future might have been different. Perhaps his encouragement and belief in me at that young age would have crystallized my vision for music and I would have approached it differently, without fear.

But how can I hold that man responsible for what happened? His memory of that event is likely non-existent while mine is so powerful it has shaped the way I see myself and others and probably influenced my decision not to go 100% into music. I created the interpretation and chose to cling to it as a false self. But it still isn’t real. It’s just a memory and there’s a strong possibility I’m remembering it wrong. It only has the power over me that I choose to give it, but in itself it has no power because it simply doesn’t exist.

Forgiveness means believing this and approaching every person with innocence based on the attitude that the past isn’t real - it’s a collective illusion we create with our memories and we can’t really trust that our experience of an event is anything but our ego’s warped interpretation of it and of the people involved.

Receiving every person as they are, right now, in the present, is the only sane way to relate. If someone has genuinely hurt me in the past and they are showing the same behaviour in the present then it’s appropriate to create the necessary boundaries to protect myself and them. But if this person is showing different behaviour in the present, despite having hurt me in the past, then I can freely accept them in the NOW and relate to them as they are to me NOW, with no reference to the past. This is true forgiveness that heals both giver and receiver. You allow the other to be who they are - an eternal, beautiful, perfect soul.

We react and respond in the present which is actually eternal. The present is the only time that has ever existed. It’s the only plane of existence for us that is real, and it’s the only time that things ever happen. Things don’t happen in the past - they happen in the present, which instantly becomes the past when the moment is gone.

Projecting our mind to the future leads to anxiety and regretting the past leads to depression. Peace only exists in the present. Forgiveness only exists in the present.