Topic: Forgiveness

[Firestarter]

I was reading the Buddhism folder, and got to thinking,, how each religion has a tenant, which is unique. Buddhism teaches compassion - that is the hallmark, Hinduism teaches Bhatki, love, Judaism teaches I think worship, and so forth. But Christianity is radical, and the main tenant, the main appeal, is it teaches forgiveness.

Think about this, sin is in all religions in some way. Stealing lying adultrey and so forth. Christianity evolved from a not so forgiving religion, where you would say, sacrifice a sheep to cleanse sins, and Jesus just walked up to people and told them they were forgiven.

This was very radical and pissed some people off. How he took the authority to do this. But this, I believe, became a strong appeal, and perhaps why Christianity is popular today.

Now, in modern day, we still punish people for what they do, however, for the afterlife, if they are forgiven, quite possible they could still go to a heavenly abode. Truly repenting, truly being sorry. And Im sure empty words dont cut it. I would think the person would have to be sincere to qualify. But forgiveness, radical!

But I do see this beneficial. Like my ex, I held a grudge for a long time. I was angry, bitter, and quite wounded. But I started working on forgiving, like how I did was understanding his upbringing with this father. And seeing him through the eyes of a child. Hey so I came to the conclusion he was messed up so I forgave him eventually.

The good thing about this is it released something from within me. And I do believe this is the other side of forgiveness, when we do it, something frees us. Our energy can detach and move onto other things. We release the grudge we can be happy.

So I do see value in the teaching. What do you guys think on forgiveness. A necessary thing to do? Good idea? Or is it a bunch of bunky?

[Nichi]

The Christian message, in the hands of its proponents, is a strange one. Images get conjured up in my mind of my head being held down in the toilet while I'm being told, "Jesus forgives you!" Hard to get the true intent of the message that way. 

But forgiveness itself is a worthwhile pursuit. An awareness that one does it, in the end, for self, seems important. One isn't doing it because one is taught that one must, or because one gets martyrdom points - one does it because it is a release, that will aid greatly in one's own healing and progress.

It's an act, I've found, for which we have many mock rehearsals in our lifetime. If it isn't done completely and without reservation, the lesson has a tendency to return and return until we get it right.

[Jahn]

So I do see value in the teaching. What do you guys think on forgiveness. A necessary thing to do? Good idea? Or is it a bunch of bunky?

The only one thing one can do, and actually the only thing that matters - is to forgive oneself.

(There is actually a Toltec exercise that one can practise to vent out all "not forgiven actions" one have done).

As Don Miquel says, "there is justice in the World" "make one mistake and regret it once - then it all become even".  This instead of what we usually do, punish our selves (or others) over and over again for the same mistake. Alas: One mistake = One forgiveness and excuse, and not equal to one mistake and hundreds of excuses.