SEVERAL Amazing and Simple Secrets to Spiritual Enrichment

Hello!

This is a portion of a discourse taken from the Spirit Quest Course offered by the Universal Life Church Seminary.

This discourse is about learning to forgive. This is a notion that we have all heard lots about throughout our lives. It is especially prevalent in most religions, but can we actually know precisely what it really is and the way to do it?

Forgiveness is, simply put, about releasing. Letting go of the injustices done TO you, or BY you. This is a quite uncomplicated principle, but generally quite hard to achieve. Whether to Forgive or not is always your decision.

To withhold forgiveness means you are deciding to continue to be in pain. Bear in mind that, you without question have the choice.

Forgiveness is done for yourself, NOT for the one who has wronged you. The person you refuse to forgive . . . owns you! You are keeping all of your own power tied up with your anger and resentment, when you might be working with it for producing great things for yourself. Rather, you are letting the other person to hold you hostage.

How about if someone is unfaithful? You can make the decision to forgive. Also though, nothing is stopping you from divorcing. Just because you choose to forgive, doesn't necessarily mean you've got to stay in the relationship. That is certainly only and at all times your choice to make. The opportunity to forgive is also only and continually yours.

“To err is human. To forgive, Divine.”

Why is it Divine?

It is divine simply because whenever you forgive, you move one step closer to God.

Let's check out what the word really means.

Forgive: for (in favor of) give (to relinquish, make a present of, donate.)

So forgiving, means that that you are 'in favor of relinquishing’.

Let's speak about what takes place when an individual wrongs you in some way. At first, you're feeling angry, betrayed, insulted, hurt, and so on.

Following that, you would like to stop feeling that way, so perhaps you might search for the person who brought about for you this pain. You would like to yell at them, call them names, bringing about in them precisely the same sort of hurt they brought on in you.

In other words, Revenge.

This is often a typical response once you’ve been hurt. When you have moved past the initial feeling, it's possible that you might just let it go, but if it's a big enough hurt -- you MIGHT (And I emphasize, MIGHT) look at the notion of forgiving that individual.

If you DID decide to think about forgiving, it might maybe start with you listening to a dialogue within your head with questions like, “Why must I forgive him/her?” “How can I even think about forgiving him/her/myself for doing that?”

Whenever you keep a grudge and don’t forgive, the hurt just sits there -- like an acid -- affecting every element in your life that matters.

Keeping hold of a grudge is akin to drinking poison and waiting for that other person to die.

Whenever you feel pained by someone, don't forgive them for "their" sake. This is a big waste of your time and energy. You have to do it for your own benefit. It may be that the other person never asks for forgiveness, nor will that person apologize. If the other person doesn't approach you and ask for your forgiveness, then that's their choice. They do not NEED TO ask to be forgiven; it's YOU who need to decide to forgive.



I'm going to be teaching you some exercises that can help with releasing pain. Initially however, there are some things you need to know about how it got there in the first place.

By 'it’, I am talking about the pain.

With regards to discomfort, I've got some very good news and I've got some lousy news. Lucky for us, it all depends on your viewpoint. The news is: You are totally accountable for that own pain.

This is both a very good thing and a bad thing. It can be thought of as bad news simply because you must acknowledge that you're in agreement with the pain on some level, and the hurt ONLY gets in when there is a place within you that allowed it in.

It’s a very good bit of news because since you enabled the pain to get IN, then the discomfort is a part of you - IT'S YOURS - and... you can only get rid of energies which are part of you.

You are not able to make other people change - you can only change yourself. So if it’s a part of you - OWN IT!

The pain gets in simply because there exists, for lack of a better word, a 'button’ that gets pushed. It’s like being on an elevator. The elevator can go to a zillion floors with buttons for all of them. Once the button is pushed, it allows you access onto that floor. A similar happens with pain; when another person recognizes, on some level, that the button exists, it’s straightforward to zero in on it, light it up, and just let themselves in.

That is what I mean about you being party to the discomfort. The discomfort wouldn’t get in if the button wasn’t there. The insult, the damage, and so forth would blow by like a warm breeze on a spring day, if it had nothing to stick to.

This can be also true when you've done anything you can't be forgiven for. You may have another button inside of you that tells you that you are bad or that you simply are not good enough and that you deserve all the unhealthy things that come your way.

Buttons like these are what allows you to chronically punish yourself.

It's possible for ALL THE PAIN IN YOUR LIFE to be forgiven!

Remember, that God adores you. You were designed in perfection, by perfection, for perfection. Your success is assured.

Now that we know how the hurt got in, let's discuss the way to let it out. Forgiveness helps you to move forward. Nobody benefits from forgiveness more so than the one who does the forgiving!

Whenever you consider forgiving, there are a couple of issues to keep in mind that may help. The initial thing is the thing we previously talked about:

That the pain is ONLY there because you allowed it in.

The second thing to bear in mind is:

People are usually not AGAINST you, but merely FOR themselves. i.e. it’s generally NOT about you.

The third is in all probability the most important in terms of intellectually letting go of painful feelings:

People react, behave, do things, as a reaction to their own pain.

This final one is often definitely useful to remember when something occurs to you or when you do something to lead to someone else's pain. Everybody has hurt.

It’s not personal.

Even when it feels entirely personal, they inform you it’s about you and it’s only happening to you, it’s still in all probability not.



It might be true that you pushed their buttons, but you did so out of own hurt. Your task then becomes to releasing your own hurt so you don’t experience it therefore you won’t inadvertently trigger any discomfort to others.

AND if they discharge their stuff, there’s nothing that could stick.

You do nevertheless have accountability for your actions, as others do for theirs. You therefore really should offer a sincere apology when you’ve injured another person, but that’s not what we’re referring to here.

For more about forgiveness, look for part 2.

This program uses tools about forgiveness and letting go of anger, learned at the Berkeley Psychic Institute, studies of the Enneagram, the Michael Teachings, Spirit Quest Course and many other resources. We also offer an opportunity tobecome a minister for free.