Forgiveness

IMAGE OF THE WEEK

We are grateful to Rupali Bhuva for offering this hand-made painting for this reading.

Forgiveness is the most powerful thing that you can do for your physiology and your spirituality, and it remains one of the least attractive things to us, largely because our egos rule so unequivocally.  To forgive is somehow associated with saying that it is all right, that we accept the evil deed. But this is not forgiveness.

Forgiveness means that you fill yourself with love and you radiate that love outward and refuse to hang onto the venom or hatred that was engendered by the behaviors that caused the wounds.  Forgiveness is a spiritual act of love for yourself and it sends a message to everyone, including yourself, that you are an object of love and that that is what you are going to impart.

This is the process of unbonding from old wounds and no longer hanging onto them as prized possessions.  It means letting go of the language of blame and self-pity and no longer leading with one's wounds and injuries from the past.  It means privately forgiving and not asking anyone else to understand.  It means leaving behind the eye-for-an-eye attitude that only makes for more pain and the need for more revenge, and replacing it with an attitude of love and forgiveness.  The spiritual literature available to us from all religious persuasions honors this way.

Feeling worthy is essential to being able to [stay rooted in what you most deeply value]. It is simply a matter of common sense. If you don't feel that you deserve something, why would the divine energy that is in all things send it your way?  Thus, you must shift to knowing that you and the divine energy are one and the same, and that it is your ego that is conniving to keep you from knowing the power of this in your own life.

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Wayne Dyer was an American self-help author and a motivational speaker.