The Practice of Forgiveness 1

Forgiveness (practice notes - 1)

"I have invented the world I see." (Lesson 32)
"There is another way of looking at the world." (Lesson 33)
"I could see peace instead of this." (Lesson 34)
"Forgiveness is my function as the light of the world." (Lesson 62)

• One of the main pillars of spiritual practice.
• Synonymous with releasing, undoing, non-doing, acceptance, love, openness.
• Negates and undoes the past in the present.
• Gentler approach with same goal as Neti-neti

When to use:

• When striving, self-effort, struggle, stress become obvious.
• Over-effort or over-practice, trying
• Stuckness
• Lack of love & connection
• Attacking others and self

How:

• Sit quietly as per meditation instructions or contemplation as usually done
• "I forgive myself" becomes the verbal object - silent or aloud
• Hold oneself in loving-kindness, embrace, blanket
• Await blessings beyond the self - "The peace that passeth understanding"
• Non-doing
• Just come back to the open aware feeling of forgiveness and expansive self-love
• Release, relax as needed or when tension is noticed
• Short practice reminders can also be used for a whole day of forgiveness

Related:

• ACIM
• Nondoing Wu wei
• Nisargadatta Nisarga Yoga or effortlessness
• Metta and loving kindness practice (as found in Buddhism)
• The "Loving-All" method of ML

The mirror and its reflection.

After a certain time, one has the feeling that life, existence and one's sense of beingness is rather like the reflection in a mirror.


Abiding as the "I am"-ness, or beingness is key. We need to start from where we find ourselves in life. For most, this is in total identification with the body-mind complex. We have been conditioned to believe and know ourselves only as this body-mind. Conditioning that has happened over the long course of our entire life (from around age 2), and over the course of the collective human existence as a whole. We cannot think or analyze our way out of this situation, any more than we can think our way out of eating lunch today.
 
By abiding as the "I am" for as much as possible, and whenever possible, we slowly come to know the situation as it really is. A subtle sense of being more than just the body-mind complex becomes apparent or intuited.


The life that we thought we 'owned' starts to reveal itself as merely the play of forces, conditions, and factors, which themselves are reflections in the 'mirror' of being. But this has to be experienced directly, rather than thought about or believed.. lest this too become another belief system parking-spot.


The mirror, its light and the play of the light (appearing as the dancing reflection) is just one wholeness- hence the term 'nonduality'. Any duality appearing in the whole, such as the reflection and its seeming parts, can't be outside or separate from the whole- any more than waves could be separate from the ocean (to coin a commonly used metaphor).

Attention to living feeling thinking

"You live, you feel, you think. By giving attention to your living, feeling and thinking, you free yourself from them and go beyond them. Your personality dissolves and only the witness remains. Then you go beyond the witness. Do not ask how it happens. Just search within yourself."

Nisargadatta

This is a result of abiding in the I-am, instead of being absorbed in living, feeling and thinking objects.

Life will bring you another teacher if needed..