More on Foregiveness

[Jim Spencer]

This is an excerpt from "The Tao of Foregiveness"

 

"Rules, whether they are internal or external, are dangerous tools. On the one hand, they provide a certain stability for our societies and for our personal experience. On the other hand, they easily become ends in themselves---slave masters whose purpose is to keep us in bondage rather than lead us to freedom. They become devices for punishment, supplying the ammunition used by parts of our conditioned mind (critical) to keep up a continuous barrage of accusations of "wrongness" directed at ourselves and others.

If instead, we look to compassionate guidelines for our support, we find gentle tools that reveal how we resist, divert, distract, repress, and avoid the direct experience of our life. guidelines become the things we "bump against" that keep us awake. In order for guidelines to function in this manner, forgiveness must be a constant presence in our hearts. Without forgiveness, rules, no matter how trivial, become cruel whips yeilded by our conditioned mind to keep us and others in line.

When we so continuously see the world through the lens of rules, we are set up for disappointment, resentment, guilt, and shame. No one keeps the rules. No one even knows all the rules because they constantly change and multiply. We have all read different "Rule Books" and get frightened when others ignore "our" rules. Only the forgivness residing in the compassionate conscious awareness of our God centered mind can ever free us from the trap we are in.

I need and benefit from guidelines. Yet, I cannot allow them to become agents of conditioned self-hate, self-punishment, and resentment directed towards others. Knowing that forgiveness rather than punishment awaits in my spiritual man allows me to have a growth-oriented relationship to the rules and guidelines of my life. I am able to commit to certain guidelines, not as a slave dominated by fear of punishment, but as a free and willing person.

foregiveness frees me to use the guidelines to help me pay attention to the way my conditioned (brainwashed) mind attempts to keep me unconscious of the habitual thoughts and actions that tend to dominate my life.

Guidelines---couple with forgiveness, bring freedom." 

 

Jim, does this ring any bells deep inside your heart? It does for me. Why? I am a created, finite, human being---who can't see very much of the amazing depth and complexity of our universal home at any one time. I, like you, have spent most of my life locked away in a self-created prison of fear and ignorance. I, like you, became conditioned through my life---my heritage, parents, religious leaders, and through my own right and wrong decisions. God only looks at the inner motivation of his children---without judgment---as is the divine nature of parents. Because God takes responsibility for creating us as helpless bsbies--born into an uncertain world of beauty and trouble----in order for us to learn to become experiencial spiritual beings of high value---He constantly pours out His love on us---the good and the bad. With such a God of light, love, beauty, truth, and goodness-----how can we remain in our broken conditions of self-hate and resentment towards others---all born out of fear?

Jesus said that we must be born again. And that means that our old selves must die. We have to be ready to give up all of our own judgmental, resentful, and critical minds----offer up the only thing we have---and that is ourselves on God's loving alter of forgiveness-----in deep repentance. And when we finally give up our ego-----we can ask Him to come into our lives to give us rebirth---the power of his spirit. At this time, life will take on new meaning---and a peace that passes all understanding will pervade your soul.

When you reach this point---although things can attack your outer walls---nothing can touch the inner, unassailable citadel of your spirit--where the purple flame of eternal life burns.