Forgiving someone need not be personal. In fact, in most cases it should not be for how does a rape victim personally forgive the rapist? How can a mother forgive her child's abuser? No - the personal can never find forgiveness through understanding and this in and of itself is understandable if one has any empathy, compassion and intuitive insight at all.
Forgiveness should always be impersonal. The impersonal is the true Self. The true Self lives through the personal but is not personal itself. Therefore, when the Ego dies so does all sins against it as well as personal Karma. If there is no person there, then there is no insult and no karma. There is only the Impersonal living through a mind/body that has not been personalized. It has been realized and is now under the governance of Spirit.
Until Self-Realization comes and liberates us from the Egoic Mind, this then, is how we go about impersonally forgiving someone and/or situation....
We realize that we are subject ourselves to the Egoic state even if not to the same degree as others. Then we give people the forgiveness we need. We realize the only difference in sin is degree. And that degree is determined by our lived experiences that none of us are personally responsible for.
Most of us may not have raped or murdered anyone, however we have sinned against our fellow man many times. This cannot be denied. We have all of us at one time or another, violated another person's space or rights to one degree or another and we have deliberately harmed someone out of spite or anger etc. Whether it is family member such as a child, or mother, or if it is a stranger, we have committed sinful and unkind acts towards people that have left us to shamefacedly cry into our pillows at night with the pain of it all. The deep regret or remorse that pains us to recall.
Regret is for what you did not do and wish you had, while remorse is for what you did do and wish you hadn't. Think of those times. What made you do it? Was it that you knew no better? Was it that you did know better? Was it because you were afraid? Too emotional? Weak? Was it because you have not realized your true Self, so acted in a way, you would not have, if you had?
In our ignorance all of us do things that insult our Soul and/or the Souls of others. All of us feel remorse and regret. None of us are without sin. It is only the degree that is different. All of us are trying to tame and control a mind that gets the better of the best of us.
So - with understanding comes forgiveness and with forgiveness - love. This is how we forgive another. We give them the forgiveness and understanding we so desperately need.
~ Tracy Pierce
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