Forgiveness

Forgiveness comprises three stages:

1. Recognition
2. Surrender
3. Love

Each stage is an integral part of the forgiveness process. To forgive is to move through these stages and to know exactly where in the forgiveness process we are. Not performing forgiveness properly means, we can get stuck in any one of these stages. It may mean, not being able to let go of our misperception and having to repeat the same question, the same forgiveness over and over again until we make it to the other side. Until we realize we are Love. There is nothing wrong with getting stuck in the forgiveness process. It only mean we spend more time, more time being stuck in this world, more time spent suffering and misunderstanding our true nature.

That is what the ego aims at. The ego aims at confusion. The ego does everything it can to throw us off our tracks. To throw a spanner in our efforts and make us feel like a forgiver forgiven when in fact we may have achieved very litte.

It is important to know each of the steps. It is important to know, which step we are on right now. It is important, for moving from one step to the next involves a conscious decision, vision and clarity. Forgiveness is first and foremost about clarity. About letting go of the confusion of the ego. It is about a conscious decision for the light.

Recognition

Recognition means allowing ourselves to see that I am confused. If we are confused, we know that we are in need of forgiveness. We are confused whenever we recognize we are not in peace. We are confused, when we have dark thoughts. We are confused, when we feel lonely or angry or fearful, when we are in pain, stressed out or hurt. All of these emotions are thoughts. There are thoughts hidden behind these emotions. These thoughts exist to make us feel confused. They exist in order for our mind to deny the light. We deny the light in order to forget our true home. Our true home is Love. There is no other home. Our true home is Joy. There is no other home. Love and Joy are sides of the same coin. They are the knowledge of being right, right in being who we are. They are the knowledge of presence, the knowledge of sharing, the knowledge of seeing and being God in everything.

We recognize our negative emotions, our thoughts of attack against ourselves and our brothers as wrong-minded thinking. There is a part of our mind that has chosen to think wrongly. It has chosen to believe that mistakes can be true. These thoughts try to give meaning to a tiny little mishap, the thought that an error could ever have occurred. Mistakes do not occur. A mistaken thought is healed immediately as it is revealed to the Light. The ego is simply put, the thought that a mistake could be real.

In the recognition step we consciously name a negative emotion or situation that stresses us. We do not name it, by trying to describe it in words. We name it by isolating it. Instead of seeing it in context, instead of believing that the source of the negativity in our heart is caused by this or that, we recognize only that we are experiencing it right now. The ego tells us that the world is the cause for our emotions. the ego tells us that our history and what we do is the cause of our emotions. There is no history of truth. There is only eternal Love and Joy. There is only being here and now. We recognize that the negative state we are experiencing right now is caused only by the wish of the ego to deny our true being. We acknowledge this, by saying

I am afraid/lonely/angry/stressed/etc (insert your own emotion) right now, for the ego wishes to make this emotion true.

This step takes time and work. It takes understanding. We must be willing to see the negative emotions not as part of who we are or as part of what the world forces on us. The negative emotions are our choice only in a vain attempt to make them true. To force negativity and pain into reality, to make us believe that there is a reason for us to not be joyful here and now. The more time we spend in this one step, the more we allow our mind to cristallize that all of what we are experiencing is our choice and that our current experience is in no way rooted in any part of our life or the world that we are living in, the more effective the forgiveness process is.

The moment we take responsibility for the way that we feel, we are ready to move on to the next step.

Surrender

The surrender step is truly magical. The surrender step is where the light starts shining into our soul. The surrender step is where we choose hope. The surrender step is when the angels will come dancing in our wake, even if our cannot see them. For in the surrender step we choose "A better way". We choose God. We choose Love. We choose the present moment. We allow the knowledge in our heart, that mistakes are washed away immediately by the shining Light.

The ego is always afraid to lose itself. The ego feels it is diminishing, something horrible is happenening. The ego is not a fan of surrender, even though the word only has meaning to the ego. There is nothing to surrender, for there is nothing to lose. We are Love already. We are Joy already. All we do is a thought that tarnishes our awareness of the Joy that we are. We simply choose consciously, after we have named and recognized a negative thought to have it washed away by the Light. It is useful to voice this in audible form. Say

I have mistakenly thought this (insert your own emotion) to be true. I know it is not.

Let this sentence reveraberate in our mind. Let it sink in. Give yourself time.
examples are:

• My anger is not true. I have thought I am angry just for a moment.
• My fear is not real. For a moment I thought I could be afraid of X.
• The situation does not stress me. I allowed myself to think that I am not in peace.

Time is needed, for the ego believes the opposite. Instead we train our mind. We train our mind in order to see a truth the ego does not see. The ego believes that worry and pain are true. Now it is time to reprogram the mind. We choose to see Love instead. We choose to see Joy instead. We choose to see Peace instead. We are making this choice for we know that this choice is who we are. We make this choice despite all the odds and reasons the ego is throwing against us. We make a choice. The choice is to be Love. We are not a beaten stalk in a thunderstorm. We are the storm. And the storm is strong and serene and beautiful. We are Peace, for our Peace is more powerful than anything the world can throw at us. We are Love, for we are loved and held, embraced in who we are. We are Love for we are taking care of who we are. We are Love, for we are taking care of our brothers. We are Joy, for it is our brother that saves us. For he shares the forgiveness with us. He shares the forgiveness for he is One in us and we are One in him.

Only when we understand there is nothing of value in our current pattern, are we able to let go.

Love

Love is not the moment when we have accepted that the above is true. Love is not the moment when we accept that we are Love, Peace and Joy instead of the negative emotions that we have allowed to carry us away.

Love is the moment we realize that we are healed by our brother. Love is the moment we know that we cannot be healed alone. Love is when we realize that the choice for anger, for fear, pain and loneliness concerns everybody. Love is when we know in our heart, we are in this together. We cannot battle the ego alone, for the ego is the decision to make the seperation from our brothers real. To undo the ego, we turn to ourselves. We turn to ourselves who are our brothers. We turn to our Lover. We turn to Christ. Christ is the name of every soul united in one being. Christ is our saviour. We ask our brother the Christ to save us. Please note that our brother the Christ is not Jesus, even though Jesus takes a part in it. Our brother the Christ encompasses all being.

Our brother the Christ heals us. Our brother the Christ heals us by us asking for a miracle. We ask the miracle by accepting, that the thought of seperation can only be healed by the whole of the Sonship. We ask a miracle by embracing the one truth that we are.

Miracles take effect immediately. However the ego takes time to release its grip. Whenever we ask for a miracle, a miracle is given. If no other brother offers a miracle, Jesus steps in and offers it in his stead. However remember that miracles are done by a brother for a brother. As we receive miracles we give miracles. It is impossible not to give miracles when a miracle is received. In miracles each of us is healed in each other.