More and more I am believing that life's second most important lesson is all about forgiveness.
Easwaran writes "if you do not learn how to love, everywhere you go you are going to suffer." Ah, and there's our paradox. It is that suffering that we come to treasure for, as has been written, "pain is the touchstone of all spiritual growth," and there is no pain without suffering. In my world at any rate.
Suffering almost without fail comes with someone else's name on it as the cause. And there s/he is...our angel. The one we must forgive just exactly as she presents herself to us...precisely as we translate his actions and/or words as personal. Disrespectful in a word.
That does not mean forgive him but never forget. No. It means forgive her and let it go...hug the ugly, kiss it on the lips, and wave it good-bye.
That's how we come to know pain as the touchstone of all spiritual growth for this is a painful process. What a shock it is when we realize it is painful to our ego...and that is all. The more we dress it up in order to validate our hurt ("my heart was pierced"), the tighter we hold to our ego's rule.
Forgive, i.e., go to God for God. In that moment of transcendent surrender, we are stripped of our need to hurt or be hurt. We give over and we know genuine love.
Thank you.
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