Forgiveness (some thoughts) by Peter Russell
I have appreciated Peter Russell’s work for many years now. He has a gentleness and humble intelligence that comforts and shines. Here is a piece on Forgiveness written by Peter. It is not based on A Course in Miracles, so take what you like and leave the rest. There is a lovely accompanying short meditation that can be found via his website: peterrussell.com
Forgiveness doesn’t always seem easy. If someone has said or done something that has hurt us, forgiveness may feel like we’re letting them off. “You did wrong, but I’m not going to punish you this time.” But true forgiveness is far from letting someone off — or even thinking they did wrong. It can be a profound healing process for both parties.
In the Bible, the Greek word that’s translated as “forgive” is aphesis. Its literal meaning is “‘to let go” — to physically let go of something, as when we let go of a rope, or a rock, for example. We’re releasing our grip on it.
With forgiveness, we are releasing the grip our mind has on some past event or experience. We’re letting go of the judgments and grievances we’re holding; letting go of our beliefs about how others should have behaved or how they’ve done wrong.
When someone doesn’t behave as we expected, or as we would have liked them to behave, we might well feel angry. It’s easy, then, to think that the other person has made us angry. We make them responsible for our feelings.
But when we look more closely, we often find that our upset comes from our interpretation of their behavior. We’re telling ourselves a story about what happened, how they were wrong, and how they should have behaved. So instead of saying they have made us angry, it would be more accurate to say we’ve made ourselves angry by how we judged their behavior.
True forgiveness comes from letting go of the judgments we’re holding — releasing the grip they have on our mind. It’s something we do for our own benefit as much as for the other person.
One thing that can help is to put ourselves in the other person’s position. If we could truly understand their motives — why they did what they did, what they might have been thinking and feeling, their own background and conditioning, their fears and pain, and the judgments they might have been holding about us — then we might begin to understand why they acted as they did.
We can begin to recognize that although they may not have behaved as we think they should have, they were, in a sense, behaving exactly as they should have — given all the factors that led up to their actions.
Forgiveness begins when we recognize that the other person was, deep down, wanting exactly what we want. In their own way, they were seeking to ease their suffering and be more at peace. But they went about doing this in ways that happened to impede our own search for peace. Putting ourselves in the other person’s shoes fosters understanding, which leads to empathy and compassion.
This is not to imply we should accept someone’s bad behavior, or even condone it. We may well feel the need to give them feedback, or make suggestions as to how they might behave better, but let’s do so with a compassionate heart, rather than from a judgmental mind.
Thank you, Peter Russell!