Monday, December 1, 2008

A Little On Forgiveness

How difficult is it, really, to forgive? My experience would suggest that it's considerably more difficult than we like to think. "Oh, I've forgiven her for that." What this often means is that I'm not thinking about it anymore, or I've succeeded in pushing it out of consciousness, so this must be forgiveness, right? Well, no.

Ram Dass's guru, Neem Karoli Baba, is quoted in one of his (RD's) books as saying: "Forgiveness is a saint's most powerful weapon. With forgiveness he can let go of anger instantly." I think it's this desire, or a cultural or family or personal bias against anger that leads us to think that we've forgiven. What is more often the case is that: I don't want to feel angry, or, I'm not supposed to feel angry, or, I'm afraid of anger, so I'll pretend that I'm not angry and call this forgiveness.

Neem Karoli Baba's words let us know that there is a hand-in-glove relationship between anger and forgiveness. My experience confirms this. Where there is anger, even if it's out of awareness, even if we have convinced ourselves that it isn't there, even if we've skilfully removed it from our sight, there can be no forgiveness. Where there is anger, there is fear, and there is self protection.

Truly forgiving though involves becoming, again, more vulnerable; it involves a decision to put oneself at risk, again, a decision to re-open one's heart again, knowing full well that it will, inevitably, unavoidably, somewhere, at some time, be, again, injured. Forgiveness requires the capacity and the willingness to sustain this injury and this re-opening again and again, without losing oneself in the process. Perhaps it's not as easy as we like to believe.

The practice of forgiveness, however, as awkward and as imperfect as it might be, is really essential to wellbeing and to health in every dimension.