Forgiveness Brings Freedom

This will be a stream of consciousness regarding the title topic with potential subtopic tangents that hopefully will give broader perspective of what I am trying to convey.

Let's begin with the postulate:  In forgiveness, there is freedom.


Background:  I grew up believing that you should be forgiving and patient with people to a point, but that you should not allow yourself to be taken advantage of.  As I got older, forgiving people who tried to take advantage of me, or even inflict harm upon me, seemed to be a poor decision.  I began to feel it ran contrary to the idea of "looking out" for myself.  I would bear grudges for a long time, if someone caused me great emotional pain or turmoil.  Without realizing it, I was slowly collecting quantities of negative emotion in buckets, like dirty water that had been soiled after cleansing the body.  But, instead of allowing the water to flow free back into the world where it might dissipate the dirt and grime that others had intentionally or unintentionally flung upon me, I kept it close to me.  In retrospect, it is little wonder that upon reaching adulthood I was stricken with depression and became quite chronically ill.  Anyone who knew me through my years in college and even up till recently, would have sensed this in some fashion or another.  Mine was not an uncommon malady.  In fact, I suspect it is quite routine to become so poisoned by years of wear and tear.

Conceptual:  Many traditional ways of coping with this affliction tend to take the form of physical inebriation, self-deprecation, denial, externalization (blaming outside sources and taking no personal responsibility), and outright self destruction.  It is arguable that all of these are, in one form or another, a type of self destruction.  It is rational that the autonomic response is a pre-programmed method of suicide.  Like cells in our body that accumulate an unrepairable mutation that could give rise to cancer, perhaps our own sentience contains some form of underlying subconscious whole-organism codes for apoptosis.  It would make sense from a mentality of protecting the species to have members that are ill, weed themselves out to strengthen the larger group.  However, the conflict between the subconscious and conscious minds arises in the act of gaining self-awareness.  At least, when we become so involved with what might be termed 'the world delusion', we lose track of the fact that there really should be no division between the subconscious and conscious minds.  When there is a division between the two, and the being as a whole is afflicted with emotional and spiritual pain and anguish such that the subconscious begins to seek an end to the torment and the conscious mind rejects the destruction, you can become an incredibly destructive person in the larger world around you.  Alternatively, if you give into the pre-programmed whole-organism apoptosis - you have failed to find the source of your problem and are merely surrendering to the easiest path out.  Life isn't about simplicity.  At least not when it comes to sansara.

Intermission:  I make no apologies for what I speak here in this blog post, previous blog posts, or future blog posts.  I speak only from my perspective and completely ignorance.  I have had suicidal thoughts.  I have contemplated killing myself, but chose not to.  At first, I could not end my own life because I did not wish to damage my body or my spirit.  Even in my moments of greatest despair, I could not damage what I felt was a functional living entity.  How could I damage my body or take my own life, when there are people in the world who have far less than I do (either in physical body or in mind or spirit) and yet have a desire to live?  Contrary to the concept of an honorable death by my own hand, taking my own life at this point would have been a great dishonor not only to myself, but to those who cared for me.

Footnotes:  Let us bring into a parallel vein, the concept that all of these poisons, all of these negative feelings, all of these inabilities to forgive people for the things I perceived as wrongs perpetrated against me -- they were sleeping giants attached to my back.  They were huge stone idols I pulled with me everywhere.  They were giant leather brief cases loaded with the endless paperwork and detailed transactions between myself and others.  I was paying "back taxes" on things that hadn't had any real meaning in my life for perhaps decades.  I will not list the specific details of things that I have carried with me (the actual passages of my life are not critical to this entry), but I will say that the first step for me, was to awaken the giants.  This is not what I would say is the method anyone else may need to use.  It is incredibly dangerous to awaken the giants that have been kept in a comatose state by IV drugs such as my misery and wrath.  I can quite honestly say that in waking them, I came closer at times in the past few months to my own self destruction than I have ever been.  I doused my soul in so many flammable reagents and explosive sediments, that the single spark that ignited the entire thing very nearly consumed me.  In fact, to honest, I cannot say that it did not truly consume me and devour what I had been.  This is, however, a beautiful image in its own right.

Conclusions:  After the flames died down, I awoke.  Like a phoenix reborn, I had the sudden epiphany that forgiving everything and everyone was not only an immensely positive and purifying process -- it would sever the chains that had burdened me for so long.  It was not the sudden sensation of removing heavy shoes that gave rise to light feet, nor was it the sudden sensation of angelic revelation that comes from confessing sins.

In all candor, I don't believe in sin.  Not as any organized faith of any dogmatic practice from any nation or region of the world would define it.

The strings that have held be to all of the experiences of the past, like a giant spider's web into which I had flown and struggled and in so struggling, had become nearly inescapably trapped -- these threads are severed.  I am no greater than what I was before.  I am another Homo sapiens sapiens with a pulse and breath and face capable of smiling and frowning, eyes capable of mirth or mourning.  But, I am free.  That sorrow that I have carried for so many years, is gone.  It just evaporated in a split second.  Dissolved into the earth and took with it the vast giants whose weight had nearly struck me down.  I am sharing this with the world not because I am hoping anyone will follow in my foot steps.  I would never think that my chosen path is applicable to anyone but me.  The path that has found me, is the one I shall walk.  I just wish to express that I find forgiveness to be the single greatest liberation I have ever experienced.

And in conclusion, I will readily admit that other people are easier to let go of.  I have always taken the greatest responsibility or sense blame upon myself.

The most difficult person of all to forgive was myself.