Friday, May 8, 2009

Forgive and Be Free

Lately, in the whirl of my consciousness, my focus has settled on forgiveness. If you haven't had a recent life self-initiation experience into forgiveness, the concept has probably taken a back seat in your consciousness and it has as much meaning as a used tissue.

Then, if you're like me, someone raised in the Catholic tradition which was chosen for you by your parents, you have a dissonant relationship to the concept of which the amplitude is further increased by the messaging by over-the-top religiousity.

As a yogi on the spiritual path, I find myself relearning and adopting new meanings for deep concepts such as "forgiveness." (Hmm, idea for a series of blog postings).

My angle of entry into the vastness of forgiveness starts is the hard-time we give ourselves when we drop-the-ball on something that we said we would do (i.e., getting up early to practice or meditating in the evening to compliment your morning meditation). The list could go on for pages or many bytes where we pile onto ourselves an elephant's weight of guilt and negative self-talk.

As practioners, I suggest that we replace "let go" with "forgive yourself." I find that "letting go" and "surrendering" are concepts to which some people may not have traction, thus are unable to enter into that "liberated" state we are all seeking.

The second and more important part of the process requires receiving "forgive yourself" into your deepest self. "Receiving" requires taking a conscious moment of present awareness for the experience to have true meaning.

I leave you with a quote from Gurumayi from a copy of DARSHAN that I recently picked up.
"Once you forgive, truly a great alchemy takes place within yourself, and you feel so free, so good. You can breathe deeply and really appreciate the leaves on the trees and the sunlight and the sweetness coming from people. You open yourself to grace, and then grace comes pouring into your life."

PS. Thanks to Edgerton for the picture. You can find him on Flickr as well as many other artists who ply their art anonymously. Try typing any word and see how many people visualize it.