We all chose our fate for this one life at the moment of our birth, this is seen as the horoscope chart which we read. Now there are always some ups and downs. It is so strange that we never question the ‘ups’ but rue the ‘downs’ of life. We blame the Universe our mom/dad, the husband/wife, our teachers and even our children for our problems. But it is time we realise that, the problems and their solutions are both within our own self.

Forgiveness is such a hot item in the market, that I felt like writing my very practical take on it. I think a bit differently, as always. So here it is.

The feeling of forgiveness is an energy. Energy can never be destroyed, but can be transmuted or transferred. Forgiveness arises only after experiencing intense emotional pain. The pain is so intense that you have no other ‘real’ way of resolving it, so you forgive. Forgiveness is about you and never about the other person. When you forgive, you return energy to the one who gave you that pain. This ensures your freedom. This really happens very rarely in a life-time because you cling on to negative energies and never think of freeing yourself through forgiveness.

Most of us turn forgiveness into a show of magnanimity, displaying the largeness of our hearts, turn it into a public spectacle, try to impress others with our nobility of spirit. When you ‘turn the other cheek’, follow a society rule-book, or try to gain socially by ‘forgiving’, you basically feed your ego and get attached to being on the high moral ground. ‘I am better than you because I forgive your heinous behaviour!’, simply does not work.

If you really want to forgive, the motive should be, to do the right thing by your own Conscience/Antar-atma. Forgiveness is no strings attached, you give it away. You cannot consciously plan self-gain when forgiving. True forgiveness happens only as a last resort. This is when you have tried all ways of resolving, re-balancing, healing and everything has failed. When the ego fails, you forgive. This happens only when you go through deep emotional pain. Such pain cannot be resolved by holding on to it. It has to be released and it will leave you only when you forgive yourself for choosing it in the first place. Forgiveness is always an intensely private affair, between you and yourself.

Choices! You chose your emotional problem. Now you will choose the solution. Whatever you choose, the first step out is to forgive yourself for choosing the pain in the first place.

Example. Your wife died tragically young, leaving you with a baby to raise. You feel hurt, lost, resentful and in emotional pain. This is an injustice, you shout out at your Gods, at the Universe! Can the legal system help redress? Can any one else even do anything? No! You have to do this for yourself. You have to let go of this pain by forgiving yourself for choosing this experience. Release that painful energy to the Universe in this case. This is a bitter karmic lesson, learn it now in this life, forgive yourself, so that you don’t face the same situation in your next life.

Example. You buy a extra flat for investment and your brother asks to stay there. You agree but then he never vacates and you have lost possession of the flat. You try talking to him. Your parents also take his side. You can of course go to the courts to get him evicted but it is not worth the trouble. You have enough income and the flat was extra. Your brother’s behaviour has hurt your trust. You are reconciled to the loss of the flat, but you are hurt, deeply resentful and in emotional pain. How do you recover? There are no social or legal ways now. So, Forgive? The last resort. It is like an emotional surgery. A sample how-to-do.

1. First think about what was the problem really?
   • Your trusting him? Or his betraying you?
   • Generally all normal persons trust their family members. So you definitely were not the problem. Betraying a family member’s trust was the problem. The problem was created by him.
2. Identify the source of the toxic energy which is creating negative energy in you.
   • In our example this is not you. It has come from your brother.
3. Acknowledge that Events occur as scripted in the horoscope. This was your choice at birth. So acknowledge that this event was to happen at this point of time.
   • You were to attract these energies of betrayal from your brother. The timing and the conditions were such that this foreign energy came in to you and got stuck on you. Temporarily, you attracted it from your brother!
4. Now to remove this toxic energy. Emotional pain always burrows deep into the sub-conscious and astral bodies. It needs to be removed by its roots, else it can continue on to the future lives too. (Doing guided meditation also helps.)
   • This will take a bit of intention and conscious will.
   • Do a bit of grounding and cleansing with sea-salt water before and after this conscious act of ‘forgiveness’.
   • Relax and try to settle your mind. Think of your source of faith /universe /reiki /favourite deity etc.
   • Speak the sentences out loud. It should be from your heart in the language you are comfortable in. Something like this. ‘This energy of betrayal which had come to me from my brother, it does not belong to me, I have no use for it, I return it to its source where it properly belongs.’ and visualise it leaving you.
5. After this removal (forgiveness), feel your light filled self. Visualise yourself covered by pearly silver-gold energy. Visualise the Universal source of light and love. Connect your pearly shield with this Source. Feel yourself enveloped by its comforting love. Relax.
6. If the emotional context was too severe you may need to repeat this process a few times. This will ensure freedom from the toxicity and you will be secure in your own clear emotions.

Forgiveness ends the emotional hurt for the one who forgives.

For the one being forgiven, this does not mean that he is released from the burden of pain he gave. Far from it. One who consciously decides to emotionally or physically harm others, creates quite a bit of great deal of karmic pain for himself in some future life. The internal conscience is always judging, always! Your brother will face the consequences of his actions without a doubt. Karma cannot be escaped. It will ensure balance.

Forgiveness is not cowardice. And it is neither denial or suppression of emotions. It is neither reconciling to the pain. It is trusting the higher forces of Karma and putting yourself out of the picture.

Forgiveness releases you from the burden of this thought, “I have to ensure that this person who has hurt me gets punished. This is my responsibility”. In the personal context, there are several hurts which always remain deeply private. Social or legal justice has its limits. If you tie the one who hurt you to yourself like this, you will need to power this thought. This drains energy which could have been put to better use. You use precious soul-energy to hold on to resentment, pain, loss, torment, defeat, negativity, why? Let it go away from you. Know that karma exists and trust it to do its job. By forgiving yourself, you get free from the burden of grief. Concentrate on your well-being.

When someone hurts you on the emotional level, this should be your response, “You hurt me, I did nothing to deserve it. I will not keep this act within me. I am returning this energy back to you. I will not keep this energy and neither this emotional hurt within me.” Intend this consciously, forgive and be free.

Never cling to memories of injustice, it is exhausting, it drains you of your potential to be happy. And tell yourself, “my Self, my Lovely Self, always be Happy, it is your Real Nature!”.