[Behind The Words We Utter]: To Forgive

“ To forgive is to free your own soul from hatred”

Garrain Jones

It’s not the first time I hear this, that to forgive is the way to heal from someone’s-or even your own- wrongdoing of you.

But is it really true? And not that I am an absolute know it all, but…

According to my experiences and my healing journey- and also from what I have seen – liberating oneself from hate and forgiving someone are two different things that are not mutually exclusive.

To reach that kind of a mindset where you no longer have hatred, means you’ll never be so deeply hurt again. No one’s actions or words will touch you wrongly, let alone hurt you. And so, forgiving someone wouldn’t be needed to heal from the pain you would have otherwise felt.

And although forgiveness is an act of compassion, it is about the other person’s release from destructive and debilitating guilt.

Forgiveness thrown around without asking is like walking on a thread mill in a pseudo-direction and reaching nowhere. Sure , there’s an effort that’s rewarded, but you can only go so far in that cycle everyday. Literally!

And when forgiveness is not asked , there’s no reflection, accountability, humility and remorse – and more importantly, learning involved for the other person.

Do the most enlightened spiritual practitioners need to forgive to enable their soul’s liberation? Have they ever needed to?

It’s really not a chicken or egg situation when one thing is the egg that cracks into a chick, and the other is Sun that burns in the sky.

If we are made in the image of the Creator (god/universe/light etc , for the sake of simplifying the notion), he doesn’t forgive because he was hurt and needs to free himself of hate. He forgives because we ask for it for our own absolution.

He forgives because of his loving state of compassion and grace.

Because he is free.