Quotes About Forgiveness

"Your spiritual work must fundamentally deal with the issue of resolution and forgiveness."

"Forgiveness represents a path of redemption."

Directives

"You are entering a time where great forgiveness must be exercised and where a new understanding of forgiveness must be presented and emphasized and supported."

"Your judgments, your reactions, your unforgiveness, your attitudes, your beliefs—all these things stand in the way of your being present to yourself, to others and to the world. And so you must gain freedom from these things within yourself and within your relationships."

"How can you see the need for it until you have seen again and again the debilitating effects of being bound to old ideas, old relationships, old interests and old activities that no longer represent you. You must see the effects of having your memory cast over you like a great shadow--darkening your skies, haunting you, hounding you and following you wherever you go. You can forgive these things because you can release them. If you cannot release them, you cannot forgive them. What is forgiveness but release? How can you release something if you are still holding onto it? The only way to release something is to go where it is not needed, where you cannot take it with you and where it has no relevance and no importance."

"If you find yourself having a critical or condemning attitude towards a nation of people or a group of people, you should go visit them and talk to them and hear about their experience and understand why their point of view has arisen given their circumstances and their history."

Real forgiveness

"Real forgiveness is a process of transforming something old into something new, something that was useless into something that is useful, something that is meaningless into something that is meaningful. Here your mistakes, instead of being a source of pain and inner discomfort for you, become a means of reaching other people, for everyone has made mistakes, and many people have made the same ones that you have. This becomes a way to reach people. 'I made this mistake. This is what I learned. And this is what I am doing with it now.' What a beautiful teaching this is. How gracious this is and how important it is for the listener and for the communicator as well."

"Here you must understand what forgiveness really is. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is not overlooking difficulties you have had with people in the past, for that becomes emotionally and intellectually dishonest. You cannot make something good that was not good without deceiving yourself and becoming dishonest regarding your feelings. Forgiveness here must be something that enables you to see another person clearly and to derive learning from that experience, from that relationship."

"When you begin to experience forgiveness at this level, your whole demeanor will change. Instead of feeling restraint and inability within yourself, you will feel open and powerful. Creativity will return to you. You will be able to see other people clearly and compassionately for who they are and for where they are. They will no longer simply be symbolic of someone else, a reminder of someone else. You will be able to see them clearly as they are, without condemnation."

How to forgive

“Forgiveness requires a recognition of another and their humanity. Of course, humanity is fallible and you can excuse human behavior on this alone, but really it is feeling another person’s condition. Here compassion arises naturally when you recognize the humanity and the reality of another person or a whole nation of people."

“Forgiveness has to start with recognizing the humanity of others and exerting the effort to understand why people do what they do, what drives people to do things that are even wicked or tragic. And when you see that you have that same potential within yourself, you become more circumspect, and you are able to withhold condemnation.”

“Be grateful for all those who seem to err against you, for they will show you what is necessary in your life and they will remind you that Knowledge is your one true purpose, your one true goal and your one true expression. In this all who err against you become your friends, for even in their misery they serve you and will call upon you to serve them.”

“There is not one person in the world who cannot give you something beneficial if you will not judge them. There is not one person in the world who, through their accomplishments or their errors, cannot confirm the importance of Knowledge and cannot demonstrate its need in the world. Thus it is that those whom you love and those whom you despise all offer gifts to you of equal value.”

See also

All true religion

Freedom from the Past

Unburdening

Unforgiveness

Further Study

• Wisdom from the Greater Community Volume I, Chapter 23: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness (October 14, 2008)

• Steps to Knowledge, Step 207: I forgive those whom I think have hurt me.