6.6 Why is it crucially important to forgive?

In your life it can happen that you are wronged – unfairly, unjustly and apparently without rhyme or reason. Your sense of injury, in such a situation, is acute and very often considerably justified. If your pain is deep, and your sense of having been wronged is considerable, you may feel it is impossible, indeed stupid, to forgive one who has so clearly and unjustly mistreated you.

Be clear: when such situations occur in your life, you are being tested by the process that is reality. The operator, structuring the situation to create your pain and sorrow, is the implacable law of karma. Whether you are able to forgive, or not, will significantly determine the shape of your life.

Christianity teaches the moral necessity for forgiveness. The supreme example of forgiveness, in our Western cultures, is set by Jesus accepting and forgiving the suffering of his crucifixion, so that the prophecies of his culture might be fulfilled, and primitive peoples raised to an ethically-based civilization. The secular Implicate Technology teaching of the clear setting face to face with reality deals only with the mechanics of the process of forgiveness – the morality of each situation is dealt with by your responding positively to the promptings of your karma.

The mechanics of the process of forgiveness are simple. If you remain attached to your suffering, and are unable to forgive, you will continue to incur negative karma. If you forgive the person or persons who wronged you, you will be relieved from the weight and burden of your accumulated negative karma, according to the degree of your forgiveness.

If you refuse to forgive the wrongs done to you, you will remain bound to the pattern of pain and sorrow which has brought about such a significant opportunity in your life. If you refuse to forgive, you are reinforcing your commitment to unenlightened behaviour. Reality will so structure itself that the opportunities to forgive will continue until you learn the lesson—this means you will continue to suffer through the workings of your karma.

To commit an act of genuine forgiveness is to release yourself from bondage to a specific pattern of pain and sorrow in your life. To forgive is to confirm your commitment to enlightenment, to affirm your determination to act in accordance with the flow of reality. Now reality will so structure itself, because you have learnt an important lesson, that your life moves on to the next lesson. This does not mean the end of your pain and sorrow; it simply means an opportunity to move closer to enlightenment.

The act of forgiveness is simplicity itself. Words alone are not forgiveness. Reality is beyond mere words such as: “I forgive you”.

For the forgiveness to be a genuine release from the burden of accumulated negative karma, it must involve a sincere stepping away from attachment to your pain and sorrow. Mere words may fool other people; they can never fool karma. Within yourself, you must become committed to detachment from your suffering – only then does the genuine act of forgiveness take place.

The first step in the sincere act of forgiveness is to become detached from your negative emotional responses. Calm, slow, meditative breathing will help you to achieve this. Think about this teaching in the context of your own life, long and carefully.

The second step in the sincere act of forgiveness is to convey the fact that you have forgiven to the person or persons who have wronged you. This can be conveyed in simple words, when and if a suitable opportunity arises. What you have to say, according to circumstances, is some variation on this theme: “These things happen. I was hurt, but we can all learn from experience”.

Do not, foolishly, believe that a genuine act of forgiveness will cause your pain to disappear rapidly, nor that your life will suddenly be filled with what you desire as a reward. The consequence of a sincere act of forgiveness is to release you from the burden of your accumulated negative karma. The true benefit you derive, freed from attachment to your pain and sorrow, is to be set clearly face to face with your experience of reality. In this way, you progress along the path to enlightenment.