Q: I want to talk about forgiveness. We’re often told to forgive this and forgive that, but if we’re really coming from our heart there is no need for forgiveness.
John: Yes. When you hold a grudge, or when you’re closing and hardening towards someone because of how they’ve treated you, it doesn’t matter how wrongly you’re treated, you’re not right in closing or hardening. So in that way no one has a good or a real reason to close and harden.
We can close and harden when we’re mistreated, and what we understand in ourselves is that ultimately we need to come to a place of forgiving, forgiving the other. What that’s really based on is that we need to come to a place of openness and softness of heart concerning how we were treated. When we move in that beingness there isn’t the need to forgive, and what passes away with the need to forgive is also being above others by forgiving them. In a way, as we forgive someone, there’s something in ourselves that’s condescending.
When we’re just opening and softening within toward how someone has treated us, there is no beingness that brings us in any way to being condescending. What there is, is an extension of openness and softness – a movement of love. For anyone who’s identified with themselves, it’s a simple way to point to the heart by encouraging that one to forgive. But as soon as you begin to go deeper within than your self, you don’t need to relate to forgiving: what you come into is the beingness that moves in the value of forgiveness.
What makes forgiveness real, and gives it its value, is a deeper beingness.
