What you do when you “forgive” another is not to “pardon” anyone else’s “sins” (only the All-Seeing, All-Knowing, Absolute, “God,” of blatant and subtle Karmas can “do” that). “You” don’t even have the time or energy to forgive everyone out here; that’s impossible to the proportion of “sinning” in this world. You would be a shriveled up, exhausted, ancient relic, by the time you were done, and you would never be done.
“You,” and all other humans–in limited form–even in full Absolute expression in spirit, are only an aspect of this Absolute manifested into the world–regardless of what your ego may delusionally believe, and you do not have the Absolute right to “correct” anyone else’s wrongs for them. The most that you can do in any Absolute sense, within your power, when it comes to “forgiving others” is to let go of “your” hurt through personal healing and resistance to growing/deepening pain, and to wish everyone, in their uniquely manifested expression, good luck with doing the same for their current and future manifested Karmas that will certainly lead them to inevitable suffering (arguably for numerous lifetimes).
What you do when you “forgive” is to fully utilize, and stand in, your power (that another attempted to steal through their thoughts, words, and/or actions, in their feeling of powerlessness or in their stupor of ignorance and over-inflated ego delusion that tries to harm others to prop “itself” up).
What you do when you “forgive” is to prevent yourself from taking on, spreading, and/or empowering, others’ ignorance, hatred, and other destructive degeneracy in the world (preventing deterioration within yourself and your inner/personal landscape, which thus prevents you from creating, spreading, or taking on negative Karmas moving forward).
Those who have cultivated rich inner landscapes, and are truly in control of their animal nature and lower self in the world, do not go around creating damage to others (“unconsciously,” and they most certainly do not do so “consciously”), because they have an understanding of their Self beyond their limited form, and have learned to regulate their body-mind-ego.
What occurs when you truly forgive (within the scope of your actual ability to do so beyond the ego-delusion that many participate in throughout their lifetime and in society) is to transform the damage that hateful and hurtful people attempt to pass on to you due to their ignorance and lack of Self-knowledge and self-control in aggressive and passive-aggressive ways–ie. different forms of violence (the only knowledge and control that serves as the manifestation of your true power in this world).
Instead of making excuses for other people’s hurtful behaviors (not advised in any school of thought except those steeped in cognitive confusion and ignorance), and deluding yourself into ignoring what violence does in the world, you can, as a more intelligent response, use other’s bad example as a way to further understand the lower human nature that needs to be worked out, transformed, and overcome through your practice, and use all of your pain, that they inflicted, as purification as recommended in the Yoga Sutras.
The circus show of “wounded people wounding people,” and powerless, lost, people oppressing/putting other people down to feel more powerful and special is not the game that you came here to play as a Yogi. Don’t even entertain that catastrophe. This circus show is the thing that you, standing in your power, can see through/understand and withdraw from (no matter how hard others work to drag you into their misery in desperate, misguided, attempts to release the suffering present within them). You are here to transcend the illusion and the delusion, not be dragged into it.
“Forgive” the world and others for their ignorance and delusion by seeing the delusion and ignorance for what it is. Have compassion, but do not get dragged in, neither into their Karmic entanglements, nor the ignorant social game of playing small gods to pardon any “sins” that will be corrected by Karma anyway. Let “God” forgive them (and you too if you ever fall into idiocy).
Let it all go and stand in your True power of wielding your light and using it to burn out all the things that would have otherwise kept you bumbling around out here with those who are lost. Have compassion but don’t get caught in delusional attachment to feeling like you can correct or control anyone else’s inner state or choices.
And when others harm you–or try to anyway–thank those lost ones for clearly steering you away from destruction through their example of what not to be/do in order to remain free.
Thank you for reading.
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