Written By: Kidecia King
Depending on the context of your situation, forgiveness may not be available, nor what is needed, for your healing and positive movement forward. This is because, contrary to common belief, the conditions for forgiveness’s existence are not as frequently present as most people hope/perceive they are in situations where harm takes place in relationship to others to begin with.
Although many people love the effects of participating in the performative act of virtue-signaling, in which they can cheaply (without applied effort, without sacrifice, without deep understanding, and without the hard work of embodiment) recite easy to use platitudes, and improv shallow “acts of kindness” (that are often now filmed for the masses to consume), and “forgiveness” has become a popular buzzword to masquerade around plastic-smile-esque coverups for displaying the bare minimum of empathy (if that much), true forgiveness is quite rare…and costly. And it is rare not because it is hard to do, but because the context for its full manifestation are rarely present in common instances of hurt in a world filled with “hurt people, hurting people.”
In our unique and complex relationships with everyone in our lives, from society as a whole, to personal spouses and family members, it is easy to think that forgiveness is a common occurrence because we are so often having to navigate through a sea of small and large offences against us on a daily basis. Because of this common nature of constant offense, we have become pros at prioritizing what to attend to and what to overlook.
True forgiveness, however, as stated before, is quite uncommon and is incredibly expensive because it not only requires us to be deeply harmed (to which we may have needed to open ourselves to become vulnerable to begin with), but True forgiveness also requires a context of a higher form of Loving expression for it to exist, manifest, and to occur within the first place. Forgiveness is not just any intelligent response of moving beyond a hurt, or shielding oneself from pain, it is a specific type of response that may not be appropriate, or even necessary, in all situations where harm takes place.
Although it is now, for many cultural and social reasons, used in social posturing, and many people wish to, therefore, label their behaviors as acts of forgiveness, True forgiveness should rarely need to occur and should always be done with the utmost care and reverence.
When your healing and positive movement forward is self-directed, for example, which means that it does not directly involve bringing anyone else along (often because they have not chosen/agreed to do so, or because the harm that others inflicted turned instead into your own self-sustained injuries such as harmful personal ideologies and thoughts that you may have transformed into destructive beliefs that eventually led to unwanted behaviors that you may need to release), what you do to move forward is simply best referred to as the psychological acceptance of the reality of what occurred paired with maturity and the healthy choice to positively move on.
“Forgiveness,” one is best remembering, is primarily a sacred social phenomena. And it requires the active participation of both the offender and the offended.
In order for forgiveness to take place in social relationship to others, there must be the mutual presence of care/regard and surrender on both sides, which means that the one who does harm must possess even a basic level of connection with his/her conscience to feel at least uncomfortable with inflicting harm, and genuinely wish to make things right.
Since forgiveness is a compassionate form of relating to another that requires the person/people who do harm to feel deep remorse for what they have done so that they can heal along with those they harmed, without the presence of remorse, one cannot truly forgive any other, and the latter is often the case in most situations where people think that they are engaging in acts of forgiveness.
If a person who inflicts harm on you does not truly feel badly for what they have done (especially if they engage in a harmful behavior over and over again), there is no way to extend the grace of forgiveness to them, no matter how much you wish to do so…and there is no need to. If a person does not feel badly for the things that they do, even if it clearly harms you or others, there is no work to be done except to heal yourself and to make yourself better.
You can only heal yourself when others do not take responsibility for their role in your suffering. And if another person is not actively engaged in taking responsibility for the harm that they have created and do not truly love you enough to participate in a healing relationship that could have included them, do not attempt to force “forgiveness,” onto them. Forgiveness is a consensual opportunity that requires a foundation of higher Love, humility, remorse, and compassion. It is not cheap role-play.
And, furthermore, the sacred and essential act of healing is not spiced up, improved, nor made “better” if forgiveness takes place.
Forgiveness must occur organically and naturally, and healing is perfect in/onto itself even when you do not have anyone to perform forgiveness with…Plus, if you really want to forgive anyone, you can work to do so with/within yourself. Let go of the hurt that you are holding onto and binding yourself with others in…they do not need to be involved, and sometimes it is best if they are not involved when they do not truly care about you anyway.
This is particularly true in situations where another’s harmful behavior is intentional. Even if done in ignorance and due to lower expressions that you, as a conscientious person, can see will eventually lead them to suffer, no amount of forgiveness that you are sending to them can reach that person without their consent (especially if they are OK with their harmful behaviors). You cannot “extend your kindness” to heal the things in others that caused them to behave the way that they did if they themselves do not want to let go of these things.
You are not anyone’s fixer; they are that for themselves through the power of all that is that flows through all beings and things.
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 who needs it. That is 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/temporary form–even in full Absolute expression in spirit, are only an aspect of the 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 if they never wise up to the effects of any harmful behaviors they may participate in (arguably for numerous lifetimes).
What you do when you “forgive” is to fully utilize, and stand in, your sacredness and 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).
And you can invite them to heal with you if they are ready…But, if they do not (or cannot truly) join you in that process of co-creating the forgiveness that they could benefit from with you, that is OK. You can still move forward. Because, at the end of the day, you cannot save any other; they have to save themselves.
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 done the hard/costly work and have an understanding of their Self beyond their limited form, and have learned to regulate their body-mind-ego in ways that matter in the world.
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.
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 may have 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, unsuccessful attempts to release the suffering present within them that they choose to sustain). 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: the things you are best leaving behind. 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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Investigating multi-dimensional holistic wellness as an inter-disciplinary artist and Yoga-Meditation writer, thinker, and practitioner. Doing experientially-based self-agency work grounded in research, reflection, and practice.