Topics Include: Forgiving Remembering the Innocence of God's Creations

Ask the Author: Question and Response

Right now, I am unemployed and trying not to get evicted. It seems like the harder I pray, the more doors are closing in my face. I think maybe it is the family drama, and am I holding on to unforgiveness and blocking my blessings. So I decided to text my sister and ask for forgiveness and to tell her I forgive her. I googled forgiveness and found this site. I was blessed by this article and I will send in a donation when I get back on my feet. I have five older sisters and they all need to read this article and the book. I would like your permission to copy this article and share it with them. They are holding onto some grudges much stronger than I am against the sister that started this. Pray for my family - six sisters, two brothers and an 86 year old loving mom with Alzheimer's who needs her family to be whole not divided. Thank you for your kindness.

- Brenda, Tennessee, USA

You and your brothers and sisters are God’s creations. God’s creations have only two possible expressions, either love or a call for love. And the only way to react to these two expressions is love. You and your brothers and sisters were created by love. Thus your foundation, who in truth you are, is love. Some of love’s expressions are forgiveness, joy, peace, trust, compassion, charity, respect and kindness. When you are allowing them to flow through you, you experience clarity, gratitude, balance and fulfillment. These are qualities of your trueself, your Godself.

If you react in any way other than love, you are buying into the illusion the ego-self is selling. The ego-self is a limited belief system within the mind. The more time, energy and focus you place on it, the greater part of your life it becomes. Each individual molds and creates an ego-self. When you express anger, judgment, condemnation, stress or any other "negative" emotion, your result is that of becoming unbalanced, confused, chaotic, and experiencing emptiness and regret. None of these feeling and emotions are part of the truth in you. These are creations of the ego. They are false. They are illusions you have taught yourself are real, and thus unconsciously defend as real because you are their creator. The ego is fed and kept alive through the act of judgment. You attack others through judgment for not accepting your illusionary thinking as truth, and so do they every time they judge you.

The ego’s world teaches that God is a God of judgment. Thus, in this illusionary world there is a great need for forgiveness. The ego has taught you that God can condemn, and since you were created in "His image" then you can too. Yet the ego has no true knowledge of what His image is, and thus makes up numerous different versions of God hoping to catch you in its webs. The ego teaches that if God has the right to judge, then you have every right to judge too. In the ego’s world, our confusion and sense of disconnection, the sense that what is natural and true in us is somehow being disturbed and distorted, results from this error in teaching. When using judgment, you may not yet acknowledge that the ego’s teaching is disturbed and distorted, yet for now you can probably acknowledge that there is just something not right with it, that there is some kind of unbalanced state created within you by the ego’s demands.

God does not have use for forgiveness because God does not judge. And there must be judgment before there is a need for forgiveness. In the ego’s world, the ego uses judgment as one of its primary illusions to separate us from our Source and from our brothers and sisters. In dreams, you make what you see, and you believe what you see is real even though your eyes are closed. Once you awaken and express God through you, you will also have no use for judgment or forgiveness because you will simply react to your brother and sister as He does -with love. The ego through fear condemns, God through love forgives. Love does not condemn.

Our brothers and sisters are not their actions. They are not some frozen moment in time that we, through our choice, choose to disrupt, disturb and darken the present moment with. Our brothers and sisters are God’s perfect creations travelling through an illusion of their own making. They are God’s creations and there is no condemnation in God. Therefore we, through our choice to condemn become unbalanced because it is unnatural for us to do so. We are love and love does not condemn. God's creations are made of and gifted with love and forgiveness through His creation. By choosing love and forgiveness, we are choosing to realign ourselves with the truth in us. The truth in us brings about the state of peace. When we are upset, it is because we are replacing reality with illusions of our own creation. Illusions are nothing, thus when we are upset, we are upset because of nothing. And so when we judge our brothers and sisters, we trade our love of them for nothing, and still regardless of how right we believe ourselves to be, we wonder why we do not feel at peace with what we have done.

When you are using the past to interpret the present, you become frustrated by what you see and experience because you are trying to extend illusions into reality and interpret a truth from it. You unknowingly are seeing the projection of your own errors in thought and can’t get why others don’t see things how you see them. Trying to understand what is not understandable will frustrate you. You interact with your brother through this incomprehensible place and thus judgment and confusion result. You judge each other as guilty for not understanding the incomprehensible in each of you. You try to justify your reactions to your brother but naturally find no internal justice, which then exacerbates your aggravation. In the moment, it is not possible to judge a brother or sister without the past. We are all preoccupied with the past, and this creates blocks to truly understanding the present. My friend, give away the past and do so knowing you are giving away nothing and receiving everything in return.

When in the present moment, your real thoughts are those you think with God. When you are seeing your brother with innocence, you will feel balanced and at peace. When you become upset, you deal with the present by replacing it with the past and thus are never upset for the reason you think you are. You are constantly trying to make the untrue - true. Truth cannot be revealed from untruth. And so you make all things which differ from your untruth your enemies for not believing your untruth as true. This helps you justify your frustration, anger and attacks toward your brother. From this, comes the belief that you have the right to criticize and judge your brother. You defend your thought system as real and true, even though this same thought system only hurts and punishes you and your brother. What upsets you is not what your brother says or does, what upsets you is the frustration you are feeling by trying to deal with the present through the past. Thus every time you judge a brother, you are in truth simply judging yourself for not being able to extend truth from untruth. Thus you project your frustration out and onto your brother through the act of judgment. You think that this will somehow relieve you from the pain you feel and carry inside, but this is only an illusionary relief of frustration and thus you receive no true lasting peace of mind or joy from your action.

When the ego demands judgment, ask God to assist you in releasing yourself from the ego’s thought system. Why does the ego make it seem harder to say I love than I hate, harder to say I forgive instead of I judge? The ego revels in power and control. The ego teaches us to associate love and forgiveness with weakness, and judgment and hate with power and control. This is true in the ego’s world, but false in reality. For if you truly offered one honest and real moment of forgiveness to any brother or sister, you could completely end a lifetime of pain – this is the true, real power and strength of forgiveness. Forgiveness undoes what fear has produced. Light will always disperse darkness.

Crucify God’s creation through the act of judgment, or set him and yourself free through the act of forgiveness. That is the one choice that is presented to us. In God’s world, only love and forgiveness flow through you and that memory still lies within you. Thus in the ego’s world, you secretly and silently always long for the opportunity to love and forgive your brother, for the truth within you longs to be extended and expressed through you. Exempt no one from forgiveness, or you will be exempting yourself from the state of peace.

Your function in this world is healing. Every time the ego calls for judgment, at the same time love is calling for help and healing. Help and healing are your natural responses, judgment is your learned, your programmed response. Leave behind every thought of judgment, all thoughts of guilt you have made up, for what true need do you have for guilt and judgment? Where have these thoughts and emotions ever taken you? No longer choose to carry that which does not belong to you, that which is not part of your true essence. Let go of the heavy burden that the ego demands you carry, no longer be a slave to its commands.

Judgment creates a cloud of guilt that obscures the truth in both you and your brother. Reach for the light, reach for the truth within you to escape from this darkness. No longer let the past cast a shadow over your present. Whenever judgment enters the mind, you lose touch with what you truly desire to experience. You see guilt where God sees innocence, and still you question why what you are doing is not working for you. Will you choose to be happy or right? Accept His gift and exchange your judgment for the peace of God. Judgment rewards your loyalty to it with pain and regret. No longer kneel at the altar of judgment. How much more time apart from your brother and sister will you sacrifice at its alter? Look deeply into the mirror and say to yourself: “Judgment is not the way God intended for me to relate to and interact with my brothers and sisters. Father, please remind me of the love I have for them by sharing with me the love You have for me. Father, let Your love wash away my fears. Father, I now allow Your forgiveness to replace my judgment, Your love to replace my hate.” Then gift your light to all those who wander around lost and confused in the darkness of their own creation. Take his hand, look into his eyes and bring peace to your brother. Leave no one untouched, leave no one confused, hurt and alone.

God’s creations are guiltless. Remind your brother and sister of their innocence. Remind them that an error is a call for help and healing, not for judgment, guilt, control and regret. What you remind them of, you will be reinforcing within yourself. Peace will come to those who choose to see and remind others of peace. No one who condemns a brother will see himself as guiltless. Look through the cloud of guilt, and watch guilt melt away before forgiving eyes. Freedom from pain and regret will be yours when you learn to exchange innocence for guilt, and truth for illusions.

Your will and God’s will are one. Thus what God wills for your brother is what, in truth, you desire for him. Judgment will always yield to forgiveness when it is brought to God. Do not delay in your return to Him. To the healed mind, help and healing are the response to error. No longer hide behind the dark and rusty doors of judgment and regret. For your life and the world you see will reflect heaven or hell depending on what thoughts you allow and support as real within your mind.

We have no neutral thoughts because all thoughts have power. The way you see and participate in the world is a result of your thoughts. Your real thoughts lead you to the world God has prepared for you; your unreal thoughts lead you to the world that the ego is trying to sell you. Your real thoughts unite you with your brother; your false thoughts separate you from him. Understand the road you’re on is simply a physical manifestation of your state of mind. Thus when we know our state of mind and that it can change, we can also acknowledge that the way we see and participate in the world can change.

Judgment is but a thought built on and of sand. And thus, like all illusions, judgment will not stand the test of time. Regardless of how complex and intricate your sand castle is, one true wave of forgiveness will dissolve it back into the sands from where it was first created. All judgments, regardless of their perceived complexity and back story, have the ever-changing and unstableness of sand as their base. The child within you may have given this castle many dimensions, strengths and powers, and yet as soon as you turn your back from it, it will begin to dissolve and disappear. You have played long enough in the world of your own making. God is now lovingly calling you home. Return to His loving, safe and forgiving arms and feel His strong, enduring and everlasting presence expanding through you. Return to that from which you were created and feel your eternal truth and innocence once again flowing through you to all you see. Reflect this truth back onto your brother and sister. You, and your brother and sister were created from the eternal and there are not a thousand oceans that could ever wash away the innocence in you. Use not judgment but gratitude, be grateful to your brother and sister for participating in your life and allowing you the opportunity to reawaken the truth in you.

My brother and sister, the love you have for God's sons and daughters is there as a reminder of the love He has for you. Could you ever see yourself judging your son or daughter as guilty for playing on and with sand? Can you then begin to conceptualize how God also has no need or desire for judgment, no need or desire except that of looking at His son and daughter with absolute love and adoration? My dearest brother and sister, will you not join together with me in His thinking? For if you ever did choose to, be it for a holy instant in time, you would never want another way. This moment, this present, this gift, is all He asks us to open and accept in order to experience His endless love for us, and in turn our eternal love for each other. Through Him, experience your eternal love for all your brothers and sisters regardless of how they are choosing to play in the sand.

I end this writing with a favorite quote of mine on forgiveness. It’s from Corrie ten Boon's treasure of a book, The Hiding Place. Corrie was a Dutch Christian lady who hid Jewish people and helped them escape from the Germans during WWII. She and her sister Betsie were found out, captured and imprisoned in a German concentration camp. Corrie left the concentration camp alive. Her sister did not. My friend, if there is anyone in your life that you have yet to forgive, please read and deeply consider this quote. Forgive my friend, forgive, realign yourself with the truth in you and set yourself, and your brother and sister forever free.

"It was at a church in Munich that I saw him, the former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there - the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie's pain-blanched face.

He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. "How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein," he said. "To think that, as you say, 'He has washed my sins away'!"

His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal on the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him.

I tried to smile; I struggled to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again, I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I cannot forgive him. Give him Your forgiveness.

As I took his hand, the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me.

And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness, any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself."

- Corrie ten Boon, The Hiding Place
Cited in You Have Chosen to Remember, p.157-158
 

Note:  To read more about forgiveness, you may want to read Chapter Seven Overview: Freedom Through Forgiveness.
 

   

View larger images of front & back cover 
of the great spiritual / self development book You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey from Perception to Knowledge, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.