"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
"Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick."
Do you think Jesus saw people to forgive? people who had sinned, done evil things, people who were bad and hurtful and maybe even unforgivable?
What did Jesus say to the crowd about to stone the woman caught in the act of prostituting herself? "He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her."
The Gospel records that crowd was convicted by their own conscience - not by Jesus, whose pure view of them awakened their inherent natural humility that their self-righteousness had hidden.
And what did he say to the prostitute?
"...he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?
She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more."
"Go and sin no more."
Go and be who you really are: not someone who needs to sell themselves to survive, but God's perfect child, dearly loved and cared for, whose very hairs are all numbered by the Father.
How could Jesus have said such a thing?
Because he saw things differently. He saw things spiritually. He "beheld her - and the crowd - in Science". He saw every situation - including this intense one - from God's perfect perspective. And this correct view not only saved the crowd from committing murder, it saved the prostitute from an adulterated life of sin.
This gives you something vital to understand and to practice.
Real forgiveness is seeing things differently. It is seeing others - and yourself - from a higher, more Christly perspective. It is putting that seeing into action in your life. It is yielding to God's unbounded grace and allowing that to feed your famished affections. It is living your natural state of being as the perfect reflection of God a moment at a time.
Love - true seeing - is always reflected in love - true being.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Friday, August 1, 2008
Awakening
All the mistakes I've made, all the people I've hurt, all the lies I've told, all the love I've taken for granted or (worse) completely neglected, all the failures to live up to what I know is right, all the bad things that have happened in my life, and even just my day today -- all this history, it is all being washed away by glimpsing that "Love is reflected in love."
To the extent I put aside my ego, the debts, the failures, the separation, the personal sense of myself and of others - of the dream - and take even just a small soulful step in awakening to what I really am as God's, Love's, likeness by being loving, to that extent forgiveness washes over me, washes me clean of the dream of being a "personal author and privileged orginator" of heart-break and hurtfulness. And that Love awakens me to intuitively sense that all real being is actually the emanation of the Great I Am, of God, of Love itself.
Ituitively I sense that Love is the only real power. Love being reflected in love, is a "law of annihilation" to everything unlike itself - to all sense of forgetting, failure, mistakes, hurtfulness, hate, malice, indebtedness, evil. And as this intuition takes hold, the light of Christ begins to dawn and the nightmare begins to disappear. I find myself begining to wake up.
Wake up to what?
To what has always been true: that Love actually is powerful and real. Good actually is the foundation of our authentic nature. We actually are capable of living out a life of love. In fact, we're more than just capable of that. We're made for it.
Forgiveness is always an awakening. Forgiveness is Love, God, kicking over our complacency and idle human do-gooding. Forgiveness demands that you snap out of it! and get your life more loving. Forgiveness shakes you up! Forgiveness makes you think about what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, and most importantly: what's a lie and what is true, what is a dream and what is reality.
Forgiveness never leaves us where it finds us. It forces us to discover what's true - both about ourselves as well as our "debtor." It requires us to repent - to re-think - about what we assume is our perfect little lily-white life.
And in that cold sometimes uncomfortable self-examination, we must become humble before God. We realize that our personal sense of love - of being a nice forgiving person, a self-sacrificing little human, or even a stubborn old goat - that we can of ourselves do nothing. Our words of forgiveness may be well-intentioned but too often are hollow and self-serving. And they alone cannot right any wrong. They cannot heal the hurt.
And so you may find that only on your knees do you finally wake up.
And forgiveness is always an awakening. Awakening from what? From the dream of many big egos and little minds, of good and evil, of separation from God, divine Love itself.
And what does this awake you to?
To the only thing that really matters: Love is All-in-all.
Forgiveness forces you to reconsider everything so that you can wake up to the fact that Love really is actually All-in-all. Your debt to others - and your so-called debtors' debts to you - cannot survive this awakening. Why? because Love forces you to confront your true nature: that you are just like God: loving. And your debtor's true nature? Yes. Also just like God: loving.
And it is this awakening that annihilates the dream of good and evil, of separation, of personal egos in debt. And by accepting this awakening - actually living out loud the love that forgiveness requires in your thinking and in your daily life - true forgiveness happens. In fact, spiritually speaking, the only thing anyone ever really "owes" - is in debt for - is to love.
Living as Love's, God's, loving reflection, is completely natural for you. In fact, it is (believe it or not) your only authentic state of being and (believe it or not again!) the only authentic being of everyone around you. Love is the only real state of being there is. Love is always reflected in love. Feel it. Accept it. Act on it. This is the practice. Get busy.
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
To the extent I put aside my ego, the debts, the failures, the separation, the personal sense of myself and of others - of the dream - and take even just a small soulful step in awakening to what I really am as God's, Love's, likeness by being loving, to that extent forgiveness washes over me, washes me clean of the dream of being a "personal author and privileged orginator" of heart-break and hurtfulness. And that Love awakens me to intuitively sense that all real being is actually the emanation of the Great I Am, of God, of Love itself.
Ituitively I sense that Love is the only real power. Love being reflected in love, is a "law of annihilation" to everything unlike itself - to all sense of forgetting, failure, mistakes, hurtfulness, hate, malice, indebtedness, evil. And as this intuition takes hold, the light of Christ begins to dawn and the nightmare begins to disappear. I find myself begining to wake up.
Wake up to what?
To what has always been true: that Love actually is powerful and real. Good actually is the foundation of our authentic nature. We actually are capable of living out a life of love. In fact, we're more than just capable of that. We're made for it.
Forgiveness is always an awakening. Forgiveness is Love, God, kicking over our complacency and idle human do-gooding. Forgiveness demands that you snap out of it! and get your life more loving. Forgiveness shakes you up! Forgiveness makes you think about what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, and most importantly: what's a lie and what is true, what is a dream and what is reality.
Forgiveness never leaves us where it finds us. It forces us to discover what's true - both about ourselves as well as our "debtor." It requires us to repent - to re-think - about what we assume is our perfect little lily-white life.
And in that cold sometimes uncomfortable self-examination, we must become humble before God. We realize that our personal sense of love - of being a nice forgiving person, a self-sacrificing little human, or even a stubborn old goat - that we can of ourselves do nothing. Our words of forgiveness may be well-intentioned but too often are hollow and self-serving. And they alone cannot right any wrong. They cannot heal the hurt.
And so you may find that only on your knees do you finally wake up.
And forgiveness is always an awakening. Awakening from what? From the dream of many big egos and little minds, of good and evil, of separation from God, divine Love itself.
And what does this awake you to?
To the only thing that really matters: Love is All-in-all.
Forgiveness forces you to reconsider everything so that you can wake up to the fact that Love really is actually All-in-all. Your debt to others - and your so-called debtors' debts to you - cannot survive this awakening. Why? because Love forces you to confront your true nature: that you are just like God: loving. And your debtor's true nature? Yes. Also just like God: loving.
And it is this awakening that annihilates the dream of good and evil, of separation, of personal egos in debt. And by accepting this awakening - actually living out loud the love that forgiveness requires in your thinking and in your daily life - true forgiveness happens. In fact, spiritually speaking, the only thing anyone ever really "owes" - is in debt for - is to love.
Living as Love's, God's, loving reflection, is completely natural for you. In fact, it is (believe it or not) your only authentic state of being and (believe it or not again!) the only authentic being of everyone around you. Love is the only real state of being there is. Love is always reflected in love. Feel it. Accept it. Act on it. This is the practice. Get busy.
"Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."
And Love is reflected in love.
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