Word
Gems
What is a
man but the sum of his thoughts?
- Forgiveness
- "To forgive means to give ahead of time.
In other words, your attitude is that you're ready to forgive, no matter what comes up ...
if you really learn how to forgive and actually do it, your return
to God must eventually follow."
Gary Renard, The Disappearance of The Universe
- Unknown: "Forgiveness is giving up the possibility of a
better past."
- Mahatma Gandhi: "The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is
the attribute of the strong."
- Eric Hoffer: "The remarkable thing is that we really love
our neighbor as ourselves: we do unto others as we do unto ourselves. We hate others when
we hate ourselves. We are tolerant toward others when we tolerate ourselves. We forgive others when we forgive ourselves."
- Hannah Arendt: "Forgiveness
is the key to action and freedom."
- George MacDonald: "Forgiveness
is the giving, and so the receiving, of life."
| Lord Dowding,
Many Mansions: Air
Chief Marshal Hugh Caswell Tremenheere Dowding,
1st Baron (1882 - 1970), was a British officer in the Royal Air Force. He was the
commander of RAF Fighter Command during the Battle of Britain. Later, Dowding
investigated the Afterlife. He reports on a psychic transmission from
the Other Side, from a Norwegian killed during WWII: "I was shot by the Germans in
Trondheim. I was a little shopkeeper; they shoot. I do not love the Germans. I never
shall, but I am held here by my hatred. I find that I cannot throw
it off. I still feel so angry for their acts of unprovoked cruelty, and I am consumed by
my passionate anger, and I cannot get free. I beg of you to help me... He tells me that we
must forgive the Nazis, that they do not know what they do, that they are like
sleep-walkers, and until I forgive them I cannot get free, to pass from this plane so near
the Earth on to other planes... It is awful, this anger that we
cannot shake it off. Give me some serenity and let me sleep... I see why Christ quickly
forgave everyone before He left the Earth Body. I see the reason and the need, and
with the help of your Father and this contact that you have given me, I shall
escape." Says Dowding: "[Frederic] Myers teaches that The Third Sphere (or Summerland as it is often called in spiritualist circles) is in fact a
sphere of Illusion inhabited for long or short periods by souls whose mentalities are
still dominated by Earth-conditions. The scenery and the flora and fauna are all
similar to those of the earth, but more sublimated, and with the difference that the
struggle for existence is no longer operative and souls can gratify every harmless wish...
In this effortless and purposeless existence, no real progress is made, and the soul whose
desires are predominately animal, soon yearns for further existence in heavy matter and is
reincarnated... But the soul who is more spiritually inclined passes upward into the
Fourth Sphere and thenceforward progresses continuously without any further individual
reincarnation." Gary Renard, The Disappearance of The
Universe: "What happens is that the awe [e.g.
of living in Summerland] eventually wears off because the unconscious guilt [not having
been released through forgiveness] that is still within the mind starts to catch up with
you. This causes you to reincarnate as a way of escaping your guilt and your fear
of God. This always happens to you eventually, unless your mind has been
completely healed by the Holy Spirit."
John Ruskan, Emotional Clearing: "As you go
through life, you will have various encounters that bring up your [repressed negative]
subconscious energies into conscious awareness. These energies surface when conditions are
appropriate for them to be released. If you can learn to integrate these energies as they
come up, you will be meeting life most creatively. You will be using
your circumstances instead of being abused by them. It is for
this opportunity that we incarnate on the Earth plane ...
each individual's life is designed to provide just the right circumstances for the
clearing of hidden negative forces within." read
more
Brian Weiss, MD, Many Lives, Many Masters:
"When we arrive [on the Other Side], we're burned out... We decide when we want to
return, where, and for what reasons. Some choose not to come
back. They choose to go on to another stage of development.
And they stay in spirit form ... some for longer than others before they return. It is all
growth and learning ... continuous growth. [question] 'Is learning in the physical state
faster? Are there reasons that people don't stay in the spiritual state?' [answer] 'No. Learning in the spiritual state is much faster,
far accelerated from that in the physical state. But we choose what we need to learn. If
we need to come back to work through a relationship, we come back. If we are finished with
that, we go on.'" |
- Reinhold Niebuhr: "Nothing worth doing is completed in our
lifetime; therefore, we are saved by hope. Nothing true or
beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we
are saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be
accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No
virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our
own; therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness."
- A Course in Miracles, Lesson 121: "The unforgiving mind is full of fear, and offers love no room to be
itself; no place where it can spread its wings in peace and soar above the turmoil of the
world. The unforgiving mind is sad, without the hope of respite and release from pain. It
suffers and abides in misery, peering about in darkness, seeing not, yet certain of the
danger lurking there. The unforgiving mind is torn with doubt, confused about itself and
all it sees; afraid and angry, weak and blustering, afraid to
go ahead, afraid to stay, afraid to waken or to go to sleep, afraid of every sound, yet
more afraid of stillness; terrified of darkness, yet more terrified at the approach of
light. What can the unforgiving mind perceive but its damnation? What can it behold except
the proof that all its sins are real? The unforgiving mind sees no mistakes, but only
sins. It looks upon the world with sightless eyes, and shrieks as it
beholds its own projections rising to attack its miserable parody of life. It wants to
live, yet wishes it were dead. It wants forgiveness, yet it sees no hope. It wants
escape, yet can conceive of none because it sees the sinful everywhere. The unforgiving
mind is in despair, without the prospect of a future which can offer anything but more
despair. Yet it regards its judgment of the world as irreversible, and does not see it has
condemned itself to this despair. It thinks it cannot change, for what it sees bears
witness that its judgment is correct. It does not ask, because it
thinks it knows. It does not question, certain it is right. Forgiveness
is acquired. It is not inherent in the mind, which cannot sin. As sin is an idea
you taught yourself, forgiveness must be learned by you as well, but
from a Teacher other than yourself, Who represents the other Self
in you. Through Him you learn how to forgive the self you think
you made, and let it disappear. Thus you return your mind as one
to Him Who is your Self, and Who can never sin."
- A Course in Miracles, Lesson 134: "Let us review the meaning of forgive, for it is apt to be distorted and to be
perceived as something that entails an unfair sacrifice of righteous wrath, a gift
unjustified and undeserved, and a complete denial of the truth. In such a view,
forgiveness must be seen as mere eccentric folly, and this course appear to rest salvation
on a whim... The major difficulty that you find in genuine forgiveness on your part is
that you still believe you must forgive the truth, and not illusions. You conceive of pardon as a vain attempt to look past what is there; to
overlook the truth, in an unfounded effort to deceive yourself by making an illusion true.
This twisted viewpoint but reflects the hold that the idea of sin retains as yet upon your
mind, as you regard yourself. Because you think your sins are real, you look on pardon as
deception... There is a very simple way to find the door to true forgiveness, and perceive
it open wide in welcome. When you feel that you are tempted to accuse someone of sin in
any form, do not allow your mind to dwell on what you think he did, for that is
self-deception. Ask instead, Would I accuse myself of doing this?"
-
A
Course In Miracles, Lesson 192: “We are lost in mists
of shifting dreams and fearful thoughts… Who
can be born again in Christ but him who has forgiven everyone he
sees or thinks of or imagines? Who could be set free while he imprisons anyone?
A jailer is not free, for he is bound together with his prisoner.
He must be sure that he does not escape, and so he spends his time
in keeping watch on him... Therefore hold no-one
prisoner.”
-
Course In
Miracles, Lessson 193: “All things are lessons God would have me learn.
Forgive, and you will see this differently. Certain it is
that all distress does not appear to be but unforgiveness. Yet
that is the content underneath the form… Does pain seem real in
the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And
there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the
pain through eyes the mind directs… God would not have you suffer
thus. He would help you forgive yourself… This
is the lesson God would have you learn: There is a way to look on
everything that lets it be to you another step to Him... To
all that speaks of terror, answer thus: I will forgive, and this
will disappear. To every apprehension, every care and every form
of suffering, repeat these selfsame words.”
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