9.3 Forgiveness is Release

There was one parking spot left on the street around the corner. I parked my car and went into the store. I didn’t even want to do shopping, but I let the store people talk me into it. Finally done with my purchases, two shopping bags in hand, I walked out to find my car gone. Posted on a crooked fence near the ground I found a sloppy sign that read, “No Parking!” Argh! They must have towed my car, and now I had to go retrieve it and pay the fine. Suddenly, I stopped myself. A sense of wrongness came over me and made me feel suspicious. I would call my husband and ask him to come with me to keep me safe. And then I thought, “That’s it. I’ve had it with all this!” I woke up in my bed. I wasn’t even upset or distraught about the dream. I was only relieved to be awake at peace. Is that what true forgiveness is?

Beware of the traps the ego places. You relive but what was over long time ago – the ego, the misery, the fear, and despair. It is over now. Forgiveness sees it for what it is and gently lays the past to rest. Not condoning anything in reality. There is no reality in which we suffer. Forgiveness is seeing the dream and waking up. Do you want to continue dreaming or be awake in Heaven with your Father and your Brothers?

The world is but an external picture of your internal state. Change the inner cause, and the effects disappear. This is the only way to deal with what you see with your human eyes. Remember that, and no fear will ever intrude on your peace. Stop letting external factors frighten you. They are not your reality. What you make with your Father is your only reality. There is nothing beyond that.

Forgiveness and the release of guilt, the chains undone, you are free. Nothing chains you on the wheel of Dharma but your own choice. No chain of events, no cause and effect. There never was a cause! You thought there was, and imagined a whole chain of events. Remove the cause, and the chain falls apart. You can go link by link – Karma and all – or you can cut through it with the blade of the mind and free yourself from non-existent bonds.

The world is going nowhere. It is an elaborate, contrived sequence, a double-helix through a non-existing space. There is no space! There is no time, either! You taught yourself these concepts, convincing yourself of their reality. Now, you take them as a proof to their existence. Remove the original premise, and the subsequent structure unravels for it has no foundation left.