How Can We Really Forgive? | Eckhart Tolle on Relationships

But you can see how people cherish talking about what somebody did or failed to do. And then he talked about again and again and feel more and more aggrieved. And again it comes back to the state of connectedness with being. It's only from that state of connectedness with a deeper dimension of who you are. From there it becomes easier to forgive. Because forgive means there was something that was done on the level of form by one life form. To you, perhaps another life form, pain was inflicted, or whatever it may be, treat whatever the transgression is. And it's only from there that you can see the relative nature of what was done. Because you are in touch with a space within you that was never hurt by that. That dimension in you is beyond what can be injured. It's only the form can be injured. The psychological form. Somebody might have insulted you deeply. The psychological form of who you are can feel pain, or the physical form of who you are can feel pain. And somebody inflicted that out of unconsciousness. Then recognizing the first step in forgiving is to recognize that this was an act of unconsciousness. And you do not equate what this person did with who that person is. And it's only from the place of connectedness with being that you can say, no longer hold a grievance about that. Because you are in touch with that inside you that is beyond what can be injured. If you are not in touch with that space, then you are still. It's hard to forgive. Forgiving means not to harbor grievance or resentment or any negative feeling about it. And really that's only possible when you are connected with the formless in yourself. As Cause in Miracles says, nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. Nothing real can be threatened. This means what is ultimately real cannot be threatened. But what is ultimately real is not the form. It's that which is deeper than the form that cannot be threatened. Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal ultimately exists. It just seems to. Herein lies the peace of God, means in the knowing of that lies the peace of God. But it needs to be not conceptual knowing, but a knowing on the level of the depths of your being. And then from there you can look at anything anybody did to you and say it's almost as if it didn't happen for a while. For example, I harboured grievances against my father for many years because he suffered from enormous amount of bottled up anger. And living with him as a child was like living with a powder keg. Or an unexploded bomb somewhere in the house. And everybody one knew that at any moment, the slightest thing somebody said, and usually it was my mother, the slightest thing somebody said and this bomb would explode and there would be. The entire house would be filled. Filled with destructive energy. And for a sensitive child, and any child is sensitive young child, it's a terrible thing to live in constant anguish at an explosion. Any explosion could be happening at any moment whenever he's in the house. So I had the ambivalent feelings of fearing his return home after work and wanting him to come home divided. And that was expressed once in a dream that I had as a child. And in the dream I had cut my father up into little pieces and put in a plastic or some kind of sack and hid it under the bed. And after I had done that in the dream, my father arrived home and I greeted him and loved him. And of course, all this resulted, even after, when I was an adult already, resulted in quite a bit of grievance towards him. Because my childhood was fearful and unpleasant as a result. And it was only when a transformation happened inside me and there was suddenly that deep inner peace that I realized he did what he did according to the way in which life had conditioned him. He had. When he was a child, he had enormous amount of resentment against his family because of. Of course, the story can go on many generations. He was the seventh child. His father died when he was 15. And they took him out of the school. They had to pay for school, boarding school. They took him out of boarding school because they said, we can't afford it anymore. But his sisters were still kept in boarding school. And then he had to do menial jobs. And every day his anger was growing and growing and growing. He carried it throughout the rest of his life. There was not enough consciousness in him to disidentify from the anger. The anger was using him. It lived in him as an energy field. And he could come up anytime. He was as much a victim as I was. And I saw that after I had gone through the transformation and found inner peace, I could see that he was a victim of his own circumstances. There was not enough consciousness in him to see what he was doing. And immediately forgiveness happened. I didn't even have to say, I have to try to forgive. He never did. It was as if he had never done anything to me because basically he hadn't. He wasn't even there. There was only the unconsciousness in him acting up. And then as he grew older, some of that anger dissipated. Remnants of it remained. He also came into touch with some spiritual teachings, especially the power of now. That helped to some extent. And so his ego grew less. Not didn't quite disappear, but it grew less. When I was a child, his ego was gigantic and it was continuously fueled by anger. And an angry ego is something. It's the Incredible Hulk. And that. So forgiveness happened naturally. And very often you see that when an injury happens, very often it's. There's a mental judgment of a situation. And actually beyond that mental judgment, not that much happened. Let's take a simple example. You arrange to meet somebody or somebody. He says, I'm going to help you with your moving. I'm going to help you move house. I'll be there at 5 o' clock to help you move with my car. Car. And he doesn't turn up. And that just is as it is now. The mind then comes in and says, he let me down or he betrayed me, or he was whatever the judgment of the mind is. And it is very often it is the judgment of the situation that creates the emotion that feels injured. If you can just be with, oh, he said he would come, but he didn't turn up. That's a fact. Whatever your mind wants to add to it gives you the sense of injury and strengthens the ego. So if you can just be with the pure facts. This is why all that stuff when people talking about other people, what they failed to do or what they did. What he did to me, he betrayed me. Well, what did he do? Well, he went off with another woman or man. He betrayed me. Betrayed me is an interpretation. And the more you have that thought that he betrayed me, the more you feel the emotion that goes with that thought. And you feel who is it that feels that emotion? The egoic self feels betrayed. Because who you deeply are, who you are in your essence, doesn't feel betrayed. The fact is he went off with another woman. That's what he did. Is that all? Yeah, that's what he did. If you refrain from adding a story to it, then you don't experience the. This may not be. This comes easy. When you are connected with who you truly are, then it is easy to let go of the unnecessary imposition of stories upon events. The event is neutral. The story interpretation of it is what creates the anguish. And so you can just be with what is. But you can see how people cherish talking about what somebody did or failed to do. And then he did things they talk about again and again and feel more and more aggrieved. In who they are. Nothing really happened. He didn't turn up. He didn't return the money that I lent him. I lent him the money, but he hasn't paid it back yet. That's the fact of it. He is dishonest. Well, you don't need that. He did something to me. He defrauded me. Mr. Madoff did it. A deeply unconscious person. I wonder what he's doing now. He's sitting in his prison cell and many, many people have not forgiven him. Interesting position to be in, to have aggrieved so many people and created so much anguish and suffering in humans. But for every single one of them, beyond their financial loss, they have their own lesson to learn. He has his lesson to learn. And life has given to you. If you lost money with Mr. Madoff or whoever else, yes, you lost that money. But there is a deeper lesson you can learn in any loss. Any loss is, of course, one lesson is, of course, don't invest with him again. That's understood. Or anybody else like that. That's understood. That's easy to know. But beyond that, there's a deeper lesson to learn. And that is any lesson that comes with any kind of loss. Any kind of loss is a potential opening into the formless, because what you lose is something on the level of form, whether it's money or reputation or some possession or even an ability to do something, and suddenly you can't do it anymore. Any kind of loss is a loss on the level of form. It.