Neale Donald Walsch On Forgiveness

Foreign.

That there is no need to ask for forgiveness from whatever divinity or God we believe in.

No, no. Nor is there any need to forgive anybody else in your own life.

Right.

See, your. Your thought that you need to forgive somebody for something they've done in your life is an extension of the thought that somehow you have been hurt, damaged, offended in some particular way. But if you are really an aspect of divinity, if you are really an individuation of God, then it would be impossible for you to be hurt, damaged, or destroyed or offended in any way. You might have a fleeting experience of that for a moment or two, but as soon as you came to your senses, so to speak, as soon as you became very clear who you are, those feelings would disappear utterly. I can't think of a single thing that is. I can't. You know, I'm sitting here now at the age of 72, and I can't think of a single person in my life, in the entirety of my life, who I can remember having done something that really hurt, damaged, or destroyed me in any way beyond maybe a momentary. Just a momentary bad feeling or a momentary loss. But here I sit at 72, and there's no one who's done anything in all those 72 years that I find unforgivable. And by the way, that would be true. That would be true for me. Even if they did things that were just horrible or terrible. There are some people who would say to me, neil, that's because you've lived a blessed life. Nobody's ever come into your house and killed your spouse or stolen your car or done something really bad. Actually, I have had my car stolen, as it happens. I shouldn't have used that example. But it's true. I have not suffered great tragedy in my life that was. Would cause. At the hands of another person that would cause me to feel that that particular event was unforgivable. But I would like to think, hoping that it's true, that even if that were to happen, that a part of me could go to a place where I could understand how a person could, even if they were coming from a damaged brain, a damaged, injured psyche, lack of clarity on what is appropriate and what's true and who they are. But whatever the reason, I would like to think, and I would like to hope that I could go to a place where God resides, where I would understand perfectly how that kind of a thing could take place and have compassion for it. I'm reminded of Pope John Paul when he was shot by a man in Rome in his motorcade, and he almost died. But he went to the hospital. They caught the man, of course. He was pounced on by everybody. They threw him in jail for life and beyond for shooting the Pope. But when the Pope got out of the hospital six or eight weeks later, he went to the cell of that man who shot him, intending to kill him, and put him through not a small amount of suffering in the process, by the way, because the Pope was not a young man at this point. He just didn't bounce back from it in two and a half days. He was an elderly man, and it took him six or eight weeks to even get back on his feet. He hobbled into the cell, the jail cell of his assailant and blessed him. And the man said, how can you do this? How can you do this? How can you be blessing me? My intention was to kill you. And the Holy Father said, tell me why you did that so that I can understand fully what was motivating you, because I know you're not an evil person at heart. I know you're not the devil incarnate. You had a reason. I may not agree with the reason, but you had a reason that you agreed with. Explain it to me. And when the assailant explained to the Pope why he reached out and shot him, the Pope said, you know what? I don't agree. I don't agree that that was an appropriate thing to do. And I don't even agree with your reasoning. But I can understand how if you accepted that reasoning, I can understand how you could have done such a thing. And so I give you my blessing, my son. And the assailant said, you truly are the Holy Father.

That's an amazing story. I want to just share one thing here. In my book, I talk a lot about forgiveness. And so some people watching this may be thinking, wow, like, Vishen and Neela are talking about different things here. Neela saying, forgiveness is not necessary. Vishen talks so much about forgiveness. But if you actually read my book, I talk about your idea. I say, I quote you from your book, the Little Soul and the sun, where you say, God has sent you nothing but angels. And everyone who has come in your life and done something to wrong you, you can choose to perceive them as an angel doing something to get you to the next level of your evolution. So, in a sense, we are very, very, very much aligned here. And thank you so much for sharing all of that, Neil. That was so freaking profound. I lost track of time because I, like, I was so inspired by what you were saying I ended up going slightly off script and lost track of time, but that was just testament to how how wonderfully wisdom inducing and enlightening this this whole interview was.

Thank you, my friend. It was lovely to be here with you and I appreciate the opportunity to share these thoughts with you. Thank you very much.