Many people think that we should forgive because of considerations of world peace and global unity.
Those are very good reasons. But there’s also a good reason closer to home which we may tend to overlook.
That’s that forgiving relieves us of our burdensome feelings of resentment and resistance and refusing to forgive shuts us off from the experience of Love.
I’m not referring to our everyday love, although it shuts us off from that as well, I’m sure.
I’m talking about the Love of the higher dimensions – which I’ll capitalize to differentiate it. That type of Love will only stay if our hearts are open to it; if we’re closed for any reason, it disappears into the “vacuum,” instantly.
Time for a share.
You could say that I’m a recovering, professional gunnysacker. The runt of the litter could not make his voice heard and so he smouldered with resentments, which he gathered together and hauled around in his gunnysack. He made a profession of resisting and resenting.
The points that our sources make below about forgiving, which I’m reading under Kathleen’s tutelage, came as a great revelation to me and promise one avenue of release. Especially in today’s energies.
I’d like to go over that research here.
Jesus through John Smallman said last year: “A refusal to forgive – even if it is in the form of an unawareness of the need to forgive – is a refusal to love.” (1)
We may not think of it that way. We may not see the connection at first. I certainly didn’t.
I only woke up recently to the fact that being angry condemns me to … well, being angry. Who wants that? By being angry, I was shutting myself off to (higher-dimensional) Love.
Saul reminds us as well that “to not forgive is to hold onto resentment and judgment, which enormously restricts and limits your ability to see, to be aware, to know Love.” (2)
We can have Love or burden, St. Germaine told Kathleen in a reading in 2016:
“Now, are the abusers forgiven? Yes. And do you forgive [them] because you don’t want to carry that burden? Yes.” (3)
Forgiving allows us to lay down the burden of our gunnysack of resentments.
Oh, my, gosh. This came as such a revelation to me. Why did I not think of that? (4)
Even after it came as a revelation, I still am only able to take baby steps in this area, so deep is the ingrained resistance to forgiving.
I’m helped by discussions like that of Jesus below, who went into detail on what happens to us when we refuse to forgive:
“Refusing to forgive, holding on to resentment and a desire for restitution drains your individual energy fields [and] builds a fortress of defenses around you through which your essential needs are unable to approach you, because you are closing yourselves off from Love, the Source of life.
“Love offers you infinite abundance, but you have to allow It to suffuse and possess you by releasing from yourselves anything that is not in alignment with It. You can do this because deep within yourselves you do know that resentment and a desire to see others punished for the pain and suffering you believe that they have caused you only intensifies your own suffering. Listen to your hearts, they will guide you Home!” (5)
Love comes up through me, through my heart. And a refusal to forgive shuts my heart down again. It closes me off to higher-dimensional Love. I’m left with something that doesn’t approach it. I can see that.
Whether we consider what occurs as a loss of access to Love or a burden we carry, the net effect is the same: We deprive ourselves of the experience of Love. We trade it for remaining right and resistant, as I did.
Forgiveness is not just a way to heal from resentment. It can take us further, Saul says, It can be a path to awakening.
“Almost daily stories surface about people who have been hurt and abused who forgive those who have hurt them because they have understood the immense healing power of forgiveness. And by forgiving they not only heal themselves, but also those whom they have forgiven. Forgiveness is a tool of incredible power, embrace it, use it, and discover and enjoy for yourselves the wonderful sense of peace it brings.
“Forgiveness is the path to awakening. It is not helpful to see some crimes as unforgivable because to do so closes your hearts to field of Love that envelops you eternally, limiting your abilities to be carefree. While you close your hearts to Love you will not find any happiness because happiness is carefree, joyful, limitless, and inspiring.
“When you are happy you can do much more because you have boundless energy and enthusiasm for life, and that happiness, which is firmly established within you, uplifts and encourages those with whom you interact. You have all experienced the joy of watching small children bubbling over with happiness and have then been delightedly unable to suppress your own resultant good spirits. Learn from them then, embrace the moment, and have fun. (6)
So, yes, I’m sure that forgiving our neighbor has a tremendous impact on securing world peace and global unity. But it also promises to have a tremendous impact on me.
Footnotes
(1) Jesus via John Smallman, May 7, 2017, at https://johnsmallman2.wordpress.com
(2) Saul, November 15, 2014, at https://johnsmallman.wordpress.com
(3) Personal reading with Kathleen Willis, channelled by Linda Dillon on 28 October, 2016, at https://goldenageofgaia.com/?p=286749.
(4) I feel like Eckhart’s beggar who was sitting on a box of gold. In my case, I did not know how to lay my burden down.
(5) Jesus via John Smallman, August 13, 2014. In another place, Jesus adds:
“To forgive another is to free yourself! Not conditional forgiveness: “I forgive you, but I won’t forget the pain you caused me!’ or: ‘I forgive you this time, but if it happens again, watch out!’
“Conditional forgiveness is meaningless. It is a patronizing attempt to lay guilt on another while demonstrating your own sinlessness. Sin is endemic in the illusion, but in Reality it does not exist and has never occurred.
“The time for judgment and its entourage of condemnation, punishment, unforgiveness and guilt is past, because that locks the entrance to your heart, shutting out the Love that surrounds you and would enter to bring you abundant joy.” (Jesus via John Smallman, July 16, 2014.)
(6) Saul, Aug. 10, 2014.