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mil
USA
28 Posts |
 Posted - Feb 03 2014 : 09:19:45 AM
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Thanks Kami for the link. I will spend some time reading that as well.
I appreciate the view points being expressed. I think for me I am still trying to understand others processes in regards to forgiveness because my experience seems to originate in a different manner. What I hear being said is there is a movement that seems to originate from self that offers forgiveness. I know I am oversimplifying things, I am trying to get to the heart of some of my confusion.
My experience has been different. I don't seem to be able to muster forgiveness within my own experience. I am down deep under the anger and the control to the place where I feel great sorrow and confusion.
In the Christian model I would say it feels like the fall from Grace.
Because of this I feel like the sense of forgiveness is something that is holding me not something that comes to me in a concept of understanding. It feels more like a state shift or an epiphany. A similar feeling as to Sparkle's original post, the notion of holding two states at the same time and allowing for a revealing of sorts.
At this point forgiveness, love and compassion feel like places of Grace and holding not a concept that I can apply. I do understand the notion of what seems outside is actually inside and that the Grace is also a component of my own consciousness. I am more speaking from the split off part of my self experience, if that makes sense.
I don't think I am making myself clear. I am always struggling to understand what others are saying experiential-wise, not conceptual.
Thanks for your input, it really helps to clarify
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Feb 03 2014 : 09:50:35 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by jeff
I do not mean to be rude, but why is it "critical and of paramount discernment that I listen to my past experience so I can interact with people in wise ways."? Do you worry that you will be hurt?
I worry very little about being hurt, and expose myself to pain on a regular basis. LMAO. Come with me to an AA meeting sometime, and if you have any shred of empathic ability, you'll feel plenty of emotional pain there. I'm not a masochist though. I'm not deliberately trying to get hurt, but it comes with the territory of healing and recovery.
The paramount discernment comes into play by avoiding co-dependent, energetic traps that will stifle the freedom of each person. Freedom is a movement towards autonomy, and in that autonomy, we experience a voluntary co-existent harmony. If you watch a troupe of skilled dancers, they can be moving in perfect unison, but they achieve that unison through conscious collaboration and intuitive connection. Similarly, if you put together a group of open-minded musicians, they can combine their pre-learned skills with the spontaneity of improvisation. So, that's what I mean about listening to past experience in relation to interactions.
If someone's going to hurt me because of their foolishness, of course I'm going to avoid them. If a runaway, rabid dog was charging at me with the full intention of attacking me, of course I would take evasive action, or disable the dog. What sane person wouldn't? The survival instinct doesn't get abandoned with the rise of enlightenment. Maybe there will be an inner calling for sacrifice or martydom, but that's rare. I think most of the time we can move towards an increasing reality of Paradise, which moves away from hurtful patterns.
But it's often mysterious, really. I don't know what my karma will bring, in terms of the quantity of pain--emotional, physical, or otherwise. As Yogani says, from a perspective of inner silence, those sensations are just small waves on the surface of a deep ocean. Therefore, I devote my time to cultivating and uncovering that wellspring of tranquility, so I can easily endure any heartache, disappointment, break-ups, mistakes, and imperfections. And I've had a few. Who hasn't?
Great topic. Thank you.  |
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kami
USA
921 Posts |
Posted - Feb 03 2014 : 11:04:56 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by jeff
I agree that forgiveness is not forgetting, but it is letting go of the past and the coloring that comes with it. Also, I see understanding as different than fear. Understanding is knowing a fire can burn me, fear is a subconscious response that keeps an animal from the warmth of a fire. Fears are obstructions that limit freedom.
I do not mean to be rude, but why is it "critical and of paramount discernment that I listen to my past experience so I can interact with people in wise ways."? Do you worry that you will be hurt?
Absolutely beautiful. Thank you Jeff for making the distinction clear. 
Burning a finger and avoiding the fire doesn't mean we operate from fear or hatred of fire. Every time we use the fire, we have, in that sense, forgiven it already for burning "my" finger in the past, no? Yet, if some "person" does something to burn "me", all hell breaks loose in my mind with all sorts of hypothetical "what ifs", "how dare", etc etc. Somehow the fire is impersonal so the concept of forgiving doesn't even apply to it..
The more I delve into it, the more it seems that the primary issue with forgiveness, lack thereof, anger, shame, guilt, etc etc - all of them stem from taking everything personally, i.e., ownership of "doing", instead of just "being".
As Maheshwari wisely said, it is wanting things to be/have been different that causes all of the guilt/anger/shame in turn bringing up the need for forgiveness (or not). And that wanting is intimately tied to this personal "owning" of it all.
If we can see that absolutely nothing is personal, there is freedom from all of this..
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kami
USA
921 Posts |
Posted - Feb 03 2014 : 11:13:31 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by mil
Thanks Kami for the link. I will spend some time reading that as well.
I appreciate the view points being expressed. I think for me I am still trying to understand others processes in regards to forgiveness because my experience seems to originate in a different manner. What I hear being said is there is a movement that seems to originate from self that offers forgiveness. I know I am oversimplifying things, I am trying to get to the heart of some of my confusion.
My experience has been different. I don't seem to be able to muster forgiveness within my own experience. I am down deep under the anger and the control to the place where I feel great sorrow and confusion.
In the Christian model I would say it feels like the fall from Grace.
Because of this I feel like the sense of forgiveness is something that is holding me not something that comes to me in a concept of understanding. It feels more like a state shift or an epiphany. A similar feeling as to Sparkle's original post, the notion of holding two states at the same time and allowing for a revealing of sorts.
At this point forgiveness, love and compassion feel like places of Grace and holding not a concept that I can apply. I do understand the notion of what seems outside is actually inside and that the Grace is also a component of my own consciousness. I am more speaking from the split off part of my self experience, if that makes sense.
I don't think I am making myself clear. I am always struggling to understand what others are saying experiential-wise, not conceptual.
Thanks for your input, it really helps to clarify
Hi Mil,
Actually, you express it beautifully and very clearly. I have been in that state of confusion, as you will see in the other topic.. And like you, conceptual things just bore me. One thing that might be helpful is to surrender to the despair, instead of resisting it. It will show you what you need to see. Working with the felt-sense of the emotion (rather than the thoughts about it) is very powerful. Where is it? What does it feel like? What happens if you just stay with, say the feeling of guilt? Simply watch it..?
Love and peace to you.
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Feb 03 2014 : 12:11:47 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by kami
If we can see that absolutely nothing is personal, there is freedom from all of this..
 [[[...quivering with gut-busting laughter...]]] Thank you.  |
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kami
USA
921 Posts |
Posted - Feb 03 2014 : 1:21:07 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Bodhi Tree
quote:
Originally posted by kami
If we can see that absolutely nothing is personal, there is freedom from all of this..
[[[...quivering with gut-busting laughter...]]] Thank you.
Thanks for proving the point. People do what they do because they do. 
Enjoy the laughter.
Best wishes. |
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mil
USA
28 Posts |
Posted - Feb 03 2014 : 3:58:22 PM
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| thanks for the suggestions Kami. I will try and work with that. |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Feb 04 2014 : 09:34:43 AM
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Thank you all for the beautiful exploration of forgiveness. This can obviously be useful for working with shame as well as everything else too.
I personally find forgiveness as something often elusive, maybe this is because it was drummed into me as a child to "forgive and forget" and I know that was the cause of much suppression of anger.
The way that I found most useful with forgiveness came through firstly saying within "sorry for everything" to the person. As soon as I said this (even though I felt I had nothing to be sorry for, and that's important) in a very intense situation a few years ago my chest opened and I could feel the whole thing dissolving.
I was intrigued with this and actually tried "I forgive you". Somehow this had no effect, it did not register as a felt sense of opening. A week later I tried it again and the "I forgive you" worked, I could feel it deeply and felt the forgiving in my heart.
On relating this to our AYP group at the time, Ger pointed out that this was very similar to the HOOPONOOPONO method. This has been discussed here before.
On studying the Ho oponoopono method the big thing that struck me was the FIRST stage of it, which people often miss.
The first stage is "Taking 100% Responsibility for the Complete Situation."
This is quite a radical and challenging step for most people but is something that can often be appreciated by people who are into Advaita and non-self and "radically not taking things personally."
For instance maheswari if you take all the feelings and memories involved with your mother's illness for instance, which I would imagine could be substantial and sit down in meditation and decide to take full 100% responsibility for all of it, even the things that could be seen as not being directly related to you, just taking responsibility for it all. This the first step.
With this being held within we can go through the process of:
"I am sorry"
"I forgive you"
"I love you"
Of course when this is done with inner silence developed through AYP or other practices, it is particularly powerful, as we know with Samyama.
(If anyone is interested I have a pdf version of the Hooponoopono book which explains it all in great detail, you can send me an email)
I love the explanations about being burned by the fire but that there is no forgiveness involved because it is seen as impersonal - brilliant!!
To me the "taking 100% responsibility for the situation" is the same as "not taking it personally" but in a different way.
In terms of "not taking it personally" one method becoming popular these days seems to be the "evolutionary model" of the three different sections of the brain. The reptilian, mammalian and ape or what has been described recently as Lizard, Mouse and Monkey by Rick Hanson in his work in Neuroscience.(yawn yawn  )
The idea being that when we examine the brain and the associated neuron firing and how this affects the hormones and the whole body. It can be understood that the whole stress cycle is something that just happens in our systems as a result of our evolution. When this is appreciated it is much easier to "not take things personally" and see that we are just products of evolution.
In this regard the research is showing that the appreciation of pleasant states and being aware of these in the body on a regular basis is very important in re-adjusting our conditioning.
When we have a difficult thought stream going on with all its accompanying pain and ongoing thought cycling, it has been shown that looking at it objectively with the evolutionary model, i.e. creating some distance in the mind, not taking it personally - also realising that this is universal in human nature, we are all in the same boat, with the same evolutionary system going on.
Of course if we can be in a state of equanimity as bodhi tree indicated with the Yogani quote that we have all these waves going on within a much deeper ocean. However even in this state the waves are still there and will catch up with us at some stage, and thus we do inquiry.
What neuroscience showing is that when we get used to experiencing pleasant states and then pair or link them with a negative state going on that there is a change in the way the neurons fire. As the new way of firing is repeated it then becomes established as something more permanent. However the prerequisite here is that the negative state and the positive state must be fully felt, experienced and owned in the body.
So how does this relate to forgiveness and shame?
To be honest I don't use forgiveness when working with shame. It doesn't really bite for me but I can see that for others it might.
Shame is something that runs through all of us in such a subtle way, it creates our boundaries with people, it holds in place all our taboos, but also our social norms. This could be described as healthy shame. When it becomes excessive however it can lead to depression, social anxiety, anorexia and other body image related problems etc etc..
When seen from the perspective of being something evolutionary in us, something that is probably essential in our development as social creatures, as something that holds in place our sense of right and wrong, of ethics and morality. Then we might see that we just have this shame and it is just part of being human. This is a bit like kami's description of being burned by the fire and not blaming the fire for it, it's just the way life works.
I would suggest though that, not only can we become aware of the toxic type shame that we might feels at times but that, because we are involved in the process of becoming more aware in general, that we might look to replacing all shame within us with compassion.
For me this, in practice, is quite a radical step.
For instance, if I didn't have any shame I might like to walk down Grafton Street in Dublin naked from the waist down. To imagine myself doing this would be extremely shaming. The shaming would involve other people seeing me and their projections of their shame onto me, with looks and maybe comments etc. So having a sense of shame prevents me from doing this.
As I investigate this felt shame with this scenario I can see how shame protects me from being embarrassed or ridiculed or from being put in jail. So if I get rid of the shame by feeling into it and releasing it -what then protects me.
The only thing that can protect me, if the shame goes, is compassion for the others in that street and for myself. Being aware of the shame in others and the possible consequences to me of walking down a street half naked, maybe of being in a newspaper and having my name all over the place, of friends and family seeing this.
So as an act of compassion, which is a much warmer and more nourishing feeling than shame, it can have the same protecting effect as shame, but allowing me to be freer and more compassionate.
For me compassion is recognising the pain and suffering in me and others and moving to adjust or eliminate it.
The first stage then is being aware of the suffering, in this case shame in me and the projecting shame from others and understanding this as something normal and human.
The second stage is opening to the understanding with a warmth of heart and a wish that none of us should suffer, this then becomes the reason for not walking down the street half naked.
This kind of thing is my ongoing practice at the moment and it is very subtle and deep and needs to be revisited time and again. It is so far having a nice effect for me and seems to be helping in my relationships in general.
Sorry for the long post, I'm getting very wordy - what a shame
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Edited by - Sparkle on Feb 04 2014 09:39:15 AM |
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kami
USA
921 Posts |
Posted - Feb 04 2014 : 11:24:41 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by Sparkle
To me the "taking 100% responsibility for the situation" is the same as "not taking it personally" but in a different way.
In terms of "not taking it personally" one method becoming popular these days seems to be the "evolutionary model" of the three different sections of the brain. The reptilian, mammalian and ape or what has been described recently as Lizard, Mouse and Monkey by Rick Hanson in his work in Neuroscience.(yawn yawn )
The idea being that when we examine the brain and the associated neuron firing and how this affects the hormones and the whole body. It can be understood that the whole stress cycle is something that just happens in our systems as a result of our evolution. When this is appreciated it is much easier to "not take things personally" and see that we are just products of evolution.
This is brilliant Sparkle, thank you.
Was just thinking yesterday how "taking 100% responsibility for the situation" is the same as "not taking it personally" but in a different way. In Hoponopono for example, taking full responsibility immediately relieves everyone else of theirs. Blame, guilt, shame, resentment, all are laid to rest instantly (note, very different from saying "I am at fault"). The concepts of sin and guilt apply only when we take things personally in a "fault" sort of way. Taking personally is about faulting myself or others, very subtly different than "responsibility". When I say I'm responsible, it means there is nothing "out there" to look for, but all "in here" to work on..
Even so, we look "in here" in an open, innocent way, seeing that what was projected to cause the "out there" was done because that is how we were programmed by our genes, upbringing, evolution (above) etc etc. Nothing was really "personal" in anyone's actions, except done to protect the "me". Where is the issue of forgiveness then?
Thank you for the lovely post.
Much love. |
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Sparkle
Ireland
1457 Posts |
Posted - Feb 04 2014 : 6:32:29 PM
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Thank you dear kami
and thank you for the way you opened out the "100% taking responsibility" thing and clarifying that it is entirely different from being at fault or being to blame for something, this is an important distinction.
It can be a very useful doorway into "not taking things personally"
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Working with Shame
