Page 11 - the Noise April 2017

an excerpt from Forgiveness with Meher Baba (Wilmington: OmPoint Press, 2016)
by Laurent Weichberger
no question of what had happened. Many times, when sharing what happened, the other person involved may have great difficulty hearing about it, either interrupting, or becom- ing less than gracious in the listening. This is a natural part of the process, and if it is too frightening, again involve a third part or a safe mediator or therapist.
6. Acknowledgment of what happened. Of all the things that seem to block forgiveness, the one that comes up the most in the forgiveness work I have done is that the one want- ing to forgive says to me about the person they are trying to forgive, “But they didn’t even
realize they have done anything wrong, and they don’t agree with me!” In other words, there is a fundamental disconnect when, in attempting to forgive there is no acknowl- edgment of the incident itself as needing forgiveness. When this happens, it can be a long and painful process of either waiting for that acknowledgment (which can take months or years in some cases), or just cutting to the chase: “Letting go.” Another pos- sibility is that this stage is surrendered as a “nice to have” but since it is not happening, working with all the other stages as fully as possible. In the case of my father’s suicide, I never got any acknowledgment from him, other than what I wrote about it in my chap- ter in The Doorbell of Forgiveness, which was a response I felt came from Meher Baba
about my forgiving my father.
7. Acknowledgment of feelings about what happened. This stage is similar to the previ- ous stage about acknowledgement of the incident itself, but it goes much deeper. If one cannot acknowledge what happened, it is almost impossible for the process to go deeper into the vulnerable place of sharing the feelings and emotions surrounding the incident. Once shared, naturally there is a desire to have the feelings acknowledged. As with the previous step, that acknowledgement may come, or it may not. We encourage the sharing of the feelings regardless of the response or result. This sharing of the feelings also can be in many forms, or mediums. It may be a written letter or email, or it may be verbally, or via some artistic medium like a song or a painting or drawing. Whatever communicates can be helpful. I remember in Flagstaff, Arizona there was a project where victims of sexual or physical abuse were invited to make a t-shirt design with colored paint and hang the t-shirt on a clothesline along other abuse t-shirts. I participated in this, and it was a very powerful process indeed. Reading the other shirts alone was a healing process.
8. Giving Forgiveness or Receiving Forgiveness. Depending on the people involved and the forgiveness directions this can be complex, but at the very least we feel that this stage of giving and receiving forgiveness with love is the crux of the process, and it can be quite beautiful. There are as many shades and tones, and hues, and sounds related to this work as there are hearts, so no two forgiveness acts are ever the same. We recommend just let- ting it be whatever it is without trying to compare it to anything else.
9. Letting it go (wholeheartedly). This stage of letting go may not happen overnight, but what it means is that at some point you stop going over and over it in your head, and you wholeheartedly release it. It means – at least in part – to let go of wanting to punish someone (or oneself ) for what happened in the past.
Meher Baba emphasized this stage in the 1930s when he repeatedly told his Western Mandali (close disciples) and other followers that after a heated argument one should just let it go ~ release it. Here is an example from Baba’s life: 3
On another occasion, when there was a quarrel between two women, Baba intervened and stated: “Love and forget. This is the only thing that matters, and it pays. Almost all of you are weak. By weak, I mean taken up with desires. Anger is weakness, pride is weak- ness, and so on. If a mother found her child weak, she would love it all the more. So all love more. Don’t you remember what I told you in Nasik? Learn to say, ‘Janay-doe.’ [Let it go in Hindi] “Give up wanting the last word. Give up all wants and be happy. But you must try consciously. Now be happy. I forgive you all, but continue trying.”
10. Being in the Present, Moving on in Freedom. When I first created this diagram I was skeptical that there could really be ten stages to forgiveness, but the more I reflect on this diagram and write about it, the more certain I am there are probably more than these stages and these are just the most obvious ones to me. The last stage is to live more in the present moment and move on from the past in freedom. This is harder than it appears, most likely because it is the nature of the ego to remain attached to past wrongs and hurts, but it is the nature of God and the angels to move on and heal.
photo by Emelyn Morris-Sayre
Avatar Meher Baba at Upper Meherabad (India), March 15, 1937. Photograph by Rano Gayley
Meher Baba said,
“Duality signifies separateness. Separateness implies fear. Fear causes worry. The way of Oneness is the way to happiness; the way of manyness is the way to worry. I am the One who has no second, so I am eternally happy. You are separate from your Self, so you always worry. To you, what you see is absolutely real; to me, it is absolutely false.
“I alone am real, and my will governs the cosmic illusion. It is the truth when I say that the waves do not roll and the leaves do not move without my will. The moment the intensity of your faith in my will reaches its height, you say goodbye to worry forever. Then all that you suffered and enjoyed in the past, together with all that you may experience in the future, will be to you the most loving and spontaneous expression of my will; and nothing will ever be able to cause you worry again.
“Live more and more in the Present, which is ever beautiful and stretches away beyond the limits of the past and the future.
“If you must worry at all, let your only worry be how to remember me con- stantly. This is worthwhile worry because it will bring about the end of worry.
“Think of me more and more, and all your worries will disappear into the nothing they really are. My will works out to awaken you to this.” 4
End Notes:
1 Listen, Humanity by Meher Baba, p.73
2 Input from Annie and Jeff, Meher Spiritual Center, March 2016. 3 Lord Meher by V.S. “Bhau” Kalchuri, p.1922
4 Ibid, pp.4372 - 4373
| Laurent used to live in Flagstaff and now resides in Ashland, Oregon. He can be reached at: laurent@ompoint.com Forgiveness with Meher Baba (Wilmington: OmPoint Press, 2016) is available at Amazon.com
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