HEAVENLETTER TO BE PUBLISHED IN A POWERFUL BOOK
A published author, Lois Einhorn, contacted me this week. Her next book, which is coming out April 10, 2006, has contributions from many well-known people. One contributor is our friend Bernie Siegel, M.D., and it is through Bernie that Lois heard of Heavenletters. In his contribution to her book, Bernie included a Heavenletter. After Lois read it, she asked for permission to include it as a separate chapter. What a fine way to help bring God’s messages out into the world! (The particular Heavenletter is called Don’t Criticize. I’ll ask Kirt, Heaven’s volunteer web-master, to find the exact title and number and I’ll post it on the message board.)
The book Lois has written is a profound important book on forgiveness. A little background. Lois was influenced by a book by Simon Wiesenthal’s called Sunflower. Simon had been in a concentration camp. Years later one of his captors had asked him for forgiveness, and Simon couldn’t do it. In his book, Simon asks the question: In my situation, what would you do?
From birth until she was seventeen years old, Lois was determinedly abused and tortured by both her mother and father. How she could have survived I don’t know let alone become the fine caring person she is. Her book, entitled Forgiveness and Child Abuse: Would YOU Forgive "Nursery Crimes and Scary Tales"? asks the question: In my situation, what would you do?
Because of what Lois has sent me, I realize I am not clear on my own personal definition of forgiveness.
I mentioned elsewhere on this board that forgiveness seems to be a hot topic. Several subscribers are sending in personal questions to God about forgiveness, and several of God’s recently written Heavenletters are also on forgiveness. These will be coming up within the next two weeks.
What is your experience with forgiveness? Are there things that we cannot forgive? What is your definition of forgiveness?
my thoughts on forgiveness.
MY Thoughts,
Unforgiveness holds the hurt and destruction within us.
Metaphysically and physically causing, if not a 'cancerous growth' on our psyche or dis-Ease to our body, causing a stasis against moving forward and growing..
The memory of ugly things that happen to us will never mend unless we find some way of releasing the pain through forgiveness.
If we are unable to forgive, let us have the willingness to eventually forgive.
Dear God,
It seems I can not forgive this situation, (or this person) right now. The pain is too sharp. Yet I am willing to forgive. I am willing to have your Love and understanding flow through me so as to see this in your eyes instead of my own.
Amen
FROM THE AUTHOR, LOIS
Factual correction--Wiesenthal was still living in the concentration camp when he was brought to the Nazi's bedside. It seems significant to add also that Karl (the Nazi) expressed remorse.
My book asks, "What would you do NOW as an adult? DO you forgive your parents? HOW do you forgive yourself?
I'm looking forward to seeing what messages you receive.
The older I get, the more I believe in synchronicity or that "Coincidence is God's way of remaining anonymous." I'm SO thrilled that we've connected. Warmest wishes ALLways, Lois
FORGIVENESS
The horror story that the author went through has made me rethink the issue of forgiveness. I know if I were asked to forgive her parents right now, and I said I forgive them, I would be untruthful.
God in Heavenletters has written some beautiful messages on forgiveness. Many say we were in error to take offense. That applies to me across the board. I cannot see how that applies to the author.
I can say that in my life's experience, I really have nothing to forgive.
Yet a mother and father who year in and year out inflicted outrageous pain on their own children, and made their children hurt others, I don’t think I could ever say to those parents that I forgive them.
This has made me do a lot of soul-searching about what is so easily bandied about in regard to forgiving. If forgiving is getting the yuck out of our own hearts, there is hope. But for me to say to those parents that, in my heart, I forgive them, I am presently not capable of it.
HEAVENLETTER TO BE PUBLISHED IN A POWERFUL BOOK
Gloria,Just wanted to Congratulate you
on our HL's coming out in Lois Einhorn's
New Book--Isnt that Great!!We will definitely
get more Beautiful subscribers this way
pal.Maybe this will FINALLY attract
OPRAH's attention..Ha ha :wink:
Love,
Shahid.
TO SHAHID RE FORGIVENESS
Dear Shahid,
What are your thoughts regarding forgiveness?
Blessings and love, Gloria
HEAVENLETTER TO BE PUBLISHED IN A POWERFUL BOOK
Gloria,I am not the right person to comment
on Forgiveness since I havent been in situations
in Life where I had to really Forgive someone.
Love,
Shahid.
FORGIVENESS
Your answer is profound, Shahid. It says a lot:
"I am not the right person to comment
on Forgiveness since I havent been in situations
in Life where I had to really Forgive someone."
HEAVENLETTER TO BE PUBLISHED IN A POWERFUL BOOK
if you want to give yourself a gift forgive. you will never get it by trying to forget. there have been those who said to german concentration camp guards "Ich liebe dich." and were let go at that time. the guards had a harder time with those who related to them and looked them in the eye. so i prefer to kill with kindness and torment with tenderness. how would you like to say to someone robbing you and molesting you, "I know behind that mask is someone i could love." he stopped and ran away only to return years later tell her who he was and thank the minister who said that to him years before.
when you don't forgive you continue to be assaulted and robbed by others. i decide what i think not you. so thank you for everything. i have no complaint whatsoever. that way i save money on therapy and can spend it on drugs and alcohol. i have learned that if you want peace you have to finish what you've started. so every evening i finish the kahlua, baileys, red and white wine, ice cream, chocolate cake and antidepressants.
HEAVENLETTER TO BE PUBLISHED IN A POWERFUL BOOK
It is hard to forgive when we live in the Illusion. It is hard because we believe we separate individuals, one apart from the other. And because we are separate, there is the potential for aggression, and violence, one to the other. In the dualism of the Illusion we will experience the duality of the perpetrator and the victim. In this scenario, we can attach or be attached.
However, in the Unity, there is but one Self, one Being, just one Consciousness. And in that oneness, duality does not exist. There is no perpetrator, nor victim. God cannot hurt God. God cannot kill God. God is God and is united in love unconditional. Because there is no duality, no perpetrator nor victim, there is no need for forgiveness.
Truth forgiveness is not forgiveness at all. It is the knowledge that nothing was ever done, which needed forgiveness.
This will sound like a "hiding your head in the sand" approach to anyone who has not experienced the Unity and is enmeshed in the Illusion. Only in our Cosmic Sleep do we dream of perpetrators and victims. In awakening we see the Unity of Love.
We can begin to see the Unity by letting go of everything and everyone that we think has done us wrong. We can just drop it and go on. Further, we can let go of all those things we think we did wrong. We can drop it and go on. This is part of the process of “Letting Go.” One thing after another, Let Go!
Our final “Let Go” will be at the brink of Infinity, where there is nothing to hold on too. We can let go of our individuality, everything we think we are. We can let go, and fall free. Fall free forever and never hold on again. We will let go, and let God. Not that we really let God, we just give up the illusion that we, as individuals, really had anything to do with it anyway. It’s all about God, the only One there is.
Forgiveness
Hello group,
I am new here, and wanted to say how thrilled I am to be here. Such wonderful writing by so many, in the same place!!
Of course, we all have some variations on how we view different concepts. We are all wonderfully distinct, different, pieces of God.
Here is my understanding of forgiveness. There is some truth to the old basic concept of "judge not" (without the rest). I am not responsible for someone else's actions, and therefore can feel no guilt or shame from their mistakes, even those directed towards me. Each of us is responsible for ourselves. I can only forgive myself for my own mistakes, by taking responsibility for them, and endeavoring to continually behave better. We don't know all the why's and wherefores of why other people behave as they do. Each of us is a product of many lifetimes, and environments. Only God knows all the details, and I'm not God. I know some who want to stay angry at past hurts. It seems to me that obsessing about old junk keeps one from other better thoughts, and actions. Too much time and energy is being focused on old hurts, leaving less time for the good stuff. I do not pretend to be perfect either. I've many many mistakes of my own, probably some I'm not even aware of yet. lol
Well, That's it for now folks. All the best, Little Sun
RESPONSE TO LITTLE SUN ON FORGIVENESS
Dear Little Sun,
Thank you for arriving here and posting right away! I agree with you that the writings here, and the hearts and minds of the people who write, are incredibly high.
And, yes, perhaps forgiving ourselves is the hardest of all.
Looking forward to more posts from you, Little Sun!
Re: RESPONSE TO LITTLE SUN ON FORGIVENESS
Dear Gloria,
Boy, do I agree with you there! I think sometimes we hold ourselves to too high a standard. Stuff we could easily brush off when someone else does it, we beat ourselves up for. We've all gotta learn to laugh at our own blunders. We're all human, and there's nothing wrong with that. : ) God doesn't want us to feel guilty, or hold junk in. That's counter productive. Listen to your light side. All the best, Little Sun
FORGIVENESS AND BERNIE SIEGEL response to Little Sun
Bernie Siegel, Author of Love, Medicine, and Miracles, was an early pioneer in mind/body medicine. At the time, the dea of anything but medical procedures being the cure was scoffed at. Bernie took his share of ridicule and went ahead anyway. Of course his colleagues at Yale Medical School who at the time sneered have since changed their minds! I mentioned this to show you what a gutsy guy Bernie is.
In one of his many books -- I forget which one -- he tells how he went around the hospital one afternoon and went to every patient's bed and said: YOU ARE ABSOLVED! YOU ARE ABSOLVED!
That took guts, don't you think!
So I want to tell you that from whatever error, whether actual or imagined, YOU ARE ABSOLVED, LITTLE SUN!
The Jewish Holidays will be coming up, and that is the time when everyone is to call up their friends and family, and say something like this:
If I have said or done anything this year that offended you, I am so sorry, and I want to ask you to forgive me.
A friend calls me every year and says that to me, and every year it melts me.