If you are anything like me, there are times, more than you would care to admit, that you find it difficult to forgive. I know I sure do. "How could they do that?! It's just wrong / bad / stupid / inconsiderate!! Grrrrrrr." I rarely have been able to see past and let go of my judgment that they were wrong and I am right and entitled to my righteous judgment. And then I came across these wise words of Eckhart Tolle in his marvelous little book, Silence Speaks. On page 92, he writes:
"If her past were your past, her pain your pain, her level of consciousness your level of consciousness, you would think and act exactly as she does. With this realization comes forgiveness, compassion, peace."
Isn't that marvelous? Now, if anyone should cross me or do or say anything stupid or bad, bad, bad, I feel that, armed with this realization, there is the chance that I may not succumb to the temptation of righteous judgment, but instead forgive, and even act out of compassion. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
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2 comments:
You're right, we all have times of those knee-jerk judgemental reactions towards others, but we seldom think about the fact that others no doubt have similar reactions and judgements made about us as well. Of course, we're always right, as they don't know our past, our pain, our level of consciousness either. Good reminder, that. Thanks for the post!
If you or other readers like Eckhart Tolle, you might be interested in this. Don't know if you're familiar with Unity or not, but I worked at Unity Village here in KC for a couple of years and one of the perks of working there was being exposed to various spiritual and new thought leaders of all variations of religious and non-religious affiliations. Fairly regularly just part of a normal work day. Anyway, Tolle just recently paid visit here to town to the Unity Village headquarters and apparently created a 3-part video series that will begin airing online next week sometime. Just FYI. I intend to watch. I miss working at Unity...
I'll see if Blogger will allow html links here for more info. If that screws up, the copy and paste link is below.
http://www.unityonline.org/aboutunity/news/eckhartTolle.html
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