The Final Forgiveness

[xise]

20.36 Questioner: You use the same nomenclature for fourth-density negative as for fourth-density positive. Both are called the dimension of love or understanding. Is this correct?

Ra: I am Ra. This is correct. Love and understanding, whether it be of self or of self towards other-self, is one.

I've found the Ra material often uses love and understanding in a lot of places, and I find from my personal experience understanding others seems to come from my heart, rather than other rays. But regardless of where you pin it, understanding is important.


I've had less trouble forgiving others in part because I have less trouble understanding and accepting others. But there was this one acquaintance in high school, a year above me, who I held a grudge against for a long time. He was the type to have a crew and make fun of you in the hall, which was odd because I barely interacted with him. He also got a car ride from a friend of mine and destroyed a CD of mine that I had lent the friend upon learning that it was my CD (he asked to hold it, then asked my friend if he bought it or borrowed it, when my friend said it was mine, he took his metal mechanical pencil and etched deep scars into the CD while my friend was driving). He did a lot of other stuff, and most of it didn't bother me because it just seemed so random since I rarely interacted with the guy, but the two above things upset me greatly. I was pretty introverted in high school and so I didn't really stand up to myself. But I also was angry because I had no idea why he did these things to me. My forgiveness came naturally when I later learned things that help me understand him. I learned that he stole a partially written anonymous love letter another had written for valentine's day for a girl and posted copies around the school. He put something undrinkable in the same person's bottle of $50 bottle of vodka during an under-21 spring break trip. Another friend of mine told me that this guy continued to act like a D-bag in college, eventually alienating all of his friends, and apparently got punched in the face after a few D-bag moves by a variety of people. I came to understand that this person had nothing against me at all, but at heart was a person who drew genuine enjoyment over the misfortune of others, and that apparently only refrained when people exerted blatant superiority (physical force in this case) over him. This process of understanding, acceptance, and forgiveness came before I was in any way spiritual.


But you can see a recent example of forgiveness issues when I posted a while back about my uncle poisoning to death stray dogs with pesticides. Understanding my uncle's mindset and actions was key to my acceptance and forgiveness.


On a personal scale, I've had more trouble with self-forgiveness on many issues. I've had trouble forgiving myself with how I've been somewhat cruel women who wanted a real relationship with me in past years. It was only through self-understanding that I was protecting myself due to my insecurities was I able to accept and forgive my own behavior.


My path involves embracing but also thinking through my desires. Thus, my understanding of my motivation is crucial to my particular path. Also, I think understanding the origins of catalyst - which often includes one's motivation for self-caused catalyst, is important. If I don't understand why I did something, I find I am much more likely to repeat it. I can "control" my actions without understanding through guilt and right versus wrong thinking, but I find that sort of control to be personally harmful. When I understand my own motivations, I can truly decide whether it is something I wish to engage in or not by understanding what beliefs and perspectives the motivation stems from. For example, in the above mentioned example with hurting women, once I understand that I was distancing myself from women due to personal insecurities/lack of self-acceptance, I could work on the core issue of lack of self-acceptance and the cruelty naturally disappeared. I could have also just deemed it unacceptable and controlled my actions, but I've found in general that's much less effective for my personally.


But there are many ways to acceptance and forgiveness. Faith is definitely one that I have less experience with and it would see that is what you used in your example Plenum - at least the type of faith that is defined by understanding there is some greater meaning to the entire process (a method to the madness so to speak, even if you cannot see it), without necessarily understanding the minute details of a given situation. I love your stories and posts because they dig deep into core philosophical concepts, and for that I'm grateful for that brother.