Lesson 108: To give and receive are one in truth
As I began reading today’s lesson I marveled at its beauty. The words were just flowing over me, making me feel warm and comforted. “True light makes true vision possible,” it says. How wonderful! I can see the world, this lesson tells me, through a unified vision – through Christ’s vision that sees nothing but love. It doesn’t take notice of anything that is not love because only love is real and nothing unreal can pull us from this state of true joy and bliss.
I was flying pretty high until I hit this bit: “to forgive one brother wholly is enough to bring salvation to all minds.”
Well, shit.
I suppose I am light years away from true enlightenment then, because that’s just a sentence fragment that blows it all apart for me. I stopped cold on that line and all the people I cannot seem to forgive came flooding into my mind: my actual brother, somebody who did something bad to me years ago, another person I’m still holding a grudge against and don’t even get me started on the antics of the “leader of the free world.”
My ego tells me I can game the system. “Pick the easiest one,” it tells me, “and you’ll ‘bring salvation to all minds’!” it cackles with glee. “You can prove this is all bunk right here and right now!”
The fact that I think one person is “easier” than another to forgive belies my whole ego problem. Just as there is no order of difficulties in miracles, there is no order of magnitude in forgiveness. If forgiving someone after they cut you off in traffic is hard, I can’t even fathom forgiving someone I see as the cause of the suffering of millions of people.
The truth is this: I refuse to fully forgive all those other people who I perceive as offending or hurting me in some fashion because to do so would mean that I had to forgive myself. Giving and receiving are one, this lesson says. I can only give what I have and if I have not done the hard work of forgiving myself for all the lapses and transgressions and disappointment that I have brought upon myself, forgiving someone else is damn near impossible.
“To forgive one brother wholly is enough to bring salvation to all minds.” Since we are all one in this messy illusion, the one “brother” that I can offer forgiveness to first is the one that resides within me. If I could wholly forgive myself then I could wholly forgive the world and salvation – that knowledge that we are all one in God – would come to all minds.
The ego makes this seem like a really tall order, but again, there is no order of difficulty – forgiving myself is easy; I simply let go of all of my grievances I’ve held against myself. But, the ego convinces me it’s difficult, and tends to start making lists of all the horrible, unforgivable things I’ve done.
This lesson invites me to change my focus – to think about the other people I blame for my unhappiness, or those I still hold grudges against – and offer them quietness, peace of mind and gentleness. Since giving and receiving are one, I will receive these gifts just as surely as I give them.
As we meditate today on giving quiet, peace of mind and gentleness to those around us, Hafiz says we can become like Saadi, a major medieval Persian poet who was Hafiz’ hero and teacher.
He writes:
Your destiny is winding toward the Perfect.
Someday you will be like Saadi, who sits
alone in wonder,
unable to part from the Darling one, from
the Complete, each of us is becoming.