Nothing to forgive

Whenever we're watching a movie, we're in a great place to draw a line between what is real and not real. We're really watching the movie, feeling our feelings about it, and believing in what appears to be happening for the time being. Yet the harm done to the characters and their situations is not real. The changes in the lives of the characters are not really occurring. The time that passes during the movie is an illusion. We rely on our insights, rather than our eyesight.

We can also get into a bad place when we're watching a movie. We get sucked into the illusions and become obsessed with what happened. Our minds can replay incidents from the movie as if they really happened. A movie can give us nightmares and daytime paranoia about what might happen to us -- long after we sat and watched the film.

We get into this bad place when we cannot forgive others for what they did to us. Likewise, we cannot forgive ourselves for what we said, did or didn't do to others. We cannot sort out what is real and not real. We cling to what happened with guilt and every flavor of fear. It's as if we're stuck in our seats watching the movie in a theater with no exits, aisles and house lights. By clinging to this misery, we lose our authentic life of experiencing freedom from our past history and serenity right now. What happened to us or by us seems very real and unforgivable.

When we get to a great place to draw a line between what is real and not real, we've found home base in our minds. Nothing that happens in the movie needs to be forgiven because it didn't really happen to who we really are that's really watching and feeling all this. How we feel right now can be totally forgiven and free of any past harm, hurt and violations. We can repeatedly look on what appeared to happen with innocence. We believe there's nothing to forgive and everything to love once we let go of what did not really happen. We can love our adversaries in the movie unconditionally because we're really joined in spirit watching the same movie.