Conversation about the Ease and Effortlessness of the Practice of Forgiveness

The student was strolling near the river’s edge when he saw the teacher sitting in the meadow under the blossoming cherry tree.  The student approached the teacher with a question on his mind and was received with a warm smile.  The teacher asked, “It appears that you have a question.  How can I help?”  The student replied, “When will I experience the effortlessness and simplicity of my practice of forgiveness?”  The teacher paused, understanding the depth of the question and said:

“It really becomes quite easy.  Once we make it a habit of not defending our guilt and fear and we are willing to hide them no longer, bringing them to “our” Sacred Spirit for the new interpretation, the always present peace and joy is easily Felt almost instantaneously, and we smile and clap at the simplicity of it all.  It is only the hiding which is the defending of the guilt that we have believed about ourselves that makes it seem so difficult.  Behind the guilt is the sense of unworthiness that is the very ego belief.  When you make it a habit of not projecting your inner guilt and shame and take responsibility for your original decision to separate, your practice will become easier and easier.  This projecting of unworthiness onto yourself and your world is the ego’s defense against the truth of Innocence.  Once we know that there is nothing that can change this truth of guiltlessness about ourselves, we will not hide from anything, and the simplicity and effortlessness will be self-evidenced.  Along the way, we have ever-growing glimpses of the light and truth of Self and the fiction of the ego self is understood with certainty.  There will be an experience of equanimity from instant to instant.  As we live with this equanimity and continue to acknowledge the presence of God and “our” Holy Spirit, we find that there is nothing other than This Self that is Real.  In the ongoingness of healing our mind from the belief of guilt, and understanding that there is nothing to forgive, we will have the experience of illumination.  And as we contemplate and abide as this re-discovered Self, we will know that we know.  Then there will be the complete transfiguring and transformation into and As the Very Self of God.  We live this knowledge right here in the illusory mind and world of perception.  This is the Gift offered Everyone.  This is the Gift we learn to give to Everyone and Everything, this is the good news and glad tidings that we share.”

The teacher could see on the student’s face that the glimpse shared was received.  “May I sit here in The Meadow with you, under this blossoming tree?” asked the student.  The teacher smiled and said, “Of course.  The Meadow is always here but for the seeing.  In The Meadow there are no teachers, there are no students.  There is only the Self we be.”