Why should you practice forgiveness?

Most people have a tendency to skip over forgiveness because they don’t understand how it benefits them or why they should make it a part of their lives. There is this strange misconception that when someone forgives someone else, it is only helping the other person. Or that forgiveness is something you do because it is the ‘right thing to do’ or because you are ‘being the bigger man’.

So the first thing I will point out here is why you should practice forgiveness. The reasoning is very simple. You should practice forgiveness because it helps and benefits yourself and everyone around you. It improves your own happiness and well being, as well as others. Forgiveness helps you because it gives you a happier and more harmonious life.

Think about it. Do you enjoy being angry at people? Do you enjoy thinking about your hatred for other people, and about all of the terrible ‘wrongs’ they’ve committed against you in the past? Do you like being irritated all the time? Do you enjoy thinking about how you would like to kill someone? Do thoughts like these give you some kind of sick pleasure?

Maybe you don’t realize the extent of the damage that these kinds of thoughts have caused in your life, or how often these thoughts occur. But just because you don’t understand something, doesn’t mean you are immune to the effects of it. These thoughts will rob you of all happiness, well being, and will greatly impact your relationships throughout your life.

Think about all the people in your personal and professional life. How many of them do you truly get along with? How many of them do you really enjoy being around? How many of them can you trust and be open with all the time?

How many of these people irritate you? Does their actions and behavior just piss you off? Do some of them really just get on your nerves? Have any of these people done something that you consider wrong and unacceptable?

Now I’m not here to defend such people. I’m not interested in whether they are ‘good’ or ‘bad’ people, nor do I care about whatever ‘wrong’ you feel they may have committed against you. I’m only interested in how these relationships have effected you, and how these effects can be undone.

So let’s take a moment and lay aside all of our judgments upon such people, and let’s just focus on your own life and well being. In this article I’m going to show you a simple technique that, when properly exercised, will change your world and how you relate to other people. It will make you happier, healthier, and will improve every relationship you have and more.

This technique was practiced and taught by some of the greatest people throughout history, such as Jesus Christ, Mother Teresa, and Buddha. You may have heard of these people.

This healing technique is forgiveness. In this article I will go over what forgiveness is, and how to practice it. Learning to forgive is not just something that will benefit you.

It is something that will benefit all people.

Forgiveness

As I write this I can see the exquisite beauty around me. I understand my role and duty here, and how I relate to other people. There is no one in particular that I do not accept or love in my life. Everyone is perfect. They are always expressing exactly who they are at any given time.

I also understand that not many people get to experience such beauty in their life. Instead, they are distraught and irritated. It seems that it is always the little things that get to people. The mail man doesn’t wave. The dog barks too loud. The child doesn’t listen. Things that are just big enough to rob you of life, but not big enough to really pay attention to.

Forgiveness is a method of getting rid of this suffering. It is a way of taking you back to a state where you can be happy again. Thus, forgiveness is a method of healing.

Forgiveness is the acceptance of someone for who they are, without judging them for what they have done. Instead of judging their actions as ‘wrong’, and judging the person as ‘bad’, accept that these actions are just them expressing a part of themselves.

The key to forgiveness is suspending judgment of the person. This is important. If you forgive the actions of a person, but continue to judge the person, then you have not forgiven the person. They will still anger you and take your peace of mind. In order to forgive someone you must accept the person for who they are, regardless of what they do.

Forgiving someone does not mean that you deny or forget what they did. Forgive and forget is not true forgiveness. You will still see them as a ‘bad’ person, and you will always be reminded of the ‘awful’ things they did. Whenever you think of them you will still be angered and irritated. True forgiveness means that you accept the person as well as their actions.

Forgiveness is beneficial for other people, but it is even more beneficial to yourself. Whenever you are tempted to not forgive someone, remember this. You are only hurting yourself.

Forgiveness should not be limited. It is equally destructive to yourself to not forgive one person, as it is to not forgive ten people. If you forgive everyone, but do not forgive yourself, then you have still failed to forgive everyone. In order to be truly effective, forgiveness must be applied to everyone, including yourself.

The end result of forgiveness is peace of mind. It is not about being right or trying to get a reward. It is about having peace of mind. When you have truly forgiven someone, then you will have peace of mind.

Conclusion

For a long time I never understood the significance or meaning of forgiveness. I held grudges against people because their actions effected me in a negative way in the past. I never really understood that these grudges that I was holding were even more destructive than their original actions. It took me a long time to realize how successful I was at causing my own suffering.

I know it isn’t considered ‘hip’ or ‘cool’ to be a forgiving person, or to promote forgiveness. It can also seem like a difficult thing to do at times. The sheer amount of ‘ignorant’, ‘bad’, and ‘unacceptable’ people in the world can seem overwhelming.

All I can really say is to try it out for yourself. If you don’t like it, you can always give it back. Forgiveness comes with a money back guarantee. If you don’t like it, I’ll forgive you and give you your money back.

As a society we spend billions and billions of dollars on security related measures. We buy locks for our doors, security systems for our homes, and pay police and other security personnel to patrol our streets. We have car insurance, house insurance, health insurance, life insurance, and disability insurance. We combat disease of all kinds in an attempt to prolong life.

We do all of this in a vain attempt to try and promote and extend the life of the physical body. And yet there is one startling fact that still remains to this day. Everybody dies. It’s inevitable, unavoidable, and inescapable. Nothing can outlast eternity. Even if you transplanted your consciousness into some kind of robotic machine, eventually that will die as well. You may survive 100 more years, or 1,000, or 1,000,000 years. But eventually death will take you.

Maybe this is one of the reasons that no one likes to talk about death. It makes us depressed, or afraid. Instead, we try to cover it up with a plethora of fears and social taboos. We run away from it. We pretend like it doesn’t exist. Until one day we wake up in a hospital bed with a couple weeks left to live. Now what?

Well, now you can’t run away from it anymore. You’re stuck with it. You can no longer just say, “Oh, that’s 50 years away still” or whatever line you use to delude yourself into believing that bodily death doesn’t exist. You can no longer just deny it and run away from it. You have to face it.

I find it utterly strange that there are only a handful of people who have a serious problem with death. Everyone dies at the end of their physical lifetime, yet few people seem to really care about this fact. Perhaps most people don’t really mind death. Maybe they just don’t value their life enough to really care about losing it. Or perhaps a lot of people just live in denial of death. If I were a betting man, I would bet that a lot of people just live in denial.

You have two options in life. You can be a coward and run away from death. You can deny it, run away from it, and live your life in fear of death. Or you can face death. You can accept that your physical body is eventually going to pass away, that everything you see here will be gone someday, and you can live your life accordingly.

If you continue reading, I’m going to assume that you have chosen the second option.

In The Shadow Of Death

There is a certain, extreme fear of death that people carry with them throughout their lives. It is a kind of terror that exists in us all. This fear spreads out in our lives, touching everyone we meet and everything we do. If you think about death, if you really truly think about your own death, this fear will surface.

It’s imperative to recognize just how much this fear affects our day to day lives. Almost every fear, worry, and anxiety that you experience throughout life can be traced back to the ultimate fear of death. The fear of death is like the roots of a tree of suffering. The more you believe in death, the larger your tree becomes, and the more suffering you experience throughout life.

This suffering surfaces as constant fear, worry, and anxiety in our everyday lives. We are afraid of getting laid off or fired from our job. We are afraid of becoming sick or getting a disease. We are afraid of getting into an accident while driving. And, of course, we are afraid of death itself.

The only way out is to examine the source of this suffering. We have to bring up the belief in death itself and determine if it is valid or not. If the belief in death is valid, we must accept it and let go of all the negativity surrounding it. If the belief is not valid, it must be dropped.

Overcoming The Belief In Death

The belief in death is intimately tied to the belief in the physical body. If you believe that you are a physical body, and you believe that your life is dependent upon the physical body, then you are likely going to be afraid of bodily death because you believe it will kill you.

This is the primary belief in our current society, because this is what most of the evidence points to. If you’ve been alive for more than a couple years, you’ve probably realized by now that people die. The body gets old, it breaks down, gets diseased, and eventually it stops functioning all together. This is just a part of life for most people.

But there is a lot of evidence to the contrary as well. There have been a variety of studies about past life recall, psychic mediums, and a variety of other things that suggest that there is life after physical death. So as far as the evidence goes, it really comes down to who you choose to listen to. Do you listen to scientist x, or do you listen to scientist y?

In reality, this really comes down to faith. If you place your faith in science, then you will have to choose which scientists you listen to. If you place your faith in religion, then you will have to choose what church you want to go to, and what ministers you want to listen to.

Some people will tell you that there is life after death. Others will tell you there is no life after death. Who will you choose to listen to? Personally, I think the current evidence suggests very strongly that there is some kind of life after death. I haven’t died yet, so I don’t know this for certain. But the evidence does suggest very strongly that there is life after death.

So I don’t really believe in death in the ultimate sense. I’m not so sure that something that is life can suddenly become non life. Of course I also don’t see myself as a physical body, which really helps in this regard. The body is an elaborate machine that is capable of a lot of things, but I highly doubt that giving rise to the mind, life, and consciousness are functions the body is capable of.

If you can really, truly accept that you are not your physical body, and that your life is not dependent upon it, then you can overcome your fear of death. If you truly don’t believe in death, then you shouldn’t have any reason to fear death.

Overcoming The Belief In Hell

Religious people generally have faith that there is some kind of after life, so they tend to not struggle so much with the subject of death. But for many religious people there can still be a fear of physical death itself. This is because they have been lied to. Someone told them they are going to hell, and they believed them.

Maybe they weren’t told this directly. The church has a funny way of sliding in beliefs that weren’t part of the original teachings, so they may have been told something like, “everyone is a sinner”. And then later on “all sinners go to hell”. The mind quickly draws the conclusion that “I am a sinner, and I am going to hell”.

Personally, I think the whole concept of someone being sent to hell is laughable, even in a religious context. Do you really think that Jesus, who taught a message of love and forgiveness, is going to send you to hell for telling a white lie in the fourth grade? Do you really think that God, the creator of eternal life, love, and happiness, is going to send you to hell because you have ’sinned’?

No, of course not. Jesus, as well as just about every other religious figure in history, taught that we should love everyone unconditionally. It would be somewhat hypocritical for Jesus to send you to hell, wouldn’t it?

Accepting Physical Death

For whatever reason, you may still try to run away from death. Maybe you aren’t really sure that you’re not just going to blank into oblivion, or you’re not going to get sent to hell for telling a white lie in the fourth grade.

That’s okay. Unless you have perfect faith in something, there will always be doubt in your mind. Unfortunately, for situations like this, there isn’t really any kind of magic pill I can give you. All I can really tell you is this:

Your physical body is going to die someday. There isn’t anything you can do about it. It may happen tomorrow, it may happen next week, or it may not happen for another 50 years. But eventually it’s going to happen. Let it go. Stop resisting it.

There isn’t really any point in being afraid of death. Thinking about your death isn’t going to stop or delay it in any way. Accept that the physical body is going to die, and let it go. Accept death.

Some people even like to view death as a kind of graduation. Personally, I view it with an odd sense of curiosity. When I die, I’ll finally get to know for certain if there is life after death. If there is no life after death, then, oh well. At least I didn’t spend my whole life afraid of dying.

Down With The Tree

Earlier I compared the tree of death to a tree of suffering, with the belief in death acting as the roots of the tree. If you can remove the belief in death, or at least accept it, then you can remove all the suffering that goes along with the belief.

What is the worst that could happen in any given situation? Usually, it’s death. You can trace almost every fear, worry, and anxiety back to the fear of death using a simple technique. Imagine the fear happening, and then ask “and then what?” until you get to the fear of death.

Say you’re afraid of losing your job. Well, what happens if you lose your job? You may go broke. What happens if you go broke? You may lose your house or apartment and become homeless. What happens if you become homeless? You may get sick, and not have a way to the hospital. What happens if you get sick and can’t go to the hospital? Well, you may die.

If you take any fear like this, and trace it back to it’s source, you realize that they usually originate from the basic fear of death. If you can accept your own death, then certainly you can accept more minor things, such as your car breaking down.

Sticking with the tree analogy, you can view this as slowly chopping down the tree of suffering, piece by piece. Once the roots(the belief in death) are gone, you can slowly chop down the limbs(fear,worry, and anxiety) as they arise. Eventually, the whole tree will be gone, and you’ll view the world in a completely different manner.

Conclusion

Death is not real, and you are not subject to death. There’s no reason to spend your life in fear of death, because death is not true. All worries and fears about death are rooted in a belief that is fundamentally false.

In order to overcome these fears and worries, you have to examine this belief in death. Instead of trying to run away and hide from death, you have to examine death and what it means to you.

You can only escape death by facing it. There isn’t any back door you can run out of.