I am always amazed at how God continually gives us different “assignments,” or areas of inner exploration, to deepen our understanding of life. Recently I was reading an article by Paramhansa Yogananda on reincarnation in which he talked about forgiveness. “Forgiveness,” he wrote, “is more powerful than revenge. I have forgiven everyone who has knowingly or unknowingly tried to annoy or hurt me.”

After reading his words, it was as though a light bulb turned on in my mind. I knew that I needed to deepen my understanding of the true meaning of forgiveness. So I did a little research and came up with a very good definition: “Forgiveness is a conscious, deliberate decision to release feelings of resentment toward someone who has harmed you.”

This motivated me to explore areas in my life in which, consciously or unconsciously, I was harboring feelings of resentment towards others. I was surprised to discover that, like snakes rising to the surface when boiling water is poured down their hole, many little hurts and grievances from the past now arose to the surface of my mind.

Master also wrote in that same article, “In the vault of the mind lie all the chains of bondage, as well as the keys to freedom.” Again, his simple words were deeply motivating. I decided it was time to break those mental chains and, using inner tools, to release all resentment I felt towards others.

Even in making this decision, I began to feel freer inside. Then, in meditation, I tried bringing to my conscious awareness little incidents or recurring patterns of hurt from the past. As if I were watching a movie in which it was someone else who was hurt, I tried to concentrate on different past experiences with detachment, until I could clearly isolate and experience my feelings of resentment.

In the stillness of meditation, I focused on offering these feelings up at the spiritual eye. After a few days, I could actually feel the negative patterns becoming fainter and fainter, until they finally seemed to dissolve altogether. Honestly, friends, I was both shocked and amazed at the mental freedom I felt.

Then, I experienced a shift in how I thought about those situations. It became clear to me that those who’d hurt me had actually always been my friends, and that their unkind behavior had not been directed at me personally. It reflected, rather, problems they’d been facing within themselves.

God wasn’t yet done with my lesson on forgiveness. At a recent satsang we gave in Delhi, someone asked us the question: “When I forgive someone, does it change them?” I remembered a story that Swami Kriyananda related in The New Path, about a dream he’d had in which he came to feel deep bitterness towards a beloved friend who’d treated him with condescension and even contempt. He realized that if he died with this attitude, his bitterness would draw the two of them back into similar, but reversed circumstances, in which he’d have the opportunity to treat his friend as badly as he had treated Swami. And that if he did so, bitterness on his friend’s part might draw them back yet again, leading perhaps to a succession of such “return engagements,” as he put it. He continued:

“Why take so long?” I asked myself. “Isn’t it possible to escape these waves of retribution right now? Whatever the lessons my friend needs to learn, surely I, at least, can free myself.” Then, from the depths of my heart, I cried, “I forgive him!” At that moment, with a feeling of ineffable relief, I awoke. In that simple act of forgiveness I felt that I had actually freed myself of some karmic burden.

How did this affect the other man? As Swami indicated, his personal victory did not absolve his friend of the need to learn his own lessons. And yet it did help him to this extent: When we don’t hit the tennis ball back over the net, there is no game for the person on the other side of the court to play.

Something more is involved. In the article by Master to which I’ve referred, he wrote, “Those who do evil stew in their own evil. They can’t really hurt you unless you let them. Love and forgiveness have a healing effect on yourself and on your enemies.” So our forgiveness can have a transforming effect also on those who have hurt us.

I felt to share with you my journey with forgiveness in the hope that it will help you, too, to experience the release of subconscious negative feelings. The goal of life is to find freedom from every pattern of action or thought that keeps us in bondage.

In the Astral Ascension Ceremony that Swami Kriyananda wrote, he instructs the minister to address the departed soul with these words: “Claim your soul’s freedom! Bless all who ever harmed you, or ever wished you harm. Give them your love, and your prayer for their freedom in God.” Forgiveness is truly the first step towards that unconditional love for all that the masters in every religion have demonstrated for the world.

In divine friendship,

Nayaswami Devi

Listen to Devi as she first reads the blog, then expands on its meaning and messages for readers with behind-the-blog commentary. Subscribe to the podcast or download the audio recording by right-clicking here. Or listen to it here (9:27):

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