(Note: I am writing this as if from what I think might be the very near future.)
Someone asked me a few days ago, why 2012? She was referring to my inclusion of that date in my declared mission, which I have for the past eight years stated as: “To raise the consciousness of the planet through Radical Forgiveness and create a world of forgiveness by 2012.”
My answer was, “Because if we haven’t done it by then it will almost certainly be too late.”
“Too late for what?” she asked, incredulously.
“To be part of the process of creating heaven on earth,” I replied.
She clearly thought I was crazy. Oh, if only Harley were here, I thought. He would do a much better job of explaining it to her than I ever could. [Harley was the Angel of Incarnation who, in my book A Radical Incarnation — Yours, prepared Jack for his upcoming mission on the Earth plane. Jack was to get elected President of the United States, become enlightened, heal America and then awaken the whole of humanity before it destroyed itself. No small feat!]
This woman was no fool and could see what was happening. She was acutely aware that the United States economy stood on the very brink of disaster and was only hanging on by a mere thread. She was obviously in a great deal of fear over it, too.
Her own life mirrored the larger situation. Her 3,500 square foot home was in foreclosure, she owned a Lincoln Navigator SUV she couldn’t sell at any price, her credit was shot, her bank had gone under taking most of her money with it, and she could see how the entire system on which the U.S. had based its existence and its way of life — cheap oil — was about to collapse.
At $7.50 a gallon, she couldn’t afford to buy gas to get to work and there was no public transport available so she was effectively without a job or money. Her employer was probably out of business anyway by now. All her neighbors were in the same boat having bought into the myth of the suburban lifestyle based on cars, freeways and cheap oil. Now they were all stuck.
In any case, even if she could afford it, many gas stations were posting cardboard signs on the pump — ‘Out of Gas’ and there were long lines stretching around block after block. Tempers had frayed and the guns everyone had been encouraged to own and carry as of right had come out and were being waved around and sometimes used as of right!
Since there were hardly any trucks on the road to carry food from one part of the country to the other, let alone from other countries, food was in very short supply and astronomically expensive. Her greatest concern was how she was going to feed her two kids. And it was all getting worse by the minute. And that doesn’t even factor in the local effects of global warming — floods, fires, tornadoes and hurricanes.
How then could I even begin to explain to her that it was all part of the Divine plan? Harley himself would have had a job to make her see any sort of perfection in it, let alone have her see it as an opportunity for her to awaken and become part of the great spiritual transformation now in progress.
The only way I could begin to talk about it in those terms was to frame what was happening as being a healing crisis, and that this was preparing the whole human race for a dramatic shift in consciousness. According to many sources, this was likely to occur around December of 2012. This shift would take us into a wholly different dimension where love and harmony would prevail as the dominant way of being. I did my best to explain all this.
“But why is America to take the lead in this?” she asked.
“Because the people have become so dependent on their modern way of life that they will have the greatest difficulty of any nation on earth adapting to extreme hardship and the inevitable shortage of everything. The breakdown necessary to create breakthrough will happen suddenly and will be total. Social order will break down and society as a whole will implode. Many will die.
“But the other side of that coin is that the people of the U.S. are extremely resilient and they will likely be the first emerge from the chaos enlightened and changed. They will then lead the rest of the world in creating the shift in consciousness I have alluded to. That’s how Harley had framed Jack’s mission, of course.
“But no matter who Jack is or was, (and the conjecture is fascinating), we cannot look to any president to create the shift for us. We all have to participate in that process. As times get difficult, we have to stay centered and clear. We need to stay out of fear and to hold the vision of a healed world emerging out of the debris of the old consciousness now in its death throes. If we give in to fear and resist the process it will be many times more difficult than if we surrender to what needs to happen and ride the wave.”
“Does that mean doing nothing practical to prepare for what is to come?” she asked.
“Of course not,” I replied. “In order to stay out of fear and to be of use to others who will need help, you would be wise to make careful preparations now for the breakdown to come. You can only be of assistance in this great endeavor if you survive, so it is your responsibility to do everything you can in order to do so. You should begin storing food and water, seeds, batteries, solar panels, cooking oil tools and other essentials. You might want to move to where you can find food and be in community with others of like mind. You should give a lot of thought to what you would need to survive a fairly prolonged period where virtually all supply of goods was stopped. It would be difficult to hold the high vibration during this time if you were cold, hungry and helpless to help yourself.”
“So why forgiveness? Why is that so important?” she asked.
“Because it will be through the use of the Radical Forgiveness technology that people like you and I will be able to hold and maintain that higher vibration, and the sooner we begin to practice it and the more people we can enroll into that higher purpose, the easier the transition will be for everyone. Each one of us holding the vibration of perfection no matter what is happening out there will counteract millions of people who are in fear. A relatively small number of people holding the vision of a healed world will make the healing happen a lot faster and a lot fewer people will perish in the process. That’s why my mission statement means so much to me.”
“How can I begin doing that?” she inquired.
“I have designed a special ‘Radical Consciousness’ worksheet, based on the Radical Forgiveness technology, for you to use any time something happens or you hear of something happening that ordinarily would send you into a spiral of fear and hopelessness. It is available as a free PDF download. It is very simple but it’s purpose is to remind you that everything is in Divine order and that what we are living through now is the prelude to something unimaginably wonderful.
“Thank you,” she said. “I get it now.”
Do you?
To download the worksheet click here. (Note: This is not the same as the regular RF Worksheet).
Monday, July 14, 2008
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Spider-Woman to the Rescue
The race between Obama and Clinton to be the nominee of the Democratic Party has been fascinating, especially to the degree that it caught the interest and active participation of so many people. Young, old, rich, poor, black or white, people were truly invested in a way we have never before witnessed.
However, given that both candidates represented hope and historic opportunity to roughly equal halves of the population, it was inevitable that a vast number of people would be left feeling intensely disappointed and perhaps even resentful. We have seen a lot of understandable and, to some, even justifiable anger expressed on TV about Clinton's loss.
Doesn't this sound like a case where Spider-Woman needs to swoop in with Radical Forgiveness to save them all from a terrible case of victimitis? (Spider-Woman became a Radical Forgiveness Coach last year, but she's keeping it a secret.) After all, you put disappointment, anger and resentment together and you'll get a pretty strong brew of victim consciousness, right? And we (as well as Spider-Woman), know the antidote to that, don't we?
On the assumption that the people on our mailing list reflect the general population, we can imagine that half of you might be Democrats and the other half Republicans. Of the half who lean Democratic lets say one third were backing Hillary, and one third for Obama. The other third we might consider politically disengaged. (A lot of spiritual people are, unfortunately, but that's another issue.)
Power versus Force by David Hawkins you will get what I mean when I say that each person with a vibration of 350 on the scale of consciousness (which would be you if you were moved to do a worksheet, I would guess), would be counteracting about 200,000 vibrating below 200 which is where someone might be who is still in anger and resentment about the race. That means if just half of the 3,500 did a worksheet it would impact 3.5 million people. But even if just one of you does it, you will be helping 200,000 others. That's how much power you have to make a difference.
Who needs Spider-Woman? Click here to go to the NEW On-line Worksheet.
However, given that both candidates represented hope and historic opportunity to roughly equal halves of the population, it was inevitable that a vast number of people would be left feeling intensely disappointed and perhaps even resentful. We have seen a lot of understandable and, to some, even justifiable anger expressed on TV about Clinton's loss.
Doesn't this sound like a case where Spider-Woman needs to swoop in with Radical Forgiveness to save them all from a terrible case of victimitis? (Spider-Woman became a Radical Forgiveness Coach last year, but she's keeping it a secret.) After all, you put disappointment, anger and resentment together and you'll get a pretty strong brew of victim consciousness, right? And we (as well as Spider-Woman), know the antidote to that, don't we?
On the assumption that the people on our mailing list reflect the general population, we can imagine that half of you might be Democrats and the other half Republicans. Of the half who lean Democratic lets say one third were backing Hillary, and one third for Obama. The other third we might consider politically disengaged. (A lot of spiritual people are, unfortunately, but that's another issue.)
Who needs Spider-Woman? Click here to go to the NEW On-line Worksheet.
Monday, March 17, 2008
An Open Letter to Charles Griswold about Forgiveness
I thought you might be interested to read my letter to Charles Griswold, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy at Boston University, him having sent me a copy of his book, Forgiveness. This is the most in-depth, rigorous and searching philosophical examination I have seen yet on the topic on (traditional) forgiveness that I have seen.
And yet I think the whole book, cogently and eloquently argued as it is by an obviously accomplished philosopher, is basically flawed. And that’s because his whole theory rests on an assumption that I think is fundamentally wrong. Read the letter to find out what that is and see where you might stand on the issue.
Charles and I have been corresponding back and forth and have developed a good relationship. He has been very gracious about wanting to read my book, Radical Forgiveness, and actually quoted from it in an article that he wrote in the esteemed Tikkun magazine. [They have since asked me to contribute an article. I am very happy about that since this a magazine that I really respect.] He is still trying hard to bring me around to his point of view! Here’s the letter:
Hi Charles,
I know I said I was going to save reading your book for my trip in December but I couldn’t resist dipping in a little bit. I have enjoyed reading the little I have read so far but couldn’t help but giggle to myself at how you might be receiving my book which, while yours is so meticulous in its academic rigor and commitment to all details of the argument about forgiveness as you see and define it, mine is so full of assumption and broad sweeps of metaphysical possibilities that no one can refute or support by any rational argument or logical analysis.
All that aside, we are clearly coming from very different angles on the whole topic of forgiveness, each based in entirely different cosmology.
As I see it, your entire approach is what I have referred to as traditional forgiveness, based in the traditional, objective, scientific-rational and psychological framework. This is of course exactly how I would expect the subject to be treated by a distinguished academic and most of what I have read in your book so far I would agree with, (bar one - see below), so long as we are talking about traditional forgiveness and all the other concepts that go with it.
Radical Forgiveness, as you will see, is not a religious approach but one that is secular/spiritual and metaphysical in orientation. That immediately puts it beyond ‘normal’ logical, scientific or even philosophical inquiry probably, though you might tell me of an acceptable form of such which would deal with it philosophically. I would say myself that it has its roots in Eastern philosophy which is anyway, as I understand it, closely bound up with spiritual interpretations of reality.
If you haven’t already dismissed my book as ‘new-age psycho babble,’ and you wouldn’t be the first to do so, so it wouldn’t hurt my feelings, then maybe it would be interesting to discuss these differences further. For my part I would be happy to.
I am very comfortable with most of what I have written though, as I tell people, I don’t really believe a word of it. None of us really know the Mind of God, or the reality on the other side of the veil, nor even whether there is a veil, or even a God. There is very little proof of either. I tell people straight out that I am making a whole set of assumptions for which there is no proof of their veracity. It’s just a story, I tell them.
However, what I am able to claim through more than a decade of observation of results in thousands of people who have used the Radical Forgiveness technology, is that in the practical application of these assumptions in everyday life, there are effects which are measurable, subjectively experienced, sustained, and anecdotally recorded. The results are very similar and consistent across the spectrum of intelligence, race, gender, country of domicile, and any other variable that one might apply.
The results which are anecdotally reported by people, even those who have simply read the book and done one worksheet, include such things as a marked decrease in feelings of resentment, anger, rage and all those emotions associated with a belief in having been victimized by someone, and a corresponding uptick in the opposite kinds of emotion such as a sense of peace, acceptance, understanding, empathy and even love. People also report feeling more energy, decrease in physical symptomology, regression of disease such as cancer, weight loss and other problems.
The problems that might have caused an upset between two people also seem to become dissolved (not solved) which indicates that the energy shift that occurs between people when forgiveness takes place in one or both of them (usually only one), then the energy has an effect beyond the two individuals and actually impacts physical reality and other people. This is why I am now teaching the technology to corporations so it can contribute to raising the culture of an organization if enough people use it.
I have also noticed that, in people who use the Radical Forgiveness technology regularly, that there is a tendency for them to begin operating at a higher level in terms of human virtues, such as humility, tolerance, integrity and honestly. The reason for this I believe is the development of a more profound understanding of and respect for spiritual law. They become answerable to a higher authority and more accountable for having created the circumstances of their lives. Once you begin operating from that idea, finger pointing and blaming has no validity at all. You are immediately out of integrity with yourself if you revert to those strategies.
The reason why I think Radical Forgiveness works so well on a practical level is that I believe that when we are using the tools, we are activating a faculty of mind that I call ‘spiritual intelligence.’ It therefore bypasses the rational mind and ignores the subconscious mind which harbors all the negative beliefs and attitudes we have learned over the years, and deals directly with Universal Intelligence and knows the truth of who we are at the spiritual level. This is why people who use the tools find forgiveness to be surprisingly easy, almost instantaneous, therapy free and so simple anyone can do it. Neither belief or high IQ is needed.
I contrast this with traditional forgiveness which by universal agreement is seen to be very difficult to do, takes years and years to achieve if it ever happens, and has no methodology attached to it to help people go through the process. Basically, you wait and hope that one day the resentment will subside. Those who do manage to forgive something serious usually end up on Oprah which is a good indicator of how rare it is.
If you were up for it, I would be willing to come to the University and have a discussion with your students about my approach and give them the opportunity to try it for themselves. In fact that would be a condition. Let me know if that is something that would be attractive.
Now let me come to one of your themes central to the book and your ideas on forgiveness with which I strongly disagree. It came up early, right there in the Prologue and it surprised the heck out of me. This was:
“forgiveness is to be understood as a moral relation between two individuals, one of whom has wronged the other, and who (at least in the ideal) [is that a get out clause?] are capable of communicating with each other.” You go on to say, “forgiveness requires reciprocity between injurer and injured.”
For me this is the definition, not of forgiveness but of reconciliation, which clearly required both parties to be in broad agreement to reconcile and therefore definitely requires reciprocity. Forgiveness, on the other hand, seems to me to be something that occurs primarily within the injured, and is not dependent on whether the injurer feels any obligation whatsoever to apologize, atone or even acknowledge the crime. This idea takes the power away from the forgiver by making his forgiveness dependent on the other, which for me simply compounds victim consciousness. “If it wasn’t for you, I could forgive!” Reciprocity in the form of an apology may help the injured person forgive, but I cannot see that it is required. This idea takes the power away from the forgiver by making his forgiveness dependent on the other, which for me simply compounds victim consciousness. “If it wasn’t for you, I could forgive!”
What if the person is dead or otherwise unavailable for the interpersonal moral relationship you say is required? You dismiss all such questions that are raised and cripple the very notion of forgiveness by calling them departures from the definition of forgiveness. In my workshops, even in the context of traditional forgiveness, I have a lot of people who wish to forgive God, George Bush, someone who is long dead and so on. What do I do with them? What chance do they have of having a moral relationship?
I look forward to reading more of the book and maybe this will become clearer to me but I have certainly found this to be the most difficult things in your writings to swallow so far.
I must resist the temptation to keep writing but I must get on with some work here. And I don’t need to labor the point, I’m sure.
Blessings,
Colin
And yet I think the whole book, cogently and eloquently argued as it is by an obviously accomplished philosopher, is basically flawed. And that’s because his whole theory rests on an assumption that I think is fundamentally wrong. Read the letter to find out what that is and see where you might stand on the issue.
Charles and I have been corresponding back and forth and have developed a good relationship. He has been very gracious about wanting to read my book, Radical Forgiveness, and actually quoted from it in an article that he wrote in the esteemed Tikkun magazine. [They have since asked me to contribute an article. I am very happy about that since this a magazine that I really respect.] He is still trying hard to bring me around to his point of view! Here’s the letter:
Hi Charles,
I know I said I was going to save reading your book for my trip in December but I couldn’t resist dipping in a little bit. I have enjoyed reading the little I have read so far but couldn’t help but giggle to myself at how you might be receiving my book which, while yours is so meticulous in its academic rigor and commitment to all details of the argument about forgiveness as you see and define it, mine is so full of assumption and broad sweeps of metaphysical possibilities that no one can refute or support by any rational argument or logical analysis.
All that aside, we are clearly coming from very different angles on the whole topic of forgiveness, each based in entirely different cosmology.
As I see it, your entire approach is what I have referred to as traditional forgiveness, based in the traditional, objective, scientific-rational and psychological framework. This is of course exactly how I would expect the subject to be treated by a distinguished academic and most of what I have read in your book so far I would agree with, (bar one - see below), so long as we are talking about traditional forgiveness and all the other concepts that go with it.
Radical Forgiveness, as you will see, is not a religious approach but one that is secular/spiritual and metaphysical in orientation. That immediately puts it beyond ‘normal’ logical, scientific or even philosophical inquiry probably, though you might tell me of an acceptable form of such which would deal with it philosophically. I would say myself that it has its roots in Eastern philosophy which is anyway, as I understand it, closely bound up with spiritual interpretations of reality.
If you haven’t already dismissed my book as ‘new-age psycho babble,’ and you wouldn’t be the first to do so, so it wouldn’t hurt my feelings, then maybe it would be interesting to discuss these differences further. For my part I would be happy to.
I am very comfortable with most of what I have written though, as I tell people, I don’t really believe a word of it. None of us really know the Mind of God, or the reality on the other side of the veil, nor even whether there is a veil, or even a God. There is very little proof of either. I tell people straight out that I am making a whole set of assumptions for which there is no proof of their veracity. It’s just a story, I tell them.
However, what I am able to claim through more than a decade of observation of results in thousands of people who have used the Radical Forgiveness technology, is that in the practical application of these assumptions in everyday life, there are effects which are measurable, subjectively experienced, sustained, and anecdotally recorded. The results are very similar and consistent across the spectrum of intelligence, race, gender, country of domicile, and any other variable that one might apply.
The results which are anecdotally reported by people, even those who have simply read the book and done one worksheet, include such things as a marked decrease in feelings of resentment, anger, rage and all those emotions associated with a belief in having been victimized by someone, and a corresponding uptick in the opposite kinds of emotion such as a sense of peace, acceptance, understanding, empathy and even love. People also report feeling more energy, decrease in physical symptomology, regression of disease such as cancer, weight loss and other problems.
The problems that might have caused an upset between two people also seem to become dissolved (not solved) which indicates that the energy shift that occurs between people when forgiveness takes place in one or both of them (usually only one), then the energy has an effect beyond the two individuals and actually impacts physical reality and other people. This is why I am now teaching the technology to corporations so it can contribute to raising the culture of an organization if enough people use it.
I have also noticed that, in people who use the Radical Forgiveness technology regularly, that there is a tendency for them to begin operating at a higher level in terms of human virtues, such as humility, tolerance, integrity and honestly. The reason for this I believe is the development of a more profound understanding of and respect for spiritual law. They become answerable to a higher authority and more accountable for having created the circumstances of their lives. Once you begin operating from that idea, finger pointing and blaming has no validity at all. You are immediately out of integrity with yourself if you revert to those strategies.
The reason why I think Radical Forgiveness works so well on a practical level is that I believe that when we are using the tools, we are activating a faculty of mind that I call ‘spiritual intelligence.’ It therefore bypasses the rational mind and ignores the subconscious mind which harbors all the negative beliefs and attitudes we have learned over the years, and deals directly with Universal Intelligence and knows the truth of who we are at the spiritual level. This is why people who use the tools find forgiveness to be surprisingly easy, almost instantaneous, therapy free and so simple anyone can do it. Neither belief or high IQ is needed.
I contrast this with traditional forgiveness which by universal agreement is seen to be very difficult to do, takes years and years to achieve if it ever happens, and has no methodology attached to it to help people go through the process. Basically, you wait and hope that one day the resentment will subside. Those who do manage to forgive something serious usually end up on Oprah which is a good indicator of how rare it is.
If you were up for it, I would be willing to come to the University and have a discussion with your students about my approach and give them the opportunity to try it for themselves. In fact that would be a condition. Let me know if that is something that would be attractive.
Now let me come to one of your themes central to the book and your ideas on forgiveness with which I strongly disagree. It came up early, right there in the Prologue and it surprised the heck out of me. This was:
“forgiveness is to be understood as a moral relation between two individuals, one of whom has wronged the other, and who (at least in the ideal) [is that a get out clause?] are capable of communicating with each other.” You go on to say, “forgiveness requires reciprocity between injurer and injured.”
For me this is the definition, not of forgiveness but of reconciliation, which clearly required both parties to be in broad agreement to reconcile and therefore definitely requires reciprocity. Forgiveness, on the other hand, seems to me to be something that occurs primarily within the injured, and is not dependent on whether the injurer feels any obligation whatsoever to apologize, atone or even acknowledge the crime. This idea takes the power away from the forgiver by making his forgiveness dependent on the other, which for me simply compounds victim consciousness. “If it wasn’t for you, I could forgive!” Reciprocity in the form of an apology may help the injured person forgive, but I cannot see that it is required. This idea takes the power away from the forgiver by making his forgiveness dependent on the other, which for me simply compounds victim consciousness. “If it wasn’t for you, I could forgive!”
What if the person is dead or otherwise unavailable for the interpersonal moral relationship you say is required? You dismiss all such questions that are raised and cripple the very notion of forgiveness by calling them departures from the definition of forgiveness. In my workshops, even in the context of traditional forgiveness, I have a lot of people who wish to forgive God, George Bush, someone who is long dead and so on. What do I do with them? What chance do they have of having a moral relationship?
I look forward to reading more of the book and maybe this will become clearer to me but I have certainly found this to be the most difficult things in your writings to swallow so far.
I must resist the temptation to keep writing but I must get on with some work here. And I don’t need to labor the point, I’m sure.
Blessings,
Colin
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Australia Says “Sorry!”
So, “sorry” is not such a hard word to say, after all. After many years in which the word Reconciliation has been on the lips of virtually all Australians, finally a newly elected Government down under has done what previous ones have steadfastly refused to do — to say “Sorry” to the Aboriginals. It’s an apology that the indigenous people of
The people of Australia have for a decade or more been thirsting for this gesture of reconciliation in a way that the people of America have not - for all that they feel deep anger and shame about slavery and segregation and the Native American holocaust. Both still await an apology and some semblance of reconciliation.
I wonder when we will demand it of our government like the Australians demanded it of theirs? When will we have a government that will say “Sorry” to African and Native Americans so that a genuine healing can begin. It is overdue. (Obama might be the one to do it!)
But in
We spent half a year in
They really made it an Aboriginal Affair. They had five separate stages set up in the field and the huge video screen that was used at the Sydney Olympic Games. They brought together, for the first time in history, aboriginal people from all over the country, and each tribe performed their own Creation Dance. All five stages featured these dances and it went on for two days, non-stop, night and day. While we were there in
It was while we were at Uluru that we heard the news about 9/11. We didn’t know what to do so we decided to walk the 3-1/2 miles around the base of Uluru in silent meditation and prayer.
Now you might be wondering why, if everything is perfect and nothing wrong ever happened — which is the basic tenet of Radical Forgiveness - why is an apology is even necessary and why would I personally join with others to push for it. The answer is that an apology can open to door to Radical Forgiveness. An apology is a act of compassion, regret and contrition and is appropriate even within the spiritual philosophy of Radical Forgiveness as being a part of the soul’s learning process. It is an act that might awaken us to the truth that separation is the myth. When I realize that when I hurt my brother I hurt myself, I begin to connect with the principle of oneness.
Let’s look at the difference between an ordinary apology and a Radical Apology.
The Ordinary Apology:
An ordinary apology recognizes that someone was hurt, disadvantaged or in some other way damaged because of something we intentionally did - and that what we did was wrong. It is a direct communication to the aggrieved party that we are in sorrow, guilt and regret that the event occurred and we wish that the party knows this.
The Radical Apology:
A Radical Apology recognizes in just the same way that, in human terms, someone got hurt and that it is something to be truly sorrowful and perhaps even ‘appropriately’ guilty about. We also accept full responsibility for what happened in human and worldly terms and are willing to be accountable for what we have done.
At the same time, however, we are open to the possibility that some higher purpose was being served and it had to happen that way for whatever reason. We are, in effect, seeing the situation from the perspective of both the World of Spirit and the World of Humanity at the same time. This has the effect of raising our own vibration while at the same time releasing the low vibration energy tied up in the situation itself — thus enabling a healing to occur for all concerned as well as a general raising of consciousness such that there will in the future be less need for such hurtful things to occur.
However, since it is still difficult for us — as the perpetrator — to really ‘know’ that there was a perfection in the situation, and probably even more difficult for the victim, it seems that a genuine expression of compassion and sorrow (rather than regret), might help us both. The sorrow is not so much because it happened but that the person (a human being) was hurt or damaged. If nothing else, it opens the energy up for Radical Forgiveness to enter into play — especially for the victim. Therefore a Radical Apology is a BRIDGE to Radical Forgiveness and Reconciliation. It is also a preliminary step in the direction of clearing one’s shadow.
Now governments can say "Sorry", and perhaps one day the American government will follow the example of the government of
But those of us who understand Radical Forgiveness can go one step further by making a Radical Apology on behalf of ourselves and
The Blanket Radical Apology
1. Even though I know that everything was, is and always will be in Divine order, I as a representative of
African Americans
American Indians
Hispanics
Chinese Americans
Japanese Americans
Other races discriminated against ____________________________
Women
American citizens wrongly accused, incarcerated and/or executed
American citizens subjected to witch-hunts by government agencies
The people of Nagasaki and Hiroshima
The people of
Thanks for being willing to say Sorry.
Monday, November 12, 2007
As You Approach the Season of Thanksgiving, How Willing Are You To Be Forgiving?
The giving of thanks is an expression of gratitude. Here in the U.S., Thanksgiving is celebrated as an expression of the Pilgrim’s gratitude for their escape from religious persecution in Europe and for their survival in the New World.
In England, our "Harvest Festival" is our way of giving thanks to God for the bounty of the harvest. The way it is expressed there is not so much by gorging turkey, green beans and sweet potatoes, but by bedecking out the churches with incredibly beautiful displays of all manner of produce that nature has bestowed upon the populace during that year and then, after church, going down to the pub for a pint of Britain’s Best.
But as Joseph Farah points out in his Between the Lines blog, "It wasn’t just an economic system that allowed the Pilgrims to prosper. It was their devotion to God and His laws. The Pilgrims recognized that everything we have is a gift from God – even our sorrows (my italics). Their Thanksgiving tradition was established to honor God and thank Him for His blessings and His grace."
The Pilgrims, it seems, understood the basic idea of Radical Forgiveness. Giving thanks to our Source (God, Spirit, Universe, Universal Intelligence, etc.), for "our sorrows" is to recognize and give thanks for the blessings that come from the challenges we are given and from which our soul has the opportunity to learn and grow.
If everything flows from our Source, even our sorrows, wisdom decrees that we must be willing to not only thank but forgive those who provide such opportunities, no matter how much they appear on the surface to be our enemies. The Pilgrims, it seems, understood that fundamental idea which is the basis of Radical Forgiveness. It’s all good and it’s all part of the Divine Plan. How willing are you to forgive on this basis?
Here’s my suggestion. When you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with your family and bow your heads in that special moment of thankfulness, make an effort to think of some of the people in your life that you might forgive . Allow yourself to become willing to entertain the possibility that the people you have judged, condemned, criticized and perhaps even punished, did what they did not so much TO or AGAINST you , but FOR you. Then try to feel some sense of thankfulness that their soul was willing to do this for you, knowing they would probably have to endure your ego’s negative reaction to them.
Fortunately, willingness is all that is required for Radical Forgiveness to occur. Belief is not necessary, neither is any understanding of the reasons why things happen the way they do. Try it and see what happens.Blessings,
Colin
"Radical Forgiveness is much more than the mere letting go of the past.
It is the key to creating the life that we want, and the world that we want.
It is the key to our own happiness and the key to world peace.
It is no longer an option. It is our destiny."
In England, our "Harvest Festival" is our way of giving thanks to God for the bounty of the harvest. The way it is expressed there is not so much by gorging turkey, green beans and sweet potatoes, but by bedecking out the churches with incredibly beautiful displays of all manner of produce that nature has bestowed upon the populace during that year and then, after church, going down to the pub for a pint of Britain’s Best.
But as Joseph Farah points out in his Between the Lines blog, "It wasn’t just an economic system that allowed the Pilgrims to prosper. It was their devotion to God and His laws. The Pilgrims recognized that everything we have is a gift from God – even our sorrows (my italics). Their Thanksgiving tradition was established to honor God and thank Him for His blessings and His grace."
The Pilgrims, it seems, understood the basic idea of Radical Forgiveness. Giving thanks to our Source (God, Spirit, Universe, Universal Intelligence, etc.), for "our sorrows" is to recognize and give thanks for the blessings that come from the challenges we are given and from which our soul has the opportunity to learn and grow.
If everything flows from our Source, even our sorrows, wisdom decrees that we must be willing to not only thank but forgive those who provide such opportunities, no matter how much they appear on the surface to be our enemies. The Pilgrims, it seems, understood that fundamental idea which is the basis of Radical Forgiveness. It’s all good and it’s all part of the Divine Plan. How willing are you to forgive on this basis?
Here’s my suggestion. When you sit down to Thanksgiving dinner with your family and bow your heads in that special moment of thankfulness, make an effort to think of some of the people in your life that you might forgive . Allow yourself to become willing to entertain the possibility that the people you have judged, condemned, criticized and perhaps even punished, did what they did not so much TO or AGAINST you , but FOR you. Then try to feel some sense of thankfulness that their soul was willing to do this for you, knowing they would probably have to endure your ego’s negative reaction to them.
Fortunately, willingness is all that is required for Radical Forgiveness to occur. Belief is not necessary, neither is any understanding of the reasons why things happen the way they do. Try it and see what happens.Blessings,
Colin
"Radical Forgiveness is much more than the mere letting go of the past.
It is the key to creating the life that we want, and the world that we want.
It is the key to our own happiness and the key to world peace.
It is no longer an option. It is our destiny."
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Seeing the “Perfection” in the Situation – The Reframe
Do you find it difficult to make a Radical Forgiveness reframe? Many people do. It's not easy to get the idea grounded in reality that everything is unfolding according to a Divine plan and that there's nothing to forgive. This is especially so when you are in the middle of some crisis. Thank God we don't have to do more than express some willingness to see it as perfect! And thank Spirit for giving us the tools with which to do just that.
When we reframe a situation we basically exchange one set of assumptions rooted in the World of Humanity (as in the victim story), for another set rooted in the unseen and essentially mysterious World of Spirit. It matters not whether the reframe is "true;" rather it is how we frame it with assumptions anchored in the World of Spirit that constitutes the test as to whether it is indeed a Radical Forgiveness reframe or not.
It is very common for people, even seasoned Radical Forgiveness coaches and graduates, to express their reframes in terms of having received a ‘gift,’ a ‘lesson’ or even a ‘healing’ that remain, to all intents and purposes, firmly anchored in the World of Humanity, even though they are dressed up in spiritual language. They nevertheless fail the test.
During a conversation with a very good friend of mine who was herself a holocaust survivor, she told me about an exhibition in the Holocaust Museum in Auschwitz, Germany, that featured a huge pile of children’s shoes. All of them had been taken from the children before they were gassed. As you would expect, the exhibit has an extremely visceral and profound effect on anyone who confronts it.
As a student of Radical Forgiveness she made an attempt to reframe it, primarily so she could come to terms with it herself and integrate it somehow into her own personal history of having been part of that terrible experience. She said that perhaps the reframe was that the ‘gift’ (there’s that word again — always a trap), was that the souls of the children ‘volunteered’ to die in this way so that people who saw the pile of shoes would ensure that, since children are always the victims of war, they would never create war again. In that sense, there was a Divine purpose in what happened.
In that statement were indeed two assumptions rooted in the World of Spirit. One was that there is no death and souls choose when and how to make their transition both in and out of human form. The second was that there was Divine purpose even in this situation. It counts, perhaps, as a partial reframe to that extent. But making it about “stopping wars” snapped it right back into the World of Humanity. It therefore failed the test. It was not a true Radical Forgiveness reframe.
Even if such a result was to occur, which it never would because it doesn't get to the root of why humans kill each other, it would simply be an "effect," not a reframe. It would be simple cause and effect, which only operates in the World of Humanity, not in the World of Spirit.
Another example is saying that Jesus volunteered to die in order to teach us to be good and to love each other. He did teach that of course, but I don't believe that it was the purpose of his crucifixion. My reframe of that drama was “to show that death is not real and that life is present before we take on a body and it continues afterwards. Therefore, no one dies. Therefore death is not to be feared and life is to be lived free of that fear.”
My reframe of the shoes story, even though I haven't seen the exhibit, and it might well be different afterwards, might run something like this: "That the soul's who inhabited those children's bodies incarnated with a specific mission to be killed in a particularly gruesome manner to teach us that we are all One, that separation is not real, that death is not real and that when we senselessly kill a seemingly innocent child, we kill ourselves. And that we are all children of God; the One ‘Sonship.’"
It might also be part of a larger reframe which I have spoken of publicly in the past and have held seminars on; that the soul lesson inherent in the Holocaust was about our letting go of 'victim consciousness' which the Jewish people volunteered to exhibit to the extreme. It was also about the error of 'specialness' that the Germans volunteered to demonstrate to an equal extreme. The only meaningful opposite of victimhood and specialness is Oneness. The drama continues - the lessons still to be learned.
In anticipation of someone asserting that the reframe inherent in Jill’s Story (Chapter One in my book Radical Forgiveness, Making Room for the Miracle), fails the test because I made it about saving my sister’s marriage and ‘healing’ her core-negative belief that her father didn’t love her, let me say this. If it were just about that, it would fail the test. What it was really about though, and Jill really did get this, was that her own spiritual intelligence created the whole scenario as an opportunity to learn that she was loved, that she was whole and complete with or without a man, and that she was entirely responsible for her life and that only Spirit is real. The rest was simply an illusion — a victim story based in the World of Humanity which she was able to release.
I hope this helps you in the process of doing a Radical Forgiveness worksheet, in particular with Step number 18. Having said all this though, it really doesn’t matter what you write on the worksheet. Your intention to do it is enough. You cannot screw it up! Would God care if you failed the reframe test? I don’t think so.
Blessings,
Colin
P.S. I invite you to post a reply letting us know how you might have successfully reframed some event or circumstance in your life. This would be very helpful to a lot of people. Thanks.
When we reframe a situation we basically exchange one set of assumptions rooted in the World of Humanity (as in the victim story), for another set rooted in the unseen and essentially mysterious World of Spirit. It matters not whether the reframe is "true;" rather it is how we frame it with assumptions anchored in the World of Spirit that constitutes the test as to whether it is indeed a Radical Forgiveness reframe or not.
It is very common for people, even seasoned Radical Forgiveness coaches and graduates, to express their reframes in terms of having received a ‘gift,’ a ‘lesson’ or even a ‘healing’ that remain, to all intents and purposes, firmly anchored in the World of Humanity, even though they are dressed up in spiritual language. They nevertheless fail the test.
During a conversation with a very good friend of mine who was herself a holocaust survivor, she told me about an exhibition in the Holocaust Museum in Auschwitz, Germany, that featured a huge pile of children’s shoes. All of them had been taken from the children before they were gassed. As you would expect, the exhibit has an extremely visceral and profound effect on anyone who confronts it.
As a student of Radical Forgiveness she made an attempt to reframe it, primarily so she could come to terms with it herself and integrate it somehow into her own personal history of having been part of that terrible experience. She said that perhaps the reframe was that the ‘gift’ (there’s that word again — always a trap), was that the souls of the children ‘volunteered’ to die in this way so that people who saw the pile of shoes would ensure that, since children are always the victims of war, they would never create war again. In that sense, there was a Divine purpose in what happened.
In that statement were indeed two assumptions rooted in the World of Spirit. One was that there is no death and souls choose when and how to make their transition both in and out of human form. The second was that there was Divine purpose even in this situation. It counts, perhaps, as a partial reframe to that extent. But making it about “stopping wars” snapped it right back into the World of Humanity. It therefore failed the test. It was not a true Radical Forgiveness reframe.
Even if such a result was to occur, which it never would because it doesn't get to the root of why humans kill each other, it would simply be an "effect," not a reframe. It would be simple cause and effect, which only operates in the World of Humanity, not in the World of Spirit.
Another example is saying that Jesus volunteered to die in order to teach us to be good and to love each other. He did teach that of course, but I don't believe that it was the purpose of his crucifixion. My reframe of that drama was “to show that death is not real and that life is present before we take on a body and it continues afterwards. Therefore, no one dies. Therefore death is not to be feared and life is to be lived free of that fear.”
My reframe of the shoes story, even though I haven't seen the exhibit, and it might well be different afterwards, might run something like this: "That the soul's who inhabited those children's bodies incarnated with a specific mission to be killed in a particularly gruesome manner to teach us that we are all One, that separation is not real, that death is not real and that when we senselessly kill a seemingly innocent child, we kill ourselves. And that we are all children of God; the One ‘Sonship.’"
It might also be part of a larger reframe which I have spoken of publicly in the past and have held seminars on; that the soul lesson inherent in the Holocaust was about our letting go of 'victim consciousness' which the Jewish people volunteered to exhibit to the extreme. It was also about the error of 'specialness' that the Germans volunteered to demonstrate to an equal extreme. The only meaningful opposite of victimhood and specialness is Oneness. The drama continues - the lessons still to be learned.
In anticipation of someone asserting that the reframe inherent in Jill’s Story (Chapter One in my book Radical Forgiveness, Making Room for the Miracle), fails the test because I made it about saving my sister’s marriage and ‘healing’ her core-negative belief that her father didn’t love her, let me say this. If it were just about that, it would fail the test. What it was really about though, and Jill really did get this, was that her own spiritual intelligence created the whole scenario as an opportunity to learn that she was loved, that she was whole and complete with or without a man, and that she was entirely responsible for her life and that only Spirit is real. The rest was simply an illusion — a victim story based in the World of Humanity which she was able to release.
I hope this helps you in the process of doing a Radical Forgiveness worksheet, in particular with Step number 18. Having said all this though, it really doesn’t matter what you write on the worksheet. Your intention to do it is enough. You cannot screw it up! Would God care if you failed the reframe test? I don’t think so.
Blessings,
Colin
P.S. I invite you to post a reply letting us know how you might have successfully reframed some event or circumstance in your life. This would be very helpful to a lot of people. Thanks.
Thursday, July 5, 2007
When It’s Someone We Know
Today is July 4th. It is the day that we celebrate America. This year in particular, we might be more introspective than in years past, looking perhaps at what America has become and how it sees itself in 2007 and looks towards 2008.
Two things have happened this week that make me think that America is preparing itself for a healing crisis along the lines I predicted in my book, A Radical Incarnation, written in 2003. I had pointed out then that when we begin to heal deeply repressed shadow material, parts of it begin to come to the surface for healing. I see evidence of some of that appearing at this time. I think Michael Moore and Scooter Libby have both been instrumental in bringing it forth. Moore, in his film, "Sicko" is showing us our guilt about how we, as a society, take care of each other, while Libby’s case has brought forth our shame about our inhumane treatment of people caught up in the justice system.
My wife and I went to see "Sicko" today. We were shocked. I doubt that any American could sit through this movie and not feel the shame associated with how we as a society take care of the sick, the elderly, and others in need, and how corrupted the health-care system has become. It sure does look like a healing crisis to me and an opportunity to heal the part of the American collective psyche that must think of itself as cruel and uncaring. Otherwise why would it create such a system?
I should stress this is not an anti-American film. Moore goes to great lengths to say that Americans are compassionate, caring people who will always rise to the occasion to help others at great sacrifice to themselves. But he does show how corrupted the health-care system has become and how it puts American way down the bottom of the list in terms of infant mortality, life expectancy, general health, etc, in spite of its great wealth. He does not focus a whole lot on the uninsured either, but shows how people who thought they were insured regularly get screwed by the system in general and the insurance companies in particular. He takes you to Canada, England, France and Cuba to show us what a universal free healthcare system can be like. I’m English and can personally attest to the system there. He points to other socialized sections of even the American system, like the Fire Department, the Police Department, the Postal Service and many others that we take for granted. But we have demonized socialized medicine in order to support a money-based system that makes a lot of people rich but fails the majority of our population.
I urge you to see this film and look beyond any judgments that you hold about Moore. Of course it is skewed towards his point of view — documentaries always are — but not as much as in his previous films. If you have an ounce of compassion for people who are unlucky enough to fall ill and become ruined because of the system, you owe it to yourself to see this film. Why? Because it could easily happen to you, whether you are insured or not. It’s a wake-up call for everyone, but it is also a film about love for others, compassion for our neighbors, willingness to see beyond differences and our need to care for each other. It will touch your soul, I promise.
It is truly a spiritual film, one that all people who profess to live by spiritual principle should see. I say that because we as spiritual people should always be asking the kind of question that Moore himself asks in the film. "When we see what happens to people like this who are denied basic care, who have we, as a people, become?" That is a spiritual question and we need to ponder it deeply.
The other issue that caught my attention as a possible healing opportunity if we could get beyond the political rhetoric, is President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s 2-1/2 year sentence. I think it highlights how when, instead of demonizing criminals, we actually give them a human face and identify them as friend, family member or colleague, we realize how inhumane and ineffective it is to imprison them for long periods of time, no matter what they have done. (There are far more effective ways of ‘correcting,’ them but that’s another story.)
Yes, Libby was a friend of the President and well connected to other important people who felt compassion for him and who lobbied for clemency on his behalf. Yes, they were probably the same people who supported all the "tough-on-crime" policies that over the years have resulted in absurd sentences and treatment like that of the poor guy who got a mandatory 10 years for consensual oral sex with a 15 year old girl at a party, or the guy who petitioned Bush for a pardon having done 10 years of a 20 year sentence for having two ounces of crack in his possession. (Bush denied it.)
The popular interpretation is that Libby got off because of his position, race, class and connections. That’s true as far as it goes, but suppose Bush really got to know, at a deep personal level, some of the other 4,000 people for whom he has recently denied pardons. Would he then have the same compassion for them as he had for Libby? I feel sure that he would. Once we connect to someone’s humanity, it is almost impossible not to forgive them.
Personally I am happy for Libby that he doesn’t have to waste two and a half years of his life in some stupid prison, even though it would have been in a very light security one, no doubt — and he probably would only have done a few months anyway before being released. But I grieve for all those hundreds of thousands of people whose lives are utterly wasted having received very long demeaning and dehumanizing sentences for crimes far less serious than Libby’s and for whom there is not the slightest hope of mercy, least of all from George W. Bush who is not known for giving pardons.
What part of the American shadow harbors both of these forms of injustice and chooses to ignore them? Where is our protest and our outrage? Do we really not care? What makes us so passionate about preventing a frozen embryo from contributing to life-saving research that would otherwise be thrown down the sink, while at the same time so callously ignoring the pain and suffering of our fellow human beings — that is, unless we happen to know them personally?
The only solution I can offer is Radical Forgiveness. It is a technology for healing our own shadow material and I contend it offers the best chance we have of healing the shadow of America. Let’s start by facing up to what we have created in both the legal and healthcare systems and forgiving ourselves for doing so, for we are all complicit. Then we can begin putting something in their place which reflects the principles for which we stand and which are enshrined in the Constitution. Eventually we might have something we could be proud of.
Colin Tipping. July 4th, 2007
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