How do we forgive?

OK, this question requires BRUTAL honesty to answer. Are you willing?

Here's the deal: the ONLY way to really forgive something is to get to a place where you can honestly see no harm done. Think about it. Search your mind for something that you feel you have NOT forgiven. Now search your mind for something you feel you HAVE forgiven. If you're being honest with yourself, you will find that the events you feel you have truly been able to put behind you are the events where you have come to see that no harm was actually done.

If you're still hanging onto something where you perceive that harm WAS done, there is no way you can call your attitude a forgiving one. Yes, you may be in a place where you are keeping your thoughts to yourself, or being care what you say, how you say it, or to whom. But pay attention to your feelings. If you still feel a sense of victimization or righteous indignation or anger or any other negative emotion, you are still believing that something REALLY happened that caused you to react as if you were treated unfairly.

You may have to go WAY back to find examples in your mind of real forgiveness. You may remember something that upset you when you were much younger that you now see as harmless. Maybe you can even laugh about it now? THAT's forgiveness. No harm done. Nothing really happened that victimized anyone. You may think this is a matter of time, and this is a very common mistake. We tell ourselves and others often that 'we need time to heal'. It may appear to be a function of time, but it isn't. What really happened is that during that time YOU had a change of mind. You released your attachment to the part of your identity that perceived the victimization.

The promise of non-dualism is that you don't have to wait on time! As you begin to focus more on your mistaken identity, you will be able to forgive more quickly, and more completely.

One day, every human will truly see that there was no harm done at all during their lives. In Fact, one day every human will see that there was no THING done during their lives. And they will see this because they will come to understand that our ego was just an error, a mistake. What we truly are cannot be victimized. In Reality, there is literally nothing to forgive.