Forgiveness And Gratitude

The Western concept of forgiveness is usually associated with guilt and retribution. You give somebody a smart slap, and afterwards you feel sad or guilty. Then the other person will curse you and say that God will punish you. Or perhaps he will threaten to strike you in retaliation. There is a feeling that if you have done something, the same kind of thing will be done to you unless you are forgiven.

But there is another way to look at forgiveness. God wants us to be at a certain height so that we can receive His Affection, Love, Compassion and Blessings, but right now we are not at that level. So God is begging us: "Just raise your consciousness an iota and come up to this level. Then I will be able to give you My Love, My Compassion and My Blessings." Our human mind may call it forgiveness, but God is not thinking about our inner and outer crimes. He just wants us to raise our consciousness so that we will increase our receptivity and oneness with Him. Then he will be able to give us more Compassion, more Light and more Love.

At every moment this kind of give-and-take is going on between God and human beings. God is giving and we are receiving. The human mind will say, "God will be pleased and happy that He didn't have to give me so much." But God will not be pleased. If the giver is an ordinary human being, he may say, "Oh, I am so glad that I met such a stupid fellow who is satisfied with $2. I am so happy that I didn't have to give him $10. And the stupid fellow who receives only $2 is also satisfied, because he can tell the world, "I can manage." Here the giver is a rogue and the receiver is a stupid fellow.

But in God's case, God is sad when we do not take the quantity that He wants to give us. For at that time we are not showing the gratitude that will increase our receptivity. God is not dying to receive our human gratitude. When an ordinary human being gives something to another person, immediately there is a sense of separativity. He feels that just because he has given such and such a thing, the other person has to be grateful. But God's idea of gratitude is totally different. When it is a question of giving and receiving in the soul's world, or between the divine parts of ourselves, the one who gives is equally grateful as the one who receives.

Another way is to compare ourselves with the ordinary people who are around us. We can look to this side and that side and immediately see unaspiring people who are infinitely worse than we are. Then we can say, "O God, because of Your Compassion, I am infinitely better than these people. I could have been so bad—like him or her—but You have kept me much better. You are so kind, so compassionate to me."

So we can offer gratitude to God no matter what kind of consciousness we have. If we are having good thoughts, we can say, "O God, I am grateful to You because no matter how bad I am now, I was infinitely worse a few years ago. Because of Your Compassion I have become at least a human being."

Again, we have to know that if our consciousness is low, immediately we can stop our bad thoughts with our will power. And if we have good thoughts, with our will power we can strengthen them. Will power can easily destroy our bad thoughts and negate the wrong forces in us. And with will power also we can increase the power of our good thoughts and increase our good qualities. So if we use our will power properly, we can perform miracle after miracle in our lives. And even if we do not, through our prayer and meditation, develop our will power, still with our sincere aspiration and sincere inner cry we can also do these things. So pray and meditate and develop your aspiration and gratitude. Then you will really see the difference in your lives.

—5 January 1987

Valdivia, Chile