Daily Advice 1.24.21

[readoldthings]

 Back to Sun Tzu tomorrow. Today, a brief but powerful bit of advice from that old master of the magical arts:

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you;

but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Forgiveness is not some empty moral platitude. Understood correctly, it's like the ultimate cheat-code to existence.

Consider:

Whatever you do will return to you, no matter what.

If you spend your time blessing others and doing charitable works, you will receive blessing and charity in return.

If you spend your time cursing others and doing hateful deeds, you will receive cursing and hate in return.

But what if you spend part of life time cursing, and then realize the error of your ways, and try to change things?

Well, you're still going to have to deal with the consequences of your earlier actions, and that's probably going to suck quite a bit...

Unless you have a way out. 

And that's where forgiveness comes in. What you do will return to you; what you sew, you will reap. Sew barley, reap barley; sew brambles, reap brambles. 

Sew forgiveness, and receive forgiveness. 

When you forgive others, you release them from their debt to you. (You also free up a great deal of psychic energy that was locked up in staying mad at them, but that's a different topic.) At the same moment and by the same means, you are released from your own debts. 

Couldn't this be abused? Couldn't you go out and do some monstrous crime, and then ensure you get away with it by forgiving someone who hurt you?

Well, let's think about that. If we reap as we sew; and we sew forgiveness only in an attempt to get away from a crime, what is it that we will reap?

Epictetus tells us,

Remember never to say that you are alone; for you are not alone, but God is within, and your genius is within; and what need have they of light to see what you are doing?

Comments

[sdi]

Couldn't this be abused? Couldn't you go out and do some monstrous crime, and then ensure you get away with it by forgiving someone who hurt you?

A Sufi parable (adapted from Idries Shah's Tales of the Dervishes):

Once upon a time, there was a man struggling with life, and he made an oath that, if God would solve his problems, then he would sell his house and give all the proceeds to the poor. Naturally, the time came for the man to redeem his oath; but he did not wish to part with so much, so he devised a scheme: he would put the house on sale for a trifling sum; but his cat, which must be purchased with the house, would be sold for the full value of the building. The house was soon sold, and the man gave the price of the house to the poor, but kept the price of the cat for himself.

Was this man living by the spirit of his oath? Of course not: but many, like him, seek to live according to a teaching but warp it to their advantage. Such people have not understood the teaching, and therefore will not reap the benefits that living by it would confer.