Forgiveness – The Path to Universal Love

Forgiveness – The Path to Universal Love

Is forgiveness an initiatory and transformative step from the ego to the Vastness of Being?

According to Krishnamurti forgiveness arises in a mature soul who through suffering has awakened deep affection, sympathy and compassion to everyone and everything:

“Have you ever met someone who has not suffered and yet has understanding? Or a man who, without having known pain, has felt sympathy or affection?”
“To understand another’s experience and reach the heart of that experience, an immense affection is necessary. If you have this immense affection, life and its understanding become simple.”
— Krishnamurti, Early Writings

Compassion is an act of love and self-abnegation free from duality, it offers a new perspective on the world which is impossible as long as egotistical desire animates our being. The pertinent question is: is the ego truly capable of love? Without having lived great emotion or affection for all things, without a spontaneous impulse of love, can we be open to others and truly and unconditionally feel love? In other words, love and compassion seem to arise from suffering, which consequently opens our heart to the whole, to everyone and everything.

This brings forth other questions: are forgiveness and compassion feelings of the same nature? And who is the one that forgives?

The essence of compassion and love is to be vulnerable, defenceless, with an open heart, exposed to the joys and tumults of life. In fact, forgiveness, takes on different forms and expressions depending on the nature of our thought, the intensity of our heart, and the maturity of our understanding of life. True forgiveness occurs when there is no longer someone who forgives and thus there is no sense of forgiving: it is spontaneous without thought.

Presently, we are living in a psychological and spiritual crisis where the ego prevails. Self-centredness is applauded and has exceeded all imagination. The self-image has become a grotesque caricature. Our ego centred ‘I’ imposes itself as the judge of everything.  Whether we condemn or forgives it involves a judgment based on egotistical partiality which generates ambiguous and contradictory emotions. Therefore, it is essential to be free from the ego’s inherent tendency to judge. Indeed, for the ego to survive, it needs to compare and assert itself with or against others.

So, then who forgives, if not this ego in the making, which needs a comparative scale (e.g., I am better, wealthier) in order to be? We must understand this unconscious process, not through an act of will, but through direct perception into its mechanisms and into the make-up of our own nature. Self-knowledge is essential for understanding any psychological phenomenon, including the feeling of forgiveness.

Krishnamurti approaches all problems with what he calls “Choiceless awareness”, a state which requires the mind to be passive yet alert, attentive, without direction, judgment or preconceived notions and ideas. This quality of awareness is only possible when we are no longer agitated or moved by our personal desires. Consciousness, emptied of its egotistical content, is naturally benevolent and spontaneously lives in compassion, in passion with the whole. In this sense, there is no one to forgive as no division with others has come into play, nor is there any susceptible psychological wounds. The difficulty lies in the fact that, as long as we remain caught in a consciousness that operates in the duality of mine and yours, we are subject to unconscious feelings of jealousy, envy, and greed. These desires, when frustrated, degenerate into judgment and condemnation. In this ego-centred state of consciousness, the ‘what is’, as Krishnamurti explains, systematically provokes the ‘what should be’. This is how the dualistic movement of self-centred consciousness creates opposites as it functions within the vicious circle of contrasts without being aware of its own process, which consists of judging and condemning and, simultaneously, approving or forgiving. In this sense, forgiveness is merely judgment in disguise!

Consciousness—or rather unconsciousness—is in a sense homeopathic, for it seeks balance in order to function, eg: praising someone right after having gossiped about another. Carl Jung illuminates this intriguing phenomenon that he calls the bright and dark shadow complex. For instance, when we cast a shadow upon someone, the ego feels the need to compensate this condemnation by projecting a “bright shadow” onto someone else, giving him or her wonderful qualities! This unconscious process represses what we don’t want to see within and allows us to live in peace and harmony with ourselves. In this state of mind, we may wrongly condemn an innocent to the gallows while awarding a medal to a criminal! History itself is a homeopathic pendulum: war is always followed by peace, which inevitably leads to another war. Forgiveness follows similar dynamics, prompted by our inherently ambivalent ego, which alternates between judgement and forgiveness. At this dualistic level of consciousness, is this truly forgiveness?

From another perspective, we must practically examine how to respond to an injustice done to us: should or can we forgive those who have wronged us? Obviously, there are different degrees of offense—some are easier to forgive than others. We must learn to view both, our own misfortunes and those of the world, with broad-mindedness, wisdom, and endurance. These misfortunes result from both personal and collective karma (meaning that each of us more or less consciously contributes to the world’s problems) caused by the imperfection of our human nature and a difficult evolution that began in unconsciousness and ignorance. At one time or another, each one of us makes mistakes, acts selfishly or is motivated by self-interest, and inevitably causes harm and suffering to others—more often without even realizing it. Learning to forgive means understanding that we are all not perfect, which leads us to an open mind and tolerance towards those who have wronged us; it also requires the ability to put ourselves in another’s person’s place.

As long as we have not realized within ourselves both, liberation from the ego and, simultaneously, the indivisible spiritual unity of life—whose expression is love—, problems and suffering remain inevitable, leaving us with no choice but to adopt a certain stoicism in the face of adversity. Each one of us participates in the movement that the Buddha calls craving (Tanha), the source of the ego and of suffering. The nature of all human beings is the same; we are composed of the same energies. The Libido, hunger and thirst stimulate the needs and appetites of our body; craving arouses desires and emotions of our vital being; ignorance drives our mental being to seek understanding and to heal the conflicting division inherent in duality. Within this psychosomatic configuration that gives rise to the ego, to offend and to forgive are simply two sides of the same coin. Once we deeply grasp that we all share the same fundamental nature, forgiveness becomes instinctive, and we naturally develop leniency toward others. The more we realize that others are but reflections of ourselves, the more forgiveness and love arise spontaneously.

Regarding the problem of injustice, suffering, and forgiveness—which is essential for harmony and reconciliation—there are no lasting solutions. To resolve this, we must go beyond our present dualistic mode of being—“me and you,” “mine and yours”—and discover our spiritual centre, which lives in the fullness of the One and in the joy of all that is. Sri Aurobindo explains that human evolution consists of three stages: infra-rational, rational, and supra-rational—or, in ethical terms, infra-ethical, ethical, and supra-ethical. In summary, the first stage of evolution occurred in unconsciousness, then in subconsciousness, followed by ignorance and a faint glimmer of evolving knowledge. It is at the final stage of full consciousness that true forgiveness transforms itself into compassion and takes flight.

At the primary infra-ethical stage, instinct prevails—that is, nature entirely governs the individual’s movements. Identified with his or her own body, the individual is fundamentally predatory: if the individual possesses reason, it is primarily to fulfil his or her own personal desires. To take, to possess, and to satisfy our needs is the primitive mode of this evolutionary stage: everything is food for oneself and associations are formed out of necessity and self-interest. At this level, there is no question of forgiveness, for the other exists only as a means for oneself. Killing occurs without concern for whether the other suffers! However, along with the predatory instinct, Mother Nature has also endowed us with the instinct of association and cooperation. It is when this latter instinct prevails that the sense of ethics, morality, and the capacity for forgiveness emerge. For a long time, these two forces—selfishness and altruism (symbolically, the lower belly and the soul)—struggle against one another. The purpose of ethics is to bring order to our basic instincts and to awaken the best within us, the higher part of our nature.

According to Sri Aurobindo, the emergence of ethics—and consequently, forgiveness—is an intermediate phase of evolution, positioned between its beginning in infra-ethical unconsciousness and its culmination in supra-consciousness or full consciousness, which is supra-ethical. At this intermediate stage, dualistic reason prevails, although the vital nature of desire in humans remains dominant. It is in this division between instincts, impulses, and reason that schizophrenia, in varying degrees of severity, becomes apparent. The individual is split into two parts, each unacceptable to the other, leading to the classic mechanism of repression: the human aspect represses the animal aspect. This unconscious repression is the source of the shadow complex, condemning in another that which we deny or refuse to see in ourselves.

This marks the beginning of the ethical period, the learning process of discerning good from evil and forgiving the harm or injustice caused by others. In a way, self-consciousness, which is inherently separative, develops within this tension of our dual nature—imperious base desires and altruism—where relative notions of good and evil evolve. This is the intermediate stage of evolution, where offense and forgiveness become inevitable expressions of human nature in crisis with itself, projecting its struggles onto others. Essentially, we learn to forgive others for the very faults we also possess. This aligns with the Christian morality of forgiveness, which commands “not to do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you. 

However, the ethical stage is merely a passage, albeit necessary for evolutionary purposes, as it pulls the lower towards the higher and attempts to transform it. At this level of psychological tension, ethical problems of relative good and evil are only partially resolved through temporary measures: peace treaties are signed, yet nations continue to develop more and more advanced weapons! At this intermediate stage, forgiveness is torn between unconscious tendencies that hold us back and a gradually evolving consciousness that is becoming more and more aware.

According to Sri Aurobindo, it is at the supra-ethical and supramental stage that ethic dissolves, for it is no longer needed: there is no one left who forgives because everything is perceived in and from the Oneness of life. Relative notions of good and evil tied to the ego are transformed into Absolute Good. Others are perceived as different forms of oneself, identical in essence. At this point, we rejoice in the uniqueness of others, seeing in them one of the many infinite faces of the Divine Being, which elicits the profound emotion of love. This is true universal love, where all dualistic emotions are transmuted within the sunlit heart of the One.

In the first, infra-ethical stage of evolution, forgiveness does not yet exist—it is merely in seed. In the ethical stage, forgiveness is mitigated by objectifying thought and calculation. In the third stage, the supra-ethical, forgiveness becomes unconditional; the realization of the Oneness of life profoundly transforms our entire attitude toward others. Forgiveness becomes compassion, it is a state of love and grace.

What offends us at the ethical stage, where rational thought dominates and is by nature one-sided, is difference. That is, we “accept” difference or rather tolerate it, but not without reservation—this is indeed the nature of political diplomacy. However, since everything in nature is unique, our acceptance is quickly tested by those who do not share our views, often leading to verbal disputes. Susceptibility is common at the ethical stage, where one must choose carefully one’s words because, in any case, what is said is already subject to interpretation. The brain is preconditioned to react. In the stage of fulfilled evolution—realisation of full consciousness—the perception of all things within the unity of life leaves no room for misunderstanding. One lives in the inalienable unity while simultaneously delighting in the diversity—the living mask (persona) of the One, in which each person’s uniqueness is expressed.

Forgiveness is thus a necessary step in our human evolution. Psychologically, it creates an opening not only towards others but towards life itself. This state of openness releases the energy trapped within the confines of emotional wounds that once permeated our entire psyche. If we do not forgive our parents, for instance, for verbal, physical, or psychological abuse, we carry within scars that mark us for our entire life and future relationships. This unresolved complex becomes the mountain that we must surmount to fulfil our destiny.

Conversely, forgiveness not only frees us from the person who caused us harm but also helps us to face life itself. The lessons learnt help us grow, and it is this growth that allows us to love the world and live in it in total openness. Thus, accepting and forgiving the suffering we have endured transforms into strengths of resilience and compassion, bringing confidence, a natural thirst for adventure, and the will to live an authentic life in harmony with our true nature.

Rather than living a life reduced to static security, forgiving those who have made us suffer through understanding and love liberates us not only from fear but from ourselves. This liberation through forgiveness opens the door to the unknown, which becomes an infinite field of exploration. True forgiveness is the transition between two worlds: one, now past, burdened with emotional wounds that once paralyzed us; and the other, flourishing eternally in the present moment. With true forgiveness, where the self no longer operates, life and all things are embraced with benevolence—it is the radiance of spiritual liberation in the light of spiritual freedom !