Practicing Forgiveness for Deep Spiritual Healing and Inner Peace

Multiple Dimensions of Healing

Holistic healing caters for all the dimensions or levels of our existence, that is body, mind and soul. 

As per Theosophy, beyond the physical body, there are subtle bodies, which are not visible to the human eye. These include the etheric double, astral body, mental body and the causal body. We will use this classification as the basis categorizing the main dimensions at which healing can happen.

Holistic healing happens when all these dimensions have been catered for ¹. These dimensions are elaborated further.

Physical Healing

This is the level of our physical body, made up of matter. It includes cells, organs, glands, tissues, etc. We take care of our physical well-being by leading a healthy life-style, balanced diet, exercise, good sleep, etc. Their healing falls in the domain of medical specialists, among others.

Etheric Healing

This is the level of our energy body that involves energy centers (chakras), energy meridians, aura, our vibrations, etc. There are many energy-based healing modalities that work at this level.

Emotional Healing

Our emotions govern our physical well-being. When we harbour unwholesome emotions for a prolonged period, it manifest as disturbed relationships, psychosomatic ailments, chronic diseases, etc. There are many healing modality, which also encompass the emotional healing aspect.

Psychological Healing

This is about clearing our mind of the negative, toxic thought patterns which have a profound impact on our emotional and physical health. For example, auto-immune diseases have self-destructive thought patterns as the root-cause at this level. There are healing modalities that work at this level. Further, since our own mind is the primary factory churning out the negativity, we also have to take the responsibility for positive thinking.

Spiritual Healing

This is a very subtle, yet profound level of healing where our soul, the cause of our existence (or the causal body) gets healed. We will elaborate more on this as we proceed.

Spiritual Healing

Spiritual healing is a level of healing which involves our soul and our causal body. Causal body, also called “Karana Sharira”, in Sanskrit, is where our karmic records are stored. Whatever we consciously think, feel and do during our lifetime is deposited or imprinted in our causal body. We can carry these imprints beyond our limited time on earth. Whenever healing happens at the level of our causal body, it may be called spiritual healing.

There are some of practices which help in spiritual healing and well-being and the karmic results of these, we can reap even after leaving this body:

Prayers and Blessings

Whatever we think repeatedly tends to materialize. When we sincerely pray and bless others from the core of our being, it actually manifests. As per Master Choa, “Loving energy is real. It can be used to neutralize antagonistic energy.” So the love which we radiate, specially to people with whom we may not have had very good relations, heals our own heart, before reaching others. The act of blessing is also an act of forgiveness.

Service & Tithing

These are avenues through which the soul manifests itself. These activities set forth the law of karma. What we give, we receive back many many times. 

Inner Purification

This involves character building and leading a life of virtues, moderation and discipline. It helps in strengthening our spiritual connection with divinity.

Attitude of Gratitude

When we are in gratitude for all the blessings in our life, the universe gives us more to be grateful for.

Learning the Lessons

Each and every experience that we have during our lifetime helps our soul to grow and evolve. This is specially so for the experiences that we tag as “bad” and when we “suffer”. When something not so pleasant happens in our life, it is actually a way of purification of our karmic account, a form of karmic healing. If we can learn the lessons which the universe is trying to teach us, we evolve spiritually, and that situation does not get repeated. 

Forgiveness

When we come across difficult relationships, most likely, the universe is trying to teach us the lessons of acceptance, patience, tolerance, and most importantly of forgiveness. But why should be forgive?

Why should we Forgive?

Forgiveness is extremely important for our spiritual healing. Further it has the following other benefits:

Inner Peace

As long as we remain in a lower emotional states of anger, jealousy, hatred and resentment towards someone, we cannot be at peace in our heart.

Value of the Relationship

Often the value the relationship is much more than the reason for anger and resentment, hence forgiveness becomes the obvious choice.

Energetic Disconnection

Just like love, hatred also binds two souls together. It connects the two people involved with energetic/emotional cords. These negative energy cords drain us of our vitality.  Once these cords are severed, we feel lighter and emotionally healthy. Over time, we even stop thinking about the other person.

Inner Purification

Our negative emotions towards someone contaminates our subtle energy bodies. When we forgive, we are releasing toxic emotions, energies and patterns which have been clogging our energy centers (chakras) and energy centers, meridians. Forgiveness has a very deep level of cleaning effect on our system at all levels. It is truly a means of purifying ourselves internally.

Clearing Karmic Accounts

Karmically, the challenging relationships that we presently have (e.g. if we have a differently abled child whom we may have to care for the entire life) are the results of our past life karmas, in which perhaps we did not forgive that soul and cut the energetic link. So that soul again appears before us in a form where we cannot ignore our responsibility towards it.

Mental and Emotional Health

There are many psychosomatic diseases (kidney diseases, hypertension, cancer, just to name a few) that have the root-cause in resentment which we carry for ages after the object of our dislike has moved away from our life. Once we are free of the negative energetic charge we have towards someone, our mental and emotional well-being improves.

Increasing Spiritual Conductivity

Every time we think critically of a person, our degree of connection with the divine decreases. Forgiveness purifies us not only spiritually but also at all other levels, making us capable to be a better instrument to serve the higher beings. This increases our spiritual connection and conductivity.

Therapeutic Effect

When we let go, whatever we are holding tight in our consciousness, it helps in releasing toxicity in our system at all levels. It leads to holistic well-being.

Forgiveness as an Opportunity

We have a karmic (causal) relationship with the souls whom we should forgive in this lifetime. To elaborate this, there is an profound metaphor on forgiveness.

Once, before incarnating, a soul was discussing with her friendly souls about the lessons she will learn in the upcoming lifetime. She said she wanted to learn the lesson of “forgiveness”, but her concern was, “whom will I forgive?” One of her friends decided to help her out by incarnating with her and giving her the opportunity to forgive. The friend said, “when I abuse you and beat you up, do not forget that I am your friend, helping you in learning the lesson of forgiveness”.

That is why, we should be grateful to all those who give us an opportunity to forgive.

Moreover, you consider yourself to be the victim, but who knows, you may have been the brutaliser last time you were here. And forgiving the one who is not so kind to you is like forgiving your own self.

Are you ready to forgive?

Forgiveness happens only when it comes from deep inside our heart. And no one else can forgive on our behalf. We may want to forgive someone, but the hurt may be so deep that it is difficult to forgive. Sometimes, due to cultural or social norms, we are asked to seek forgiveness from that someone who has hurt us.  We internally feel, “Why I should I bow down and ask for forgiveness, I didn’t do anything wrong. He/she is the one who hurt me, so he/she should ask for forgive”. This is a very natural feeling, but irrespective of who the victim was, which does not take us anywhere. 

However, we can’t even force ourself to forgive, until we are ready to forgive. So let’s discuss the process of forgiveness.

The Process of Forgiveness

The process of forgiveness encompassing the steps given below gradually prepares us for forgiveness. It might take some time, depending on the degree of internal toxicity and the bitterness in the relationship.

Awareness and Acknowledgement

This is the need to acknowledge that it was not fair, that I am actually hurt, or angry or betrayed. You need to be aware of your own inner feelings and acknowledge those emotions before you can actually move to forgiveness.

Blessing before Forgiving Others

If you are not able to forgive due to all the emotions associated with it, instead of explicitly saying, “I forgive you”, only bless that person in a detached way, regularly. Gradually your relationship will automatically start getting healed. The blessings have to pass through your own heart centre before reaching that person. So the first one to be healed is you and the forgiveness process has already started. One day, suddenly you will internally say, “everyone makes mistakes, may you be blessed with peace”. Subsequently, you will be able to forgive completely, “You are forgiven, everyone makes mistakes, everything is forgotten. Go in peace”.

Seek forgiveness

We started with an attitude that it was not I but they who were hurt me. I did not do anything wrong. But as we mature spiritually, we realise that relationship issues are always both sided. So, in the next phase, there is a realisation that I am actually not completely blameless, that some of the thoughts, some of the things I said or did were not too pleasant. Then comes the point of humility and healing, when I say, “I ask for your forgiveness as well”.

Forgive Yourself

The final step is to forgive myself. This is very important, otherwise we wallow in guilt, often leading to self-destructive thought-forms.

How long does it take to forgive?

It depends on how sour the relationship has been, how much negativity has been there, how much it affected us physically, materially and emotionally. 

But more than that, it depends on the level of our own spiritual development. As an immature soul, we may take the resentment with us beyond death and be bound with that soul in the next incarnation. Or, on the other extreme, when we have developed sufficient compassion and soul-connection, we may be able to forgive in a matter of minutes. 

As we practice forgiveness over and over again, it become a habit. Once forgiveness is our second nature, we don’t take much time to do it.

How do I know that I have forgiven?

Once we have undergone the process and forgiven completely, there will no longer be any internal charge left. It may have taken long, but finally we will become detached and neutral towards that person. Old memories and negative emotions related to that person will not flare up if we happen to meet them again, see their photos, or when someone mentions their name. We reach a stage when we do not even want to think about them. Their memories no longer carry us back to the same old dungeon.

Another question on the same lines would be, “How do I know whether the other person has forgiven me?” The simplest answer to this would be that it doesn’t much matter for your spiritual development, as long as you have done your part. 

Moreover, all relationships are energetically a two-way path. Once you have done your part of forgiveness, the other person will either leave your life peacefully, or if that is not possible, he/she will sense the energies and automatically forgive you and the relationship will get healed. 

So we just have to take care of our responsibility, and the rest is automatically sorted out for us.

Conclusion

In this article we have discussed the various levels of healing and how forgiveness is one of the most important pillar of our spiritual development. We have discussed the process of forgiveness in detail.