The Importance of Forgiveness: Let Go of that Burden!

This news report was filed last weekend:

"It was no illusion. Legendary illusionists Siegfried and Roy appeared in public last weekend for the first time in more than five years, sharing the stage with the Bengal tiger that had ended their careers, for what they said was one last performance.

“They really wanted a final chance to get on the stage and say good night, goodbye, and thank you to all the fans who have supported them so devotedly,” says ABC News’ Elizabeth Vargas. “And they wanted to take this risk.”

If you'd followed the story when Roy Horn was attacked five years ago, you might say, "I'll have to see it to believe it!"

Well, here's that picture:



Talk about FORGIVENESS!

I used to think that I'd never want to forgive some people. "After all, why should I? They have done me wrong! "

WRONG attitude!

What I now realize is that I was coming from the center of EGO and from my "small-world" view, and I could not see the "message" hidden in the wrong action this person was bringing me!

In my ego-centeredness and self-righteousness, I could not see that I was giving these people a far more prominent role than they had ever earned in my Soul by my inability to forgive them. I also could not see that I needed to be GRATEFUL to them for the lessons inherent in their seemingly "evil" ways!


When we truly begin to understand that there is ONLY ONE, AND THAT ONE... IS...GOD, we'll begin to see the GO(O)D in everything...good or bad...that happens to us.

We will begin to see that seeming enemies, indeed, are our best teachers! So whether it is a lover, a friend, family member, an acquaintance, or an animal, as in Roy's case, you must let go of any anger you carry towards ANYONE or ANY SITUATION...no matter what you think they may have done to you! Let go of it.

Sometimes, what they did is for your own GO(O)D...helping to reveal attributes and qualities you may not have otherwise known you had in your constitution!


Love is all there is...God is ALL THERE is!!!

Get this, and you'll finally get the message that our God-centered Soul has been trying to teach and tell us all our lives. This message is constantly blocked out by our EGO-CENTRIC nature and personalities.

Until you understand...that...there is ONLY ONE...and that one is GOD...you may continue to want to nurse the wounds and the pain of the seeming "inflictions" others have delivered to you!

My advice to you...even if you don't yet understand...is to give it up...GIVE IT ALL UP: the resentment, the hate, the unloving way of being and seeing things in the world!

If you can't easily, then make it your mission to learn HOW!

The lack of forgiveness is a curse that creates havoc in our lives. We build up resentment and hatred within our Soul that regurgitates back and manifests as all kinds of ills in our own life experience.

Let Go.

Let go of the people who caused you pain and let go of the emotions they fuel in you that cause you pain.


The reason is that this "block" of emotion is interfering with the flow of universal energy into your life.

I had a vivid experience one day during meditation, where I saw clearly that in order for the Universe to flow any good towards me and through me, I could have no areas that are so dark that it cannot flow through. Any one area that was blocked effectively prevented ANY good from getting to me.


It is through this clear vision that I was finally able to truly see and understand the need to "Let Go and Let God."

Matthew 6: 22-23: "The light of the body is the eye; if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!"

The truth is that people in their humanness and ego-centeredness will try to do anything to others that they believe they can do and get away with in impunity. This ranges from "despitefully using you" for their own good to trying to hurt you in some other way, be it physical, emotional or mental.

Once we're human, and have not yet uncovered the Consciousness of God at the center of our being, these aspects of our humanity and our personality will never change. Those of us who aspire to walk the spiritual path and want to begin operating from the "Active Side of Infinity" [See: "Power of Intention"by Dr. Wayne Dyer or book review this blog fall 2008] must be able to rise above these personality traits of others...and simply let go and let these individuals walk on in the path of their own ways. Eventually, their own darkness may implode on them because that is the way of the personality and lack of conscious living...but don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen!

At those times when we feel used or misused, life does seem unfair. But the experience of seeming unfairness or injustice is only there to teach us lessons we would not otherwise get. So, just learn to let go and bless your "enemy" right out of your life and into your heart, instead!

Charles Fillmore, co-founder of Unity, was a huge promoter of forgiveness as a "sure remedy for all ills."

Writing in an undated Daily Word, Fillmore writes: "Here is a mental treatment that is guaranteed to cure every ill that flesh is heir to: Sit for half an hour every night and mentally forgive everyone against whom you have any ill will or antipathy. If you fear, or if you are prejudiced against even an animal, mentally ask forgiveness of it and send it thoughts of love. If you have acccused anyone of injustice, if you have discussed anyone unkindly, if you have criticized or gossiped about anyone, withdraw your words by asking him, in the silence to forgive you. If you have had a falling out with friends or relatives, if you are at law or engaged in contention with anyone, do everything in your power to end the separation. See all things and all persons as they really are---pure Spirit---and send them your strongest thoughts of love. Do not go to bed any night feeling that you have an enemy in the world...."

Here's what Leo Tolstoy, the philosopher who has taught me the most about the One Presence
in the shortest amount of Time, says:

" There are five major sins {sic} that torture people: gluttony, sloth, lust, anger or animosity, and finally, pride.

If our bodies were not separate from each other, the divine spirit within us would be united. Without the body, there can be no life, but another life exists apart from the body.

Every sin {sic} comes from a lack of knowledge {about this ONE Presence}.

If you can rise above your rage and anger, and forgive and be kind to those who have harmed you, you are doing the best a person is capable of {being}."



This is certainly timeless advice for the ages! One... that time and again... will be proven as the only sure remedy for any situation or person who seems beyond our human capacity to love.

About forgiveness, here are my final thoughts:

*Every "NO" from someone is an invitation from your Soul to move closer to GO(O)D within.
*Every Obstacle someone places in your way should be used as a Footstool to reaching your GO(O)D.
*When you realize there is NOTHING for you to forgive...that all is
GO(O)D, then you have made your way back HOME!

The circle is complete!

Namaste',

Che'

"Laid to Rest": You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet!

I happened on the cemetery in Santa Clara, Calif., as I was making my way to my most favorite place to be in all of California: The Carmelite Monastery on Lincoln Avenue in Santa Clara.

In all the years I've gone to the monastery, I'd never driven that route and not that far down on Lincoln Avenue. That's where the street dead-ended: into the cemetery.

Since I had some extra time that day, I said,"Why not? Go on in and see what's in there?"

I was not prepared for what I saw.

Not having ever visited any of the national cemeteries, I didn't know this is how "deserving" people get laid out: in GRACE AND STYLE!!!

I don't know about all those other national places, but this place was beyond my wildest imagination for a graveyard.


The Santa Clara Mission Cemetery is something to behold. It's a Catholic cemetery, where Jesuits priests and others are buried. Ordinary Catholics, mostly of Portuguese and Italian descent, are also buried there. It is my understanding, from folklore, that at one time, Catholics had to be buried only in Catholic cemeteries, and this is why ordinary people got in there. Today, it probably is more restrictive as to the person who gets to be laid to rest there.

Row after row of the most impressive tombs and tomstones you can imagine.


Inside the cemetery, there are crypts, graves and mausoleums, some as big as cottages; others like huts, and yet others like little doll houses in which you'd want to play.


I'd always felt eery visiting normal cemeteries or graveyards. But in this place, I felt the majesty...yes MAJESTY...of the PRESENCE of the remains that laid within.


What impressed me even more, though, was the fact that I knew there was NO LIFE in there...there was no breathing, living entity, i.e. no Soul, living in these beautiful surroundings.

As I drove around, the eeriness started: these are TOMBS..these are beautiful TOMBS...but tombs...empty of life, nonetheless!
I began to wonder what each of these "bodies" when they housed Souls had done to warrant such an impressive "laying to rest" in eternity.

So, I began to check out the names and the titles.


Then, I knew.

According to the official brochure, the Santa Clara Mission Cemetery is the first Christian cemetery in the Santa Clara Valley.

"It was founded by the same Franciscan Padres who founded the Mission Santa Clara de Asis in 1777. As the population of the valley grew, the tiny cemerery filled.

Within the space of 50 years, the church of Mission Santa Clara changed locations four times. With each church, there came a new cemetery, ending with the cemetery at the fourth and present site on today's campus."

The current cemetery was founded in 1851.

"It still serves the Valley in the tradition of the Franciscan Padres. Many pioneers of the Santa Clara Valley are buried there. This includes Spaniards, Mexicans and Americans and other of rich and varied ethnic backgrounds."

In the early 20th century, new features were added to the current facility.

The pioneers of the Catholic Santa Clara mission were men and women of the cloth. People who had given their lives, i.e. their time spent on earth, serving other people by trying to bring them closer to God.


Of Course.

It made sense.

These men and women of the cloth certainly deserve an impressive "laying to rest" in eternity.

After all, serving humanity when you're a Soul in a Body is a difficult job, perhaps the most trying job yet. You've got to deal with people who have massive EGOs, those who worship money more than anything else... and you come...talking about GOD? Yes. Their job on earth was not easy.


It seemed a just reward to come to such a fitting end.

Have you thought of how you'd be "laid to rest"?

Have you started thinking enough of what you're doing as a Soul in Your Body to warrant a beautiful end?

If not, I encourage you to go visit an ordinary cemetery, where the ordinary people go and have their bodies spend the rest of eternity. Yes, they are more personal. Like the day I happened on an obscure graveyard in Fremont, and met Leo, who visits his wife's gravesite every day. They'd been married for more than 50 years. After nine months of her being gone, Leo still was feeling her absence.



Leo was suffering in a way that tells you he has no comforter on earth, now that his life partner is gone. He was devastated.

Contrast that with those at the Santa Clara Mission Cemetery. Throughout that huge graveyard, there was not one soul sitting in front of a grave. NOT ONE living Soul, mourning and crying out for these men who had departed.
You have to wonder why.


When your job is done so completely on earth, even those you leave behind have to KNOW that you're in a better place. They don't have to keep following you around, haunted by the yesterdays. If your life is not lived from an EGO center, where you rule everything, then you would have prepared even your loved ones for your inevitable demise.


So, I advise you to go to one of the national cemeteries or as close to one as you can get.

See where you'd rather spend eternity.


Then, you'd know that right there...

In these graveyards: that's where "heaven" and "hell" are decided. Those are places for the living, not the dead!


No waiting to transcend up.

You can see the evidence right there.


The men of the cloth end up in some form of "heaven."


"Ordinary" men end up with their loved ones suffering some form of "hell."


About Death, Leo Tolstoy says, "Death is the breaking of the vessel in which our spirit was enclosed. You should not confuse the vessel with what is inside it.

If you are afraid of death, you should remember that the fear is not in death itself, but in you. Becoming a better person means that you will fear death less. No matter what happens to you, you will always be happy if you are united with God."

He adds,"God is eternal, all embracing and exists across space and time. God is all there is. All exists in him. All life, when it appears, does not come from nothing, but rather from God. And when death takes us, it does not take us to nothing. It takes us to God."

Do you want to be "laid to rest," or do you want to perpetuate the human suffering? The question we should all ask ourselves every day, as the reflection of our Soul becomes manifest to the world: Is the way we're living our lives part of the problem or part of the solution? When we "show up," do people cringe at the pain we display, or do we empower them by our reflective light? Those are all questions that will surface when we're being "laid to rest": would people feel relieved that you've been released from the burden of living, as it seemed too much for you to bear even when you were in PERFECT HEALTH, or would they be somewhat saddened that "a light" has gone out in their world by your absence?

As for me, I plan to be cremated with my ashes spread as fertilizer for roses somewhere. "For dust thou art and to dust thou will return."


Genesis 3:19.





I do not even want a "viewing" of my body, which in the absence of my Spirit and Soul would not be "me."

So a simple Memorial Service with a picture of the "me" that was...would suffice. I just hope that when that time comes, I would have left at least the scent of a "rose" behind!


Ah...to be...just "The Scent of a Rose!"

Ah...to be..."Just the Scent of a Rose!"
To leave such a beautiful fragance behind!
The Scent of a Rose!
That's what I long to be!



Namaste',

Che'