The true meaning of forgiveness

Is to remember our eternal innocence.

Have you ever seen somebody without their past?

The first time I recognized I could see someone as if “for the first time” I was at the Fiumicino airport, in Rome. I was sitting across my father. He was grabbing onto a mozzarella pizza–the kind that are sold at airport cafés. I noticed that my mind wanted to bring up a past grievance that I had with him, a situation from our common past that I hadn’t resolved. Then, a voice came to find me: “You’re seeing the past,” it said.

In that instance, I recognized it, and my mind entered into the now. The story of who I thought my father was left me for a second. I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, I saw a child across from me.

The child was savoring his pizza, immersed in the gooey cheese and the tangy tomato sauce. He was looking straight ahead, in a blank stare, as he heard the sounds, observed the crowds, and immersed himself in the conversation of the people who were sitting next to us. He was consumed by his senses, at one with the world. He looked innocent to me, not as someone who had wronged me, or hurt me in the past–as my mind wanted to convince me that he had–but simply as a child, who was enjoying his life. Then, he looked up and said: “These Italians…. Even their airport food is great.”

We both laughed.

This was three years ago almost to the day, in May 2019. Since then, I’ve made forgiveness my daily practice, and I can say, it has saved my life.

I used to think that forgiveness was what the world told me it was. “I forgive you,” truly meant: “I blame you for what you did, but because I’m more advanced / enlightened / kind… (or whatever word works for you), I forgive you.” In truth, what the world tells us that forgiveness is, is simply another form of blame. It is the forgiveness of the ego, of the separated sense of self. In those instances, we consider ourselves to be separate from the other person, and better yet, usually we see ourselves as “above” them. We judge the other person, if not verbally, at least, in our minds. We think they wronged us or hurt us, without ever raising that notion to question. We say we’ve forgiven them, but what we’ve truly done is blame them–not once, but twice: once when they first acted that way, and twice when we claimed we had forgiven them but hadn’t.

In truth, most of the times, we hadn’t.

I began to catch up to this joke when I recognized that I was still waiting for an apology. It wasn’t something I was aware of always, but at some point, I realized that I couldn’t love the people in my life without constraints. I couldn’t give myself fully to them. I couldn’t say “I love you” without remembering what they’d “done to me”. I knew that I was holding grievances, and yet I still thought it was their job to apologize first. It was only when I recognized that my lack of forgiveness was only affecting me, that I looked for another way.

The other way was through God and through prayer. “Dear God, I’m willing to see them from the eyes of Love” was a sentence I repeated often. The Work of Byron Katie also found me, a method that allowed me to question my judgments, and realize they were never true in the first place. But perhaps, none of this would’ve been possible, had I not first forgiven myself.

One night, a year before this encounter with my father at the airport, I had a dream of my three-year-old self. In the dream, my three-year-old self was pure love. Sparkles emanated from her skin; joy radiated from her eyes. She was in perfect peace. In the dream, my adult-self recognized it. My adult-self lifted her arm, pointed at the three-year-old girl and said: “This is who I used to be”.

This dream changed the course of my life.

From that day on, I knew of my divinity, not as something theoretical, but as something experiential. Every time I asked my three-year-old self to guide me, I’d get in touch with the eternal Self which is what we are. I came to see that through living life as a child, I could look at all my insanity with kindness. If who I was, was an innocent Child of God, then why had I lied to others? If who I was, was radiant love, then why was I afraid? If who I was, was pure joy, then why did I think I didn’t deserve to be totally, and utterly, free?

The answer was simple: because I had forgotten of my own divine nature.

In the instances when I had acted out of fear, I had forgotten that I was love. In the instances when I had been defensive, I had forgotten that I was innocent. In the instances when I had lied, I’d just forgotten what I was.

It was as simple as this. I hadn’t acted in that way because I was “bad” or broken, in any way. I had simply forgotten that there was more to “me” than my past. More to “me” than my trauma. More to “me” than the crippling sense of separation that blinds our lives.

In essence, I saw that I was innocent. I saw that I couldn’t have done things differently. When I looked at the person I was in the past, the twenty-two-year-old me, or the sixteen-year-old me, or maybe, the “me” from yesterday, I know that when she acted in lovelessness, she had simply forgotten that she was divine.

This is the same for all of us.

When I look at the people in my life who lie, cheat, or who withdraw love from others (either now or in the past), I know they are confused. I know they have forgotten their own divinity. I know they yearn to be loved, and they have no idea that Love is what they are. I know they can’t act differently, just as I couldn’t act differently in the past.

I forgive them, not because I’m better, but because I recognize they’re innocent.

In this way, is forgiveness realized.

Forgiveness is remembering our eternal innocence. Forgiveness is recognizing there is nothing to forgive at all.

I envision a world where we all recognize our innocence. Where forgiveness is understood and embodied, and the past is transformed into the gentle, love-filled “now”.

Origianally published in May 2022