Inspirational Texts - Forgiveness

Forgiving Others · Meditation

Make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. Straighten your back, allowing the breath to gently come into the body and to flow out of your body. Feel the breath like a gentle breeze--soft and easy. No control. Just breathing in and breathing out. If the mind should wander, or if you hear a sound outside, just take it in and return to the awareness of your breath, this present moment.

Simply allow memories and images and emotions to float freely in your mind.

I have been hurt by others. I have suffered at the hands of others. I have been touched with such hardness, such resentment, such anger and aggression. I have within me wounds and sorrows.

I bring to mind those who have hurt or harmed me, knowingly or unknowingly, in word, thought, or deed. I bring into my awareness that person or persons -- those memories. Picture in your mind's eye how you were hurt or harmed or even victimized, feel it in you body and in your heart. What happened to you? How did you feel? See if you closed your heart down to protect yourself.

But then I remember that it was out of their fear and their pain that created the confusion, that created the harmful action or words. Allow yourself to see their pain and their fear. And with this new understanding, open your heart to forgiveness.

To the extent that I am able, at this time, at this present moment, I open my heart and I extend to you my forgiveness. I forgive you. Feel the places you hold the resentment, the disappointments, the business from the past, and touch those places with kindness and forgiveness and see if it is not time to let go, I forgive you. I forgive you and at the same time I ask you to forgive me for whatever I might have done that has hurt you.

May you and I and all of us create the causes for happiness in our lives. May you and I outgrow and transform the causes of our suffering. May you and I come to know the joy of truly understanding and experiencing our interrelationship, one soul to another soul. May we open our hearts and our minds to each other, in whatever dimension, and meet in harmony.

I open my heart and I forgive you. My heart is free. I let go. I forgive you.

Imagine that this message has also been received and accepted, and affirm the feeling of healing between you and the other Let the image melt into space.

Now return to the awareness of your breathing, breathing in and breathing out. Breathing in light. Breathing out love and compassion. Return to this room and gently open your eyes.

Rachel Kaufman - Deva Foundation